Power supply fail?

[Generic Default]

Hi everyone,

It looks like another electronic component is dead in my printer. I left my printer on today for a couple of hours with the fan running to keep the RAMBO cool (and E3D hotends too) and when I came back it was turned off. Except that the switch on the power supply was in the on position.

It gets weird here. I cycled the switch off and on a few seconds later, and it turned back on. I reconnected it to repetier host with the USB. When I clicked the FAN ON button in repetier host, the printer died again. So I cycled the power supply switch and then;

I tried it again and it did the same thing.
I tried it again but turned on the hot end heater, and it died again.
I did a 0.1mm step on the Z axis and it died again.
I did G28 to zero the machine. It worked, and the power stayed on. Then I turned on the FAN ON button, and it died again.
I somehow got a print set up and working. About 20 minutes into the print it died, and I came back a few hours later to find the power supply turned off.

Right now when I flip the power supply switch, the green LED light on the RAMBO flashes for a fraction of a second and then turns off.

It seems like any power surge, no matter how small, is causing the power supply to stop working. This problem came out of nowhere and I didn't change anything prior to it happening. I tried plugging it into a different outlet on the wall, and it didn't help. I also unplugged the fan output from the RAMBO in case that had something to do with it, but that didn't help either.

There is no burning smell, no visible heat damage anywhere on the RAMBO, the plugs are well connected, all wires seem to be in the correct place and not shorting.

Has anyone else had this problem? How can I fix it (if possible)?

[Eaglezsoar]

Sorry to answer so late. It sure sounds as though you are going to have to replace that power supply.

[Ive]

Today I had the same problem.
As I was printing a small item (30mm by 30mm by 12mm), my Orion Delta (fairly new, arrived last week) powered down completely without notice at about 60% of the print.
Flicking the power button off and on again, made the printer come back to life.
I started the same print from scratch, and had the same failure at about the same percentage of the print (after about 30 minutes).
I did take away some slack on 2 of the cheapskates...could a heavier load on the stepper motors cause the power shutdown?
Any help would be welcome

[Eaglezsoar]

Today I had the same problem.
As I was printing a small item (30mm by 30mm by 12mm), my Orion Delta (fairly new, arrived last week) powered down completely without notice at about 60% of the print.
Flicking the power button off and on again, made the printer come back to life.
I started the same print from scratch, and had the same failure at about the same percentage of the print (after about 30 minutes).
I did take away some slack on 2 of the cheapskates...could a heavier load on the stepper motors cause the power shutdown?
Any help would be welcome

Are you using the computer to print or are you using the SD card to print?
If you are using the SD card please let us know what the name is on the card and the speed listing on the card, if it has one.

[Eaglezsoar]

Hi everyone,

It looks like another electronic component is dead in my printer. I left my printer on today for a couple of hours with the fan running to keep the RAMBO cool (and E3D hotends too) and when I came back it was turned off. Except that the switch on the power supply was in the on position.

It gets weird here. I cycled the switch off and on a few seconds later, and it turned back on. I reconnected it to repetier host with the USB. When I clicked the FAN ON button in repetier host, the printer died again. So I cycled the power supply switch and then;

I tried it again and it did the same thing.
I tried it again but turned on the hot end heater, and it died again.
I did a 0.1mm step on the Z axis and it died again.
I did G28 to zero the machine. It worked, and the power stayed on. Then I turned on the FAN ON button, and it died again.
I somehow got a print set up and working. About 20 minutes into the print it died, and I came back a few hours later to find the power supply turned off.

Right now when I flip the power supply switch, the green LED light on the RAMBO flashes for a fraction of a second and then turns off.

It seems like any power surge, no matter how small, is causing the power supply to stop working. This problem came out of nowhere and I didn't change anything prior to it happening. I tried plugging it into a different outlet on the wall, and it didn't help. I also unplugged the fan output from the RAMBO in case that had something to do with it, but that didn't help either.

There is no burning smell, no visible heat damage anywhere on the RAMBO, the plugs are well connected, all wires seem to be in the correct place and not shorting.

Has anyone else had this problem? How can I fix it (if possible)?

What was the resolution for this problem?

