You weren’t completely clear on whether the print head was not heating or the print bed. Assuming you have hooked things up in the print head correctly, it almost sounds like your heated print bed is causing problems. Look at the connector on the back of the print bed and see if there are black/burn looking marks on the left pins of the connector. This happens often and can lead to all sorts of problems. You can get error messages on the screen, the mighty board can blow a component. Mbot sent me a new heavier duty wiring harness the first time this happened. It started happening again and I removed the connector from the board, sanded the pins, put some conductive grease on each pin, also removed the pins in the connector, cleaned them as best I could, greased (carefully) and reinserted. Plugged everything back together. Put a piece of kapton tape over the connect to protect everything from hair spray which I use for adhesion and it has worked fine since then.
it’s not a thermistor… it is a thermocouple… (red and yellow wires)… and you have connected them in reverse.
Hi there,
Sounds like erickphd is right. When the temperature goes down after calling the heating cartridge to heat you should switch the leads on the thermocouple.
Do you check the thermocouple cable in the right place? We’d had a lot of problems of temperature errors until we found the right position of the thermocuple cable.
Good luck!
I’m really impressed with the work you’ve put into it so far. Good job.
If the temp is going down you’ve put your thermistor wires backwards at the motherboard. Just switch the thermistor wires on the motherboard and it should go fine.
Hey, don’t give up after all this. You’re doing great.
The thermocouple is either shorted to the heater block or connected backwards at the motherboard. Try swapping the wires in the connector but also make sure the thermocouple is electrically isolated from the heater block. A good way to do that is a couple layers of kapton tape, the same type that comes with the makerbot for the print bed. If you have an ohm meter unplug the thermocouple from the motherboard and check both leads for continuity to the heater block and also make completely sure neither of the heater wires are touching the heater block. The first one probably smoked because the 24v to the heater made contact to the heater block and then went down the thermocouple wires. The original board is probably still repairable, I’ve fixed a few of them now, it usually blows the chip on the board that is used to interface to the thermocouple. Hopefully you haven’t killed the new one yet! First step though check for shorts and swap the thermocouple wires in its connector block, the green block that you tightened the wires into and plug into the motherboard. If your still seeing the same problem chances are the chip was damaged. The Rep 1 is the best makerbot made in my opinion, I have over 2300 hours on mine with only a few minor issues. And I can repair these motherboards, I’ve fixed at least a dozen now with blown chips. Do you still have the old motherboard? If you get this one working with the stuff I told you to check I would offer to look at your old board to see if it can be repaired. Then you would have a spare, replacing the chip and usually one surface mount resistor fixes it and parts and labor I do these all the time for far less then the cost of a new board! Definitely not time to replace it, but if you decide to go that route let me buy it for parts or repair! Lol I hardly ever see a used rep 1 for sale, seems like those who own them never want to sell them! I’m always watching eBay for another one to fix up.
Also one other tip I didn’t mention in my last post. Never try to replace a nozzle cold! Always do a preheat and remove the nozzle hot. Trying to remove it cold is a guaranteed way to shear one off! I bought a metric nut driver, looks like a screwdriver, for the nozzles. Then if I have to remove one I do a preheat screw it right out and set it on a piece of metal or the sponge for my soldering iron. It’s a pain to work with them hot but you won’t damage one or the heater block.
Hi Jeff,
Sounds like it may be an issue with switching the red and yellow thermocouple wires around, try reversing the order and hopefully that works! Good Luck!
Diana
Frantic
January 23, 2016, 2:01am
15
Jeff,
Your original board can be repaired. I have replaced the MAX6675 chips on my mighty board from time-to-time due to a shorted thermistor.
Regards,
Mike
Wow! Thank you everyone for the responses!
SUCCESS!!! I have reversed the *thermocouple the wires, and the printer now heats up! It goes to 215C like i set it and now holds.
Onto the NEXT ISSUE…I cannot get my makerbot to do anything else really. It doesn’t go to home axis, doesn’t load filament (even though after the temperature goes up to 215c and the screen changes to say “press the m when the loading is done”), doesn’t move in jog mode, and so on and so forth. Could this be the case of my wiring being wrong again?
I originally labeled all the wires with tape and marker before I removed my original wires from the original board. I referred to an image I took of all these wires in place, and I replaced them based on my image. I guess I assumed that putting the wires in the same spots on the same model mightyboard would be a common sense thing. Guessing may not be the answer on my end, seeing as it has gotten me to basically cross my wires! haha
See attached image
Its hard to tell from that picture but it appears that your stepper motors are all plugged in, follow the wires and just make sure the motors are plugged in right, the board is labeled, X, Y, Z for the steppers. X is the motor that moves the carriage left and right, the Y is the motor that moves it front to back and the Z is of course the bed going up and down.
