Is my printrbot dead?

[Clarity]

Hello guys, I have a question for you because I couldn’t find anything by myself.

I was using my printrbot simple metal just fine for some time and then let it rest. After a month or so I tried powering it up again and it doesn’t seem to work at all, only green 5v led glows and it neither does show up on my pc, nor prints from sd card. I tried reflashing the firmware, but it doesn’t show up as a device even in boot mode.

Tried contacting printrbot support, but after many months I got no response, only a message to “rate” their support quality. You’re my last hope

[KFix]

Hello,

You should try again to reach the Printrbot support which is normally really responsive ! I contacted them 3-4 times, and they always respond within 24h (I’m in Europe so when I contact the support, I get in touch with someone in the UK who’s really efficient).

Wish you luck…

[ianadan]

okay, if you aren’t seeing it in Device Manager (or System Report on a Mac), first thing would be to check/change the USB cable.

When you try and print from the SD card, make sure the file is named auto0.g (browse to the SD card and make sure it hasnt got a different extension added to it.)

Let us know what you find

Ian

[Clarity]

The problem is I bought my printrbot second hand, so I don’t have an order number or purchase date that they require. I explained it to them in my first mail but got no response. But again, I’m not looking for warranty repair, just an expert advice. Do they have an email, or just online form?

[makerdepot]

Reflash your firmware. I have found that my printrbots lose their USB connectivity a lot. They have a step by step guide on how to do this for all their printers.

[USCAN]

Almost every time I have a hard power outage when I am streaming data to my printrbot I have to reflash it. A couple things to note.
1. Follow the guides to the letter, specificially this guide has worked for me (https://printrbot.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/article\_attachments/203320786/Windows\_How\_to\_Flash\_Firmware.pdf)

2. The length and quality of USB cable matters. I found that when I was trying to use a high quality usb cable and have it reach around 10ft it was not an issue. But when I switched to a crappy cable even 6ft or less was hard to connect.

3. The usb port that you use matters. Try different usb ports on your system. For me, USB3.0 provides the most issues.

Cheers,

Joel

Electrical Engineering Student

University of Victoria

[partygoat]

Ask Brook tonight on FB live

[partygoat]

What are you using for a slicer?

[KFix]

Ian Lewis, who replied just above (ianadan) is the person I was talking about ! He’s from the PB support team, follow his advices I’m sure you’ll soon have, if not a solution, at least a clue of what’s going on with your printer.

Nice to see they are actually monitoring this group for help

Regards

[makerdepot]

As someone that had purchased close to 80+ printrBot Plays, the machines go crazy pretty regularly and requires a reflash of the firmware. The USB cable is the one that comes with the play, and the USB port for the machine is always the same. This happens more on macs than on PCs. The machine always connects when you go into reflash mode. it only takes about 15 minutes to reflash the firmware.

[USCAN]

Do you use octoprint? If so, do you think it would be possible to create a plugin that would reflash the system?

[Smiley424]

If you haven’t tried a new cable yet, then figure out if the female USB port is a solid connection the the Printrboard itself. Also, i had a similar issue where I couldn’t connect to a raspberry pi for Astroprint and I found that I could connect to it after going through my computer control center, rather than files, maybe try that

[Clarity]

Thank you all guys, I have a bit of a trouble to find time right now because I am moving to another house, but I will try your advices and will respond asap. You are awesome