Not connecting

droftarts

@droftarts said in Not connecting:

we're all 'official' Duet3D support

to be fair, its not immediately obvious

Hmm, yes, that's fair. While @dc42 is a colossus that bestrides the Duet community, dispensing wisdom in a sage-like and 24/7/365 (24/7/366 this leap-year) fashion, known to all as the 'Duet WiFi hardware designer and firmware engineer', @Phaedrux and myself are merely his unruly minions, who work part time. I don't overtly announce myself as 'official support', if only because I'm not as available as dc42, and don't want people raging at me for the periods of time I'm not available. If there's a better way to do this, I'm happy to try it out.

Ian

Corexy

@droftarts said in Not connecting:

@Corexy The majority of replies on this thread are from myself, @Phaedrux and @dc42, and we're all 'official' Duet3D support. We've discussed your issue off-list too, to try and resolve what might be causing this, but are equally baffled. I did say back on the 25th Jan that it might be time to look for faults on the boards.

For the unresponsive v1.01 board, it's possibly a processor failure (possibly due to over voltage or shorting), but could be a shorted/broken USB port, stuck/shorted reset switch, along with erased firmware (DIAG light on). With everything disconnected, and SD card removed, plug in USB solely and hold your finger on the main processor. Does it get hot? You should know after 30 seconds if it does. If not, inspect the board for shorts, particularly around the reset switch and on the legs of the main processor. @dc42 suggested looking at the 'spills' (yes, solder joints) on the back of the SD card. Post good quality, hi-res images of the back and front of the board; forum users are particularly keen-eyed! I'd probably consider replacing the USB port if the processor doesn't get hot, and/or reflow joints around the SD card holder and WiFi module, but that may make no difference.

On the somewhat working v1.0 board, it maybe a floating pin (poorly soldered/dry joint) or faulty/failing component, but could also be a USB socket issue. Does that processor heat up? Most of the above could apply to that, too.

Are these boards more unreliable than the current v1.04 boards? Probably not. There is more protection built into current boards (fuses and a few minor component changes), but nothing major; see https://duet3d.dozuki.com/Wiki/Hardware_Overview#Section_PCB_revision_history for changes. I still run one of the prototype Duet WiFi v0.10 with white PCB on my main printer! There has been the odd manufacturing hiccup, but mainly that's failing voltage regulators or poor hand soldering of through-hole components, and gets picked up pretty quickly.

Could your environment be responsible for failures? Possibly. I think you said in a previous thread about lighting strikes, and your use of surge protectors; it's possible voltage spikes are getting through and killing the board. Dirt and/or metal particles contaminating the board can cause shorts. I've seen dead insects cause shorts, too, though usually on higher voltage! Short circuits through poor mounting are a fairly common failure as well.

If you're not in a position to test the boards further, or make repairs, maybe someone in the community can help. See https://forum.duet3d.com/topic/13875/community-repairs where a number of forum members have offered to repair boards, depending on your location.

Hope that helps.

Ian

Thanks Ian,

Now that's all good info, and thanks very much for taking the time.

Yes, I do pay for my "summer bay" lifestyle with salt air and power surges. And yes there's a bunch of dead printers here of various brands, but it's usually the temp mosfets that go on other brands for some reason.

I'm off to bed now, but I'll carry on after work tomorrow and check the temps etc as you have recommended.

Thank you very much for that, and if they are buggered they certainly lasted longer than Zortrax boards, which were dead within months.

To be honest if I get new ones, I'll just send these back to you to have a look "for science".

Cheers again,

Corexy

@droftarts said in Not connecting:

@bearer said in Not connecting:

@droftarts said in Not connecting:

we're all 'official' Duet3D support

to be fair, its not immediately obvious

Hmm, yes, that's fair. While @dc42 is a colossus that bestrides the Duet community, dispensing wisdom in a sage-like and 24/7/365 (24/7/366 this leap-year) fashion, known to all as the 'Duet WiFi hardware designer and firmware engineer', @Phaedrux and myself are merely his unruly minions, who work part time. I don't overtly announce myself as 'official support', if only because I'm not as available as dc42, and don't want people raging at me for the periods of time I'm not available. If there's a better way to do this, I'm happy to try it out.

