How big a PITA will it be to replace the power switch

I seem to have burned out the power switch on my R2.

1) Stuck in the "ON" position. Will not toggle
2) Turning on the bed heater will often cause it to power off suddenly (black LCD)
3) Wiggling the switch might get it clean enough power to heat the bed for a print
4) After a print, it really wants the power brick to be unplugged to let the thing cool down a while before attempting another print.

Right now, I try powering the thing on, and pre-heating the bed. If that works, I can pre-heat the extruder. If that works, I go ahead and start the print, and it usually runs to completion.

This obviously isn't a way to run a printer, but I'm a complete klutz with hardware, and if I had my druthers, I'd just hot-wire the switch and use the power plug instead.

But, looking into the thing, I can't tell if it's actually part of the arduino board or not.

Suggestions?

 

Certainly not running it unattended that way.

Sigh. My first R2 came with a broken Z axis and a bunch of ball bearings rolling around in the bottom of the box. Got a replacement via Amazon, and the first time that I tried to clean the bed, I got bed disconnected errors for a day (and this is the v2 bed), and after that, the LCD quit working until I reached in and reseated its cables. Then I went through a half a month trying to figure out why the default S3D profile had zits. Now, burned out switch.

Aside from the S3D issue, I have not been having the best of experiences here, which is a shame because when it works, it prints very nicely. Octoprint says I have 500 hours and a few kilometers of filament on it since mid January, so yes, I've been running it a bit hard, so in that respect, I've got a lot more use out of it than my first 3D printer (Flashforge dreamer that went into permanent/continuous left extruder jam after a couple months).

Getting so frustrated, I have a Prusa on back-order. Seems like I have more dollars than sense here, but being somewhat hardware challenged, I don't really trust myself to fix anything. I had a friend fix the extruder on the first printer, and after that, I think the PTFE tube in the same extruder got cooked, because now it doesn't feed consistently. This is my hardware karma.

 

I was afraid of that...

 

OTOH, I feel a lot more sanguine about doing a whole board replacement than a single part replacement. Except for the added cost.

 

I have a master maker friend (CNC, 3D Printer and just about every kind of metal working machine, with an EE from MIT), so I might buy a few rib-eyes and take it over.

 

good advice, everyone; thanks!

 

A little deeper on the Prusa: I have actively avoided that machine because despite all the good reviews, to me it looks semi-assembled and something of a hack. But if the last two printers I've owned have taught me anything, it's that I want all the parts easily accessible, because it's not a matter of IF I'm going to have to open it up, but WHEN. And how difficult it's going to be when I do.

When it's working and when I have the S3D profile dialed in, it's almost magic. Almost NO failed prints (up until now), and when I go to print something magic by Emmet, I see everyone struggling with a parts clearance of .15mm, whereas with the R2, I'm thinking I could probably cut it back to .10mm, because .15 (fused for everyone else) feels downright sloppy loose from the R2.

The Rhombic Enneacontahedron (in my member picture) only needs support to keep it on the bed. Otherwise the R2 handles the steep overhangs just fine. Most of the so-called "torture test" prints I throw at it come out quite well. And, yeah, I often print with a .06mm layer thickness and when it's done, you almost can't feel the layers.

But, I'm at a crossroads here. I'd like to print the hood to make it full enclosed, and even bought a giant spool of 2.5kg of ASA to print it, and I've bought a hardened nozzle (two of them, actually) and a spare hot end in case I break one trying to change the nozzle, but all of this is pointless if the printer keeps breaking.

I mean, yes, the auto-leveling is flakey enough that I have to do a standard 4 point level anyway, and if I run the printer long enough, the vibrations cause one or more of the bed screws to fall to the bottom of the printer (what's up with that?), and I'm still gun-shy about cleaning or replacing the bed again, lest I get another day's worth of "bed disconnected" errors (on a v2 bed!) and I'm kind of getting tired of having to reach into the guts to remove-reseat the LCD headers and...

Talk me down.

My MK3 is supposed to ship this week or next. Hoping it'll make me better appreciate the R2. I'm hoping between the two, I won't have to buy another any time soon. And I can't keep spending like this. Only reason why I could afford an R2 or even consider a Raise3D N2+ or a Sigma is because I sold a bitcoin right at the peak price, so even after the long term capital gains, maxing out a Roth IRA and paying for some expensive dental work, I've still got a few notes to rub together. But that ain't going to happen again any time soon.

 

Because the LCD keeps deciding to stop responding to the stylus, and this is what Robo3D told me to do about it.

 

So, they say they're shipping me a new board under warrantee

 

Crazy thing was, even though the LCD was throwing bed disconnects at me all that day, when I went to the web interface and submitted a print, it printed anyway, so I really wasn't sure what all those errors were about