Ender3 PRO won't print, SD (TF) card issue?

Question

I have been told this is the place to go to with 3D printer problems, so:-

I have just built an Ender3 PRO but I can't get it to print (shall worry about altering settings to up the quality once I can get it to print at all).

My SD card (TF) socket seems VERY temperamental .

Sometimes it registers as card missing (TF CARD ... NO) despite on a previous screen (info) it 'states' 'card inserted'

Sometimes it recognises the card but on entering the card contents it appears empty

Once in a blue moon it records the card as inserted and the card has stuff on it and it will print (maybe two or three layers) but just stop , nothing seems to work except turning the entire unit off. This final behaviour appears to be a misbehaving SD (TF) card so I tried various other cards I had lying about . All seem to exhibit the same behaviour . Sort of thing I mean

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Only using different cards solve nothing.

Have (sort of ) now decided that the SD (TF) card slot itself is somehow FUBAR and it is not the individual cards . Had the motherboard cover off but there is nothing obviously wrong .

New motherboard time? Do Creality tend to just send a new board (well within warranty)? Is changing MB easy? Can I just remove 'hot-snotted' connectors?

Or is this a known easily fixable problem and I am overthinking it?

Theo · Accepted Answer

That's odd. SD cards aren't usually that kind of flaky, at the hardware level. (Other kinds of flakiness are more common)

If you're using a microSD card in an adapter, try a fullsize SD card. (the adapters are often a bit marginal signal wise, especially at higher speeds).

If you have any old cards lying around, they use higher signalling voltages which can be more reliable. (although I imagine the printer is using the slow SPI mode rather than the fast lower-voltage signalling modes)

Is there any wiggle room in the slot, suggesting some damage or poor mounting of the socket?

Any power supply issues? Have you checked if there's more recent firmware updates?

Theo

Bob Martin · Answer

If you can connect the printer to a computer get a copy of Repetier-Host- it's free and you'll never bother with SD cards again.

Paul · Answer

You might be able to find some videos of troubleshooting the thing. The gentleman here notes an overshoot problem with the power supply.

"Creality Ender 3 V2 Main Board Troubleshooting"

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So he didn't actually do mainboard troubleshooting, just noting that the LED had gone out on the mainboard as a result of some power supply issue.

The video makes it look like the thing is a bit of a rats nest. This isn't bad particularly - the video tells me to be aware there are heavy electro-mechanical loads, and they may be sharing the same supply as the mainboard.

Where I worked, we didn't have a $1000 event recorder hand-held. Every workbench had a $35,000 four channel digital storage scope for engineer usage. And if hooked to a logic analyzer, if the digital circuit said "I'm not feeling well", we could send a trigger to the scope and center trace or end-trace a storage scope picture of the analog supply voltages at the time.

Properly equipping a lab to debug stuff can be expensive.

I would continue Googling, to see if there is a "theme" to any flaws the product has got. It would be unfair of me to cast aspersions on their design skills, just from the evidence in that video.

Maybe if the Mobo was powered and away from the heavy electrical loads of the printer bits, that Mobo would behave flawlessly.

Paul

Ender3 PRO won't print, SD (TF) card issue?

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