H-1.1 Troubleshooting

All about the retired H-1.1 3D Printers
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Kiro
Plasticator
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2012 9:08 pm
Location: NJ

H-1.1 Troubleshooting

Post by Kiro »

My brother and I ordered the H-1.1 w/ RAMPS 1.4 from the Indiegogo campaign and finished assembling it back in September. Over this past Thanksgiving weekend, we've been trying to calibrate it but have been running into a few (possibly related) issues:
  • The extruder works fine when the bed is stationary, but stops as soon as any of the other motors are active
  • The extruder cools down spontaneously, though significantly more often when the heated bed is on. The extruder either cools and/or maintains a temperature less than the set temperature
  • When the extruder is heating up, it often exceeds the set temperature by +15F. As it extrudes, extruder temperatures drop rapidly ie -10F for a small 5mm sample
  • The heated bed doesn't always turn on when prompted. Tugging on the cables has not had any effect. It works when it wants to
We're using Pronterface to print. ReplicatorG connected and sensed temperatures correctly, but hung when estimating the build time. With Pronterface, the printer appears to follow the motions of printing, but does not extrude simultaneously.

We have a few theories:
  • The included PSU was DoA
  • Poor or incorrect wiring
  • Software issue or misuse
Unfortunately, we're not as experienced as we would like when it comes to electronics. Does anyone have any ideas as to what the problem can be and where we should start looking?
adman234
Printmaster!
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:38 pm

Re: H-1.1 Troubleshooting

Post by adman234 »

When i got my power supply it had issues similar to yours so i got a new one but it didn't help. Turns out that one psu wasn't enough. I pulled a psu out of an old PC and it works fine. Check the voltage on your psu with everything connected, it should be 12 volts. If not, psus are cheap.
Kiro
Plasticator
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2012 9:08 pm
Location: NJ

Re: H-1.1 Troubleshooting

Post by Kiro »

Will definitely take a look and give it a try. I should be able to find a spare 350W PSU somewhere.

Thanks.

Edit:

It so happens that one PSU was disassembled for parts and another was used to replace a dead one. Going to try using the Mach3 demo to see if it's a software issue while I wait for a working PSU to arrive.
Kiro
Plasticator
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2012 9:08 pm
Location: NJ

Re: H-1.1 Troubleshooting

Post by Kiro »

Update:

Still haven't gotten a PSU yet. To test it, though, we plugged it to a car battery with a fuse in between. To our surprise, the 10A fuse did not blow; we were expecting the combined heating of the heated bed and extruder to consume more amperage.

Anyway, the extruder and heated bed work fine now with a larger supply of power. They still overheat initially, but they settle down eventually around the target temperatures.

What still doesn't work is running the extruder motor during the print job. It works fine separately, but there is no indication that any power is going to the extruder motor when printing. Not sure what is going on here.

After looking around a bit, I don't think Mach3 works with RAMPS.

Edit:

Turns out that it was a problem with the G-Code. The basic mechanisms work fine now, just need to fix and calibrate a few things and we're good to go.

Only other thing that doesn't work exactly right is the thermistor for the heated bed. Reads max 73C when set to 110C, but the reading off of a temperature gun says 140C.

We did manage to blow the 10A fuse. The 15A fuse remained intact.

Edit 2:

Apparently the thermistor on the extruder also had issues. Got hot enough that the teflon tubing melted.

In other news, the included power supply does seem to be sufficient. Still don't trust it since it's an off-brand, so we're preparing a second PSU that just arrived today.
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