Build Plate Never Reaches Temperature

[flyntm 2]

I have a UM3 and I'm trying to print with CPE+.  Cura defaults the Build Plate Temperature to 107, but with the bed heater set to max (255) the plate never quite reaches 107.  Looks like around 104.  So the printing never starts?  Any idea what's going on?  It did work 2 days ago.

[Torgeir 242]

Hi @flyntm,

 

this is an "alarming" sign of a failure that can be very costly if you continue printing with this issue.

The contacts, two on the bed (feeding current) or the two on the main board might be starting to arch due to increased contact resistance.

It can also be the soldering from the printed foil on the bed that's going to the contact block.

This is a failure that can occur after some high printing hour of your printer.

Each time the printer heat up the bed, there will bee some extension when heated and retraction when cooling down.

Over time this can develop cracking in the soldering and as the contact get less good, this point will heat much up and may burn the contact/print foil.

 

There might be other issues, but this is the most important to first check out.

 

Thanks

Torgeir

 

[flyntm 2]

Wow and oh c__p!   Thanks for letting me know.  I’ll look into it.  You don’t happen to know where I might find some instructions or diagrams as to how to take the printer apart?

 

Thanks again!

[Torgeir 242]

Hi @flyntm,

 

if you look into the heat bed, inner right side where the wires is connected. You may use a little mirror and a good light source. There is four wires connected to the connector block (just under the bed here), when overheat starts to occur the white colored insulation start to be burnt brownish..  This is the first sign to look for here.

Under the printer is the access to the electronics for the printer, Ultimaker warns about high voltage present inside here -as the main power supply is also located in here.. Printer must be disconnected from the main, but even disconnected capacitors might hold high voltage and can kill you.

Inside here you will find the main PCB that is white and marked with Ultimaker..

On this PCB, there is two white wires connected to the "big" heat bed connector (the two for extruder heaters is beside here). Just look for the brownish colored wires and check for the same not occur close around this connector.

A picture of this PCB is found in the last link below, roll down to the last picture and see the two wires (~AWG 16) connected to the terminal block. 

Inside here is lots of good information, and the author is a member of this site, @fbrc8-erin .

 

There is not a lot of documentation about this printer, but here are some:

 

At Github here:

https://github.com/Ultimaker/Ultimaker3/tree/master/3D model Ultimaker 3

 

Ultimaker North America Support

https://ultimakernasupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004187366-Electronics-Board

 

Sure there might be other issues, but this one is most important to sort out first.  

 

Good luck

Thanks

Torgeir

Edited January 31, 2021 by Torgeir
Text error.

[flyntm 2]

Thank you so much!  That was a great help.  I went so far as to remove the heated bed and no brown wires there.  Also looked at the PCB.  I didn't take the board out to look at the back side but I don't see any toasted components, PCB, or brown wires there either.  I wiggled all the connections and cleaned every thing (it needed it.) After re-leveling the build plate, I tried printing again and it worked this time. (Yea!) I don't know what's going on but I guess I'll just keep an eye on it unless you have another idea I should check.

 

Again, thanks so much for your help!

[Torgeir 242]

Thanks for replying back, better to be safe than sorry. 🙂

Great job.

 

Torgeir