RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
Well here we go...my screen went black mid-print. I bought this MK4 about just over a month ago, fully assembled by Prusa. I waited until the print was finished as I didn't want to mess up the print. As quickly as possible after the print concluded I hit the reset button on the front and the screen came back to life. We'll see what will happen.
BUT, after reading seven(7) pages of this post which date back months and months, I am curious why I was sent a brand new unit so recently that is experiencing this problem???
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
My printer also failed to boot, only got half way. I wriggled the flat cable connector on the lcd board and it booted up correctly, I will see how it goes, possibly a bad connection on the pcb
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
Hi, I had the same problem, and for me, using the printer's LAN port helped the problem.
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
I have an MK4 which we assembled just a week ago, we've been doing prints every day and all was working perfectly. Then just today the screen started going blank once a print was in progress. The prints complete 100%, but I needed to power it on / off to get the screen to come back. From one of the posts in this thread it was suggested to turn off the RGB LED in the display. I did this and for the first time today the screen is operating as normal again, and doesn't go blank during a print. This is the only change I've made, so it may be something to do with the LED function - maybe!
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
was there ever an official fix/ statement put out about this issue?
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
hi
had my printer for a few weeks and all going good until today and it looks like my screen is playing up.
I have checked all the connections , turned of the RGB lights at the front and tried running the cables on the outside as suggested.
Still the same screen problem. so is there anything more i can try before i have to contact support
thanks Luke
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
I'm discussing about a similar problem with Prusa's support. Would you like to share the unique case details with me (sending a P/M) so that Prusa can check, what was the final reason for the fault in your case. Thank you!
The replacement printer seems to be fine. I am really curious what is causing this issue with some printers. My gut tells me there is a quality issue with one of the components they use, and every unit going out the door is a roll of the dice.
That is unfortunate. I elected to have Prusa replace my printer because they had no real idea what could be causing the issue, and we were just throwing parts at it and hoping for the best.
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
For myself, I pulled both the ground yellow wire and the LCD screen ribbon cable out of the routing channel. I also reseated the ribbon cable into the screen PCB. While out of the channel and after being reseated it worked 100%. I carefully placed it back into the channel making sure the ground and ribbon were not wrapped around each other and it has been working well since.
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
My kit built and worked. Several days use later I had to move it 2 metres or so to another more permanent support table. The following day random screen blanking and very occasional booting with no screen started.
I removed and replaced the screen board to main board ribbon cable plugs from the sockets a couple of times inc ensuring while off that the plug was well clamped onto the ribbon BOTH ends. (I also did the earth but only as I was there).
Lots of use since, no issues, no recurrence.
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
Hi,
Made my MK4 kit and got the problem at first boot during self test ...
upgrading the FW allow me to finish the self test. But problem came back very often. even difficult to configure the wifi without rebooting.
after that I got an hotend red error. Finally found that one of the cable is not properly solder on the heater !
deeply regret buying it ... it seems it will never works properly until a big fix at 500E in the future...
Mixing all cable altogether seems also quite strange to me
Erwan
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
Hi, to check if the issue is stil related to EMC, I completely remove the ribbon cable and attached it from the exterior of the printer without touching any other cable... and it works now... I have order copper tape to properly shield this cable. erwan
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
Hallelujah, there is finally someone to share on the solution of copper tape. Or, at least, who speeks about it in this forum. (Thank You Lucas Quigna 😊 ).
For information, my MK4 (assembled july 2023) has now around 80 days of real printing time and no more screen issues, since I applied the copper shielding on the display board ribbon cable (even after placing it in a prusa enclosure in february 2024).
As told in my previous message (28/10/2023), in matter of EMC suspicion, such a solution needs to be validate by repetition. In that case, Lucas Quigna, Your feedback in concerne of using copper tape will be relevant and I would be happy to share it with You
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
With the ribbon cable removed from the proposed routing path, the printer is working continuously since 2 days without a single issue.
