Prusa i3 Extruder Failure

Hoping someone can help to give me some guidance.

A few days ago, I was 75% of the way through an 18 hour print, and at 0400 hrs, I awoke to the smell of burnt plastic. Went to the workshop to find that the hot end had fallen out of its mount and melted the print that it was working on. The nozzle and hot end are toast.

I replaced with new and tested the hot end. Heats to temperature, so no issues.

When I reassembled the extruder, I now find that I cannot manually feed the filament through the nozzle using the LCD screen. This was possible before.

I swapped motors with a known good motor and still response. Checked extruder motor against a known good cable and was good. Moved extruder motor cable to a known working port on controller and was good. So it's not the motor or cable.

I flashed the control card and reloaded firmware. No dice.

My question, as I land the plane finally, is that can I use the open driver port on the control card to drive the extruder motor? I presume that the current port is bad at best, so hoping that the unused port is still good and can be used. Will anyone recommend the firmware or config change that needs to be made?

Thanks for your help.

What control board are you using? if its one with removable stepper drivers like the RAMPS then try swapping the drivers.

I suspect you could have damaged the stepper driver, cheap and easy fix and saves playing around with the firmware

Thanks for the reply.

It's the stock HICTOP board. MPX.1 version 1.3.

Yeah ok, cant change the stepper driver out on it then. One thing I never liked about the all in one boards.

What firmware are you using and we will help out with changing the extruder motor pin for you

Silly question, but did you get the hotend up to temperature when you tried the extruder,(motor wont move when cold)
Have you checked the hot end and throat are not blocked solid from when the fault happened?

Sorry if i am stating the obvious

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obewan
Silly question, but did you get the hotend up to temperature when you tried the extruder,(motor wont move when cold)
Have you checked the hot end and throat are not blocked solid from when the fault happened?

Sorry if i am stating the obvious

I had checked this initially with the original firmware (circa 2015), but will check it again. I don't recall having this problem during the initial build (1) because it was all manual operation, and (2) the motor was essentially decoupled from the hot end. I am surprised that the firmware has this protection in it, but now I feel stupid if this is the issue.

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scottybfg
Yeah ok, cant change the stepper driver out on it then. One thing I never liked about the all in one boards.

What firmware are you using and we will help out with changing the extruder motor pin for you

Here are the firmware and config files. Thank you for your help with this. I'm a complete noob with firmware hacks on this.

Im at work so cant do it right now, but have a go your self, doing is half the fun of this project and its how you learn.

What you need to do is swap the pin numbers for the 2 extrudes in the pins.h for your motherboard. there will be three numbers you need to swap, (think its E1 and E2 but could be something different, they come after X Y Z so should be easy to find)

#define E1_STEP_PIN 
#define E1_DIR_PIN 
#define E1_ENABLE_PIN

#define E2_STEP_PIN 
#define E2_DIR_PIN 
#define E2_ENABLE_PIN

so for the above example, replace the E2 numbers with the E1 numbers and put the E2 numbers next to E1

Like I said I'm happy to do it later, but have a try first as see how you go

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scottybfg
Im at work so cant do it right now, but have a go your self, doing is half the fun of this project and its how you learn.

What you need to do is swap the pin numbers for the 2 extrudes in the pins.h for your motherboard. there will be three numbers you need to swap, (think its E1 and E2 but could be something different, they come after X Y Z so should be easy to find)

#define E1_STEP_PIN 
#define E1_DIR_PIN 
#define E1_ENABLE_PIN

#define E2_STEP_PIN 
#define E2_DIR_PIN 
#define E2_ENABLE_PIN

Thanks for this. I'll aim to try it tomorrow after work myself. Until then, thank you.

so for the above example, replace the E2 numbers with the E1 numbers and put the E2 numbers next to E1

Like I said I'm happy to do it later, but have a try first as see how you go

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Vgala9

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scottybfg
Im at work so cant do it right now, but have a go your self, doing is half the fun of this project and its how you learn.

