No voltage to extruder

Look at the board:

http://reprap.org/mediawiki/images/f/fa … to-top.jpg

the terminal next to the "PWR1-TIP" label is ground.

probe the +12v and the ground provided on that connector. +12v to normal ground should always show 12v if the board is plugged in, +12v to ground on that connector should only show +12v when the extruder is on.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1786359/del.png

Positive probe of meter on terminal circled in green for all tests.

Test 1:
Negative probe of meter on terminal circled in pink

Test 2:
Negative probe of meter on terminal circled in blue, extruder heater off

Test 3:
Negative probe of meter on terminal circled in blue, extruder heater on

Results for each test?

Yes! next you want to check for resistance between

(1)the connection at the extruder that goes to the heater (so there's a quick disconnect at the extruder. Check between the two pins that lead wires into the extruder block)

(2)both ends of the two wires that lead to the extruder. I.E, one of the pins that goes into the electronics PCB and one of the two pins that the extruder heater (see 1) connects to. You won't know which of the two pins to try, but try both, and you'll get resistance (continuity) between only 1 or them, or neither.

(3) Do this for the other pin that connects in the electronics PCB board as the extruder heater.

So the conditions I'm checking for with these checks are

(1) Is the heat resistor dead?  It will die and either show no continuity, or very high continuity. Usually the former.

(2)&(3) are the wires that go in a bundle to the extruder broken? There are a few solidoodles who have found the wires fatigue and break and so power never gets to the extruder resistor.

They should send you a new heater at least; it sounds like you narrowed it down to the resistor.

I would email them right away.

Do you have the kind of extruder that has a brown clay ball that is the heater, or the kind with a metal block and what seems like a resistor?

If you're on a time crunch, as it seems, I would not rely on solidoodle though I'd still ask for their support, but I'd also pick up at minimum a spare resistor ($2 or something) from http://store.qu-bd.com/.   You'll have to deal with changing the extruder pid settings, but thats not a big deal.  I think qu-bd will ship USPS so since its a small envelope you can get quite cheap shipping.

Haha, you're the nicest person.

I'm sorry I never responded earlier.   I hope solidoodle has responded to you by now- if not, have you tried contacting them on skype or IRC?  It sounds like you might not be too comfortable with manually replacing it (will require some soldering and heatshrinking).  The power resistor ($1) would work, and the heater catridge is just a fancier thing that's less likely to burn out. A lot of 3d printing people use just the cheaper resistor, though.

  You simply benefit from buying the solidoodle store heater, because I assume they use the same connectors and sell it to you with connections and everything already setup. Saved effort is often worth it. 

In terms of upgrading, I think you should wait until you have everything else settled .  The heater element is not the biggest limiting factor at the start.

-regards

Hi Newt! Most likely the heater is burnt out.  However, you may want to inspect the connector to make sure the wires are pressed in well.  In the past I had one fallout, so I used a xactoknife to push it in deeper, and eventually it fell out again. in the end, I merely soldered the wired in (delicately,and quickly, so as not to melt the plastic housing)

However, as you noted, it's probably the core that is dead.  You can reuse the wires and connecter going to the core, so you only need to switch out the power resistor.

In which case, the resistor from qu-bd should work, or their heater cartridge. You'll need to rerun the PID tuning as detailed in some other threads, after you put in the new resistor.

I should add that although the heater catridge is much less liable to burn out, I actually had the wire fatigue and break on mine as the junction, so I'll be switching to the regular resistor soon if only because it's cheaper and evidently the catridge is not much more reliable (I wont switch if I can manage to reliably resolder it with what wire is still protruding). When you buy the resistor from qu-bd (or wherever you get it), make sure to also buy a bit of the high temp heat insulation.  On the bright side, this replacement part in sum is still less than 10 dollars in cost.  Not fun, but better than it also being costly.

I just noticed the diameter of the resistor I wanted to buy (http://reprapworld.com/?products_detail … _1600_1592) is 5.5mm which is 0.5mm more than the diameter of the hole in the aluminum block (5mm).

Does anyone know what part exactly is used by Solidoodle? Or at least a part number/name (so I can buy it locally) that will work? since there is not a lot information about the supposedly fitting resistor on the qu-bd shop.

Thanks!