Damaged my motherboard and LCD on my T-Rex 3

Hi all,

I want to share my experience and at the same time ask for your thoughts.

I have a Vivedino/Formbot T-Rex 3. I have never updated any of my 3D printers before but it seemed simple enough, or at least so I thought.

I looked at some videos on youtube and did some reading on the Marlin firmware page. I then downloaded arduino IDE, downloaded Marlin 2.0.0 and used the example files for my printer. I downloaded U8glib V1.17 and uploaded firmware to the printer. Then the LCD was not showing the pixels correctly and it kind of flickered but I was still able to make out what it said. I tried reset to default but no change. When I tried to operate the printer it moved in the wrong directions and I guess most of the settings regarding movements was wrong, the homing pushed the hotend down in the bed etc.

I contacted the Vivedino support asking for the default firmware files and uploaded them. During all this the LCD got even worse and I could not make out much of the display at all. I was also given another U8glib library, V1.19.1 that I used instead but the LCD still was all messed up but the printer worked properly.
I was then told by the support that my LCD had broken due to my uploading and I bought a new one, that one at first shows the graphic correct for the first 30 seconds or so and then gradually started to get worse. After about 2 hours printing (or just with the power on, not printing) it becomes very hard to read what it says.

I was then told by the support that my motherboard needed to be replaced. So here I am today, I have ordered yet another LCD and a new motherboard and are waiting for them to arrive.

I have tried to remove cables between LCD and motherboard, reset to default in menu and cut the power many many times and in all the combinations I can think of.

I have learned my lesson and hopefully I can save someone else some money and time by discouraging if you don’t know exactly what you are doing.

Regarding the example files for the T-Rex, that have most, if not all, movement settings wrong, is there somewhere I can report this? Or is this something to be expected?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2019 11:20PM by sw3De.

I have received my new motherboard and LCD. Now everything is working again.

But I’m still wondering how this could happen?
I was planning to change my hotend and start learning how to edit the Marlin firmware but I’m not sure I have the guts (or money) to experiment if it’s that easy to destroy my hardware.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2020 12:32AM by sw3De.

I would ask you where did you get your firmware.

I was looking an found this Website

It show two links for firmware for you controller
Formbot / Vivedino Firmware Branches

Trex 2+/3 1.1.9 Firmware [ [github.com] ]
Trex 2+/3 2.0 Firmware [ [github.com] ]

I would use your controller with the scrabbled display, ask for help and see if between you and the rest of the forum we can help you to get this controller working again.

---

Computer Programmer / Electronics Technician

I used the example files downloaded from marlins official site, thats when it got bad.
Later I used the firmware I got from Vivedino. After many many emails they (Vivedino) deemed the hardware broken and that it was my fault since I had “downloaded it from the internet”.

After I installed the new hardware it felt really good to throw the old in the trash. Now I see I maybe should have been more patient.