CR-10 Smart + Pro Version – Unlock the USB port – connect to PC or Device

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to another video. Today, we’ll be circumventing the creality Wifi Box that’s inside the CR10-Smart. We’ll be doing this in order to be able to fully test the machine for troubleshooting purposes, however this can also be useful if you want to disable the creality box entirely. As always, what you see here is my own opinion and do this at your own risk. I’m in no way responsible if any damages may occur.

As some of you may remember, I did a review of the Creality smart kit, which included the Creality Wifi Box. Although a reseller provided me with wifi box to review, to this date it’s performance has been the poorest I’ve ever rated because of several reasons, which you can check out for yourselves by clicking the video in the description below. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled to discover that this machine in fact had the device hardwired within its confines. At the time I was still working on the review for this machine, but I was running into strange issues while printing and I did suspect that they may have been caused by the inclusion of the wifi box. In order to test this theory, I first needed to find a way to print without the use of the integrated box.

After doing some research, I came across an article by Sebastiaan Dammann where he explores a method of unplugging and adding a cable to connect the 3d printer to a computer or raspberry pie. I will be including a link to in the description below for those of you who might be interested. After doing some testing of my own, I did discover that I could achieve the same results, but by retaining to USB input that came with the machine. This meant that I didn’t have to worry about messy cables sticking out of the machine, and I could retain the clean aesthetic. Now, technically, you have two options with this machine. The first, is you can connect the machine via the USB input or in theory through the Ethernet cable. As of recording, I have yet to attempt the second method, mainly since in most cases a person would want to connect to the USB port instead.

Now, the great part about this method is that it’s entirely reversible. You can do these changes and reverse them as you see fit, allowing you to benefit from either solution. There is one thing that will need to keep in mind. You will need to purchase a Male to Male USB Data cable in order to establish a proper connection with your device. Most people don’t realize this, but there’s actually two types of USB Cables that you can get. You can get a cable which only transfers power to another device, which would be the in-correct version for this project. The second one, is a USB cable which allows for information to transfer along with the power and is this one we that will be required. Also, very important to note, the machine MUST be disconnected from the external device in order to start up. What this means is that you will need to disconnect the USB, the connection to the computer or raspberry pie prior to booting up the machine.

As per usual, many of the connections that we will be modifying will be glued together, so you will need to remove the glue prior to changing any of the connections. The first connection that we’ll remove is the connection to the PC and Wifi Hub board. All connections on that board will remain the same except for the WIFI connection which is used to connect to the Wifi Box Board. Next we’ll take the connection going from the Wifi Box board and move the Camera connection to the WIFI connection which is on the PC and Wifi Hub Board. We can then remove the Ethernet and power switch connections going to the wifi box, although this shouldn’t be necessary because the data cable is no longer connected.

Once everything has been properly connected, you can test to make sure that the machines are still functioning properly. As mentioned before, the CR10 Smart must not be connected via USB when first starting up. Once it’s turned one, however, you can then plug it into the device. Doing a simple test to see if the machine is responding to movements and seeing if the machine heats up properly will let you know if everything is working correctly. You can then begin printing or testing your machine depending on your use case.

So is this mod worth doing? Well that would depend on your use case as always. If you are using this machine for client work where security would be an issue, or you’re troubleshooting something on your machine, then I would consider this modification a must. If you are however already used to using the creality cloud even if they don’t respect content creators works then perhaps it isn’t necessary. You can still use the SD card reader which is appreciated, however you may run into unforeseen issues because of the integration of the Wifi box. So although I can see how it could be beneficial to some people, I personally would have preferred that it wasn’t included in the CR10 Smart. Once I’m done testing this machine, I will most likely be removing the Creality Wifi Box entirely unless I can find a proper use case for the device.

CR-10 Smart + Pro Version – How to Update the Firmware

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.

CR10 V3 – Safety Mod

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.

CR-30 Review – 3DPrintMill – How Good is It?

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to another video. Today we’ll be at taking a closer look at the CR30 by Creality and find out how this machine performs or who this might be designed for. Now, full disclaimer before we begin. I purchased this machine with my own money and was not paid to do this video, so everything you see here will be based on my own opinion. I bought this machine during the initial Kickstarter and received it a couple of months ago, however in order to properly test its performance I created a large scale project just for this machine. You will seem more about that project in a latter video.

Now, this machine is amongst the heaviest I’ve owned yet, so you’ll need to make sure that it’s on a solid surface when you set it up. This printer does require some additional setup because of the design, however, this process is made easier thanks to the included video tutorial. I did find that the tutorial was well-made and covered the assembly quite thoroughly, and this does seem to be a positive trend amongst more and more companies.

