In the interest of improving the channel, I've experimented with a manual camera focus to stop the annoying focus/defocus cycle in the studio shots. Alas, this one was very slightly out of focus on this one but I'll try and nail it in future. I'm also waiting for the "hollow world" comments..
@Teaching Tech which pins on the melzi mainboard are PWM? pin 27 is one right? I tried defining my spindle PWM pin as pin 27 with the Beeper_pin undefined Do you also know how to use the extruder pins on the board with having the E0_DIR_PIN and E0_STEP_PIN disabled
Teaching Tech, i found out that marlin requires the Extruder stepper pins to be activated. in sanitycheck.h i added an extra requirement to be met. which i put in configuration.h a custom variable called Has_Extruder (true or false) After the sanitycheck #elif statement i added the following && (Has_extruder != false) This will make sure that it doesnt give an error if the has_extruder is equal to false. So now you can #undefine the extruder pins. As for the PWM thing, i wanted to use the heater or heated bed slots. But marlin would not allow that, because the spindle PWM pin is not allowed to be defined to a counter/timer that is also a system interrupt. Long story short, it seems to be a Timer0A or OCR0A which i guess means that it is a primary system feature So it is not possible to define spinde pwm on a melzi board while using marlin 2.0.1 Thank for the help btw. P.S. i am trying to make a Marlin controlled CNC because GRBL doesnt really work with ATMEGA644 and ATMEGA1284P (which have the same pin designations apparently) Any tips would be helpfull on the project, because this is my first CNC project
RE: BTT Mini V1.2 256k limit may be misinformation, have compiled and uploaded binary with all your mods and arc_support , custom boot screen and my fix for neopixel. Currently testing, will get back to you. If it is stable would like to discuss other useful features to enable.
I know it's the smallest amount, but I've never paid anyone for a youtube video ever. Your videos are amazing and I have enjoyed following your progress.
Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:17 Introduction 1:15 Foundation 2:48 Setup 5:24 Bootloader 5:46 Digital Outputs & Serial 7:36 Button inputs 9:10 PWM outputs 10:41 Stepper motors 12:23 Servo 13:25 eeprom 14:20 LCD and encoder 17:36 Outro Thank you Michael for these awesome videos. You and many more TH-camrs were my inspiration to start 3D-Printing. Have a nice Friday tommorw everybody!
Not only have I received invaluable information on this channel, I am also inspired to learn and to make. Thank you for all your hard work and great videos Michael, it is very much appreciated.
Perfect timing for this Video Michael. I was looking to buy an Arduino to play with but I've got a stock Creality board sitting there so why not play with that? You've certainly inspired me. Thanks
Great idea Mike. You can do it with the btt boards now too I think. Well, I'm using a tft50 display as a peripheral to an undetermined microcontroller depending on how much it taxes the uC. I'm going to start with a mega then work my way up through my board collection. It's gonna be a face for a robot with mecanum wheels I'm building for some students I teach at a place I volunteer. The display can be used on it's own as well as a standalone project board, like a lilygo esp32. Great video brother.
Hi Michael. Just took the plunge to begin a project to use my old Creality board as an Arduino. This video was the inspiration and guide to get the job done. Thanks so much.
I appreciate the trouble you had to go through to figure out how to rig a old 3d printer board to reuse for other things. DIY oxygen meter for oxygen concentrator and DIY controlled environment are a couple of things I'm repurposing some old boards for; that had a pin or two burnt out. Your instructions and example code helped a bunch. Thanks.
Michael, you are absolutely brilliant at mind reading! I was looking for a way to reuse my old Ender 3 Pro v1.1.5 Motherboard and Mono LCD Screen. I had no use for them after replacing them with better parts (Ender 3 v2 display + Creality Silent v4.2.7 Motherboard). My Ender 3 Pro turned into an Ender 3 v2. It felt wrong if I did nothing with these old parts that still worked perfectly fine. Now they finally have a purpose!
So many questions, thoughts, and curiosities I had, YOU single-handedly answered them all in this video!! BRAZO!!!!!! Many THANKS from a good ol' country boy Electrician from Louisiana, USA! Please Keep it up! *Side note: How could I help support your projects? I enjoy the insights, advice, level of DETAIL, etc. that you provide and would like to contribute if possible....* Thanks Again.
Seriously how dare you make this video... I'm already so busy and have so many ideas... now I have soooo many more ideas that I'll never get to. But seriously, this is a great video and thank you for the ideas.
I don't know why this never occurred to me! I'm about to put an SKR Mini E3 in one of my Ender 3 Pros... Definitely gonna reuse the motherboard for a CNC coil winder or wire bending/spring-making machine. 🤔
After months of trying to get my printer to connect to my pc, I said whatever and just bought a new motherboard with the firmware I needed. . .buy I had no clue I could still use the board! I guess I should have figured, but that's really cool! I think I'm going to take advantage of the motor Sheild and make a rumble chair. . .we'll see, thanks so much!
3D Printer boards are great for any project. They have almost anything you could possibly need. I use an SKR PRO with STM32F4 to drive a 6-axis robot. Very cheap and very fast, especially when programming it without arduino via registers or stdperiph.
