Help! My Rostock Suddenly Stopped Working!

[RTLdan]

Hello All!
I was printing just fine with my Rostock tonight. I shut everything down and then came back a few hours later.
When I turned on the printer, I'm suddenly getting "def/ 0 Bdef / 0" on the LCD in place of where my thermistor readings were coming up not but two hours ago. I tried flashing the firmware, but it didn't seem to change it at all. I can home all the axis just fine, but neither the hotend nor the bed will start heating up if I try to set the temps from the LCD or Repetier. Additionally, on the LCD I went to the "debugging" section and noticed that "dry run" was on. I try to turn it off, but it changes itself back??

Has anybody had this happen? Clues as to where to start looking?
Kind of dead in the water here and not sure what to do. My thermistor connections all look fine...and as mentioned, nothing changed since I used it a couple hours back.

Thank you in advance for any help!!!
-Daniel

[Eaglezsoar]

Do you have a multimeter to read the resistance of the thermistor from the hotend. We need to know what the resistance is at room temperature.

[geneb]

Check your wiring.

g.

[RTLdan]

Hi guys!
Thanks for your quick replies!

Eaglezsoar,
I do have a multimeter to test. What resistance am I looking for at room temp?

Gene,
I can test the wiring, but am I looking for a certain value? I went through and sort of played with the wiring to see if anything was shorted and would come back to life when wiggled, but no luck. The thing that disturbs me though is that both thermistors are showing sensor defects quite suddenly. I had been printing earlier. Came back, turned my printer and computer on and the LCD was all blocky for a moment which I was concerned about, so I turned the printer off, then back on, and the LCD came up normal with the exception of the already mentioned sensor problem.

Thanks again for the help in diagnosing!
-Daniel

[Eaglezsoar]

The thermistor should be approximately 100k at room temperature. Check both thermistors if possible.
The best place to check them is where they plug into the Rambo but the connectors are so small that it makes it difficult to measure.
Turn off all power and unplug the thermistor connectors. There should be two small areas on the sides of the plugs where you can test the resistance.
Please send another message after you get the values. Which firmware are you using?

[RTLdan]

Hi Eaglezsoar,
I tested the pins on the back of the thermistor connectors as instructed. Both hotend and heated bed are showing up around 175k ohm (in a cold workshop...room temp maybe around 50f).
I am running Repetier .80 I think...whatever the latest version off of the SeeMeCnc website is.

Hope this helps inspire some possibilities to troubleshoot?
Thanks!!!
-Daniel

[Eaglezsoar]

Hi Eaglezsoar,
I tested the pins on the back of the thermistor connectors as instructed. Both hotend and heated bed are showing up around 175k ohm (in a cold workshop...room temp maybe around 50f).
I am running Repetier .80 I think...whatever the latest version off of the SeeMeCnc website is.

Hope this helps inspire some possibilities to troubleshoot?
Thanks!!!
-Daniel

This is not good news. Your thermistors are reading high because of the cold area but the key is that they are working. They are neither open or shorted.
This means that the problem has to be on the Rambo card. Somehow the two ports on the Rambo are not working. You can try to change your thermistors
to use the 2nd and 4th inputs on the Rambo but that requires editing PINS.H in your firmware which I am not an expert at. I can give you this link where a user tells
how he edited his Pins.h file http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... t&start=10 this was Marlin and I don't know if
Repetier is the same or not. Please someone reading this who has experience in remapping the thermistor ports in Repetier help out user RTLdan.
Sometimes switching to the other ports works, sometimes not. There is an ADC chip on the Rambo that controls all 4 thermistor inputs and is very sensitive to over-voltage,
spikes, static, etc. If your system is less than a year old I would advise trying to get the Rambo replaced under warranty. We really should try the other two ports first
that's why I hope someone reading this can help you remap the pins in pins.h to attempt to use ports 2 and 4.
You are probably wondering what caused your present ports to quit working and it is impossible to tell for sure. Could have been a current surge from the supply, a static
charge, a momentary short, etc. You may have to call Seemecnc and have walk you through a possible remap of the ports or a replacement Rambo.
I wish I could be of more help but I've never remapped those pins. Even if you remapped the pins and got the other two ports working, you still have 2 broken ports and
I would not want a board like that. Please send a message when a determination is made on what you did to get this working again.

[Eaglezsoar]

After reading your past posts, you have not had very good luck with this printer. It seems you've had one problem after another.
Get in touch with SeeMeCNC and let them know the problem and what we have done to troubleshoot it and you have at least 2
bad ports for your thermistors and follow their advise. Your system is new enough to be under warranty and those guys have
always been good at taking care of customers. By the way, if a fuse was blown you would see other problems like the motors
wouldn't move etc. but to be on the safe side verify that the fuses are good with your meter. There are two small rectangular ones
and a large one that controls the heat bed.