Also if none of the jogs move it could be your stop switches, try moving it so the carriage is in the middle and then you know the switches are released and see if you can move it with the jog. You could also have the stop switches plugged in wrong depending on which style of connector yours has, seems like the earlier Rep 1 some had a keyed connector some didn’t, you could unplug all the stop switches and then see if jog works, but that wouldn’t stop the filament feed motor from running.
One more thing comes to mind, did the board come with the stepper drivers installed? The little circuit boards that are plugged into the motherboard by the stepper motor connections? If you had to install those and none of the motors are working you could have them put in backwards, but if they came pre-installed on the board then they should be correct.
EDIT>>> I just looked at the pic again, none of your stepper drivers are installed, the sockets are empty! Theres your problem.
Again SUCCESS! My Makerbot Replicator 1 now works!! Wow you all have been so helpful!
I did a test print and everything is good except when I got done with my first test print, the bed lowered and the extruder moved towards the home axes. When the bed got to the bottom, it started making noises like it was trying to go further down than was possible for its track, also, the extruder hadn’t quite made it back to the home axes and just stopped due to the bed making noise and then stopping itself. It sounds like the offsets for the bed are below what they should be, but I am not sure how to update this.
Any advice?
Go into the Utilities menu on the printer, select Home Axes from the menu, see if it moves the carriage to the back right and stops against its switch and if the bed comes up and stops against its switch ok, if it does do that ok the bed will stay up, now back up in the menus and go to Build from SD and select your test print again, the bed will lower to the bottom and the carriage will go to the front left corner. Does it still make the noise with the bed when it goes down?
If so then it thinks its range of travel is larger then it should be BUT the switches are working since it was able to home the axes. The best bet now would be to connect it to the computer and run the makerbot desktop software and make sure the printer type is set to Rep 1 and then do a firmware update to the latest version, the makerbot desktop software will tell you how to do it just follow along. The current firmware version is 7.5, you can check this on your printer by selecting Info and Settings, then Version Number. Even if its 7.5 in there i would reflash the firmware because there is no telling what the new board was setup as, they could have the offsets wrong.
After the firmware update do the same test, home the axis, then select a print, does the bed work ok now? If it doesn’t the next steps would be to check the Z axis stop switch, top middle of back of the printer, If the switch is set to low then it will trigger that switch and still think it can do down farther then it can, moving the switch up moves up the lower stop position. On mine and most of the ones i worked on the the switch was attached with two screws to the vertical slots, there is other holes to make the switch a fixed position and thats how they generally came from the factory, but by moving the switch to the slots you can control the stop point by moving the switch up. It sounds like its trying to keep going down when it physically can’t. The reason for this is after it taps the switch it knows it can do down X amount of steps before hitting the end of the travel, if the switch is too low it will still think it can keep going.
As for the carriage for the extruder not making it all the way home, did it go all the way back but not all the way to the right? This is a common problem due to interference between the stepper motor wires and the X axis stop switch located on the right end of the gantry. The X axis motor and the X axis stop switch wires go down the hole in the front right corner, to alleviate this problem what most people do, myself included, is move the X axis stepper motor wiring to the back right corner hole along with the Y axis stepper motor wiring so only the X axis stop switch wiring is going down the front right corner, this gives them some separation and keeps down on the crosstalk between the wires.
Well, here’s the thing. I tried uploading new firmware, and I followed the steps from here:
http://www.sailfishfirmware.com/doc/install-installing.html
I could not upload new firmware. I select the replicator 1 single/dual, and try sailfish 7.7 but it always says “upload failed”. Now ever since I have tried this, my replicator is unable to print again.
When I print from SD, it heats up fine, and then it goes to the front left position, but it tries to move too far forward and makes a jolting noise, then gives up and moves back to the *near home axes. It is like the replicator pauses the print, moves the carriage back all the way in the y direction and part of the way to right (x axes right?) but not all the way home. And when I resume the print, same problem. The jolting of the carriage continues. EDIT: I FOUND THE P-STOP OVERRIDE AND I TURNED I OFF. I NO LONGER GET THE CARRIAGE JOLTING ALL THE TIME (STILL HAPPENS OCCASIONALLY. THIS IS ALL WITH THE MIGHTYBOARD FIRMWARE THAT CAME INSTALLED ON THE BOARD)
**NOTE: the bed problem of it trying to go further down than it can has mysteriously gone away and has been replaced by the carriage issue I mentioned.
I am proving to be quite amateur with all this, but I am determined to get it right!
Ok i would stay well away from Sailfish 7.7, i tried that on my Makerbot and had NOTHING BUT issues. The current official Makerbot firmware is 7.5.
It sounds like your Y Axis offset is still wrong, so it goes forward and mechanically it crashes and can’t move farther then it gets all confused, if you look on that page that you linked to… Step 1 Before you install Sailfish, you need to gather the home offsets, but since yours were likely wrong in the first place that won’t be of any help!
