Messages

1

General Discussion / Re: Replacing a Zortrax Extruder Motor

« on: August 24, 2022, 03:05:39 AM »

Did you test out all the pins on the cable adapter you made? Just to be reasonably confident that all the proper signals are being passed along?

2

General Discussion / Re: Replacing a Zortrax Extruder Motor

« on: August 22, 2022, 09:10:10 PM »

The extruder motor is likely just a typical NEMA 17 stepper motor. There are plenty of listings on Amazon that are meant to be used for 3d printing. You might want to read up on them a bit before trying one though.

3

General Discussion / Re: Replacing a Zortrax Extruder Cable

« on: August 19, 2022, 11:24:31 PM »

Glad you got it to work!

Btw, you might want to move the adapter to the main board side, under the printer enclosure. Since the print head is moving around so much, I wonder if putting the adapter there might cause it to fatigue and break over time.

If you have the adapter on the main board side, it wouldn’t get stressed from the movement and the most you might have to do is to replace the IDC cable, which much less work than assembling another adaptor.

=)

4

General Discussion / Re: Replacing a Zortrax Extruder Cable

« on: August 19, 2022, 08:45:50 PM »

Yeah, all pins need to be reversed.

If you want to make double sure, you can always try to examine the connectivity of the original cable with a multimeter. =)

5

General Discussion / Re: Replacing a Zortrax Extruder Cable

« on: August 19, 2022, 01:25:36 AM »

Hi there,

I've attached two diagrams to try to explain what needs to be done. Again, it's just switching the positions of the top row with the bottom row. Also, do take care to make sure the connect key/notch is matched up first. Your first photo looks like the keys might not be lining up.

IIRC, the printer won't stop complaining about a broken cable until you've connected all the pins. I don't think you can just test with 4 pins connected as you've attempted in the photo.

6

General Discussion / Re: Replacing a Zortrax Extruder Cable

« on: August 11, 2022, 04:39:46 AM »

Hi there!

I've been using my DIY cable since my last post without issue. The print head actually heats up faster than the zortrax cable.

For the main body of the cable, I also used a 20 pin IDC cable like the one you've linked. If memory serves, I bought a length of cable and the 20 pin connectors separately. It's actually very straightforward to make a cable of the right length with the IDC connectors. I've also attached a photo of me testing out the cable before permanently installing the strange mess of a connector at the controller board side. It's not super complicated, really. It's just a connector that swaps the top and bottom row pins.

Good luck!

7

General Discussion / Re: Replacing a Zortrax Extruder Cable

« on: September 02, 2021, 03:40:28 AM »

Hi all, thanks for the advice so far. I built a cable, fairly straightforward I thought....then I get the error message Please check main extruder cable and restart printer. checked everything and tried again. Same error message. So I thought maybe I did not get a good connection on the plugs, so I carefully cut them off and crimped new plugs on the cable. Same error message. Any thoughts?

So, I just had a relatively new extruder ribbon cable die on me. Instead of buying a new $30 cable, I tried making my own using a 20pin IDC cable, and ran right into the same problem you did.

After messing around with this for the past two days, I've come up with a working solution. As it turns out, the m200's cable is a little unusual. With typical cables, you'd expect the pin layouts to be exactly the same at both ends of the cable. However, for the stock m200 cable, the pin rows are reversed!

What I mean is, if at end of the cable, pin layout is like this:
    ---
---|  |------
| 1 2 3 ... |
| 4 5 6 ... |
------------

At the other end of the cable, the layout would look like this:
    ---
---|  |------
| 4 5 6 ... |
| 1 2 3 ... |
------------

This means, if you were trying to simply extend the length of the stock cable, or add something in the middle, as shown in Julia's posted picture, you can simply make sure pin 1 lines up with pin 1. But, if you're trying to replace the stock cable entirely, connecting the control board directly to the extruder breakout PCB board, you will have to cobble together something that reverses the pinout rows.

I've attached a picture of the little adaptor I kludged together. One end is two rows of jumper wires stuffed in 10 pin connector housings. The other end is plugged into the IDC cable with the rows reversed. I haven't put in any print time with this yet, but I was able to power up, load, and unload filament without issue.

Hope this info will be useful to somebody out there!