Hi fellows! In this article I will describe my experience of upgrading the Creality Ender-5 Plus printer. Namely — replacement of the stock Creality 2.2 motherboard with BTT Octopus Pro.
Once I already had such an experience with a Creatbot machine, now we do it to Creality.
When choosing between BTT SCR 3 and BTT Manto 8 boards, my choice fell on BTT Octopus Pro with a 446 chip, complete with five BTT TMC 2209 drivers.
In addition, Bigtreetech CB1 module and PI4B adapter were purchased for Klipper.
To accommodate the board in a standard case, I drew a platform with designated places for the stock mosfet of the bed and UPS module from the same Bigtreetech.
Here is what we see when removing the case and unscrewing the cover. All connectors of the stock board are reliably glued down with hot-melt. Thanks to the manufacturer, it was a “fun experience” tearing all this off.
To accommodate the platform, the power supply needs to be moved a few centimeters.
This requires drilling holes for two screws. The offset of the other two can be compensated for by flipping the power supply mount upside down.
Since the placement of the host device involved a separate case, I cut a hole for the connection ports. This looks rather barbarous, but I plan to draw and print an overlay. Overall, I don’t like the Ender-5 Plus case and the way it is arranged. Although it is steel and boasts a good heat dissipation (even in heat it always remains cold despite a small cooler), in the future I probably will replace it with my own design.
Let’s get to assembly.
Despite the fact that the Octopus Pro board can heat up a 24V bed when directly connected, it was decided to leave the stock mosfet. It was also planned to install the BTT UPS 1.0 module, although it doesn’t work in Klipper, but I got it for free, so let it be. My Raspberry is powered by Octopus through USB, so maybe someday I will write a plugin for this module for Klipper.
Remove all jumpers on the board and place the necessary ones according to the vendor's specifications (github.com/bigtreetech/BIGTREETECH-OCTOPUS-Pro). In my case these are:
1. Jumpers under the drivers in UART mode.
2. Jumpers for 24V fans (5V, 12V, and 24V options are possible).
Don’t forget to remove the USB power jumper before connecting to the power supply!
The purpose of the jumpers can be easily understood by BTT documentation (github.com/bigtreetech/BIGTREETECH-OCTOPUS-Pro).
According to the specifications, connect the power supply wiring (pay attention to polarity!).
As for the bed out slot, connect the control wires of the stock mosfet of the bed.
There are 8 connectors for the coolers. Two uncontrolled (started simultaneously with the printer power supply at maximum) and six controlled ones. With proper skill in firmware manipulation, you can configure all sorts of blowing for parts, hotends, boards, power supplies, etc.
Now, it’s time to connect the stepper motors. For me it was like this:
Motor 0 — X
Motor 1 — Y
Motor 2(1) — Z1
Motor 2(2) — Z2
Motor 3 — free but there is a driver for it, i.e. now I plan to have an auto-leveling bed
Motor 4 — E (extruder)
The rest are free for now.
Then we connect all the rest according to the documentation. Below I attach a connection diagram for Octopus V1.1 (not Pro), which is useful taking into account some differences between the boards. Also, there is a screenshot of a handy schematic with the board pinout below.
It should be noted that BTT Octopus Pro has a separate output for connection of a Neopixel LED strip, as well as an output for direct connection of PT100 or PT1000 temperature sensors. Their connection and location of the microswitch is also covered in the documentation.
Generally, Bigtreetech has understandable and visual documentation, which is a huge plus.
After checking all connections, we can proceed to the firmware. As mentioned above, we will work with Klipper.
Carefully insert the BTT CB-1 module into the PI4 adapter, connect it to Octopus (in my case via USB). Connect the power (in my case, also via USB from Octopus) and deploy the operating system.
I highly recommend using the official Debian-based OS (github.com/bigtreetech/CB1) from Bigtreetech. Otherwise, the Wi-Fi module won’t work.
Similar to other distros on Raspberry, BTT OS is installed with the help of Raspberry Pi Imager. There are a lot of instructions online, so I won’t go into details. For example, here is an excellent tutorial (github.com/bigtreetech/CB1) from BTT.
Install the image on the SD-card, write the network name and password to the configuration file to connect to Wi-Fi. Insert the card into the CB-1 and load it. Once connected, open the SSH client on the computer and connect to Raspberry (CB-1) via SSH. Login: biqu; password: biqu.
BTT OS already has everything you need on board: Klipper, Moonraker, Mainsail, KlipperScreen, and Crowsnest. If you are happy with this set, you don’t need KIAUH.
Then simply follow Klipper installation instructions:
cd ~/klipper
make menuconfig
make
You can find settings for the 446 chip in the screenshot below:
Copy klipper.bin to the SD-card, rename it to firmware.bin, insert SD-card into the printer, and turn on the machine. Write everything necessary in printer.cfg according to standard Klipper instructions.
That’s it, the device is ready to use. But, as expected, the stock display doesn’t work.
From Creality, I have a DWIN DMT display on the T5 chip, which is flashed separately through the SD-card slot on its back.
Klipper doesn’t support these displays, but there is a Klipper fork by Desuuuuu on GitHub. I haven’t tested it yet, since I don’t need a display on my printer at all. Maybe in the future I’ll check it out, but for now I’ve set my photo as a screensaver.
Well, that’s basically all.
Good luck to everyone!
This article was originally written by DenisAA, published at 3dtoday.ru, translated by the Top 3D Shop team.