Hi all!
I am building a LowRider 4 using an SKR 3 (Non-EZ version) with the STM32H723 chip. Does anyone have a pre-compiled firmware.bin for this specific board and DualLR configuration? I found some configs for the EZ version, but I am not sure if they are safe to use on the Non-EZ board, and I don’t know how to compile Marlin myself.
Thanks!
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You have a few options:
- find the precompiled marlin firmware. I hope someone can help you with that precompiled option.
- learn to compile the marlin firmware. I’m not much help there, but others might chime in.
- buy a jackpot board and run fluidNC - the GRBL based gcode software on the ESP32. It is easy and reasonably priced for what you get and the likely recommendation most would give as it is pretty straight-forward and designed partly on threads in this forum.
- The other more “involved” option - that in my opinion is the more interesting one - would be to use an old pc or a raspberry pi and run your cnc with klipper using your SKR3. You don’t need to compile custom firmware other than to get the board flashed initially and you can do it with the kiauh tool, but you don’t need to do anything other than select the processor correctly and get it on the board. All the pin assignments and setup are done by you in a config file you change, save, and reboot to adjust until it works right. It supports camera timelapse, dual endstops, custom macros, touch screen displays, web page control from a networked computer, and a number of other 3d printing firmware features that play nice with cnc. This is a bit tedious, but straightforward and I’ll help you do it if you want. You would need at least a pi zero2 or an old pc that can be dedicated to running the gcode via USB to the cnc.
Best of luck whichever route you choose.
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"Thanks for the detailed breakdown!
I think I will stick with Option 1 for a few days and wait to see if I get lucky and someone can share the precompiled .bin file for the SKR 3 (H723).
Regarding the suggestion to buy the Jackpot board, I have to discard that option for now. I’ve had issues with customs and import taxes in the past, so I prefer to make the hardware I already have work.
Thanks again for your help!"
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Hey guys,
I got the same issue. I compared the V1 Marlin from the SKR Pro with the original Marlin 2.1.x. I tried to adjust the original Marlin for using the SKR 3. I tried a lot, but nothing worked (only tested with TFT). There ist just “V1 Marlin Mode” on the screen, no menu. I can switch to TFT-Mode and walk through the whole menu. But it’s still in a 3D-Printer-Mode. ChatGPT told me to switch to Marlin-Mode. But everything I tried doesn’t fix my problem. Maybe here is someone with more know-how or with a pre-compiled firmware 
Greetings from Germany, Pascal
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There is only 3D printer mode, for any of the SKR flavours. The TFT screens are designed for a 3D printer, but the commands are transferable to a CNC.
Several years ago, one of the users here made a customized set of screens that were designed for CNC (rather than 3D printer), but the project needed to be completely rewritten every time a firmware update was issued by BTT. That project was eventually abandoned, so we are left with only the 3D printer screens. But they work, and anyone using an SKR/TFT setup is using those screens.
Well it sounds like @Pascal has a working version, despite his observation that there is only “Marlin Mode” and “3D printer mode” (which is what you are going to get with any SKR/TFT setup).
I would suggest trying the V1E SKR Pro Dual LR file. It is very very unlikely that you can do any damage to the controller.
Really, in order to become truly proficient with using an SKR board, you need to learn how to edit Marlin firmware, and how to compile that firmware using PlatformIO.
For editing the firmware, the only two files you ever really need to edit are configuration.h and adv_configuration.h (located in the Marlin/Marlin subdirectory of your firmware folder). Open the file(s) using Notepad (or any text editor that doesn’t format the text), and save with the original filename (.h, not .txt)
There is lots of documentation of the various settings on the Marlin website, and lots of additional resources on the Internet (YouTube, Google, etc.). And many users here can help you if you get stuck (just ask).
For compiling, @vicious1 has an excellent guide in the Docs section that walks you through the process step by step. I was a complete noob, and was able to compile my edited firmware in less than a hour.
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This V1E maker —Jackpot vs SKR Pro
…said he was running a LowRider on an SKR Pro. Maybe you could reach out to him and either get his file or pick his brain.
Be aware:
- You can use free tools to edit and compile (it’s been a while but, I think, tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio Code, aka VS Code)
- To make changes you must edit and re-compile (changes such as, I think, travel distance of your table, etc)
- One of the super nice advantages of the FluidNC firmware that the Jackpot runs on, is you never have to compile/recompile anything. You can make changes by just editing a text-based config file and uploading it to the board and reboot!
Yes, the free extension named PlatformIO works great in VS Code.
@DougJoseph The OP is using an SKR3, not the SKR Pro v1.2 (which the V1E firmware is written for). The V1E SKR Pro v1.2 firmware MAY (or may not) work on the SKR3.
The rest of your comments are valid.
