/SnapmakerUpdate

Primary LanguageC++

Snapmaker2 update bundle tools

Helpers to pack/unpack Snapmaker2 update bundles.

WARNING: Flashing modified firmware to your device is dangerous and might render your device inoperable. Since this also affect the updating mechanism itself you might not be able to restore a working firmware version. Exercise extreme caution and proceed at your own risk.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warrenty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Snapmaker provides source code for the firmware of the Snapmaker2, but no way of actually flashing the firmware to a device. Therefore this is an attempt to reverse-engineer the update mechanism to allow you to modify the firmware on your device.

All instructions will assume that you use Linux and know how to work with the shell. For other platforms, the instructions should be relativly easy to adapt.

Compiling

You need a C++ compiler with basic support for C++20 and libfmt installed on your system to compile these tools. (libfmt is not needed if your C++ compiler supports C++20 completely, especially std::format.) Additionally wjwwood's serial port library serial must be installed if you want to support bootloader based flashing. (This can be disabled by commenting the HAS_SERIAL line in the Makefile.)

Run make in the directory containing the source files from this repository to compile.

Example usage

I will assume a few set environment variables:

  • $MARLIN: The root directory of the Marlin source (the firmware should already have been compiled)
  • $UPDATE: An existing Snapmaker update from which we want to extract the Screen and Enclosure firmware. (The examples will use the current Snapmaker2_V1.10.1.bin but other versions should work too)
  • $TOOLS: The directory which contains update and package compiled from the code in this repository.

First switch to some empty working directory. Then our first step is to extract the original update with the update utility. By only passing one argument (the name of the update file), it allows to extract the update into it's components. Run

$TOOLS/update $UPDATE

This prints the version of the update you extracted, e.g.

Snapmaker2_V1.10.1_20200822

Additionally there are new files in your current directory:

  • controller.bin.packet: The firmware version we want to replace.
  • screen.apk: The Android application runnin the touchscreen. (As an android application it can only be updated what it is signed with the right certificate, so we can't mess with this one currently.)
  • module0.bin.packet: This seems to be the enclosure firmware (?). AFAICT the code isn't released (yet?), so only change it if you know what you are doing.

(If you are reading this in the distant future there might be additional module?.bin.packet files for additional components.)

You might have noticed that firmware files have a .packet extension. This indicates that they have an additional wrapper around the raw image. (Actually it's just a 2048 byte header, so just drop the first 2048 byte if you need the raw image). We want to replace the controller firmware, so we need to add such a wrapper to our compiler version. This is what package is used for. It needs some additional arguments:

  • Do you want to set a flag? Then add --flag as first argument. I have no clue what this flag is doing, but it is set for more recent controller firmware versions, so I'll set it in this example. (The option will get a better name once I know what it does)
  • Are you wrapping controller formware (controller) for module firmware (module)?
  • A new version name. This is version e.g. displayed as Controller version in the settings menu. It should always have the prefix "Snapmaker_". (The settings menu tries to strip this prefix before displaying by just removing the first ten characters, this might lead to "interesting" effects if the prefix is missing) E.g. the controller firmware packaged with the V1.10.1 update had version Snapmaker_V3.2.2. Maximal length are 32 byte. During an update, the controller firmware is only changed if the version changed, so try to avoid collisions with official firmware.
  • StartID and EndID: I think they are only relevant for module and not for controller firmware. Basically they define a range of CAN Ids (shifted by 20bit) to send the update to. In practise it is always set to the pair 0 20 (probably at least in parts because there is a missing shift in the firmware code and therefore all components appear as id 0 in this test) (Should someone from Snapmaker read this: If you make your GitHub repo public, I'll send you a PR to fix this). Given that you will almost always pass 0 20, this combination has been made the default and can be omitted.

The to be wrapped firmware image is read from standard input or the file specified with --input=, the wrapped image is written to standard output or to the file specified with --output. So we run

$TOOLS/package --input=$MARLIN/.pioenvs/GD32F105/firmware.bin \
  --output=controller_new.bin.packet                          \
  --flag controller Snapmaker_V3.2.2_MK1

(you would get exactly the same result when using

$TOOLS/package --input=$MARLIN/.pioenvs/GD32F105/firmware.bin \
  --output=controller_new.bin.packet                          \
  --flag controller Snapmaker_V3.2.2_MK1 0 20

)

Now we have the wrapped fimware in controller_new.bin.packet. To wrap this in a update bundle, we again have to decide if we want to apply a flag (--force to indicate that this update should be "forced", but it does not seem to have a big effect) and a version name. We pass these together with all files we want to include in the update the the update utility. All official updates (yet) contain all three components, but I it's also possible to create "partial updates" e.g. only containing the controller firmware. Here we run

$TOOLS/update --force --output=Snapmaker_FW.bin Snapmaker2_V1.10.1_20200821_MK1 controller_new.bin.packet

Now you can copy Snapmaker_FW.bin to a Snapmaker2 printer and install it like any other update.

Advanced usage

Alternativly $TOOLS/package can be used to flash a controller image directly though the bootloader by using the --flash= option instead of --output=, passing the serial port descriptor (something like /dev/ttyUSB0 or COM1). For this to work, the program has to run directly after the connected Snapmaker is powered on.