Error: SD init fail

[Tim]

First, before I say anything about this error, let me say that I finally got my M2 on Friday (Jan. 25, ordered on Nov. 9), and in spite of being dragged to several activities away from home all weekend long, I managed to get it finished by tonight (Sunday), which was a total build time of maybe 8 or 9 hours, made longer than necessary by having to take breaks.  I echo all the things that have been said before, namely about incorrect and disorganized instructions, and am particularly surprised that they all remain true in spite of the fact that they have been posted again and again on this group.  MakerGear could save themselves, and their customers, much time and effort by simply making the corrections of errors and addition of missing information that has been posted over and over.  Namely things like the missing instructions for the z-stop installation (still can only be found by finding the post from this group where it was mentioned, and following the links;  I can't find the link from the MakerGear website), and the fact that half the instructions are in (nice) PDF format, the rest a bunch of pictures posted haphazardly on the website.  Half the printed parts were too tight for fitting the hex nuts and needed to be routed out with a Dremel.  I will make another post with a summary of my whole build experience.  For an experienced hobbyist, not too bad overall, but the failure to correct known errors is puzzling.  I think that if the instructions were more complete, correct, and organized, the average build time could be below 5 hours.

The bottom line is that having followed all instructions very carefully, and consulting others' posted build experiences and the Google group and Wiki whenever I was confused, and by dealing with an ill-fitting base plate by removing the rubber angle brackets and cutting them back on the inside edge by about 1mm, I finally ran all the tests, found the bed perfectly flat after a minimum of tweaking, and printed the bracelet test print.  Perfect, absolutely perfect.  No stringy bits (except at the start and end points), the plastic adhered to the glass bed as expected, and it looks great!

However, I remain with one unsolved issue. 

There was a post from a while back from somebody who got this "SD init fail" message whenever the M2 started, and it would never read the SD card.  Apparently I have the same problem.  I checked the positions of the cable ends against the notes on the Wiki, all okay there.  I even tried all four possible positions in case the notes were wrong, but no luck.  I checked the SD card on the computer, and the card itself is fine and the files are all there on it.  Does this mean that I have a bad SD card reader?  I have not gone so far as to drop an oscilloscope probe on the SPI pins to see if the problem is at the RAMBo board or the SD reader daughterboard, I guess I'll do that next.  It's not a show-stopper issue because I can print just fine by downloading through the USB interface, but I would like to see the SD card reader working.

[Tom Ketola]

On mine, the cable was the reverse of the way it was marked in the directions.  When I originally had the SD init failed message, I had no red light on the SD reader until I inserted a card.  Once I reversed the one end of the cable, the red light on the SD card reader stayed lit with or without a card, and it was able to read from the card.  It sounds like you've tried swapping the end of the cable, but how do your lights work?  Is it ever lighting up?

[Tim]

I didn't know there was a light on the reader itself.  No, it is not lighting up.  I will probe the contacts to see if it is receiving power.

[Tim]

I am quite sure that I tried the cable all four ways, but this time, I flipped the 6-pin connector and it now works.  I'm not sure what happened there.  However, it should be mentioned that either the instructions on the M2 electronics Wiki page are wrong, or else somebody marked my cable backwards.  On the Wiki page, it clearly states that the 6-pin connector should be placed with the marked wire on the pin closest to the edge of the daughterboard, the pin that is marked on the daughterboard as MISO (SPI master in/slave out).  Seems clear enough.  But I could only get it to work by putting the marked wire on the side away from the board, on the pin marked 5V on the daughterboard.

In other people's experience, is it the instructions that are wrong, or the marked wire on the connector?

Note that in the picture accompanying the Wiki page, the wires are colored, whereas I got a bundle of white wires with one marked up with a green marker.

[Tim]

I assume from your post that you meant that it was the 6-pin cable that you reversed, and that like me you found that the marked wire needed to be on the 5V pin.  Did you have the white bundle of wired with the pen-marked wire on the end?  Could it be that MakerGear only changed from the colored wire bundle to the white wire bundle in the latest batch of M2s, and that's why the error in the instructions hasn't been mentioned before?

[Charles]

On Monday, January 28, 2013 7:56:15 AM UTC-7, Tim wrote:

I assume from your post that you meant that it was the 6-pin cable that you reversed, and that like me you found that the marked wire needed to be on the 5V pin.  Did you have the white bundle of wired with the pen-marked wire on the end?  Could it be that MakerGear only changed from the colored wire bundle to the white wire bundle in the latest batch of M2s, and that's why the error in the instructions hasn't been mentioned before?

 

 

 

I've posted this link in other  places here but this guy had the same issues http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1789243

[John Wachtel]

That link was a lifesaver.  I could not have done it without that guide.  

I too have the sd card reader error.  I also tried all 4 combinations of the pin orientations.  Maybe if I go back and flip it now it will work like yours Tim :)

[John Wachtel]

Following up on my last post here, I was not as lucky as Tim.  Are the connectors damaged at all if plugged in incorrectly the first time?  Have there been issues with the SD card readers beyond the mislabeling?

[Tim]

I had mine plugged in backwards (i.e., according to the instructions) initially, and powered up that way numerous times, and even made a few test prints over the USB connection before fixing the SD card.  That's only one data point, but mine at least was not affected by being plugged in and powered up in all of the four possible configurations.

[Rick Pollack]

John - the reader could be bad. email karen for a replacement.

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 1:24 PM, Tim <rtedw...@gmail.com> wrote:

I had mine plugged in backwards (i.e., according to the instructions) initially, and powered up that way numerous times, and even made a few test prints over the USB connection before fixing the SD card.  That's only one data point, but mine at least was not affected by being plugged in and powered up in all of the four possible configurations.

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