What you need to do is swap the pin numbers for the 2 extrudes in the pins.h for your motherboard. there will be three numbers you need to swap, (think its E1 and E2 but could be something different, they come after X Y Z so should be easy to find)

#define E1_STEP_PIN 
#define E1_DIR_PIN 
#define E1_ENABLE_PIN

#define E2_STEP_PIN 
#define E2_DIR_PIN 
#define E2_ENABLE_PIN

Thanks for this. I'll aim to try it tomorrow after work myself. Until then, thank you.

so for the above example, replace the E2 numbers with the E1 numbers and put the E2 numbers next to E1

Like I said I'm happy to do it later, but have a try first as see how you go

OK, I think I understand what you mean after looking at the config files. So, I have a generic question for you that will likely expose my dumbassedness.

I work with industrial software on a upload/download basis, and that's about it (I'm a mechanical engineer, but I'm trying). For the Arduino software, is it recommended to connect to the machine and make changes while online (i.e. live) or (1) upload the current firmware, (2) make the changes to the config file that you mention, and (3) download the updated software?

If not, how does one know which motherboard within the pins file should be edited considering the fact that this isn't a typical Arduino Uno/Mega product?

#define E0_STEP_PIN         34  //34
#define E0_DIR_PIN          35 //35
#define E0_ENABLE_PIN       33 //33

#define E1_STEP_PIN         37 //37
#define E1_DIR_PIN          40 //40
#define E1_ENABLE_PIN       36 //36

You get +1 for being a mechanical engineer (I'm also a mechanical so understand your pain)

So to make the changes you can do it offline and save (always make a copy of the old file so you can roll back if you F it up), but you will need the control board plugged in to upload the compiled code. Do not have the printer connected in your host software (what you use to control the printer), its no issue if you forget, you will just get an error message. If you haven't already watch a quick youtube video on updating firmware, its simple once you get the hang of it.

As for the board, I had a look and you are using board 33 RAMPS 1.3 / 1.4 (Maybe double check that one, I've had a lot of numbers in my head today) This is found in the configuration.h file. Get use to looking at this one as this is where most the movement and auto bed leveling information is stored

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scottybfg
You get +1 for being a mechanical engineer (I'm also a mechanical so understand your pain)

So to make the changes you can do it offline and save (always make a copy of the old file so you can roll back if you F it up), but you will need the control board plugged in to upload the compiled code. Do not have the printer connected in your host software (what you use to control the printer), its no issue if you forget, you will just get an error message. If you haven't already watch a quick youtube video on updating firmware, its simple once you get the hang of it.

As for the board, I had a look and you are using board 33 RAMPS 1.3 / 1.4 (Maybe double check that one, I've had a lot of numbers in my head today) This is found in the configuration.h file. Get use to looking at this one as this is where most the movement and auto bed leveling information is stored

Again, thank you for your help. I don't get how you know the board type? Is that just based upon the design visual? Or are you a wizard or something?

Anyway, now I'm on hold for a different issue. My friends at HICTOP sent me firmware that now seems to brick the printer when the nozzle advances beyond 100 degrees and throws a "heating fail" alarm. I didn't upload the original firmware because I'm a dumbass and because I thought I had it saved from the time of purchase so I could roll back. So fml for now.

Don't worry mate, I'll try and get you up and printing if not someone else should be able to jump in and help out.

So what is happening now is thermal runaway. If the temperature of the hotend doesn't change over a set period of time, the printer suspects there is something wrong and shuts off. Its a safety feature.

Few things to look at, first have a look at the wiring, there could be a bad connection coming into the control board or from the control board to the heater cartage.

Another wearing issue could be with the thermister, but with thermister issues you normally see 0 or a negative temp or something like 700C,

You could try a P&ID tune for the hotend, this will help fine tune the control loop for the hotend, can also speed up heating times so always a good thing to do if you change hotend or power supply.

The last is to look in the firmware again for the thermal runaway settings

WATCH_TEMP_PERIOD
  WATCH_TEMP_INCREASE

Watch period is how long it will wait for a temperature increase (in seconds) and watch increase is the increase it is looking for.

The firmware you linked above, is this the new one you are trying to upload from HICTOP? I did find it a bit outdated in some aspects and now that you mention HICTOP I know its a cheap Chinese build. Nothing wrong with them but I find the firmware they send is usually a mash up of outdated open source. You should consider flashing a new version of marlin on your board, this will require you to change a few setting in the firmware, but there are lots of great videos and information out there on what to change. If you want to take this option let me know and ill link a few.

