Our Most Significant Firmware Upgrade for JellyBOX Up to Date (release candidate)

New Firmware for Your JellyBOX Is Ready for Download and You Need It

A truly significant firmware upgrade is coming to town. The JB-Marlin version 2.0 RC2 (release candidate 2) is ready to be consumed and tested!

We have changed a ton of things, and we are proud as we could be. This update makes JellyBOX easier to use both for noobs and power users. In BIG ways.

So upgrade your JellyBOX NOW

Download the new ‘JB-Marlin-2.0-RC2’
Follow the new and simplified Upgrade JellyBOX Firmware Through Cura guide.

What’s So Cool About JB-Marlin 2.0?

Live Tweak the 1st Layer Height: The Single Best new Feature in the History of Firmware Upgrades

We have a completely new function that lets you tweak the 1st layer height while you’re printing. Forget Z probe offset adjustments, this IS the future.
See this short video on this amazing new feature.
And this short video on how the feature works (for the curious and technically minded.)

Other Also Great Changes

New: menu hierarchy/ structure with a ton of tweaks and improvements
New: PID Autotune process
- That’s right. You can now run the PID from within the LCD and also save the new settings without lifting more than two fingers.
New: Factory reset button (when you’re in a pickle)
New: About Menu with printer Info
- Finally. A simple way to check what version of firmware you’re running and more.
New: Printer Stats
- Your JellyBOX now keeps track of how much it prints. How many print jobs, how many hours…
Simplified: NO need to set X Home offset manually after upgrading (!)
- The homing offset of 10 is now the factory default. Yay.
Simplified: Extrude menu
Simplified: Preheating functions
Simplified: firmware upgrade process (!)
- read more below
Improved: Auto exit to Info Screen when it makes sense
- For the lazy that don’t like to click back too many times
Improved: Bed leveling
- We tweaked the bed leveling to be more precise and reliable.
Improved: Smarter Change filament function
- There was a bug. It’s gone.
Improved: Smarter Pause function
- Pause now parks the nozzle away from the print so you’re not oozing over your part.
Improved: Thermal protection
- We tweaked the thermal protection to be more reliable. You do want this.
Improved: Firmware naming and version control
- (this is really for developers only, but it’s significant)
- We’ll all be less confused about firmware upgrades.

There are way too many small changes, bug fixes, performance and compatibility improvements, and future function preparations to list them all. Rest assure, you want this upgrade.

Release Candidate Warnings

This is release candidate. We have been using this firmware for about three months, and it has worked flawlessly for us. It seems stable, and is recommended to everyone.

However, you may still discover some bugs or rough edges.

Or, you may disagree with some of the new design choices.

Feeding back is caring.

PS: New Firmware Versioning Convention (dev talk)

alias What’s up with JB-Marlin and Marlin numbering?

JellyBOX is a part of the family of open-hardware printers running on various versions of Marlin firmware, the most popular open source 3D printing firmware in the world. (Yay.)

The development of JB-Marlin-2.0 was kickstarted when after two years of relative stagnation, vastly superior Marlin was released (codename Marlin 1.0) a few months ago, and the stream of improvements has not stopped since. Hand in hand, we are layering in our own development to streamline and perfect the user experience.

Confusingly, we already had firmware version “1.3” a year ago by the time Marlin released “1.0”.

So, we now have our own version numbering now that has nothing to do with Marlin version numbering. For example, JellyBOX firmware JB-Marlin-3.0 is not in any way related with any Marlin-3.0.

DEFAULT E-STEPS FOR THE NEWER AND OLDER DRIVE GEAR * 7mm-ED drive gear was introduced in February 2017 * 8mm-ED drive gear is what we used before Drive Gear Effective Diameter (ED) | 7 mm (current) | 8 mm (old) Drive Gear Outside Diameter (OD) | 8 mm | 9 mm Default E Steps | 144 | 126

Hot comments

filip says:
November 15, 2017
Oh you are so right @Joel. I completely forgot about the old 8mm effective diameter drive gear.
I’ll possibly compile defaults for that as well, but then it’s gonna be quite an army of versions.
Here’s the default E steps so you can just plug them in (calibration is better of course ):
```
DEFAULT E-STEPS FOR THE NEWER AND OLDER DRIVE GEAR
* 7mm-ED drive gear was introduced in February 2017
* 8mm-ED drive gear is what we used before

Drive Gear Effective Diameter (ED) | 7 mm (current)    | 8 mm (old)
Drive Gear Outside Diameter (OD)   | 8 mm              | 9 mm
Default E Steps                    | 144               | 126
```
To figure out which drive gear you have, you can measure any of the drive gear diameters and see what the effective diameter is.
To set the E-steps, use your LCD controller. Head over to
Settings > Motion > and scroll all the way down
Joel says:
November 15, 2017
I just reflashed an old unit and ran an e-step test. It was still set to 140mm and came out OK on the measurement. In the end, it’s probably good practice to just run an e-step calibration after reflashing anyway. So far, so good with this new version. Here’s my experience so far:
- Reflashing the firmware was almost TOO easy. I’m flashing back to the olden days of Printrbot boards where you had to jump pins and download arcane software.
- You WILL lose your original Z-offset value during the update (at least, I did). But the new z-tweak calibration is glorious.
- Don’t forget: when you’re connected via USB your computer supplies enough power for the arduino and the LCD, but if the power switch is off you don’t have enough juice to run those stepper motors! Turn that switch on, baby!
- I’m loving the z-hop at the beginning and end of the homing sequence. No more gum wads (well, maybe just smaller gum wads).
- Love the Pre-heat submenu
- Like I said above, the ability to Live Tune the z-offset is probably the best feature here. I recalibrated my machine in less than 4 minutes using a 1-layer calibration file I had previously created for a different printer. Attached for your enjoyment. XO Bed Leveling for JB.stl (524.9 KB)
bruce says:
November 15, 2017
Continued with blank SD card. Added 20 files. Inserted and JellyBox started singing. Maybe you would call it whining.
drwallace says:
November 16, 2017
We upgraded our firmware on one of our Jellyboxes this morning. We used a Mac and used the cold bed 2 fan file. If I put the SD card in (after the update), I get a blank blue screen regardless of what menu option I try to choose. I have to turn the box off and then on again each time to try something new – so basically, at this point, I can put the SD card in and hit the button to get the menu and immediately get the blue screen. The SD card has been used many times. I tried 2 different SD cards with the same results. Thanx! Denise
filip says:
November 17, 2017
@iadams7 has done a fabulous job getting to the alpha sorting as a part of the issue. We’ll keep you posted!