Does Cura Brick Ultimaker Original Printers Now?

[jnelson33 0]

Hello All,

 

I thought I was going to get to 3D printing tonight, and just like any printer that hasn't been used in a few years and was updated, it's now non-functional. When I set up the printer from storage, the power switch was already on, so it just powered on right away, but that should affect what I'm about to explain. I think it probably just jumped too far up on this update and now is corrupted.

 

So, I downloaded the latest Cura as any sane person would do, went through the normal motions of installing, and then checked for firmware and then proceeded to update. The firmware said it installed, and then the screen started showing letters in every other place holder on the screen. I specifically remember Q changing to q, starting from the top and then proceeding like reading in the Western world.

 

Cura has destroyed all functionality of the printer now, and it seems like no one has had this issue, or that UMO support articles are just getting scrubbed. I get that the printer is old, but the Makerbot Replicator 1 world has literally 1000X the articles for things like this, so am I just unlucky?

 

I even tried that Marlin firmware builder, flashed it through Cura, etc. and that did not change anything with respect to the screen displaying correctly.

 

The screen just displays as shown in the attached image. I don't think we've used this printer in 3 years, but it printed last time and now all I hear is my Dad's lesson of, "This is why you don't do updates."

 

Why can I not solve my own problem by just being able to download the literal original version of the firmware? Ultimaker, c'mon...

[Curven 28]

Was your printer working before you tried to update the firmware?

Long term storage can cause some memories and other electronics component to get corrupted, so it could be that this default is not related to your attempt to update the firmware.

[jnelson33 0]

When taken out of storage, the printer's power switch was in the "ON" position and it did power on and display the typical home screen once connected back to power.

 

What you said about electronics being stored for a long time has me wondering if that's why Texas Instruments' graphing calculators used to have watch batteries on their control boards, in addition to the normal power source batteries. Still, that can't be mitigated this day in age?!

 

I would really just love to get the firmware that came with the printer to try, or some sort of script that can rewrite the board if it's not actually damaged: Probably a gamble here.

[Curven 28]

It could be related to that, some type of memories get corrupted if they aren't powered during many years... 

You can try to "build" your firmware on this website:

https://bultimaker.bulles.eu/

 

I have seen links to this page on this forum before and did use it, it is a good firmware, very close to the original one.

[nallath 1,123]

You can find all the firmware hexes that cura uses here: https://github.com/Ultimaker/cura-binary-data/tree/master/cura/resources/firmware

There isn't an active attempt to brick any UMO's or anything. I guess it's just that moving from one system to another (we recently moved from home built / default cms system to zendesk) that older support articles simply didn't get as much priority.

The UMO also hasn't had any firmware updates in a while now, so as a rule of thumb, updating it really isn't needed.

[jnelson33 0]

I've built the Marlin firmware as mentioned originally, to no avail.

 

Which firmware update is most original in the provided list?

[Curven 28]

2 hours ago, jnelson33 said:

I've built the Marlin firmware as mentioned originally, to no avail.

 

Which firmware update is most original in the provided list?

 

Oh sorry I missed that line... 

So I'm out of my limited knowledge... to me it seems like your main board is dead but maybe there is a way to recover it...

 

Ultimaker mainboards are quite expensive so I went for an other solution...

 

On my old UMO I am changing the manboard to a SKR v1.3 (the 1.4 is out now). But it requires quite a bit of work to get the connectors to match, and I need to configure my own marlin 2.0.x.

It is definitively no easy and fast solution.

[jnelson33 0]

@nallath Is there a best firmware to try?

[nallath 1,123]

The latest umo one on the repository that I linked should be fine.

[jnelson33 0]

@nallath None of those files can be downloaded, it's just a bunch of lines of what I'm guessing is firmware code. I don't get why none of those hex files cannot be downloaded.

[tinkergnome 927]

9 hours ago, jnelson33 said:

@nallath None of those files can be downloaded, it's just a bunch of lines of what I'm guessing is firmware code. I don't get why none of those hex files cannot be downloaded.

 

@jnelson33

GitHub behaves a bit special when it comes to download individual files...

 

The easiest way is:

- navigate to the main page of the repository (https://github.com/Ultimaker/cura-binary-data)

- click on "Clone"

- download the whole content as a zip file

 

Alternative:

- click on "Go to file"

- right click on a single file and download it with the appropriate browser function ("Save target as..." in Firefox)

 

(there are probably even more alternative ways, dunno)

 

[jnelson33 0]

@nallath will any of the white motherboards work as a direct replacement for a wood UMO, or do I need to get  a specific version?