I've just discovered this video and what can I say? Thank you so much! I'm playing with the thought of building my own guitar pickup winder. This thing is going to be based on an Arduino with a rotary encoder as input and an LCD as output device. Looks like my Ender 3 Pro motherboard and display are not going to vanish in some drawer after all after I've upgraded them. That's awesome. I need exactly 4 stepper motors, this fits the bill perfectly. Now I only need to find stepper motors that can do the speed I need and I'm nearly ready to go. Again, thanks so much
Thanks for this inspiring video! I didn't even realise that I could reuse my old board for other purposes. I have a Teensy controlled unit to automatically tune my smallband magnetic loop antenna to the best SWR when changing frequency and start transmitting, using a stepper motor and a variable air capacitor. Looking at your video I realised I can do this with my old Creality 1.1.4 board without having the need for external components (except for the SWR bridge). I feel a project coming up :-)
I just have to say I really like your videos... The one where you explained the BTT SKR v1.3v "SKR V1.3 Comprehensive guide - 32bit 3D printing for $20" gave me the knowledge and confidence to go ahead and purchase the BTT SKR v1.3 along with a complete upgrade for my Anet A8 that I have had for almost a year now. So, its funny that I came saw this video because I have been thinking about the uses I want to venture forward with my printer. First let me state what I purchased and then I will ask my question(s) about my ideas. . . .I have an Anet A8 v1.7 with mosfet upgrades. I purchased - BTT SKR v1.3 motherboard w/DVR8825 drivers, a MKS TFT35 V1.0 display, a MKS TFT-WiFi APP 3D Printing Wireless Router ESP8266 WiFi Module, a Ultrabase Platform Glass Plate Build Surface + Aluminum Heated Bed Hotbed, a ANTCLABS BLTouch : Auto Bed Leveling Sensor with extension cable, bed insulation, Dual Z Stepper Motor Parallel Module, Screw-in thermistor 100K NTC 3950 , 2ea 120mm Blue LED Ultra Silent Case Fans, 14 & 16 gauge wire, and printed s bunch of upgrade parts. It has been a little much to tackle all at once especially the Marlin software upgrade. But with all the help and support from you and others, I am almost complete. So my question(s) are more due to the unfamiliarity of the SKR & MKS boards, I would like to add my old ATMega 1284P board posasiby slave it or run it together and control it with the MKS display as well as using the OEM Lonestar 2004LCD to have more PMW controllers for addition fans, and LEDS mounted to the printer. I even thought about using the 2004LCD for a real time clock as well as scrolling thru many different displays like time left to finish, total print time, and maybe a camera addition, ETC. Is this even possible with combining a 8 bit and 32 bit board or are there hurdles I don't understand as of yet that may hinder this coming to fruition. Any advice, help, or WARNINGS would be much appreciated. . . . . (Oh Yeah, I am disabled, lost my right leg 45 years ago, and have all the time in the world and need something to keep me occupied. . .
Thank you, I have been watching your channels for a few years, I am finally looking for my first 3d printer, I am going Ender 5 Plus as I have a car facia and other parts that will just fit within its build volume hopefully with supports (I wished the Tronxy XSA5-400 wasn't such a poor starter for newbies), I won't be jumping into that for a while but practice small items first, of course I will get the kids envolved in creating too (Just not bloody phone covers like many kids make at school). I was being "anoyed"(not my "real word" thoughts) is I can not find a Plus with an option of a silent board, I found this was common with many different 3D printers and wondered what I was going to do with the old (read "brand new") mainboard, I forgot I watched this and found it again today to remind me.
This is so awesome! Thanks so much for your investigation and video. I'm planning to do something else with my Creality board: convert my old Makerbot Replicator Mini into a Reprap. If it works fine @ 12v, I might even re-use the original PSU.
You could copy the pin config header for your board from Marlin and use the already defined and labeled pin names. Would make the code work on other boards with just a header replace.
I'll give you a free idea for your next project: take the board and reprogram it to use a stepper motor to open and close (wind and unwind) a window shade. Add it to IFTTT. Blinds may not work because of the locking mechanism but shades and cloth ones may.
Hi Michael... I just downloaded the sketches from this Video. Wondering if the last one you show at the end of the video is available somewhere? I needed a Thermometer that alarms when a certain temp is reached. I know people are saying... just buy one, they are cheap. But I need mine to alarm for descending temp as well as rising. The format you have setup in that sketch looks perfect... Just a bit of programming to make it work for me. As always... Very helpful video and Thank You.
Is there a comprehensive video for this process for the newer 32 bit boards?? I'm having a hard time figuring this stuff out. I was able to successfully flash a new firmware onto my 4.2.2 board, but I would like to be able to control it with Arduino. Is this possible? I know there is a couple of videos out there but none have given me quite what I need. Many thanks in advance!
From what I understand, you want to make a resin part washer and curer, I'm anxious to see that project because if that's what you think, I also want to work on it by reusing an old plate and screen that I have for washing and curing resin. Greetings and thank you very much for the content
DIY: soldering iron, mini heat gun, solder pot, oven (for annealing), light duty mini autoclave, mini sander, mini drill press, mini band as,mini scroll saw, cover maker, drink stirrer, drink warmer, drink mixer, soup maker, automated puppet controller, magnetic stirrer, heated magnetic stirrer, vented (with enclosure) heated magnetic stirrer, mini cnc mill, mini lathe, add a gas torch to make a glass forming too (glad rod, tube and beaker more), parts cleaner, laser engraver, 3d scanner, obviously much more... As for machine control, I will just use gcode just as with the printer
Great tutorial Michael. I'm thinking I could build a speed-adjustable turntable for my mate, he customises and restores model vehicles and it would give him better control and more torque for the bigger models.
Been trying to find a tutorial similar to this without luck, I'm definitely going to try this if I ever stop using my printer. But what I would like to know is how to take the Ender 3v2 LCD. If I was to buy a second ribbon cable to go into the back of the screen, that is removable from the frame by design so I can plug it in to a raspberry Pi as its display. And just keep moving the cable plugged into the screen back and forth between which device I am using
I see evidence that many hobbyists are bricking their mainboards during firmware upgrades, then getting stuck because they lack knowledge the ISP interface. An AVR novice may look up the (expensive) price of an commercial ISP, then give up and just buy another $15 main board. It would be useful to show people how to use AVRDUDE with the Raspberry Pi's SPI bus, or how to build an ISP from a $1 Digispark.
great Tutorial on using the old Ender3D board and recycling it for other uses. I however tried to use a AM2301 Temp/Humidity sensor and found that I had to remove the 10K pull up resistor (R3) and 4.7uf (C7) to get it working on Pin 20 (Zstop). Im going to try to make a full weather station using this board and display
That is what I plan with my spare boards. As the cnc machine will stay in the basement and there is no "silent mode" possible by design, grbl should be possible on this little boards.
