I think my SKR 1.2 Pro board went dead after only a few jobs.
I was cutting a wood piece on my MPCNC and all of a sudden the TFT35 E3 V3 went black. What is strange is that the board and the screen went dead (black out entirely) in the middle of a cut! It was almost done, missing final few commands.
I verified the Power is Ok - 12.4V, LEDs are lit as expected on SKR Pro (3.5v, 5v and 12v) and on TFT (d6) but… no sign of life in the board or responsiveness to the TFT screen or button…
I’ve already tried to connect using Repetier-Host but the software doesn’t connect anymore (It was perfectly connecting up until this event today).
Some details:
I’ve verified the fuses on the SKR (10A, 15A and 20A) and are all -fine.
This board is the standard sold by V1 just a couple months ago (Nov/2020).
There has been no Firmware updates - it was all working fine since shipped from V1.
There was nothing noticeable in the job itself to cause any surge or different behavior. In fact I had the job done a couple times in the previous 30 minutes without issues.
Any clues on how to start troubleshooting and diagnosing this issue?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Can you move the power jumper to the usb side and see if the board and screen come back on when connected to USB? It seems like maybe the 5V regulator broke. Did you test the fuses out of the board?
Just tested as suggested but no change with USB powered board. The only difference is that 12v LED does not light up (as expected) and the LED d4 right next to the USB port lights up (also as expected).
It is something power related. The screen doesn’t need the skr to run, if it went blank, it must be something killing power on the skr.
I would also have suggested it may just be the screen, but it isn’t connecting via RH.
Make sure you disconnect the endstops. You might even try disconnecting the drivers and motors, just to see if it will boot. It sounds like something is shorted.
Another wild choice is to try to flash it again. Just seeing that it switches from firmware.bin to firmware.cur would give us some hope.
We haven’t seen this issue before. So even if it is a bad board, it would be great to find out as much as we can.
If you’re hoping for a return or whatever, email Ryan about it. I have no idea what his policies are. Just what I’ve seen him do in the forums. I know he would rather debug it before sending it back (that’s easier for everyone).
Thanks for taking time to answer on these issues on a Saturday night. Really appreciate it.
I’ve unplugged one by one of the steppers and endstops. For every disconnect I would unplug the power, disconnect the cable and then power up again to check if the board reacted differently.
One by one I had no different result. The board LEDs would light up but the screen would be completely dark (including the 4 leds that illuminate the command button)…
Until I’ve disconnected all steppers and endstop.
Once the last stepper and endstop were disconnected (so essentially the SKR was totally unplugged to the MPCNC) the screen came back up! But, the solution has not yet landed…
The TFT now boots up and shows the menu as expected, but the darn “No Printer Attached” message comes up and there is no way to move anything or control anything from the TFT.
I then used Repetier-Host to connect to the SKR and it does connect beautifully - I can even control the steppers in all directions (although the TFT keeps telling the “No Printer Attached” and I can’t move anything from the TFT).
I had this message before on the first installation and the “fix” at the time was to unplug and plug all steppers/endstops again, it was probably a mal-connection because at some point after a few tries it worked and I just closed the enclosure and started testing. It seems this issue is back, or is somewhat different. I’ve tried to unplug cables on and off again but this time the message would not go away.
I also did one last test - I entered the “Marlin Mode” on the TFT and it is capable of controlling/moving the 3 axles. Nothing broken under Marlin Mode.
Does that mean this is not a SKR issue anymore, but only a TFT or a cable that connects the 2 of them?
Any ideas on how to test/diagnose why this message happens although the SKR IS connected and controlling the steppers??
I just ran several moves using the Marlin Mode and all works fine, including the auto-home with the XYZ endstops working just fine under Marlin Mode.
It seems only the Touch Mode is the problem.
Is there any specific checks or configs for the Touch Mode that prevents the steppers to be recognized?
The touch mode talks to the machine a lot like Repetier host does, except over the tx and rx pins instead of the usb.
The baud rate needs to be correct. The firmware on the skr needs to support that serial port, and the wires need to be connected the right way. There really isn’t much more that can go wrong.
Did you figure out what was shorting? Why it wasn’t booting but now is?
Thats good info. I’ve changed the baud rate up and down but it still doesn’t work. Left at 25000.
Ive also flashed the TFT firmware to the 2.6 E3V3 and it consumed the update as expected. But still same “no printer attached message”.
I could not pinpoint why it wasn’t booting before. I only know it worked after unplugging and restoring power. My guess is that there is something else not working that we cant find by these simple maneuvers.
I will build&test new flat cables between the SKR and TFT tomorrow.
One question remains a puzzle: why does the TFT controls the SKR just fine under Marlin Mode and not as Touch Mode? It has to be some config on the Touch mode, not a cable. Right?
I found the problem - it was indeed the serial cable (black) that had one of the wire tips not connecting properly. I’ve done a fresh connector (replacing the flimsy original) with proper orientation guidelines and slapped in the TFT and BAM! Works like a charm.
My guess is that eventually these boards needs some on-off cycles to figure out what is missing and what has been re-connected.
In the end I believe that one of these connectors gave away during the job which made the SKR freeze somehow. Once I’ve removed all connectors and turned back on again the SKR was able to connect to the TFT by pure luck, until that flimsy connector gave away again, making the TFT behavior kind of erratic.
Thanks @Jeffeb3 for the valuable info regarding how each cable relate to each TFT Mode - this was crucial to identify the root cause, which was a simple bad connector.
Once reconnected it took a few cycles to the TFT finally speak to the SKR as expected. They are now a happy couple again!
I’m really glad you’re making it dirty again. But in my understanding, there is almost nothing persistent across boots. Unless you send M500, nothing should change on the skr, and it doesn’t know if it is booting for the first time, or the 5000th time. Same with the screen. My guess is that it just took a little time to connect, and it took a few tries before the timing was good and the wait was long enough to see it.
My statement was based on a test I did here just before it finally worked.
At some point I had lost all confidence that the TTF was operational so I also tried to connect the serial cable on the SWD input - knowing this could ruin my TFT… And by doing this I noticed the screen “came out of the dark”. The screen get really fuzzy and you can tell that something is not right, but then I immediately put the Serial cable back again on the RS232 socket and the screen finally worked as expected. It took me a few other tries to then see there was a missing wire connection on the flimsy end of the serial cable.
I believe this “proposital error” made the TFT kind of change mode or status and then accept the RS232 connection again. It was not accepting or changing the behavior before.
Or I’m just lucky that way.
Either way I appreciate your help. Incredible machine. I’m looking forward to cut my first real “masterpiece”!