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scottybfg
Don't worry mate, I'll try and get you up and printing if not someone else should be able to jump in and help out.

So what is happening now is thermal runaway. If the temperature of the hotend doesn't change over a set period of time, the printer suspects there is something wrong and shuts off. Its a safety feature.

Few things to look at, first have a look at the wiring, there could be a bad connection coming into the control board or from the control board to the heater cartage.

Another wearing issue could be with the thermister, but with thermister issues you normally see 0 or a negative temp or something like 700C,

You could try a P&ID tune for the hotend, this will help fine tune the control loop for the hotend, can also speed up heating times so always a good thing to do if you change hotend or power supply.

The last is to look in the firmware again for the thermal runaway settings

WATCH_TEMP_PERIOD
  WATCH_TEMP_INCREASE

Watch period is how long it will wait for a temperature increase (in seconds) and watch increase is the increase it is looking for.

The firmware you linked above, is this the new one you are trying to upload from HICTOP? I did find it a bit outdated in some aspects and now that you mention HICTOP I know its a cheap Chinese build. Nothing wrong with them but I find the firmware they send is usually a mash up of outdated open source. You should consider flashing a new version of marlin on your board, this will require you to change a few setting in the firmware, but there are lots of great videos and information out there on what to change. If you want to take this option let me know and ill link a few.

Yes, I would like to proceed as you suggest. The HICTOP rep keeps telling me I have a wiring error with the motor, and if he weren't in China (and it wasn't so time consuming for me to secure a visa), I would go there, slit his throat, and play in his blood...so yeah, I've been watching too much GoT and he annoyed me by telling me I have a wiring error when I don't.

Anywho...about those links. If you could direct me to a starting point, I'd sure appreciate it.

Apologies for the delay in responding. I have some of my team on leave, so I've been crushed covering tech support and service issues.

Thanks for your help, as always.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2017 12:32PM by Vgala9.

Scottybfg - I'd like to consider flashing to new firmware. I've experimented with this a bit, but I can't really find what I should be changing definitively. Do you know if there exists standard settings for the Prusa i3 for Marlin somewhere?

I wouldn't go that extreme it could be a wiring issue.

As for the firmware change, a quick google should give you all the info you need, its a question that asked about every few days so I should not need to type out the steps and hold your hand.

As for things to change, make sure that the correct control board is defined, the correct thermisters, and the movement setting so steps/mm (use the calculated steps but being an engineer I should not have to tell you that) and the acceleration, jerk and feedrate settings.

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scottybfg
I wouldn't go that extreme it could be a wiring issue.

As for the firmware change, a quick google should give you all the info you need, its a question that asked about every few days so I should not need to type out the steps and hold your hand.

As for things to change, make sure that the correct control board is defined, the correct thermisters, and the movement setting so steps/mm (use the calculated steps but being an engineer I should not have to tell you that) and the acceleration, jerk and feedrate settings.

Yes, I'm quite good at using the google machine, but I was requesting since you had mentioned that you could link some "good videos". I wasn't asking you to hold my hand through the process, but attempting to rather take you up on your offer. We are good here. I changed it over to E1.

It's not a wiring issue. There's literally only two connections between the motor and the board and a poka yoke on the connectors, so I have confidence that even a mechanical engineer can make that connection successfully.

As for the settings for the i3, again, I was just asking if you knew of the standard settings rather than sifting through the config file comments. Thanks anyway.

Many settings can be read out of the original firmware by sending "M503" gcode via Pronterface. Make a screenshot of the response or copy/paste in a txt file for later reference.

Yes I did say I would post some links so my response was a bit dick-ish. I find this forum to be filled with people asking the same questions that could be answered with some time and research but me responding like that wont fix anything

Link: [www.google.com.au]

With that and the M503 command you should be up and printing.

Have you looked at the heating profile in the host software?
Wrong thermistor selected?
Wrong max temp limit set?
Bed and hot end thermistors on wrong connections?
Thermistor damaged or not seating correctly in your new hot end?