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Got it. My brain fog strikes again. I had read that and somehow later got it mixed up in my mind.
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I’m right there with you, my friend!
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Re. differences between SKR3 and earlier versions (such as SKR Pro v1.2) that had V1E compiled builds for them…
One could download the editable (compile-able) files from both Marlin for the new board, and old Marlin for the old board, and use a comparison tool (aka “diff” tool) to try to chase down any differences. But that could be time consuming.
One could also just look at the config files pointed out by Bartman, find the V1E/CNC related tweaks, and carry those over to config files on a new editable Marlin build for the new board, and give it a try.
As you can probably guess, the former “comparison” effort could get time consuming, and since time is money, the price of a Jackpot starts looking more and more attractive.
FWIW: I was super happy with the SKR for my LowRider, and was not a super fast adopter of the Jackpot, but now that I’ve run both, and with all the improvements and bug fixes etc on FluidNC, I don’t think I would want to go back to Marlin. Just the ability to tweak without having to recompile is worth it for me.
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Despite many others here suggesting the Jackpot (and it does have some “advantages”), I understand and support your decision to (at least attempt to) make your existing hardware work.
I have had the opportunity to convert from my SKR Pro v1.2 to the Jackpot, and have chosen to stick with the SKR. It works, it does what I want it to, and once I learned how to configure and compile the firmware, updates don’t take much more than a few minutes to implement.
Because your SKR3 board is different than mine, and is not fully tested and supported on this forum, it may be a bit more challenging to get everything working smoothly. But overcoming a challenge is part of the DIY experience, and offers a great feeling of accomplishment when you succeed.
So carry on. I’ll be cheering you on, and offering any support that I can. I know from experience that there are many others here who will do the same.
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Hey Pascal,
I have a SKR Pro with the display, ordered from V1 and I havent used it. You can buy it if you want!
Ulf
Hey Ulf, good to know. Maybe I come back on this. But right now I also prefer to get it done with my hardware
I thought, that this is, what V1E provides on github, because this is what he describes in his documentation.
Am I wrong?
My biggest challenge was to build the V1E firmware in VS Code. It always gave me errors with the new defined SKR 3 board. I found out, that the V1E-Marlin isn’t ready for this board, so I modified the original Marlin (guess I already told that :D). I only tested it with the board connected to the TFT. I was scared to blow up my CNC… Because there is no CNC-skin on it (Touch-Mode) and only “V1 Marlin Mode” on the screen when I switch to Marlin-Mode, I thought there is something wrong. So I guess I got these questions right now:
- Should the TFT have the CNC-skin on it?
- Which mode do you prefer? Marlin- or Touch-Mode?
Maybe some of you could help me.
There’s no CNC skin available (anymore). The default (3D printer) skin is the only option, unless you are skilled enough to create your own.
I use Touch Mode almost exclusively. It’s pretty rare that I use Marlin mode.
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Hi everyone,
Since I haven’t found a pre-compiled binary yet, I’ve decided to follow @Bartman 's advice and try to compile it myself.
I found a Configuration.h file from 2023 for a DualLR setup on an SKR 3 EZ. My plan is to use that config as a base but change the motherboard definition from BOARD_BTT_SKR_V3_0_EZ to BOARD_BTT_SKR_V3_0 (Non-EZ) and recompile using the H723 environment.
Wish me luck! If I succeed, I will share the .bin here for Pascal and others.
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Totally get that.
Way to go! Keep us updated.
Hey @karl1 , it sounds like you have already done the hard work of editing the Marlin firmware to work on the SKR3 (or so I gathered from your post).
Would you be able to share that with @David_Almiron ?
We went through a ton of work to make a firmware for the tft screen that would hide the word "print* and add stuff we cared about. Then BTT silently updated the hardware and our version couldn’t compile for the new boards. So we moved the goal posts and made enough changes that the default firmware would work with Marlin configured for a CNC machine. We pushed those configuration changes upstream into BTTs firmware and we only needed a config.ini and some images to get a screen that works. It still says, “print” and has temperature settings. But you can set up a machine and home it and run a file for CNC.
This is just about what I would suggest. But if you download the .zip from marlinbuilder releases, it includes the .git so you can see exactly what was changed. I also deleted a bunch of files in hal/ which you don’t have to worry about.
Every change in Marlinbuilder is done by script. You can look at the source script and maybe that would be easier for you to start with. In the end, Marlin is a tricky beast to maintain a CNC firmware for. It was our bread and butter for a long time. It still works well. But it rots quickly (because it is so compatible with every piece of hardware and configured in C).
It’s really important to make a distinction between the firmware on the skr3 and the tft. They are completely different ecosystems. Until you get the skr3 working, I would only use marlin mode on the tft. Then you can play with the touchscreen mode. It may be broken again with the newer marlin versions.