Ultimaker ER3 Heater Error

[KTI 0]

Hi, my UM2E would intermittently throw an ER3 error in the middle of a print. I've read many of the related posts and followed their suggestions. I have checked (visually, connections, moving the wires, and measured the resistance (about 25 Ohms)) the heater cartridge and it seems to be fine. If I reset the system, it would start heating up again but not always. Sometimes when I tried to preheat the nozzle and measured at the heater 1 terminals, the voltage was zero. Another time while preheating, the system would get out of the preheat mode by itself. I have tried Cura 3.3.1, 3.4.1, and 3.5.1 but the problems seem to persist. Any ideas on what's wrong and what should I do to troubleshoot next? Could there be multiple issues? Thanks for the help. 

[KTI 0]

In addition, but not to confuse the issue, twice now the printer would drop in the z direction while the step motor made some really nasty mechanical noise. The printer would continue printing there and made a mess. I'm prepared to order a new control board because I don't believe these are coincidences. Thanks for the help.

[gr5 2,172]

There are 2 ways to get ER03.  One way is lack of heating.  The other way is faulty sensor.

 

If it's faulty sensor typically as you are heating the nozzle you can watch the numbers climb and at some point they climb much faster.  Also the temperature can bounce around by 5 degrees (or much more) instantly.  It should never move 5 degrees in less than 5 seconds except when it's first heating up.

 

If it's the heater then it's like it doesn't have enough power.  It may aiming for say 200C but you can see it's reporting 195C or cooler.  Eventually it gives up.

 

If you really measured 0 volts at the heater terminals...   Well if that happened when the temperature was at or above the goal temperature then that could be normal.  But if the temperature was say 198C and the goal temperature was 200C then that's an indication that the circuit board under the printer is faulty.

 

Underneath the printer you can see 2 red led's that blink.  One is for the bed power and one for the nozzle.  When the bed and nozzle are at goal temp those lights typically blink up to about 20 times per second which is easy enough to see.  If the light is off continuously and the temp is well below the goal temperature then it's definitely something wrong with firmware or PCB.

 

The Z issue also sounds like a circuit board issue.

 

If this is tinkermarlin I would certainly try printing in non-geek mode.  Such that it's not displaying 15 different things at once.

[KTI 0]

Hi GR5, thanks for the detailed info. I have updated the firmware on the UM2E and it's still the same. I guess it's the control board.

On the other hand, I want to increase the nozzle dia from 0.4 to 0.8mm for some big parts in PETG, any advice in the print settings? Thanks!