1. Got a question or need help troubleshooting? Post to the troubleshooting forum or Search the forums!

It started with a communication issue...

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by Shea Clayton, Mar 20, 2020.

Page 1 of 3
  1. Shea Clayton

    Shea Clayton New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2020
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    1
    Hey guys need some help.

    I had been going back and forth with support but they went silent.

    Here is my post to support:

    Me:
    I recently moved and when setting up the printer at my new location I am getting some errors. First off I noticed that the printer at start-up no longer goes through the set up (bed rising and lowering to what I call the home position). I can through the control panel have it go to home, but it's not like it was.

    Then trying to print. When I try it takes a while for the hot end to heat and ultimately it fails. Somewhere around 179 degrees and to get there it takes several minutes.

    I have tried to do the troubleshooting tips listed online. Hitting the reset button when it appears on the screen, reseating the wires, etc., but no change.

    I have ordered a new hot end, but with the bed not animating and going "home" it makes me think something else could be wrong?
    Response: Lets try resetting the software and see if that fixes the issue. Below is the new download software image. Please read and follow the articles instructions letting you know how to install and write the image to the sd card. Depending on the
    Me:
    Hi Not so sure I made progress. I followed the steps and now I get only a "white" screen on start up..
    If I rearrange the fitting of the screen ribbon it goes dark.
    Response: I have seen this before. Sometimes with the ribbon cable, the wires get pulled out just a bit from the plugs. If you can, please take the plugs from the cable going to the screen and squeeze them into the wire ribbon cable, then put the plug back into the screen and the same thing on the electronics board side. This will most likely solve the issue.
    Me: I checked all the cables, checked the Ras Pi was getting power, etc and still no movement. I flashed the OS onto another SD card and nothing changes.

    So from where i started with what was an on-screen message about communication failure has gotten worse
    it's essentially not booting. Does anyone have ideas on how to resolve it?
     
    #1 Shea Clayton, Mar 20, 2020
  2. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2013
    Messages:
    23,912
    Likes Received:
    7,338
    The screen being solid white means that either the cable/wiring to it is bad or the RoboOS doesn't have the right driver loaded or ... it is defective. That last one is generally not the case, but needs to be mentioned.

    Now, one thing to bear in mind is that their software and drivers changed at some point. They originally had the LCD screen driven via the GPIO pins on the Pi for the C2 and the R2 used an LCD with an HDMI input -- so totally different drivers there yea? However later versions of the C2 appear to have inherited the HDMI version of the LCD as well. If the image you loaded has the wrong driver, well, it will do what you see.

    See if you can identify which cable is sending signal to your LCD. Is it an HDMI cable that connects to the HDMI connector on the Raspberry Pi or a ribbon cable that connects to the GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi?
     
    #2 mark tomlinson, Mar 20, 2020
  3. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2013
    Messages:
    23,912
    Likes Received:
    7,338
    My C2 is an early one and does NOT have an HDMI cable, it uses the GPIO pins via a ribbon cable on the Pi.
     
    #3 mark tomlinson, Mar 20, 2020
  4. Shea Clayton

    Shea Clayton New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2020
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    1
    Yes, mine is the older ribbon cable. I was able to plugin and HDMI cable to an exterior monitor and was able to see the screen UI.

    If the screen is damaged it's my second replacement. :/ but screen or no screen- it doesn't help the original issue, of the communication issue experienced during heating up.
     
    #4 Shea Clayton, Mar 20, 2020
  5. tkoco

    tkoco - -.- --- -.-. ---
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    May 7, 2018
    Messages:
    721
    Likes Received:
    273
    I would check the main power supply. Why? The main board which feeds 5 Volts power to the Raspberry Pi is actually feeding 4.7 - 4.8 volts instead of the 5.0 - 5.1 volts to power the Raspberry Pi. If the main power supply is not feeding the nominal 19 volts to the C2 printer, then all items downstream will experience lower voltages. Which can give you the extruder heating, movement and touch screen issues which you describe.
     
    #5 tkoco, Mar 20, 2020
  6. Shea Clayton

    Shea Clayton New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2020
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    1
    That is interesting. I did for a hot second use generic power supply that just fit (I know horrible idea). Perhaps that created the first issue, but the screen and again the bed not going through it's start-up animation, have me concerned that several things are going on.
     
    #6 Shea Clayton, Mar 20, 2020
  7. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2013
    Messages:
    23,912
    Likes Received:
    7,338
    The bed "dance" is controlled by OctoPi (the octoprint installed on the Sd card) and it is possible that the configuration of that one is different than what you had originally.

