Made a stupid mistake - Is control board ruined?

Hello,

I'm a 3D printer novice, I just received a HIC Prusa I3 kit as a Christmas present and set to building it over the course of the past couple days. I completed the construction and the wiring, and after double checking that everything looked good, I plugged it in for the first time.

Well, here was my mistake. It's embarrassing now, but I'm going to share it so as to obtain the full picture: The instructions, being as they are from a Chinese company, were rather vague when it came to setting up the power supply. They showed a picture of a person holding the power supply and moving the switch to the right, which was 220V, with the caption "Ensure switch set correctly." So even though my instincts told me 220V wasn't right because I know damn well that all American homes use 120VAC, I left it on 220V.

When I plugged the printer in with this setting, I first heard an ugly whine coming from the power supply. This was followed by smoke rising from the control board. I left it plugged in only long enough to see where the smoke came from (maybe 10-15 seconds tops) and then unplugged it. The smoke was rising from one of the capacitors on the control board near the stepper motor connections.

I then corrected the setting on the power supply back to 110V, and tried again. This time there was no smoke, but nothing at all from the power supply either. The fan wasn't working, and checking the voltages with the multimeter showed that, indeed, the power supply was now not outputting any voltage at all. However, plugging in the USB connection still had the LCD screen lighting up, the firmware booting from the board, and I could navigate the various menus with no problems.

So my question is... because of that smoking capacitor, is the board in danger of being ruined despite the fact that I could still navigate the control menus via the LCD? Or is the problem more likely only the dead power supply? I'm really hoping for the latter, but I was hoping to get the opinion of someone more experienced than myself.

Oddly, it sounds like you may have two problems...

First, the 110V/220V switch on the power supply should adjust it so that it accepts different input voltages without damaging it. Having switched to 220V and plugged into 110V should not damage it, but instead is should have put out less than 12V (if anything at all). Conversely, switching it to 110V and plugging it into 220V will cause problems.

Second, the inputs of the control board should have been getting less than 12V so board damage would have been caused by another problem - probably reversed polarity at the power inputs.

I would disconnect the power supply output wiring at the power supply, plug it in and check to see if there is voltage present at the output screws. If not, I would take the cover off and trace the 110V (CAREFULLY!!) from the input screws to the fuse, and on the other side of the fuse. If 110V is present PAST the fuse then the power supply is toast. If 110V is present before the fuse but not after it, then it is simply blown.

Once the power supply is sorted out, further troubleshooting can be done...

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-David

Find me online at:
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Check out my FolgerTech Prusa i3 (plexi) at MindRealm.net

Thanks for your reply. You know, I did find it extremely odd that setting it to a higher voltage and then feeding it a lower one would cause such problems. I double checked my wiring against the instructions, though, I did not reverse the polarity unless they have it reversed in the picture. Once again I feel like the instructions could have let me down. Very vague and uninformative.

After the initial problems, I took the cover off of the power supply and checked the only fuse I could see, it didn't appear to be blown. But I will open it up again and measure for voltage between the inputs and outputs the best I can. The path was convoluted to follow when I looked at it the other day. It was reading 0V at the output screws for sure, though.

Will report back with my findings.

So here's what I found. The power supply appears to be completely fine.

I disconnected everything from the power supply except for the wall connection wires. I then verified the fuse seemed okay again, and plugged it in. To my surprise, the fan started working, LEDs inside were on, and everything seemed fine. 120VAC was coming in, and 12VDC was being read on all output screws.

But then, when I reconnect the control board wires to the PS and plug it back in again, everything is dead as before. No activity or power output from the power supply.

I'm not quite sure what to do from here, so I already e-mailed the company asking how I can obtain a new control board. I feel like whatever is wrong with it now is probably beyond my level of electrical knowledge, but if anyone has more suggestions I'd be happy to try them. Not much else to lose at this point.

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EDIT: Discovered the culprit of the smoke. It wasn't a capacitor. I'm going to replace both the power supply and the control board and hopefully I'll be back in business.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2015 01:06PM by LutherGP.

That is the A4982 stepper driver IC for your X-axis stepper motor. The cause is either the wiring to the stepper motor, or the motor itself. It is unfortunate that these are integrated into the controller. Many (most?) DIY printers are controlled by a combination of Arduino Mega 2560 and a RAMPS1.4 card, which has individual plug-in stepper drivers (including this exact chip!)...

Any chance of a couple more photos showing the entire (front and back) board?

---

-David

Find me online at:
Thingiverse
Instructables.com
LinkedIn
Facebook

Check out my FolgerTech Prusa i3 (plexi) at MindRealm.net

Sure, here you go:

For anyone who might continue to read this, I've been doing additional research and have a few more questions. As MindRealm mentioned, I've learned that most control boards are modular and consist of the RAMPS card.

For the past week I've been trying to contact HIC and get a replacement control board, but have had no response. Granted, it is the holidays, but they are based in China so I'm not even sure how much that would affect their response time.

Anyway, since they seem to be unwilling to reply to my e-mails, I decided I should just eat the cost of a completely new controller board.


My question, before I buy this, is: What is the likelihood that one of my stepper motors was bad? Since the only component that burnt out was the X-axis stepper motor, should I replace that motor as well? Or could the burned chip be a consequence of what I described in previous posts (incorrect input voltage set on PS, 220 vs 110)? The absolute LAST thing I want to do at this point is buy a new board, wire it all up again only to have another component burn out because of a bad motor.

I feel like, though, that if the motor could be bad, then when I switch to the modular setup, I could just order a few extra drivers, and if one of them burns out, I'll know for fact it's the motor, but it would be easy to replace at that point. This integrated board makes everything more frustrating.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2015 11:24AM by LutherGP.