Newbie really needs help with Ender 5 Pro

3d Printing / Slicers / Setup / Problems
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I would say, “Yes”. Mine came with 1.1.8. That said, 1.1.8 was flawed. Once I upgraded it to TH3D Unified the problems went away. No, it isn’t as simple as putting a bin file onto an SD card and booting up. It will be necessary to use the Arduino IDE to upload the firmware. It’s not that difficult though, mainly because TH3D has packaged everything up nicely. You edit the configuration.h file while in the IDE and then upload. If you have difficulties, I think I should be able to help, since I’ve now done it twice.

In any case, if you were to upgrade to something other than TH3D Unified, I would go with 1.1.9 or 2.0.x.

Now, something important. You need to open the control cabinet at the bottom of the printer and check what version of control board it has. Since it’s an Ender 5 Pro It should be a 1.1.5 board. If it is, then it has a bootloader. If it’s a 1.1.4 then Creality owes you a 1.1.5 board, because that’s part of the extra you paid to get the Pro version.

I mentioned the possibility of damage to the PSU way back in my 1st post in this thread. That, in turn, could be responsible for followon effects. However, the PSU basically just supplies power to the control board, so it does seem less likely.

62

Since you’re returning the printer, I assume you’re going to recover that Direct Drive Conversion Kit for use on the new printer. Now, I would not install it immediately on the new printer; get it working properly with the Bowden Tube first. Once everything appears to be working correctly, then look at converting to DD again. I would work in Bowden mode for at least a couple of weeks. When you do go DD, make sure it’s the only change you’ve made at the time.

63

That is exactly what I plan to do. Yes, I will recover the conversion kit and use it later, but not now. All I plan to do tomorrow when the new printer arrives, is to replace the stock Bowden Tube with the Capiacorn Tubing I put on my old printer before I converted it to the DD unit. I will then set the extrusion to 100mm and not do anything else at this time. Oh! Another upgrade I have installed that I intend to put on the new printer is a TL-Smoother Kit. Unless you think that should wait.

At this point, here are my future plans for my printer some time down the road. I want to eventually install an auto leveling system. BLTouch or EZABL. Whichever is the least of a hassle. I want to upgrade to Marlin 2.0 (I think) At some time I want to upgrade to this new board. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088W6517D…v_ov_lig_dp_it However, TH3D Unified is an option if it would simplify things.

If you were where I am now and had these changes in mind, would you upgrade to Marlin 2.0 or TH3D Unified Firmware with the idea of adding a new board at one time or another. Also which auto leveling system would you use if you had a choice. Again, I want things to be as hassle free as possible as time goes on.

I have been looking at the TH3D web page and noticed that the have a boot loader kit. https://www.th3dstudio.com/product/a…-flashing-kit/ I assume I am going to need that (or something like that) to use no matter what firmware I eventually upgrade to.

All this is pretty much up in the air at the moment. I am willing to listen to anyone on how to best improve the Ender 5 to the best possible machine for turning out really good looking models.

Oh, by the way, the reason I bought a 3D printer, to start with, was to design and print parts of model airplanes. I also have designed a model airplane motor test stand that I want to print up. That is my main hobby. However, I am sure I will find other uses for a 3D printer as time goes by.

64

If that’s the stepper driver smoothing upgrade, you should not need it at all, assuming the new printer does have the 1.1.5 Silent Board. That’s what the Silent in the name means; it’s already smoothed. That’s because the 1.1.5 has the TMC2208 driver chips.

As I understand it, the choice of ABL depends more on the type of bed being used. If the bed is metal, then the EZABL can work but, if it’s a glass bed, something like the BLTouch is needed, because glass can’t trigger the sensor in the EZBAL.

If you want to upgrade to an SKR board, why not the 1.4 Turbo?

OK, let’s switch roles for a second: I’m you, you’re me. As you, I look at what Ender5r has done and I think, “Whatever firmware I finally end up with, he has successfully upgraded to, and is successfully printing with, TH3D Unified. I think I’ll upgrade to that first, to ensure my new printer is working perfectly, but I won’t upgrade until I’ve checked which control board is in the printer, and what firmware is installed. After all that, and I’m a little familiar with Arduino IDE, I’ll look at Marlin 1.1.9 or 2.0.x.” (/end role switching).