[Ive]

@ Eaglezsoar:

I used a Sandisk 8 gig High Capacity Micro SD card in a adaptor...
I'll retry the print using a laptop usb setup.
I'm quite new to 3D printing...not new to CNC code though (programmed a CMS Brembana G-Rex for 2.5 years).
Yesterday I printed with no problem.
Today I removed slack in 2 cheapskates...the total blackout happened...could restart straight away...stopped again (filament didn't stick well)...loosened up the cheapskates again...restart and...total blackout again at about the same step in the printing process (1 layer more added than previous stop).

I'll keep you up to date tomorrow

[Generic Default]

I forgot I started this thread until today!

SeeMeCNC replaced the old power supply with a new one (big red fan). It has been working fine since then. Great customer support from SeeMeCNC!



And I really doubt that the tightness of your carriages would cause a power supply failure. If your PSU isn't shutting off, it may be the wiring temporarily coming loose on the green wire that allows the PSU to run. The switch on the front of the Orion that turns the printer on may be the problem. It it disconnects even for a fraction of a second, it will be like restarting the printer.

[Polygonhell]

Steppers are constant current devices, so they use the same power regardless of how much friction they have to overcome. At some point if they are too tight, the stepper will skip steps, but it'll use exactly the same power as when it's not moving anything.
If the PSU is turning off it's either bad wiring or a bad PSU, a temporary short will cause the PSU to turn off as will a loose connection as Generic default says. But it's not unusually for a PSU to be bad! you should contact support.

[Ive]

I printed the part again yesterday evening, but turned model upside down, so that less support material was needed...and used the usb connection instead (2 other fails were SD card prints)...and had the same power failure after about 1/2 hour.
This morning I printed something else, straight from the HC SD card...it was a 3hour print...and all went fine
Alternations:
-I lowered the bed temperature from 90°C to 80°C during that print.
-Used 0.35mm layer thickness instead of 0.2mm.

It could indeed be a PSU starting to fail...so, I'll contact support.
@Polygonhell: Thanks for the steppermotor explaination!
I presume that a PSU can be put into sleep/power-off mode by an external control unit...is there such a setup in a Orion Delta?
I'll do some more printing later...and see what happens
To be continued...

[Eaglezsoar]

I printed the part again yesterday evening, but turned model upside down, so that less support material was needed...and used the usb connection instead (2 other fails were SD card prints)...and had the same power failure after about 1/2 hour.
This morning I printed something else, straight from the HC SD card...it was a 3hour print...and all went fine
Alternations:
-I lowered the bed temperature from 90°C to 80°C during that print.
-Used 0.35mm layer thickness instead of 0.2mm.

It could indeed be a PSU starting to fail...so, I'll contact support.
@Polygonhell: Thanks for the steppermotor explaination!
I presume that a PSU can be put into sleep/power-off mode by an external control unit...is there such a setup in a Orion Delta?
I'll do some more printing later...and see what happens
To be continued...

As far as I have seen from my Orion Delta there is no setting for sleep or power off.

[guanu]

I actually just had this happen to me mid test print on a machine... after searching around in it, turned out a wire that was zip tied over the fan blocked the big fan on the power supply preventing it from spinning, so the the power supply went into thermal protection turning off.. your power supply may be good, you may just have had a wire (bed, hotend, or extra psu wires) sticking down in the metal shield blocking the fan from spinning and making it go into thermal protection... just an option of what could have happened since I just saw it.

Guanu

[Ive]

Did some printing, again without any trouble.
The Orion seems to have a hidden 'self healing' function

[Ive]

My 'PSU shutting down' problem keeps returning.
I've checked the PSU cooling fan, and it's not blocked or stuck, it runs fine
It seems to apear when printing smaller parts, with support material included...

Contacted SeeMeCNC, I hope something can be done about it.

[guanu]

try this... remove the acrylic from the back of the machine... the one thats where the power plug is, keep that acrylic off and see what that does for you... may be an airflow issue thats not venting properly and recirculating hot air.... what temp is your bed set at?