I don't thing the stock garbage stepper drivers on the creality board can tackle that one. With how cheep 32bit boards with 2209 drivers are is recommend going that way for a low rider.
@@TeachingTech that is some hardcore flies to go into the screen. Bugs don't screw around down there do they? Video Request! All the creatures you've had to clean out of your 3D printers. :)
Aside from the power supply that comes with every Ender 3, is there any other 24v power supply that I might could use for this motherboard? I have a project in mind for this motherboard, an ender 3 LCD screen and a stepper motor but don't want to disassemble one of my printers nor do I want to shell out the money for a new power supply when I could scavenge one from somewhere else.
Great Video. I am a newbee to the programing and use of writing programs, but was wondering if you might steer me towards were I can find a simple Marlin program that I can download to my Mega2560 with a Ramps1.4 board and display that i can use to run a couple to NEMA 17 steppers, and adjust the speed. I have the spare parts already, and am trying to make a filament winder take up spool, what can be rum from the Mega and Ramps board i already have. Thanks, love your channel, and videos.
I want to use arduino to control 115VAC outlets. My particular reason is for monitoring temp/humidity and controlling fans, lights and possibly a dehumidifier and/or humidifier in a grow room, but there are undoubtedly other case uses for controlling a low-amperage household current outlet. I am going to try recycling an ender 3 mainboard thanks to your video, so thanks. If you have any suggestions to help me further I would love to hear. Thanks again.
Yes but with two caveats: only 4 stepper outputs so no dual endstop homing, the A4988 drivers may need the VREF turned up so you'll need decent cooling.
I am working on a project that contains an rtc module. The rtc data and clock lines must be connected to arduino pins A4 and A5. A4 is the beeper pin which is easily located using the table, but A5 maps to the Z_ENABLE_PIN, which I cannot locate on the board. You mention it briefly in the stepper motor part of you video, but that does not give me a clue. I could edit the rtc library to use other pins but this library is used in more projects, so would be interested if you, or someone reading this has a picture of the Melzi board with the all Arduino pin numbers mapped to the board pins.
I found a nice design for a colorimeter on Thingiverse that measures light intensity using output voltage from an LED. A student did a nice proof of concept that tied out put voltage to concentration of a colored substance in solution. It would be fun to go a step further by using an Arduino sketch to output measured voltage, and possibly change that into absorb an excellent, which has a direct relationship to concentration. Do you think the Melli or a RAMPS board could be set up to read output voltage accurately? I tried with an uno, and got highly variable readings.
The project you mention in this video wouldn't happen to be an arduino controlled filament dryer or dry box, would it? This is a project I'm getting ready to tackle soon and I'm starting completely from scratch. I've never done anything with arduino before and a video about a similar project would really help get a better idea of how to get started.
i have a creality 4.2.7 motherboard that i want to run a stepper motor continuously along with a hotend for a project that i am building, I'm curious if this same concept would work on this board, I tried using marlin but cant get the stepper motor to run any length of time
I was using the screen program but also want to use the encoder to adjust the pwm duty cycle of one of the MOSFETs while also displaying a percentage of the power but cannot figure out how to do it, please help, thank you in advance.
Worth noting - stepper motors are not all wired up the same way - there doesn't seem to be one agreed standard. For example, the Moons motors on Wanhao printers are different to the JKong motors on Creality printers - the middle two pins are the opposite way around compared to each other. Obviously the Creality board in conjunction with the Creality cabling are set up for the JKong motors, but if you just plug them into Moons motors without checking it won't work (may even break the motor or the driver chip? not sure). It's a bit of a nightmare to work out as the JKong online data doesn't cover the connector that the Creality motors have, just built-in colour-coded wires (must have been a custom version for Creality) - but comparing the Creality cabling (can see this @12:22) and mainboard circuit board layout (github.com/Creality3DPrinting/Ender-3/blob/master/Ender-3%20PCB/Ender3_pcb_parts.PDF) and the A4988 datasheet (www.allegromicro.com/en/Products/Motor-Drivers/Brush-DC-Motor-Drivers/A4988) shows that they connect driver outputs 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B to pins 1, 4, 3, 6 on the motor - which means the motor is 1A, n/c, 2A, 1B, n/c, 2B. Moons motors are 1A, n/c, 1B, 2A, n/c, 2B. It's clear from the Moons catalog what their pinout is (www.moonsindustries.com/ - no direct link as they encode the session in the URL, but navigate to one of their hybrid stepper motors, and under "Downloads" find the Hybrid Stepper Motor_Catalog2019.pdf document; it's all in there, page 67) I guess you can check manually by using a multimeter to buzz out the connector, find the two pairs of pins that are connected (at least have a non-infinite resistance? I've not tried) and this will show if it's one or the other. One coil is pins 1A, 1B, the other coil is pins 2A, 2B.
Great point. For the record I've never damaged anything if the stepper motor was wiring incorrectly, although I've spotted it pretty quickly. For those reading it won't rotate, but vibrate back and forth on the spot.
I was really scratching my head how to get the ender 3 lcd working, I had a fun time trying to dissect Marlin to figure out how this would be done, and I got lost in the maze of macros pointing to other macros...thanks
Hi Michael, very interesting video. Based on this, I think it should also be possible to put GRBL on these boards? That would allow some interesting new uses for old creality boards!
I wonder how viable it is to do the opposite, use something like ESP32 (dual core 32 bit 4Mb risc 'arduino') to build a better Ender 3 controller. The firmware is already there, it would just be a case of providing the stepper drivers and appropriate connectors. The ESP is already built for hosting it's own web service, so you could probably replace octoprint too.
