Dead Replicator? Won't start, won't restart at all....

[jsch...@gophoto.com]

See attachment for pic of the dead MakerBot Replicator.  (LCD panel showing 2 black bars & not responding).

Background:

4 day old (newish) bot.

Printed ~10 things just fine (with the usual newbie troubles of platform leveling & peeling).

Printed most with SD card & just recently used USB cable.

With USB cable connection to MacBook, the first print went fine.  But, when I tried to print another through ReplicatorG, it didn't respond at all. (The first time, it went right to work, the second time, it just sat there for a few minutes.)  I ran out of patience & disconnected the USB cable, intending to go back to SD card as the method.  That's when the unit "hung".  

I turned off the power of the MakerBot Replicator,disconnected the USB, restarted the ReplicatorG software.  But, the Replicator is showing 2 bars, & not responding.  I tried removing the power cord, waiting a good minute, & even pressing the "reset" button on the back.  Still hung....

Any suggestions?

[Andrew Plumb]

Yes.  Contact sup...@makerbot.com since this will be non-trivial to debug here and could be a simple hardware failure case that they've seen before.

Andrew.

--

"The future is already here.  It's just not very evenly distributed" -- William Gibson

Me: http://clothbot.com/wiki/

[PropellerScience]

While you're contacting Makerbot you could try to reload the firmware.
Maybe the bootloader is still OK. Bars across a LCD like that means
it's not getting data. I'd tell you to spit in it and give it a whup,
that only worked in the good old days.

[Jetty]

Also, if you still have the SDCard plugged in, try removing that
followed by a reset.

[Doogiekr]

+1 to Jetty's solution... I had a similar problem a few weeks ago with mine and this fixed it.

[Jetty]

And if it is that, you likely need to reformat your SD Card (has to be
FAT16). If the format doesn't solve it,
then it's likely it's a faulty SD Card (I had one)

[Cymon]

I had a similar problem a while back. Talk to makerbot support. If you had what I had nothing short of a whole system hardware replacement will fix it.

[Martin Galese]

If you heard a loud pop prior to the failure, one of the voltage regulators may have failed.  I've had that happen twice now, and I'm waiting on my second MightyBoard replacement.  The symptoms for me involved a dead machine with just the MightBoard cooling fan running.  I think my LCD flickered some, though, not the black bars you are describing.

  

According to support, they have identified a short in the X endstop cable that leads to this issue.  I'm supposed to receive both a new board and a new X endstop cable shortly.

Good luck,

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Martin Galese

[jsch...@gophoto.com]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I've tried updating firmware to no avail.  The MakerBot team is very responsive & will send me a new motherboard.  In the meantime, "my precious" is idle!  

@propellorScience:  I believe that's called a "technical tap" aka, "Percussive Maintenance", & even Hans Solo used that to fix the warp drive on the Millenium Falcon.  I dare not try that on a new MakerBot though!

What's better, the MakerBot, the small US company making it, or the community around it?  All stellar!

[Gary Crowell]

Is there something specific about the X-endstop that can be inspected/fixed to avoid the 'pop'.  Is it the cable or the endstop board?  Is it unique to the X-stop, or is the same failure potential on the other stops as well?

Gary

----------------------------------------------
Gary A. Crowell Sr., P.E., CID+

Linkedin  Elance  KE7FIZ

[Martin Galese]

Gary,

My understanding is that there is a potential short in the cable between the X-endstop and the board, but that the X-stop itself is actually fine.

Thanks,

Martin Galese

[Jetty]

Mine did the same, and I was sent a replacement X Stop Cable and
Board.

I measured the cable for a short, even tried flexing it, but couldn't
see a short.
I replaced it with the ones I was sent just to be sure.

I also noticed that the inverter for the RGB LED was nuked too. Not
sure if was nuked when the regulator
blew, because 24V got on the main 5V line, or if the FET took out the
inverter due to
gate capacitance. I tried replacing the regulator, but the board had
taken some pretty serious damage
when the regulator blew, even the 1280 was nuked.

If you still have the old board lying around, look around the RGB
connector to
see if the inverter is blown too.

On Aug 22, 9:12 am, Martin Galese <mar...@galese.net> wrote:
> Gary,
>

> My understanding is that there is a potential short in the *cable *between

> the X-endstop and the board, but that the X-stop itself is actually fine.
>
> Thanks,
>

> On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 10:48 PM, Gary Crowell <garyacrowel...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Is there something specific about the X-endstop that can be
> > inspected/fixed to avoid the 'pop'.  Is it the cable or the endstop board?
> >  Is it unique to the X-stop, or is the same failure potential on the other
> > stops as well?
>
> > Gary
>
> > On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 7:56 AM, Martin Galese <mar...@galese.net> wrote:
>
> >> If you heard a loud pop prior to the failure, one of the voltage
> >> regulators may have failed.  I've had that happen twice now, and I'm
> >> waiting on my second MightyBoard replacement.  The symptoms for me involved
> >> a dead machine with just the MightBoard cooling fan running.  I think my
> >> LCD flickered some, though, not the black bars you are describing.
>
> >> According to support, they have identified a short in the X endstop cable
> >> that leads to this issue.  I'm supposed to receive both a new board and a
> >> new X endstop cable shortly.
>
> >> Good luck,
>

> > Linkedin <http://www.linkedin.com/in/garyacrowellsr>  Elance<http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgaryacrowellsr%2Eel...>
> >   KE7FIZ <http://www.arrl.org>

[Brian Tseng]

I got something similar to this today. After I replug in my power, it just shut down to this. 
I begin to heard a loud beep everytime I start my machine.