Power supply failing after short while

Hi

I bought my reprappro huxley some time in December (haven't put it together until now though). When starting to test it, calibrating and similar, everything seemed to work fine. However when I turned on the heater, it went fine at first (the temperature raised) and then suddenly it just died. Luckily enough, the machine was not broken, however I found that when checking if my power supply (the 19V which I got in the kit) gave the correct voltage, I found that it had simply failed and didn't give any voltage at all. Now the interesting thing is that I tried it again, just to make sure, a few minutes later and then it started to work again. I have now done this three times, each time the power supply has failed and stopped producing any voltage for a few minutes and then started working again. First I thought it was that it couldn't handle the larger power usage from the heater, but the third time it actually failed when nothing was running except for one motor (maybe two).
Now I wonder if I might just be doing some dumb error or if the power supply has a fabrication error and I have to get a new one?
I haven't included much detail here because I am not really sure what information would be needed, so if you need more information to answer this, just say.

Thanks in advance,
Aron

Hi Aron,

I had this exact problem with my power supply as well. I also got my Huxley from Reprappro and also got it soon - maybe 1 week ago. When it stopped giving voltage (only worked for probably 30 minutes while I was on commissioning) I opened it and you can see the results in the attachment. The picture with the worse quality is before I resoldered it and followed the freshly soldered parts with new solder (it is exactly as I opened it).

There was oxidation on most of it, mainly the right part, there was some rust! on it and also it was fixed - some of the joints were freshly soldered (around the output connector). When I opened it the positive wire for 19V came out. I resoldered it, but it is still not giving any voltage. I am now using one 19V adapter from an old laptop that is not 120W but only 90W and it still works ok for now.

I have not really got any advice for you, except if you want to open it, see if it is in bad shape as mine was and maybe talk to the Reprappro support, in my oppinion they are really nice guys. They also resolved my problem, and I am very happy with their support.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2013 07:02AM by vasko.

Hello.
I also had the exact same problem.
I also purchased the Huxley from reprappro.
The power supply runs for 30 minutes and then shuts off.
I solved it by replacing the power supply with a similar one.

Interesting.

Ok, at least it fails less often now for me when I replaced the DC connector (it shorted). But I still only have been able to complete only a few layers in a test build.
Most often it shuts of just a few seconds after I have activated the heater (the bed heater seems to work fine though).

Maybe I will just try to get a new powersupply.

Does anyone know how many watts it needs to be able to give for a huxley to be working well? Powersupplies over 100W seem be rather uncommon at my local electronics store.

If you want to source your own power supply, it's a 12V 20A PSU, commonly used for LED lights. You can run a higher current power supply, say up to 30A, if you want a bit more headroom on current (the heated bed draws about 10A peak, and the hot end draws 4A peak). They are available on ebay.

Only 12V? The one I got included in the kit was 19V.

Definitely a 19V power supply from RRP - they use the sort which I believe are made to power laptop computers and although 19V seems a little high especially when you work out the power it generates via the hot end resistor, 19V does the job and these power supplies are quite neat.
I have heard of this problem before and suggest you take it directly to RRP as I guess that the kit components are still under their warranty.

Alan

Ok, I have contacted RRP now. I will see what they say.

Thanks!

Having the same problem here,
it occured me three times, suddenly no power.
i have the 19V power adapter, supplied in the huxley pro kit

The power cable fell apart on mine.