UM2+ shuts off when parked in corner (x=0,y=0)

[Ronis 0]

Hi, this is my first post on this forum 😊

 

I have a Ultimaker 2+ that prints real good, but yesterday something strange happened. Some of you guys might know what happened?

 

I was doing a print with a file sliced in Cura 5.3.0 containing a “Pause at height”-script as I have been doing several times before with good results. But this time, when the printer moves to the point where I have told it to go (x=0, y=0), the whole printer shuts off except the light for the blue jog wheel. LED, display, fans…everything turns off! Not able to wake the printer other than switching main switch off/on.

 

Have searched the forum and only thing I can think of is the power brick, but not sure since the printer works well everywhere than at the specific corner (x=0 and y=0)….?

 

Thing is that I recently, temporarily  changed the print bed size in Cura to 230x223x205mm to be able to print a slightly lager print than normal. The print bed size values have been changed back to original 223x223x205 and Cura have been restarted before I sliced the actual file. Do not know if this has anything to do with it? I was thinking that coordinates x=0 and y=0 for some reason have ended up "outside" the printable area, and therefore the printer shuts off due to high current or something like that….?

 

Thanks for your help!

[gr5 2,177]

There could be a short.  Does it happen often?  Or just he one time?  The nozzle heater cable may short out and kill power.  When the head is in a corner it stresses the cable a bit and may cause a short deep inside the print head.

 

More likely it is the power brick.

 

[Ronis 0]

7 hours ago, gr5 said:

Thanx for the reply!

 

It only happens in this specific corner (have not tried the other corners though).

I can try to bend the heater cable during a normal print, just to see if i shorts out.

 

Need to find a similar Power brick though. What is the minimum spec for power rating or

what should I search for?

 

Yesterday I tried to park the nozzel at x=5;y=5 but same thing happend, even I had a feeling it took a litte bit longer time before the display turned off. I also tried x=10;y=10 and everything was working as it should.

 

Need to find the problem and fix it. Do not want to have more 3 hour prints wasted....

 

Regards/ Ronis

 

 

[gr5 2,177]

Heat the bed to 60C and heat the nozzle to 200 using the front panel on the printer.  No need to wait for those to heat up and in fact they will use more power while heating and less once they reach there.  Actually turn the side fans on as well as either side or rear fans could cause a short (rear fan comes on when heat to nozzle comes on).

 

Then just push the print head around to the corners.  See if it kills power.

 

It seems so strange to me that it only happens on "pause at layer".  The head moves to 0,0 at the start of the print job as well I think?  But maybe no heat at that time.

 

If it happens only when you push the head around then there is almost certainly some kind of intermittent short and not a problem with the power brick.  If it only happens on "pause at layer" then I don't know what is going on - some violent high acceleration servo move at the same time as heaters?  I suppose it's possible.

 

There is also a way to reduce the amount of power that the bed uses for power supplies that are "old" or something.  It's called "power budget" and is a feature found in tinkerMarlin firmware for UM2+:

 

https://github.com/tinkerGnome/Ultimaker2Marlin/releases

 

In power budget, add up the budget for the nozzle and bed, leave those alone and then set the budget to be 50 watts lower than that total.  That will lower max power usage by 50 watts.

 

I would not get any other power brick other than the one you already have.  Although there is a GST and GS version and the GS version can put out a bit more power and the GST is a bit safer if I remember right (more power shutdown conditions maybe?).  I forget why GST was considered better.  They are a bit pricey at around $90 each.

 

 

[Ronis 0]

Did your test with heated nozzle and bed and fans at 100% - no power loss!

 

I actually did a complete maintenance on the printer yesterday, including lubrication of axles and lead screw. There was a small amount of dust at the end of all axles which I wiped away with a soft cloth before lubrication.

 

Did a new test this evening and everything is now working as before....🤔 Don't think the dust affected anything, but maybe the oil.

 

I'm a bit confused. Think there is nothing more to do than continue printing. Maybe it just had some bad days last weekend...

 

Thanks for your help gr5!

 

PS. Do you recommend the tinkerMarlin firmware before the latest standard firmware for any other reasons than the "power budget" feature?

[gr5 2,177]

Well it has a ton of nice features such as "continue failed print" which would be useful if you lose power again.

[Ronis 0]

On 2/21/2024 at 10:08 PM, gr5 said:

Well it has a ton of nice features such as "continue failed print" which would be useful if you lose power again.

 Yes, a feature lik that might be handy in my case🙂 Only download, connect printer with USB and update custom firmware with Cura? Will I lose any settings?

 

Regards/ Ronis

[gr5 2,177]

You will very likely lose settings on your printer.  It depends how new your firmware is on the um2.  The um2 stores some settings in a special area of eeprom which doesn't get written over when you load new firmware.   Things like:

material settings for multiple materials (for example for pla it stores things like fan speed, flow rate, retraction amount and speed, nozzle temp, bed temp)

bed leveling value from most recent bed leveling

Size of printer, bed, positions of where to go for nozzle prime, several other 3d positions used before and after printing

 

This data block has a version number in it.  When you install a NEWER version of firmware, it checks the version and knows how to update the older data to the newer locations/format.  When you install an OLDER version of firmware it sometimes screws that up (older firmware can't know data format for a future firmware not yet written at the time the older firmware was written).

 

So when you install older firmware it often either messes things up or it is smart enough to do a factory reset.  If it messes things up you have to manually do a factory reset (trivial - it's in the menu).  When you do this factory reset all the mentioned values above go back to defaults and it will force you to go through the unboxing, powerup procedure which is to load filament and level the bed.

 

If you still have old firmware on your um2, older than tinkermarlin firmware, then you won't lose anything.

 

But maybe write down all those material settings just in case.

[Ronis 0]

Not sure what version I got, but I think it's the latest from 2019 or something like that. Anyway - do not have that much changes as far as I remember. Will try the TinkerMarlin...

 

Regards/ Ronis