Ian

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're getting at?? I can't even tell if this is for me or one of the other posters?

I certainly haven't "dismissed the community", I'm here asking. I also haven't suggested a known problem, I just asked if there were any. DC42 had suggested he'd seen one issue before, and I just wanted to clear it up rather than chase my arse in circles over software.

I am a little frustrated, but I like to think I'm pretty patient and will get it.

I do have a large Liebert UPS, but the batteries are gone. Might pay to dust it off and try to run the printers off it again.

droftarts

@Corexy Sorry, my reply was for @bearer, didn't mean to imply you were raging! (You aren't, just frustrated.) He was just pointing out to me that it's not obvious that I and @Phaedrux are employed by Duet3D to provide support, so when you were asking for 'staff' to respond, it wasn't obvious to you that 'staff' HAD responded.

Also, I found this: https://superuser.com/questions/37245/how-to-prevent-corosion-damage-in-a-salt-air-environment

Ian

Corexy

@droftarts said in Not connecting:

@Corexy Sorry, my reply was for @bearer, didn't mean to imply you were raging! (You aren't, just frustrated.) He was just pointing out to me that it's not obvious that I and @Phaedrux are employed by Duet3D to provide support, so when you were asking for 'staff' to respond, it wasn't obvious to you that 'staff' HAD responded.

Also, I found this: https://superuser.com/questions/37245/how-to-prevent-corosion-damage-in-a-salt-air-environment

Ian

Actually, yes you are correct. I had no idea yourself and Phaedrux were staff. To be honest I thought I was being snubbed by staff, and just other product users were helping me, which did lead to my email. So it's good that we've identified that confusion. Maybe some kind of logo/sign below your avatar?

You beat me to the punch about the salt air...should I consider "conformal coating" and how would it affect heating?

droftarts

@Corexy said in Not connecting:

@droftarts said in Not connecting:
Maybe some kind of logo/sign below your avatar?

I was a bit nervous about saying I was 'official Duet3D support' when I first started last year. I'm more comfortable now, so perhaps I'll review it with the rest of the team, see if we can come up with something. There are some very experienced, unofficial, voices on the forum, though, who's input we greatly appreciate.

You beat me to the punch about the salt air...should I consider "conformal coating" and how would it affect heating?

No idea! However, if you're covering the top of the board, where most of the connections are, you'd probably be okay, as the heat from the drivers is sinked to the back of the board. Hopefully someone with more electronics experience could chime in.

Ian

deckingman

@droftarts I didn't know that @Phaedrux was "staff" either. I thought he was just a long time user like me but with much more time on his hands (and a better disposition/more patience than I have) Maybe you guys should have "Administrator" after your name like David has?

infiniteloop

@Corexy

I'd really like those couple of people who marked me down over this post to come on, name yourself and explain the reason.

I’m not sure if my down-voting came through, but I strongly dislike you call for „authorities“:

Maybe the staff could answer me....

This is a slap in the face of the contributors to this forum, many of them experts and specialists who know exactly what they are talking about.

As a side note: for the same reason, I dislike the idea to label staff members - it’s the quality of their postings which counts.

A Former User

What he said

(with the addition that I had already learned that Phaedrux was actually affiliated with Duet3d)

Phaedrux

@deckingman said in Not connecting:

@droftarts I didn't know that @Phaedrux was "staff" either. I thought he was just a long time user like me but with much more time on his hands (and a better disposition/more patience than I have) Maybe you guys should have "Administrator" after your name like David has?

"staff" may be putting too much weight behind it. Community liaison? Assistant to the regional manager? Would it have helped if the moderator tag was on? Labels can be a distraction. This community forum has a wealth of non-official knowledge, it would be a shame for good advice to be discounted simply because it isn't "official". Not saying that's happened here.

@Corexy sorry for the total off-topic diversion of your thread.

deckingman

@Phaedrux It doesn't matter a jot to me. I guess users can always look at a person's profile and check out their post count and/or reputation if they have any concerns about the "quality" of the information that they are being presented with.

