Hi everyone, I have a Ender 5 Pro for a couple of years now. It has been working great until yesterday. I concluded a small print about a week with no issues. I loaded up the printer yesterday and was hit with the no display issue (lights up, but no characters) and hoping the hive mind can help me out.
I have tried the following based on what I read in other threads.
Reseated all cables to the display and the main controller board.
Tried the SD firmware update, but nothing changed on the display.
I tried to connect via USB but the printer isn’t being detected on my laptop. The printer display lights up, the same as when its turned on.
I am wondering if anyone else has any suggestions before I purchase a replacement board.
Possibly a broken wire running between MB and the display?
If you exhaust all other potential problems and there isn’t an obvious fault then it has to be an electronic problem. Either the motherboard or the display has gone facockta.
It sounds like the same problem I had. The printer starts up them nothing. I bought a motherboard and a screen. I’ve still got the screen in the original packaging; once I installed the motherboard it started right up. Still running like a dream and I went with a V4.2.7 motherboard so it also much more quiet for only a few dollars more.
The one part that worries me about this is that the computer is not seeing the printer when you hook it VIA USB. That one is the part I do not like.
If you cannot get it to connect via USB almost all the time its the mainboard. When you connect your serial terminal just make sure all other pieces of software attempting to use a serial port are closed.
CURA, PRUSA, YAT, PRonterface, all these need to be closed when connecting. In addition open your device manager, LEt us know if when you plug in the printer does a new “COM” port appear or nothing changes?
Thanks Jim. I have reached out to 3D Printing Canada to see what they have in stock and going to go from there. Seems like the motherboard is the issue.
Thank you for the welcome. I didn’t see anything in the device manager change. I did make sure each app was closed, but will confirm again tonight. I am going to try another laptop this evening just to make sure as well.
Was there anything that you changed on the printer before it went all goofy on you? If there were any modification made something could have happened unintentionally.
Do you have a screen from another printer that you know works? If so you may want to try to plug it into your current printer to see if that works for you.
There was nothing that I could thing about. I did a minor print (2 hours), with no issues and then when I tried last week I hit the no display.
I have checked it again and on the device manager I can see USB-Serial CH340 (COM3) now showing in device manager. However, when I try to update the firmware with the slicer I get a Firmware can’t be updated because there is no connection to the printer. I made sure to have no other instances or Cura or anything open.
Drawing straws now. Unfortunately, I am the only one in our group with a 3D printer, I’m going to have to check a few local groups and see if anyone has a spare screen I can test. Not sure what else to try other then ordering a new display and maybe motherboard.
I suspect your problem is with your controller board (what you’re calling a “motherboard”). Without more information (ie what controller board you have) there really is no way to help you debug exactly what’s happening.
As you are seeing the USB serial port, I believe the controller board has a serial to USB interface chip (ie no USB built into the MCU on the controller board) and that is why you’re seeing the port in device manager.
If you have the firmware, have you tried to load it onto an SD Card and install it that way again?
Depending on your skill level, you could install PuTTY or Tera Term onto your PC and try communicating with the controller directly but I’m pretty sure you won’t get any response which indicates that the controller board is not working.
Just trying to rule out some causes of the board possibly dying here, have you had any recent power spikes or brown outs that you are aware of? Had the machine started to exhibit any weird behavior prior to kicking the bucket, often dying motherboards will start to exhibit intermittent erratic behavior before something goes wrong.
Have you tried connecting the printer to an interface such as pronterface to see if you can operate the machine through your computer. I have included a tutorial below for how to connect your printer.
Thank you for the reply. I’m pretty sure its my control board. I joined up with a local 3D printer group and was able to get a LCD to test and received the same results. I tried updating the firmware with an SD within the printer but nothing happens. I downloaded Ponterface. COM3 appears in device manager, however when I try to connect with Ponterface all I get is “connecting…” and it doesn’t go any further. With Cura or the Creality slicer, I couldn’t connect to the printer at all. I think the control board is the only option now.
This was a little strange as there were no evidence of any issues. The printer was off for a couple weeks between uses. I’m not aware of any power spikes, bumps etc.
I’m thinking I will look at the 4.2.7 control board as an upgrade. Unless there are better options?
Thanks everyone that took the time to comment and reply. Really appreciate it.
Sorry to hear that, that definitely wasn’t the result I was hoping for. I would definitely recommend the 4.2.7 board for an upgrade, the only other board I could think of that you might like would be an skr mini e3. But those board require a little bit more work to get going.
Hey everyone, I wanted to thank you all for your assistance. I ordered a new board and mistakenly ordered a E3 Free-runs TMC2209. When I was reviewing the site I ordered it from (3D Printing Canada had none in stock) for some reason I thought it was the 4.2.7. Anywho, not sure how I mucked that up. I was able to install without any difficultly and the display is back online. However it is programmed for an Ender 3 ( I have Ender 5 Pro). I did some research and it looks like you have to compile your own firmware. I haven’t done this before and wondering if anyone has any experience, pointers? Or should I just return it and get a 4.2.7?
I have compiled firmware in the past for many different printers. The first time can be very daunting but you get used to it after a while! Trying to explain it can be a bit tricky, I have included a link to the popular th3d firmware for the ender 5 pro and skr e3 mini v3 below. There is an included guide for getting it going as well as many other firmware versions for different printers/ mainboards.
