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Printer frozen solid
Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 1:21 pm
by carter
Problem SOLVED - Printer was stopping because induction from stepper wires to ribbon cables behind the LCD screen was stopping the printer.
So, I didn't have time to assess the problem much because I had to go to work, but when i woke up, my printer had stopped. the LCD screen said "killed" at the bottom, maybe "job:killed" I forget exactly. I have no idea why this happened.
I tried to home the printer and it started grinding and vibrating like crazy. I then tried to move the cheapskates manually but they were all frozen solid.
Could this just be a result of the hotend being stuck to the print? there was a decent amount of oozed plastic that had come out after the job was killed and the hotend is still in contact with the thing i was printing.
I hope when i get home and heat up the nozzle this will go away. If it doesn't, anybody have suggestions? My printer only has about 24 hours print time. I built it from a kit. is there something I might have done wrong while building to cause this? It was working fine up til now.
Re: Printer frozen solid
Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 5:20 pm
by joecnc2006
did you try to move the cheapskates with power off? I would imagine so. If power was on the motors are energized.
Re: Printer frozen solid
Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 6:55 pm
by carter
ok, sorry to waste people's time. it was just stuck to the print. moved easy after turning on the hot end.
any ideas on why the printer would kill the job and not home itself?
Re: Printer frozen solid
Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 7:12 pm
by Polygonhell
if a job is killed it just stops.
The most likely culprit is a thermistor reading that's outside the valid range, which can be caused by a lose connection or some other failure, but without seeing it happen it's pretty much impossible to know.
Re: Printer frozen solid
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2014 10:08 pm
by carter
It happened again. at least it was still on the first layer this time.
How can I assess the thermisistor problem? is there a way to scroll back on the temperature curve? both times happened when I was at work.
Re: Printer frozen solid
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2014 10:19 pm
by mhackney
Are you on a mac linux or windows? I know on my Mac, when the screen saver kicks in, the print is aborted and the printer appears to freeze. I now put the cursor in the hot spot in the upper right corner that tells OSX not to engage the screen saver. Could this be what's happening to you?
Re: Printer frozen solid
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2014 10:28 pm
by JohnStack
I just got a new hot end from SeeMeCNC. I had to replace the thermistor. Bad lot? This wouldn't accept PID autotune this pm.
I switched out the thermistor and am heating my bed now.
Re: Printer frozen solid
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2014 11:10 pm
by Polygonhell
Yes the Mac going into suspend mode took me a week to discover, whenever I watched the print it succeeded, seemingly as soon as I walked away the print would fail. On OSX you can disable slep/suspend, and it stops it happening.
Re: Printer frozen solid
Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2014 4:18 pm
by carter
I use windows, but all the failed prints have happened while printing from the SD card.
I took off the hot end to inspect it. the thermal silicon around the thermasistor that had squished out of the hotend during install was falling off, but I can't pull out the thermasistor, it looks like there's still enough paste in there to conduct heat to the thermasistor. will I destroy the thermasistor if I try pulling it out? is there a solvent I can use?
Re: Printer frozen solid
Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2014 4:28 pm
by carter
I should also mention that I may have grabbed the thermistor with a wrench when i changed nozzles. I forgot it was there. This may have broken the silicon loose
Re: Printer frozen solid
Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2014 4:47 pm
by Polygonhell
I don't know about windows, but if your rostock is pulling power from USB, there is a jumper on the RAMBO board, it doesn't matter if you are printing from SD card. The PC sleeping, or restarting will kill the print.
The thermistor will usually either work or fail, I wouldn't pull it out if you are getting a temperature reading, it's more likely to be a lose wire, than it is a broken thermistor.