HE280 Upgrade Completed - screen goes blank mid-print

[koontzrd]

I have an Orion printer that was just upgraded to the HE280 print head (and arms, etc). I adjusted the retraction from 5 to 2mm and started printing. My print went for about 20 minutes before the screen just went blank and the print stopped. I was able to turn off and back on, and everything seems to be working. Based on a search of the forums, I though this might be my ezstruder pushing harder than necessary and exceeding the limits of the power supply, so I turned the extruder down from 110 to 85. This time the print went only about half of the original length before the same behavior occurred.

Thoughts that I currently have:
1) reload the firmware?
2) the HE280 is pulling more current than the old head and the power supply isn't up to the task?

Anybody have any thoughts on how to debug this?

Thanks

[koontzrd]

Forgot to add - firmware is 0.92.2

[mhackney]

This sounds like either a connection problem (short, bad connector) or a power supply problem or a mains problem and not a firmware problem.

What power supply does the Orion have? I would doubt that a small change in consumption would cause this problem. I would however suspect a short circuit or a bad connector or connection that fails intermittently due to vibration. Check all the connections you made and double check the power supply connections. Be careful!

[Eric]

Sounds most like a power supply shutdown to me, since you are able to restart. Short circuits are most likely to blow fuses, and open circuits are more likely to have other symptoms.

[koontzrd]

I just finished building a second h280 head so before going into the bowels of the machine, i swapped out the heads and tried again. Same result. But I now know that the problem isn't likely to be inside the head itself.

I agree that it sounds like a power issue. Just not sure what could be causing it.

Based on additional reading from the forum and the suggestions here so far, I have narrowed it down to:

1) a loose connection inside the printer.
2) psu or rambo board is overheating.
3) too much load on the psu. (low probability)
4) bad psu.

I decided to test #2 first because I don't have to take the rambo board out of the printer to do this. I took off two acrylic covers and the front panel, then set up a little fan so that it would blow across the open system, but not hit the bed too much. I'll post the results

[koontzrd]

This test print worked, so I put it all back together again and test printed again - this time it stopped within 10 minutes. So I am leaning toward a cooling issue. I will check the fan on the back of the Rambo and make sure the power supply fan is turning. Anything else I should check? I will keep posting.

[mhackney]

Re-reading your post and the post you just made triggered a recollection. I recall that a few of us had issues with the RAMBo overheating and causing problems like this back in the V1 days. I ended up mounting my RAMBo outside the base on the door and that kept it cool. So checking the fan is a good idea. I'm not sure where the RAMBo is located in the Orion but if there is an access panel, open it all up to allow air to circulate and try printing.

[koontzrd]

I opened it up and pulled the rambo out. then turned it on and checked the fan - it wasn't turning. So I replaced the fan, verified that it was turning on startup and put it all back together. Test print, and it died again after 10 minutes. ugh!

Some background information - this is one of 5 Orions that we have had for a couple of years, and it normally lives in an open lab for students in the college library. I am hoping to move to the HE280 on all of these so that we don't have the library's student workers calibrating the printers (we have a couple of very pretty etched plates already). I also like the addition of the thermal fuse in the HE280 as I don't wanna be the guy that burned down the library

The visibility of this location means that whatever the solution, I have to keep the "look" of the printer intact as the 3d lab is part of the tour for prospective students...

I am going to try a print with the bed turned off, and also start thinking about how I can add some fans.

[koontzrd]

Print with the bed turned off seemed to proceed normally to 55% - until the part broke free and it started printing spaghetti. So turning the bed heater off or adding additional cooling both created a positive outcome. I will try a print with just the acrylic sides off (front still on and no external fan) and see what happens.

[Eaglezsoar]

It really does sound like the power supply may need replaced.

[koontzrd]

Print with just acrylic sides removed also failed with a shutdown.

Ordered a new power supply - this one is rated to 40a on the 12 v rail so there should be some excess capacity there compared to the current one which says 28a on the label. I will keep this updated when it comes in.

[rurwin]

Please keep us informed. I also have an Orion that I'm keen to put a HE280 on when my funds have recoved and I'm more comfortable fiddling with the printer.

Pedantic note: amperes are abreviated to "A". There is a unit that is abreviated to "a", it's the are: an area of 100 square metres, hence the hectare: 2.47 acres. As in "my heated bed is about 0.3ma and consumes around 10A." It's a very unused unit, but it does exist.

(Don't get me started on the WiFi routers that say they put out 4 mega-watts (MW) or the power stations that only generate 100 milli-watts (mW). <scream> <gibber>)

[geneb]

*high fives a fellow awesome pedantic ba-tard*

g.

[koontzrd]

New power supply installed. I was focusing on the amperage on the 12 volt rail, but didn't look at the overall wattage. this one is 500 instead of 550. It calibrates fine, heats everything up fine, but then when it starts to print, it dies immediately. (before, i was getting a good 10 to 15 minutes before it would crash). This was with the acrylic corners off. I felt around inside a bit and nothing felt overly warm.

