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Solved Extruder wont turn on and lead screw skips (board issue?)

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by Adam Thompson, Sep 1, 2021.

  1. Adam Thompson

    Adam Thompson New Member

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    Hello,

    I initial had some grinding noise coming from the extruder motor from my last print. Now it will not turn at all. In addition to this the right hand lead screw skips.

    I ran a test run of drivers and motors by swapping around connections and I found that:
    1. All motors are running fine, some have suffered a little damage from skipping but they run smooth enough when hooked into a functioning plug.
    2. The extruder slot refuses to run regardless of motor and regardless of driver.

    Is there any plug that would mess with the extruder and a lead screw motor that could be loose, or am I looking at a board replacement? Could this be a power unit issue? If I replace the board, should I replace both mega and RAMPS?

    Also could damage have occurred from heat or just getting old?

    PS: I cant believe the community is still alive for the R1, I have been save more than once by this community.

    Thank you in advance.
     
  2. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Make sur if you are testing the extruder stepper that you do that with the extruder hot. Otherwise the firmware will simply not let the extruder -- extrude. The stepper will refuse to turn.

    Probably the first culprit to suspect is the stepper driver cards. More over here: http://community.robo3d.com/index.php?threads/faq-r1-r1-series-printers.19735/#post-119219

    The gearing on the extruder can jam up and if that happens nothing will make it turn. See if you can spin the gearing by hand with the power off and if not, you need to fix that first.

    You can replace the RAMPS/Arduino individually if you want. You must reload the firmware if you swap the arduino, but you do not need to do that if you swap only the RAMPS.
     
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  3. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    If you have any questions -- post away -- we can help you through it.
     
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  4. Adam Thompson

    Adam Thompson New Member

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    shoot, i was running the extruder without heat. I will have to switch out the driver on the leadscrew and see if that fixes that.

    I may be a few days before I can say if any of that worked.

    I also realy dont want the ramps to be shot because I would rather not wait a month for the R1+ ramps to become restocked.

    Thank you! I will report back when I get the time.
     
  5. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    You can swap to a standard RAMPS 1.4 and we have a thread on here showing how to do that. Nothing major just some wires land on different terminals.

    Just in case you ever need to :)
     
  6. Adam Thompson

    Adam Thompson New Member

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    Thank you.
    After trying the extruder with heat, it works. I guess there small amount of junk i cleaned out of the bearings fixed the issue (or I swapped out drivers with another motor without realizing... they all look the same and I am a mess).

    I swapped around drivers and played with what i hear is called the potentiometers and it seems at least 1 driver may be bad.
    Is it possible if a potentiometer is touched by something that it messes with its setting?
    Is there a guide to adjusting them so i know how much to adjust them and if they are broken?

    I now have a new problem, even though i didnt adjust some of the potentiometers, both horizontal motors and a lead screw (the opposite one, which has drivers swapped with the bad lead screw) are not skipping exactly, but stuttering as if they are losing power briefly. All of them do this at the same time. The issue is only repeatable when printing and not when telling a single axis to move.
     
  7. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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  8. Adam Thompson

    Adam Thompson New Member

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  9. Adam Thompson

    Adam Thompson New Member

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    I ordered a multimeter and then replacement drivers and boards through a bundle you had recommended a long time ago to another person, except through a different seller. I dont know when I will be able to run tests but thank you for your help so far.
     
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  10. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Good luck. The majority of the time I replaced the A4988 stepper drivers they are calibrated just fine out of the box.
     
  11. Adam Thompson

    Adam Thompson New Member

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    Using the link you sent me, the voltage numbers and tutorial from http://community.robo3d.com/index.php?threads/stepper-driver-calibration-information.6466/, and strong prayer, the printer is running flawlessly. I didnt have to use the spare drives or boards I bought, but it is nice to have them.

    I assume my problem was some potentiometers were bumped at some point (ive opened up the printer to fix fans multiple times) and the extrusion bearings needed a cleaning. I was getting wild numbers on some of the potentiometers before adjusting them.

    Thank you so much for the help!
     
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  12. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Quite welcome. Glad you got it sorted.
     

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