v0 Formbot V0.2r1 Kit Build

[claudermilk]

Nice! Thanks!

[Perkeo]

In my other thread Formbot V2.4r2 Kit Build - Kawasaki Green I was happily progressing printing the BFI and BZI parts on my V0.2 when I had a failure mid print: "Error: Heater extruder not heating at expected rate". I had the same error for the bed, but that was easily corrected by turning down the Nevermore fans a bit during the heatsoak. The fans were just moving too much air around and cooling the bed too much.

After a firmware restart I had one or two more successful prints without the heater extruder error. Unfortunately I am now stuck that the extruder will not heat up at all anymore.

What I have done so far:

• Check 24V from the Pico board - YES
• Check 24V arriving at Umbilical PCB Toolhead Board - YES
• Replaced 24V 40W heater cartridge on the V0.2 with the one supplied in my V2.4 kit - YES
• Replaced 3950 Generic Thermistor on the V0.2 with the one supplied in my V2.4 kit - YES

But without any luck, when I want to heat the extruder I cannot feel any heat coming to the extruder and after a couple of seconds the Klipper firmware detects the failure and halts.

Anyone suggestions how to resolve this issue? 

 

[mvdveer]

1 hour ago, Perkeo said:

Anyone suggestions how to resolve this issue? 

First thing that comes to mind is that of a bad crimp along the way - most common cause for this error in my experience. (Had this as a cause just about every time this error popped up.) I would look at the connectors and ensure the wires are still intact. The  24V from and to the board does not necessarily exclude a loose crimp.

[Perkeo]

The search continued:

• test the replacement heater for correct functioning with a bench power supply - YES
• test the replacement heater connecting it directly to the Pico board - YES

This meant that the error had to occur between the Pico board to the Umbilical Frame PCB to the Umbilical Toolhead PCB. Only the heater itself has a crimp connector, all others are screw connectors, PCB or the 14 pin connector

Screw connectors were solid, wiggling the cable loom of the 14 pin connector made no difference. Easiest next step was removing the toolhead PCB to check the board, all fine. So then it must be the Frame PCB and well there I was able to spot the error.

Bottom right two pins are pins 6 and 7 going to the heater and pin 7 showing the problem.

This is the same pin in close-up

I cannot remember that the solder joint showing this bad on the PCB installation, so I suspect a bad solder joint with high resistance heating up the solder joint and loosening itself up.

After re-soldering the joint and testing, the heater is now heating-up again.  Will now try to find some time this weekend to build-up the printer again! 

@mvdveer you comment "The  24V from and to the board does not necessarily exclude a loose crimp." was the eye-opener, otherwise I could have never guessed that even wehen 24V is present the problem still can be along the power supply route. In hindsight an easy fix and easy to spot problem, but that is only in hindsight after spending a quiet a bit more time trouble shooting,... Thanks! 

Hope this little story helps someone else again later on!

[YaaJ]

Had the same problem with the v2.4 LDO kit. All hand soldered connectors had cold/dry joints on the small PCB that goes onto the Raspi GPIO for power and UART. On the LDO 0.2 kit, all screw terminals were so poor quality that I replaced them all. One broke on the mini shield while pushing the ferule, and on the SKR Pico, a terminal was not even threaded !!! (not talking of the fact that they were all massively undersized). But they were properly soldered...

Also, be careful with ring and fork tongue connectors. Those that come from China are pure crap. They are made of soft, 0.4mm thick (or less) chinesium that makes crimpings unreliable. Can be dangerous when used for mains. I already had some failing on me while routing wirings. If you compare with quality ones like 3M Scotchlok, it's night and day : 0.8 mm thick, and aerospace certified (require a ratchet crimping tool, and they are really hard to crimp). Good quality ones can be found at automotive supplies. 3M or others. Even seen some with color rings used as color codes for positive and negative, not taking into account that colors are for wire gauge coding, not for decoration or markings.

[Perkeo]

After fixing the soldered connection, I thought I was done with the 'Heater Extruder' error, however this was wishful thinking,.... 

