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Strange 3D Printer Errors (Electronics)

There are times when I am printing, changing materials, calibrating, pre-heating, etc., that something throws an error or says it has some crazy problem... Now what?


It doesn't matter what was going on or why, any time either the 3D printer or Octoprint says there is a problem, my first line of defense is the old catch phrase: "Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?" from "IT Crowd"

I realize how stupid and basic this sounds... really I do.  Unfortunately there is often a reason for clichés, and this is it.

Any electronic equipment typically has some kind of processor inside and we all know that it is not unreasonable for those processors to have the occasional error.  Processors are having and recovering from errors all the time, but most of the time these errors are corrected on the fly by the hardware/software so that end users are rarely told about the problem in the first place. 

The simplest way to combat the occasional issue is to power cycle everything.  This way, if we see the same issue again we know it is actually a problem and not likely to be just a random bug or other temporary error.

The best practice:

  • Make the room quiet...
    • Everything needs to be off before anything gets powered back on
  • Revel in the silence...
    • Wait a minimum of 10 seconds with everything fully powered OFF, ensuring that all volatile memory has been completely cleared away
  • Crawl before walking...
    • Begin turning on equipment by waiting for each piece to complete it's boot process before powering on the next
    • I start with the smartest equipment first, leaving the dumbest devices for later because the smart ones sometimes need to see the dumb devices power up and connect
  • Example: Raspberry Pi (Octoprint), 3D Printer, Dehydrator, Lights, etc.










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