I had the same question and made progress today getting my own SKR Mini E3 v3 board to compile with my own custom Arduino sketches.... I have been researching how to re-purpose an old ender 3 that has a broken creality board. (I have other 3d printers so I no longer need this machine as a printer and decided to convert this printer into a totally different device). I bought an SKR Mini E3 v3 and replaced my original motherboard and disconnected the hot-end and heated bed as I no longer need those components on my new device. My first goal was to figure out how to compile the Marlin firmware for the SKR Mini E3 V3 board... I reasoned that once I could compile my own "normal" firmware, I might be able to strip out the marlin 3d printer core code and replace it with my own ardunio code to control the motors and other various sensors for my project. I used "Visual Studio code" complier along with the "Auto marlin build" extension to get a "normal" firmware to compile. Once I was able to get a "normal" firmware to build, I poked around the various marlin cpp files and figured out the MarlinCore.cpp is the actual file that has the setup() and loop() methods required for Arduino sketches. Next, I removed all of the code from those two methods and inserted my own code for the blink sketch as shown below. As you can see, I declared PC15 as the pin for my led pin and hooked up the led pin and 10k resister as per Michael's example in his video above. /* Here is my code below */ #define E0_DIAG_PIN PC15 void setup() { pinMode(E0_DIAG_PIN, OUTPUT); } void loop() {
} Please note - There is a ton of code in the header of the MarlinCore.cpp that I had to leave in MarlinCore.cpp file (all of the code above the original setup() method). My goal is to figure out how much of that code I can remove at a later time. I am not too concerned about it at the moment and hope to weed out that code later. I couldn't get the firmware to compile unless I left it in. But as you can see, I was able to declare pin PC15 for my led pin out. Next I was able to compile a custom firmware.bin file having only the code above in my setup() and loop() methods. I copied the firmware.bin file to an sd-card and inserted it into my SKR board. After powering on my ender 3 printer, my led is blinking! (link to video below)
This is just a start for me. I know I have a long way to go but at least it is a start in the right direction. I hope this gives you some ideas on how you can also get your project off the ground. Good Luck!
I know this is a bit old, but I'm trying to buy your Melzi sketches from your site and it does not work, no matter the amount I enter it does not work, and no other download options are given. Thank you!
I'm so glad I found this video, it is exactly what I'm looking for! Does anyone know what 'X(Y/Z)_min_Pin" does? *Edit: On Melzi Ardentissimo the 'min_pin's are the just the limit switches. I just got blink to work!
That's the whole point of solid state over a conventional relay. You can control the output with precision rather than 'bang bang' style control. Works very well on mains powered heated beds.
@@TeachingTech Did you ever try it? It seems wrong, solid state relays should do zero crossing detection to switch on and will only switch off at a zero crossing. AC power works on 50 or 60 hz, PWM at several kHz. You would create a huge amount of rf noise if you run a solid state relay at these frequencies without zero crossing detect. Just use the bang control, which is fine for slow heated beds
In the interest of improving the channel, I've experimented with a manual camera focus to stop the annoying focus/defocus cycle in the studio shots. Alas, this one was very slightly out of focus on this one but I'll try and nail it in future.
I'm also waiting for the "hollow world" comments..
Who am I to correct your diction lol
@Teaching Tech which pins on the melzi mainboard are PWM? pin 27 is one right?
I tried defining my spindle PWM pin as pin 27 with the Beeper_pin undefined
Do you also know how to use the extruder pins on the board with having the E0_DIR_PIN and E0_STEP_PIN disabled
Pin 27 and the three MOSFETs for a start. Search for pwm in the Sara sheet and you'll no doubt find others. Haven't negotiated the second one, sorry.
Teaching Tech, i found out that marlin requires the Extruder stepper pins to be activated.
in sanitycheck.h i added an extra requirement to be met. which i put in configuration.h a custom variable called Has_Extruder (true or false)
After the sanitycheck #elif statement i added the following && (Has_extruder != false)
This will make sure that it doesnt give an error if the has_extruder is equal to false.
So now you can #undefine the extruder pins.
As for the PWM thing, i wanted to use the heater or heated bed slots. But marlin would not allow that, because the spindle PWM pin is not allowed to be defined to a counter/timer that is also a system interrupt.
Long story short, it seems to be a Timer0A or OCR0A which i guess means that it is a primary system feature
So it is not possible to define spinde pwm on a melzi board while using marlin 2.0.1
Thank for the help btw.
P.S. i am trying to make a Marlin controlled CNC because GRBL doesnt really work with ATMEGA644 and ATMEGA1284P (which have the same pin designations apparently)
Any tips would be helpfull on the project, because this is my first CNC project
RE: BTT Mini V1.2 256k limit may be misinformation, have compiled and uploaded binary with all your mods and arc_support , custom boot screen and my fix for neopixel. Currently testing, will get back to you. If it is stable would like to discuss other useful features to enable.
I know it's the smallest amount, but I've never paid anyone for a youtube video ever. Your videos are amazing and I have enjoyed following your progress.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:17 Introduction
1:15 Foundation
2:48 Setup
5:24 Bootloader
5:46 Digital Outputs & Serial
7:36 Button inputs
9:10 PWM outputs
10:41 Stepper motors
12:23 Servo
13:25 eeprom
14:20 LCD and encoder
17:36 Outro
Thank you Michael for these awesome videos. You and many more TH-camrs were my inspiration to start 3D-Printing.
Have a nice Friday tommorw everybody!
Thank you.
13:18 Michael has existential crisis.
Not only have I received invaluable information on this channel, I am also inspired to learn and to make.
Thank you for all your hard work and great videos Michael, it is very much appreciated.
Mindreading again! Excellent video. "No servos were harmed in the making of this video" Big softy!