Go download the Makerbot Desktop if you don’t already have it and do a firmware upgrade to 7.5 from there first, then if you really want to go to the latest Sailfish you can get the correct offsets. If Makerbot Desktop refuses to install the firmware get ReplicatorG as it can also reinstall the firmware, i assume thats what you used to attempt to install 7.7? ReplicatorG can install the older versions as well.
On the older Rep 1’s it can take a few tries to get the timing right of pressing the reset button in the back during the firmware upgrade process with ReplicatorG or Makerbot Desktop, there is a modification to fix this but it requires soldering on a small capacitor to a location on the board.
If you use Home Axes in the menu though does it properly home all the way to the Right on the X Axis? It still sounds like a offset problem in the firmware rather then mechanical at this point, but just to verify that try this…
Turn the printer off…
Move the X axis by hand all the way to the right so it stops on the switch
Move the Y axis by hand all the way to the back so it stops on the switch
Turn the printer on
Select Home Axes again in the menu
It should shouldn’t move X or Y at all and raise the bed until it contacts the switch, now select Print from SD card, does it still crash to the front left and keep trying to move the Y? If so then its the offsets in the firmware and not a hardware issue! Which is good, you just need to get the right firmware in there and you should be ok.
paul_15
January 27, 2016, 1:26am
22
the procedure for install suggests the eeprom values for homelimit, endstop, etc. see section 6.4 about setting the eeprom values.
[[[Turn the printer off…
Move the X axis by hand all the way to the right so it stops on the switch
Move the Y axis by hand all the way to the back so it stops on the switch
Turn the printer on
Select Home Axes again in the menu
It should shouldn’t move X or Y at all and raise the bed until it contacts the switch, now select Print from SD card, does it still crash to the front left and keep trying to move the Y? If so then its the offsets in the firmware and not a hardware issue! Which is good, you just need to get the right firmware in there and you should be ok.]]]
Ok good news, the carriage does not crash when I followed the above instructions.
Bad news is the “update firmware” option in the pulldown menu of my makeware is greyed out. It says I am connected to a replicator 1 and that the background services are running. I tried restarting services and that didn’t change any of the conditions.
I have Saifish 7.7 on all 4 of my Replicator 2’s. Not sure if there are known problems with running this on a Replicator 1 or not. I can tell you that similar symptoms happen if you don’t have your offsets correctly set. On my Rep 2 the X offset is 151.999mm, the Y is 71.997mm and the Z is0.000. When I first set up Sailfish, these were not set correctly and it was if the printer thought the center of my build platform was the front left corner. When the G-code told it to go to home, all sorts of bad things happened.
This link talks about these settings and may be of help. 3D Printers for Educators & Professionals | MakerBot
You could also try finding someone with an original replicator and ask them what their offsets are.
Ok, two things, if it didn’t crash when you did that its not your offsets! And secondly, if Update Firmware is greyed out in Makerware then its because you already have the latest version. But you can check which version on the printer itself, either by just turning it off and on and you will see the firmware version when it boots on the display, or in the info and settings menu. If its already 7.5 then your ok there.
Ok so what’s the problem? Most likely the same problem i had on mine when i got it. Your getting an interference issue from the stepper motor wiring which is falsing the stop switches. This is REALLY common, and it used to come up 2-3 times a week on the Makerbot forums and Google Groups when everyone was getting Rep 1’s.
Here’s how to fix it… From the X axis motor you will see the stepper motor and the stop switch wiring loops up and goes across the top and down the front right corner through the hole in the bottom panel in that corner. You need to unplug the X axis stepper motor wiring, the multi color wiring as the stop switch cable should just be a black cable. Pull it up through the bottom from that hole and pull it out of the retainers except the last one that it loops down from, then re-route that stepper wire cable across the top to the back right corner but keep it away from the Y axis motor pulley and belt and go down the back right corner and plug it back in.
If you want to just test this quickly unplug the X axis cable and pull it up from the front right corner hole and just hang it out the right side and plug it back in underneath then test that it can home and print. The X axis stepper motor wiring interferes with the stop switch wiring and in some cases it will also cause issues with the unshielded ribbon cable to the front panel, but putting it in the back right corner its routed far enough away from everything it doesn’t cause issues.
His problem isn’t firmware now though, cause if he positions the carriage on the X and Y stops and then starts a print he doesn’t get crashing, meaning the offsets are correct and its not going to far.
The key to troubleshooting this is in his last reply to me is that if he manually homes the X and Y it works, which means its not getting a correct homing. Also when he homes the axes the X doesn’t return fully home.
On the Rep 1 this is a very common problem caused by the stepper motor wiring coupling to the stop switch wiring since everything is unshielded wiring. Moving the X-Axis stepper motor wiring from the front right corner to the back right corner is the common solution and was even being suggested by Makerbot support at one time.
On some i have even gone so far as to make a shielded stop switch cable, which also stops this problem dead. To do that i take the braid from a bad thermocouple and pull out the thermocouple and use it to make a shielded cable for the stop switch.
