/KlipperWrt

Klipper and fluidd/mainsail config files for OpenWrt embeded devices like the Creality Wi-Fi Box.

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KlipperWrt


Klipper and fluidd/mainsail config files for OpenWrt embeded devices like the Creality Wi-Fi Box.


Why Klipper on a Router ❓

( 🔴 Click to expand!)
  • OpenWrt is so much more efficient than other linux distros.
  • On a single core 580MHz cpu (with moonraker, klippy, nginx and mjpg-streamer) I get ~20-25% cpu load while idle/not printing and max 35-40% cpu load while printing and watching stream (640x480 30fps mjpeg).

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  • I've tried octoprint on this box as well but unfortunately it was too resource intensive. Test prints speak for themselves.

What is the Creality Wi-Fi Box?

  • A router box device released by Creality meant to add network control to your printer. Big claims, lots of problems and frustrations. No desktop control, only mobile. No custom slicing only cloud based. No camera support, only claims.
Specifications (Click to expand!)

(taken form figgyc's commit)

  • SoC: MediaTek MT7688AN @ 580 MHz
  • Flash: BoyaMicro BY25Q128AS (16 MiB, SPI NOR)
  • RAM: 128 MiB DDR2 (Winbond W971GG6SB-25)
  • Peripheral: Genesys Logic GL850G 2 port USB 2.0 hub
  • I/O: 1x 10/100 Ethernet port, microSD SD-XC Class 10 slot, 4x LEDs, 2x USB 2.0 ports, micro USB input (for power only), reset button
  • FCC ID: 2AXH6CREALITY-BOX
  • UART: test pads: (square on silkscreen) 3V3, TX, RX, GND; default baudrate: 57600

What is OpenWrt?

  • A Linux OS built for embeded devices, routers especially. Light, Open Source with a great community and packages that gives your device the freedom it deserves.

What is Klipper?

  • A 3d-printer firmware. It runs on any kind of computer taking advantage of the host cpu. Extremely light on cpu, lots of feautres

What is fluidd / mainsail?

  • These are free and open-source Klipper web interface clients for managing your 3d printer.

What is Moonraker?

  • A Python 3 based web server that exposes APIs with which client applications (fluidd or mainsail) may use to interact with Klipper

Steps:

1. Build OpenWrt image

Click to expand!
  • Only neccesary until the port gets merged and officially supported.

    • I recommend following figgyc's post. You'll find there his experience and a guide to compile OpenWrt. Here is his OpenWrt branch with support for the Creality Wi-Fi Box and the PR pending to merge to main OpenWrt.

    • ❗ This is an OpenWrt snapshot (aka not officially supported) and kernel modules can't be installed with opkg. You NEED to choose some required kmods inside make menuconfig:
      kmod-fs-ext4 kmod-usb-storage kmod-usb-ohci kmod-usb-uhci kmod-usb-serial kmod-usb-serial-ch341* kmod-video-core kmod-video-uvc
      *(chose this because my printer has the ch341 serial usb convertor. You might want to choose kmod-usb-serial-fttdi if your mainboard uses that - check this before building/compiling)

    OR use the provided image I built located inside Firmware/OpenWrt_snapshot - Be aware though that this was built with only the kmod-usb-serial-ch431 - if your mainboard is different -> use the above instructions to compile.

2. Install OpenWrt to the device

Click to expand!

Flashing:

  1. Rename factory.bin to cxsw_update.tar.bz2
  2. Copy it to the root of a FAT32 formatted microSD card.
  3. Turn on the device, wait for it to start, then insert the card. The stock firmware reads the install.sh script from this archive, the build script I added creates one that works in a similar way. Web firmware update didn't work in my testing.

3. Setup Wi-FI

Click to expand!
  • Edit /etc/config/network, /etc/config/wireless and /etc/config/firewall. I've uploaded these to follow as a model (inside Wi-Fi).

