I’m more of a maker more than a tech. All my machines - Twotrees, Anet, Tevo, Sunlu, Anycubic, Kingroon (Got a Ender 3 - just slow) and so on printer control boards fail. Not so much the visual displays. 1 machine made it a few days, another a month or so but all the controllers fail - 1 worked 8 months, another 2+ years. And finding a replacement even ORGINALS gets nuts. The hardware all of them seems good yet. Is there any place and board that has sustainable and stable history. I kinda hate saying this but something that is not China made. Support, warranty is about not there as the distance barrier of country to country is all about these machine is just not there at all for the most part. I’m a CAD kinda guy as the maker. Is there anything out there? could there be for the type of person like me who is frustrated with the entire industry now. I’ve read some about the boards and plug in pieces for the silent running stepper motors. Hot ends vary immensely but what does one have to do a Voron type thing or what? ANY HELP HERE PLEASE!
I’ve not had a single board fail on me in the two years I’ve been printing on my ender 3 s1.
One possibility is power spikes on the AC power line.
I run each 3D printer on an UPS system with both Surge and Drop out protection. Sorry not valid.
Definitely a strange experience. I haven’t seen anyone mention controller failures outside of messing up with wiring while tinkering with the printer.
I gotta say I still suspect the AC line somehow. I would suggest getting a power line monitor, but those things are around $2000.
I remember years ago when I worked at (won’t name drop here, but a big semiconductor company), we used to have a disk failure every Friday around 4pm. After a lot of guessing, it turned out that day there was some large spike on the power line when they started up some large AC motor in another part of the facility, that was taking the drive out.
Anyway, I get your distrust of my suggestion, but it’s the only thing that seems to make sense to me given what you’ve said.
If you do figure it out, please report back!
I run like 7 computers on and off UPS’s 3 main desk PCs with UPS, notebooks not really all on that same powerline and fused panel. So again - nope! My Wifi never shows any inconstancies. Just 3D printer boards fail. Cura, Bambu labs, Orca… For the most part I don’t have any of the 3D printers on any network - OK sneaker net…
Another part of my understanding and reasoning to all of this is the use of amp loading ribbon wiring things. Here is my explanation and understanding. It starts out as understanding service factoring of things. Most things are designed with all sorts of algorithm’s that create what is required and then add a safety margin factor. And that is a tolerance. That is basic physics of mechanical properties ooops that is also electro mechanical properties too. How are they using those understandings for the wiring ribbons - are they using base properties of the ribbon wire with no additions of a service factor to base the amp load to be transmitted as like a single wire or are they taking the values of the ribbon wire and utilizing the properties as having service factors and then added together. Then take the tolerance of a manufacturing tolerancing to make the electro mechanical STANDARDS of a wire. Then add in the quality of the material of the materials used to make the wires. Just add or subtract all that crap up. Where is the Failure? Oh there is feed back to the mother boards of HEAT because of the amp loaded wires heating and cooling beyond the mechanical limits of each individual wires in that frame work of the ribbon oh the materials used! And that is my understanding of why these boards go. Designed and purposefully engineered failure. And everything else is like the best made measuring device - a fluke. A few of my early machines (8bit) had wires that showed the heating (melt down) issues with the poor quality of wire used. I replaced with true copper and got years more usage yes boards where replaced then but the usage I got was better and longer because of the quality of the wire was changed. By using the amp loading of wires the strain factor is reduced immensely because a surge or regular usage is never shared by the neighboring wire stranding tolerance of per strand. And THAT is what I understand of why all these machines are failing for me and burning out the boards… Cascading results - all newer machines are ribbon designs. Some oh my prints have lasted multi days of print time.
I picked up a local used Geeetech printer off of Craigslist that had a bad/burnt out main board and the person selling it told me when he had the printer off and then when in manually moving the bed back and forth the touch pad control would light up, well he kept on playing with it until he smelled smoke… then listed it for sale…
Just a thought to keep in mind that those motor produce voltage not sure what you call it but like a generator and back feed… Something to think about…
My machines were new buys and nothing used or serviced by anyone.
I agree. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is the first I’ve heard of mass failure of motherboards across multiple manufacturers. If not the mains, perhaps the problem stems from the UPS units themselves (e.g., most units output a simulated sine wave). CAVEAT EMPTOR: I have Chinese-brand printers, but don’t use any printer with a UPS.
OP: For a non-Chinese manufacturer of motherboards that has a good reputation, check out Duet3D. FWIW, many Voron builders use the BIGTREETECH SKR V1.4 Control Board (China).
Cheers
thank you. APC is the UPS brand - been using them for 25+ years to include back office servers via intranet and unix/linux class web servers and can’t ever claim an issue other than from time to time battery replacement. I started UPS on the 3D printers back on the 8 bit boards and there was no file and or print recovery to turn on or off. the data send to file write process for that reason of recovery I just turn off if I can. A lot of those features I turn off due to the lag time that can happen. Just give me straight run and power on all the time printing. Yea, there are big print outfits that I could send my prints to in the MPLS/STP area (1 hr +away) - you know the big names too. I’m a maker tinkerer who likes to take long run time prints more or less at home. I’ve heard of Duet3D and will be learning what I can there. Prusa might have to be what I head towards as they seem to have products that upgrade the firmware even on older machines as I have read about. Later I guess…
phone edit posted some how - I deleted
Are you suggesting that the wires exceeded the current limits, heated up and then shorted with neighboring wires in the ribbon?
Otherwise, if a wire fails, it will just open the circuit and no current will flow, acting a bit like a fuse.
not the fuse as the concern
It might be interesting to do a deep dive on exactly where the failures are occurring. Once you have a failure, take an Ohm meter to the ribbon cable and see if you can figure out what the exact failure mode is and where.
It might be hard to do if the damage isn’t visible with your eyes, and the act of removing the cable might re-open shorted connections, and so forth, but still it might be worth a try.
Another thought would be to stock up on the ribbon cables, and replace them once every N (say 300) hours of operation to see if that cuts down on fried control boards. It’d be a pain in the butt for sure, but it might be better than dealing with bricked control boards.
They I think don’t last 300 hours. I don’t care to do any more deep dives into any of them. And playing with the Ohm meter is not my idea of any sort of pleasure or worth any more of my time. Just not interested in any more China bricking crap.