reprapdiscount LCD display

I've had the XXL for a week or so now (thanks Printed Solid), but I've been seeing a lot of "maxtemp" errors that shut down my printer mid print. From what I've read it seems to be an overheating issue of the board. Has anyone had any success with adding an additional fan (like Jerry) ? If so, what did you use, etc. ?

 

Where did you read that the "maxtemp" error can be from board overheating? I can't think of a mechanism that would cause this error from RAMPS/Arduino board overheating. I think that is only triggered by the extruder thermistor measurement. Could your thermistor connection be shorting out intermittently? This would cause a low resistance which would be interpreted as a high temperature.

 

That was more of a guess haha. If it does sound like a thermistor issue I'll check the wires. Otherwise I might as well upgrade my extruder. Still running the stock parts

 

Hi scotta,
I am working through this problem myself at the moment and I see you have said in step 3. "As posted by matt above" but I cant find where matt posted this. Also with my zero knowledge of coding or arduino or anything I am merely following instructions at the moment, mind you doing poorly. Any help would be great.

Cheers,
Lachlan

 

Lachlan
I suggest you grab the latest software version from http://forums.robo3dprinter.com/index.php?forums/official-documentation.14/
And use that to start with.
You will just need to change the display section in the code. There should be instructions earlier in this thread.

 

Running with the XXL now, everything works as it should as far as adjusting settings and changing things on the fly.
Problem is I can't run the parts cooling fan at 100% anymore... Let me rephrase that, the fan runs as it should and when it should at all settings, however, now if it is running at anything over around half speed, it very slowly cools the hot end too. the hot end doesn't seem to fight to maintain temperature. Even with the fan running at half speed I can tell it takes longer to heat up.

If I start at 210 with the fan set to turn on after the second layer, once turned on, the temp will slowly creep down, if I switch the fan off the temp comes right back up to the setting. Went up stairs last night for about 10 minutes and when I came back it was down to 175 and still slowly dropping.

I have had no issues with running the fan at any speeds prior to installing the XXL. Fan has always been in the same place.

 

I did not do anything with the firmware, I am already running the 3-14-14. Did I miss a step? Now with an XXL is there something to change? That would be great.


Yes I can manually adjust the fan from the display, it has the max fan speed at 255, that would = 100% correct? Slicer 100% settings put it at 255 so I assume it is.

If I unplug the xxl and go back to USB, it maintains temp even with the fan at 100%. Drops a couple degrees at first but raises and holds steady after that. If on the XXL it just keeps dropping. Drops much slower if I lower fan speed and can hold temperature at about the 130-140ish setting Near halfway.

For now I will just print with half cooling and see how it goes, in the long run and for some parts, that could be a problem and will leave me going back and forth from USB to XXL depending on the requirements.

 

Now I'm even more confused, Last night after switching to USB to see if the issue was there, everything was back to normal, making me confident it was an xxl issue. Now after double checking, unplugging the screen and retrying the USB, the issue is there now as well, which tells me this isn't an issue with the XXL at all but somewhere along the line something screwed up.

Very strange. I checked all the connections and feel they are all secure but ... ... I don't know.... I'll play with it later lol. At least it's not just a screen issue so sorry about posting it here.


Sorry for bothering you and besides all this mess the XXL is a pretty awesome upgrade and I can tell I am going to love it once I iron out my gremlins.
Although now when my friends come over they no longer see a Robo3D Printer. Now his name is just, ROB.

 

Yes this is strange. One thought, if I remember this all correctly, when the USB is plugged in the Arduino/RAMPS run off of the USB 5V. With USB unplugged it runs from the 12V supply through a linear regulator. This regulator is also feeding the LCD through the RAMPS connector. How this could affect the cooling fan PWM I'm not sure. You can also run the XXL and SD card input with the USB plugged (Repetier inactive) in to see if that makes a difference

I wrote the above before seeing your last post but it still might be useful.

 

Probably not related but do you have a duct on your cooling fan? Mine directs the airflow just under the heater block and I see no temperature drop at 100%. My duct ends in an ellipse shaped nozzle.

 

I've used a duct but haven't for a while. I know either a duct or insulating the heat block would fix it but it's just odd that it was fine for months until plugging in the screen.

 

One simple way to insulate the heating block is to spread a layer of Permatex Ultra Copper RTV Silicon Gasket Maker on the fan side. You may need to slightly sand the surface.

 

Yeah I went easier than that and just wrapped the heaterblock with some 5mm kapton that I have. About 15 go-arounds (which isn't much, stuff is really thin) and it holds temp solid now. Insulating is a fix but I guess I am more hunting for the cause, since it was never an issue before.

Regardless of that, I am loving the XXL. I have my laptop back and even better I am printing twice as fast now that I took the chance on upping some settings, I decided to slowly push it from 100%-125%-150% and to 200% and things are flawless. Upped flow a little and some other things but the screen really makes it easy to adjust on the fly and watch a couple layers to dial it in or pull it back.

I could have done any of this without it too but the screen makes it simpler I guess. Now I'm going to raise my slice speed settings to see if I can get the same speeds while keeping it at 100% on the XXL. If not better still.

 

I haven't used the USB port since getting the XXL last December. One thing I noticed with the PC/USB is that some activity on the PC could modulate the USB port speed enough to cause unevenness in the walls of some prints.

 

@tesseract @mark tomlinson
do either of you know if it is possible to extend the connectors on this display. ive read that its not, matt told me its not also but that seems crazy since its just a simple wire extension. basically i want to mount the XXL display outside my homemade encloser.