My creality 4.2.7 board just crapped out. Suggestions for an upgrade?
Running an ender 5 and while my board technically works fine, the USB socket popped off and despite my best efforts the joint holders are too damaged to solder a new one.
I mean maybe it's about time, I had lost the original config file anyways. Does anyone have an idea of what's "good" these days? Not really looking to spend more than $200 if I can help it
I did a board swap on my mk3s with one of those, other than doing a few connector changes perfect replacement and they're really reasonably priced. Steppers run way quiter as well which is another benefit
Recently I fell in love with RepRap firmware (e.g. Duet3D) due to the simplicity of setting it up and modifying things with macros. RepRap boards include Duet 3 offerings and it's china clones.
If you want a drop-in replacement the BigTreeTech SKR mini E3 is a great option.
Want to upgrade to klipper? BigTreeTech Manta E3EZ. In addition to the controller/mainboard, a CB1 or any other Raspberry Pi CM4-compatible module is required.
There is also the Makerbase/MKS Skipr but I don't have first-hand experience with this board. Upside it's cheaper as it has the Rockchip RK3228 for klipper on board.
Have you tried RepRep 3.5 RC3? I don't know why but the config is messed up. For some reason, the home command thinks it's a cartesian printer instead of a core xy even though M667 S1 is configured.
You are fine with the current options you had with the creality board, maybe activate auto-bed levelling
Go the SKR way as other have mentionned
You want to get the most of your printer with Resonance Compensation (the next best thing for surface quality)
Go check klipper I have it on all my machine. You'd need a board like @emilie mentions or a basic board + a full raspi (Zero 2 if no cam)
Duet3D may be doing it too but I'm not knowledgeable on their solutions.
This was a very confusing comment I'll be honest, I wasn't talking about bed levelling or surface quality my man. My board is no longer able to connect to octoprint through USB so I'm looking to upgrade it
The board you chose will limit what you can do due to memory space limitations or raw power.
The original ender 5 board didn't had enough memory to activate auto bed leveling without removing other things.
In this world we have 3 firmware usable I know of:
Marlin: firmware of original ender5
klipper: must run on a raspberry pi linked to a motherboard (or tweaks with cm4 and compatible boards)
Duet3d (reprap) firmware.
The board you choose will limit the firmware you will use that will limit what you can do with it.
Take a look to what resonance compensation is by example. I'm not sure it's available on Marlin due to lack of raw power of the boards.
But with kipper firmware offloaded to the pi, with a compatible board, you can unlock resonance compensation that gives a way better finish to your prints and easier config changes like Reprap (duet3d)
You can simply do a USB breakout board and mount anywhere. It is just 4 wires and far less work than wiring a new board. It's cool if you just want the project. Printed circuit boards are way easier than complex wiring, but for the most part they offer very little advantage over point to point wiring.
If you can hold a hot pencil without touching the tip and glue stuff together with low temp metal just by touching things together, you can solder. Break apart any old switching power supply, break the tiny transformer and unwind it for the thin enameled copper wire. Scrape the enamel off with a razor blade carefully until the whole tip wets with solder. This can attach to any remaining thin traces on the PCB. Scrape the solder mask off the traces until you have bare copper and solder the wires. It is super simple. You can print an extra mount attachment for the breakout board to hold it securely inside, outside, or in a new location entirely.
I do this for all of my routers on my network. I add a USB to serial converter and breakout the UART serial connection so that it is easy for me to flash or monitor the logs from the bootloader through to initialization of the OS. It is not hard to do this.