You should also be aware that it can be a little tough, and frustrating, to try to fit 1.1.9, and especially 2.0.x into the firmware space available on 8-bit boards like the 1.1.5. You have to pick and choose which features to keep and which to leave out. This is not an issue with 32-bit boards, such as the SKR. It’s also another advantage of the TH3D Unified: they’ve already made the choices for you. It at least gives you a working firmware. That’s why I went that way for now. I will probably switch to something else, perhaps even RepRap when I get a 32-bit board.

Again, if the new printer has a 1.1.5 Silent Board, you should not need a bootloader kit; the 1.1.5 has an onboard bootloader.

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OK. Thanks for all the information. I guess I will have to wait until tomorrow and see what firmware and board are in the new printer. By the way, I installed the TL-Smoother because I saw a video about them eliminating a printing problem, not smoothing the stepper drivers…

66

Not sure what that problem might be, but they don’t seem to be needed with newer stepper drivers. You might want to check out https://all3dp.com/2/tl-smoother-sho…my-3d-printer/

67

Depends on the drivers he use

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Yes, but that was my point. According to that article, they were designed to overcome a flaw in DRV8825 drivers. Trinamic, who seems to make an awful lot of drivers in use today (like the TMC2208 and TMC2209) says smoothers aren’t needed with their chips.

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For what it is worth, these are the ST-Smoother kit that I am using. Amazon.com

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That article I linked to does seem to indicate that it doesn’t do any harm to use them, so I guess you could try them, but I wouldn’t until you’ve established all the other things we discussed: i.e. that the printer works properly as delivered.

71

Sounds like a good idea.

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TMC still make ghosting. but not as much as other drivers.

73

Seriously? That’s interesting. So you’re saying the smoothers might actually be useful for TMC2208 or 9? If that’s the case I might look at them, cause they are dirt cheap.

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For what it is worth. I have successfully printed a couple of calibration cubes, (the ones with “X, Y, and Z”) with the ST-Smoother installed. The cubes printed perfectly. No printing flaws at all and certainly no ghosting.

75

Good to know. My XYZ cubes do have a little ‘ringing’ I guess you would call it.

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Ender5r…The answer to your question…

If you want to upgrade to an SKR board, why not the 1.4 Turbo?

The SKR Mini E3 V2.0 is a one for one direct drop in board for the Ender 5. Whereas the 1.4 Turbo (from what I have read) requires some modification. However, using the Mini E3 V2 is not set in stone. I know that the Turbo 1.4 Turbo processor is almost twice as fast as the E3 V2.0 and the SKR Pro V1.1 is even faster. I need to learn more about installing these other SKR boards before making a final decision, but at the moment, the Mini E3 V2.0 seems to be the best option for my current experience level.

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I can see that. Still, I’m looking at the 1.4 Turbo or, since you’ve alerted me to it, the Pro 1.1. Going to check it out…

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Glad to help!

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The pro has currently one side effect. The RepRap Software is currently not compatible. Well, it basically is, but the build system is currently (to my knowledge) not. Also the Pro lacks some jumpers the normal SKR boards have. This means you need to remove/bend a pin on each of the chop sticks to use sensorless homing, while on the non Pro boards this can be done by just removing some jumpers. This isn´t serious, but an inconvenience and not a fault of the manufacturer, because there is just no space on that hightly packed board.

I used the Pro board for my printer and bending the signal pin on a chopstick is no big issue and can be undone without soldering, when needed. If you want a cheap tripple extruder board this is the one. The turbo and speed arguments are just crap. These boards have so much power under the hood that just for speed it does not matter. Just remember the 8 bit boards could handle rather fast print speeds quite well.

The new boards are so much faster, that it simply does not matter unless you want to do really fancy stuff. I don´t think you can even max out any of the processors with current marlin and using high end chops sticks like the 2130, 2208 or 2209 are specialized controllers on their own, saving even more cpu load.

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I watched a video from Chris’ Basement where he snipped off the pin in order to enable sensorless homing, which is something I haven’t yet researched.