In order to use this machine, you’re going to need to use at least 1 of two options. The first is the “Creality Belt” software that comes with the printer. The second option is to use the Blackbelt printing software, which can be customized to fit this machine. All testing was done using the provided software in this case, since it has been custom designed with additional features. The biggest issue that I encountered was the performance of the software itself. In this case I had to disable some extra plugins to increase the performance, however, there were still significant delays when loading up files. In this particular case, I had created a large project which was designed to test the printing for an extended period of time. However, in order to load just one piece, it would take up to 30 mins and took even longer to properly slice the file. The same files loading in Cura took a fraction of the amount of time to load. The workaround I found was to slice the files individually and then recombined the G code to better leverage the printer’s ability to continuously print files. To do this, you open up the sliced files that you want to combine and copy and paste all the code above the end G-code text. You’ll repeat this process until you’ve combined all your files together. Once this is completed, you can then delete the extra End G-code that you don’t need. When printing identical pieces, I didn’t run into any issues using the integrated copy function.

Now, this machine does have a couple of important things you need to do prior to actually printing with the device. The first thing we’ll do is condition the belt. I didn’t know this was an issue until I was getting continuously failed prints when fully utilizing the build plate. To do this, you’ll turn on the machine, and raise the hot end up so that you have full access to the belt. You’ll then take a rag and rub some isopropyl alcohol into the surface while moving the Z-height forwards. This helps to remove the coating which is on the belt when it first comes with the printer. The second thing we’ll do is replace bowden tube with a Capricorn one, since heat creep is a very serious issue with this particular device. To do this, you’ll remove the spacer holding the pneumatic connectors in a locked position and press down on the locking mechanism to release the tubing. This can sometimes be difficult to remove, so be careful not to damage the teeth inside. Now I did test the thermal runaway protection on this machine, so I can confirm that it’s functioning properly, however I did find out that the terminals have tinned connections which will need to be replaced. I will go through that process in more detail in a follow-up video.

I did find that this machine required the filament be heated above 210 degrees, otherwise I would often have adhesion issues. For my machine I set the fan speeds to 100 % making sure to set the second one to the same value. The initial fan speed was set to 0 to ensure a better, successful first layer. Now, although my very first prints looked promising, I soon began running into issues once I reached around 2 weeks of continuous operation. My prints started going from a nice, clean print to a very rough surface. In my case, this was due to the bowden tube experiencing heat creep, which in turn caused the opening to shrink and prevented a consistent flow of filament. It was at this stage that I had to switch to a Capricorn tubing. It was also during this time that I began experiencing issues with prints not sticking to the bed, which is when I decided to a thorough cleaning to remove any residue that might be on the belt.

This printer came with a steel feeler gauge, which I highly recommend you use when levelling the print bed. This provided me which a much higher accuracy and is what I’ve since switched to for all my printers. When you do this, however, you need to make sure to raise the print head the same value as the thickness of the measuring tool, otherwise it will create an excess distance which can cause print failures. When levelling the bed I would bring the front build plate all the way down first followed by levelling the back of the build plate which was right underneath the hot end. Afterwards, I would raise the front up slightly, ensuring that I had even tension across the build plate. I would finish this up with a last calibration of the back potion to make sure that everything was still levelled closer to the hot end.

Something to keep in mind is that I had to play around with the filament run out detector to get it so that it was aligned more to the extruder. I ended up tilting it slightly upwards, which relived quite a bit of the pressure on the filament when travelling through the extruder. Likewise, I had to adjust the bowden tube since it was getting caught onto the machine. For this, I used a simple zip tie to help hold it in a better location.

With the test prints completed, these were my results. Now it has been mentioned by other users and other 3d printing channels that the stepper motors on the top have very little support, and I’ve since ordered a replacement kit from Repcord to address this issue. When I first assembled this printer, I can say that it was a large concern to me and when doing some research, my concerns did seem warranted. For the testing of this machine, however, I did not use this modification as yet but will be following this up with another video tutorial.

So what is my verdict in the end? Well, it’s going to depend on what you are doing. If you are producing large parts on a consistent basis then this is a great machine to add to your collection of tools, however it does require more work and experience to become familiar with it. I will definitely say that this isn’t a beginner machine. Levelling in itself is far more complicated than your standard machine, and there are quite a few upgrades which I would consider mandatory out of the box. So for a beginner I would rate this machine as a 4/10 since they are less likely to want to do any of the necessary changes. From a production standpoint this is a great asset to have, and the rating is quite different with an 8/10 rating. The main thing that hurts this machine most is the lack of support for the stepper motors and the bowden tube, which really should have come with a Capricorn one instead. The software is currently quite limiting, and I highly recommend that Cura actually begins supporting this style of printer, since I do expect this type of machine to become more common in small manufacturing scenarios. So although I still think that this machine does require some well needed improvements, I do believe that they’re on the right track, and I’m looking forwards to a future alteration of this design.

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