Tronxy X5SA compatibility

So after a long hiatus from FDM printing (been doing resin prints) I am heading back to FDM for larger format prints at least. I dusted off the Astrobox and updated things and, my there have been a few changes since I last used it…:slight_smile:

Anyway I would like to use the Astrobox with a Tronxy X5SA printer…I don’t know for sure if it is possible, I have read conflicting posts about whether the printer is even USB controllable (most seem to use flash cards but no way I want to go that route). I don’t have access to the machine yet but has anyone gotten Astrobox to work with one of these printers? I know they use a less common firmware and control board, I think maybe from Chitu but not sure.

That’s what I’m working on now. I’ve been using octoprint and repiteir server for two years with my tronxy xs5a pro, octoprint with moderate results, and repiteir server with fairly good results, and excellent reliability on both. My only complaint with them is the lack add ons that were reliable and the limited out dated user interface with octoprint, the repiteir server was great in all those regards, but was really complicated to setup, seemingly endless debugging and modding of the firmware to get it to function properly. Total pain in the ass, with very little support. But, when it did work , it was great. Awsome user interface with everything you need in one spot including quick link to you fusion 360 account. Full monitoring and control over the printer and the prints. But I still have problems debugging a whole year later. Out of the blue glitches and failures and those wtf is going moments. I’m barely moderately versed in linux and raspberry pi coding, so it’s a long drawn out process with a lot of trial and error. So this appears to be a great alternative. I’ve been messing with it part time the past two days. Took a while to get the firmware and the wifi to recognize and communicate with my network, I’m still not quite sure what that was about, but after some adjustments it’s all networked now. My next problem is, the firmware isn’t recognizing the printer. I’ve already read lot online about that, but from what I’m reading, some it works, some it doesn’t, using same gear,and firmware. And that split is roughly 50/50. So that telling that it’s something going on in "their " setup. I have a feeling that my issue is the communication baudrate in the firmware of the astroprint installed on my pi4. I always come across this problem with the tronxy, ALWAYS. And it always ends up being the baudrate and nothing else. While the tronxy lacks a bit when it comes to a well thought out and we’ll designed firmware, it is a great printer, out of the box, with out the need of lengthy calibration and adjustments, as far as I’m concerned. Messing with the astroprint so far, I’m just as impressed with it’s lay out and design and love the interface. I’m thinking that these problem I’m have will get solved as I go about this process, and I’ll see what kind of support they have and how committed they are at working diligently to get their customers setup properly and off printing. Time will tell. If you do it, let me know, I’ll help out with what I know and figure out as well as changes I’ve made

Ok, so after s full four day weekend of tinkering with the astroprint and the tronxy xs5a pro printer, it works! Took a full day to twerk the firmware around a bit, and various options powering up and gaining access to to astrobox and firmware while running to configure network connection. It absolutely would not accept the dongle for hot spot access to configure the settings. Wouldn’t communicate with the router at all, hell, northern system would even recognize each other. Even though I can confirm they both were actively sending wifi.lastly hardwired into the router through the ethernet.still refused to communicate. Through all of this I’m continuously in between, putting the SD boot card on my laptop and going through all the lines of code and so not see a damn thing wrong, anywhere. I’ll on accession, have difficulty getting two different systems to get along, but damn nothing line this at the end of the night, I cycled the power on the pi, reboot the printer, but didn’t connect it to the pi, powered up on the pi while connected to the network ethernet. Crawled into bed and was checking emails and decided to run one last lan scan on the network, and,… We’ll no shi_… There it was all pretty type face showing Astorbox-6765! WTF! Next morning I tweeted the code to accept ssh access and control through the network. Looked over everything, all looked fine. So, either I tweeted something and just don’t recall, or tweeted it by accident, or more likely, I think the coding is laid out in such a way, that it’s a single step at a time setup process is, required item, create sd image, (important) initial power up needs to be done with only the wifi dongle attached, AND nothing else. When network setup is complete and you have verified it’s connection, then move on to the next step. Whole day and a half repeating all the try to get it to recognize and communicate with my printer. Called it a night. Next day, disconnected everything, powered up pi, when bootloader is finished, then reverified network connection, waited. Then I powered on the printer, let it boot, then connected to the pi, still nothing but, this time for some reason, something nagging at to do nothing but a restart of the pi. Everything still connected and powered. I did, and no shi_ it all powered up as supposed, network connected through the wifi as supposed to, recognize and communicated with the printer as supposed to! I’m almost certain that each step needed to addressed one step at a time and verifying as you go. Don’t try get everything connected all at once and expect the astroprint firmware to work as intended. The following step requires certain information it accuired from the previous step, and bootloader will not go on when missing any info. Next day, I had experienced a bit initial setup issues with the interface software, both the phone app and the desktop app. One, you can not try and setup both phone and desktop apps at same. It’ll automatically kick one or the other continuously.took me a bit to finally realize that. First setup, and initial setup if user settings and connection settings, printer settings and use setup, was so much easier to do with the desktop app with the pi connected through the ethernet. That in of itself eliminates all the headaches from the past two days with the exception of the wifi dongle for hotspot setup. Still don’t know why that didn’t work, but if to do all over, screw the dongle. After all was done setting everything up through the desktop app, went back to the phone, and setup all the se same settings on it. That finished off day three. The fourth day spent messing around with the user interface and we’ll it worked or didn’t work with my xs5a pro. After reading others reviews with their tronxys, I was bit concerned. A lot of the complaint with most of them was the lack of complete remote user control with the tronxy due specifically with the tronxy firmware. I gotta say, that never really made a whole lot of since from the getgo. Think, if I can have complete, total remote user control from both octoprint, and repiteir server, then it’s not going to be the tronxy firmware, maybe astroprint firmware, but most likely the “lose nut” behind the “steering wheel”. And guess what… No surprise here. Absolute and complete remote user control. It’s quite w bit different than the repiteir software that I’m used too, so it’s taking me a bit to run through everything that’s there, and there’s a LOT there. That’s pretty much the end of any frustration related to the interface. It is a well thought out and laid out design. Contains a lot of options for the user, more than repiteir, and definitely in a whole upper lever than octoprint. I wouldn’t ever consider using octoprint again. I’m still a big fan of repiteir, but their setup support is just total dog sh__. Having said that, I’m really liking astroprint so far. Has all the advanced features and settings that regular high end users will require, has a lot available options for everything related to printing, printer and printer maintenance and support, anything related to filiment, it is an all inclusive one stop shop for your printer and printing needs. Once I’m done getting to know all of it , and complete all of my adjustments to settings, I’ll share some videos.

I got mine working too…similarly with alot of time involved…

I liked the ChiTu/TronXY board lots of fan PWMs but short a stepper IMHO but I moved to Marlin firmware on it (that took some doing but I still have the setup if someone wants it though I think there is now a pretty decent config on the Marlin site…not that the stock firmware was bad but it was too much of a black box for my taste.

However then the main board died and it was a long slow replacement process so
I opted to move to different electronics. Of course wouldn’t you know it, many
settings not just the board had to be changed in Marlin…that and a bad stepper
and a bad cable and it was another week before I could get going again, then just
when it was dialed in the cooling fan failed plus some possibly dirty filament led to a jammed the nozzle beyond belief and I have some pretty messed up ones. So I tossed on a whole new hotend and just got it all dialed back in…first print is finishing now…

Much thanks to Daniel at AstroPrint as I had some very weird problems when I tried to get my astrobox going again after but eventually with some re-flashing he helped me get it going too…now to start printing some real jobs…just about 2 months after my first post.