1 Topic by Rocketman

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Topic: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

I have had my Solidoodle 2nd Generation for around 4 months now, and the later 2 months it has been broken since the hot-end burned out. I didn't know enough about electronics to fix it myself, but did order a new hot-end when I found someone I thought could fix it. A friend of mine's father was the go to guy for complex electrical issues before he retired from IBM, and my friend's uncle works/worked for General Motors. He had my printer for a month and was only able to tell me that the hot-end burned out, which I'd already kind of concluded, and my friend's uncle chimed in claiming that there was also an electrical issue and that if I powered it up with the new hot-end it also might break. In that time he was not able to fix the problem. Now if two electrical professionals aren't able to fix it, than how can I be expected to get it working? I've literally had it working for only half the time I've owned it, and spent $70 to get the new hot-end. At what point is enough enough? I don't have a working printer and 3 rolls of plastic I can't do anything with besides hang myself. There has got to be a professional technician who completely understands how this thing works? I am completely willing to pay someone to fix this, but I don't know of anyone who has the expertise.

2 Reply by Gordym

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

Has anyone posted on this site to ask questions? I am sure if they used the info here they could identify the problem. The hot end has two components, the heat resistor and the thermistor. Both components are a simple replacement. Other than that, they wire directly to the board. There may be an issue with the connections between the board and those two components (grounding) or an issue on the board. There are several post on this forum and the official Solidoodle's wiki that should help with troubleshooting. If not, post some symptoms and I am sure someone will offer suggestions to help you. Also identify your computer/operating system as that may be helpful. Stating that the hot end is broken is not enough detail. Is it heating up? Is it plugged? Is it getting too hot? You will probably need a cheap multimeter to test some connections but that should be all to identify the issue.

SD2
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3 Reply by pcpoirier

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

where do you live?

4 Reply by 2n2r5

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

I am sure that we could help you solve your problem if you are willing to explore a little bit. It would also be a good experience for you and might help save you 100's to become a D-I-Yer.

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5 Reply by dkeeling728

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

being retired from the electronics industry hardly qualifies someone to repair a device they know nothing about. so put their experience aside.

"broke" is not a descriptive term to use in describing a problem with a machine like a 3d printer. in what way is it "broken"? does it fail to heat, get too hot, not give a temperature reading in the software? have you checked for clogs? have you checked all the connections to the mainboard. (not just to the hotend, but everything, power supply etc.) are you able to connect to the printer via your computer and printer control software at all? if so, do you have full manual control of the motors? etc etc.

try to be as through as possible when describing the problem and someone may be able to help you quite easily. these machines are wonderful technological masterpieces built out of fundamentally extremely simple parts. it shouldn't be too hard to find an answer.

6 Reply by Rocketman (edited by Rocketman 2013-05-31 02:09:43)

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

Gordym wrote:

Has anyone posted on this site to ask questions? I am sure if they used the info here they could identify the problem. The hot end has two components, the heat resistor and the thermistor. Both components are a simple replacement. Other than that, they wire directly to the board. There may be an issue with the connections between the board and those two components (grounding) or an issue on the board. There are several post on this forum and the official Solidoodle's wiki that should help with troubleshooting. If not, post some symptoms and I am sure someone will offer suggestions to help you. Also identify your computer/operating system as that may be helpful. Stating that the hot end is broken is not enough detail. Is it heating up? Is it plugged? Is it getting too hot? You will probably need a cheap multimeter to test some connections but that should be all to identify the issue.

I've already examined it myself. The heated platform works fine. The thermistor works fine, I get the .75 volts from the back of the machine. It has to be the heating elements of the hot-end and apparently also maybe some wiring from the mother board. In any event I don't want to mess around with it anymore. I need an expert who possess all the parts it might need, and the knowledge to test and fix it.

7 Reply by Rocketman

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

pcpoirier wrote:

where do you live?


Buffalo, NY (suburbs)

8 Reply by Rocketman

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

dkeeling728 wrote:

being retired from the electronics industry hardly qualifies someone to repair a device they know nothing about. so put their experience aside.

"broke" is not a descriptive term to use in describing a problem with a machine like a 3d printer. in what way is it "broken"? does it fail to heat, get too hot, not give a temperature reading in the software? have you checked for clogs? have you checked all the connections to the mainboard. (not just to the hotend, but everything, power supply etc.) are you able to connect to the printer via your computer and printer control software at all? if so, do you have full manual control of the motors? etc etc.

try to be as through as possible when describing the problem and someone may be able to help you quite easily. these machines are wonderful technological masterpieces built out of fundamentally extremely simple parts. it shouldn't be too hard to find an answer.