Corexy

@infiniteloop said in Not connecting:

@Corexy

I'd really like those couple of people who marked me down over this post to come on, name yourself and explain the reason.

I’m not sure if my down-voting came through, but I strongly dislike you call for „authorities“:

Maybe the staff could answer me....

This is a slap in the face of the contributors to this forum, many of them experts and specialists who know exactly what they are talking about.

As a side note: for the same reason, I dislike the idea to label staff members - it’s the quality of their postings which counts.

Wow.... authorities, slaps in the face... all too heavy. At least you stated your thoughts forthrightly I guess, and you do have a right to an opinion.

Just trying to get my printer fixed, and the issue of unidentified staff was raised by another, I just happen to agree. The was no sinister attack on any egos, and now this thread is way off course.

I would also point out I've been polite to staff and punters alike, and totally respect boths expertise, but there's nothing wrong with knowing who's who. Most forums do that. To be honest I'm not really fussed about whether they do or don't, that's not what I came here about.

@deckingman

I actually thought you were staff lol... you aren't?

Phaedrux

Agreed, let's get this thread back on track.

Corexy

@Phaedrux said in Not connecting:

@deckingman said in Not connecting:

@droftarts I didn't know that @Phaedrux was "staff" either. I thought he was just a long time user like me but with much more time on his hands (and a better disposition/more patience than I have) Maybe you guys should have "Administrator" after your name like David has?

"staff" may be putting too much weight behind it. Community liaison? Assistant to the regional manager? Would it have helped if the moderator tag was on? Labels can be a distraction. This community forum has a wealth of non-official knowledge, it would be a shame for good advice to be discounted simply because it isn't "official". Not saying that's happened here.

@Corexy sorry for the total off-topic diversion of your thread.

No problem at all, and thanks for all your help on this and other topics.

@deckingman said in Not connecting:

@Phaedrux It doesn't matter a jot to me. I guess users can always look at a person's profile and check out their post count and/or reputation if they have any concerns about the "quality" of the information that they are being presented with.

That's where I'm at. There's nothing wrong with knowing who you're talking to, especially on the internet. But I'm not all hot and bothered about it.

Corexy

Back on track...I'm still tipping surges over salt air.

My wife and I were talking about it, and were pretty sure all the trouble started when the UPS broke down and I plugged the printers straight into the power point... I think. We get some insane lightning storms here, and there was a memorable one the night before it all died.

Which makes me reluctant to plug anything in until I've got UPS protection again. Plus it was good having about 3 hours battery backup, nice on those big jobs.

So for the sake of science if I can't fix these boards I'll send them back to the team in the UK at my expense, so they can at least have an opportunity to look at the effects of extreme surges and/or salt air on their boards. I am not suggesting the boards are "weak" or anything like that, they've actually lasted longer at my place than any other. My place seems to be an aggressive environment for printers.

deckingman

@Corexy said in Not connecting:

@deckingman

I actually thought you were staff lol... you aren't?

No, not me - just an end user. Although the Duet guys have paid me the complement of asking to have my printer on their stand at a couple of TCT shows, so it may seem like I'm staff. In the interests of giving full disclosure, they have given me a few boards for which I have paid in time, rather than cash. So a couple of weeks at shows. (Oh and a few hundred hours testing pre-beta firmware)

Corexy

@deckingman said in Not connecting:

@Corexy said in Not connecting:

@deckingman

I actually thought you were staff lol... you aren't?

No, not me - just an end user. Although the Duet guys have paid me the complement of asking to have my printer on their stand at a couple of TCT shows, so it may seem like I'm staff. In the interests of giving full disclosure, they have given me a few boards for which I have paid in time, rather than cash. So a couple of weeks at shows. (Oh and a few hundred hours testing pre-beta firmware)

Well you've always done well for me, so thanks even more for your time.

I've ordered a full set of batteries for my UPS which will be here before the replacement board and my cheapy Ender 3 backup printer. Cost a bit but so does broken printers.

