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Flashing an LPC176x or STM32 board using Binary File Transfer

Binary File ransfer is an alternative method to transfer the firmware.bin file to a printer that can be flashed from the SD card.

WARNING: This feature is based on the experimental Marlin Binary File Transfer Protocol. It works well, but the protocol will undergo changes before it goes final, which will break it. When that happens I will update the plugin, but it may not happen immediately.

Table of Contents

  1. Warnings and Caveats
  2. Installation
    1. Marlin Binary Protocol Package
  3. Marlin Configuration
    1. Enable Binary File Transfer
    2. Set SDCARD_CONNECTION to ONBOARD
  4. Plugin Configuration
    1. Required Settings
    2. Optional Settings
  5. Hardware Notes
    1. Creality Ender 3 V2

Warnings and Caveats

  1. The binary file transfer protocol is still work in progress

    While the current implementation works, it will change, and these changes will break the current version. As much as possible, I will try to support the current implementation and the final version, but my ability to do so may be limited due to dependencies on other libraries.

    If it comes to a choice, the final version will be the one which is supported.

  2. Your Raspberry Pi may crash, but it's not my fault

    While developing this I came across what seems to be a bug in the Raspberry Pi kernel, where it will sometimes panic (crash) when the printer board resets. To mitigate this, as of Feb 6th 2021, a 2s delay has been added to the LPC M997 reset routine which appears to stop the crash from happening. You will need to be running Marlin from the bugfix-2.0.x branch, after https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/commit/004bed8a7fc3ff9feb73a0ea9794635b50073c27 to have the fix.

    On my test system, with the old reset code, I would easily crash my Pi anywhere between 1-25 resets. After the change I have flashed the board dozens of times and reset it 500+ times without crashing it.

    That said, the underlying bug still exists, so you may still experience your Pi crashing when the board resets. Caveat emptor.

Installation

Marlin Binary Protocol Package

The plugin currently uses the marlin-binary-protocol package to implement the transfer protocol. This package has dependencies on heatshrink, which is hard to install automatically due to compatibility issues with Python 2 and Python 3. For this reason the marlin-binary-protocol package and the heatshrink dependency need to be installed manually using pip.

NB: If you are running OctoPrint in a VirtualEnv (as recommended) you need to run the appropriate pip commands below inside that environment. For OctoPi users, this is ~/oprint/bin/pip anywhere it says pip or pip3.

Depending on your system, the command you use to restart OctoPrint may also be different.

Python 2

  1. Install marlin-binary-protocol - the dependencies just work

    pip install marlin-binary-protocol

  2. Restart OctoPrint

    sudo service octoprint restart

Python 3

  1. Install a Python 3 compatible version of heatshrink to satisfy marlin-binary-protocol

    pip3 install https://github.com/p3p/pyheatshrink/releases/download/0.3.3/pyheatshrink-pip.zip

  2. Install marlin-binary-protocol

    pip3 install marlin-binary-protocol

  3. Restart OctoPrint

    sudo service octoprint restart

Marlin Configuration

Enable the Binary File Transfer protocol

Your printer must have the binary file protocol enabled in order to be able to use the protocol to copy firmware files to your printer.

In other words, before you can use the Firmware Updater plugin, you must compile firmware with this feature enabled and flash it to your printer using your current update process. You only need to do this once.

Note: The MEATPACK and BINARY_FILE_TRANSFER features cannot both be enabled. If MEATPACK is enabled, it must be disabled prior to enabling BINARY_FILE_TRANSFER.

To compile firmware with the binary file protocol enabled, uncomment this line in Configuration_adv.h:

#define BINARY_FILE_TRANSFER

You can verify that the protocol is enabled using the M115 command to get a capability report. The report must include this line:

Recv: Cap:BINARY_FILE_TRANSFER:1

If the value is 0 then the feature has not been enabled and the plugin will not work.

Set SDCARD_CONNECTION to ONBOARD

The SD card connection must be configured for ONBOARD. If it is set to LCD the firmware file will be copied to the SD card in the LCD and the board will not update when it is reset.

To set the SD card to ONBOARD, modify the #define SDCARD_CONNECTION line in Configuration_adv.h:

#define SDCARD_CONNECTION ONBOARD

Prerequisite Check

When both prerequisites are satisfied, the ~/.octoprint/logs/octoprint.log file will contain lines like these shortly after OctoPrint is started and the printer is connected:

2021-03-06 09:24:58,000 - octoprint.plugins.firmwareupdater - INFO - Python binproto2 package installed: True
2021-03-06 09:45:10,815 - octoprint.plugins.firmwareupdater - INFO - Setting BINARY_FILE_TRANSFER capability to True

Plugin Configuration

Firmware Updater

Required Settings

There are no required settings.

Optional Settings

Option Description
Wait after connect Some boards reset after getting the command to start binary transfer mode. A value of 3 seconds is normal for when this wait is required. Default is 0.
Communication timeout Protocol communication timeout. Default is 1000ms.
Use alternative reset Plugin will reconnect OctoPrint to the printer, send the M997 reset command, and then wait for a start message to indicate the reset has occured. Used on boards which do not reset the COM port on restart, such as Ender 3V2 and BTT GTR v1.
Use timestamp filesnames Instead of firmware.bin, the uploaded firmware will be named fwHHMMSS.bin (where HHMMSS is the current time). Used on boards which expect unique firmware filenames for sequential uploads, such as Ender 3 V2.
Customize firmware filename Instead of firmware.bin, the uploaded firmware will be named whatever is set here.
Don't wait for reset The plugin won't wait for the board to initiate the reset and will return 'success' as soon as the M997 command is sent.
Reset timeout How long to wait for the board to reset after sending M997. Default is 10s.
Don't wait for restart Plugin won't wait for the board to restart after the reset has begun.
Restart timeout How long to wait for the board to restart. Default is 20s.
Verbose progress logging Log verbose transfer progress to the OctoPrint log file

Hardware Notes

Creality Ender 3 V2

Two advanced settings must be enabled for Ender 3 V2 boards:

  • Use alternative reset
  • Use timestamp filenames

Ender 3 V2 Settings

NB: Before attempting to flash the board from the plugin for the first time, put the SD card in a computer and remove any .bin files which are on it.

If flashing from the plugin fails and the plugin displays an error stating that the board reset too quickly check the SD card for .bin files and remove any which are present.