Anycubic I3 Mega firmware restoring

There is always an easy solution, just don't give up! 

Did you mess up with your Anycubic I3 Mega's firmware? And maybe you tried to load a customized firmware and now CURA can’t detect the printer?

Don't worry there is a very easy solution to recover it to the original state.


NOTICE:

Please read carefully and check that this post is for you before you do anything!

USE AT OWN RISK IM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY KIND OF DAMAGE.

This is a solution for the ANYCUBIC I3 MEGA, pictures are provided to make sure you are dealing with the right hardware and software.

This post can be useful for other kind of hardware and firmware, you just need to know the main idea to apply it for your machine.

I own a “Anycubic I3 Mega” for few years now, and use it very rarely. A few weeks ago, I decided to upgrade the firmware without reading much about the machine and what trouble people are facing. I was thinking that maybe there is some upgrade or optimization for the machine (later I found that this version is not anymore supported).



We will discuss about the machine in the picture above, PLEASE notice in the right side, the LOGO with the circles, the left side a logo with a bot like Iron-man, the leveling detector near the printing head, It’s important!

 

I went to Anycubic website looking for my machine, and from the list I see only one option for me “Anycubic Mega”, without checking the picture, where you can see the M letter in the front right of the machine(picture below). That makes a big difference. I downloaded the firmware and didn’t notice what happen until I tried to print with it again.

This firmware v1.1.5 is for the M not for the older machines.


What happen is, the leveling option stopped working, when you press Level button nothing happens, and the Z-axis is worst, when the limit switch is pressed (this machine has only one limit switch for the Z-axis ), the stepper near the switch continue to run and the other Z-axis stepper from the other side stops.

After the wrong firmware loaded to the machine (Using UltiMaker CURA), the machine was still detectable by CURA, but after loading an optimized firmware from github, not from Anycubic, now the machine is not detected by CURA.

I will not describe how you can upload the firmware using CURA in details, because there is many places where you can find that steps, and also this doesn’t need the machine to be opened, just plug the USB to the machine, connect it to your PC, open CURA(if you have the driver and everything already installed) CURA will detect the machine, and the button to upload the firmware will be active, just choose the HEX file from here and upload it that’s all, no need for the next steps, just make sure that the board is Trigorilla 1.0 with the two green capacitors 1000uF like this:




I will describe only the case where the machine is not anymore detectable by CURA.

  • First turn off the machine and remove the power plug from the socket
  • Open the bottom cover of the machine, and without unplugging anything, look at this jumper that has 3 pins, the jumper is connecting the middle pin with the DC pin, change that by unplugging the jumper and connect the middle pin with the USB pin as shown by yellow


The firmware is the same as above, from here: https://rajawali3d.com/downloads/

The last step is to load the firmware to the arduino, yes! the mainboard for the Anycubic is an arduino Mega 2560 made specially for the printer.

The last step is to upload the HEX file and the below is some suggestions, but please scan anything you download from internet before you execute it. I used xLoader to solve my problem, and just after download it I scan it and I found a possible Trojan on it, so I used an old PC for that, the other suggestions I didn't verify, you have to make sure that you will not repair the machine and spoil your PC.

  • If you know a software that is safe, that can load the HEX file to the board would be better.
  • Here is a way on how to upload the HEX file from the command line if you have the Arduino IDE already installed: https://www.aranacorp.com/en/generating-and-uploading-hex-files-to-an-arduino/
  • Other suggestion here:https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/60599/how-can-i-upload-a-hex-file-to-an-arduino-uno


But I used the xLoader:

 from GitHub that do the job, but look what the antivirus online found on it:


I don’t know really is it a trojan or just a wrong flag, but PLEASE if you decide to download it, you know already! And I’m not responsible for any damage, nor I have any relation with this repo!

I plugged the USB cable to the printer and the machine and  I executed the xLoader on a very old PC with Windows XP that I don’t use, and this step didn't ask for any driver, the computer detected the USB and installed the correct driver for it.


USB to load the hex file to the printer

  • Execute the xLoader and follow the same steps described in the repo’s README.md
  • for the device choose ATmega2560
  • choose the right port from the list 
  • if you choose the wrong port an error message in the xLoader’s status bar will be displayed
  • For the Baud rate choose 115200
  • If the uploading is successful the xLoader will freeze, but you can see a yellow led blinking in the mainboard near the little red LED
  •  After the uploading finish, you will get a success message
  • the machine will restart and you will hear a beep, that’s it!

 

Just a suggestion to help, and as said above be responsible for your choices, I’m not responsible for any damage! If you have no old PC where you can safely execute the xLoader, you can do this using a Virtualbox, and make sure you disconnect the computer from internet, and after repairing your machine you can delete the Virtualbox. (I didn’t test this option, but just an idea)


Comments

Post a Comment