Mr Doohickey But a 3d printer lol
Perfect timing for this Video Michael. I was looking to buy an Arduino to play with but I've got a stock Creality board sitting there so why not play with that? You've certainly inspired me. Thanks
Great idea Mike. You can do it with the btt boards now too I think. Well, I'm using a tft50 display as a peripheral to an undetermined microcontroller depending on how much it taxes the uC. I'm going to start with a mega then work my way up through my board collection. It's gonna be a face for a robot with mecanum wheels I'm building for some students I teach at a place I volunteer. The display can be used on it's own as well as a standalone project board, like a lilygo esp32. Great video brother.
So obvious issue yet so little info about it! At last, we can upcycle our still useful electronics! Thank you, Michael!
Your quickly becoming my go to for everything! Thank you for everything you do for the community!
Hi Michael. Just took the plunge to begin a project to use my old Creality board as an Arduino. This video was the inspiration and guide to get the job done. Thanks so much.
This is a good way for hobbyists to reduce e-waste
Awesome stuff! I've got no idea what I would actually use this for but I'm glad that it exists!
Great video Michael, never really thought of reusing my mainboards. Thank you. look forward to more like this. cheers
I appreciate the trouble you had to go through to figure out how to rig a old 3d printer board to reuse for other things. DIY oxygen meter for oxygen concentrator and DIY controlled environment are a couple of things I'm repurposing some old boards for; that had a pin or two burnt out.
Your instructions and example code helped a bunch. Thanks.
What a great video, now I have to start finding fun projects for my pile of boards I have laying around :-)
That is an excellent problem to have.
Right now i was searching for this and you uploaded it. Thank you
Michael, you are absolutely brilliant at mind reading!
I was looking for a way to reuse my old Ender 3 Pro v1.1.5 Motherboard and Mono LCD Screen. I had no use for them after replacing them with better parts (Ender 3 v2 display + Creality Silent v4.2.7 Motherboard). My Ender 3 Pro turned into an Ender 3 v2.
It felt wrong if I did nothing with these old parts that still worked perfectly fine. Now they finally have a purpose!
Great video Michael!
4 steppers, buttons, lcd, led controls... I'm thinking vending machine!
That is a cool project idea
Great video, I also really like to give things a second life.
So many questions, thoughts, and curiosities I had, YOU single-handedly answered them all in this video!! BRAZO!!!!!! Many THANKS from a good ol' country boy Electrician from Louisiana, USA!
Please Keep it up!
*Side note: How could I help support your projects? I enjoy the insights, advice, level of DETAIL, etc. that you provide and would like to contribute if possible....*
Thanks Again.
Amazing. You cover everything. Someone donated an nonfunctional ender 3 to me and I will be converting it into a electroplating station! Thank u
Seriously how dare you make this video... I'm already so busy and have so many ideas... now I have soooo many more ideas that I'll never get to. But seriously, this is a great video and thank you for the ideas.
that's actually a really good thing!
Brilliant, I have project on the build and this has opened up my thoughts on how to drive it, off to the Ender leftovers box!, love the Senna shirts
Wow, what an outstanding video. I learned a lot more than what I came here to learn. Thanks!
Excelent video, perfect timing! I just upgraded my E3 to Skr 1.2
I don't know why this never occurred to me! I'm about to put an SKR Mini E3 in one of my Ender 3 Pros... Definitely gonna reuse the motherboard for a CNC coil winder or wire bending/spring-making machine. 🤔
After months of trying to get my printer to connect to my pc, I said whatever and just bought a new motherboard with the firmware I needed. . .buy I had no clue I could still use the board! I guess I should have figured, but that's really cool! I think I'm going to take advantage of the motor Sheild and make a rumble chair. . .we'll see, thanks so much!
I see a run on old Melsy boards! Thank you for the great ideas!
Thanks Michael, that was a fantastic primer. Cheers, JAYTEE
Great video! I was just thinking there has to be something that can be done with my old printer boards!
3D Printer boards are great for any project. They have almost anything you could possibly need. I use an SKR PRO with STM32F4 to drive a 6-axis robot. Very cheap and very fast, especially when programming it without arduino via registers or stdperiph.
I've just discovered this video and what can I say? Thank you so much! I'm playing with the thought of building my own guitar pickup winder. This thing is going to be based on an Arduino with a rotary encoder as input and an LCD as output device. Looks like my Ender 3 Pro motherboard and display are not going to vanish in some drawer after all after I've upgraded them. That's awesome. I need exactly 4 stepper motors, this fits the bill perfectly. Now I only need to find stepper motors that can do the speed I need and I'm nearly ready to go. Again, thanks so much
Awesome!! Loving this example!! Thanks!!
Thanks for this inspiring video! I didn't even realise that I could reuse my old board for other purposes. I have a Teensy controlled unit to automatically tune my smallband magnetic loop antenna to the best SWR when changing frequency and start transmitting, using a stepper motor and a variable air capacitor. Looking at your video I realised I can do this with my old Creality 1.1.4 board without having the need for external components (except for the SWR bridge). I feel a project coming up :-)
can you do something similar with STM32 boards? My Ender 3 Pro (bought mid 2020) came with Creality's 4.2.2 board.
