New to the A5S

Earthbound

I picked up most of an A5S this week. It was a customer return due to shipping damage and was missing a few minor items - SD card, spool holder, calibration sheet. Nothing major. The spool holder is a minor inconvenience, but I am printing a replacement on another printer as I type this post.

The damage was limited to a couple of scuffs on the main housing and slight bending of the thinnest areas of the gantry that run under the base. I opened the base unit to clean out some bits of styrofoam and checked cables, belt, etc. while inside. I straightened the bends and assembled the two major parts with no problem.

I'm not impressed with the factory firmware and hope to move to the community firmware ASAP. When I try loading it, it hangs at 100%. Tried the "released" 2.0d and betas. All give same hanging result. Was able to reload the factory firmware.

The touchscreen has very inconsistent response. I glanced at a couple of discussions but have not delved in - seems there may need to be some shielding needed around a cable?

I did an initial bed leveling by using the Move menu. The Level menu does not seem to consistently go to corners. Get similar erratic behavior on the Home menu, where All sometimes only homes X. Might just be touchscreen glitches.

I hope I can raise the Z limit switch. With Z homed and the bed leveled, the bed brushes the heads of the screws holding the Y axis motor.

The bed is slightly domed, so mesh leveling will be helpful if I can get the community firmware loaded. If the manufacturer has somehow managed to lock the control board so it won't take non-factory firmware, I will be tempted to just swap in a Duet.

Samuel Pinches

Hi @Earthbound ,

I'm certain that JGAurora has not made any changes to deliberately lock out the custom firmware. It could be some kind of hardware fault. Have you tried following the steps to compile your own firmware?

The front panel has three elements: SD card, touch screen, and LCD display. The LCD display has been confirmed to have glitching for some people with the custom firmware, unless shielding is added.

The position of the touchscreen bracket behind the front plastic sheet can also affect the touch response, it may be worth trying to move the touchscreen bracket further away from the front, or to cut a hole in the front plastic to remove that additional layer altogether.

Earthbound

Printed up a spool holder on Apollo (a Rostock Max v2) and set about trying to print something on the A5S, running on the factory firmware.

It sees the SD card and files. Lets me choose a file. Asks for confirmation that I want to print. When I select YES, it takes me to a print progress display. Then nothing else happens. Can still navigate around the few things that are available while printing.

I conclude that the gcode is not getting processed. The first line is M140 S60 and the bed temp is not being set.

Samuel Pinches

Try re-formatting the SD card. If that fails, try a different SD card.

Earthbound

I tried that first. 8GB and 16GB cards. FAT32.

Samuel Pinches

Sadly, I don't see many other options than to contact JGAurora ... I think this motherboard should be replaced by them at a minimum. Even if you do want to go to another motherboard eventually, I would try to at least get it working with stock hardware first, even just to make troubleshooting easier down the track.

Samuel Pinches

Maybe try the previous factory firmware as well? I have not personally tried the latest version that you mentioned.