Hi all. Yesterday, my printer stopped responding to commands from the touch screen, so I shut the printer off and turned it back on. Now, the printer and screen turn on (power fan spins and screen backlight comes on), but the screen does not display anything, and the printer cannot be reached via USB. Multiple power outlets and cables have been tried, and all cables inside the main chassis are securely connected except for the Z- cable (which has been replaced by a BLTouch). There is a single red LED on the motherboard that lights up when the machine is powered on. Does anyone have any ideas how I can try to diagnose this? I’ve sent an email to elegoo, but I’ve heard it can take weeks to get a response, and I’m trying to get things ready for a DnD campaign starting this weekend… thanks for any tips.
Edit: for anyone finding this post looking for help, you’re SOL. Elegoo responded to me, and after sending them a couple pictures, they’ve determined my motherboard to be dead, and are not willing to provide a free replacement since I’m just outside of warranty. Now I’m torn between getting a new motherboard (waiting on a quote from them) or just saving for a better printer.
Edit 2: after some very light complaining, Elegoo is making right and sending me a new motherboard free of charge.
Yeah the new mobo worked for a while, I think it took around 8 or 9 days to ship to US. The tracking site never updated past saying the shipper was waiting for the item (even a week after it was delivered). But I started having some really odd issues with it after a month or two. I’m still not 100% sure what the cause of the issue was or if it was even specifically mobo related (I posted a lot here during that time if you peep my post history), but I ultimately ended up replacing it with an SKR mini E3 mobo, which I’m much more happy with.
Replacing the mobo should just be plug and play, all the cables are labeled, well routed, and are appropriate length, so it’s easy to rewire the stock configuration. Just to be safe though I would grab the newest version of the board firmware from their GitHub page and flash it, no telling what version it ships with.
thanks for the tips!
I was actually looking at switching to The BTT octopus v1.1 in the future so I can do true dual z with dual extruder.
was it hard to swap it for a btt board? I assume you can’t just plug and play.
The swap is just about as easy as installing the stock board, except the cables aren’t perfect lengths and you have to look up a pin out for the board to put stuff in the right spot. The port in the front of the printer’s case also won’t line up, not will the mounting holes for the board itself; I just kinda janked mine in and it’s been working fine.
did you have to adjust the board firmware to get it to work with the Neptune 3?
Yes, I don’t know what (if any) firmware ships on BTT’s board, but their GitHub page has both Marlin and Klipper builds for all of their boards.
If you don’t know what Klipper is or how it works, now is a great time to learn. With the mods you’re mentioning it sounds like you’re very into printing as a hobby, Klipper is an eventuality. Within the first 15 minutes of having it set up you’ll be wondering why you ever used the stock firmware.