I’m not going to delve into why the German is grumpy - but looking at the first post it seems like you post affiliate links? If you do so, I think it should be mentioned, and all in all I don’t think this forum should be used for such. I appreciate this place as a community gathering place, not a advertisement billboard.
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I removed the Amazon link. I’m not affiliated with the printer company. That link is not an affiliate link.
I post affiliate links to Amazon. I try to remember to mention that. Sometimes I forget. If it’s against the forum policy I will try to break the habit.
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There isn’t any policy for it. I know Ryan has some affiliate links in the BOMs. I have some affiliate links in the docs for v1pi. I remember a couple of other links in the past.
I would say let’s just keep it honest and open. Try not to let it affect what you recommend and if it stinks like bias or an ad, there may need to be a conversation about it.
But I think it is ok. Amazon is just giving that money away and it is a good way to support someone who is doing the legwork to find or keep up with a BOM. We don’t want it to be influencer land though.
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That makes sense. I appreciate it. As you can tell from this post, which I made without an affiliate link, and then later, as an afterthought, added one, and then removed it when there was a complaint, I definitely did not go into this recommendation with any affiliate link in mind. And I’m happy to make the recommendation without any affiliate link present. I’m not trying to influence anyone — just hoping to share the good deal that I got on a great machine.
It’s new, and so it’s not without its wrinkles that they’re working to iron out, in this case, particularly related to the Wi-Fi feature. Currently it can print from Wi-Fi upload of files if one uses their proprietary interface on the computer. They are working to make it so that it can print via Wi-Fi upload from Orca Slicer, but they don’t have all the bugs worked out of that yet. However, aside from the Wi-Fi issues, it seems to be powerful, fast, and it’s giving great quality prints.
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I appreciate that. I don’t buy every printer (I have only bought one, actually, and made the rest). But people ask me for recommendations and they don’t like to hear that I think they should spend a lot on a prusa. So I like the testimonials.
I’m particularly sensitive to this new proprietary trend in printers. It does really matter to me that prusa is (pretty much) open source and bambu labs (pretty much) isn’t. Creality has always been in the “irresponsible open source” camp. That’s probably why I haven’t bought a new printer.
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I’ve been OK with building LR2, LR3, LR3 plasma, and upgrading an Ender-3 v2 to the Ender Extender 400XL. However, that last one did not turn out well (yet - still hoping to improve it), and I’ve lacked motivation, time, focus, and confidence to build the Voron2.4 kit I bought or the MP3DP stuff I bought.
Today I did make some progress. You knew I misplaced my voltage meter, and you encouraged me to buy another one and I did. It’s been sitting here for two months. Also, about two and a half years ago, I bought a handful of buck converters, which I had never used. Today I used both, and got the voltage coming from the FlashForge LED port knocked back from 24v to 12v, for some LED strips I’m installing. The pro version comes with LED lights (and a camera), but the base model does not. You’d have been proud of me.
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OK, so I located the published, open source Klipper firmware released for this printer! Apparently it was released way back on January 24, 2024, and I was just not aware yet!
Also, apparently there is a way to replace the GUI on the touch screen with Klipperscreen:
The video below was linked from flashforge-ad5m-5mpro-research: GitHub - g992/flashforge-ad5m-5mpro-research: Hardware and software researches and upgrades for Flashforge adventurer M5/M5 PRO
“Just video with working klipperscreen (Big thanks @consp and @xblax)” https://github.com/g992/flashforge-ad5m-5mpro-research/assets/48438685/81126859-a501-477d-9745-5bbe95120e88
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Thank you Doug for this news, I admit that this printer really tempts me. Mine is old, slow, doesn’t have self-leveling… and with the temperature variations in my workshop it’s just too discouraging to often redo the leveling before printing.
If, as usual, you document for us how you manage to make it open source by putting kippler on it, I think I will take it.
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I’ve not ever used Klipper yet, as this is my very first CoreXY printer, and very first one fast enough to make me want to bother with it. I’m trying to get motivation enough to build this expensive Voron2.4 kit I bought (kit sold from FYSETC). Obviously that would be a Klipper thing, so it’s in my future. I’m very tempted to go ahead and research and figure it out for this Flashforge printer.
