toolhead_flashing.md

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General Info

The following should be taken as an overall guide on what you are going to be achieving.

PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THE SCREENSHOTS/CONFIGURATIONS ON THIS PAGE EXACTLY AS WRTTEN AS THEY MAY NOT BE COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR PARTICULAR MAINBOARD

Before doing anything it is good to have some dependencies installed. Do this by running these on your Pi:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install python3 python3-serial

Installing Katapult

First you need to clone the Katapult repo onto your pi. Run the following commands to clone (or update) the repo:

test -e ~/katapult && (cd ~/katapult && git pull) || (cd ~ && git clone https://github.com/Arksine/katapult) ; cd ~

This will clone the Katapult repo into a new folder in your home directory called "katapult" if you don't already have it, or it will update your Katapult folder to the latest version if you did already have it.

To configure the Katapult firmware, run these commands to change into the katapult directory and then modify the firmware menu:

cd ~/katapult
make menuconfig

You will need to adapt the below instructions so they cover your board's specicific configuration. You can find screenshots of settings for common toolheads in the Common Toolhead Hardware section.

If your board doesn't exist in the common_hardware folder already, then you want the Processor, Clock Reference, and Application Start offset to be set as per whatever board you are running. You can leave the "Build Katapult deployment application" set or not set (it makes not difference at this flashing stage, it's only for updating), and make sure "Communication Interface" is set to "CAN Bus" with the correct pins for your toolhead board. Also make sure the "Support bootloader entry on rapid double click of reset button" is marked. It makes it so a double press of the reset button will force the board into Katapult mode. Makes re-flashing after a mistake a lot easier. Lastly, setting the Status LED GPIO Pin won't affect how katapult functions, but it will give a nice visual indicator (of an LED flashing on and off once a second) on the toolhead to show the board is sitting in Katapult mode.

Compile the firmware with make. You will now have a katapult.bin (or katapult.uf2) in your ~/katapult/out/ directory.

To flash, connect your toolhead board to the Pi via USB then put the toolhead board into DFU/BOOT mode (your toolhead board user manual should have instructions on doing this).

If your toolhead board uses an STM32 based MCU use these flashing steps

If your toolhead board uses an RP2040 MCU, use these flashing steps

STM32 based boards

To confirm it’s in DFU mode you can run the command lsusb and look for an entry of “STMicroelectronics STM Device in DFU mode”

You can then flash the Katapult firmware to your toolhead board by running

sudo dfu-util -R -a 0 -s 0x08000000:force:mass-erase:leave -D ~/katapult/out/katapult.bin -d 0483:df11

If the result shows an "Error during download get_status" or something, but above it it still has "File downloaded successfullY" then it still flashed OK and you can ignore that error.

Katapult is now installed, click here for the next steps.

RP2040 based boards

To confirm it's in BOOT mode, run an lsusb command and you should see the device as a "Raspberry Pi boot" device (or similar)

Note the address of the usb device => 2e8a:0003

You can then flash the Katapult firmware to your toolhead board by running

cd ~/katapult
make flash FLASH_DEVICE=2e8a:0003

where the FLASH_DEVICE ID is what you noted down from the lsusb command.

It should look something like this if the download was successfull

Katapult is now installed, click here for the next steps.

Katapult is now installed

Katapult should now be successfully flashed.

Shut down your Pi (sudo shutdown now) and then power off your entire printer.

Take out any DFU jumpers on your toolhead (if it needed them) and then wire up your toolhead power (24v and gnd) and CAN (CANH/CANL) wires, then power your printer back up.

Run the following command to see if the toolhead board is on the CAN network and waiting in Katapult mode

python3 ~/katapult/scripts/flashtool.py -i can0 -q

You should see a "Found UUID" with "Application: Katapult"

If you see the above, take note of the UUID and move on to flashing Klipper to the toolhead board.

{: .stop }

If you do not see a UUID here with "Application: Katapult" (if you are using usb-can-bridge mainboard then you may see your Mainboard UUID with "application:klipper", this is different and not what we are looking for) then go back to the Installing Katapult section and try again, making sure the Katapult make menuconfig settings are absolutely correct for your toolhead board.

If you still don't see the "Application:Katapult" after going through the Katapult flashing steps again, check the no_uuid troubleshooting page for things to try.

DO NOT CONTINUE until you can see your toolhead UUID with "application:katapult" when running python3 ~/katapult/scripts/flashtool.py -i can0 -q

Installing Klipper

Move into the klipper directory on the Pi by running:

cd ~/klipper

Then go into the klipper configuration menu by running:

make menuconfig

Again, if your toolhead is already in Common Toolhead Hardware then you can copy the Klipper settings from there.

Otherwise, you want the Processor and Clock Reference to be set as per whatever board you are running. Set Communication interface to"CAN Bus" with the correct pins for your toolhead board. Also set the CAN bus speed to the same as the speed in your can0 file. In this guide it is set to 1000000.

Once you have the firmware configured, run a

make clean

to make sure there are no old files hanging around, then

make

to compile the firmware. It will save the firmware to ~/klipper/out/klipper.bin

Using Katapult to flash Klipper

Stop the Klipper service on the Pi by running:

sudo service klipper stop

Run the following query command and take note of the Katapult device that it shows:

python3 ~/katapult/scripts/flashtool.py -i can0 -q

Then run the following command to install klipper firmware via Katapult. Use the UUID you just retrieved in the above query.

python3 ~/katapult/scripts/flashtool.py -i can0 -u youruuid -f ~/klipper/out/klipper.bin

where the "-u" ID is what you found from the "flashtool.py -i can0 -q" query.

One the flash has been completed you can run the

python3 ~/katapult/scripts/flashtool.py -i can0 -q

command again. This time you should see the same UUID but with "Application: Klipper" instead of "Application: Katapult"

{: .stop }

If you do not see "Application:Klipper" for the same UUID that was previously showing as "Application:Katapult" then the Klipper didn't flash properly or you had the wrong settings for the Klipper firmware.

Double-click the RESET button on your toolhead to force it back into DFU mode then go back to Installing Klipper section and try again, making sure the Klipper make menuconfig settings are absolutely correct for your toolhead board.

If your toolhead board doesn't have a RESET button then you'll have to go all the way back to the Installing Katapult sections and reflash Katapult via USB again, then try the Installing Klipper steps.

Klipper is now installed

You can now run the Klipper canbus query to retrieve the canbus_uuid of your toolhead board:

~/klippy-env/bin/python ~/klipper/scripts/canbus_query.py can0

Use this UUID in the [mcu] section of your printer.cfg in order for Klipper (on Pi) to connect to the toolhead board.

Start the Klipper service on the Pi again by running:

sudo service klipper start

Next Step

Congratulations! Everything is now flashed. Time to move on to the final steps.