ADVi3++ a Custom Marlin Firmware for Wanhao i3 Plus Printers

Introduction

ADVi3++ is a fork of the Marlin Firmware for the Wanhao Duplicator i3 Plus (and its clones: Monoprice Maker Select Plus, Coccon Create). It includes both Marlin itself and customizations of the LCD screens.

Objectives

The objectives with this custom version (when compared with Wanhao stock firmwares) are the following:

Based on the latest version of Marlin available (currently: 1.1.6)
As few modifications of the Marlin code as possible. The goal is to be able to port ADVi3++ to new versions of Marlin with only a few effort.
Fully open source code. Unfortunately, even if it is required by the GPL, Wanhao has not released the source code of their latest Marlin-based firmwares.
Object-oriented code with as few hard-coded values as possible. For example, instead of constructing a frame by hand, use instances of classes that know how to construct themselves.
Documented code, logging and error handling (without using exceptions as they are not supported).
Full colors and nice LCD screens including temperature graphs.
Icons and pictures recreated from scratch.
About screen with the various versions (LCD, Mainboard, ...) and integrity check.
Etc.

How to flash

There are two parts to flash:

The mainboard (Marlin) firmware
The LCD resources

Part 1 - Flash the mainboard firmware

There are several ways to flash the mainboard firmware. The first step is to download the firmware from the Releases page on GitHub:

ADVi3pp-Mainboard-x.x.x.hex

Option 1 - Flash using Cura

if net yet done, download Cura. I recommend either Cura for Wanhao (if you directly connect the printer to your computer with a USB cable) or Ultimaker Cura 3 (if, for example, you are using OctoPrint to print)
Start Cura
In the top menu, under Settings → Printer, select Manage Printers
Select your printer or Add your printer if it is not already done
Select Upgrade Firmware and then Upload custom Firmware
Select the downloaded file ADVi3pp-Mainboard-x.x.x.hex and click on Open

Option 2 - Flash using OctoPrint

You need advdude and the development build of the Firmware Updater plugin.

To install advdude on a Raspberry Pi:

Connect to the Raspberry (for example through SSH) and enter the command:

sudo apt update; sudo apt install avrdude

To install the development build of the Firmware Updater plugin

Open a navigator and connect to OctoPrint
Login and click on the wrench icon in the toolbar
Select Plugin Manager → Get More...
Under from URL enter https://github.com/OctoPrint/OctoPrint-FirmwareUpdater/archive/devel.zip and click on Install
Restart OctoPrint

To flash the firmware:

When OctoPrint in rebooted and the UI reloaded, click on the wrench icon in the toolbar
Under Plugins, choose Firmware Updater
Click on the wrench icon, and after Path to advdude, enter /usr/bin/avrdude and click Save
Be sure your USB port appears after Serial Port
After ... from file, click on Browse and select the firmware you have downloaded such as ADVi3pp-Mainboard-x.x.x.hex
Click on Flash from File
The flashing process may take around 30 seconds
When it is finished, a message appears saying "Flashing successful". Click on Save
Reconnect the printer

Part 2 - Flash the LCD resources

Note: The LCD resources are hosted on their own GitHub project: ADVi3pp-LCD.

Step 1 - Prepare a microSD card

IMPORTANT: You have to use a microSD card with a maximum capacity of 8GiB. If you use a microSD card with a greater capacity, the results are unreliable (sometimes it flashes, sometimes not). This is a limitation of the LCD display itself.

You have two possibilities to flash:

Option 1 - Manual copy

Download the LCD resources: ADVi3pp-LCD-x.x.x.zip
Unzip the file somewhere
Copy manually all the files and folders in the uncompressed zip file to the root of a microSD card. The microSD card has to be formatted with the following parameters: FAT32, 4096 bytes per cluster (i.e. 8 sectors). To format under Linux (and macOS with the dosfstools Homebrew package):

mkfs.fat -F 32 -n SD -s 8 -v /dev/disk2

Of course, replace /dev/disk2 with the right value.

Option 2 - SD image

Download the microSD card image: ADVi3pp-LCD-x.x.x.img.zip
Unzip the .img.zip file and use either dd (Linux, macOS) or Etcher (Windows, Linux, macOS). For example with dd:

unzip ADVi3pp-LCD-1.0.0.img.zip
sudo dd if=ADVi3pp-LCD-1.0.0.img of=/dev/disk2 bs=64K

Of course, replace /dev/disk2 with the right value.

