1 Topic by n108bg

  • n108bg
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2015-05-16
  • Posts: 34

Topic: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

I'm having a huge pain trying to fix my Da Vinci. I've run my Da Vinci about 100 hours in the last month, with no issues whatsoever...until i went on vacation for the 4th of July. Unplugged my Da Vinci 1.0, left for 4 days, came back, and the X-Axis is completely screwy. At first, i noticed the thing immediately skew left, so i replaced the endstop. Then the wiring to the endstop. Then on advice from a previous post, i put a 24" box fan in front of the door blowing in, and only then did it work, but i have no idea why, because since then, i have put heatsinks on both the X and Y stepper driver, attempted to blow air on the stepper driver from multiple angles using a 6" fan, blown cold air over the stepper driver with said fan, with and without heatsink, greased the X and Y axis rods, checked the input power...I'm really not sure what to do. It seems like the x-axis stepper motor is stalling or something, it seems to just start traveling the wrong direction at random, corresponding to a grinding/bumping noise. Does anyone have a suggestion?

2 Reply by maverick33

  • maverick33
  • Newbie
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2014-11-25
  • Posts: 2

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

get new wire to steepmotor X axis

3 Reply by carl_m1968

  • carl_m1968
  • carl_m1968
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Far North almost not Dallas
  • Registered: 2014-10-17
  • Posts: 6,512

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

If it works when the fan is blowing in then the issue is the actual motor and not the driver. I found out the hard way that the stock setup uses digital current control. It is set way to high and severally over driving all the motors. My extruder motor failed from overheating. It would run for about ten minuted then just sit there clicking. Let it cool off it would run around 10 minutes then start clicking. I swapped the drivers and it still did the same. I installed repetier which made the machine 100% quiter but the damage to the motor had already been done. I replaced the motor and all was fine for a while but the current is still higher then it should be and still cuases the motor to fail. The ultimate fix was to swap out the stock controller and LCD for a RAMPS 1.4 controller and LCD. The machine has been running perfect ever since and is so quite I have to check to see if it is running being in the same room. At some point I predict that everyone that owns a DaVinci will have one or more motors fail in the first year from over heating.

Printing since 2009 and still love it!
Anycubic 4MAX best $225 ever invested.
Voxelabs Proxima SLA. 6 inch 2k Mono LCD.
Anycubic Predator, massive Delta machine. 450 x 370 print envelope.

4 Reply by hansen644

  • hansen644
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2014-09-10
  • Posts: 291

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

I have used stock motors for sale if you need one.  Just PM me

5 Reply by n108bg

  • n108bg
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2015-05-16
  • Posts: 34

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

I swapped out my X-Axis steppers, same issue. I have a heatsink on the X and Y axis drivers, and a 6" fan blowing on the whole mboard, still not sure what is causing this.

6 Reply by carl_m1968

  • carl_m1968
  • carl_m1968
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Far North almost not Dallas
  • Registered: 2014-10-17
  • Posts: 6,512

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

n108bg wrote:

I swapped out my X-Axis steppers, same issue. I have a heatsink on the X and Y axis drivers, and a 6" fan blowing on the whole mboard, still not sure what is causing this.

Can I ask you why you are not taking our advice and accepting that the motor is bad?

Again you said when you had a fan blowing into the print area as I recommended that it worked and completed the print. That would point to a motor, not a driver.

No you say you have swapped drivers and even force cool the controller and it still happens. Again pointing to a bad motor.

They do go bad and it common for them to do so in these machines. Especially true of XYZ machines where they are over driven.

A motor has even been offered to you because we all know they go bad.

Printing since 2009 and still love it!
Anycubic 4MAX best $225 ever invested.
Voxelabs Proxima SLA. 6 inch 2k Mono LCD.
Anycubic Predator, massive Delta machine. 450 x 370 print envelope.

7 Reply by n108bg

  • n108bg
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2015-05-16
  • Posts: 34

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

Perhaps i misspoke. I was saying have swapped out the X axis stepper motor, the one that was supposedly causing the issue, with an identical one off a second Da Vinci. After about 4-5 minutes, the motor began to once again jerk and move erratically. I also included the information about force-cooling the drivers to rule a cooling issue out there.

I assure you, i am not ignoring your advice. I am running a Da Vinci 1.0a serial beggining 3F10A. I do not have the luxury of swapping out stepper drivers, as they are a part of the board, or i would have swapped the X and Z driver long ago.

8 Reply by carl_m1968 (edited by carl_m1968 2015-07-10 23:46:30)

  • carl_m1968
  • carl_m1968
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Far North almost not Dallas
  • Registered: 2014-10-17
  • Posts: 6,512

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

Well I apologize I did not see where you said you swapped motors. But still you did at one point say it finished a print when you cooled the cabinet if I am not mistaken?

