Stopped printing, weird signs on display

Hello people from Croatia.

First of all thank you for all your help. Many helpful topics in here. Definitely help me with setting the temperatures with ABS prints.

We've bought a FF Creator X a few months ago in our company. Everything is great so far. Actually printer won't read the SD card that we've got but it is always connected to the computer.


Today I set to print a small object. Makerware print preview showed 30 min printing time, 25 layers and 5 grams. Last couple of days I printed practically the same object few times. Last print had one modification prior to previous one. One hole has been changed from 4,90 to 5,10 mm. So very small change.

Print went fine for about 80% and then just stopped. Filament (ABS) was OK, no tension in filament. When I look at the screen it said something about slicing. Disappeared very quickly. Monitor on the printer showed some weird signs and it was frozen. Waited for about a minute and turned it off. Turned it on, looked OK and like 5 seconds later it was the same. After two times like that I disconnected the cable to the computer and the screen was normal.

I let the printer cool down and then started the same print again (printer and computer are connected again). It is currently at 90% printing and everything is OK.

Did anybody else had the same problem?


Thank you

Print went perfectly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tuzni

Hello people from Croatia.

First of all thank you for all your help. Many helpful topics in here. Definitely help me with setting the temperatures with ABS prints.

We've bought a FF Creator X a few months ago in our company. Everything is great so far. Actually printer won't read the SD card that we've got but it is always connected to the computer.


Today I set to print a small object. Makerware print preview showed 30 min printing time, 25 layers and 5 grams. Last couple of days I printed practically the same object few times. Last print had one modification prior to previous one. One hole has been changed from 4,90 to 5,10 mm. So very small change.

Print went fine for about 80% and then just stopped. Filament (ABS) was OK, no tension in filament. When I look at the screen it said something about slicing. Disappeared very quickly. Monitor on the printer showed some weird signs and it was frozen. Waited for about a minute and turned it off. Turned it on, looked OK and like 5 seconds later it was the same. After two times like that I disconnected the cable to the computer and the screen was normal.

I let the printer cool down and then started the same print again (printer and computer are connected again). It is currently at 90% printing and everything is OK.

Did anybody else had the same problem?


Thank you

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1. The SD card needs to be Formatted to FAT16 , which sucks yes because of file allocation limits. As you notice only 8 characters display from a filename on the LCD panel, or you can only use 8 characters (remember the old windows 8 character filename limit? ) ... so yeah format your card and you will be OK

2. **edit - possibly a one off with the print, check how hot your stepper motors are also, if they are really really hot to touch the pot's need to be turned down on the ramps board, which is easy to do.

Quote:

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2. **edit - possibly a one off with the print, check how hot your stepper motors are also, if they are really really hot to touch the pot's need to be turned down on the ramps board, which is easy to do.

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for you maybe lol
But that entire sentence probably needs explaining.
Basically I think you're saying turn down the electric current going to the motors ?

That said - the issue is pretty much certain to be communication.

Ended up with half a bowl last night because I forgot I'd switched the monitor off and was printing direct from the computer. So when I went to turn the computer on - I inadvertently switched it off and got half a bowl :-)

Printing from the card is so much better and probably essential for larger prints.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

for you maybe lol
But that entire sentence probably needs explaining.
Basically I think you're saying turn down the electric current going to the motors ?

That said - the issue is pretty much certain to be communication.

Ended up with half a bowl last night because I forgot I'd switched the monitor off and was printing direct from the computer. So when I went to turn the computer on - I inadvertently switched it off and got half a bowl :-)

Printing from the card is so much better and probably essential for larger prints.

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Build a machine and you will see how much you can improve your current flashforge by... Holy crap.

I loved buying a machine that was pre-built, but to be honest it taught me very little about the actual mechanics and electronics running these things. Once you build one, your brain literally explodes with ideas for your flashforge and before too long, you have it printing twice as fast as ever and better quality.

The electric current you supply from the drivers is non uniform in a flashforge I found. Use a multimeter while it's running live and you can see what I mean. My X axis motor was getting so hot, it burnt 2 out (sure a long time it took) but they burnt out.

Remember I had an issue with my drivers and steppers? I replaced a dead stepper and had to tune the voltage to the other pots on the drivers to get it the same, and guess what? my X axis stays cool when printing now...

My issue is, I don't know what the previous driver was doing because it died, so I had no way to test its voltage, all I can assume is it was set slightly higher (as X axis can run pretty fast without slipping, much more than Z on twin rods) so naturally they are set at a higher rate.

Right now it's getting another overhaul, I've ripped out the original ramps, put a new one in and am going to try running marlin on it and set all the parameters and calibration manually, I figure instead of ditching it, lets rebuild it