Guanu

[Ive]

This morning I printed with the frontpanel removed and both side panels slightly open...with no effect.
The bed temp is 90°C for the first few layers...and is reduced to 80°C working temperature afterwards.
Is it so that steppermotors run quite hot? (you can't touch them, that hot).
I bought a optical temp meter today to check some temperatures inside the printer.

I found a thread on this forum about some PSU trouble on a Rostock, due to heavy system load.
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=2213

I'll remove the rear acrylic and try the print again.
Here's the STL file of my print, it's a bike mount for a GARMIN GPSMAP 64ST (work in progress)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wu8xf3uo4243f ... 0mount.stl
I'll make my Repetier setting available later.

[Ive]

My Repetier config settings for ABS print:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vy5q5bha2igkv ... config.ini

Generated G-code:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/488u8vypo62yy ... ount.gcode

I did the print with the printer completely closed and the PSU failed at about 33 min.
I took some temp readings:
Certain spots on the Rambo --> max 93°C (spot) / 52°C (general)
Stepper motors --> about 60°C
PSU --> about 46°C

The fact that I can restart the PSU straight away (by flicking the power switch off and on again) makes me think that this Rambo thing or another controler might cause the trouble.

I'll do a print with the acrylic panel removed tomorrow.

[Hans]

I wonder if these cases are coming from trying to drive the heated bed off rail 2 in the power supply. Not all yellow wires are the same. Most go to rail 1, but a few go to rail 2. I just didn't take note on mine which went where before I removed them all from the board. Rail 2 is likely rated for a lot less amperage, and may be getting overloaded.

All the black ground wires, however, go to the same pad grid inside the power supply.

-Hans

[Ive]

I printed again this morning...but I reduced the bed temperature to 40°C.
That seemed to help, but now I have to alter my print strategy because some support material is knocked over (this means that I printed longer and more than last try).
I redesigned the model and will do a print later.
If I can print it with a reduced bed temperature, then I will try the same again with a 90°C bed temperature...if that fails, then we know that the PSU isn't up to the job.
Could indeed be a rail 1 and/or rail 2 setup problem Hans.

[Ive]

Final:

Reducing the bed temperature when printing ABS is the solution to avoid the PSU shutting down.
I can't go to 90°C (as indicated in the ABS._Slic3r.ini file suplied by SeeMeCnc).
80°C Works.

[MattBill1]

has anyone tried adding a resistor between one of the red 5v lines and ground to put a load on the 5v rail? If you google " convert an ATX power supply for bench use" there are pleanty of articles showing how to make the ATX provide constant power. ALL of them I have found say that you have to have a load on the 5v rail which is not something that the SeeMeCNC instructions say to do.

Examples:
http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/blo ... upply.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/ATX--%3 ... /Planning/

I think I am going to try that as nothing else I have tried has seem to make any difference. I thought it was just getting to hot but now I have printed myself new side plates with holes for 80mm fans and the PSU will still shutdown even though it is cool to the touch.

[Polygonhell]

has anyone tried adding a resistor between one of the red 5v lines and ground to put a load on the 5v rail? If you google " convert an ATX power supply for bench use" there are pleanty of articles showing how to make the ATX provide constant power. ALL of them I have found say that you have to have a load on the 5v rail which is not something that the SeeMeCNC instructions say to do.

Depends on the PSU I have a few I've converted here, some absolutely must have a significant load on the 5V line, some just don't, generally you see dramatic voltage droop under any load on the ones that require the 5V load, and in some cases they will simply shutoff rather than provide power.
If you want to see if it makes a difference, get an old optical drive and plug it in to one of the spare connectors, they usually provide enough load.

[Ive]

Update:

I was kindly sent a new PSU by the people of SeeMeCNC.
De swap still has to be done, but I'm a bit involved in another project for the moment.
So...it will take some time for the PSU swap to happen.
As soon as I have results, you all will be the first to know

[teoman]

I am assuming you have to almost entirely dismantle the lower portion of the rostock to be able to remove the power supply. No way of jiggling it out the front

[lightninjay]

I actually managed to jiggle my PSU out the hole on the V2's bottom plate when I wanted to do some work on cleaning up the wires.

[geneb]

That's what the hole is for.

Just take out four screws, push back a bit and the power supply will drop out.

g.