4. Enable extroot to expand the storage on the TF card.

Click to expand!

opkg update && opkg install block-mount kmod-fs-ext4 kmod-usb-storage kmod-usb-ohci kmod-usb-uhci e2fsprogs fdisk
DEVICE="$(sed -n -e "/\s\/overlay\s.*$/s///p" /etc/mtab)"
uci -q delete fstab.rwm
uci set fstab.rwm="mount"
uci set fstab.rwm.device="${DEVICE}"
uci set fstab.rwm.target="/rwm"
uci commit fstab

mkfs.ext4 /dev/mmcblk0p1

DEVICE="/dev/mmcblk0p1"
eval $(block info "${DEVICE}" | grep -o -e "UUID=\S*")
uci -q delete fstab.overlay
uci set fstab.overlay="mount"
uci set fstab.overlay.uuid="${UUID}"
uci set fstab.overlay.target="/overlay"
uci commit fstab
mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
cp -f -a /overlay/. /mnt
umount /mnt
reboot

  • 4.1 Enable swap just in case (though the existing 128mb RAM seemed more than enough)
Click to expand!

run this once:
opkg update && opkg install swap-utils

dd if=/dev/zero of=/overlay/swap.page bs=1M count=512
mkswap /overlay/swap.page
swapon /overlay/swap.page
mount -o remount,size=200M /tmp

put this inside /etc/rc.local above exit so that swap is enabled at boot:

###activate the swap file on the SD card
swapon /overlay/swap.page

###expand /tmp space
mount -o remount,size=200M /tmp

5. Install dependencies

Click to expand!
  • for Klipper and moonraker - check the requirements.txt file
  • Some of the packages like python2 (that refuse to be installed using opkg that aren't available inside make menuconfig either) can be installed by manually downloading and scp them to the box from the OpenWrt package repository for mipsel_24kc devices. (you need to find and download all the dependencies otherwise it won't let you install it)
  • An easier workaround I found was to use the v19.07 OpenWrt release (that still has python2 package feeds) and build an image with required packages selected as (M) for a device with the same cpu as the Creality WiFi box (Found the Onion Omega2+ to be almost identical). This way all the packages you selected with (M) and their dependencies will be built and found inside the bin folder. scp them to the box (use scp files root@<your_box_ip>:/tmp) and install them by using opkg install *ipk

6. Install Klipper

Click to expand!
  • 6.1 Clone Klipper inside ~/

  • 6.2 Use provided klipper service and place inside /etc/init.d/

  • 6.3 Prepare your printer.cfg file - do mkdir ~/klipper_config and mkdir ~/gcode_files . Locate your .cfg file inside ~/klipper/config/ copy it to ~/klipper_config and rename it to printer.cfg - Add these lines inside printer.cfg: >

         [virtual_sdcard]
         # for gcode upload
         path: ~/gcode_files
    
         [display_status]
         # for display messages in status panel
    
         [pause_resume]
         # for pause/resume functionality. 
         # Mainsail/fluidd needs gcode macros for `PAUSE`, `RESUME` and `CANCEL_PRINT` to make the buttons work.
         
         [gcode_macro PAUSE]
         rename_existing: BASE_PAUSE
         default_parameter_X: 230    #edit to your park position
         default_parameter_Y: 230    #edit to your park position
         default_parameter_Z: 10     #edit to your park position
         default_parameter_E: 1      #edit to your retract length
         gcode:
             SAVE_GCODE_STATE NAME=PAUSE_state
             BASE_PAUSE
             G91
             G1 E-{E} F2100
             G1 Z{Z}
             G90
             G1 X{X} Y{Y} F6000
             
         [gcode_macro RESUME]
         rename_existing: BASE_RESUME
         default_parameter_E: 1      #edit to your retract length
         gcode:
             G91
             G1 E{E} F2100
             G90
             RESTORE_GCODE_STATE NAME=PAUSE_state MOVE=1
             BASE_RESUME
             
         [gcode_macro CANCEL_PRINT]
         rename_existing: BASE_CANCEL_PRINT
         gcode:
             TURN_OFF_HEATERS
             CLEAR_PAUSE
             SDCARD_RESET_FILE
             BASE_CANCEL_PRINT
    
  • 6.3 Build klipper.bin file - Building is not mandatory to be done on the device that hosts klippy. To build it on the box you need a lot of dependencies that are not available for OpenWrt so I just used my pc running ubuntu - I used a custom baud: 230400 since the default 250000 did not work for me)

