Broken micro USB socket

Hi guys,

Have had an Ormerod for a couple of weeks now and have managed to print a fair few parts (albeit with some weird behaviors at times).

During an overnight print my usb interface has detached (broken) from the board, apparently under the weight of the usb cable.

It turns out that the mounting tabs on the socket had not been soldered, leaving the socket to hang off the 3/4 tiny soldering; I had put up with the (many) teething problems to date but I am not impressed by this one (unless it is normal not to solder the mounting tabs!) as I am now left hanging.

Now I can't communicate with the printer anymore (never managed to get ethernet working).
I do not have any spare socket and an not sure to have the skills to perform such tiny solder so am now stuck unable to print;

I PM Ian at RepRapPro but have not heard back yet.

Has anyone had this problem yet? If not I would advise to solder the mounting tabs and/or support usb cable with some zip tie or else.

Is this something covered under warranty? How can I get printing again?

Thanks for your help,

Best Regards,
Arnaud

I would hope that your board will be covered under warranty - it sounds like a manufacturing defect to me. In the meantime, I suggest you try to get Ethernet working. Preferably, plug it into your router. If like me you have it connected to a computer that is wirelessly connected to the router, then you need to bridge the wired and wireless network connections on the computer. When you have sorted this out, try pinging the printer. You may have to set it to an address that is outside the range managed by the router, I use 192.168.1.80. Once you can ping it, try opening it in Chrome.

@Arnaud, yes the USB should be soldered, the replacements are.
If you are one of the first 220 serial numbers there is a replacement service for this and the two wrong resistors. They hope to have the boards returned before this type of failure as it destroys the board for what is a simple fix.
Contact RepRap/Ian for help.

Thanks for your reply dc42. I too hope it will be covered under warranty indeed.

This problem has the benefit (I suppose...) to finally force me to sort out the ethernet but I am struggling.

My setup is the following:
- using a laptop (running linux) wirelessly connected to router;
- have plugged printer to router with a "wired" connection through ring main (works really well with other devices);

I have started looking into bridging laptop and lan but so far not successfully. Will try your suggestion of an out of range IP adress and let you know how I get on.

Hi Treth,

My kit is supposed to be #282 and the resistors were the right way around (and I got to print for approx. 15hrs - 120m of wire) but unfortunately the USB socket wasn't!!!
Was not affected by the 5V issue and have been able to do most of my prints on SD card with computer disconnected (thankfully as one of my print took 12hrs to complete).

It is indeed frustrating as the socket fix seems simple enough, I could have soldered the mounts/tabs had I realised they were not!

Have PM Ian but I guess he might be on holiday now so will have to wait until after Xmas.

Only hope now is to get ethernet working until a replacement can be sorted.

I'm baaaack!

Sorry, storms knocked out my phone lines (tree fell on it at 10.30am Monday morning), and now limping along borrowing wifi from neighbour, while waiting for BT to come and fix it.

@arnaud31: Yes, of course the mini USB pins should be soldered in place. It's absolutely a warranty issue, and we'll replace your board. If we can get your board back, then we can wave it under the nose of the supplier, and get them to improve their quality. There seems to be two places on the board that can suffer from this; the USB housing and the SD card holder.

I'm happy to book it onto our warranty system, please send me an email with name, address and machine number, and a summary and picture of the problem, to support at reprappro dot com. Please don't send me private messages - I can't pick them up from the reprappro user account until 2nd Jan (when I'll be back in work), and would prefer to keep all formal conversation on email.

Ian
RepRapPro tech support

Hi all,

From my previous experienced of multiwii quadcopter board and brushless gimbal which come with micro USB port, I broke quite a lot of micro USB sockets which is soldered on the board directly.
My recent CNC having the same problem too, and a quick mod by drill a hole on the casing and add a printer USB to micro USB adapter will solve my problem . Here's what I used : [www.ebay.com]
Hope this help


Ew

Hi Ian,
Thanks for getting back to me.

Can you confirm your email address is support reprappro dot com or ian? Have emailed details to both but none may reach you!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2013 07:33PM by arnaud31.

Hi arnaud31, yes, got you email on support! I would prefer if you didn't put the email address out-right on the forum, I'll get loads of spam... that's why I always write it support at reprappro dot com

I've got quite a bit of email to catch up, but will add it to the system, and send you a confirmation. Our factory is shut until the 2nd January, but all back-dated warranties should go out when we reopen.

Ian
RepRapPro tech support

thanks Ian, edited post as well, sorry about that...