Sounds Like you have the same issue I did with my 1.0 and the driver is also shot. Unfortunately on a 1.0A, unlike the 1.0 which has the drivers in sockets yours are soldered to the board so there is no way to swap. The best you can do is contact one of the several guys on here parting out their Da Vinci's and see if the have a 1.0A board. XYZ does not sell the boards, but you can also check Ebay as I see them on there sometimes.

Your other option is do what myslef and several others did and swap out the mainboard for a RAMPS 1.4 and LCD. Its not easy but it gives you a great insight to the printer and how it works.

Printing since 2009 and still love it!
Anycubic 4MAX best $225 ever invested.
Voxelabs Proxima SLA. 6 inch 2k Mono LCD.
Anycubic Predator, massive Delta machine. 450 x 370 print envelope.

9 Reply by n108bg

  • n108bg
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2015-05-16
  • Posts: 34

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

Yeah, I put a 24" fan in the front of the cabinet and managed to print an owl figurine. However, i can no longer repeat this. I will probably go get a second RAMPS 1.4 board and do a video when i fix that one.

Speaking of, on the thermistor for the Da Vinci 1.0 hotend, can I pull the thermistor values directly off the ribbon cable, or do i need to run a separate wire for the thermistor to the RAMPS board?

10 Reply by carl_m1968

  • carl_m1968
  • carl_m1968
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Far North almost not Dallas
  • Registered: 2014-10-17
  • Posts: 6,512

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

When I did mine I wired everything directly using new wiring except for the fan I left it connected to the board and just spliced the wires in the back end directly to the 5 volt output on the power supply since the RAMPS will only use the 12 volt now.

Printing since 2009 and still love it!
Anycubic 4MAX best $225 ever invested.
Voxelabs Proxima SLA. 6 inch 2k Mono LCD.
Anycubic Predator, massive Delta machine. 450 x 370 print envelope.

11 Reply by RudydG

  • RudydG
  • Newbie
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2015-04-05
  • Posts: 8

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

I changed the stepper drivers on the board, with the steppers that where on my Ramps. had to solder the pins out at one site.
Then i could adjust the current to lower normal levels.
Result: Cooler motors and quiter operation.
This is something that you can do as an experiment. Costs you a set of pins, and 10 minutes to solder. Can do it for the 1 axe that is problematic.
For now, i keep the Davinci motherbord, with the ramps drivers (in my case on X and Y axes)

12 Reply by carl_m1968

  • carl_m1968
  • carl_m1968
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Far North almost not Dallas
  • Registered: 2014-10-17
  • Posts: 6,512

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

RudydG wrote:

I changed the stepper drivers on the board, with the steppers that where on my Ramps. had to solder the pins out at one site.
Then i could adjust the current to lower normal levels.
Result: Cooler motors and quiter operation.
This is something that you can do as an experiment. Costs you a set of pins, and 10 minutes to solder. Can do it for the 1 axe that is problematic.
For now, i keep the Davinci motherbord, with the ramps drivers (in my case on X and Y axes)


His unit is a 1.0A it does  not have the driver in sockets. They are a chip soldered directly to the main board. There is no place on the mainboard to solder a pot to because it uses digital control. So even if he had the equipment to remove the actual chip from a stepdriver or other carrier he still would not be able to control current simply by mounting a new driver.

Printing since 2009 and still love it!
Anycubic 4MAX best $225 ever invested.
Voxelabs Proxima SLA. 6 inch 2k Mono LCD.
Anycubic Predator, massive Delta machine. 450 x 370 print envelope.

13 Reply by Asatruar

  • Asatruar
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2015-04-20
  • Posts: 17

Re: Ready to throw Da Vinci into a lake.

n108bg wrote:

I'm having a huge pain trying to fix my Da Vinci. I've run my Da Vinci about 100 hours in the last month, with no issues whatsoever...until i went on vacation for the 4th of July. Unplugged my Da Vinci 1.0, left for 4 days, came back, and the X-Axis is completely screwy. At first, i noticed the thing immediately skew left, so i replaced the endstop. Then the wiring to the endstop. Then on advice from a previous post, i put a 24" box fan in front of the door blowing in, and only then did it work, but i have no idea why, because since then, i have put heatsinks on both the X and Y stepper driver, attempted to blow air on the stepper driver from multiple angles using a 6" fan, blown cold air over the stepper driver with said fan, with and without heatsink, greased the X and Y axis rods, checked the input power...I'm really not sure what to do. It seems like the x-axis stepper motor is stalling or something, it seems to just start traveling the wrong direction at random, corresponding to a grinding/bumping noise. Does anyone have a suggestion?

I was having a similar problem and after first rerouting the cables and putting in the cable chain, it was fine for a while then started happening again. The only difference this time was I had Repetier running on it.

I've noticed that if I drop my temps down on the bed and extruders, it works just fine without a problem.