1 Topic by asperkins

  • asperkins
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Topic: DaVinci 1.0 Fan stops when print starts.

Printer: DaVinci 1.0a
Firmware: Repetier 0.92
Print Via: OctoPi on Raspberry PI 2
Slicer: Cura

Here is my situation. I searched for an hour trying to find a solution before posting....

I have a 1.0a Da Vinci. I have a recent version of Repetier 0.92 firmware. Printing is done via Octoprint, previously installed on an PI B with xbian, now on a PI 2 with OctoPi.

Problem: When the extruder is heating up the stock fan turns on. A few seconds after it starts to actually print, the fan turns off and as far as I can tell never turns on again, until I cancel the print, or it finishes.

Via Octoprint terminal M106 and M107 are not recognized, and I pretty dang sure that I did not enable control of the stock fan via gcode. The 2 things that have changed from the time that I was getting successful prints, including > 12 hour PLA prints, are the upgrade to a PI 2 and the switch to Octopi.

A few days ago I could print ABS and PLA successfully, but recently I've noticed issues and then I noticed the fan turning off when the print starts.

I have tried grabbing some gcode from a few weeks ago that worked fine, I've updated by start/end gcode per suggestions in the forums. I just can't figure out why it now thinks the fan should turn off when printing starts. I find it hard to believe that the new PI + octopi change would do this, but that's about all that's changed recently.

2 Reply by carl_m1968

  • carl_m1968
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Re: DaVinci 1.0 Fan stops when print starts.

Well the correct course of action would be to take out known changes and go back till you get what works. Then figure out from there forward the issue. You already stated the most likely suspect. Take out Octopi and go back to what worked. If it works then well you know thr issue and can dig into settings to figure it out.

Printing since 2009 and still love it!
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3 Reply by asperkins

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Re: DaVinci 1.0 Fan stops when print starts.

I just put the old PI back in place, so it should be back to the state where it worked properly. The fan still turns off shortly after the print starts. I feel like I'm missing something obvious here.

It is supposed to run constantly above a certain temperature, correct?

4 Reply by asperkins

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Re: DaVinci 1.0 Fan stops when print starts.

Ah HA. So I manually turned on the extruder, the fan kicks on, I manually move the extruder toward the front of the printer and bingo, the fan turns off. I move it back by half an inch, fan turns on, forward, off, backward on.

So it appears I have a wiring issue somewhere. After removing the wire management tubing  the fan no longer comes on at all. Next step, dig out the multimeter and find the culprit.

5 Reply by asperkins

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Re: DaVinci 1.0 Fan stops when print starts.

Just in case anyone is interested. I finally got around to tracking down the issue. With a meter and some needles I tracked down a failure in the wire (green) that drives the fan. It was just simply a failure inside the insulation. No outward indications whatsoever. Anyway, after cutting out and replacing that section all is back to normal.