# Installing The printer's own updater does the work: one file on a FAT32 stick, plugged in at power-on. No jailbreak, no soldering, no opening the case, no ssh. --- ## What to have ready Before you flash anything: - [ ] **The stock FlashForge package for your model, downloaded and to hand.** It is the undo button: copy it to a stick and flash it, and the printer is back to how it was. That is the only recovery step needing nothing but a USB port — no ssh, no screen. The stock packages are published at [ghzserg/FF](https://github.com/ghzserg/FF/releases). - [ ] **Your printer's model and firmware version**, both from Settings → About. A package for the other model is refused, and so is a printer on FlashForge firmware older than **1.9.6** — see [Your printer's firmware has to be 1.9.6 or newer](#your-printers-firmware-has-to-be-196-or-newer) below. A package for the other model is not a valid recovery image either. - [ ] **The printer's IP address**, and a machine that can reach it. - [ ] Time to stand at the machine. The first print after a flash is not something to start and walk away from. Whatever stick you use: FAT32, with the package at the **root** of it, not in a folder. --- ## Which file do I need **Creator 5 and Creator 5 Pro are not interchangeable.** The printer refuses a package built for the other model — the most common reason a flash "does nothing" — so pick the file whose name matches your machine on the [Releases page](https://github.com/Klipper4FlashForge/firmware/releases): | Your printer | The file | |---|---| | Creator 5 | `Creator5-anvil-.tgz` | | Creator 5 Pro | `Creator5Pro-anvil-.tgz` | Not sure which you have? On the printer: **Settings → About**. --- ## Your printer's firmware has to be 1.9.6 or newer Check **Settings → About** on the printer. If the firmware version there starts with anything below 1.9.6, install FlashForge's own current firmware first — Reforge will not install until you do. The reason is the board firmware. On those older releases the boards inside the printer speak a different dialect to the one Reforge's Klipper expects, and the printer comes up with no motion and no screen at all. Rather than let that happen, the flash stops and tells you, and the printer boots as it did before: The printer's screen after a refused flash: Reforge, not installed, update FlashForge firmware first, then flash this again. Needs 1.9.6 or newer. Nothing was changed. FlashForge's own package updates the boards for you. Download the one for your model: | Your printer | FlashForge 1.9.7 | |---|---| | Creator 5 | [`Creator5-1.9.7-1.2.9-20260810.tgz`](https://github.com/ghzserg/FF/releases/download/R/Creator5-1.9.7-1.2.9-20260810.tgz) | | Creator 5 Pro | [`Creator5Pro-1.9.7-1.2.9-20260810.tgz`](https://github.com/ghzserg/FF/releases/download/R/Creator5Pro-1.9.7-1.2.9-20260810.tgz) | It installs exactly the way Reforge does — stick in, power on, wait — so the steps below work for it too. Let it finish and reboot, check Settings → About again, then flash Reforge. Keep that file. It is also the undo button: flashing it puts the printer back to stock whenever you want it back. --- ## The flash 1. **Format a USB stick as FAT32.** Not exFAT, not NTFS. 2. **Copy the file for your model to the root of the stick.** Not in a folder. Leave the name exactly as it is — the printer looks for that pattern. 3. **Power the printer off.** 4. **Plug the stick in and power the printer on.** It finds the package by itself and starts installing. The screen tells you to wait while it works; this takes a few minutes. Do not cut the power. 5. **Wait for the beep.** The printer sounds when the install has finished. 6. **Reboot manually.** Turn the power switch on the right side of the printer, near the power cable, off and on again. 7. **Pull the stick** once it has rebooted — your root password is on it, in `anvil-password.txt`. The boot after that one is the long one, and it is the mod's rather than FlashForge's: a progress bar on a plain screen, for a minute or two, before HelixScreen appears. [What the first boot does](#what-the-first-boot-does) says what is happening behind it. --- ## What the first boot does The first boot after a flash is longer than the ones after it, and the screen shows a progress bar rather than HelixScreen for most of it. What you'll see, partway through and at the end: Boot screen: Reforge is starting and reading factory calibration Boot screen: Reforge startup complete Two things happen that happen only once: * **Your machine's factory calibration comes across.** The dock and nozzle positions measured for your printer at the factory are copied into Klipper's own configuration, so it starts from its own numbers rather than from nothing. You do not have to do anything for this. * **A root password is chosen**, and written to the stick. See below. Do not cut the power during the first boot. While that copy is being saved is the one moment where an interrupted boot can cost you the factory numbers. --- ## Your root password The first install picks a random root password for your printer and writes it to `anvil-password.txt` on the stick you flashed from. Read it, save it somewhere safe, and delete the file from the stick. * If the stick is not writable, no password is set at all — the install log says so. * Later updates keep whatever password the printer already has, including one you have changed yourself. The stick gets a password exactly once. Check that `ssh root@` works before you go any further. That shell is how you get in when the screen is dark, and it is worth confirming while everything is still fine. --- ## What it changes on the printer Nothing you have to configure. The package brings its own Klipper additions and config files with it and wires them up itself, so the printer comes up working. **Your `printer.cfg` is preserved** across every flash and update. One narrow hardware migration removes FlashForge's `[output_pin DC24V_CTL]`, because the mod-owned base config replaces it with `[heater_fan dc24v_ctl]` on the same pin. Your other settings and `SAVE_CONFIG` data are left in place. The first flash does copy it. Reforge keeps its Klipper config in a directory of its own, `/usr/data/anvil-data/config`, and seeds it once with your `printer.cfg` and the config files beside it, calibration and all. That copy is the live one from then on; FlashForge's `/usr/data/config` is left untouched, which is what lets you flash back to stock cleanly. If you ever edit `printer.cfg` by hand, edit the one in `/usr/data/anvil-data/config`. Then work through [Your first print](first-print.md), in order, with the emergency stop within reach: it starts with the checks that say whether the flash went well.