It's almost got to be surges....we were sitting there the other night and some huge sort of brown out came through, making the lights flicker and the TV go funny. I'm going back to regulated UPS supply only for printers.

deckingman

@Corexy Your power supply issue kind of got me thinking. A few months ago I fitted a DC UPS to my printer so if ever the mains supply fails, the UPS cuts in and it carries on running off the batteries until power is restored. But note - this is a DC UPS. So no mains inverter and the printer runs (24V) directly off the batteries. It just seemed a bit daft to use a conventional UPS with an inverter to convert DC voltage to mains voltage, then drop it back down to DC with the PSU. The heated is what takes most of the current but mine is mains powered so when the power fails, the bed starts to cool. But it's a big old lump of aluminium that takes a very long time to cool and even them it's only parts with a small footprint that are likely to fall off.

But the reason for all this preamble is that maybe you could do something similar. That is to say, run the printer straight from batteries and maybe use a mains heated bed via an SSR. It probably won't hurt the bed heater if the mains supply is dirty and DC supply straight from batteries will be about as clean as you get I'd have thought. Or alternatively, run the bed cold and use painters blue tape. Obviously you'd need to charge the batteries when the printer isn't running. I didn't envisage the printer having to run more than about an hour or so on batteries so I chose small batteries. But it's surprising just how long they last. Not long after I installed the UPS, I forgot to turn the mains back on and ran the printer for nearly 3 days before I got a low battery warning from the UPS. Admittedly the printer wasn't running continuously for that amount of time, but it was still many hours on (small) battery power. And I run 3 gantries (CoreXYUVAB) and 5 extruders with all the axes motors set to run at either 1.8 or 2.3 Amps.

Just a thought..............

You can read about my DC UPS conversion here https://somei3deas.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/fitting-a-dc-uninterruptible-power-supply-ups-and-separate-5v-supply/
and here https://somei3deas.wordpress.com/2019/10/27/ups-battery-installation/

Corexy

@deckingman said in Not connecting:

@Corexy Your power supply issue kind of got me thinking. A few months ago I fitted a DC UPS to my printer so if ever the mains supply fails, the UPS cuts in and it carries on running off the batteries until power is restored. But note - this is a DC UPS. So no mains inverter and the printer runs (24V) directly off the batteries. It just seemed a bit daft to use a conventional UPS with an inverter to convert DC voltage to mains voltage, then drop it back down to DC with the PSU. The heated is what takes most of the current but mine is mains powered so when the power fails, the bed starts to cool. But it's a big old lump of aluminium that takes a very long time to cool and even them it's only parts with a small footprint that are likely to fall off.

But the reason for all this preamble is that maybe you could do something similar. That is to say, run the printer straight from batteries and maybe use a mains heated bed via an SSR. It probably won't hurt the bed heater if the mains supply is dirty and DC supply straight from batteries will be about as clean as you get I'd have thought. Or alternatively, run the bed cold and use painters blue tape. Obviously you'd need to charge the batteries when the printer isn't running. I didn't envisage the printer having to run more than about an hour or so on batteries so I chose small batteries. But it's surprising just how long they last. Not long after I installed the UPS, I forgot to turn the mains back on and ran the printer for nearly 3 days before I got a low battery warning from the UPS. Admittedly the printer wasn't running continuously for that amount of time, but it was still many hours on (small) battery power. And I run 3 gantries (CoreXYUVAB) and 5 extruders with all the axes motors set to run at either 1.8 or 2.3 Amps.

Just a thought..............

You can read about my DC UPS conversion here https://somei3deas.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/fitting-a-dc-uninterruptible-power-supply-ups-and-separate-5v-supply/
and here https://somei3deas.wordpress.com/2019/10/27/ups-battery-installation/

Mate at this stage I'm over all the spending and tinkering.

Your idea is most likely excellent and thank, but I'm committed to this now and will run with it until it proves unsuccessful.

This is a pretty serious American UPS I got cheap, but it's always needed a new set of batteries. I've used this for 2 years and never had a printer that was connected to it fail.

I do wonder how power surges would even reach the board through the switch mode power supply, but it still seems the most likely.

dc42

@Corexy, do you have DC ground connected to mains ground? I do that right at the PSU terminals. And how good is your mains ground?

Please confirm that you do not have a USB connection between the Duet and a PC - because if you did get a transient on ground, the USB ground loop would pass that to the electronics.