I'm having a similar issue with my Mini-Rambo board as well. Mine is a homebuilt Lulzbot Mini.
Anyway, the extruder was working fine, except today when i had a failed print.but not as expected. It seems the extruder gear was not moving well and had a kind of jerky motion to it so it was not extruding correctly. I figured it was probably the little gear that was loose and i think it was a little loose, but that did not fix the problem.
After i shutdown my machine and repowered it to test again the motor now does not have the jerky motion, but it makes a strange higher pitch noise that i have never heard before (almost sounds like the motor is broken), but the gear moves, although i suspect it's not moving as far as it should. Like perhaps not enough current is getting to the motor.
I tried switching the cable to the x-axis driver and "moving my x-axis" to test the extruder and the extruder works fine and actually sounds different. Considering the motor works fine on a different driver and there is an audible difference i am assuming my extruder driver on my Mini Rambo board is in the process of going bad and probably at this point unusable. My Mini Rambo does not have heat sinks on the stepper drivers, but i was seriously considering buying some the other day. Did it just get too hot and fry itself?
Thoughts? Is it time for a new Mini Rambo board? Is there anyone who does Mini Rambo repair work that would be cheaper than buying a whole new board? I don't have the tools or the expertise to replace a surface mount driver chip, but that's probably all that this board really needs to be functional again. I hate to just throw an 80% working board in the junk pile.
I may attempt to reflow and replace the driver if i can reasonably think i can pull it off, but i probably would be willing to ship the board off to someone else if they were offering such a repair service.
Anyway, the extruder was working fine, except today when i had a failed print.but not as expected. It seems the extruder gear was not moving well and had a kind of jerky motion to it so it was not extruding correctly. I figured it was probably the little gear that was loose and i think it was a little loose, but that did not fix the problem.
After i shutdown my machine and repowered it to test again the motor now does not have the jerky motion, but it makes a strange higher pitch noise that i have never heard before (almost sounds like the motor is broken), but the gear moves, although i suspect it's not moving as far as it should. Like perhaps not enough current is getting to the motor.
I tried switching the cable to the x-axis driver and "moving my x-axis" to test the extruder and the extruder works fine and actually sounds different. Considering the motor works fine on a different driver and there is an audible difference i am assuming my extruder driver on my Mini Rambo board is in the process of going bad and probably at this point unusable. My Mini Rambo does not have heat sinks on the stepper drivers, but i was seriously considering buying some the other day. Did it just get too hot and fry itself?
Thoughts? Is it time for a new Mini Rambo board? Is there anyone who does Mini Rambo repair work that would be cheaper than buying a whole new board? I don't have the tools or the expertise to replace a surface mount driver chip, but that's probably all that this board really needs to be functional again. I hate to just throw an 80% working board in the junk pile.
I may attempt to reflow and replace the driver if i can reasonably think i can pull it off, but i probably would be willing to ship the board off to someone else if they were offering such a repair service.