Anet A8 Upgrade List Part 1 Software And Electronics Upgrades

Anet A8
Software and Electronics
Upgrade List


Here you will find every software and electronics upgrade i did on my Anet A8 3D printer.
All links on information about the products as well as purchase links can be found below.
Software Upgrades

 1)Skynet Firmware


First of we have to talk about the most important ( in my opinion ) upgrade of the printer. Skynet 3D is a software for 3D printers that is based on Marlin but modded to work on the Anet series printers.

Some great features of the Skynet software are
  1. Overheating protection
  2. Autoleveling support
  3. Full graphics display support
1) The Anet A8 is not the most safe 3D printer to have around children of even printing while you are away or sleeping. The wiring is at best sketchy and the heatbed connector is especially prone to failing and melting on the control board side or the heatbed side.
Also the lack of proper insulation makes the PSU cover and the switch upgrade essential to have.

2) The A8 is a great printer by itself but having not to fiddle around with these screws and washer at the hotbed makes it a lot simpler. Skynet 3D allows an array of sensors to be added on to the machine to enable the autoleveling feature

3) If you upgrade the A8's LCD to the one the A6 sports you will find that you just connect the cables on to the board (Which is the same as the A6 they both have the Anet V 1.0 board) , flash the firmware of the A6 on to the board and call it a day. But the RepRap Discount LCD i chose to get will be handy when i decide to upgrade the main board to a Ramps 1.4 or another Arduino Based board. So having the RepRap LCD connected and a bit of tweaking in firmware and it was working just fine giving me the extra pixels and graphic capabilities and the option to upgrade later to another board.

Electronics Upgrades
1) RepRap Discount LCD Screen with Rotary Encoder
2) 80mm PSU Cooling Fan
3) 16 AWG Wire For PSU Connections
4) 2X Heatbed and Extruder Mosfet
5) Mains Switch for the PSU C14 Female Connector
6) Mains cable to C14 Male Connector
7) Crimps 


1) As i previously mentioned i wanted to get rid of the stock small screen with the 5 button controls and an affordable solution was the RepRap Discount LCD that gives you an SD slot (You have to sacrifice the beeper to use it on the stock Anet V1.0 board) and the ability to control the printer using the much more responsive rotary encoder.

2) When the printer was printing i noticed that the mosfet that did all the switching in the PSU used the actual PSU case as a heatsink. This was bad and needed to be dealt with.The most simple way i saw fit was to zip tie an 80mm fan powered directly from the PSU to keep the mosfet and the other components of the PSU cool. Now even when printing the PSU side is cool to the touch.

3) The 16 AWG wires are used to connect all the power hungry components like the hotbed and hotend mosfets to the PSU.

4) The two mosfets for the hotend and the heatbed are used so the current does not flow through the copper traces and the connectors on the control board so they wont burn or melt.

5) The main switch addition provides an alternative to yanking the cable out of the plug to turn of the printer and adds another safety layer with its built in fuse holder.

6) This is the cable used to connect the printer to the wall it is used on many PC PSU's and you may have one lying around in your house.

7) The crimps are used to ensure a good electrical connection to all the high power components. On my printer the PSU connections (except the low current ones) and the mosfet connections are crimped.




LINKS

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