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Custom Firmware for the Snapmaker U1

A community-built extended firmware for the Snapmaker U1, plus how to wire up RFID filament detection for Bambu-tagged spools.

Last updated

Line drawing of a desktop 3D printer with a filament spool and an RFID tag chip

The Snapmaker U1 has a custom extended firmware built on Klipper, with a much deeper feature set than stock. Builds live on the project's GitHub releases page along with an installation guide — flashing it voids the stock warranty, so read the release notes first.

What it adds

  • Web dashboard: choice of Fluidd or Mainsail, plus config-file or web-based firmware settings.
  • Camera: hardware-accelerated WebRTC streaming (internal or USB cameras), remote screen viewing, and timelapse recording with a recovery tool for damaged videos.
  • Klipper/Moonraker: custom config file inclusion, print-event hooks (PRINT_START/PRINT_END/CANCEL_PRINT), experimental TMC driver tuning, AFC-Lite UI support, BIQU Panda Breath integration, and a faulty-thermistor bypass.
  • Filament management: RFID tag support (NTAG213/215/216, OpenSpool format), alternative detection for Bambu, Creality, Anycubic and others, and Spoolman sync by ID or RFID.
  • Monitoring: Prometheus, Home Assistant, and DataDog integration, plus Moonraker Apprise notifications to Discord, Telegram, Slack, and 90+ other services.
  • Remote access: Tailscale VPN, plus a cloud remote-access service.

Setting up Bambu RFID tag reading

Bambu Lab spools carry an RFID tag encrypted with a per-brand key, so reading them needs that key added to the firmware's config before it'll recognize the tag.

  1. Open /oem/printer_data/config/extended/openrfid_user.cfg.
  2. Add the Bambu tag processor section, with the key filled in:
[bambu_lab_tag_processor]
  # Bambu Lab tagged filament detection key (32 hex characters)
  key = xxxxxxx

The key isn't published by Bambu — it's been reverse-engineered and shared online, e.g. in this gist.