7. Install fluidd/mainsail

Click to expand!
  • 7.1 Follow mainsail Manual Setup Guide (it's almost identical for fluidd as well) - but avoid running any scripts (as those only work on debian/raspberry pi)
  • 7.2 Use provided moonraker service and place inside /etc/init.d/ - Don't forget to modify the moonraker.conf you created inside ~/klipper_config under trusted_clients: with your subnet.
  • 7.3 Create and place all the nginx files inside /etc/nginx/conf.d*
  • if you followed mainsail guide, mainsail should pe renamed to mainsail.conf and placed inside /etc/nginx/conf.d/ alongside common_vars.conf and upstreams.conf
  • if you'd prefer fluidd, download the fluidd latest release instead of mainsail and use the fluidd.conf file instead of mainsail.conf.
  • I've uploaded the mainsail.conf and fluidd.conf as well (look inside nginx). You need to use one or the other depending on your chosen client. Don't use both .conf files inside /etc/nginx/conf.d/ or rename the unused client.

8. Install mjpg-streamer - for webcam stream

Click to expand!
  • install video4linux utilities: opkg update && opkg install v4l-utils
  • use commands: opkg update && opkg install mjpg-streamer-input-uvc mjpg-streamer-output-http mjpg-streamer-www
  • connect a uvc webcam, configure /etc/config/mjpg-streamer to your likings and restart service /etc/init.d/mjpg-streamer restart
  • put the stream link inside the client(fluidd/mainsail) camera setting: http://<your_ip>/webcam/?action=stream

9. Enjoy


💻 Useful commands

Click to expand!
  • Creating a non-privileged user
    Check this guide All the tests I did were as root - some modifications would be necessary to not run everything as root.

    • Packages needed: shadow-useradd , sudo, shadow-groupadd, shadow-usermod
  • Copy files to the box scp /path/file.ext root@<your_box_ip>:/tmp

  • Watch realtime CommandLine log (open an aditional terminal instance for this)
    logread -f

  • Services commands (Replace service with klipper/moonraker/nginx/mjpg-streamer respectively)
    /etc/init.d/service enable
    /etc/init.d/service start
    /etc/init.d/service restart

  • Check CPU/system resources usage
    top

  • Check webcam specifcations
    v4l2-ctl --all
    v4l2-ctl --list-formats

  • List installed packages
    opkg list-installed

  • Reboot, Poweroff
    reboot
    poweroff


❗ Issues I had but solved:

Click to expand!
  • If enabling the services returns an error, do: ls -l inside /etc/init.d/ and check if the service has executable permissions (x flag). If not do: chmod 755 service - replace service accordingly.

  • I didn't manage to get the printer to communicate on 250000 baudrate (I think because the box/pyserial is unable to set a custom nonstandard baudrate - I found a possible fix by ckielstra but haven't tried it yet. I solved this by using 230400 instead (you need to change this both while building the mcu klipper firmware AND inside printer.cfg under [mcu]:
    [mcu]
    baud: 230400

  • The Host and Services commands (Reboot, Shutdown, Restart Moonraker, Restart Klipper etc.) inside fluidd/mainsail did not work at first due to moonraker using debian syntax. I solved this by editing the ~moonraker/moonraker/plugins/machine.py. Use these commands inside self._execute_cmd("command"): "poweroff", "reboot", f'/etc/init.d/{service_name} restart' for host poweroff, reboot and services restart respectively.


⚠️ Going back to stock (if ever needed) OR if it gets bricked:

Click to expand!
  1. Download a stock image (found inside Firmware/Creality_Stock folder as well) or get a previowsly working OpenWrt image.
  2. Unzip the stock tar.bz2 and get the root_uImage file OR if you have a previously working OpenWrt image: rename it to root_uImage
  3. Put it on a FAT32 formatted USB stick (NOT sd card)
  4. Insert it in the box while off
  5. Press and hold the reset button
  6. Power on the box while still holding the reset button for about 6-10 sec.
  7. Release the button and wait for a couple of minutes. If stock, you should find it on network. If OpenWrt you should be able to ssh into it through ethernet(ssh root@192.168.1.1)

Credits:

  • the ideea: Hackaday.com - for the article that set me on this journey
  • the hard part: figgyc - for porting OpenWrt to the Creality Wi-Fi Box
  • the essentials:
  • the fine tuning: andryblack - for the OpenWrt Klipper service
  • the encouragement: Tom Hensel- for supporting me into this

You can find me on:

💬 discord: jonah1024#4422
📧 email: hrapsaiona@gmail.com