16 Comments

  1. Hello, thank you for posting this, I found it extremely helpful.

    I think I found another manufacturer using the Dlion firmware. The XViCO Pioneer (sometimes known as the X3?) looks to be using it, judging by the firmware I dumped from the board. The board itself seems to be a cut-down version of the original Dlion board, and can be bought on AliExpress, though I have yet to find the source for the firmware.

    See my website (actually blog) for recent entries on this printer and board.

    • admin

      Hey Jim, yes, I think you’re right! I am trying to see if I can get a review unit of the xvico later this year for some further investigation. I noticed you can also purchase a motherboard with dlion directly on aliexpress. I’m also curious about any connections with dlion and the lerdgeX boards.

      A nice thing all of these boards have in common, is they are based on the STM32F103ZET6 cpu, which has a generous 512k of flash and 128k or ram – I’m making some slow progress to getting a working build of marlin 2.0 together, which I reckon would be easy to load up on the dlion and lerdgeX boards, with some minor pin configuration changes. This is also the same cpu used on the MKS Robin.

      Thanks for your comment!

  2. I am so glad I found this information! I got HERE by googling Xvico Pioneer X3, which took me to Tingering and Fiddling. I have the Xvico X3. Need to move the bed FORWARDS somehow. Would really like to upgrade the firmware to Marlin 2.0. If I can figure out how to save this link, I’ll follow and support your efforts somehow.

    • admin

      It’s challenging, since every motherboard is different, and I don’t have access to the Xvico board for testing. I also can’t find anywhere to buy it separately! The easiest option to get started with 32-bit Marlin 2.0 would probably be to buy a BigTree SKR motherboard.

  3. xiaohang

    Hi, I’m very happy to find here through GOOGLE, to know that GOOGLE is not available here,
      I am one of the members of the DLion team. Our team has not been disbanded and has been insisting. Recently, we are busy with the SLA 3D printer project. The funding problem has always troubled us. The DLion firmware is currently stopped, but what do you need, I can Provide all assistance

    • admin

      Dear xiaohang, thank you for leaving a comment! 🙂

      It is very impressive to see what your team achieved with DLion. We like the work that you have achieved. When source code is available, other people are able to help and add to the code.But there is no way for us to add new features to DLion, or to the JGAurora firmware. We cannot affort the Keil software licenses. We are using VS Code for IDE, with the Platformio support for STM32. GUI interface for Marlin is under slow development, but progress is being made. The biggest problem that I see, is that the Marlin project is getting better, and now it can support the 32-bit boards. I think all 3D FDM printers will benefit if there is greater collaboration with the original Marlin team. JGAurora tried to make DLion operate just like the MKS TFT28 module, but they did not collaborate, so their work will likely be a dead-end.

      For SLA printing, the situation is already messy. SLA printing is also very different to FDM. There are no clear instructions, training and documentation are missing, so that new users have a very difficult time. Chitubox is the dominant SLA software provider. Anet and Anycubic also have their own proprietary slicers, with proprietary file formats. JGAurora has a new SLA printer which uses Chitubox. I worry that there is no standard SLA printer file format like GCODE. The machines all appear to be the same, there is no clear distinction.

      For your team, I would be interested to hear about the XVico SLA printer, what your goals are, and what your future plans are. It is interesting to hear news about where the software, firmware and hardware will be improved in the future.

      • xiaohang

        Hello, we are slowly updating the DLion firmware. Now our team is understaffed and put most of our energy into our new SLA printer. We very much hope to work with the original Marlin team, and it may take some time to communicate. Hope to get in touch with the original Marlin team
        Our new SLA printer is not the same as some SLA (LCD) printers. We are similar to Formlabs Form2. It uses a 405nm laser and a galvanometer to work. The laser spot has a power of 90m and a power of 100mw and the largest printing area (120 * 120 * 150mm) The printer is very quiet, because the SLA laser printer does not require a fan to dissipate heat from the printer, and there is no LCD screen that needs to be replaced frequently. Instead of using special resins to increase the user’s cost of use.

        Probably in the fourth quarter of 2020, we will launch a sunken printer with a size of about 300 * 300 * 300MM, and can use high toughness and high strength resin to meet the production of some small projects.

    • Rich

      I could really do with the firmware for the X1/X3 board. Firmware update resulted in a white screen of death.
      Tried Jim Wagner’s archived Flash and STM32 binaries, but they didn’t work. Assuming the binaries were okay, there must be something i did wrong … perhaps erasing the STM32.
      Looks like I’m in the market or a new controller board.

      • admin

        Hi Rich, that’s quite a bit unfortunate. With so few printers out there, there just isn’t the momentum around it to justify a heavy reverse engineering effort. I assume the manufacturer is gone/non-communicative? I would go with a new board, or just keep it for hobby parts and buy a new printer — big leaps ahead in that time.

        • Rich

          I agree with your suggestions. However I have managed to compile Marlin 2.1.x for the Xvico X-Micro board. Programmed the board with an st-link. TFT touchscreen working in classic mode.
          I never managed to get the original Xvico firmware working again. The bootloader was wiped, which was a shame, but i never really understood how the bootloader and main code worked together.
          I suspect there might be something devious going on there.
          The X-Micro board is a little unusual as it has an SDIO implementation of the SDCard interface … which means finding a prebuilt bootloader at little difficult.
          The X-Micro board could have been better designed. There are four STM32 pins which could have been routed out to headers … any extra serial port would have been easy. As an amateur hardware designer, i hate to see compromised hardware.
          Oh well, it was a learning experience in Marlin compilation. All credit to the Marlin codebase for just working with minimal hacking.

          • admin

            Nice job! Marlin saves the day again from abandoned proprietary 3D printer firmware.

            Not to toot my own horn, but when I was trying to get Marlin working on the JGAurora printers the STM32F1 platform wasn’t fully supported, so I was able to actually contribute a few patches to fix up a couple of issues. Glad to hear it was a less painful process to do the same firmware bringup in 2022!

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