Oleksandr ShyshatskyiandClaude Opus 5
65a7528e09
The pages written on top of the old README inherited its premise: that after flashing you face a gauntlet -- go/no-go checks, a safety net, a mandatory calibration -- before the machine can be trusted with a model. That is not what happens. The factory numbers import themselves on the first boot, a bed mesh loads at the start of every print, and the mod is built to run the files the stock firmware ran. A printer that printed before the flash prints after it. "Your first print" now says so in its first line, and everything under it is optional, ordered by what you would actually reach for: check the offsets are applied, and calibrate only if that disagrees with the machine. Three audiences now, because owner and contributor was not the real split. "For experienced users" sits between them: How a print runs, and How calibration works. Someone who knows Klipper and wants to change what happens around their file has a place to go that is neither a walkthrough nor the build system. What was cut is most of what changed. Pages that were cryptic to the reader they were aimed at -- Printing, Upgrading -- are out of the nav and kept on disk to be rewritten rather than deleted. Within the pages that stayed: Expected output, Probe sampling, What is being measured, the symptom table, the dark-screen diagnosis, TOOL_Z_ADJUST, PLATE_CHECK, the ff-*.cfg inventory, [ff_legacy] and SAVE_CONFIG in a paragraph about factory calibration. Filenames and internals earn their place on an owner page only when the reader has to type them or look at them; the rest moved to the experienced pages or to Internals, where the audience wants them. Calibration became a section rather than a page, because tool offsets are not the only calibration: bed mesh has its own page now, and its own gotcha written down -- BED_MESH_CALIBRATE writes `default`, a print loads `MESH_DATA`, so a mesh probed by hand is a mesh no print will use. Input shaping is described but has no procedure page yet. Several claims came out because they were not true. "Is this for you" listed calibration and input shaping as things the mod gives you; both are the touchscreen's own sequences, recovered and reimplemented, and the notes say so plainly. What the mod actually gives you is that anything speaking Moonraker can drive the machine -- on stock, FlashForge's Klipper does not toolchange at all, it raises a flag and waits for an application that is not watching a Mainsail print, and the print hangs at the first T2. The page now opens by telling most owners not to flash it. Contributors are still deferred. Their pages are regrouped, not rewritten. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01S3XZh4SqPdXAowVndz6tMr
4.3 KiB
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.
- Your printer's model, from Settings → About. A package for the other model is refused, and it 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:
| Your printer | The file |
|---|---|
| Creator 5 | Creator5-anvil-<date>.tgz |
| Creator 5 Pro | Creator5Pro-anvil-<date>.tgz |
Not sure which you have? On the printer: Settings → About.
The flash
- Format a USB stick as FAT32. Not exFAT, not NTFS.
- 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.
- Power the printer off.
- 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.
- Wait for the beep. The printer sounds when the install has finished and the screen then offers to reboot. Accept it.
- 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 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. 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@<printer-ip> 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 never touched — not by this flash and not by any
update. It is your file, it is where your own settings go, and leaving it
alone is also part of why flashing back to stock works cleanly.
Then work through Your first print, in order, with the emergency stop within reach: it starts with the checks that say whether the flash went well.