Speaking of which, lots of tutorials out there tell how to do it when the Octoprint is on a Raspberry PI, and they are telling how to load OctoKlipper for that. However, I installed Octoprint on a batch of Amazon Fire tablets, and I’d love to be be able to use those for Klipper. Not sure that’s doable. Here’s a nice video tutorial on doing it for RPi:
that is one I definitely looked at. It was priced at a point that made it hard to rule out. The nozzle change on it is great! Probably the best in the biz. But alas I didnt buy a new printer and picked up a used ender 5 instead
My first printer was an old Geeetech Prusa clone. I spent more time working on it than using it. After many many upgrades it was very reliable with PLA.
I recently started using it as a test bed for changes I want to make on the MP3DPv4. We’ll see how this goes.
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Klipper has to be usb or serial line attached to the controller, so usually the tablet loads the web user interface to control the thing over the network connection to the raspberry pi that is attached to the printer. I used KIAUH to install klipper, moonraker, mainsail, crowsnest, and klipperscreen on the raspberry pi, though you could use a PC rather than a pi for this. If you can root a fire tablet, perhaps you could USB to the controller. That would be a trick… mainsail takes the place of octoprint, but that is just the user front end. I don’t know that you can run mainsail and klipper on networked machines separately or if you’d want to. I haven’t had time to watch the video yet, so forgive if I misunderstand.
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I know it’s possible to have “free range” Klipper and Klipperscreen on this, as people who know what they are doing have done it, and reported back. But they did not seem to share tutorials, and I have no idea how they did it, or what to do on my end. Right now I’ll have to just wait and see what’s going on.
Since there is nothing like a Pi inside this printer’s backend (ie. as stock from the manufacturer), then I’m assuming if they are doing Klipper style “offloading” of computation away from the main board, perhaps the LCD’s processor is taking the place of a Pi in this particular setup. The LCD has two USB ports. One on the side normally used for thumbdrives for GCode, and one on the back normally used for attaching a camera. I shared (above) a link to video of someone having somehow installed Killperscreen onto this LCD.
Also, the mainboard seems to have only an Ethernet port, and a port to connect to the LCD. It has no USB ports on it, although it seems to have screen printed markings for a couple of USB ports that have empty holes where nothing was soldered on. It gets firmware updates from the LCD. There is one set of pins on the main board labelled “debugging.”
Thanks to Chris Nolan, @Chazicon, who sent me a message with a link to more info about Klipper on Flashforge AD5M:
After reading some of the related discussion there, it confirms my suspicion that the AD5M’s main board already has stock Klipper on it!
Quoting from Mainsail and Moonraker for Flashforge AD5M · Issue #6 · g992/flashforge-ad5m-5mpro-research · GitHub
It looks like the printer comes with a more or less stock Klipper 0.11, see GitHub - FlashforgeOfficial/AD5M_Series_Klipper
so you can use the kindle as a screen to control it via the webpage? Very cool.
I have some Amazon Fire Tablets I got cheap one year at Black Friday time. Some I gave away as gifts, some I kept. The ones I kept, I did the “jailbreak” thing immediately. I also then loaded Octoprint onto all of them. They can be used with printers that have normal USB on a main board that runs normal Marlin. The issue with this AD5M is it does not have a USB on the main board, but rather Ethernet. The main board does run a more or less stock install of Klipper. I just don’t know enough to get around the non-Klipper GUI on the LCD.
Can you get the IP address of the printer and use that to get to it from the FT? I don’t use octoprint with klipper so I’m not much help but I know for mainsail all I need is the IP address and I’m in
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I have 3 kindles. do you have a procedure you used for this jailbreak thing you could share?
If you can believe it… The children of mine who got them from me as gifts, who did not jailbreak them immediately… I tried later and the software I used to do mine, no longer worked.
I don’t know that it’s necessary to jailbreak it to install Octoprint.
Re.
I am not sure if there is any important difference between Fire Tablet and “Kindle.”
Destined to be klipper screens… the 8" pi touch is fabulous on the big printer I have and with the migration of the mpcnc to klippercnc with the new part upgrade that is in process currently, these kindles could work nicely. Just a few more printed base parts and cable chains then start the reconfig. I hope this tougher rebuild lasts more than one summer cut season.
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