All prints stop after certain time (mystery)

Hello, forum! (this is my first post.)

Anyways, I've built a prusa and am trying to start printing. It's able to get about thirty seconds in when, every time, it stops. Therefore, I have quite a few uncompleted bottom layers and nothing else.

I'm using:
-One prusa mendel. Fairly standard.
-RAMPS
-Modified QU-BD extruder
-ProtoParadigm 1.75mm Natural ABS
-EBay TB6560 single stepper drivers (I kept breaking stepsticks)
-ATX power supply
-Repetier firmware and host
-Slic3r

As far as I know, everything should be functional (and it is!), however, it's not.
The mechanics (movement and extruder) work fine.
It shouldn't be the power supply (current-wise) because I can manually control everything at once.
The stepper drivers certainly aren't hot (and are also designed for up to 3 amps; have an enormous heatsink)

Therefore, I've concluded it must be the software, but both Marlin and Repetier do the exact same thing.

Is there something I'm missing?

(Thanks.)

Right.

I should add:

If I disconnect the extruder motor controller (heater, fan still on), there is no problem.

Maybe more mysterious?

What do you mean there is no problem when you disconnect the extruder motor controller? If you just disconnected a stepper from the controller, noting is supposed to happen.

Sounds like your printer is crashing to me. I had the same problem a while back. Check that your using a shielded USB cable and may also put a ferrite around the usb cable near were it connects to your ramps. Go for the shielded cable first.

The electronic controlers (ramps in your case) that we use are very sensitive to electrical fluctuations so you may want to check whats going on around you, is the fridge running? freezer motor starting up? Try connecting your printer related electronics and the pc to another circuit.

I personaly use an Online power supply that does dual conversion for my pc and the printer. I can do prints just as good as when using the SDRAMPS but I print from my computer.

Another you can try to isolate your problem, if you have an sdramp try to print from it and disconnect the usb from your computer as soon as the printer starts moving. It should keep going by itself.

BTW when your printer crashes does it stop responding to commands from your host software? (pronterface, repetier, etc..) and if so what do you do to bring it back online?

Let me know what happens.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2012 01:52PM by thecrazy.

First, thanks for getting back...

Anyways, I should have said instead that I do not experience the problem if I disconnect the extruder stepper driver and "print" without laying down any plastic; that is, the printer will go through all the movements perfectly through to the end of the print.

I don't have a shielded USB cable that I can find, so I tried using a different cable through a route void of any other wires; it didn't make any difference.

As for power supply noise, I have the printer and computer's power hooked up to an APC UPS: the website says it protects against surges and regulates voltage, and no other major appliances are on the same circuit, so it shouldn't be causing the problem.

I do have an SDRamps, but not a miniSD card for it (yet).

When the printer crashes, I have to restart it completely in order to communicate (similar to an emergency stop). It also makes a sound almost like powering off the stepper motors, but I don't know if that is the case.

One last thing: the attached picture shows some of my first prints... (it needs some calibration; I'll do that later) ...it's easy to see the problem: after a certain amount of filament extruded, the printer stalls. The consistent distance is why I think it's a software problem, but I don't know why it would happen.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2012 06:55PM by coelestinian.

My house has dodgy electricity - i had a lot of troubles with power BUT - on every fail that was power related I would see pronterface saying "cannot communicate with printer, printer disconnected?" multiple times...

Do you get ANY warnings? are you using pronterface?

Was annoying because the printer would stay hot - one night I went to bed thinking it would just shut off... woke up 5 hours later to a big fat burn mark where it had stopped half way thru doing the part... lucky - could be dangerous!

coelestinian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anyways, I should have said instead that I do not
> experience the problem if I disconnect the
> extruder stepper driver and "print" without laying
> down any plastic; that is, the printer will go
> through all the movements perfectly through to the
> end of the print.
>
> I don't have a shielded USB cable that I can find,
> so I tried using a different cable through a route
> void of any other wires; it didn't make any
> difference.
>
> As for power supply noise, I have the printer and
> computer's power hooked up to an APC UPS: the
> website says it protects against surges and
> regulates voltage, and no other major appliances
> are on the same circuit, so it shouldn't be
> causing the problem.
>
> I do have an SDRamps, but not a miniSD card for it
> (yet).
>
> When the printer crashes, I have to restart it
> completely in order to communicate (similar to an
> emergency stop). It also makes a sound almost like
> powering off the stepper motors, but I don't know
> if that is the case.
>
> One last thing: the attached picture shows some of
> my first prints... (it needs some calibration;
> I'll do that later) ...it's easy to see the
> problem: after a certain amount of filament
> extruded, the printer stalls. The consistent
> distance is why I think it's a software problem,
> but I don't know why it would happen.


Well, it sounds to me that you have 2 things to take a closer look at, one is the extruder setup you have. If it works without it connected then maybe you have something wrong there.
Second, the PSU, maybe it is not good enough, so when everything is running at the same time it trips.
From what you are saying I would take a good look at the PSU, attach a multimeter to it or a fan and see what reading you get,if you don't have a multimeter the fan is a good indicator.

regards
Jan

Yep, sounds like a brown-out problem, can you set the extruder pololu potentiometer a tad lower? You could set all your pololu pots a tad lower...
Also, when I ran a cable for my Dremel across the RAMPS USB cable I had an instant printer shut down when I started the Dremel...