    There are a lot of "layers" here (some hardware and some software) so peeling it apart to find which one is misbehaving is step one :)
     
    #7 mark tomlinson, Mar 20, 2020
  8. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2013
    Messages:
    23,912
    Likes Received:
    7,338
    There are the following software layers:
    1) The marlin firmware installed on the controller board. This handles low-level behavior of the printer
    2) the host-software driving the printer (octoprint in the normal case for those printers, it is the one sending the Gcode over to be handled by marlin)
    3) the slicer -- the one who turns your STL (a 3D-cad surface model) into Gcode for the printer to consume
    4) The software that drives the LCD (which really is a plug-in to octoprint)
     
    #8 mark tomlinson, Mar 20, 2020
    tkoco likes this.
  9. tkoco

    tkoco - -.- --- -.-. ---
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    May 7, 2018
    Messages:
    721
    Likes Received:
    273
    Please understand that if the supply voltage is too low for the Raspberry Pi, that condition can cause the software on the SDcard to get corrupted. The C2 FAQ maintained by @mark tomlinson has some recommendations on replacement power supplies.
     
    #9 tkoco, Mar 21, 2020
  10. Shea Clayton

    Shea Clayton New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2020
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    1
    SO I go in the new LCD screen and new RPi ribbon cable (I have the older C2). I went to install the cable and notice the smaller cable that run at the end of the ribbon connection. How to I put that on my new ribbon?
     
    #10 Shea Clayton, Mar 26, 2020
  11. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2013
    Messages:
    23,912
    Likes Received:
    7,338
    um, maybe a picture? Not sure exactly what you are asking.
     
    #11 mark tomlinson, Mar 26, 2020
  12. Shea Clayton

    Shea Clayton New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2020
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    1
    Hey Mark,
    Yue image attached. It's the cable I am holding in my hand - to the black fitting it had been connected to in the ribbon. it's 2 leads that I imagine go to the thermostat?
     

    Attached Files:

    #12 Shea Clayton, Mar 26, 2020
  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2013
    Messages:
    23,912
    Likes Received:
    7,338
    Hmm, IIRC that is power to something (but I am not certain -- it might be signal to a USB port or something else entirely). Let me take a look in the morning and see if I can sort out what it is.

    It is not the thermostat since the thermistors only go to the control board, not the pi.
    The control board doesn't drive the LCD -- only the Pi does that. USB, Networking, LCD -- all that goes through the raspberry pi
     
    #13 mark tomlinson, Mar 26, 2020
  14. Shea Clayton

    Shea Clayton New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2020
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    1
    Thanks Mark!
     
    #14 Shea Clayton, Mar 26, 2020
  15. tkoco

    tkoco - -.- --- -.-. ---
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    May 7, 2018
    Messages:
    721
    Likes Received:
    273
    I can answer the question: The 2 wire cable is meant for a running a 5 volt fan on a Raspberry Pi 4 board. Since the Raspberry Pi 4 generates more heat than the Version 3, a lot of kits include a fan which pulls it's power from that 2 wire cable. You can confirm this by either direct measurement with a multimeter or by mapping the pins to an official chart for the Raspberry Pi GPIO bus.
    Unless you plan on running a fan, tape over the ends to keep the wires from accidentally shorting against other electronics in the printer.
     
    #15 tkoco, Mar 27, 2020
    mark tomlinson likes this.
  16. Shea Clayton

    Shea Clayton New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2020
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    1
    So essentially not required?

    Ok, so now I am back to the screen not showing UI. Unlike the one that I replaced (it was showing a white screen) this one is lit, but dark if that makes sense.

    could this all lead back to an issue with the Rpi board? If I plug in an HDMI to a screen I can get the UI to appear on a secondary monitor, but if the pin is not connecting right of if there is an issue with that connection point, I might be going in circles.
     
    #16 Shea Clayton, Mar 27, 2020
  17. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2013
    Messages:
    23,912
    Likes Received:
    7,338
    Hmm, you have the LCD that connects with the ribbon cable, not the HDMI -- is that right?

    Mine is that way, but there was a version of RoboOS in the "wild" that did not load the drivers for that screen (and only used HDMI)...
     
    #17 mark tomlinson, Mar 27, 2020
  18. Shea Clayton

    Shea Clayton New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2020
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    1
    That's correct. The HDMI port is unused (I used it only to test) and the connection from the Rpi to the display is through the ribbon cable.
     
    #18 Shea Clayton, Mar 27, 2020
  19. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2013
    Messages:
    23,912
    Likes Received:
    7,338
    Yea, you may want to try another image for the SD card on the Pi.

    Try the one I have here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6DXaWMGZJHTeF9sSUxJaHhVZW8

    look for Robo_C2_GPIO_v2.zip

    That one uses the drivers for the GPIO LCD. You may want to SSH to the pi after testing and rename the machine back to your machine name if it works.
     
    #19 mark tomlinson, Mar 27, 2020
  20. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2013
    Messages:
    23,912
    Likes Received:
    7,338
    You will notice in that same folder there is another image for the HDMI one: C2-HDMI-RoboOS-2_0.zip

    since later versions of the C2 apparently DID have an HDMI cable running to the LCD.
    I think @tkoco has one like that.
     
    #20 mark tomlinson, Mar 27, 2020
Page 1 of 3

Share This Page