If these machines are so simple, why should someone in an electronics industry not be able to crack the code? I gave him reference to the forums, and I now have a multimeter. I really need someone else to do this. Apparently there are ways to burn something else out if using the multimeter wrong, and I don't know what the fuck any of the symbols on it mean.

9 Reply by mr_tim34

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

I'd be surprised if the board being bad could damage the hot end. The hot end is a resistor that gets 12V applied to it. If the thermister wasn't connected it could continue heating and overheat, aside from that it's not going to hurt hour hot end. Set the meter to DC volts, it's usually a straight line symbol on the meter. To verify you've set it right check a battery, 1.5V for a AAA, AA, C, or D and 9V for a nine volt battery :-) after your sure your reading DC voltage check for 12V at the hot end connector, after you've turned it on in the software. If you see the 12V you should be good to go, if you don't you'll have to check for 12V at the board. If you've got it there and not at the connector you have a break in the wire from the board to the hot end. If you don't have it there you have a problem with your power supply or your board. The main thing you have to be careful about when using the meter is that you don't touch two things at once with a single probe tip. This is the main way you could damage something, by causing a short with the probe. The other thing to be careful of is not to go to heavy handed when probing the board. You can damage things by pressing two hard with the probes and scratching the traces and or small components.

Good luck...

TiM

10 Reply by driggers

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

Rocketman, maybe we can diagnose the problem together.  Can you describe the symptoms that tell you it is burnt out?  I'll get us started.

1.  Does it heat up at all.  Touch it (quickly and lightly) to check.
2.  Is it plugged in properly, at the extruder head and at the board on the back of the SD2?  Try un plugging it and plugging it back in, or show us a photo.
3.  If it does heat up, perhaps it is clogged, and we can fix that.

Also, you will attract more help by keeping your answers short and your (very valid) gripes separate from them.

Good luck!

SD2 Sanguinololu 1.3a atmega1284p, wood platform, lawsy's carriages, braided fishing line, pallet wood overhead spool mount, carboard/magnet enclosure, glass bed, E3D v6, bed levelling knobs, extended z-stop, 25A DC-DC SSR for bed heater, everything fixed to the SD2 frame, marlin firmware with some adjustments and extra failsafes enabled.  I'll never give up on you, little printer that could(n't)!

11 Reply by IanJohnson

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

The resistor that is the heating element for the hot end probably burned out.  A lot of the resistors Solidoodle was using a while ago were having this problem, though I haven't heard many complaints about it lately.  The new hot end should be fine, the only potential problem would be some kind of short that makes it heat without being switched on.  If that were the case, your hot end would have melted and dropped the nozzle onto the bed, so that is probably not the case with your printer.

12 Reply by Rocketman

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

mr_tim34 wrote:

I'd be surprised if the board being bad could damage the hot end. The hot end is a resistor that gets 12V applied to it. If the thermister wasn't connected it could continue heating and overheat, aside from that it's not going to hurt hour hot end. Set the meter to DC volts, it's usually a straight line symbol on the meter. To verify you've set it right check a battery, 1.5V for a AAA, AA, C, or D and 9V for a nine volt battery :-) after your sure your reading DC voltage check for 12V at the hot end connector, after you've turned it on in the software. If you see the 12V you should be good to go, if you don't you'll have to check for 12V at the board. If you've got it there and not at the connector you have a break in the wire from the board to the hot end. If you don't have it there you have a problem with your power supply or your board. The main thing you have to be careful about when using the meter is that you don't touch two things at once with a single probe tip. This is the main way you could damage something, by causing a short with the probe. The other thing to be careful of is not to go to heavy handed when probing the board. You can damage things by pressing two hard with the probes and scratching the traces and or small components.

Good luck...

TiM


The board had the 12V when I tested it before. And the hot-end (The thing that is supposed to get hot) no longer gets hot, and the thermister works fine. Something between the board and the hot-end isn't working, and I have no idea how to fix that. I really would be much more comfortable having an expert look at it.

13 Reply by Rocketman

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

IanJohnson wrote:

The resistor that is the heating element for the hot end probably burned out.  A lot of the resistors Solidoodle was using a while ago were having this problem, though I haven't heard many complaints about it lately.  The new hot end should be fine, the only potential problem would be some kind of short that makes it heat without being switched on.  If that were the case, your hot end would have melted and dropped the nozzle onto the bed, so that is probably not the case with your printer.


