The Karl Johnson article is what I am talking a bout. The article shows a photo of the ST-Link connected to the board. However the photo is not clear concerning which wire from the ST-Link goes to what post on the board because the wire colors on my ST-Link black, brown, red, and yellow. There is no pin diagram included in that article. Another problem is the software I need to use. I have seen so many software programs, I just cannot figure out which ones to use. For example: ST-LINK/V2 - ST-LINK/V2 in-circuit debugger/programmer for STM8 and STM32 - STMicroelectronics. There are 5 programs listed there and I have no idea which ones to use or how to use them.
I just looked at the Karl Johnson photo again and my guess on the wire arrangement is: https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/02/04/how-to-recover-from-a-bad-firmware-upgrade-on-anet-et4-3d-printer/ The yellow wire is connected to the “SWCLK” pin on the ST-Link and the middle pin on the board… The blue wire is connected to the ‘GND’ pin and the bottom pin on the board… And the (now I am guessing) the black wire is connected to the ‘SWDIO’ pin and the top pin on the board. Now, I do know that colors are not important if all all the pins are connect in the proper order.
All that said: Lets just say that I am totally lost. As common a problem as “bricked” Anet printers, you wouold think that someone, somewhere would do a step by step You
Tube video on the subject.
OK, you have 4 wires instead of 3, and red & brown wires, but no blue. That’s unfortunate. OK, so the question now is, “Can you identify which wire is which on the ST-Link itself?”. In other words, does the legend on the ST-Link, or any documentation that came with the ST-Link, that identifies which colors are connected to SWDIO, GND, & CLK?
In the photo, black is connected to GND, Yellow is connected to SWCLK, and blue is connected to SWDIO.
Regarding the software:
the 1st one I believe is server software, which I don't think is relevant for this;
the 2nd one is to program something called STM32Cube. I don't think this is what you want;
the 3rd one is the one you want I believe. It's simply called ST-Link, the same as the title bar in Karl's photo of the program;
I think the 4th one is for upgrading ST-Link hardware itself. I guess this could be relevant, if the software doesn't work or says the hardware is out of date or not compatible;
the 4th one might be relevant. I suspect it's a USB driver that's used to allow the computer to connect to the ST-Link.
I would download the 3rd & 5th items. I would install & run the 3rd item first. If it can't connect to the ST-Link hardware, I would exit it, and run the 5th one, to install the USB driver. Then, I would re-run the 3rd one.
The bottom line is, it works or it doesn’t. No harm done either way.
As I said, photos of what you have would be very beneficial.
OK. Thank you for the information. By the way, there was no documentation with the ST-Link. Just the ST-Link in a bag and nothing else. That is why I decided to just buy a new board. The information concerning the software is most helpful. I will try to re-install the firmware on the ET4 a little later today. I am having a little problem with my Ender 5 at the moment. Nothing that I can’t handle. After shopping around, yesterday, for a motherboard, I discovered that the very soonest I can get one is in about 2 weeks. From Walmart, of all places. Everywhere else, the shipping is 1 to 2 months.
But, you are right. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I can order another board later if I have to.
OMG, I just looked at the ST-Link debugger page on Amazon. The colors of the wires DON’T MATTER. I hadn’t realized that the wiring is a separate harness of Dupont terminated wires that plugs into a header on one end of the debugger. All you have to do is look at the header and take note of where the cutout/notch is in the side of the black plastic. From the legend you can see that pins 2,4,6 are the ones you need, and they are in the column of pins furthest from the notch. Just connect pin 2 to where the blue wire is in the photo, pin 4 to where the black wire is connected, and pin 6 to where the yellow wire is connected. As you said earlier, the actual colors don’t matter; only the positions they are in.
If you have a USB-A extender cable it would be easier to connect the ST-Link to your compute. Conversely, if you have some longer Dupont connector jumpers you could move the ST-Link further from the control board.
