My extruder stepper motor stopped working shortly after a 2nd print when I went to start my 3rd print. I have done the following troubleshooting steps but now I am lost for what is going on.
1- I disassembled the extruder to check for clogs. None found.
2 - Tested continuity on both coils of the extruder stepper motor. Both tested good.
2 - Heated up the hot end to 200C and through the touch screen tried to move the filament in and out. No movement of the stepper motor.
3 - Tested X, Y, Z and E test pads on the motherboard and confirmed correct voltage.
4 - Unplugged the cable of the extruder motor and checked the extruder side of the connection and got roughly 24.5 volts on each of the 4 pins.
5 - Updated firmware on both the motherboard and the display and no change. (I do like the upgrade) lol
I am at a loss to the problem. Any help or direction is much appreciated. TIA.
Hmm that’s an interesting one, you have already covered most of my preliminary troubleshooting steps. The next thing i would probably try would be to grab an extra motor if you have one around and see if that spins when plugged in. If it spins you know that something went wrong with the motor, if not it must be something else.
I forgot to add that I did try another extruder head from a buddy but I had to use my hot end and his did not have a CR touch on it. I am not sure if not having the CR touch connected would make a difference but I heated it up to 200C and it tried to run 200 mm of filament with just a piece of filament in the filament sensor and the motor did not move.
He mentioned about the driver on the motherboard. Does anyone know how to test a driver?
How brave are you? Do you have steady hands and a multimeter? around the 1 min. mark they start showing how to test the drivers on the mother board, and by about 1:25 or so, they show the voltage range. From Creality’s Service tutorials… https://youtu.be/ZA9p4RHGDFY. Good luck!
I would process of elimination that one. Plug the extruder motor into a different axis (XYZ), mechanically disconnect the other motors as a safety precaution, and try to jog the machine. If the extruder does nothing on any of the axis, it’s not the board.
If the motor moves on all but the extruder plug, the board’s got a problem.
If the motor moves unpredictably/does and doesn’t work at random: wiring issue, replace extensions (this happens to my E3 about once every 3 years)
Obligatory be careful probing a board if you go that way, make sure the test probes are fine enough to not short out pins/traces on the board, that can go bad real fast.
That is the video I followed in the steps above but not aware that that is how you test the drivers. BTW the video has the Z and E backwards in the text showing the ranges.
I got the following voltages on my board.
Z = 0.94
Y = 1.19
X = 1.20
E = 1.50
And all extruder motor pins check out at 24.5 volts approx.
So it sound like my board is OK. I may not have done a proper change out on the motor so I am going to do a complete swap of the motor and see if that fixes the problem.
I would have tried that but the plugs on the extruder motor on and ender 3 S1 PLUS are only 4 pins and all other motors are 6 pins so this one is not interchangeable.
The motor does not move at all.
Thanks about being careful and yes I always am as I have tested and soldered many boards in my day. I am just not up on stepper motors and how they relate to the mainboard. But this last few days has sure taught me a lot about them.
UPDATE: Problem solved. After I rec’d a set of needle point probes for my multimeter I was able to find that I had 2 pins with no continuity in the flat cable going from the extruder to the main board. I got my hands on a new cable and replaced it. Motor is now turning in both directions.
HAPPY ME!!!
Thanks for leading me in the right direction. I sure learned a lot on this one.
