SD card not working on ultimaker controller

[approx 0]

Thanks Frode. I contacted Support and they will send me a replacement LCD unit...I'll try to do more troubleshooting when i get some time... though the more I think about it, the problem could be either in the ulticontroller or the arduino (or the cables I guess). I'm not sure how to rule out the arduino. If someone else local had an ultimaker, perhaps i could test with a different machine...

[frodeheg 0]

Hehe, flashback... Yes those same suspicions was those that lead me to investigate it thoroughly. What I did to debug this was to have a logic analyzer attached to the exp2 interface while I compiled the firmware on my own with some debug-code here and there to see that the the Arduino was indeed sending everything it was supposed to. However, logically I would put my vote on the UltiController because the Arduino is an old product sold in millions so they should have the testing in place. The ultimaker PCB has been through a few revisions so it makes sense if the testing procedures are starting to get good. The UltiController on the other hand is only a few weeks old, so I wouldn't be surprised if they have a few glitches here and there.

Send a post in the "Ultimaker International" forum to see if anyone with an Ultimaker is close to you so you can test. I'm in Norway btw.

[approx 0]

Yea I think so too it is the ulticontroller.. but I have reached out to a couple of local folks - maybe I'll get a chance to do a quick test with another ultimaker before I send the LCD unit back... I am in Bay area, california, by the way ...

[ianeagland 0]

Hi

As I reported earlier I also had a similar problem.

Following Ultimakers agreement to honour the guarantee should I attempt to repair the board I soldered all all the pins I could reach without removing the LCD panel.

This solved the original problem and I can now see all the programmes on the SD and upload programmes from PrintRun.

However I now have another problem. Programmes that run fine from PrintRun stop part way through when printing from direct from the SD.

They seem to stop always in the same place. Is there any way to debug what is happening?

The LCD displays an ascending %SD while running and "Sleep..."

It reaches 019%SD and the "Sleep.." changes to "partial release"

Just before it stops the display changes to 000%SD and the "partial release" changes to " widebar.g" which is the programme that is running.

Anyone know what all this means?

Also is there a WIKI on operating the ulicontroller panel?

[Daid 306]

Any chance you are using an SDHC card? I've seen the jump from 16% back to 0% happen with an SDHC cards. Don't use SDHC cards, you need to use SD cards.

[ianeagland 0]

I am using the Kingston card supplied by Ultimaker.

However I have some Scan SD cards so I will try one of those as I had not thought that the card might be the problem.

Thanks for your reply.

[approx 0]

Ok Problem solved! In my case, it turned to be a faulty arduino. Thanks to Taylor Alexander (he's local) for helping me troubleshoot the issue and fix it! Here is Taylor's detailed account:

"I made some 10 pin cables and re-assembled everything, and after finding a 2GB SD (not SDHC) card and formatting it FAT16, I was still having some troubles, as we discussed. I used Klimet's SDRamps test Arduino sketch to verify that the system was not even seeing the card. I then did a full format of the SD Card, instead of the usual quick format. That took a while, but when it was done, the system was finally able to see the card, and read the filesystem type and card size! Oddly it still refused to list off the files. I loaded the latest version of Marlin back on, and the panel still refused to see the files. Pronterface also refused to list files and produced errors when trying to load files on the card.

I then busted out the oscilloscope, and started checking the data communications. the SCK, MISO, and MOSI lines of the SPI that talk to the SD card all appeared to have the correct signal patterns on them. However, I wasn't getting much out of the SS line, which is what selects the SD card on the SPI bus. I finally discovered some odd behavior - if I has the oscilloscope probe on the SS line, the Ulticontroller was able to see the files on the SD card! Something about the presence of the probe was changing the way the SS line behaved and causing it to work. I eventually determined that if you place a high value resistor (like, say, a finger) between the SS line and GND, that again, everything worked. You could sit there hitting refresh over and over and nothing would happen, and the instant you stuck your finger there, all the files showed up. This was very repeatable, and pronterface also behaved better with the finger trick, so I decided to solder a 40k resistor between GND and the SS line to replace my finger. It works!

So it would seem the pin on the Arduino was in fact burnt out and unable to sink current. The small pulldown resistor I soldered onto my RAMPS seems to be sufficient to solve the problem, but I can now verify that the Arduino was indeed bad."

 

Hehe, flashback... Yes those same suspicions was those that lead me to investigate it thoroughly. What I did to debug this was to have a logic analyzer attached to the exp2 interface while I compiled the firmware on my own with some debug-code here and there to see that the the Arduino was indeed sending everything it was supposed to. However, logically I would put my vote on the UltiController because the Arduino is an old product sold in millions so they should have the testing in place. The ultimaker PCB has been through a few revisions so it makes sense if the testing procedures are starting to get good. The UltiController on the other hand is only a few weeks old, so I wouldn't be surprised if they have a few glitches here and there.

Send a post in the "Ultimaker International" forum to see if anyone with an Ultimaker is close to you so you can test. I'm in Norway btw.

[frodeheg 0]

I am happy you solved the problem, but the solution was a bit surprising. I would never have guessed it =-O

Happy printing! :-)