Support has proposed to send a new screen, but I will first try to shield the ribbon with copper tape... at least like this I will know if it is the real solution
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
Hi guys, had the same problem. After booting up, the screen went white, basically as u described. I contacted Prusa tech support, they made me send them photos of xLCD cable being connected into xLCD and xBuddy board. Everything was OK. After that, they sent me new xLCD and xLCD cable. I replaced the xLCD cable, the problem was still there, then I tried to disconnect xLCD cable, I took it out of the cable harness, placed xLCD on the tabel next to printer, connected it and tada, everything worked flawlesly.
It may confirm the idea of electrical interference with stepper motor cables. After that, I attached the xLCD cable back to the printer exactly as in the manual, this time I was tightning all the cables just really gently. Everything works fine since then. Also what comes to my mind is, that the problem with xLCD began, when I disconnected cables from the nozzle (the heater was KO, and when I was installing new xLCD cable, I also connected to love board new nozzle which came to me from Prusa in one package togather with the cable). I'm not really sure, what exactly was causing the problem, maybe the combination of the things mentioned above.
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
Guys,
In matter of EMC it's a little bit like the astral alignement of the planets. If the different wires of the different electrical cables (e.g. Stepper motors, xLCD ribbon, ...) are in a right position You're lucky and all will be working fine.
It seems to me that, in our case, due to the length and travel of the xLCD cable its a gamble to find this right "alinement". Sometimes we could be lucky, but most of the time not.
The fact that we don't know the pinout of the xLCD cable doesn't make things better ( We don't know the position of the particularily EMC sensitive signals/wires in the cable).
This is why the shielding of the xLCD cable seems to be a realistic and promising solution...
Until today, what I'm experimenting is going that way.
RE:
Posting this here after upgrading my MK3S to a MK3.9. Overall a significant improvement and happy with the new functionality, but from the first powerup issues with the display. With my background as electronics engineer (with focus on EMC testing) I had my doubts during build-up already. Running the high-speed display and USB data over a long cable, without proper shielding, is a bad idea. Turns out multiple Prusa-owners have an issue with frozen or blanked-out displays.
After doing some tests with ferrites and rerouting of the cabling I contacted the support. Just like for Zden215 they sent me a new cable and LCD. Didn't change the random behavior of the display operating or not. So, I made a somewhat final modification today. As far as I can tell without schematics the LCD display lines run over the band cable to the STM processor. These datalines are not very robust, and not suitable to leave a PCB. I am somewhat disappointed in this design choice for a printer of this caliber.
RE:
Guys,
In matter of EMI it's a little bit like the astral alignement of the planets. If the different wires of the different electrical cables (e.g. Stepper motors, xLCD ribbon, ...) are in a right position You're lucky and all will be working fine.
It seems to me that, in our case, due to the length and travel of the xLCD cable its a gamble to find this right "alignement". Sometimes we could be lucky, but most of the time not.
The fact that we don't know the pinout of the xLCD cable doesn't make things better ( We don't know the position of the particularily EMI sensitive signals/wires in the cable).
This is why the shielding of the xLCD cable seems to be a realistic and promising solution...
Until today, what I'm experimenting is going that way.
RE:
Hallelujah, there is finally someone to share on the solution of copper tape. Or, at least, who speaks about it in this forum. (Thank You Lucas Quigna 😊 ).
For information, my MK4 (assembled july 2023) has now around 80 days of real printing time and no more screen issues, since I applied the copper shielding on the display board ribbon cable (even after placing it in a prusa enclosure in february 2024).
As told in my previous message (28/10/2023), in matter of EMI suspicion, such a solution needs to be validate by repetition. In that case, Lucas Quigna, Your feedback in concerne of using copper tape will be relevant and I would be happy to share it with You
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
Hi,
Here is how I shield the ribbon cable with copper tape (amazon)
erwan
RE: Mk4 screen goes blank after some time
hi
i went though the help desk and ended up with a new screen and cable
when fitting it i made a new cover for the control box with a bit more room and a separate run for the screen cables all working spot on at the moment
so i am with the people that think it is interference and just luck on how you run the cables but at this price i would expect better cables to take away the luck factor