Loud Pop - Then Smoke!

I'm thinking me and Tantillus do not like each other.

Seriously!

New resistor has done one print.

I broke a fan so I'm down to one fan while waiting for a new one. Removed one fan from board because it was noisy. Thought I made sure red cable was at the + for the fan. Had my glasses on ...carefully plugged it all in.

I got it all set up. Homed the axis. Power was on everything was looking good.

Turned it off to put in memory card. Turned it back on. Chose print object. Printer started heating up. Then loud POP and SMOKE.

Turned it off. Looked at my handiwork again ...and sure enough I'd plugged in the white cable for the plan on the + side instead of the red cable.

Do I need a new board? How can I troubleshoot the damage?

Odds are it was just the smoothing circuit on the fan wires that popped. If you bring it to the next meeting I will try and make it out and can replace it. Also if it still works just use it the way it is. The main thing the smoothing circuit does is allow the fan to run a lower speeds which is not that important for most prints.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

Okay, it looks like all I did was blow the capacitor on the fan line. Phew ...so if I take the wire off the fan I broke and attach it to the one good fan that I blew the capacitor on, I should be back in business right?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2012 07:09PM by Lisa M.

Printer is printing (sans fans) and all seems to be going well. Soooooo.... at least I didn't blow the board. The capacitor blowing probably saved me a bunch of bucks.

Which brings me to my next question. Why do I need fans? The print looks pretty good. The fans are noisy and despite this I forgotten they are there a few times (which is how I broke one in the first place). Do they help control temperature of the hot end ...or the plastic? Does the print quality diminish without them?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2012 07:03PM by Lisa M.

Yes you can use the old wires from the broken fan.

The fans serve a few purposes.

1) cool the plastic so it does not curl

2) hardens the plastic quickly during bridging so it does not sag

3) hardens the previous layers so the new layer has a solid base to print on (this helps with layer alignment)

4) keeps air moving across the thermal barrier of the hotend so it does not suffer from heat rising up and melting the filament too early. ( this is needed more so on prints that take a long time)

The next firmware update makes the fans much quieter and will be released with the Kisslicer update.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

I got the fan you sent and both my fans were plugged in today and I tested them, ...but they are not working at all so I took them off again. I think I damaged more than just the fan capacitor yesterday and I didn't want to leave them plugged into the board.

Everything else on the printer seems to be working fine and KISSlicer is definitely an improvement. If I can get the fan situation sorted I think I will be seeing some great prints very soon.

You can connect the fans to the next terminals marked D8. Then you will need to make a change in the firmware to match.

In pins.h

line # 295 says
#define FAN_PIN 9 // (Sprinter config)

and you will change it to
#define FAN_PIN 8 // (Sprinter config)

Also line # 312 says
#define HEATER_BED_PIN 8 // BED

and you will change it to
#define HEATER_BED_PIN 9 // BED

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

Kewl. I will give that a try Thr./Fri.

Thanks!

Tried... but no luck. Could be related to one other issue too. I'll PM you Sublime.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2012 12:13AM by Lisa M.