An open software platform for the Ender-3 V3 KE.
Fre3nder is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Creality. Ender and Ender-3 are trademarks of their respective owner.
Current released version: 2026.3
2026.3 RELEASED on the investigated reference system.
Fre3nder provides an open X2000 host, upstream Klipper integration for the
F005 MCU, a persistent usable-system stack, Moonraker, managed web applications,
and a documented path back to Stock. The released 2026.3 line retains the
previously qualified GuppyScreen local-UI evidence; current development migrates
that local UI to the dedicated Fre3nderScreen source and integration contract.
The 2026.3 Independent Kernel Stack release completes the transition away
from the vendor kernel. Its host kernel is official Linux stable v6.6.157
plus an ordered five-patch Fre3nder X2000 hardware-support series with explicit
provenance and no RT23 dependency. The released series reproduces the source
tree exercised on the investigated reference system. The checkout may already
contain a later development version; its current source identity is defined by
VERSION and configs/x2000/sources.json.
The 2026.3 kernel qualification covers the exercised host boot, network, and
SSH path. Previously qualified display/touch, camera, ADXL/Input Shaper,
GuppyScreen, and complete-print flows remain documented qualification evidence
but were not automatically re-run on 6.6.157-fre3nder. See the
changelog for release history.
The important boundaries remain:
- software-only Fre3nder -> Stock: REQUIRES QUALIFICATION;
- power-cycle Stock recovery: QUALIFIED ON DEVICE (2/2);
- physical PC22 backlight effect: QUALIFIED ON DEVICE;
- integrated display/backlight/touch hardware path: QUALIFIED ON DEVICE;
- the complete
2026.2persistence, Moonraker, Fluidd, and GuppyScreen usable-system path: HARDWARE QUALIFIED ON DEVICE.
Observations marked as qualified apply to the investigated reference system unless explicitly stated otherwise. Do not treat its calibration, hardware revision, or recovery behavior as universal.
- Build Fre3nder
- Configure Fre3nder
- Back up HOME and SYS
- Integrated display and touch hardware
- Fre3nderScreen local Core-UI
- Install or update Fre3nder
- Recovery and return to Stock
- Development and tests
- Current roadmap
- Release history
- Licensing and provenance
- Acknowledgements
The current implementation is organized as follows:
build/ reproducible current build recipes
configs/ current Fre3nder host and F005 configurations
patches/ patches required by current builds
scripts/ current build, deployment, recovery, and test tools
tests/ current product tests, where present
docs/ current product documentation
research/ active research, bring-up, analysis, and history
research/ is an active project layer, not a dead archive. It
contains reverse engineering, hardware discovery, prototypes, experiments,
historical qualification records, and rejected alternatives. New work on the
display, touch, camera, sensors, MCU protocols, or bootloader starts there.
Qualified findings may be adopted into the productive tree, but productive
code, builds, configurations, and runtime must never depend on research/.
Read AGENTS.md before any hardware-related work. Offline builds
do not authorize deployment or persistent printer changes. Keep device-specific
information in the ignored docs/local-device.md, created from
docs/local-device.example.md, and never store
secrets in the repository.
Project-authored Fre3nder system material is licensed under
AGPL-3.0-or-later. Project-authored material in research/ is
licensed under MIT unless a file is third-party or derived material. See
docs/licensing-and-provenance.md for the
path-specific licensing and provenance policy.