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SB LEDs Wrong Colors


BDW

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A little history to set the stage.  I had my Voron 2.4r2 running nicely, but wasn't happy with the wiring to the Stealthburner, etc.  So I ordered one of the prebuilt wiring harnesses and the printed circuit board.  The harness has been installed and everything is working ... except the nozzle and logo LEDs on the Stealthburner.  They light up, but the colors are wrong (compared to what they were before the wiring change).  Clicking on LED macro buttons does change the colors.  By wrong colors I mean for example clicking "Status_Printing" the logo is purple and one nozzle LED is red and the other green where they should be red and white respectively.  Clicking "Set_Nozzle_Off" changes the nozzel color but doesn't turn them off.  The colors are usually the same each time a given button is clicked, but I have seen instances where the colors change.

To try and pin things down I made up a duplicate set of 3 LEDs on a cable and plugged the cable into the neo-pixel connector on the BTT Octopus board (essentially how the LEDs were originally connected) and the duplicate set function perfectly.  I have checked the wiring:  the center pin of the neo-pixel connector is connected to the "signal" line and the right most pin to the "+5" line on the two wire dupont connector from the new harness (the third pin is not used, the grounds are apparently brought up on one wire from elsewhere), on the Stealthburner end the +5V line on the LEDs to the bottom pin on the PCB, the ground line to the middle pin and the signal line to the top pin.

Anybody have any thoughts on what else to look at?

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26 minutes ago, BDW said:

Anybody have any thoughts on what else to look at?

Might sound like a stupid question, forgive me if it is, but are the LED's orientated correctly in the SB. The LED with the harness to the PCB should be in the logo.

(LED to LED to LED to harness with PCB connection: ->  LED to LED in nozzle and LED to harness in logo.)

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Valid question!  The LEDs in the Stealthburner were working correctly before the wiring harness change.  Nothing changed on the LEDs themselves except changing the original plug on the end of the wire to match the new PCB connector.  I just went down and checked again to be sure I had wires connected the way I thought I did.  The only thing I haven't really been able to check is hooking the duplicate set of LEDs I made up to the PCB to see if that set also works directly correctly or not connected to the PCB - don't have the connector to do it.  But I do have a set of JST PH connectors ordered that should fit.  That'll be my next step if something doesn't come up before they show up.

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30 minutes ago, BDW said:

before the wiring harness change

Sorry misunderstood - thought you bought a LED harness. AS far as memory serves, the LED harness will plug into the PCB (Gnd,Pin,5V). The wiring harness from the PCB will have a single wire marked LED which plugs into the controller board neopixel pin. 5V and Gnd is supplied to the PCB and distributed to the components on the board. My setup only has the Pin connected to the neopixel port and 5V to the CPU. Have you tried getting 5V+ from another source, such as the small CPU that powers the Raspi, rather than the Neopixel port? Worth a shot.

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 Found the problem - or at least where the problem is.  The "signal" wire for the StalthBurner LEDs comes up from the Octopus board on a wire that connects to the PCB on the SB via a Micro-Fit, 2-conductor plug and socket.  The problem goes away as soon as the Micro-Fit plug is pulled out and a jumper is installed between the Octopus "signal" pin and the exposed connection on the back of the Micro-Fit socket.  There is something in the "signal" wire in the wiring harness, I'm guessing a partial break or some sort of weird short, that garbles the data on the "signal" wire.

Easiest solution I can think of is to just replace the two wires on that Micro-Fit.

