Hi Bill,
Yes, the SD card will not work after upgrading to SF 7.1, unless you reformat it to regular FAT (not FAT-32). I think it also has to be 2GB or less. This will get it working for you again, although it also limits you to a 30 character file name.
That’s interesting about the new ones coming with SF 7.8. And unless they also upgraded to a board with the Atmega 2560, then there’s a good chance it’s exactly the same as ours. Not to mention that the linked You Tube video works on a CTC that also has the exact same board as ours, so I’m sure we should be able to do it as well. Just need to get the right procedure nailed down, as well as the timing. If you’re willing to keep trying and update us with any progress, then at least there is 3 of us working on it!
Adam
Dresch
December 5, 2015, 8:47pm
17
Adam,
Many thanks, I will give that a try. I know the card is FAT-32. I will scrounge up an old one and try again.
The ebay ad does say the controller is now a Atmega 2560. I am planning on trying to get some information out of the QiDi Tech company… I know, good luck. If I get any info I will certainly post it.
Bill
Has anyone made any progress on getting the firmware past Sailfish 7.1? I’m curious to see what this machine can do with the latest improvements, especially in terms of speed. I feel limited to 40mm/s at the moment. Anything faster than that, and the machine has difficulty maintaining the quality of the print.
Shamez
December 29, 2015, 3:32am
19
I’ve had no luck. I made several attempts.
Dresch
January 3, 2016, 5:47pm
20
Hi Adam,
Are there any instructions on reloading the original firmware? I don’t even know the version (Creator 1?).
The board itself looks pretty much like a MightyBoard Rev E with the Atmega1280 and mega8u…
This website appears to to provide the original firmware but does not reload it thru the boot loader but via the ISP port:
http://www.unclechucks3dprinterstuff.com/firmware%20restore.htm
Any info would be appreciated. Thanks,
Bill
Hi Bill,
Is there a particular reason that you want to go back to the original FW? I’ve seen that website you mentioned before as well (back when I thought I had bricked my printer), but it seems to be easy to always get it back to either the MakerBot FW or SailFish 7.1, both of which seem better than the original.
So in short, no, I don’t know of an easy way to go back to original. But I wouldn’t recommend it anyway - SF 7.1 seems to be the best for it so far. Although I still want to get to the higher versions…
Adam
Dresch
January 3, 2016, 6:54pm
22
I would certainly like the option of loading the original firmware. QiDi Tech has emailed that they do not support SF for this printer, so if I ever have to return the controller board, this might become an issue.
My complaints are minor. The front panel is a bit twitchy with SF 7.1, something I did not notice with the original software. Sometimes it responds OK, other times I need the press the buttons a number of times for a response. I also would like to use any available SD card I have. I have not seen the stunning improvement in print quality that people are showing but again, any number of factors may be at play there. It does, generally, seem to print better.
I have done a lot of programming with atmel and arduino products, including instrumentation development, and I find it really weird to be able to load only one version of this software. Is QiDi using a slightly larger bootloader, or some weird setting of flags in the Atmega1280 that is preventing loading later versions? I mean a 1280 is a 1280 and the amount of of Flash, EPROM and RAM should always be the same.
Again, I would like the option of going back (this is not a dig at SF at all) to whatever level of Creator was on the original equipment and if anyone can show me that, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Bill
Dresch
January 3, 2016, 7:59pm
23
Thinking about it, maybe the fuse bits are the problem. If QiDi did not set the fuse bits to the standard configuration used by the other manufacturers, then perhaps there are protected memory areas that are kept from being written to by the later versions of the software. The standard Atmega Arduino bootloader is 1K:
If QiDi set the fuse bits to something other than 1K bytes for bootloader and SailFish 7.x (x > 1) needs some of that Flash memory, then the newer SF versions will not load and checksum correctly…
What we need is the fuse bit settings for the QiDi and then the fuse bits settings for the CTC. A simple ISP change to the fuse bits is all that maybe needed to upgrade to SailFish 7.x (x >= 2). Let me do a little poking around.
That’s a very good theory. Let us know how you make out. I am very eager to get past 7.1 (as I keep mentioning). And let me know if you need me to do any testing once you get things sorted out.
Dresch
January 4, 2016, 2:30am
25
It worked! I have an old STK500 Atmel programmer and I hooked it up to the ISP-1280 port of the QiDi MightyBoard.
The fuses read: 0xFF, 0xD8, 0xF5. I reprogrammed them to be: 0xFF, 0xDA, 0xF4. I ran ReplicatorG, did the normal selections you specified but tried SF 7.6 and it programmed fine. I have not tested beyond that, but I will explain the fuse choices in another post. Trust me they make more sense than what QiDi had left in there.
