FYSETC Cheetah: a silent card for ender 3 for less than 25€!

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In a previous article I presented the Silent Board Creality for ender3, a board with TMC drivers to make your Ender3 silent. The only problem is the price of the board, about 50$, which is 1/4 of the price of the machine.

There are of course cheaper alternatives (MKS Gen L + TMC drivers), but maybe you don’t want to bother and are looking for a turnkey solution.

The Cheetah board may be just what you need! Developed by the Chinese company FYSETC, the Cheetah is a silent board specially developed for the Ender 3 (also works for the Ender 3 pro and Ender 5). It sells for about 25€, which is barely the price of the TMC drivers alone if you were hesitating with an MKS Gen L + TMC drivers.

Equipped with TMC2209 drivers, its format is adapted to replace the original Ender3 card without any other modification. So it’s plug&play, you unplug the old card, reconnect the new Cheetah, and off you go my k… er, your Ender 3 is ready to print 🙂

Another particularity of this card is that it is a 32bits card, unlike the original card (or even the Silent Board Creality) which is an 8bits card, so the use of Marlin 2.0 is mandatory for the Cheetah, as 32bits cards can’t work with a lower version (beware, this firmware is not yet in final stable version).

The Cheetah not only makes your ender3 silent, it also offers many extension connectors, in order to easily connect an autoleveling sensor (BL Touch, Touch Mi…), an end of filament detector..

A firmware adapted to the Ender3 is already installed, if you don’t have a BL Touch or BMG, you won’t have to do anything else.

If you want to switch the interface to French, or install an autoleveling sensor, firmwares already compiled in .hex format are also available at this address: https: //github.com/trouch/Marlin/blob/master/BUILDS.md

If you want to install one of these .hex files already compiled, you can flash the card using the FlyMCU software proposed by FYSETC at this address: https: //github.com/FYSETC/STM32Flasher (for windows)

Installing another hex firmware on the CheetahThe
procedure is explained on the FYSETC WIKI: https: //wiki.fysetc.com/Cheetah_Board/

You have to
:- Select “Reset@DTR low(<-3v),ISP @RTS High” in the drop down list at the bottom-
Choose the USB port at the top-
Choose the location of the hex file by clicking on the “…” in the “Code File For Online ISP” field-
Finally click on “Start ISP(P)

If you are on Mac or Linux, you will need to install stm32flash and
use a command like this (replace ttyUSB0 with the correct value for your machine)

stm32flash -w firmware.hex -v -i rts,-dtr /dev/ttyUSB0

On paper this card looks perfect, but in use?

I have to admit that when it was released, this card suffered from some teething problems, even if I didn’t encounter any printing problems during my first tests. These problems were mainly related to the firmware and have since been corrected.

I have made a small video showing the (sound) difference between the Cheetah and the original card.

You’ll notice that you can now only hear the fans, now we just have to find a good reference to replace the original ones!

If you are interested in this card, you can find it on Aliexpress

Do I recommend this product? Having also tested the official Creality silent board, the final result is the same (noise reduction), for a more interesting price and a more scalable board (32bits, more expansion connectors…), so yes I recommend this board without hesitation!

For 25€, a little more than the price of a filament reel, you will gain in comfort, it is a very interesting investment, even a beginner will be able to easily install this card.

If you are an advanced user, perhaps you will prefer another solution such as an MKS Gen L with TMC!