Solidoodle3 firmware unveiled (Page 1 of 2)

They used the Marlin Beta firmware, and not the current firmware from their own Github.  Aside from the wrong E steps, it also won't Home Y and has a couple other bugs that the Marlin folks fixed ages ago.  So if you have an SD3 don't download the firmware from the Solidoodle site, it won't work.

Regarding my not printing in center problem ,ya think the firmware would fix that?

I had set X,0 and Y,0 as home when it needed to be X, 205 and Y,200.

No to new firmware , I try what he did.

I can offer some insight to what ships on the SD3's - Judging by the Date Strings in the firmware, and the Github repository thats listed, it would seem my SD3 (Serial# 3018, Mid-Feb Ship date) had the previous 'most recent' lawsy firmware on it.

I've just pulled my 644p and replaced it with a 1284p using the latest (>24th Feb) firmware from Lawsy.
If anyone wants, I could pull a .hex dump from my 644p if needed (its now 'archived' in my IC's box...)

Solidoodle has the official firmware for the SD3 available for download (http://www.solidoodle.com/how-to-2/how- … -firmware/). I had a look at it to see what makes it different from the very nicely updated SD2 firmware (from Lawsy) that most of us are using. This is what I found:

1) the firmware is based on a (relatively) ancient Marlin version from December 2011
2) The only changes are in configuration.h and pins.h, and most of these are in common with the "old" SD2 firmware that is also available for download on their webpage (but deprecated, as they suggest using Lawsy's firmware).
3) These are the only relevant changes that I found (with my annotations):

#define INVERT_Z_DIR true //was false
#define Z_HOME_DIR 1 // was -1

maybe these two settings null each other in the end... It seems strange to me that SD2 and SD3 have different designs in this respect

#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT   {88,88,384,691} // was 88,88,2268,138 

This is the most puzzling change. The old SD2 code had the comment "Z 384 for Kysan Leas Screw Motor, 2560 for M8 Thread". So it seems to mean that the SD3 is using a Kysan Motor with a very different number of steps per revolution. And also the extruder motor seems to have 5x the steps per unit. But this is very inconsistent with the reports of people successfully using the current Marlin firmware with SD3, as such a miscalibration would have gigantic effects in the functionality of the machine.

There are also some temperature limits redefined, but nothing really impacting the functionality.

I don't have a SD3 to test any of these assumptions, so I would like some feedback from the community about their experience. Who is using the stock firmware with SD3? Who tried to upgrade? If you happen to own both a SD2 and a SD3, do you notice major differences in motors and other components (eg placement of the Z endstop...). The final goal would be to have a unified (and up-to-date) firmware for both machines, with all the newest mods and additions.

I'm working on it and I'm really one small step from completing it, but of course I need some insight on how SD3 works!

The good news is that if you are using the SD2 firmware on your SD3, and you don't notice any major problem, then you are probably fine since anything that could happen would be very well visible.

solidoodlesupport wrote:

I hope you realize this wasn't the intended firmware. We've made mistakes in the past, but we aren't that silly.

I've made the link reflect the correct firmware.

Thanks. We did realize it after the initial puzzlement, so I guess you were lucky that in the meantime nobody tried to flash their SD3 with the file you provided.