[RTLdan]

Hi Eaglezsoar,
Thanks for all your help and advice!
I will test the other two thermistor ports on the RAMBO tonight.
Once I determine what's going on there, I'll look into finding out about a replacement RAMBO.
I bought the kit in April or so, so it's been less than a year. Maybe they will be able to work something out with me. I feel bad asking SeeMeCNC about fixing it because I'm not sure what went wrong, but I was definitely cautious with the Rambo from the static stories I read here before my build so I'll definitely at least ask for advice.

Thanks again, and I will keep updating.
Can't say enough good things about the SeeMeCNC community. You guys (and especially Eaglezsoar) have been a great help!!
-Daniel

[RTLdan]

Well, I'm here to post my unfortunate followup.
I went to go try the other thermistor ports, but when I plugged in the usb cable to my computer to flash the firmware with the new pins.h configuration, I get an error from Windows that the "attached USB device has malfunctioned." So it seems to me certain that something killed my RAMBO board.
Quite frustrating, but that's part of DIY I guess.

I will email John at SeeMeCNC, link him to this thread, and see what he advises I do about a replacement.
I am curious though...it seems this board is extroardinarily easy to destroy.
Is there no other suitable board that is better?

Thanks all for your help, and I will keep you updated on the status as a reference for anyone who may encounter similar problems.

-Daniel

[Eaglezsoar]

Well, I'm here to post my unfortunate followup.
I went to go try the other thermistor ports, but when I plugged in the usb cable to my computer to flash the firmware with the new pins.h configuration, I get an error from Windows that the "attached USB device has malfunctioned." So it seems to me certain that something killed my RAMBO board.
Quite frustrating, but that's part of DIY I guess.

I will email John at SeeMeCNC, link him to this thread, and see what he advises I do about a replacement.
I am curious though...it seems this board is extroardinarily easy to destroy.
Is there no other suitable board that is better?

Thanks all for your help, and I will keep you updated on the status as a reference for anyone who may encounter similar problems.

-Daniel

There are many other boards out there Dan, but it is questionable if they are better, they are just different. Whatever destroyed your card would have most likely destroyed any card.
Many of the other cards do have replaceable driver chips for the Axises which makes them less expensive to replace IF a driver chip blows but that is not what happened to your card.
A list of the other cards would be Ramps, Rumba, Azteeq, Printrboard, and others whose names escape me at the moment. The Rambo is probably the most used followed by Ramps.

[Polygonhell]

All the boards generally have similar or identical circuits for the various components.
The thermistor ports are just voltage dividers that feed directly to the Arduino ADC pins, unfortunately the ADC pins on the Arduino are extremely sensitive to over voltage and can be easily damaged.

[RTLdan]

Took me a little bit of time to update this thread but here is the latest.

I took the advice and got in touch with SeeMeCNC. They offered to either sell me a RAMBo 1.2 with short protection for a discounted price or to take a look at the old board and see what was possibly going wrong. I liked the idea of upgrading to a board with short protection, but it made more sense for me to send my board in first in this situation.

John took a look at it and determined that it was likely a bad USB chip on the board causing my problems. We both found it peculiar. John was kind enough to replace my board under the circumstances. Wow! That's customer service! Nothing but polite, helpful, and generous support from SeeMeCNC (especially John!)

Needless to say, it's a little troubling still as to what may have caused the USB chip to fail, so I'll be going through all of my wiring with a fine tooth comb.

I will post another update when the RAMBo replacement arrives and is installed, as a reference in case anyone else experiences anything similar.

Thanks!
-Daniel

[Eaglezsoar]

Took me a little bit of time to update this thread but here is the latest.

I took the advice and got in touch with SeeMeCNC. They offered to either sell me a RAMBo 1.2 with short protection for a discounted price or to take a look at the old board and see what was possibly going wrong. I liked the idea of upgrading to a board with short protection, but it made more sense for me to send my board in first in this situation.

John took a look at it and determined that it was likely a bad USB chip on the board causing my problems. We both found it peculiar. John was kind enough to replace my board under the circumstances. Wow! That's customer service! Nothing but polite, helpful, and generous support from SeeMeCNC (especially John!)

Needless to say, it's a little troubling still as to what may have caused the USB chip to fail, so I'll be going through all of my wiring with a fine tooth comb.

I will post another update when the RAMBo replacement arrives and is installed, as a reference in case anyone else experiences anything similar.

Thanks!
-Daniel

They are a great bunch of guys at SeeMeCNC but don't tell them I said that, I don't want them to get a swelled head or anything!