If you prefer graphical applications, Etcher is a great multi-platform tool.

Step 2 - Install the new version

Disconnect the printer from power
Remove the two screws located on the front and loose the two M3 screws on the top

Remove the front panel carefully (don't break the flat cable)
If you are lucky, you can insert the microSD card on the left of the panel (this is the case on the Monoprice clone)
Otherwise, remove the four M3 screws and remove the cover
Insert the microSD card in the slot

Turn on the printer (either by connecting it to power or by connecting the USB slot to the computer)
The screen turns blue and then every image will appear one by one
After around 2 or 3 minutes, the screen turns black
Turn off the printer and remove the microSD card
Re-assemle the front panel, do not forget the two M3 screws on the top
Turn the printer on. You know have the new version of the LCD images

Features

This custom firmware has the following features:

Boot animation with colors and the Marlin logo
Colored screens
About screen with versions of the different components (Mainboard and LCD ADVi3++ versions, LCD firmware version, Marlin version) and integrity check
SD card and printing menu
Temperature graphs accessible from several screens by pressing the temperature numbers
Load and Unload filament
Preheat bed and hotend with 3 sets of values
Move head, extrude, unextrude
Statistics
PID automatic tuning
Bed leveling (4 points)
Factory Reset with warning

Sister project

ADVi3++ is split into two sister projects:

ADVi3pp-Mainboard: this project, a fork of Marlin firmware
ADVi3pp-LCD: the LCD resources

Wanhao Duplicator i3 Plus

LCD display

The LCD panel is manufactured by AMP Display Inc. and uses DGUS (DWIN Graphic User System) developed by DWIN Technologies. The reference of the LCD panel is DMT48270M043_05W and you can find its datasheet under "Resources" below.

It is build around the proprietary K600+ kernel and simplifies the development of user interfaces: the different screens are defined by a set of files (images, fonts, etc) stored in the flash memory of the panel and they can be customized using a graphical editor (part of DGUS SDK).

The LDC panel has thus two distinct software components:

A firmware, made by DWIN Technologies.
A set of resources, made by the manufacturer of the 3D printer (Wanhao, Monoprice, Coccon) or yourself. This component is often called "LCD firmware" even if it is wrong.

LCD firmware

WARNING: Do not make the confusion between the actual LCD firmware (made by DWIN Technologies) and the LCD resources for the customization of the display (next paragraph).

LCD resources

The images have the following format:

BMP (Windows 3.x Bitmap)
480 x 272
24 bits per pixel (3 x 8 bits, no alpha)
Bottom-up bitmap

The last point is very important. The LCD (i.e. DGUS) is not able to handle other formats like top-down bitmaps. To convert images to the righr format, you can use ImageMagick convert:

convert 180.bmp -resize 480x272 BMP3:180.bmp

To convert all images:

for f in *.bmp; do convert "$f" -resize 480x272 BMP3:"$f"; done

Resources

Note: In the past, it was possible to download these resources directory from the dwin.com.cn website. It is no more the case (you get plenty of errors) so I copy them into this repository.

Other projects

There are some other projects (I am aware of) on a similar topic:

i3plus+ from Leo Lüker (Silverquark): a modified version of the Marlin 1.1.2 firmware for the WANHAO Duplicator i3 Plus 3d printer. Important: No more actively developed (that's why I created ADVi3++).
i3extra from Nemcsik Péter: a modified version of the Marlin 1.1.0-RC8 firmware and updated LCD resources. Important: this project is no more maintained.
Wanhao-I3-Plus by James Armstrong: Sources of version 2.18 of Mainboard firmware and LCD resources.
Wanhao-I3-Plus by WANHAO 3D PRINTER: Official sources of version 2.1.803 of Mainboard firmware and LCD resources.
Original Wanhao i3 Plus Firmware version 3.0 As far as I know, Wanhao has not yet released the source of version 3.0 (even if it is required under GPL). I have ask them when they plan to release the sources. I am waiting...

Thanks

Thank you to Leo Lüker (Silverquark) for his i3plus+ project. I take many ideas from his code. But the project is not very active (still in Beta) and I do not like the screen (personal taste) so I have created the ADVi3++ fork (technically, it is a fork of Marlin, not of i3plus+).

Thank to Marlin for their great work.

Copyright

Based on Sprinter and grbl.

License

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

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