Hacked Ender-2 SD card problems

I bought a cheap chinese printer, "Ender-2". The first thing I did was offcourse to replace the stock firmware (the supplied one was pre-installed without source). After many hours of work I've figured that the mainboard was a MELZI compatible, and defining LCD as MINIPANEL seems to work. However I have an annoying problem the the SD card menu is full of garbage-graphics (see attched image). I've tried to fiddle with many settings etc. in Marlin, but I have not managed to figure it out. Also, if I dont have a SD-Card inserted when Marlin boots, the system freezes. Anybody have any clues on why this happens???

Hi. Did you manage to fix your issue ?
I also got this printer and I would like to go the same route so I can further mod the printer like adding auto-levelling.
Thanks.

Sorry, I have not solved it yet. Maybe I will replace the controller with another one. This is quite some work however....

Too bad
Did you backup your original firmware for recovery ?

I might try this anyways if I find time this summer. If I do so I will post my findings on github and let you know.

No firmware backup. It didnt work for me anyway and I was sure I would solve it ... If you manage to solve it and post it on github I am sure many will have use of it!

I can confirm the issue with the SD card and screen. I am working on a custom Marlin for the Ender-2 when I found this out. Too bad I did not search here beforehand.
Also a custom _bootscreen.h is all garbled up.
Trying to use slower spi speeds for SD reader in firmware gave no solution.

Wiki for this lcd type is not very helpful either...
Any of you found a solution in the meantime?

Sorry, no news on this topic yet. I hate that the manufacturers of this printer refuses to leave out specs/firmware. I asked a question about the firmware at banggood (where I bought the printer), and it seems the manufacturer is not willing to give it to us. Another person posted as a follow up to my question that they _have_ to share the source code since they are using open source (marlin)....a few day later the question was deleted from the ender-2 page at banggood. This sucks.

Quote
ventor3000
Sorry, no news on this topic yet. I hate that the manufacturers of this printer refuses to leave out specs/firmware. I asked a question about the firmware at banggood (where I bought the printer), and it seems the manufacturer is not willing to give it to us. Another person posted as a follow up to my question that they _have_ to share the source code since they are using open source (marlin)....a few day later the question was deleted from the ender-2 page at banggood. This sucks.

If they are shipping it with Marlin loaded on it... They HAVE TO provide the source code. and from that, we can figure out everything we need.

Thanks for the update.

I have been playing around with Marlin options like:
- SPI_SPEED
- lcd delays
- font sizes

A big problem is the small memory size of the used 1284p chip, some Marlin options use a lot of memory and you must comment out other options to try different setting most of the time.

From within Repetier-Host or Pronterface I can manage the SD card, adding or deleting files works ok like everything else. You can start a SD card print job from that interface also, when you do not want to print over USB.
So it is definitely not an issue with pin assignment on the Melzi board (which uses the pins_SANGUINOLOLU_11.h file for the configuration).

I suspect the issue has something to do with the rendering of specifically the SD menu itself. It has nothing to do with the amount of files on the card.
As I am no coder, this is somewhat difficult to troubleshoot. All menu magic happens in the ultralcd.cpp file.

Yes, they should share the Marlin firmware.
Can something be gained from the flash hex files when extracted from a stock Ender-2 printer. I did that but they are useless as I first burned a bootloader to the board (which erases the firmware).
Has any of you perhaps have the original .hex files?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2017 06:07PM by 3DFreezeMe.

I believe I have solved most of the issues. The 'Print from SD' menu is functioning for printing and displays correct now.
The 'Change SD card', ' Init. SD card' and 'Refresh' options do create a dark bar, but they go away when you scroll.

If you would like to test, replace the 'ultralcd.cpp' file in the Marlin directory with the one I have attached and recompile/upload.
Let me know if this works for you as well.

Forget the file above, it is not working for me anymore as it was somehow. Tried a lot of stuff after searching the Github for open and closed related issues, but no success.
I have raised two issues on the Marlin Firmware Github concerning the initialization of the SD card itself (when a custom bootscreen is used) and the incorrect displaying of the SD card menu's.