I just have to say I really like your videos... The one where you explained the BTT SKR v1.3v "SKR V1.3 Comprehensive guide - 32bit 3D printing for $20" gave me the knowledge and confidence to go ahead and purchase the BTT SKR v1.3 along with a complete upgrade for my Anet A8 that I have had for almost a year now. So, its funny that I came saw this video because I have been thinking about the uses I want to venture forward with my printer. First let me state what I purchased and then I will ask my question(s) about my ideas. . . .I have an Anet A8 v1.7 with mosfet upgrades. I purchased - BTT SKR v1.3 motherboard w/DVR8825 drivers, a MKS TFT35 V1.0 display, a MKS TFT-WiFi APP 3D Printing Wireless Router ESP8266 WiFi Module, a Ultrabase Platform Glass Plate Build Surface + Aluminum Heated Bed Hotbed, a ANTCLABS BLTouch : Auto Bed Leveling Sensor with extension cable, bed insulation, Dual Z Stepper Motor Parallel Module, Screw-in thermistor 100K NTC 3950 , 2ea 120mm Blue LED Ultra Silent Case Fans, 14 & 16 gauge wire, and printed s bunch of upgrade parts. It has been a little much to tackle all at once especially the Marlin software upgrade. But with all the help and support from you and others, I am almost complete. So my question(s) are more due to the unfamiliarity of the SKR & MKS boards, I would like to add my old ATMega 1284P board posasiby slave it or run it together and control it with the MKS display as well as using the OEM Lonestar 2004LCD to have more PMW controllers for addition fans, and LEDS mounted to the printer. I even thought about using the 2004LCD for a real time clock as well as scrolling thru many different displays like time left to finish, total print time, and maybe a camera addition, ETC. Is this even possible with combining a 8 bit and 32 bit board or are there hurdles I don't understand as of yet that may hinder this coming to fruition. Any advice, help, or WARNINGS would be much appreciated. . . . . (Oh Yeah, I am disabled, lost my right leg 45 years ago, and have all the time in the world and need something to keep me occupied. . .
Thank you, I have been watching your channels for a few years, I am finally looking for my first 3d printer, I am going Ender 5 Plus as I have a car facia and other parts that will just fit within its build volume hopefully with supports (I wished the Tronxy XSA5-400 wasn't such a poor starter for newbies), I won't be jumping into that for a while but practice small items first, of course I will get the kids envolved in creating too (Just not bloody phone covers like many kids make at school).
I was being "anoyed"(not my "real word" thoughts) is I can not find a Plus with an option of a silent board, I found this was common with many different 3D printers and wondered what I was going to do with the old (read "brand new") mainboard, I forgot I watched this and found it again today to remind me.
Really good explained! 👍🏼
Great project
Thanks for sharing👍😀
This is so awesome! Thanks so much for your investigation and video. I'm planning to do something else with my Creality board: convert my old Makerbot Replicator Mini into a Reprap. If it works fine @ 12v, I might even re-use the original PSU.
Thank you so much for this, this video is a goldmine.
Very good information. Thank you for sharing!
You could copy the pin config header for your board from Marlin and use the already defined and labeled pin names. Would make the code work on other boards with just a header replace.
Great tip.
I'll give you a free idea for your next project: take the board and reprogram it to use a stepper motor to open and close (wind and unwind) a window shade. Add it to IFTTT. Blinds may not work because of the locking mechanism but shades and cloth ones may.
Hi Michael... I just downloaded the sketches from this Video. Wondering if the last one you show at the end of the video is available somewhere?
I needed a Thermometer that alarms when a certain temp is reached. I know people are saying... just buy one, they are cheap. But I need mine to alarm for descending temp as well as rising. The format you have setup in that sketch looks perfect... Just a bit of programming to make it work for me.
As always... Very helpful video and Thank You.
Is there a comprehensive video for this process for the newer 32 bit boards?? I'm having a hard time figuring this stuff out. I was able to successfully flash a new firmware onto my 4.2.2 board, but I would like to be able to control it with Arduino. Is this possible? I know there is a couple of videos out there but none have given me quite what I need. Many thanks in advance!
Also looking for help on this if you found anything @steveg2277
hey i get the vid is 4 years old now but can this work on the v4.2.2 board?
From what I understand, you want to make a resin part washer and curer, I'm anxious to see that project because if that's what you think, I also want to work on it by reusing an old plate and screen that I have for washing and curing resin.
Greetings and thank you very much for the content
Thank you! Love it!
Semi automated filament dryer project on the horizon?
You're pretty close. That was just one of three sub-menus.
@@TeachingTech Tell me it's a resin curing and washing station!
There is an onboard LED controlled by pin 27, or "BEEPER_PIN". That way, you can test the blink sketch without a breadboard!
This is not doable for 4.2.2 32 bit boards right?
Very interesting vidéo !!! Thanks you
DIY: soldering iron, mini heat gun, solder pot, oven (for annealing), light duty mini autoclave, mini sander, mini drill press, mini band as,mini scroll saw, cover maker, drink stirrer, drink warmer, drink mixer, soup maker, automated puppet controller, magnetic stirrer, heated magnetic stirrer, vented (with enclosure) heated magnetic stirrer, mini cnc mill, mini lathe, add a gas torch to make a glass forming too (glad rod, tube and beaker more), parts cleaner, laser engraver, 3d scanner, obviously much more... As for machine control, I will just use gcode just as with the printer
Great video ! Would love to find out what the open source project was and what the outcome was for all of this.
hey really good video thank you !! little question do i have to connect the board to a 12v battery to have the stepper motor move ?
Great tutorial Michael. I'm thinking I could build a speed-adjustable turntable for my mate, he customises and restores model vehicles and it would give him better control and more torque for the bigger models.
Hi Micheal. This is really interesting. Any advice to install GRBL on it?
Been trying to find a tutorial similar to this without luck, I'm definitely going to try this if I ever stop using my printer.
But what I would like to know is how to take the Ender 3v2 LCD. If I was to buy a second ribbon cable to go into the back of the screen, that is removable from the frame by design so I can plug it in to a raspberry Pi as its display.
And just keep moving the cable plugged into the screen back and forth between which device I am using
I see evidence that many hobbyists are bricking their mainboards during firmware upgrades, then getting stuck because they lack knowledge the ISP interface. An AVR novice may look up the (expensive) price of an commercial ISP, then give up and just buy another $15 main board. It would be useful to show people how to use AVRDUDE with the Raspberry Pi's SPI bus, or how to build an ISP from a $1 Digispark.
