New printer, new to printing, cannot print, and lost
Hello all. Yesterday, I finally finished assembling my new Mini+. Went through the manual and watched the videos and got it together after a few hours. Tonight, I finally began doing the first tests. So far, I have received 12202 and 12204 but I received some other errors that I don't know what they were (turned off quickly to avoid waking kids). I have checked connectors and looked at articles but have no idea what I am doing or how to start doing what is expected of me. I got this printer because from what I had read it seemed like this was a great printer for beginners. With all of this new vocabulary and wiring instructions, it really seems like this printer was to be one's second printer as I am completely lost.
Events thus far: The first test went fine all the way up to the loading of the filament. I hit load but it didn't go up the PTFE past the gears. I thought maybe I should've used "Next" instead of "Load" so started the process again and it didn't get past the fan testing (something about thermistor). While I let things cool down, I found out about the numbers for errors and started it up again. This time I noticed that the thermistor line bent towards the hot bed and so moved that behind the XZ arm. This time everything went well up to checking the bed temperature when I got a 12204. After some reading and wire checking, I started up again and this time got to it actually trying to print. I had the filament up into the tube as far as it would go and I wiggled it in the tube while the LCD was doing some percentage change. Then it said "Purging" and finally asked if the color was clear. Right after I said yes so that I could try reloading the filament, I got another 12204.
Did I get a bad thermomister or whatever and that's why I'm getting these 1220X errors? How can I know if that is the case? If so, is there a way I can request a new one?
Thanks for any responses. Knowledgebase is still too technical for me at this point.
Filament used is the Prusa Polymers Pearl Red PLA 1.75mm
RE: New printer, new to printing, cannot print, and lost
Hi,
It sounds as if you have a thermistor problem.
Error 12202, as you can see here, means the printer detected no heating happened when it should.
Error 12204 is the Thermal Runaway protection: the controller detected that not enough heating was happening when it should.
Both linked documents should help you fix your problem. Both errors indicate a problem with your hotend thermistor. Whether it is a wiring problem that can be fixed or a defective or damaged one, I do not know.
RE: New printer, new to printing, cannot print, and lost
Thanks for the response, Misan, and for confirming the source of the issue. I read through both the articles and the only thing I haven't done yet is take out my multimeter (if the values are correct or not, it won't fix anything). I e-mailed Prusa and linked to this posting but have not heard anything back yet. I spoke with one of my co-workers as he has a Mini as well and he mentioned that he never had any problems with his. I think I just got one of those rare ones with a problem. Reading online shows that those with problems tend to have an issue with the thermistor and the Pinda is more sensitive to issues than the Minda.
I'll try emailing them again tomorrow. Thanks again.
RE: New printer, new to printing, cannot print, and lost
@john-doe-4
Don't e-mail, use chat function instead. When you log into the store, in lower right corner you should see "Chat now" widget. If you don't see it, disable adblock or privacy protection plugins in your browser for that site and refresh.
RE: New printer, new to printing, cannot print, and lost
@john-doe-4
If you measure the thermistor using a multimeter, please make sure you move the print head around and check the measurement at different locations. Sometimes connections might be broken at certain points and be ok anywhere else.
RE: New printer, new to printing, cannot print, and lost
@Crawlerin
Thanks for the suggestion. I will make sure to do that at my next opportunity.
@Misan
I will definitely have to keep that in mind as I would never have even considered that! Thanks for pointing that out.
Will post back if / when I get additional status information.
RE: New printer, new to printing, cannot print, and lost
Today, I was able to make my first print. Turns out it was a bad heater on the hotend. After replacing that (and adjusting the filament sensor PTFE tension) the printer works!
@Crawlerin
Yup, the online chat is definitely the best way to contact them. The immediate assistance really sped up the process. With their help I was able to get information on how to do the troubleshooting and order the failing part. If you hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have even thought to look for it.
@Misen
The heater unit on the hotend was bad. It was a connection issue and using the multimeter (considering the way you had suggested), I was able to locate the problematic line and identify the failing component. Installation was simple (but not easy) but I was able to verify that A) the new component was good and B) the new component was installed correctly with the tips you provided.
Thanks a lot for the assistance guys!
For anyone who might chance upon this thread, the printer is a good "beginner" printer. I just had to a bit more earlier than the average beginner. Good quality product and I'm glad to have purchased a Prusa.
RE: New printer, new to printing, cannot print, and lost
It shouldn't be able to extrude if the thermistors are throwing errors but I'm pretty new to Prusa, so I don't know if there's a different protocol here(It actually IS my second printer), but I did notice that you have to really jam the filament in at first until things get broken in a little Make sure you cut an angle on the tip of the filament every single time you load or change filament, then you have to time it just right when it is saying "insert filament" which lasts about 3 seconds, then it should ram(?) to the hottend really fast (you can watch the bowden tube for a shadow to see if it's feeding, or what I like to do is pinch down lightly on the filament right outside the very first PTFE tube where you insert it and feel if its pulling in), and then the purge sequence runs. It all runs like that on a timer whether the filament is physically between the gears or not, just waiting for input at the end of each step, so if you missed it just hit retry. The PTFE that it goes into first is also pretty hard to get all the way into the printed part because it's made of teflon, and pliers would squish it down rendering it useless. I still haven't solved that problem, mine is currently falling out every so often, but that's not a big deal. The thermistors are probably just not plugged in to the board all the way. Those connectors can be finicky sometimes and get pulled off the pins when you're plugging another one in. You also might have them backwards, it's easy to do.