I’m running an Ender 3, and the microSD slot is difficult to get at; I keep dropping the card or struggling to get it aligned with the slot. I decided to try one of those microSD extender cables, just a straight-through pin-to-pin male microSD to female microSD flat ribbon cable setup.
I never ‘hot swap’ the SD card as this is a practice that carries risks. I insert the card, then turn on the printer. Never had any issues.
So I plugged in the cable male end, inserted the SD card in the female end, then turned on the printer. It sees the card, reads all the files, and accepts the print command. What happens is that after the bed and nozzle reach printing temp, the machine moves the nozzle to 0-0-0, then runs to the back of the bed and then brings it back forward, laying down a short run of filament (I’m assuming this is a nozzle purge or prime) as it goes… but it stops halfway to the front and reboots to the splash screen followed by the information screen. No way to resume the print, as no print is active now.
Tried this several times with the same file with the same result. Switched machine off and back on, it read the card, and I tried printing a different file. Same exact result. Another power-cycle reboot, then tried printing a “known good” file that printed successfully a few days prior, and once again, got the same reboot halfway through the pre-print nozzle purge.
Finally gave up and pulled the cable and plugged the card back into the semi-accessible card slot, and it prints fine, no issues whatever.
Is this a problem endemic to these extension cables, or some quirk of the Ender firmware that maybe a firmware upgrade (or switch to a different firmware like Klipper or Octoprint) might solve? Anyone else experiencing similar issues with extender cables?
sounds to me like you got a bad extension, If you can use the same file directly and it works problem should be in the cable. Unfortunately cannot test that one unless you or a friend of yours has a similar printer you can try your cable on his printer?
Thanks… that was my initial take. They bang these things out by the tens of thousands, and if they do QC sampling on 2% of them I’d be surprised. I did see a number of people complaining about having issues with them, and often switching firmware (Marlin to Klipper, for example, or Octoprint) seemed to clear up the issue. I’ll try another one or two before I give up on it.
I use an extender on a kingroon kp3, and it works just fine. I practically always hot swap cards on my enders though, but obviously not while printing, and have never had it cause an issue over 3 years on two ender 3s. Maybe I’m lucky, but I would find extremely annoying to power off the printer to remove the card if it is not reading or writing to it. Just my thoughts.
I’m not preaching or anything… I used to work with electronics quite a lot, and I’ve been bitten by both the ‘static bug’ and ‘hot-swap’ bugs often enough that I just don’t do it anymore. Bad enough when someone else is footing the bill! It can damage memory devices and electronics in general if they’re poorly protected. Had my fill of both. Your mileage may vary.
I won’t say it’s impossible, but it’s highly unlikely, as it won’t insert at all if it isn’t oriented correctly (not without a lot of force, anyway.) I was also careful to check the orientation before plugging it in. I did note that the cable did NOT lock into place like the card itself does. Made sure that this wasn’t the issue as well.
Those extension cables are not very good quality. I bought one almost 2 years ago and it didn’t work well so I put it aside. I saw several comments on the web about these. It’s seem to be hit and miss, you could get one that works, or not.
If you’re looking for quality premade cables, check out https://digikey.ca (or digikey.com if you’re anywhere else) and search for “Rectangular Cable Assemblies”.
They have a wide selection of premade cables with ones that should meet your needs in terms of connectors and cable length.
Not the cheapest option, but they’ll get the cables to you in 24 hours and they will be of good quality.
Replies are all appreciated! I’m on attempt #3 to pick up a cable from the 'zon, and so far none have worked. “Media failed to initialize” in cable socket, works fine with no cable. I’ve also learned that my machine (Ender 3) does not support 32 Gb cards, so that’s a likely part of this mix as well; have an 8 Gb SanDisk card on the way, so we’ll see if that makes any difference. I’ll post the results back here.
