Hi,
Firstly, Is it OK to ask questions about 3D printers that use arduino controllers on here?
I got a 3D printer and it soon started doing odd things so I made an enquiry on a prominent 3D print forum and was told I needed to put new firmware on the arduino board, which I tried and it seems to be dead now and help from the forum has dried up so wondered if there was any way to fix this.
I know almost nothing about Arduino other than some basic stuff I have read recently.
Thought I would not go into too much detail initially in case I was asking in the wrong place.
Yes, it is on COM5, I have tried the serial monitor tool in arduino but just get strange characters but I also use some software caller 'pronterface' and it seems to be able to access the board. I did notice that the Arduino serial monitor uses 115200 baud but pronterface is on 250000.
Whenever the Serial monitor starts displaying something similar to Mandarin, check the baud rates. The program and Monitor need to sync on the same rate. You can change it using the small listbox that appears near the bottom-right of the Serial monitor.
The baud rate of your sketch doesn't matter for uploading. The bootloader has its own baud rate. What sketch/firmware are you trying to upload? What model Arduino does your printer work like? What happens when you try to upload the sketch/firmware?
I got Marlin-1.0.2-1 firmware from one of the links on there.
I'm not sure about what model Arduino the printer work's like, Arduino Mega 2560 is selected in the board type as it is a GT2560 circuit board, is that any help.
The Arduino serial monitor only goes up to 115200 baud in the drop-down box.
The most noticeable thing the printer started doing was the print head jumps to the left at random intervals and by varying amounts up to 10mm.
I have noticed that there are 2 red lights on the board that flash in what looks like a pattern when I connect it to the PC, I have been trying to note what it is but not getting a lot of it, the light that flashes a lot when trying to send a file to the board is something like 'on long - on - on,on,on - on' but it is all over fairly quickly and I'm not even sure if it is the same every time.
Missed a bit.
When I tried to upload to the board I did not notice anything like error messages and when it was finished Arduino was showing this in the bottom window.
: Extruder switched off. MAXTEMP triggered !
[ERROR] Error printer stopped due to errors. Fix the error and use M999 to restart. (Temperature is reset. Set it after restarting)
but resets and restarts make no difference, have checked the extruder and print bed thermistors and both are OK.
Probably a hardware error. If a wire to the temperature sensor is loose it could read very high or very low. The extruder temperature could go too high if the heater gets stuck on. There are limits set in the configuration file to detect such errors and stop the printer. You need to check the extruder wiring.
Checked the thermistors again and tried heating them while meter was connected this time and they are working and the wiring and connections back to the board are all OK.
Also, should the printer display board not be working if it was just the thermistors or the wiring as all I get at the moment is the backlight on.
I have tried to check a lot of the settings in the firmware and there are some entries for LCD panels but I've not had much success finding details on them.
There is some sort of adjuster on the back of the display circuit board with 'KILL' printed on one side of it and 'VR' on the other, there is also a small push button on the back that has 'SW1' under it, I marked where the adjuster was set and tried turning it a bit either way but didn't see any difference.
There is also a knob on the front of the display that would select various different options and start the printer to run from info on an SD card, so it didn't need to be connected to a PC to print, but I don't recall seeing any options for things like contrast.
The display came with the kit, I have been looking on various web sites but can't find out anything much, the printer I have looks very similar to this one: http://www.geeetech.com/acrylic-geeetech-i3-pro-b-3d-printer-kit-p-917.html?zenid=3anu4rvca5pn8vcjgf2t636pu3
All the parts on mine look like the Geeetech one, except the frame is wood, which is why I was using their instructions but can't find anything like the display on their wiki.
I don't know if the bit below is any use but it is all I can find on the LCD board, it's a 4 line display with a blue backlight and has an on-board SD card reader:
2004d
v3.0
rohs
yb2004d
blwbba/5v
qcpassed160107
Configuration.h file attached, the only part I have tried changing so far is to substitute the line, #define MOTHERBOARD BOARD_ULTIMAKER
for #define MOTHERBOARD 7
but it didn't make any difference.
Where did you get your printer? Did the vendor supply firmware? Did the vendor supply a description of the printer and electronics? Did the vendor provide any assembly instructions?
Got the printer as an abandoned kit off gumtree, guy had read the instructions and given up at that point, unfortunately he also lost the instructions at that point. He says he got it off ebay but doesn't seem to want to supply sellers details, I have tried contacting a couple of the sellers on ebay with similar looking printers but having communication problems as they are all chinese and don't seem to understand 'firmware' or any other way I can think of describing it, also can't tell if most are using the same circuit board.
Success, I think.
Thanks very much for all that, don't know how my searches had missed the stuff in the first two links you gave, though I had been to the two geeetech ones before but noticed there was a different version of one of the I3 files and checked the config.h file, haven't checked all the differences yet but I was thinking the line '#define REPRAP_DISCOUNT_SMART_CONTROLLER' might be the key but all the Marlin files I had tried had it, so gave it a try and the display has come back to life now, haven't tested it fully yet as the printer is party dismantled but just the display coming back is a big improvement.