creator5-custom-firmware

Custom firmware for the FlashForge Creator 5 and Creator 5 Pro.

It installs the way a normal FlashForge update does: copy one file to a USB stick, plug it in, power the printer on. No jailbreak, no soldering, no opening the case, no ssh needed to get started — the printer's own updater does the work.

Packages are published on the Releases page — two files per release, one per model, deliberately marked pre-release for as long as the status below holds. Releases are tagged v<date>-<city>, each named for a Ukrainian city under occupation.

Unofficial and unaffiliated with FlashForge. It voids your warranty and you are responsible for your machine. Nothing here has been installed on a printer yet — see Status before you flash anything.

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Status

No package has been installed on a real printer yet. The build pipeline and the full test suite pass — including the end-to-end update test, where the package sits on a real FAT filesystem in a replica of the printer and the machine's own boot script finds it, installs it, and boots again with the mod running. That replica is the printer's real filesystem running its real binaries. It is still not a machine.

Have the stock package for your model on a spare stick before you begin.

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What you get

Mainsail in your browser	The full Klipper web interface at http://<printer-ip>/ — upload gcode, watch the print, tune on the fly. Moonraker comes with it, so anything that speaks the Klipper API works.
A shell on your printer	ssh as root. Dropbear is already running on stock firmware; this simply gives you a password you know. Every package -- the releases here included -- picks its own random root password on the first install and writes it to anvil-password.txt on your USB stick; read it there, then pull the stick. Updates keep the password the printer already has, so the stick sees it exactly once. Nothing crackable is shipped in the package. Build with ROOT_PW_HASH set (make passwd) to bake in a password of your own instead.
Real toolchanger Klipper	A current Klipper with proper tool-change support, replacing the 0.12-era tree FlashForge ships.
A current Moonraker	Replacing the 2022 build FlashForge ships, which is too old for today's Mainsail — with it, the camera panel never appears at all.
A modern touchscreen UI	HelixScreen replaces the stock interface on the printer's own screen.
Nothing you cannot undo	Flashing the stock FlashForge package restores every file the mod replaced, and the printer behaves as it did before — with one exception, Moonraker; see If something goes wrong.

How the mod hooks in — one file, firmwareExe, with the stock boot scripts, updater and recovery path left untouched — is docs/how-it-works.md.

What you give up

That one file is FlashForge's whole application, so anything that lived inside it rather than in a separate service goes with it:

• The FlashForge network API on :8898, and with it FlashPrint, Orca's FlashForge profile and the mobile app. Moonraker's API takes over, which is what Mainsail, OrcaSlicer's Klipper/Moonraker upload and Fluidd speak. Slice for the toolchanger and send it there instead.

The camera is not on that list, though the app did serve it: mjpg-streamer is already on the printer, unused, and this firmware simply starts it. The stream shows up in Mainsail as usual.

Flashing the stock package brings the API back.

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Which file do I need

Creator 5 and Creator 5 Pro are not interchangeable. Each package is built for one model and the printer refuses a package meant for the other, 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.

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How to flash

Before you start

• Check the model. A Creator5Pro- package will not install on a Creator 5 and vice versa; the printer refuses it outright, which is annoying rather than dangerous, but it is the most common reason a flash "does nothing".
• Put the stock FlashForge package for your model on a second stick, and keep it separate. That stick is the undo button — see If something goes wrong.
• Read docs/hardware-testing.md before the first flash: it has the go/no-go checks — what to look at after the flash, in what order, and what means stop.

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, shows the update screen and installs. This takes a few minutes.
5. Wait for it to reboot on its own, then pull the stick — your root password is on it, in anvil-password.txt.

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After the flash

Everything is on the printer's own address:

http://<printer-ip>/	Mainsail
http://<printer-ip>:7125	Moonraker's API — what slicers upload to
http://<printer-ip>/webcam/	the camera stream (mjpg-streamer on :8080)
ssh root@<printer-ip>	the shell — password from anvil-password.txt

Logs worth reading, all on the data partition and all surviving a reboot:

/usr/data/anvil-install.log      what the installer did
/usr/data/logs/anvil-boot.log    services + UI choice at each boot
/usr/data/logs/printer.log       klipper
/usr/data/logs/helixscreen.log   helixscreen

Then run the go/no-go checks in docs/hardware-testing.md, in order, with the emergency stop within reach.

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Before your first print: calibrate

Prints refuse to start on an uncalibrated toolchanger — by design. The sequence is short, and the first part of it may already have happened at boot; the status commands tell you.