After one or two good (short prints) I had another failure mid-print again,....  Because I can still measure 24V at the toolhead, it should be a wire break somewhere between MCU and toolhead. So, I started with changing the cable between MCU and frame PCB when I spotted the following:

, that is no good. This is the 24V power feed to the MCU straight from the PSU. I guess this is too much resistance at the contact point and hence overheating,.. So, also re-crimped a new set of power leads between PSU and MCU. I also re-crimped thermistor and hotend fan connectors to the frame PCB. Both the positive wires came loose on a simple pull test of the wires. I guess the Formbot crimped wires aren't all that good?!

After all this re-wiring, the printer still would not heat the extruder at all anymore, despite measuring now 22,7V at the toolhead,..... Well, that's no good either.

My conclusion is that this must be an umbilical failure and therefore I now completely bypassed everything and wired directly from the MCU hotend power connector to the heater. And,........ the printer is printing fine again! 

But, that does it for me with the umbilical mod, I will ditch this concept and decided to go straight for a CAN implementation. I took advantage of the Black Friday discounts in the BIQU store and ordered Manta M4P + EBB36 CAN board + TFT35 for the V0.2 and SBB2209 (RP2040) fot the V2.4. I guess a good CANbus practice for the V0.2 will give me the option to go straight for CANbus implementation on the Formbot V2.4r2 Kawasaki Green build.

For now the printer is back online again and I am  of seeing the amber Mainsail error screen. So hopefully will no see it for a while,...

 

 

[mvdveer]

1 hour ago, Perkeo said:

to go straight for CANbus implementation on the Formbot V2.4r2 Kawasaki Green build.

I have now 6 machines on CANBUS - have not looked back. I personally think it is a good option. Next, I will re-convert all the machines from TAP to beacon. Been getting very reliable and consistent results with this on the VZBot. The only downside - it is expensive!

[YaaJ]

Watch this crap :

3x 2pin terminals, 2.54mm 5.08mm pitch, , made of skinny sheet metal, spaced 7.62mm, instead of one solid 6pin, one piece terminal. Moreover, they don't even take the required wire gauge. Worst electrical engineering ever. One wasn't threaded on mine ! Even worst when you think that if they were spaced as intended (2.54), they could be made one 6pin part, using the dovetails.

If you can, replace them with decent onces. Does not solve the spacing issue, but at least they will not bend or break while tightening the screws. Even cheapest old boards had much better quality components.

an old MKS, properly designed :

[EDIT] added a picture showing a good, solid screw terminal (blue), and sheet metal rubish (green) ; the green one doesn't whistand the torque, and can break (happened on the LDO Raspi mini shield) ; if they don't break, they bend. The blue ones do a perfect job, even if mounted by pairs, and can be torqued tight.

Edited November 27, 2023 by YaaJ

[claudermilk]

It looks to me like that fried one wasn't tightened down all the way. I wonder if that was the root issue?

[Perkeo]

18 hours ago, YaaJ said:

Watch this crap :

[EDIT] added a picture showing a good, solid screw terminal (blue), and sheet metal rubish (green) ; the green one doesn't whistand the torque, and can break (happened on the LDO Raspi mini shield) ; if they don't break, they bend. The blue ones do a perfect job, even if mounted by pairs, and can be torqued tight.

This is what we get in this world of making things at lowest possible price because consumers do not want to pay for the quality. Still to go down the route and change the screw terminals on an purchased MCU board. I don't know. I have the tools and means to do so (when I purchase a proper set of screw terminals), but probably leaave it like it is now. I do seriously hate the fact that you properly need to screw tight the leads, but always get the idea that you will destroy the board in the process.

 

2 hours ago, claudermilk said:

It looks to me like that fried one wasn't tightened down all the way. I wonder if that was the root issue?

I seriously doubted myself here and also on the pictures it looks like this. Then again, I have experience and know how of vital importance it is to e.g. screw down your power leads in your breaker box from your house electricity system, I cannot belief I did not properly tighten it. Then again, with the moving screw terminals of the MCU, it is just failure to happen I think,......

