I’ve been so occupied for the whole year I’ve not had even time to think about the whole Snapmaker 2 I own.
Things are looking brighter now.
So, time to blow dusts off.
What’s the currently best working firmware?
I have a half dismantled device as my platform was bad and it got changed. I changed that and before I had time to put the enclosure and all back together, the “rush season” kicked in with too little of free time.
So I have to test drive the new platform and the device requires most likely newer firmware.
Also, as this is the “original” A350… what else should I know nowadays?
The later firmwares fix a known issue with bed leveling coordinates so you certainly want one of the last two I think. I am on latest, haven’t had any weird head in bed moments since moving to it, did on earlier firmwares…
I’ve been holding off on updates ever since that one back in spring hosed the wifi.
The new firmware updates requiring flashing all three toolheads, correct? And presumably the machine has to be recalibrated after (bed level, extrusion steps, linear advance k-factor)?
Yeah that is the case for any firmware upgrade, but I thought the values for these areas (OK maybe not the extruder steps) had changed? Or at least, the old values couldn’t be relied upon to still be valid after the update for the toolheads is applied.
As you can see I’m trying to psyche myself up for doing the upgrade, by coming up with every possible reason not to
In general that may be true to be conservative, but lets evaluate each one of the ones you listed.
bed level: Height is tied to axis steps/mm and physical hardware. Verify after the upgrade by slowly commanding the nozzle closer and closer to the bed, should be able to visually tell it won’t crash when it’s hovering about 1mm above the surface of the bed and the screen reads a Z height of 1mm. The bed mesh won’t change between firmware upgrades, but due to the change in how the probe measures you may see a more accurate mesh if you recalibrate.
extrusion steps (and all axis steps/mm): Determined by the geometry of the toolhead extruder gear and linear modules, will not change with a firmware upgrade.
linear advance k-factor: tied to the firmware implementation of linear advance and the geometry of the toolhead and filament used. No changes to linear advance in the firmware have happened in years and years (all pre-snapmaker) and you are not changing toolhead or filament with the firmware upgrade.
Aright aright, you’ve convinced me. When I’m done with the prints for this roll, I’ll grit my teeth and do the firmware upgrade. Maybe even set aside time to dial in some PLA+ once test-prints for the current filament check out OK.
Before the recent bout of prints (better basement drain covers at 34 hours apiece), I was explaining to a neighbor why I haven’t been using the machine much: “I thought I was getting a machine that will print out plastic parts. Instead, I am caring for an invalid whose poop is occasionally worth saving.”
It’s actually pretty well-behaved at the moment, though. Only two failed prints this week, not counting the print-the-first-layer-to-verify-the-measurements discards.
Funny, I’ve been printing straight for 3 months… only errors I’ve had are generated by my inexperience. Multiple full bed prints, TPU, sparkly stuff… no issues beyond me screwing up an orientation here and there or not using supports correctly.
