Printer Will Not Turn On
Hi all,
I have had my MK3 for about 2 months now, using it every day and suddenly it will not power on. Some detail:
I bought the kit, assembled it, tweaked a few things and it printed great. The only issue I had was inability to pass the z-axis calibration unless I loosened the screws on the trapezoid motor nuts enough to allow the threaded rod to wobble slightly. After that it ran well for about a month, then I moved it to another house, repeated the calibration as described, and it printed fine. A week later after changing nothing I started to see subtle drift in the y-axis when printing at 100% feed rate as usual. It was not extremely pronounced or in a consistent direction - just layers off one way or another by a maximum of a few mm. The print head is not crashing - the parts are centered and have dimensions no greater than 3". I solved this by printing in stealth mode (still at 100% feed rate) and it printed fine for another week.
Yesterday I used PETG (almost always use PLA) with default material settings from Slic3r Prusa Edition to start a print. I came home from work and it had stopped 95% (estimated) of the way through and the power was off. Switching the power off and on again had no result (no screen, fans, moving parts, etc.), nor did choosing a different socket. It has not powered on since.
Some additional considerations:
- Earlier yesterday I loaded octopi onto a Pi 3B and plugged it into the printer. I confirmed I could control and monitor printing with the pi camera but only on the local network.
- The outlet the printer was plugged into had a loose connection, i.e. jiggling never caused a loss in power to the printer but the plug could be removed with very little force. Could the weak mechanical connection have caused the y-axis drifting due to power starvation and eventually have killed the power supply?
- I have printed with PETG a few times in the past with no issue. However when I do there is always a high-pitched noise from the printer that would sound like an alarm if it wasn't so quiet.
Thank you for your help!
Re: Printer Will Not Turn On
https://shop.prusa3d.com/forum/original-prusa-i3-mk3-f30/power-supply-failure-t13443.html
Re: Printer Will Not Turn On
Yes, as neil suggests, you likely have encountered the highly discussed "dead PSU" issue. My failure occurred in a similar fashion, about 90% of the way through the first long PETG print I did on the MK3...likely because of the higher temps required (thus more power demanded of the PSU).
Re: Printer Will Not Turn On
You now have an excuse to buy a volt-ohm meter (cheap) if you don't have one.
Two quick things to check:
1) unplug it, and pull the fuse (which is mounted just above where the power cord enters the power supply). It should be a clear glass tube with a contiguous metal, and have very low resistance from one end to the other. If it is blacked or doesn't have the metal, your fuse blew, likely as a result of your PSU failing. I would not replace the fuse and try again, I would contact prusa for a replacement PSU.
2) If the fuse looks ok and has low resistance, turn the power on and measure the voltage entering the Einsy board. The voltage between the first two wires should be close to 24V, and same for the next two wires. If not, you have a dead PSU that didn't blow the fuse.
You should also check that you are getting mains power to the PSU. Make sure your outlet works for a lamp or something, and make sure you are getting mains power at the end of the power cord.
Since you had flakey power before, it is possible there is a loose wire inside the PSU on the mains connection to the PSU, but unless you are confident with high voltage I wouldn't bother opening up the bottom of the PSU to check.
If you are, it's pretty straight forward to open up the PSU 3d printed base and see how things are connected. Try it (with power off) and look for any lose wires or shorts.
Re: Printer Will Not Turn On
One only other thing to take into account - the Raspy Pi3. Was that connected using the PCB header, or USB cable? If it was the header, I dont think the Einsy board 5V rail is sufficient to keep a Pi3 supplied happily if powered via the GPIO pins.