I turned on the printer for the first time with printhead disconnected. LCD didn’t light up.
I switched power off and checked connections power supply - main board - display. Seemed to be ok.
Power on again: LCD still blank. Red LEDs on end switches light up, green LD14 on main board too.
Flat cable is ok (checked with ohmmeter).
Then I removed the LCd/SD card reader from the printer and connected it with the flat cable. Now the LCD lights up after about 3 sec., without text, blinking about every second.
There is no problem with the reset buttons: LCD button checked with ohmmeter, button on main board disconnected.
Supply voltage: 15.05 V
No, I didn’t so far, but yesterday I measured the output voltage of the main board with sd card reader disconnected: 14.25 V and 4.19 V. Are these values within tolerance? 4.19 V is very low!
Today I switched on again (sd card reader and lcd display connected, but outside printer, without spacers). Surprise: now the display works (without blinking), although I didn’t change anything (still didn’t touch the potmeter). I noticed that the LCD-connector cannot be fully inserted because of an obstacle in socket 10 of the connector on the sd card reader. The voltages are still the same.
Did you measure the voltage of the power supply?
Bad contact between the two PCBs of the LCD display is a common issue. It seems that the pins are a bit short.
Hello, be carreful !!! Pearhaps, you have a short dead somewhere on the printhead. I had detected 3 months ago on the thermistor, a thermal jacket problem, and tonight on the heater cartridge, and I think that my motherboard is out, dead !!! When the Vertex is a bit old (about six months only), the heat degrade some pièces like connectors, thermal jacket …
See the topic I posted tonight.
Be carrefull of other short dead everywhere on the printhead, or molex connectors motherboard side. I hope Velleman will find solutions against those problems, I dont want to cause a domestic fire !!!
Say me if you observe a problem like damaged thermal jacket, thank you in advance.
IC U2 on main board is L7805. Output voltage measured on IC: 4.96 V (datasheet: min. 4.8 V at 1 A).
But: Output voltage measured on main board output connector to SD card reader: 4.20 V, i.e. a voltage drop of .76 V on the main board without any charge??
The 5 V mystery has been solved: as there is a diode after the 5 V regulator, 4.2 V is quite normal. However, “5 V” is grossly misleading.
I have tried to clean the contacts, shortened the spacers by 2 or 3 tenth of a mm (more is not possible because of an obstacle in socket 10) and mounted card reader and LCD display.
For the time being it works.
[quote=“hrg”]I turned on the printer for the first time with printhead disconnected. LCD didn’t light up.
I switched power off and checked connections power supply - main board - display. Seemed to be ok.
Power on again: LCD still blank. Red LEDs on end switches light up, green LD14 on main board too.
Flat cable is ok (checked with ohmmeter).
Then I removed the LCd/SD card reader from the printer and connected it with the flat cable. Now the LCD lights up after about 3 sec., without text, blinking about every second.
There is no problem with the reset buttons: LCD button checked with ohmmeter, button on main board disconnected.
Supply voltage: 15.05 V
What else can I do?[/quote]
I had the same problem.
LCD stayed blank and black when I plugged the printer in for the first time. Checked all connectors on main board. All OK.
Then unplugged all connectors except flat cable and power supply. LCD still bank and black. No use in adjusting contrast.
Disassembled LCD/card reader and reassembled. Now the LCD lights up without text, blinking about every second. Disassembled the LCD/card reader again and plugged the LCD into the reader without spacers and connected the flat cable. Plugging the printer now, the LCD lights up with steady light, but no text. Turning the contrast and voila: The display shows the expected “ERR MINTEMP” screen!
Obviously the spacers are too long (or the pins too short). Will shorten spacers.
Thanks for directing me to identify the problem!
Built printer according to instructions on the webpage.
First start I removed the cable from the printhead as instructed and attached powercable to wall.
Red leds for Z-END, Y-END and X-END turns on. Some red and one green led on motherboard turns on, ond a green led on powerunit turns on. LCD stays dark.
Removed LCD from prnter and measured connection between LCD and SD-card board, and there is connection (0,04ohm) between all pins.
Removed 30pin cable from motherboard and LCD screen and measured and there is connection on all pins as well.
Have tried to remove the thick plastic washers to see if it workedif I moved the LCD closer to the SD-card board, with no luck.
Seems to be some not so good solderings on LCD board, but not sure if it is the problem.
Have removed the reset button connector, same result.
Have measured reset button on LCD screen, only active when pushed.
Tried to run via USB to be able to print without LCD, but this is not working either, computer says to much power is needed for it to be able to supply. However not sure if the problems are connected.