There has got to be a professional who can do this for me? I could pay them $100 to fix it. I consider that a small investment. I am hoping the hot-end I purchased is one of the newer ones in that case. Had I gotten a makerbot would they have had staff to do repairs?

14 Reply by mr_tim34

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

If you're getting the 12V your resistor probably went bad. The new hot end will fix it, and you can buy a replacement resistor to repair the dead one and still have a spare. I'm sure the folks at Solidoodle would be willing to repair it for you if you shipped it to them. Swapping out a hot end if relatively easy. You might be able to find a repair shop that will work on it for you. The main trouble with that is that they will be unfamiliar with the printer and there isn't allot of documentation that's available for them to refer to. They'd be browsing through this forum for a few hours figuring  out what they needed to know.

TiM

15 Reply by Rocketman

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

mr_tim34 wrote:

If you're getting the 12V your resistor probably went bad. The new hot end will fix it, and you can buy a replacement resistor to repair the dead one and still have a spare. I'm sure the folks at Solidoodle would be willing to repair it for you if you shipped it to them. Swapping out a hot end if relatively easy. You might be able to find a repair shop that will work on it for you. The main trouble with that is that they will be unfamiliar with the printer and there isn't allot of documentation that's available for them to refer to. They'd be browsing through this forum for a few hours figuring  out what they needed to know.

TiM

I'm worried that it isn't as easy as replacing the hot-end. I read someone else's post about his hot-end burning out, and he popped in a brand new one and within the week it burned out also. I would rather pay someone $100 to confirm and repair the problems than mess around with it myself at lose another $140 for 2 hot-ended when one would have been fine had the wiring not been messed up.

16 Reply by ronsii

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

Hot ends can fail at any time... usually right before the end of a very long print wink I have been very lucky in this respect and only lost a few hotends so far in all of my printers. It is just how the technology is at the moment and all of the consumer/hobby models use similar parts and design for their hotends... from what I can see if you have a 3d printer the hotend will fail after so many hours of printing( I don't have data on this) just look on some of the other forums out there for other 3d printers hotend failures are one of the main problems with current 3d printers.

Ok, back to the testing phase... with you printer's power unplugged go ahead and unplug both of the hotend plugs from the printer there is no setting on your multimeter that will hurt the hot end while testing it to determine if it is indeed the offending component. just place the meter in the horseshoe(ohms) position and connect the meter leads to one of the hotend plugs and see what the meter says then do the same with the other hotend plug and let us know what the results are.

17 Reply by IanJohnson

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

It isn't a problem with the system causing the resistor to fail, it's the resistor itself.  John from support has said in another thread that they have found a different supplier for resistors that are much more reliable.  Your printer is old enough to have the original fail-prone resistor.  If you bought the new hot end recently, it is probably fine.  If not, see if they will send you a new resistor.  You don't really need to replace the whole $70 hot end, just the $6 resistor.

18 Reply by Rocketman

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

IanJohnson wrote:

It isn't a problem with the system causing the resistor to fail, it's the resistor itself.  John from support has said in another thread that they have found a different supplier for resistors that are much more reliable.  Your printer is old enough to have the original fail-prone resistor.  If you bought the new hot end recently, it is probably fine.  If not, see if they will send you a new resistor.  You don't really need to replace the whole $70 hot end, just the $6 resistor.


I got the printer in late February. That isn't recent enough?

ronsii wrote:

Ok, back to the testing phase... with you printer's power unplugged go ahead and unplug both of the hotend plugs from the printer there is no setting on your multimeter that will hurt the hot end while testing it to determine if it is indeed the offending component. just place the meter in the horseshoe(ohms) position and connect the meter leads to one of the hotend plugs and see what the meter says then do the same with the other hotend plug and let us know what the results are.

Test both the red and blue wire heading back to the back of the machine while the hot-end is distached? What do I need to do with the software and what reading should I expect? Connect both multimeter probes to the red and blue or just one probe?

19 Reply by elmoret

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

Set up multimeter for DC volts.
Plug in thermistor portion of hotend.
Plug in printer power.
Set software to turn on hot end.
Both multimeter probes to the wires that run to the hotend's heater. Measure at the extruder.

If 11-13v, you're all set.

It's not hard, I swear...

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20 Reply by Rocketman

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

elmoret wrote:

Set up multimeter for DC volts.
Plug in thermistor portion of hotend.
Plug in printer power.
Set software to turn on hot end.
Both multimeter probes to the wires that run to the hotend's heater. Measure at the extruder.

