Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to another video tutorial. In today’s video, we’ll be covering how to update the firmware for the CR-10 Smart since this machine has a very particular way in which it prefers to update. As always, do this mod at your own risk, and I’m in no way responsible if any damages may occur.

In order to update the firmware, there are a couple of things we need in order to do so. You’ll, actually require, two SD cards that are 8 GB in size. The size of the card is important in this case, since you could run into issues if you don’t set the correct parameters. You’ll need one regular sized SD card and one that’s a micro SD card in order to do this upgrade. The regular SD card is used to update the motherboard through the SD card slot that you load your printing files from. As for the micro SD card, that one plugs into the reader that’s inside the LCD screen and must be opened first.

Before we can use either of these cards, we’ll first need to format them in a specific manner. Insert the SD card into your pc or mac and format it so that it follows these requirements. As mentioned previously, the card should be 8 GB in size since other versions may not have the correct settings available or be compatible with the upgrade. The file system option should be set to FAT 32. The allocation unite size needs to be changed to 4096. We can then select “Quick Format” since we don’t require an in depth version to be done. After making these changes, we can then choose Format.

There are a couple of different alliterations of this machine, therefore we’ll need to check and make sure that we have the correct firmware to do this upgrade. On the main website, you’ll go to the download section and select the firmware that you want to download. Once downloaded, there’s a README file which gives you information on what type of firmware goes with which motherboard. In my case, I had the CRC-2405V1.2 and was able to use this version of the firmware at the time. Unfortunately, the only way to find out what type of motherboard you have is to open the machine and check, so I’d recommend doing this at the same time as the safety upgrade which is included in the follow-up video.

Before we begin upgrading the machine, there’s some very important things to know prior to starting. The first, is that you can only use a file name once to do an update with the .bin file, so make sure to use a simple name which can be changed in the future. The second thing to know, is that you have to hold down on the power button until the update completes, otherwise you’ll render your machine inoperable. The easy fix, if you make this mistake, is to re-flash the firmware after having renamed the .bin file.

In order to update the motherboard, we’ll transfer the .bin file to the regular sized 8 GB SD card after having formatted it to the proper specifications. We’ll then turn off the machine and also turn off the power supply button in the back. After having done so, we’ll insert the SD card into the slot in which we load our 3D printing files. You can then turn back on the power supply button and press and HOLD the power button until the firmware finishes updating. You will know that the update is complete when you are brought to the home screen.

To update the LCD screen, we’ll first need to open it up to get access to the micro SD card Reader. First turn off the machine before unmounting the screen. You can then unplug the monitor from the rest of the machine and unscrew the back to open it. With the micro SD card properly formatted, you’ll transfer the DWIN_SET folder to the card without renaming it. Unlike the motherboard, the LCD screen doesn’t require that you rename the folder, so leave the name unchanged since these files need to be referenced, and it may not work if you change them. With the machine completely turned off, you can then insert the micro SD card into the LCD SD card slot. You’ll then power up the machine and wait for the update to complete. This can take a while to finish, but you’ll know when it’s completed when you see “SD Card Process….. END!”. You’ll then need to power off the machine and turn it back on to see that the menus have been updated.

With everything now updated, you can then do a couple of test prints to help ensure that everything is working correctly. Unlike most machines, I can verify that some of the issues I had encountered have been addressed with this update and I would therefore consider this update mandatory since it greatly affects the machines’ performance.

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to another video tutorial. Today we’ll be addressing an issue which is quite common among budget friendly printers and isn’t discussed all that much. The CR10 V3 like many other 3d printers in the market today, have tinned wired connections at their terminals, so today we’ll be replacing those with ferrules. As always, what you see here represents my own opinions, and undertake this at your own risk. I’m in no way responsible if any damages that may occur.

Now, there’s a couple of reason why you might want to change the main power connections to ferrule ones, however the main one is for safety. Not having ferrules means that maintenance will generally be more difficult since you’ll have to deal with the wires unravelling when being placed inside the terminals. Tinned one’s on the other hand can make the strands more susceptible to vibration, loosing and corrosion, all of which are to be avoided when it comes to the main power connections. So for this reason we’ll be taking a closer look at how to replace the those connections on the CR10 V3 by Creality.

Since the CR10 V3 has a separate case for the electronics, I will be removing this portion from the rest of the machine to make things a little easier to manage. In order to get access to the terminals, we first need to open the box and to do this, well need to remove the screws on the bottom of the case as well as those holding the power supply in place. There shouldn’t be any need to disconnect the power supply from the motherboard, but you will need to put it to the side as you work on the components.

According to the wiring diagram, you can see that we have a couple of terminals, which we will need to double-check for tinned wires. I’ve turned the diagram around so that it matches the orientation of the video footage. It does seem to be typical with most 3d printers, is that both the hot end and main power tend to have tinned wires. I have come across some that also have the sensor tinned as well, although that it more rare.

To make things easier to keep track of, we’ll only remove one wire at a time by unscrewing the screw at the top of the terminal. With wire cutters, you’ll remove the part that tinned before beginning to prep the wire for the ferrule. In order to have proper contact with the ferrule, well need to strip the tip of the wire by using one of the two methods. If you have wires strippers, you can use those to strip the wire connection, if you don’t, you can use your wire cutter to do the same thing by gently adding pressure until you’ve cut through the outer protective layer. You’ll then be able to remove the coating by holding the cutter’s partially open while pulling that part away. When choosing a ferrule, you want to choose one that just barely fits onto the wire to help ensure a proper connection when crimped. By making sure to twist the wires first, you’ll have an easier time inserting them into the ferrules. If you have a ferrule crimping tool, you can use that to crimp the connection, if not you can use a pair of pliers’ to do the same thing. Always test the connection before putting it back into the terminal.

In the end, I’ve found that I had to replace both the hot end connections and main power with ferrules. This means that we’ve ended up replacing the connections for 2 terminals. By only disconnecting one connection at a time, you’ll be able to keep track of what connections need to be changed next. This is the method I generally recommend so that you don’t end up mixing your connections. When you re-attach the connection, make sure to double-check that it’s properly secured before moving on to the next one. Once you’ve finished upgrading the terminal connections, you can then put back together the machine and do a quick test print to make sure everything is working correctly.

I hope this video has helped some of you out, and if there’s a video you’d like to suggest, please leave a comment down below. I hope you guys enjoyed this video and I hope to see you guys soon. Thank you and take care.