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…
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
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!
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.
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.
My first couple of tries under SF7.7 were a disaster with the print cartridge trying to drive itself out the left side of the printer. Turns out my extruder X offset had defaulted to 399mm!!!
WARNING! IF YOU UPGRADE TO SF 7.7 DO THE NEXT TWO STEPS…
What they do is link you to the hex files and give instructions needed to reload a blank Mightyboard just like mine was.
Using a program called AVRDude google it and a couple command prompts I was able to reload the hex files giving the board back USB functionality and then the bootloader which had the added benefit of setting the correct fuse bits. I’m not going to go in to detail on how to do It. It’s all in the MakerBot Operators thread.
I had to copy and make the hex files usable then modify and run their command lines to fit my programmer and environment.
The command line I used to load the bootloader hex file.
Yikes! And congratulations on getting thru it Ron. Awesome recovery! Glad you are back up and running.
I will see if I can find anything about using AVR studio with these 3rd party vendor ISP programmers. The AVR studio way is obviously easier (and less heart stopping). I had just assumed, incorrectly it seems, that the 3rd party vendors would emulate an ISP programmer Atmel already makes.
(Perhaps just the command line for reprogramming the fuses with AVRDude…)
See my comment below on resetting the extruder offset in SF before doing any dual extruder prints. You will want to do that sooner than later…
It appears that there is some software out there for this programmer that will allow fuse bit programming.
If you could check this out and see if it works, it may be of help to others trying this (and may prevent the memory erasure and not having to go thru avrdude):
I tried the eXtreme Burner AVR program with my usbasp programmer on an old CTC I picked up from Craigslist. Didn’t want to risk the Qidi Tech but it has the same board. The eXtreme burner does not have a ATmega 1280 chip option so you do get an error while reading the fuse bits. The fuse bits I read off the CTC was Low FF, High DA, Ext. FD, Lock CC and Calibration FFFFFFB6. Didn’t try to change anything but it looks like it might work. eXtreme Burner does have a ATmega2560 chip option.
It’s been a while since I was able to successfully upgrade my Qidi to the lastest SF, so some of the details are fuzzy now. But I do remember that my programmer wasn’t being accommodated by the Studio software. I think what I ended up doing was following Ron’s post below, and using the command line AVRdude software. As Ron mentions, your command should end up something like this:
Just follow his post to grab the appropriate hex file, and keep us posted on how you get on. If you have any other questions, I’ll do my best to try and remember more. It’s definitely been worthwhile to make the jump to SF 7.7.
I have yet to be able to load a program into the machine, I can only print a sample that was supplied. I have downloaded a few but cant figure out how to get it loaded I show 2 in the menus from the SD card but nothing happens when I click on it
