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| pub:projects:3d_printers_and_3d_printing:flashforge_creator_3_pro [2026/04/02 22:39] – admin | pub:projects:3d_printers_and_3d_printing:flashforge_creator_3_pro [2026/04/03 00:40] (current) – admin |
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| ===== Flashforge Creator 3 Pro - fan fix ===== | ===== Flashforge Creator 3 Pro - fan fix ===== |
| Did you ever try to switch on or off the left or right cooling fan at the Flashprint control panel and observed that only the right cooling fan actually spins? | Did you ever try to turn on the left or right cooling fan at the Flashprint((The Slicer provided by Flashforge, currently at Version 5.8.7, [[https://www.flashforge.com/pages/software-flashprint]])) control panel and observed that only the right cooling fan actually spins? I stumbled upon this, contacted Flashforge customer support, but after many fruitless discussions, it was also clear that Flashforge wasn't interested to fix anything at all. |
| Well, I stumbled upon this and needed to verify if the left cooling fan would only not spin during manual control or also not during printing a gcode((The printer is using the .gx format, which is like gcode but with an additional header at the top. Further info can be found here: [[https://bkienzle.com/posts/converting-flashforge-file-format/]].)) file. and decided to fix it. | |
| | When testing with a gcode file((The printer uses a .gx format, which is similar to gcode but with an additional header at the top. Further info can be found here: [[https://github.com/slic3r/Slic3r/issues/4869]] and [[https://bkienzle.com/posts/converting-flashforge-file-format/]].)). |
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| This long article is about getting the left cooling fan to work, starting reverse engineering with Ghidra and patching the firmware and much more. | This long article is about getting the left cooling fan to work, starting reverse engineering with Ghidra and patching the firmware and much more. |
| So, I needed to verify if cool would only not spin at all. since these were hidden inside the printing enclosure and were hard to see. Furthermore, from the display status, fan information was not updated with actual fan rotating speed. | So, I needed to verify if cool would only not spin at all. since these were hidden inside the printing enclosure and were hard to see. Furthermore, from the display status, fan information was not updated with actual fan rotating speed. |
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| What complicated matters even more was that with the official slicing software from Flashforge, Flashprint, there is a manual machine control window, which let one press buttons for "cooling fan control". Interestingly with this feature it did not seem to be possible to control the left fan: Regardless of pressing the button for starting the left or right cooling fan here, only the right fan would actually spin. This behaviour made me initially think that this was the reason, why PLA would not stick when printing with the left extruder. I contacted Flashforge customer support about this, but after many fruitless discussions with them, it was also clear that Flashforge wasn't willing to fix anything at this printer. | What complicated matters even more was that with the official slicing software from Flashforge, Flashprint, there is a manual machine control window, which let one press buttons for "cooling fan control". Interestingly with this feature it did not seem to be possible to control the left fan: Regardless of pressing the button for starting the left or right cooling fan here, only the right fan would actually spin. This behaviour made me initially think that this was the reason, why PLA would not stick when printing with the left extruder. I |
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| So after spending more time on it, I found out that when printing from a file, both fans would actually work as expected. Measurements with an oscilloscope confirmed that for both fans, rotation speed was controlled with PWM (Something which did not work on a Creator Pro 2, for example. See [[https://github.com/moonglow/flashforge_fan_fix]] for more information.). At that point, I had already started to reverse engineer the printers' firmware, trying to understand why one fan did not spin with the manual control in Flashprint. And it took just a few more months to understand the binary and create a patch, which then fixed the left cooling fan control. | So after spending more time on it, I found out that when printing from a file, both fans would actually work as expected. Measurements with an oscilloscope confirmed that for both fans, rotation speed was controlled with PWM (Something which did not work on a Creator Pro 2, for example. See [[https://github.com/moonglow/flashforge_fan_fix]] for more information.). At that point, I had already started to reverse engineer the printers' firmware, trying to understand why one fan did not spin with the manual control in Flashprint. And it took just a few more months to understand the binary and create a patch, which then fixed the left cooling fan control. |
| </columns> | </columns> |
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| Please note the tiny little R and L character next to the fan symbol when clicking on the picture above. It is a mystery to me why Flashforge decided to place the button for the left cooling fan on the //right// and the button for the right cooling fan on the //left//. | Please note the tiny little R and L character next to the fan symbol. Somehow Flashforge decided to place the button for the left cooling fan on the //right// and the button for the right cooling fan on the //left//. |
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| To see how the buttons should work, please see the following two video clips: | To see how the buttons should work, please see the following two video clips: |