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I have an update on this "mystery".  Last time I posted I thought the issue was some sort of problem with the LED signal wire itself.  Replacing the wire (including the plug at the PCB) did nothing.  I can jumper the signal line to the back of the two conductor Micro Fit 3 socket on the PCB (with the corresponding plug pulled out) and have the LED function correctly. They will function correctly with an emply Micro Fit 3 plug inserted. Any time the two conductor Micro Fit 3 plug with the signal wire attached is plugged in the LED color are messed up, even if the other end of the signal wire is not attached to it's terminal.  I've tried a number of things.  I'm convinced it is not a problem with the wire, the PCB, or the connectors.  It does seem to be the presence of the LED signal wire in the wire harness.  Right now the Stealthburner LEDs are functioning as advertised.  But the LED signal wire (the same wire that was in the harness running through the cable chains) is just hanging loose by itself outside the chains.  (I.E. I pulled the wire out of the cable chains.)  I tried pulling the wire just half way out of the chains (the first chain in back), but the colors were still wrong. It appears the LEDs are picking up some sort of interference in the cable chains.  But I don't know where it's coming from.  Nothing is running!  The hotend isn't heating, the extruder stepper isn't stepping.  Nothing is moving.  On top of that the LED colors are wrong, but reproducible - for example, Status_Printing should be red logo/white nozzel but is always blue logo/red & green nozzel.  If it really is interference I'd expect random colors.

One other observation.  For the original DIY wiring (that worked) that was in place before decided I didn't like my DIY wiring solution and bought and installed the ready made harness and PCB, the LED ground, +5V, and signal wires were a three conductor ribbon with the signal line between the other two. I'm not an electrical engineer, but I'm thinking that arrangement, and/or the ribbon lying on the rest of the wires, rather than being mixed in with them resulted in a shielding effect.

I'm thinking about trying twisting the LED signal and +5V (or/with the ground) wires or using a shielded cable.  (Or ever going back to the ribbon, although that does present some connector problems.)

Anyone wiser than I am have any thoughts (either as to what's going on or what to do next)?

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I'm seen similar issues....My signal wire is unplugged only at the mcu and my lights come on and stay on during/after the first print. It appears to be a shielding/grounding issue to me. I haven't had time to play around with it, so I'm interested in your findings

 

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In my case I had the first neopixel having a violet color, and the two near the toolhead an oposite color to what I asked on the wheel.

So I made an electrical change on the HARTK board. I just soldered some resistors and the two problems desapeared.
Like this : https://i.imgur.com/uUD0RTQ.jpg

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I fixed the "wrong color problem" on my side because I have a lot of experience on working with neopixels. The neopixels have a very sensible data line. You should add two resistors to it to shape the signal better . Like this :

I soldered resistors ont the HARTK "2 parts" board (not the one part board witch I do not not understand why it is on the market)

uUD0RTQ.jpeg

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I vote a gold star for everyone here!

The Stealthburner LEDs are now functioning as they should.  The solution was to insert a 330 ohm resister in series in the neo-pixel signal line.  I have seen references to placing the resister both at the MCU and at the neo-pixel end of the line.  I put mine at the MCU because it was the easiest spot to do it and because it works.  From what I read I suspect any resister with 3 digits in its resistance value would work.

Thank you all for your advice!

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On 3/19/2023 at 9:49 PM, BDW said:

I vote a gold star for everyone here!

The Stealthburner LEDs are now functioning as they should.  The solution was to insert a 330 ohm resister in series in the neo-pixel signal line.  I have seen references to placing the resister both at the MCU and at the neo-pixel end of the line.  I put mine at the MCU because it was the easiest spot to do it and because it works.  From what I read I suspect any resister with 3 digits in its resistance value would work.

Thank you all for your advice!

Just finished my V2.4 350 build and starting to run test prints. The StealthBurner LEDs work for 2 layers, then shut off. Or change color after I force them back on. Drove me crazy. Opened up the cable chains and traced the wire from the printhead all the way to the MCU. The wire is about 100mm too short, but that's what LDO sent me in the Rev. C kit and it reaches the MCU. No problem with the wires, but decided to make an extension cable with some JST XH3 connectors. Then I found this thread. So I added a 470 Ohm resistor to the signal wire in the extension, similar to what BDW did. Problem solved and I'm greatly relieved.

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