Upgrade Your FlyingBear Ghost 4S/5 to the Silent Stepper Motor Drivers (TMC2208)
I got myself a FlyingBear Ghost 5 as soon as it started selling in Europe. It was recommended to me by a friend who owns a Ghost 4S, as a cheap but a very decent machine. And it lives up to this expectation quite well.
My only two concerns about it are the loud fans and the fact that the extruder motor and the Z axis motor use the noisy A4988 drivers, which causes a lot of beeps and squeaks, especially with filament retraction enabled. While I didn’t find good replacement fans yet, I did replace the stepper drivers, and I’m gonna tell you how I did it now.
The plan:
- Take the bottom cover off
- Measure the voltage on the original drivers
- Replace old drivers with new ones
- Set a correct voltage on the new drivers
- Install the bottom cover back on
- Update the printer firmware
Parts needed:
- 2x TMC2208 Stepper Drivers (4x for a Ghost 4S)
Tools needed:
The process:
- I started by removing the bottom cover
It’s held by some hex screws in the corners, very easy to remove.
You get full access to the board right away, very convenient. The Ghost 5 board looks like this:
It has two white TMC2208 drivers installed, and the ugly green ones are the A4988s that we’re gonna be replacing.
2. Plug the printer in and measure the voltage on an installed driver, this is to make sure you set the new drivers to the correct voltage later. Otherwise you may damage the board or the drivers.
The voltage turned out to be set to 1.21 Volts on my board.
After measuring I turned off the printer.
3. Take out the old drivers and pop in the new ones. Do not glue the heatsinks yet!
I disconnected the stepper motors for some extra safety in the next step.
4. Turn the printer on and adjust the driver voltage.
I was able to do it by holding the probes with one hand and turning the regulator with the other. You can measure the voltage between the ground and the regulator itself, or the top left contact point on the driver, like I did here. Set it to whatever voltage you measured before. In my case it’s 1,21 Volts.
You can turn off the printer now.
5. Glue the heatsinks to the drivers and close the bottom cover.
Be sure to connect the stepper motors back, which was something I forgot to do initially.
One more thing to note is the bottom cover is not symmetrical, so you can end up installing it like this:
And you probably want to have it like this:
6. Update the firmware
I contacted the manufacturer of the printer and they were happy to provide a guide and the firmware itself. I basically just had to put it on an SD card and pop it into the printer.
The firmware and the installation guide can be found here.
The update didn’t take long.
We’re done, and now you have all the stepper motors operating without excessive noise.
Enjoy printing!