If 11-13v, you're all set.

It's not hard, I swear...


How do I set to DC volts and how do I rearrange the red and black wire on the meter between the 3 slots it has? And why was the other person on here suggesting I measure in Ohms. I am not sure which person I should listen to here.

21 Reply by Rocketman

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

My friend's uncle noted the burnt blackness of the end of the hot-end which is what lead him to the conclusion that if I put a new hot-end in it would also be destroyed. Based on the picture would this indicate only a fault of the hot-end or of the wireing causing the hot-end to burn out? I am seriously hoping it is only the resistor issue mentioned above.

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22 Reply by elmoret

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

Rocketman wrote:

How do I set to DC volts and how do I rearrange the red and black wire on the meter between the 3 slots it has? And why was the other person on here suggesting I measure in Ohms. I am not sure which person I should listen to here.

Volts tests the power supply, wiring, and main board. Ohms is for testing the hot end.

I cannot provide more detailed instructions without knowing what meter you have.

Also, you'd get a lot more help here if you had a more thankful attitude. smile

Filastruder - the robust, inexpensive filament extruder
E3Dv6 All Metal Hotend - the premier 3D printing hotend

23 Reply by elmoret (edited by elmoret 2013-06-02 18:04:29)

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

Rocketman wrote:

My friend's uncle noted the burnt blackness of the end of the hot-end which is what lead him to the conclusion that if I put a new hot-end in it would also be destroyed. Based on the picture would this indicate only a fault of the hot-end or of the wireing causing the hot-end to burn out? I am seriously hoping it is only the resistor issue mentioned above.

That is burned ABS, and totally normal - ABS gets stuck to the outside of the nozzle and just sits there, eventually charring.

Does your friend's uncle have any experience with 3D printers?

Filastruder - the robust, inexpensive filament extruder
E3Dv6 All Metal Hotend - the premier 3D printing hotend

24 Reply by 2n2r5

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

elmoret wrote:
Rocketman wrote:

How do I set to DC volts and how do I rearrange the red and black wire on the meter between the 3 slots it has? And why was the other person on here suggesting I measure in Ohms. I am not sure which person I should listen to here.

Volts tests the power supply, wiring, and main board. Ohms is for testing the hot end.

I cannot provide more detailed instructions without knowing what meter you have.

Also, you'd get a lot more help here if you had a more thankful attitude. smile

+1

SD3 w/ mods:
Glass bed with QU-BD heat pad upgrade, threadless ballscrew w/ 8mm smooth rod, spectra line belt replacement, lawsy MK5 extruder, Lawsy replacement carriage, E3D hotend, Ramps 1.4 w/ reprap discount controller, DRV8825 drivers, 12v 30A PS, Acrylic case, Overkill Y-idlers, Filament alarm, Extruder fan + more.

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25 Reply by 2n2r5 (edited by 2n2r5 2013-06-02 19:09:01)

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Re: Solidoodle Printer Still Broken.

Rocketman wrote:

My friend's uncle noted the burnt blackness of the end of the hot-end which is what lead him to the conclusion that if I put a new hot-end in it would also be destroyed. Based on the picture would this indicate only a fault of the hot-end or of the wireing causing the hot-end to burn out? I am seriously hoping it is only the resistor issue mentioned above.

Use the settings with the symbol highlighted in the first picture. If you don't see that symbol then you want to use VDC or Volts DC. Also, you will want the 20 V range or Auto range if you multimeter has it. 
http://2n2r5.com/pictures/printer/dmm_vdc.jpg

If your LED lights are on then you don't need to worry about testing the input power connection (yet).
Disconnect the connector for the hotend that attaches to the board. (Note the orientation of the connector so you will know how to put it back when we are done. )
Use your multimeter to test the pins on the output connector of the board for the hotend. Don't really worry about which prong is positive or negative on the hotend connector. What's more important is that you have 12 VDC when you use the Heat Extruder setting in Repetier Host.
http://2n2r5.com/pictures/printer/sang_overview.jpg

SD3 w/ mods:
Glass bed with QU-BD heat pad upgrade, threadless ballscrew w/ 8mm smooth rod, spectra line belt replacement, lawsy MK5 extruder, Lawsy replacement carriage, E3D hotend, Ramps 1.4 w/ reprap discount controller, DRV8825 drivers, 12v 30A PS, Acrylic case, Overkill Y-idlers, Filament alarm, Extruder fan + more.

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