Bill
Amazing! That news just made my night. Although I was kinda hoping it would be a fix through the USB port. So your programmer is similar to the one mentioned in that website? I may have an old AVR programmer from years ago - any chance that might work? You’ll have to explain the reprogramming part in more detail…
Dresch
January 5, 2016, 2:27am
27
Here is a quick write up on how I reprogrammed the fuse bits on the Atmega1280 of the QiDi controller board. I will post more info as time permits. SF 7.6 seems to be working OK. I can use my 4Gb SD card again. I did do some printing and things worked as expected. Works very much like the FlashForge Creator Pro, including the same PITA things.Setting Up the QiDi Tech 1 for SailFish 7.pdf (1.42 MB)
VERY much appreciated! Now off to find a compatible programmer…
Dresch
January 11, 2016, 2:32pm
29
Here is a cheap programmer and 6 pin adapters (pick one) that should work for reprogramming the QiDi:
http://www.amazon.com/Downloader-USBASP-USBISP-Programmer-ATMEGA8/dp/B00AX4WQ00/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1451883355&sr=8-3-fkmr0&keywords=avrisp+mkii
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=B00CW80MP6
http://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Board-AVRISP-USBASP-STK500/dp/B00FHHYJ7G/ref=pd_sim_422_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=41pifd2wrGL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=10KC1276EAH4J8RX94YW
I bumped up to SF 7.7. SF 7.6 was working fine but thought I would test this out next. I was able to get an external PLA cooling fan working OK also (commands M126/M127) with SailFish. (24V/44mm Fan + Thingiverse
Active Cooling Fan Duct v2 for Replicator 1 / Duplicator 4 / FlashForge / CTC by thruit00 - Thingiverse ). Just soldered the leads to the “Extra” connector on the controller board. Turns on and off under software control. Have a different fan on the way, blower style, to see if the PLA cooling works out better.
Let me know if anyone else was able to do the SF upgrade with the ISP fuse changes.
I am going to be posting an Instructable to try and get larger exposure to this hack (umm, correction) to the QiDi controller.
(Thanks again Adam…)
Bill
Hi Bill,
I ordered a programmer very similar to the one you linked (except it is a native 6-wire one). Just waiting for it to arrive from China and then I will be programming right away! And I’ll be sure to post my results.
For mods, I also have an active cooling fan (same one as yours), a new filament tube holder above the extruder steppers, dual filament duster/oilers, heatsinks on extruder stepper motors, filament guide on rear of machine, glass bed with corner clips, bed adjustment thumbwheels, rounded bridge top for the upper enclosure, and reversed the power toggle switch (to make it easier to reach from the left side of the printer).
Out of interest, have you tried a dual extrusion with it? It took me a while to get the toolhead offsets to something I’m happy with (-1.19 X and 0.096 Y), but it seems like it could still be a tiny bit better. Looking for someone to share their experience with this and let me know if I’m on track with it.
Adam
rcleav
January 14, 2016, 10:19pm
31
Bill thank you for your investigative work on the Qidi Tech.
I received one of the programmers from Amazon today. I’m going to try the instructions on changing ISP Fuse settings tonight.
Then upgrade Sailfish.
Do I have to do the sailfish upgrade a version at a time or can I just go to the latest one?
Your recommendation should I stay with 7.6 or go all the way to 7.7?
Dresch
January 15, 2016, 3:04am
32
I haven’t seen any problems with 7.7 so far and that is what is used on the Flashforge Creator Pro we have at work. Of course I don’t know what the advantage is of 7.7 over 7.6 either…
Good luck with the fuse setting. Let us know how things go!
Bill
Shamez
January 15, 2016, 3:13am
33
Adam please let me know how it goes. I am going to order the programmer as well. Thank you Bill and Adam
Dresch
January 15, 2016, 3:19am
34
Awesome looking set up. I did print the filament guide also, a truly wonderful thing. I have done a few dual prints but just some dual color figurines and the like. I see that #3DBenchy has a dual color torture test, which I think I will try. I will let you know if I get any results from that. Benchy is a minor obsession.
The cone looks pretty dead on, maybe just a tiny bit of shifting on the top two layers (or that could just be the photo). I have taken to clamping my glass bed (made some little stainless steel clips from old windshield wiper blades) because occasionally it would slip and produce funky print results. I would love to dampen the frame a little bit to reduce the hard jerking of the print head.
Bill
Dresch
January 15, 2016, 3:29am
35
Sorry did not answer your original question: I believe you can just program whatever SF level you want. I don’t think SF needs to be incremented up. I jumped from 7.1 (via Adam’s instructions) to 7.6 directly after resetting the fuses.
Bill
