How to Update/Install AnyCubic Chiron Firmware
Learning how to update/install AnyCubic Chiron Firmware is essential if you are interested in getting newer and greater features for your printer. These features serve to make your 3D printing process easier and help deliver quality work.
Although the AnyCubic Chiron printer produces fantastic stock and is a great printer for its price, firmware with better improvements and additional features has been customized and optimized for the printer. This article will show you the best options of firmware to use, and how to install them.
The AnyCubic Chiron Marlin 2.0.x Firmware
This firmware can be found on GitHub, created by a 3D printing community enthusiast “Coolio986”. It is the newest version of the Marlin Firmware, customized and optimized for the AnyCubic Chiron, and based on the creator’s Marlin 2.0.x repository.
There are so many benefits to using this firmware, some of which are:
- The Manual Mesh Bed leveling feature helps the printer generate a mesh of the flatness of the bed and compensates for it on the Z-axis for perfect prints without having to level with the screws.
- The use of PID control for a much more efficient bed heating. It is highly recommended for printing ABS as it uses less power and holds the temperature at a steady level.
- Fixed fairly loud fans.
- The addition of Linear Advance, S-Curve Acceleration, and some adjustments on jerk and acceleration for better print quality.
- Thermal runaway protection reduces the risk of fire by detecting a faulty or misaligned thermistor.
- The ability to test the firmware with a single Gcode command without having to slice and upload custom bed leveling tests.
- The ability to adjust bed leveling settings via “ADVANCE SETTING”.
- An auto PID tune or mesh bed leveling via the special menu can now be easily started.
- The filament change feature is enabled i.e. you can switch colors/materials mid-print and control it via the display.
- The filament runout, pause and stop functionality have been overhauled and improved such that the hotend now parks and retracts, on pause or stop, and purges automatically on resuming.
Although this particular offers a wide range of features and benefits, there are also some known issues that you might experience if you decide to upload it to your printer. Some of these are the non-inclusion of power outage support, the estimated print times from your slicer being slightly off, and the freezing of the file menu in the presence of special characters on any file or folders name on the SD card.
To avoid the last issue, you can just remove or replace every special character, including the default one on the SD card that comes with the printer, like Chinese, Arabic, Russian, accents, German, Scandinavian, etc, from the name. Other symbols like dashes or underscores can be left in place as they pose no problem whatsoever.
How to Install the AnyCubic Chiron Marlin 2.0.x Firmware
- Download and install Arduino IDE
- Clone or download this firmware repository
- Browse into the Marlin folder and run Marlin.ino
- In the IDE, under Tools -> Board, select Genuino Mega 2560 and ATmega2560
- Open Marlin.ino in the Marlin directory of this firmware repository.
- Customize if needed: For stock motor directions, look at comments for INVERT_X_DIR, INVERT_Y_DIR, INVERT_Z_DIR, INVERT_E0_DIR, and INVERT_E1_DIR definitions in Configuration.h and For stock motor type, look at comments for X_DRIVER_TYPE, Y_DRIVER_TYPE, Z_DRIVER_TYPE, Z2_DRIVER_TYPE, E0_DRIVER_TYPE, and E1_DRIVER_TYPE definitions in Configuration.h
- In the IDE, select Tools -> Port and select the port.
- Click Upload.
OR
- Under Sketch, select Export compiled binary
- Look for the ‘.hex’ file in the Marlin directory. Be sure to only use the Marlin.ino.hex, an not the Marlin.ino.with_bootleader.hex
- Flash the hex with Cura, OctoPrint, etc.
- Use a tool with a terminal like OctoPrint, Pronterface, Repetier Host, etc, to send commands to your printer.
The TH3D AnyCubic Chiron Firmware/Unified 2 Firmware
Created by the TH3D, this firmware works only with the use of TH3D’s Chiron LCD Upgrade kit as the stock LCD is not supported because of the limitations with its closed source firmware. To get the kit, simply go to the AnyCubic Chiron LCD Upgrade Kit- TH3D Studio LLC website.
The TH3D also recommends that you download the Unified 2 STL pack too, here, as it has features like EZABL mounts, Gantry leveling Blocks, Solid bed mounts, and Bed Level test files.
How to Install the TH3D Firmware
- After which you must have gotten your USB cable ready, as these printers update over the USB cable from your PC to the printer, download the firmware.
- Extract the files to a folder on your computer once downloaded.
- Open the folder labeled “Firmware” in VSCode.
- Open the Configuration.h file. It is located under the “Marlin” folder on the left side of the VSCode screen.
- In the Configuration.h file, uncomment (remove the 2/ in front of #define) the CHIRON line and any other options you are going to use in the firmware.
- Click the ‘check’ mark at the bottom of VSCode to compile the firmware. Depending on the speed of your computer and internet connection, it may take 1-5 minutes for the firmware to compile.
- Once the build succeeds, plug in your printer to your computer with the USB cable.
- Then, click the arrow pointing to the right to upload to the printer board. Ensure that all slicers or other programs that connect to your printer board are closed before trying to upload to your printer.
- The firmware will upload to the printer board over USB. Avoid unplugging the printer or resetting your computer during this stage as interrupting the flashing can “brick” your board. If this happens, you will need to reflash the bootloader with a programmer like an Arduino UNO before you can flash again.
- The TH3D logo will appear on your LCD when the printer boots. Be sure to reset your EEPROM on your printer after flashing any firmware.
Conclusion
For the latest and greatest features to give your 3D printing process more quality and ease, you can always choose to update/install your AnyCubic Chiron Firmware to any of the options listed above. You can also explore more firmware and support on GitHub, Youtube, Reddit, etc.
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