So here are my questions:
1) how do I test to see if I am pulling too much power? Or do I just get a 750/800 watt power supply and hope the problem goes away? What power supply do you all recommend?
2) are there some settings I should be worried about - either in the firmware or in my slicing, or other adjustments that I should be making?
3) How many of you are running the HE280 on the Orion, and did you have to make changes to the power supply? - maybe something else entirely is going on.

[Eric]

I've no idea what your underlying cause is, since I don't see how you could draw that much power without blowing one of the fuses.

But since you now have two power supplies there is an obvious thing to try:
Make a temporary hookup to use one for the heat bed rail, and the other one for the rest. If it still dies, that will be new information, especially if only one power supply shuts down.

Are these ATX type supplies, or industrial type supplies?

[Polygonhell]

You might have an intermittent short somewhere, normally you'd blow a fuse, but I've seen cases where the PSU safety trips before the fuse blows.
You'll probably be drawing more power when heating the bed than during a print, the Bed PID can sometime cause a PSU to power off, so you could try switching to Bang Bang and see if that resolves it.

Word of caution ATX PSU's are a bit of a crap shoot on printers, a lot of them have safety features that prevent them performing to spec without a load on the 5V line. Some work great and others don't. You could try plugging a CDROM drive or similar into the PSU to load the 5V line to see if it makes a difference.

[Turpinator]

These resistors also work well for loading the 5v rail. If you've got one laying around. Or the CD drive is a good idea for testing.
https://www.radioshack.com/products/rad ... 0332257285

While most current ATX psus don't require a load on the 5v rail as they are latch on, but the load on the 5v rail can help to stabilize voltages and power supplied by it.

[koontzrd]

They are ATX supplies.

I tried adding an input from the second power supply - I added it to the motors input because I can hear them, and if the other power supply shuts off, then I will hear the fan quit. Then I started a print. It seemed to be printing happily for several minutes, so I will close up as many of the acrylic covers, etc as I can and try again. If I add the resister, do I just put it between a 5V (red wire) and ground (black wire)? Also, Polygonhell mentioned switching the bed to Bang Bang. Is that just a firmware setting? What does Bang Bang do?

[crocky]

New power supply installed. I was focusing on the amperage on the 12 volt rail, but didn't look at the overall wattage. this one is 500 instead of 550. It calibrates fine, heats everything up fine, but then when it starts to print, it dies immediately. (before, i was getting a good 10 to 15 minutes before it would crash). This was with the acrylic corners off. I felt around inside a bit and nothing felt overly warm.

So here are my questions:
1) how do I test to see if I am pulling too much power? Or do I just get a 750/800 watt power supply and hope the problem goes away? What power supply do you all recommend?
2) are there some settings I should be worried about - either in the firmware or in my slicing, or other adjustments that I should be making?
3) How many of you are running the HE280 on the Orion, and did you have to make changes to the power supply? - maybe something else entirely is going on.

You answered it here.... get LARGER psu around 780watts should be more than enough, the problem will go away for good...

[Eric]

If you do end up getting still another supply, I'd recommend going with the industrial type Seeme uses now, or something similar from another source.

https://www.seemecnc.com/collections/pa ... wer-supply
https://www.seemecnc.com/collections/pa ... supply-kit

[koontzrd]

Will the SeeMe power supply fit inside the Orion? Does anyone have measurements for it?

[morgandc]

Roughly 2" x 7" x 4.5" I was measuring it installed... The max has some clearance below it's bracket so it is closer to 2.3" or so installed. It was tough getting a tape measure around it installed, so if it is close you will want better measurements prior to ordering.

[rurwin]

I believe that is the power supply in my (new) Orion. It's the right shape anyway and the voltage selector is on the bottom (and accessed through a hole in the base.) Which matches this one.

[Turpinator]

For the resistor, yup. right between a red and black wire. Id try the CD/DVD/HDD idea first though, if you can find one laying around.

As for the dimensions, per Keling's/Automation Technology's site for the 12v, 29A psu,

* Dimension: 215 * 115 * 50 mm（L x W x H）

And... not to steal a sale from seemecnc, but... the psu is only 26$ from the supplier's website, vs 50 from seemecnc. Shop around. Unless you want the install kit, which looks like its just a bunch of terminals and wires.

[koontzrd]

I spoke with someone at SeemeCNC who suggested that the Rostock power supply may not be the best choice size-wise for an old Orion, so I opted for this 700 watt psu: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018J ... UTF8&psc=1 which came to about $55 using prime.

It did have extra long cables which was a bit of a problem until I shortened some of the unnecessary ones - but installation pretty much went without a hitch and size-wise it fit well.

After installation, I ran a 2 hour test print without any problems. So at this point, unless a longer print dies mid-stream, I am going to consider this one solved by installing a higher capacity power supply. Now the unanswered question is whether the power supply was on its way down anyhow, or whether the upgrade pushed it over the edge. Since I have four units left to upgrade, I will try another without replacing the power supply and report my results...