[Penatr8tor]

This reminds me of when I added a Vector3D breakout box to my V-minion. The extruder motor wouldn't work and after doing some checking, I found that when I plugged in the extruder connector the pins got pushed out of the connector. Of course, I had taken pictures to post up my progress and even though the error was right there in a picture... I didn't see it.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Penatr8tor
Misspelled some stuff

[Perkeo]

20 hours ago, mvdveer said:

I have now 6 machines on CANBUS - have not looked back. I personally think it is a good option. Next, I will re-convert all the machines from TAP to beacon. Been getting very reliable and consistent results with this on the VZBot. The only downside - it is expensive!

This whole Voron experience is a steep learning curve. I came from years long with only enjoying the Ender 3 Pro with BL Touch and some other replacements, when I suddenly was thrown in the deep YouTube and Forums on internet reading and watching about fast 3D printing, CoreXY machines and more. Still I need to Google half of the fancy names I come across and didn't yet do so for Beacon.

Well, you have my interest I must say,... I am really doubting to go for the TAP implementation just because of the mechanical aspects, magnets keeping the toolhead in place for printing, etc. I read that it works out for most people, but also read about failures with magnets coming loose or not being strong enough, etc. Just the amount of potential failures that you bring in the system seems very high. The BLTouch on the Ender 3 was a one time installation and never failed on me a single time.

Is Beacon the only 'install once and forget all about it' bed probe or are there other alternative? The  seems rather steep in purchase and shipping without local distributors. 

Why are you going to convert all of your machines from TAP to Beacon? Will you wait for the Beacon H which only looks like the change from a two PCB on Beacon D to single PCB implementation for the Beacon H?

[Penatr8tor]

3 minutes ago, Perkeo said:

 

Why are you going to convert all of your machines from TAP to Beacon?

This is why... And I just made a similar post LOL. 22403 probe points in under 20 seconds versus 25 probe points in 2-3 minutes.

Here's the Beacon on my VzBot probing at 500 mm/s

 

[Perkeo]

@Penatr8tor that's an awesome performance you have there for ABL and Mesh. It comes at a cost of UDS 105 shipped for me, for the new Beacon H. 

Instead of going the TAP route, I may just initially go for the also included Omron TL-Q5MC probe which comes with the kit. Also see something in the manual on PINDA, which is another to Google what is exactly is.

Would welcome suggestions of pros and cons of the various probe alternative?

(and should probably move this discussion to my V2.4 or separate thread instead of messing up my V0.2 thread )

[mvdveer]

2 hours ago, Perkeo said:

Why are you going to convert all of your machines from TAP to Beacon?

As @Penatr8tor said. More accurate meshing and so much faster. I personally also believe it is more reliable than TAP (all the variants out there)

 

2 hours ago, Perkeo said:

Will you wait for the Beacon H

I have already acquired 3 of the existing model (D) and pre-ordered 3 of the newer model.(H). From what I have gathered, there is not much difference in the functionality/electronics.

[YaaJ]

About ABL devices, and sorry for the digression... The BLTouch has always been working fine for me, even in a heated chamber, and even if the manufacturer says it must not be used beyond 45 or 50°C (to be verified). There's a device that does the same, is cheaper, and had slighly better repeatability results when I tested it : the TouchMi. This device was first destroyed (physically) by "Teaching Tech", just before he decided it is crap and destroyed it commercially. Simplest device ever. A pin, a optical sensor associated with a comparator, a pair of magnets and a couple of macros. The optical sensor ? One of those you got 5 of them for 1 USD 4 years back.

Got one because couldn't believe this influencer could release such a video, doing what he did. Didn't use it because the fixed magnet had to be on the wrong side (for my printer) and because it was made of PLA, and wasn't experienced enough, unable to rebuild it from ABS. I'd like to adapt it to the 2.4. No idea how the sensor reacts to temperature.

Anyone who plays with Arduinos and sensors has this sensor in some drawer.

(starting with the inductive probe, because no experience with the 4x Z motors, but definitely will experiment with the simplest ABL system ever, it's been supported by Marlin for ages)

[EDIT] there's no ABL device that can't support auto Z offset.

Edited November 27, 2023 by YaaJ