You might be able to get a 32 GB card to work if you format it as an 8 GB card
Digikey is a great resource but unless you know exactly where to find what you want or have a good understanding of electrical/electronic nomenclature good luck finding it. They have so much stuff it is difficult for us peasants to find anything .
That’s why I put in the note to look for “Rectangular Cable Assemblies” - If you had taken a moment to do that you’d see that once the page comes up, all you have to do is specify the number of pins and the cable length.
My line of thinking was that even a “peasant” could do that.
I’ve had a hard time finding things on DigiKey as well, and this time was no exception. They call something what they call it, and if you don’t use those terms it isn’t going to show. Rectangular cable assemblies yielded many, many returns, mostly rectangular pin header and sockets to other pin headers and sockets (like the old MFM and RLL hard drive cabling used to be, with the ‘master and slave’ jumpers and such.) I ended up chatting with someone, and she couldn’t find anything like that either.
HOWEVER… the last one I ordered from the 'zon WORKS!! None of the others did, even with the original 8 Gb card. This one works fine; it even locks in place in the socket, which none of the others did either. I’m happy with it; here’s the 'zon link to it if anyone’s interested: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PY7QCWV?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
It’s a long one, 48 cm, but that’s what I wanted anyway. It’s branded “Creality,” though I didn’t see the typical branding images they like to use. Matters not to me, as long as it works!
Your intentions where good but I guess you were wrong. I went to that page and I was presented with a bunch of options to pick the part I wanted, one of 94,687 different parts. Without more knowledge of these parts it is a needle in a haystack.
If you had a bolt you needed to replace and I suggested:
I bet that you and @MicroFarmModels could find it even though it has at least as many options as Digi-Key. You might not like having to learn about cables but it’s a big part of 3D printers and, arguably, more important as the nuts and bolts built into them. You don’t need to be an electrical engineer to match a cable but you do need to be willing to spend five minutes and look at what you have and try to match it to the options that are presented to you.
Where do you get the idea that you need to be a “preexisting commercial customer”? I’ve purchased product from them all the time and have for at least ten years.
I just made up a fake ID (“Fred Flintstone”) along with an order M3x6mm bolts and they ask for a company name when you provide shipping information but it’s flagged as optional.
Maybe you need a company name if you’re ordering via invoice but they’re happy to take credit cards from Canadians and delivery is, mostly, the next day.
Listen… how much do you know about plumbing? How well do you think you would fare if you were in mid-project and needed some obscure plumbing fitting to finish the job, and tried to find this fitting in a plumbing supply house? These things have specific (correct) industry terminology, and if you’re ignorant of that terminology, you’re going to spend a lot of time flailing around trying to stumble across what you’re looking for. I can go to other sites and search for “microSD extender cable” or something similar, and get all kinds of hits; try the same thing at DigiKey, and it says “Huh? No results.” Yes, if you have all kinds of time and patience and are willing to keep attacking the search from different angles using different terms, you might eventually find what you seek. I have better things to do with my time. I’m not an electrical engineer or electronics product producer, nor do I wish to become one. It’s DigiKey’s loss if they choose to make their site opaque to joe six-pack, but crystal clear to people who are in the industry and familiar with the terminology. And I don’t think it very civilized to start calling people ignorant peasants in this forum, either. You sound like some elitist snob. Don’t believe I’ll be frequenting this forum any more, if you’re typical of the people here.
I do quite a bit of plumbing around the house and end up in this situation all the time.
My response isn’t to throw up my hands and go to Amazon and buy something that sounds right. I do some research and go to a professional outlet (in my case it’s Noble Plumbing here in Toronto) to get the right parts.
That’s what I suggested here. In your posts you said “I used to work with electronics quite a lot” so I pointed out Digi-Key and how to search.
Now, seeing that I overestimated your capabilities I redid the search for “SD Card Extender” and got three results with this one might be best for you:
If you consider me to be an “elitist snob” because I want to make sure I purchase what I need and I do it from a reputable company and not some unknown on Amazon, then so be it.
