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R2 stops printing mid print

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by Lance Weston, Aug 5, 2020.

  1. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    One of my R2's has a problem. It randomly, once or twice a week, just stops printing. As far as I can see only three things are in this path. The Raspberry Pi, the flash card, and the system board. In my case the system board is and Arduino Mega Ramps. I have started by swapping out the Pi, if within a week I have a failure I will swap out another component.

    Has anyone else had this problem? If so what part was the failing part? Is there a recommended flash card because it sure seems that this could be the failure.
     
  2. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    For the Raspberry Pi flash card I suggest the Silicon Power 3D NAND or the SanDisk Extreme Pro.
    SD cards will eventually fail, but those have had the best lifetimes for me.

    If you want a lot of storage then consider a SATA expansion board and a SATA Solid State disk. Best performance (still limited by Pi design) and best lifetime. Mounts as a expansion card on top of the pi.
     
  3. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    So far I have replaced the Pi and not fixed the problem. I have now replaced the 16GBB Sandisk Pro 10 SD with an 8GB Sandisk 4 SD card and have run through a few prints with no problem, but it could take a week for the problem to manifest. I went to the slower card to see if it is a timing problem, it is possible that faster is not better for this application. Robo supplied SD cards that were 4's. I have ordered 16GB 4's just to see.
     
  4. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    <shrug> I have not had any issues with the Sandisk ones (beyond a few that eventually "aged" out)

    For the ones with the most disk activity (like a database) I have them running on the SATA SSD drives. Slightly better performance on those with the Pi 3* and a lot better performance on that with a Pi 4.

    I would imagine any of them should be fine (class 10 or class 4) really.

    Let us know if/when it fails again.

    *[the Pi three effectively uses the USB controller for everything which consequently limits ethernet and SSD performance]
     
  5. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    Have you tried a Pi 4. If so is it just a drop in?
     
  6. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    :)

    1:Yes,
    2:No.

    It is not drop in since the version of Raspbian that the Pi 4 needs (Buster ) is updated from what the Pi 3 used (Jessie).
    So that image for the Pi 3 will not boot in the Pi 4 -- the reverse works -- a Pi 4 compatible Image of Buster will boot on the Pi 3...
     
  7. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    What all that means simply is that you would need to update the stack running OctoPrint and that will break the LCD Menus (if you can get it to work at all).
     
  8. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    I am beginning to believe there is a compatibility problem, not a defective SD card problem. I have two types of Raspberry 3 Pi's. One type has a metal topped processor and the other the processor is plastic. I took the 16GB Sandisk Ultra SD card out of the R2 that was randomly stopping which has a metal processor and put it in a machine with a plastic processor and so far so good. After going through two Pi's with metal processors on the R2 that was randomly stopping, I put in a Pi with a plastic processor and a 8GB Sandisk type 4 and so far so good. It has been two days, and in a week if no problems I will take one of the metal processor Pi's ( both of which had random stopping with the 16GB Sandisk Ultra SD) and put in a 16GB type 4 card and see if the problem still exists.

    Intermittent problems take a while to resolve, but this where I am at right now.
     
  9. wuidling

    wuidling Member

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    Compete shutdown (Reset) ?
    Check the Voltage or put an external power supply to thr Raspi.

    Regards
     
  10. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    You can add a heatsink to the Pi processor. I usually do.
     
  11. tkoco

    tkoco - -.- --- -.-. ---
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    Potentially, overheating of the Pi could give you similar symptoms.
     
  12. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    I did check the power supply, replaced the 5v cable to Pi and the power supply. When it stops, all of the lights are on the Pi, and the display is lit up. I also tried replacing the HDMI cable with the original type, an HDMI extender cable with an HDMI U. Problem with that was it was a smart cable and would sometimes get out of sync then shut down the display. I bought ribbon cables to replace the ribbons used in the new style HDMI cables, but they just did not work, I can not see any difference between them and the originals. When I remove them from the connectors the pressure points look perfect. I did find a problem on the LCD display board. The 26 pin 2.54 ribbon cable plugs into a female header. The header was not glued to the header part below it an would gradually slide off. You can not make this stuff up. I super glued the pieces back together and it seems okay now.
    Found out why the HDMI cable did not work. I ordered reverse side connections and they sent me same side connections. I did not check when I installed.

    Now that I have identified that the 26 pin 2.54 connector was vibrating off, I will zero base my testing as it may have been the problem all along. It is now securely glued in place. I put in a metal processor Pi and an 8 GB type 4 SD card. I put in the high speed smart HDMI extender cable pending the arrival of replacement HDMI flat cables.
    i went through 3 Pi's so it is unlikely. It is in the same environment as two other printers with the same electronics.
     
  13. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    Pictures help explain what is going on.

    Picture 1 shows the construction of the ribbon cable socket. The top piece of plastic on my display was not glued to the bottom pieces and the 26 pin cable was gradually pulling it off over time with vibration. Every time I changed anything I re-seated all connectors so I may have just started the problem delay with every changed part. I took the HDMI ribbon and since the connectors were both on the same side, I cut off one connector and sanded the other side of the cable until I had the connections. I then used contact cement to glue the blue backer to the opposite side of the connections, as shown in picture 3. Picture 2 shows where I used the contact cement to glue the cable in such a way as to stop it from getting bent at the connector.

    My previous cables were all shop worn from all of the changes and testing I was doing. I did not want to wait for the correct HDMI cables to come in so I redid the HDMI cables to work. I also used 250mm long cables so as to not have any sharp bends.

    If the problem was caused by the 26 pin ribbon cable gradually disconnecting this is the solution. Time will tell.

    wuidling's post is not showing. He might be right thinking it is the system board. I had a system board act like this 2 years ago and it took forever to track it to the board.
     

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  14. tkoco

    tkoco - -.- --- -.-. ---
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    That would do it. Manufacturing defect! (connector manufacturer)
     
  15. Lance Weston

    Lance Weston Active Member

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    No problems since fixing the connector on the LCD. It was the proximate cause of failure (probably). I have reinstalled all of the parts that were present during failure. I can now rule them out. I did find a really inexpensive Raspberry Pi heatsink set on Amazon. I will install upon arrival.

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EE4W730/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
     
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  16. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    I put a set of those on every Pi we use for embedded stuff.
    While the Pi has internal limiting to control heat, I'd rather not use it.
     

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