I've got a sparkfun programmer that I used once to unbrick a 2560 board with icsp. Was pretty handy at the time.
great Tutorial on using the old Ender3D board and recycling it for other uses. I however tried to use a AM2301 Temp/Humidity sensor and found that I had to remove the 10K pull up resistor (R3) and 4.7uf (C7) to get it working on Pin 20 (Zstop). Im going to try to make a full weather station using this board and display
can you use a 3d printer motherboard for a cnc
Yes!
That is what I plan with my spare boards. As the cnc machine will stay in the basement and there is no "silent mode" possible by design, grbl should be possible on this little boards.
I was wondering, what project did this lead into. In the ending of the video you mentioned somekind of product.
i am getting an ender 3 and and updating the board + touch screen and was thinking of using the old one for a lowrider 2 good timing on the vid :)
I don't thing the stock garbage stepper drivers on the creality board can tackle that one. With how cheep 32bit boards with 2209 drivers are is recommend going that way for a low rider.
15:29 LOL, there is a dead fly on the screen.
FLY KILLER :D
There's several INSIDE the screen. I can't blow them out.
@@TeachingTech that is some hardcore flies to go into the screen. Bugs don't screw around down there do they? Video Request! All the creatures you've had to clean out of your 3D printers. :)
@@TeachingTech You need to learn debugging |:oD
Good job. Hey how change Creality Ender 5 to laser cnc ? Thx.
Brilliant video
Aside from the power supply that comes with every Ender 3, is there any other 24v power supply that I might could use for this motherboard? I have a project in mind for this motherboard, an ender 3 LCD screen and a stepper motor but don't want to disassemble one of my printers nor do I want to shell out the money for a new power supply when I could scavenge one from somewhere else.
Great Video. I am a newbee to the programing and use of writing programs, but was wondering if you might steer me towards were I can find a simple Marlin program that I can download to my Mega2560 with a Ramps1.4 board and display that i can use to run a couple to NEMA 17 steppers, and adjust the speed. I have the spare parts already, and am trying to make a filament winder take up spool, what can be rum from the Mega and Ramps board i already have. Thanks, love your channel, and videos.
I would love to use my old MKS Gen L as the control board for an eggbot. I just have no clue where to begin...
I want to use arduino to control 115VAC outlets. My particular reason is for monitoring temp/humidity and controlling fans, lights and possibly a dehumidifier and/or humidifier in a grow room, but there are undoubtedly other case uses for controlling a low-amperage household current outlet. I am going to try recycling an ender 3 mainboard thanks to your video, so thanks. If you have any suggestions to help me further I would love to hear. Thanks again.
Awesome, i am glad i didnt bin my old devices :)
Can you do a video on how to add a fifth stepper motor and bltouch to mks gen l and other mainboards as a part of a series?
I've got a switching dual extruder video coming up that will likely be going on a MKS Gen L machine :)
Can I use it for lowrider cnc?
Yes but with two caveats: only 4 stepper outputs so no dual endstop homing, the A4988 drivers may need the VREF turned up so you'll need decent cooling.
I am working on a project that contains an rtc module. The rtc data and clock lines must be connected to arduino pins A4 and A5. A4 is the beeper pin which is easily located using the table, but A5 maps to the Z_ENABLE_PIN, which I cannot locate on the board. You mention it briefly in the stepper motor part of you video, but that does not give me a clue. I could edit the rtc library to use other pins but this library is used in more projects, so would be interested if you, or someone reading this has a picture of the Melzi board with the all Arduino pin numbers mapped to the board pins.
I found a nice design for a colorimeter on Thingiverse that measures light intensity using output voltage from an LED. A student did a nice proof of concept that tied out put voltage to concentration of a colored substance in solution. It would be fun to go a step further by using an Arduino sketch to output measured voltage, and possibly change that into absorb an excellent, which has a direct relationship to concentration. Do you think the Melli or a RAMPS board could be set up to read output voltage accurately? I tried with an uno, and got highly variable readings.
Assuming you are using an ADC pin that supports analogRead then it should work on either board.
Im about to upgrade my creality 1.1.4 board because the extruder driver went out im gonna hold on to this board to use in a project
Great maker video
The project you mention in this video wouldn't happen to be an arduino controlled filament dryer or dry box, would it? This is a project I'm getting ready to tackle soon and I'm starting completely from scratch. I've never done anything with arduino before and a video about a similar project would really help get a better idea of how to get started.
i have a creality 4.2.7 motherboard that i want to run a stepper motor continuously along with a hotend for a project that i am building, I'm curious if this same concept would work on this board, I tried using marlin but cant get the stepper motor to run any length of time
I was using the screen program but also want to use the encoder to adjust the pwm duty cycle of one of the MOSFETs while also displaying a percentage of the power but cannot figure out how to do it, please help, thank you in advance.
Hi question can I just connect the ender 3 pro display to an Arduino
can the board be used to make a cnc or a laser engraving machine?
Worth noting - stepper motors are not all wired up the same way - there doesn't seem to be one agreed standard. For example, the Moons motors on Wanhao printers are different to the JKong motors on Creality printers - the middle two pins are the opposite way around compared to each other. Obviously the Creality board in conjunction with the Creality cabling are set up for the JKong motors, but if you just plug them into Moons motors without checking it won't work (may even break the motor or the driver chip? not sure).
It's a bit of a nightmare to work out as the JKong online data doesn't cover the connector that the Creality motors have, just built-in colour-coded wires (must have been a custom version for Creality) - but comparing the Creality cabling (can see this @12:22) and mainboard circuit board layout (github.com/Creality3DPrinting/Ender-3/blob/master/Ender-3%20PCB/Ender3_pcb_parts.PDF) and the A4988 datasheet (www.allegromicro.com/en/Products/Motor-Drivers/Brush-DC-Motor-Drivers/A4988) shows that they connect driver outputs 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B to pins 1, 4, 3, 6 on the motor - which means the motor is 1A, n/c, 2A, 1B, n/c, 2B. Moons motors are 1A, n/c, 1B, 2A, n/c, 2B.