1. Import your unit's factory calibration once, then persist it:

   FF_IMPORT_FIRMWARE_CONFIG
   SAVE_CONFIG
   

2. Take the PEI sheet off — the calibration station sits below the bed plane — then home and calibrate:

   STATION_CALIBRATE PLATE_REMOVED=1
   TOOL_OFFSET_CALIBRATE TOOL=ALL PLATE_REMOVED=1
   SAVE_CONFIG
   

3. TOOLCHANGE_STATUS and TOOL_OFFSET_STATUS — every tool should show a nozzle triple and a dock position, and nothing should say NOT CALIBRATED.

4. Check the Z offset against a sheet of paper before trusting a first layer — the Verify section shows the exact moves. If the nozzle presses into the plate, stop.

The full procedure — what each command does, what it refuses and why — is docs/toolchange.md. Two files under gcode/ are there for the first runs: creator5-safe-moves.gcode (cold, nothing below Z50) and then creator5-feature-test.gcode (the real thing, two tools).

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Slicer setup

OrcaSlicer, with the stock FlashForge profile left alone: START_PRINT is derived from the sliced file itself. The one field to touch is Change filament G-code, which must be cleared down to a bare Tn — the toolchanger takes it from there. Upload through Orca's Klipper/Moonraker target or drop the file into Mainsail. Details, including the explicit START_PRINT route: docs/toolchange.md.

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Your files and the mod's files

File	Whose
/usr/data/config/printer.cfg	Yours — never overwritten. Overrides go here, after the includes: Klipper merges same-named sections and the last value wins, so restate only what you change.
moonraker-custom.conf	Yours — created once, included last, never rewritten, so your Moonraker settings win. Do not delete it: Moonraker refuses to start if the include matches nothing.
/usr/data/anvil/anvil.conf	Yours — the runtime switches: MOD_WEB, MOD_CAM (with optional MOD_CAM_RES / MOD_CAM_FPS / MOD_CAM_PORT), MOD_UI, MOD_WIFI. Edit over ssh, reboot.
ff-*.cfg, printer.base.cfg, moonraker.conf	The mod's — overwritten on every update, so do not edit them; each file's header says so.

Upgrading

A newer release installs exactly like the first flash: stick in, power on. The table above is what an upgrade does — your printer.cfg with its saved calibration, moonraker-custom.conf, anvil.conf and your root password survive; the ff-*.cfg family is replaced.

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If something goes wrong

Keep a copy of the stock FlashForge package for your model on a spare USB stick before you start. That stick is the undo button: flashing it restores every file this firmware touches. It is a normal FlashForge update, so it installs the same way — stick in, power on.

A few things are deliberately built in so a bad flash cannot cost you the machine:

• A crashing UI cannot lock you out. The screen is not how you reach the printer: ssh and Mainsail come up from their own services, before and independently of the UI, so a dead screen costs you the screen and nothing else — you can still print. It is not repairable on the machine, though: HelixScreen is the only UI there is, and getting a working screen back means flashing a package again. MOD_UI=0 in /usr/data/anvil/anvil.conf stops it being started at all.
• ssh stays up even when the screen does not, so you can get in and look.
• The kernel and the motion board are never touched by a normal package.

Going back to stock restores everything the mod replaced, with one exception: Moonraker ships only on the factory image, so a stock reflash has nothing to restore it from and the mod's build stays — it works, and Mainsail is happy with it. The details, including what a stock reflash leaves behind inert, are in docs/how-it-works.md.

More detail, including what to do when the printer will not boot at all: docs/hardware-testing.md.

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Versions

Component	Pinned at
Stock FlashForge base	1.9.7-1.2.9-20260810, fetched from ghzserg/FF at build time
Klipper	a current fork with the ff_* toolchanger extras
Mainsail	v2.18.2
Moonraker	commit 9d0d09d — a commit, not a release, for a hard reason: docs/how-it-works.md
HelixScreen	v0.99.115-creator5.1

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Documentation

docs/hardware-testing.md	The on-hardware procedure, with the checks that say go or stop
docs/how-it-works.md	How the mod hooks into the stock firmware, and what the stock firmware does that surprises people
docs/toolchange.md	The toolchanger mod: the ff_* Klipper extras, the ff-*.cfg configs, and the Z offsets to get right before you print
docs/notes/70-error-codes.md	Every error code the firmware can raise, by subsystem
docs/building.md	Building your own packages from a stock FlashForge one
docs/testing.md	The test suite, and how we know a package does not brick a printer
docs/printer-replica.md	The printer replica: what is authentic, what is not
docs/notes/	Reverse-engineering notes on the stock firmware, behind the toolchanger work
gcode/	The two verification files for the first runs on hardware

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Credits

Built on the work of others: ghzserg/FF publishes the stock packages and factory image everything here starts from; Mainsail, Moonraker and HelixScreen are shipped as released; the toolchanger status API follows viesturz/klipper-toolchanger so tool-aware UIs work unchanged.