It’s been a week or so that I installed. the SKR in my MK3S. I’ve done a few things since then. Chris Warkocki the person who started this project has been constantly updating his firmware over at his Github. I’ve been using his firmware as a foundation for my own. Not really adding too many different things or changing. much other than adding. a few features he hasn’t enabled yet although it will be coming down the pipes as he’s talked about them.

This is a fairly short update, I just wanted. to make mention that I am now able to print constantly and without too many issues. I get a bit of warping on the bed but nothing too crazy, most of my prints have been coming out well and I’ve not had a chance to do anything huge to compare quality of the SKR vs Einsy. At the moment I’m just putting the printer through the paces to see if I notice anything drastically different in terms of quality or performance.

Here are two mods I’ve done on the MK3S since I’ve changed the board out for an SKR v1.4:

Added Neopixels
Added the BTT TFT35 V3.0 (I’ll do a post later)

Here’s a fairly short write up of what I did to. get the Neopixels working:

Neopixels

I did some research on what kind of LEDs I needed to get this going. I found out that the SKR v1.4 supported Neopixels which allow you to individually control each LED diode. The Neopixels that I bought are here: ALITOVE 16.4FT 300 Pixels WS2812B. Any LEDs that are WS2812B will do, but I decided to go with these ones since there were 30 LEDs per meter and I planned on using these as the main light source.

At first I thought I was going to need to down step the pins on the board to get the Neopixels working but discovered that the SKR V1.4 actually has dedicated pins and it supplied 5V, so no step down required. I also soldered a 1000uF capacitor and a 330 Omh resistor, this is to help with stabilize the power and signal lines on the Neopixels. Some say these are optional, but from practice it seems like this helped with making the Neopixels light properly. Makers Mashup’s video talks about this.

SKR V1.4 schematics and where the Neopixel pins are located

Soldering and wiring

I was in a bit of a rush to get these done so I didn’t take many pictures, but the wiring is fairly easy. It’s very helpful to have some helping hands during this process. I recently bought some since I realized how difficult it’s been to try and solder multiple things at once. All you need to do for wiring is solder the 330 ohm resistor to the middle pin on the “DI” pin, then the GND and 5V wires, on top of that I solder the 1000uF capacitor. Please be mindful to check polarity or the capacitor can blow. After all this, put a shrink tube over it and this should help keep everything together.

Marlin Configuration Changes

After getting all this done you’ll need to go and recompile your firmware to allow the neopixels to work. All these settings are found in the Configuration.h file. Open up VS Code or whatever you use to compile your firmware and search for “Neopixel_LED”. Uncomment #define NEOPIXEL_LED and make the following changes:

#NEOPIXEL_Type NEO_GRB (Neopixels are considered GRB, so you want to set the type to GRB not GRB because there isn’t a dedicated White diode)

#define NEOPIXEL_PIN P1_24 (This is the set of pins on the SKR V1.4 that are setup for the Neopixels)

#define NEOPIXEL_PIXELS 35 (The number of diodes on your LED strip, for mine I had 35 diodes)

#define NEOPIXEL_StARTUP_TEST (I uncommented this so I could see the Neopixels light up when I turn the printer on, not required)

My settings for Neopixels (ignore the #define NEOPIXEL2_PIN, I have that uncommented because I’m trying to do some tests)

With all the Neopixels enabled the default behavior is that the LEDs will change colors based on events such as:

* - Gradually change from blue to violet as the heated bed gets to target temp

* - Gradually change from violet to red as the hotend gets to temperature

* - Change to white to illuminate work surface

* - Change to green once print has finished

* - Turn off after the print has finished and the user has pushed a button

I’m sure these can be changed, but I’ve not played around with them yet, I’ve just enabled them to see if I could get them working. Once you have everything compiled, turn your printer off, plug in the LED strip, and reflash your firmware on your SKR. When you turn your printer on the LEDs should cycle, start a test print and you should see the LEDs go through the colors listed in the events above. You can also manually set the LEDs with the M150 command,

Cleanup and Conclusion

After I got the Neopixels working I looked around for a way to properly mount them on my bear frame, I’m still looking for a better option but currently I’m using this STL from Thingiverse: Simple LED 10mm strip rail clip. I’d love to find one with a diffuser, but I haven’t had time to do more searching so if you do know of a model that fits the 2020 extrusion and has a diffuser please let me know.

This was a fairly easy setup and I would say the difficulty level is probably a 2/10, if you know how to solder and do basic Marlin configurations. If you have any questions please let me know. Also, as always, try this at your own risk, I’m not responsible for any mistakes you make or if you end up hurting yourself, others, or your printer.

Supplies and Tools

Here is a list of things I used for this modification. No need to buy anything other than the Neopixels if you already have the rest of the BOM. All links are affiliated and they’ll help me with keeping this website up and do more awesome things like this: