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
