X-axis error: became unidirectional

sasa

Kinda frustrated. Yesterday changed the heating element (which is not a fast exercise with MKII from Inventbox installed). Everything was fine but when I turned machine back on and tried to home it from front panel, head moved right instead of left and started rattling since there is no stopper switch there.

My X and Y axes are reversed after steppers upgrade, so I turned it off and tried to check it by moving the head using move menu from front panel. The head moves when left or right buttons are pressed and moving distances are correct but it moves only in one direction (to the right) regardless of direction requested. Connection is OK, no fast moves of X axis during replacement. Z and Y work OK.

Suspect issues with main board: reading of temperature are also off for head and table. While -15 on the head is probably caused by crushed sensor, +388 from the plate is kinda unexpected especially since I have not touched it.

Any advices / suggestion? I am taking a break from printer fixing for at least 24 hours

Enrique Riri

I suspect you had an issue with your head temp sensor.  What happens, on the original sensor, one of the wire disconnect on soldered junction rear the screw of the head and makes a shortcut with the head, who is connected to chassis and by the way to earth/ground of the main power (220v). So, this shortcut distroy immediately the input on the motherboard. Immediately you see very Strange temp on the display (no sense values), who can affect also the value of the bed temp display. 
At this stage, you can be sure you will need to replace the temp sensor and motherboard.
Happened to me twice with different A5. Finnally to prevent this, i bought a new head from Aliexpress, where the temp sensor is a cylinder screwed on the head too like the head resistor.

As the temp sensor is connected to the CPU of the mother board, if it burns, normal you have hazardous mouvements on the other parts of your printer.

This is an important issue, nobody talks about, but real.

Hope this helps

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/12V-24V-50W-V6-heating-kit-New-arrival-with-0-4mm-nozzle-100cm-Cable-3D-printer/32890133650.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4dpLuw9j

Also a good link for motherboard where you van by the same way include the TMC drivers to quit your printer:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/MKS-Gen-L-V1-0-Integrated-control-PCB-Board-Reprap-Ramps-1-4-support-A4988-DRV8825/32890185949.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4dX3HvMz

sasa

Thanks a lot!

Ordered spares. And placed order for Creality CR10s Pro which was on sale.

sasa

Yeah, it really was motherboard. One of the wires from thermal sensor was touching the heting block wall. When I took the sensor out of the block its reading were OK but the main board is fried - X axis and temp sensor for hotbed

Now waiting for spares

sasa

OK, replaced main board. My thanks to Enrique for links, it arrived VERY  fast and quality is great.

Temp readings are OK now, both on bed and extruder sensor  ... but X axis still moves only to the right. I probably should replace stepper drivers (still have old ones in the box) but maybe there is something else I can check before opening the printer once again?

Enrique Riri

check wires and for Simply test, 
You can exchange X driver with Y driver. If the PB switch to other Axis, then your driver is faulty too. Good luck

sasa

Thanks again, will try today. The most annoying thing is that extruder termistor is alive and works fine so I am seriously tempted to insulate it with silicon and use it again - replacement head has not arrived yet

sasa

Yes, replacing stepper drivers did the trick. It is now working but SO loud

I think that old main board may be re-used by moving bed sensor to another port.

So when ordering spare board, order new stepper drivers!

Enrique Riri

Don't forget to adjust the right voltage to each stepper if you have trimer on the drivers boards.
The best thing is to replace the crappy drivers too much Noisy witrh TMC 2208. This is the must and you will only hear fans. There are some topics and YouTube videos explaining step by step how to install these new drivers.

sasa

I had setup with 2130 before, so I simply ordered couple more to be on the safe side .

OK, so to summarize.

What would I do differently or something to do while you are waiting for spares to arrive:

1. Remove sensor which was causing short-circuit from heating block, check wiring, replace if necessary

2. Check sensors readings - if only one is wrong, try to move it to third sensor connection (guide available in Wiki).

3. Replace stepper on axis which is moving wrong.

But order spare mainboard and steppers. And order proposed  heating block upgrade (new heating block, sensor-heater combo and silicon sock) which is definitely much safer solution.

A5 is actually quite robust and mostly good quality. It survived lots of my novice mistakes during upgrades and tinkering, was disassembled and reassembled more than 10 times and still works. Only thermal sensor short was 70% design problem.

Enrique Riri

My main experience : I had several differeent printers in the last 5 years and I spend hundred hours around trying tho get acceptable prints. I search to get a good printer with less spend time to fix this or that with a good pricing compromise. And finnally I found JGaurora A5. But….
No magic anywhere, you get the quality for the price you paid for. This is Always like that.
Chassis is OK, but around, you need to improve the printer parts to go to a good acceptable level and be very happy with it.
So what I recommend, if you want to stay with your printer for long, long time:

Add mosfeet card for hotend and bed
Add Auto ON/OFF card to shutdown your printer with printing finished
Replace hotend with more accurate one (specially for hotend temp probe)
Change the fanduct with other more accurate (Thingiverse).
Add filament cleaner spoon (you have some models on Thingiverse) 
Replace the original Step drivers with TMC2130 or TMC2208
Add fan to cold the new stepper drivers
Add heatsink on the steppmotors (specially extruder one)
Get Lubrifiant for your bearings 
Use silent fans (optionnal dépends where your printer is) 
Flash firmwares with the ones on this community

And  
Have some spares available 
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/12V-24V-50W-V6-heating-kit-New-arrival-with-0-4mm-nozzle-100cm-Cable-3D-printer/32890133650.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4dPxXwGs

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/MKS-Gen-L-V1-0-Integrated-control-PCB-Board-Reprap-Ramps-1-4-support-A4988-DRV8825/32890185949.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.221e4c4djxE1UH

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Makerbase-MKS-PWC-V2-0-auto-off-after-printing-end-module-power-monitor-controllor-3D-printer/32932408325.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4d2Yz3vj

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3d-printing-touch-screen-RepRap-controller-panel-MKS-TFT28-V1-2-display-color-TFT-support-WIFI/32808421021.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4d1Bs0wF

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5PCS-lot-3D-Printer-Parts-Makerbot-MK7-MK8-40-40-11mm-Heatsink-Cooling-Fin-Aluminum-Heat/32798847216.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.42864c4d4QQwHI


Today, I'm more than happy with the Jgaurora A5 , i have 3 units at home working hard. I'll never go to A5S, JG changed their Policy closing their marchine proprietary now and no mods.  What was improvced by MKS, they replaced their old V3 LCD with V4 (new generation), where the PCB was re-designed (probably to correct important issues and improve the faults on the V3).

Forgot to say : I used in the past some free sw to slice and finnally i jumped to Simplify3D. This is really the must accurate SW i found in the market too. CURA is fine, but messing a lot of things on it and as it's free, so you cannot expect to get fine tunning functions with it. But here, this is another story; people Always claim for free things 
Hope this helps.

sasa

Got mine Creality 10S PRO. Cannot compare print quality (mine came with defective proximity sensor  AAAAAAARRRGGH) but some JGAurora design features are really impressive when compared to Creality. Quite ingenious cost and corners cutting, much better starting machine than CR10S. But CR10S has second Z-stepper, bed insulation (!!!!)  and LARGE bed leveling knobs.

Going back to my woes:

I finally got a perfect first layer with auto-leveling but my hotend is clogging all the time now   Not the nozzle. not the junction between nozzle and throat but the place where filament enters the throat. Feels like it is overheating during first print and then solidifies and clogs the hole

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