It's clear from the Moons catalog what their pinout is (www.moonsindustries.com/ - no direct link as they encode the session in the URL, but navigate to one of their hybrid stepper motors, and under "Downloads" find the Hybrid Stepper Motor_Catalog2019.pdf document; it's all in there, page 67)
I guess you can check manually by using a multimeter to buzz out the connector, find the two pairs of pins that are connected (at least have a non-infinite resistance? I've not tried) and this will show if it's one or the other. One coil is pins 1A, 1B, the other coil is pins 2A, 2B.
Great point. For the record I've never damaged anything if the stepper motor was wiring incorrectly, although I've spotted it pretty quickly. For those reading it won't rotate, but vibrate back and forth on the spot.
Excellent useful video, can I also read analogue values? I assume the thermistor port can take of this, if so has anyone done it?
That's exactly what i'm trying to do, but without succes, did you manage to do it?
Will this work with the new ender 3 32 bit boards
Brilliant!
I can build a new printer buying a hotend and nozzle, what about using old inkjet printer motors and axis? Or this board only accept NEMA motors?
I was really scratching my head how to get the ender 3 lcd working, I had a fun time trying to dissect Marlin to figure out how this would be done, and I got lost in the maze of macros pointing to other macros...thanks
Hi Michael, very interesting video. Based on this, I think it should also be possible to put GRBL on these boards? That would allow some interesting new uses for old creality boards!
Have you find out how to do it?
@@thecamosoupbone1273 No, I haven't looked into it much. I bought a CNC kit with an Arduino included to run GRBL.
Oh hell yeah thanks
I wonder how viable it is to do the opposite, use something like ESP32 (dual core 32 bit 4Mb risc 'arduino') to build a better Ender 3 controller. The firmware is already there, it would just be a case of providing the stepper drivers and appropriate connectors. The ESP is already built for hosting it's own web service, so you could probably replace octoprint too.
Someone did that for GRBL already, but I think there's an issue of the number of available pins for 3d printer use github.com/bdring/Grbl_Esp32
@@fpvm4k3r That's really interesting, I'll check it out, thanks!
Would this process work in a similar way for a Bigtreetech SKR Mini E3 v3?
I had the same question and made progress today getting my own SKR Mini E3 v3 board to compile with my own custom Arduino sketches....
I have been researching how to re-purpose an old ender 3 that has a broken creality board. (I have other 3d printers so I no longer need this machine as a printer and decided to convert this printer into a totally different device). I bought an SKR Mini E3 v3 and replaced my original motherboard and disconnected the hot-end and heated bed as I no longer need those components on my new device.
My first goal was to figure out how to compile the Marlin firmware for the SKR Mini E3 V3 board... I reasoned that once I could compile my own "normal" firmware, I might be able to strip out the marlin 3d printer core code and replace it with my own ardunio code to control the motors and other various sensors for my project.
I used "Visual Studio code" complier along with the "Auto marlin build" extension to get a "normal" firmware to compile. Once I was able to get a "normal" firmware to build, I poked around the various marlin cpp files and figured out the MarlinCore.cpp is the actual file that has the setup() and loop() methods required for Arduino sketches. Next, I removed all of the code from those two methods and inserted my own code for the blink sketch as shown below. As you can see, I declared PC15 as the pin for my led pin and hooked up the led pin and 10k resister as per Michael's example in his video above.
/* Here is my code below */
#define E0_DIAG_PIN PC15
void setup() {
pinMode(E0_DIAG_PIN, OUTPUT);
}
void loop() {
digitalWrite(E0_DIAG_PIN, HIGH);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(E0_DIAG_PIN, LOW);
delay(1000);
}
Please note - There is a ton of code in the header of the MarlinCore.cpp that I had to leave in MarlinCore.cpp file (all of the code above the original setup() method). My goal is to figure out how much of that code I can remove at a later time. I am not too concerned about it at the moment and hope to weed out that code later. I couldn't get the firmware to compile unless I left it in. But as you can see, I was able to declare pin PC15 for my led pin out. Next I was able to compile a custom firmware.bin file having only the code above in my setup() and loop() methods. I copied the firmware.bin file to an sd-card and inserted it into my SKR board. After powering on my ender 3 printer, my led is blinking! (link to video below)
This is just a start for me. I know I have a long way to go but at least it is a start in the right direction. I hope this gives you some ideas on how you can also get your project off the ground. Good Luck!
th-cam.com/video/KpJTeOmXgnI/w-d-xo.html
I know this is a bit old, but I'm trying to buy your Melzi sketches from your site and it does not work, no matter the amount I enter it does not work, and no other download options are given. Thank you!
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Next project sounds like a rotating dryer for resin prints.
This is just one menu of three :)
Hey MIchael . Will you be doing a SKR 1.4(turbo) tutorial anytime soon ? (or never :D )
I'm so glad I found this video, it is exactly what I'm looking for! Does anyone know what 'X(Y/Z)_min_Pin" does?
*Edit: On Melzi Ardentissimo the 'min_pin's are the just the limit switches. I just got blink to work!
I don't think using PWM with a solid state relay is a good idea 9:57
That's the whole point of solid state over a conventional relay. You can control the output with precision rather than 'bang bang' style control. Works very well on mains powered heated beds.
@@TeachingTech Did you ever try it? It seems wrong, solid state relays should do zero crossing detection to switch on and will only switch off at a zero crossing. AC power works on 50 or 60 hz, PWM at several kHz. You would create a huge amount of rf noise if you run a solid state relay at these frequencies without zero crossing detect. Just use the bang control, which is fine for slow heated beds