OMG! Will the challenges never cease? The main board in my ET4 is marked as a ET4-MB V1.1, but my board components are arranged differently from those pictured in Karl Johnson’s article which is also marked as a ET4-MB V1.1 board. I have 4 pins on my board and the one marked “G” is the same pin that appears unused (if you look real closely) in Karl’s photo. The top and bottom pins on my board are marked with some strange symbols which do not related to anything I have seen regarding this subject. I have taken a photo of my board, but I am having trouble transferring photo from cell phone to my computer.
If I hook these wires wrong, is there any chance of frying the motherboar on the printer? Otherwise, I can just try different hook up arrangements until I find the right one.
I just discovered this photo. This is the board that is in my printer: https://shop.anet3d.com/collections/3d-printer-accesseries/products/tmc2208-motherboard-for-anet-et4-printer Never mind. On closer examination, they are the same board… It just appeared the pin placement was different, but I think that it is just an image problem with Karl’s photo. My decision is to connect to the pins on the board this way. SWDIO pin to the top pin on the board. SWCLK pin to next pin down on the board. 3rd pen down on the board left unconnected and the GND to the 4th pin down on the board and hope that I don’t get “magic smoke”
Your link is incomplete, so it doesn’t work. There’s an “r” missing on the end.
Anyway, looking at the photo on Anet’s site, it’s really hard to see where the ST-Link hooks up.
re: getting photo from your phone: can’t you just email it to yourself, so you can get it on your computer?
I’m honestly not sure if you can do damage if you hook up the wires incorrectly. My first inclination would be to say “no” since it’s just a data connection, but I don’t know for sure. But remember, it doesn’t work as things are…
In Karl’s photo, to me, there appears to be an empty pin between the yellow and blue wires. Anyhow I hooked things up as stated and ST-Link utility software tells me there is no ST-link. So I will have to try something else.
Well, here is what I have done under the wiring arrangement listed above… I installed the ST-Link driver on my computer. After I connected the ST-Link to my computer with a USB cable, I was able to upgrade the firmware on the ST-Link successfully. However, no matter what adjustments I make in the “settings” section of the utility, I keep getting “can not connect to target” error messages. Am going to apply all 3 wires in a row like you suggested.
I give up, for the day. I have been at this all afternoon and have nothing accomplished. Going try it again tomorrow. If I can’t get things to work tomorrow, then, I’ll just have to order a new board. I am sort of getting tired of doing this. Some people like trying to work through this kind of challenge. I really don’t. I just want things to work without putting too much time in trying to get them to work.
I have officially given up on trying to re-install firmware on the ET4. I just can not find a way for the computer to connect to the ET4 via the ST-link. Remember, I did get a $100 refund from the seller. I ordered a new board a while ago that cost me $45. The board should be here in a couple of weeks. That leaves me a ET4 for a total cost of $145. I still think that is a very good deal.
I want to thank all of you guys that tried to help me through your tips and suggestions. I grateful that you took the time to search out possible solutions to solve the problem.
My new board came in yesterday. Good news…My ET4 is now alive. Bad news…I discovered that the proper gear on the right side of the X axis is missing. (I got a used printer) Does anyone know where I can find a replacement gear for the X arm?
I tried to update the firmware by downloading the recommended new firmware. Installed it on a formated micro SD card all by itself. I then ran the update procedure and got an error that said that the update failed. It did not brick my board, just failed to install new firmware. Any ideas on how to fix the loading new firmware that I am having?
Firmware update videos on You Tube suggest to download file et4.bin. Copy directly to micro SD card. Install card in printer. Turn on printer and press “upgrade” then “OK” and printer should update on it’s own. After pressing “OK” I get message that update failed.
Measurement for gear or maybe a roller, should be approx. 8mm deep by 12mm across where the belt travels
With drive belt removed. If you will notice, in the photos, that there is supposed to be a roller rather that a gear and half of it appears to be missing. That is only a guess at what I am seeing.
