1.5 Beta 3 for BB Controllers (9/23/24)

[OnefinityCNC (Onefinity Support)]

9/23/247

1.5 Beta 3

This is the fourth release version of firmware 1.5

This is test firmware. As with all test/alpha/beta software, DO NOT INSTALL unless you like to be on the bleeding edge and can live with potential bugs.

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Beta 3 changes:

• All items from previous betas
• (FIX) Fixed issue when we update xyz state values in sequence. Sometimes it is not restoring the state values. Changed the logic to update all the values in parallel.

Download here

(click the blue link below to download. Do not unzip the file.):
bbctrl-1.5.0-beta-3.tar.bz2 (2.7 MB)

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How To Install:

Updating via USB
You’ll do an update via USB using the following steps:
After downloading, DO NOT UNZIP THE FILE!!!
Copy the blue .bz2 file above onto a usb stick (it must be formatted as fat 32 or ntsf). Click the flyout menu (three bars on top left), general, under firmware click ‘UPLOAD’. Select the 1.3 file.
If you are on firmware 1.0.8 or lower, it may ask for a password.
the password to update will either be buildbotics or onefinity

Manual on how to update.

[tmuka]

Beta 3 first impression is it works! It correctly recalled axis offsets following homing after e-stop and or reboot! I’ll keep using it this week on a few projects. Thanks!

[OnefinityCNC (Onefinity Support)]

Great! Keep us updated!

[RogueMachinist]

Did you test networking? Was it able to get ip address from router?

[tmuka]

Yes, I use wired ethernet networking, which successfully negotiated requesting an ip address (which is a reserved ip on my UBIQUITI UDR).

I ran the machine yesterday for a quick project and it worked as expected. It’s really nice to be able to estop to turn off the power to the steppers and have the machine remember my origin offsets when i bring it back up and home again!

[Masrawy]

On my side I still get the same but I hade with beta 2. Here’s the video again. Although it does not happen systematically…

[OnefinityCNC (Onefinity Support)]

your video is using an old beta. update to beta 3.

[Masrawy]

@OnefinityCNC I know, but as I said, it did the exact same problem, I just did not bother to take another video. I am running beta 3 right now

[OnefinityCNC (Onefinity Support)]

Can you try flashing the SD os back to 1.4.1 , then update directly to 1.5 beta 3 and repeat the test?

[Masrawy]

I did reflash 1.4.1 on top of 1.5 beta 3 than flash again 1.5 beta 3 and it still does it.

@OnefinityCNC Is there a way to boot from a USB drive instead of the SD card? this way I can do a clean flash every time instead of flash over the existing firmware since the SD card is not easily accessible.

[OnefinityCNC (Onefinity Support)]

I’m tagging in @DEV_D @DEV_S here to assist.

[ahandeman (Troy Johnson)]

You need to remove the micro sd card from inside the controller and follow the link provided above. better yet get a new sd card and a fresh flash. its amazing how many issues get resolved doing this.

[OnefinityCNC (Onefinity Support)]

Correct, you need to pull the sd card and reflash the os fresh, not a “downgrade” with an upgrade file like you’ve tried.

[Masrawy]

I agree the best way is to do a clean SD reflash. The problem is that it takes me a good 30mins to be able the remove the SD everytime then another 30mins to put everything at its place. Keep in mind I always try every single alpha or beta bersion.

BTW my power button wire inside the controller is too short, I can’t just slide the cover, at a certain point I will damage the wire and it will not pass under warranty…

@OnefinityCNC @DEV_D @DEV_S Is there any other way to clean reflash the SD card without removing it? By SSH for example, if yes, how?

Or is there a way to boot from a USB flash drive instead, this way I can reflash everytime and test it.

If there’s no other way, I will have to try the easy way and simply flash over it since in theory it doesn’t change much, it’s more of a precaution, just in case, in order to eliminate any variables in the process of testing.

[OnefinityCNC (Onefinity Support)]

No, you must remove the sd to flash it.

Do not use alpha/beta firmware if you are unwilling or don’t want to have to pull the sd card to reflash often.

[Aiph5u (Aiph5u (not affiliated with Onefinity))]

Hey Masrawy,

@Masrawy

BTW my power button wire inside the controller is too short, I can’t just slide the cover, at a certain point I will damage the wire and it will not pass under warranty…

be aware that depending on the controller version you have (power rocker switch vs. power pushbutton) the access to the SD card is different:

@Aiph5u

@DizzyG

I would re-flash the SD card and start from a fresh software install. the software and how to videos are available in the forums, perform a search.

I don’t think that this will help.

@Aiph5u

Usually it is never necessary to overwrite (re-flash) a Raspberry Pi OS installation (except if the SD card fails). Today, all Unixoid Operating Systems have smart package management systems . Usually unixoid operating systems have an uptime of monthes, even years, and are updated while they run – including occasionally necessary downgrade of a package. On Debian-derived systems like the Raspberry Pi OS, this is the Advanced Package Tool (APT) system which deals with deb packages.

@Aiph5u

But Onefinity simply inherited some problems from upstream when they forked it. For example, just as the ‘buildbotics-firmware’, the ‘onefinity-firmware’ package is the only package on the Raspberry Pi OS system inside the Onefinity Controller that is not packed as ‘.deb’ package and therefore cannot simply be downgraded with ‘apt-get install onefinity-firmware=1.0.9’, which would have been very helpful when Onefinity abandoned and withdraw the 1.1x branch and told people they need to reflash the entire OS on the SD card.

The reason why users sometimes are told by Onefinity to reflash the entire SD card is because the package ‘onefinity-firmware’ is not packed as .deb package, so cannot be upgraded (except by overwriting the installation by unpacking the tarball) and especially can not be downgraded with ‘apt-get install onefinity-firmware=[older_version]’). That’s why they tell the users to overwrite the whole OS on the SD card that often When the buggy 1.0* firmware was revoked by Onefinity, you could not downgrade the onefinity-firmware package as would have been the way to go if onefinity-firmware was correctly packed as .deb package. I think neither the Buildbotics Developer nor someone at Onefinity knows how to pack their firmware as a .deb package. Therefore, their firmware is installed with the ancient “unpack tarball” installation method and to avoid parts of a revoked version to remain in the system, they tell the users to reflash the entire operating system

Another opportunity to simpy overwrite the whole Operating System with a virgin SD card image is a bug in the buildbotics-derived Onefinity Controller firmware. Everytime when you upload a g-code file, it creates a subset of files that the firmware uses to run the g-code later. This sometimes leads to strange effects when you upload a file with the same name. Sometimes you would want to erase such files, especially when you know you know that you don’t need them anymore. But in this case you can erase the contents of the corresponding directories and don’t need to reflash the entire SD card.

On the other hand, reports of failing SD cards are very frequent. In this case I would not reflash the same SD card, but buy a high-quality SD card instead and put the system image on this new card.