I picked up a faulty KE (in actual fact the plate says SE but has had a KE screen and print head fitted - maybe other not obvious things). The visible damage was to the print head - it was a molten mass with the wires to the temperature sensor broken). I tried powering it on but, not unexpectedly, got a temperature sensor error. I therefore replaced the head and ran it through all of the diagnostics with no errors. I tried to print a test but realised that there was no filament coming out. I tried to extrude / retract the filament, but the stepper motor just vibrated - interestingly this only happens the first time after booting, and after that the stepper motor doesn’t respond to commands. I detached the motor and ran it away from the filament feeder, but still just got a buzzing / vibration. I tried an alternative stepper and got the same. I had read about reversing the two inner connectors, and this time it did run - I’m not sure how much torque it had and it still only responded the first time. I reinstalled it and lubricated the feeder but still can’t get it to feed.
Is there anything I’m missing or is it likely to be a board fault / not enough power?
Sounds like a Frankenstein I would build, I take it it is running Klipper and not Marlin. Does it have the KE motherboard, ie devoid of SDcard/USB interfaces?
I have had it down to just the stepper to exclude the extruder, but I also cleaned that up and reseated the tension screw / spring. The issue definitely seems to be the stepper, and I’ve messed about with every possible (I think) pin configuration but it either just vibrates or moves but I guess low torque. The configuration it had when I got it just vibrates (as did a second I tried) and I only got any movement when I switched the middle two pins. I’ve circuit tested it to identify the pairs.
Initially it had a sequence (from the top) of blue-red-green-black, but the one that seems to work slightly is blue-green-red-black. The pairs are blue-red and green-black.
Therefore, I’m leaning to a power issue or control, but I’m puzzled as sorting out things that work, or don’t, are easier than these quirky ones.
The puzzling thing is that the stepper only works once after a restart - is this a normal thing / error detection which stops any further commands being sent?
OK - I think fixed. I started going over all of the connectors on the board and found that one of the pins in the main ribbon feeing the print head was bent down so not engaging. Managed to straighten it and now it appears to be working fine. Thanks for the help @Bonfireman
@Bonfireman I guess not the same topic but along the lines of determining the issue with this printer. I don’t seem to be able to get a base layer to adhere, and I’ve tried various filaments. At best I get some printing (although very whispy) and the table can even throw the object off, mostly just leaves unattached bits on the plate. I thought these should be ok out of the box (but obviously not damaged / repaired!) and there doesn’t seem to be a manual way to zero it - I turned off calibration and tried building up a platform using masking tape, but not much better - at some stage I thought the nozzle might show scuff marks on the tape, but not so far. The one thing I noticed is that the head is at an angle - is this correct? All other levels are fractions of a degree and consistent.
Thanks - just checked and the Z is showing -3.63mm - is that calculated by the auto-levelling or a factory default? I know I should RTFM since you provided a link, but does moving towards 0.0 reduce the gap?
minus is down so yes reduces gap (but not on another of my printers, head to bed not bed to head, darn confusing) I think my V3SE is at -0.24, not sure on my V3KE, but even that auto value might not be enough. Print something with a wide skirt and dial the z-offset in. After that leave it be, don’t autocalibrate.
Have now got a goodish base layer but above that is a bit of an loose upper section - just crumbles in the fingers. I’m not familiar with the Creality software so might try Cura.
Check your rotation distance, can you open the printer.cfg and confirm that the extruder rotation_distance is 7.53? I think also your z-offset is way too high and possibly you are underextruding, clogged nozzle perhaps.
Just for clarification, if I do a factory reset on one of these printers, and it has stock components, shouldn’t it operate without ‘tweaking’, even if not optimised, or can there be codes and configs left on it which aren’t reset?
@Bonfireman please can you give me an idea of what to physically change / modify to correct what you mentioned above - I’m not used to commercial printers and what you can change. I have tried the calibration checks in the program but all give a similar output - ok base level but then nothing solid above. I tried the boat model as ‘solid’ but it was still the same. Are there any components which could be faulty, or is this purely a configuration which has got messed up.