---

Prusa with cast PU parts, RAMPS 1.3, Wades extruder, J-Head hot end

Well, I can't figure out a good way to measure current on the printer, but with everything on it brings the voltage down to 11.45v at the least from 12.36v. There's no difference when it stops, and the power supply's fan is still working while the stepper driver LEDs (fancy, right?) are still on. Therefore, I don't think it's a brownout problem, or anything with power.

The stepper driver current is as low as possible (no steps skipped), about 0.3 amps.

I'll take back my statement that everything stops after a certain length of filament: I've noticed it differ, now, but still not by much.

I noticed one other thing: right as the printer stops, although Repetier-Host says nothing, the device manager on Windows 7 indicates that the Arduino is disconnected; a second or so later, it's connected again. From other testing, it's the equivalent of unplugging the USB cable and then putting it back in- purely resetting the Arduino does nothing. What would cause this?

If it helps, I've tried cutting the reset-en connection on the Arduino; it makes no difference.

Plug in the one way deiod on the ramps board so that it can get power from the psu as well as the USB cable. Also try swapping the polo boards around say y board with the extruder board. Do you have a heated bed connected?

Could be a communication down the USB cable . I had this many times. Try moving your cable or relocating your machine slightly. Also have a look to see if you have your motor wires wrapped close to the usb line in or cable tied together. That could be causing communication problems. This would explain why when you disconnect one motor the problem goes away. Check you have good earthing also.

If that doesn't help, lower your baud rate in your pc software and also in your firmware to match. This seems to cure it and doesn't affect your print speed. There's no real need to run super fast baud rates.

I tried to fix any problems caused by noise: I've run with both Marlin and Repetier firmware, Pronterface and Repetier-Host, down to 9600 baud. Also, I moved all wires near the USB connection away; nothing helped. I'm inclined to think it's not that.

So then I focused on the extruder. The hot end is very reliable (QU-BD; it just needs a little oil), so it's either the stepper motor or driver for the extruder. I had another stepper lying around, but the same problem occured- so it's the driver (a good thing, too- it's a nice motor). Strangely enough, the new motor I tried only turned one direction. As I'm using non-pololu drivers (ebay TB6560), I have wires everywhere- the dir wire was unplugged. The good news is, the printer managed to get farther than it has ever before.... but then, it stopped. Again.

However, I wonder why it helped...?

Then, even if that means it's noise with the stepper driver, why would that affect the Arduino?

I'll try rewiring, but I'll also look back at the RAMPS schematic.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2012 09:41PM by coelestinian.

Since it seemed something was wrong with the stepper driver, I switched it with the X driver. Nothing changed: it's not the stepper driver, but it still occurs that only when the extruder isn't powered, it works!

Even stranger.

I was using Windows 7...
The same happened on Windows XP on VMware (on Mac Pro)

So, I'm playing around with the wiring of the extruder driver. The printer still stops if the power to the driver is on, but the enable/step/dir pins unconnected.

But it works if I power the driver off E1 rather than off E0.

So how would I work with that in the Marlin firmware?

Never mind; it did not work...

I've done more testing:

The problem is not the motor. If I try with all stepper drivers on the same settings and four of the same motors, nothing is fixed.

The problem is not the driver. I can switch around drivers and wiring, but the same happens.

However, the only time something goes wrong is when the extruder driver is connected (that is to say, 3 motors running).

But if I disconnect a different driver instead, nothing is fixed.

So my printer only stops when the extruder stepper driver is connected: even if it is on the X axis port configured as an extruder, and all connections to all drivers are the same.

Therefore, nothing is wrong with the wiring, as the only differentiation between the extruder and other axes are in software.

Yet I'm using standard Marlin.


I might just end up buying new electronics; perhaps Sanguinololu/Azteeg?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2012 11:56AM by coelestinian.

Have you considered that your hotend may be cooling down when you start to print? Marlin will refuse to do a print move if the head is below a certain temperature, but will to any other kind of move.

Maybe your "min temperature" in firmware is quite high and the movement is cooling your hotend down below this temperature.

That could happen if you get a bogus temperature reading but i think that you get a message in the printer face console when that occurs.

It sounds to me if you have wires running everywhere that you may be having ground bounce issues and that is causing your computer's USB interface to shut down. Make sure your ground wiring is as short as possible and uses good heavy duty wire.

So I looked over all the wires more. It's almost embarrassing; I started to make everything neater in order to reduce noise, and then I realized: for some reason or another, I was powering the stepper motors not off the correct channel, but instead the logic supply!

That explains why, once, I was able to run the printer solely off USB power (no heater, of course).

Anyways, may this be a lesson to myself and everyone with non-pololu/stepstick drivers, and therefore a mess of wires.


Thanks for helping!


(I added a picture of the first successful print: a 20mm square wall. Needs calibration, practice, better pictures, less than a 10 degree temp. variation.... but it works!)

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2012 10:06PM by coelestinian.

lol... wondered why my Z axis was always going crazy instead of actually moving when I commanded it to - had 2 wires crossed there myself - easy mistake to make!

hey, i am currently building a prusa mendel machine, but anyways i ran into a similiar problem a few years ago with another project. i installed a pc in my car and used a custom built in dash 7" touch screen to control it, and i kept having this problem where after driving for so long the touch screen would go dead until i restarted the computer. eventually after much frustration i stumbled on a setting enabled by default by windows to let usb devices go to sleep after so long. im pretty sure that windows does not recognise a touchscreen like it does a mouse and keyboard, and without either attached will eventually tell the usb ports to shut down. Anyways disabling power saving functions for the usb ports ended all my problems. maybe its related to the printer problems, maybe not but i think it is worth checking out.

-Pete