I am attempting to update the firmware on my AO-100.
I am using the instructions I found here.
Everything’s going fine until I get to the step “Open the Arduino IDE and open Marlin.ino”.
The problem is there is no file called “Marlin.ino” in the firmware archive (Marlin.tar.bz2) downloaded for the AO-100.
Can a Lulzbot representative advise on how to proceed?
You need to install a program capable of opening the archive file. 7-Zip should be able to open it. It’s compressed twice so you might have to uncompress it twice to get into it. Once you have it open, extract it all to a folder and you should see the marlin.ino file.
If you can’t locate it, let me know I probably have an extracted copy around somewhere. Which modifications are you doing that require a firmware update?
Hi piercet.
I am not having any problems extracting the archive. But there is no file called “Marlin.ino” in there. The contents of the archive for the AO-100 firmware are shown here. There is no “Marlin.ino”. There is a “Marlin.ino” in the archive for the AO-101 firmware (contents shown here). Maybe I can use that one?
I’m updating because I want to change the steps per unit for the extruder. I measured it and found it was off a bit. Also I want to enable the EEPROM settings.
There are a couple of differences with the AO-101, which are actually very useful to have on the machine. The main difference is the 16 tooth pulleys on X and Y in place of the 24 tooth ones that were stock on the AO-100. Thats definitly a worthwhile upgrade, as it prevents a pretty major layer shift mid print issue. If you swap those out, you should be able to use the AO-101 firmware. The board is different, a Rambo instead of a RAMPS, but the overall firmware and pinout should be the same.
The AO-100 firmware is an older version. One of the files in there when opened will generate the ino file the first time you try to use it in the Arduino environment. It’s been a long time since I last played with the firmware on my AO-100 though, It might be the main something.h or something.c file
I tried opening the file Marlin.h in the Arduino IDE and it opened and everything looked OK. So I went ahead and uploaded it to the printer (after saying a Hail Mary). Everthing seems to have gone OK. I haven’t printed anything yet but have moved stuff aroung using pronterface and everything seems ok. With the EEPROM enabled I now have 2 way communication with the printer in pronterface. I have used that to update the steps-per-unit for the extruder (the extruder had been way of, only extruding 86mm when instructed to extrude 100mm).
Thanks again piercet. I remember you also helped me with a project last year.
If anyone from Lulzbot sees this I think you should update the instructions here to reflect that the Marlin.ino file is not included in the AO-100 firmware archive. As they are the instructions are confusing (if you’re trying to flash to an AO-100) and can lead to wasting a lot of time and possibly flashing the wrong firmware to your printer.
You’re welcome! glad you got it working!