11mo ago

Elegoo Neptune 3 no longer turns on

Hi all. Yesterday, my printer stopped responding to commands from the touch screen, so I shut the printer off and turned it back on. Now, the printer and screen turn on (power fan spins and screen backlight comes on), but the screen does not display anything, and the printer cannot be reached via USB. Multiple power outlets and cables have been tried, and all cables inside the main chassis are securely connected except for the Z- cable (which has been replaced by a BLTouch). There is a single red LED on the motherboard that lights up when the machine is powered on. Does anyone have any ideas how I can try to diagnose this? I've sent an email to elegoo, but I've heard it can take weeks to get a response, and I'm trying to get things ready for a DnD campaign starting this weekend.. thanks for any tips.

Edit: for anyone finding this post looking for help, you're SOL. Elegoo responded to me, and after sending them a couple pictures, they've determined my motherboard to be dead, and are not willing to provide a free replacement since I'm just outside of warranty. Now I'm torn between getting a new motherboard (waiting on a quote from them) or just saving for a better printer.

Edit 2: after some very light complaining, Elegoo is making right and sending me a new motherboard free of charge.

31 comments

So, I've had something similar happen to a creality printer, which was just the excuse I needed to bench it. I gave it to a student later, he plugged it in and it just ...worked.
So my first reflex would be to tell you to unplug it and hold the power button, to empty any residual charges/memory.
- That was one of my first thoughts, after a few attempts at power cycling I did the same with the printer unplugged to make sure she was empty. That's awesome it worked for your student though; you got an excuse to buy a fun new toy, and they got a great learning tool 👍🏽
  
  Well, there is a reason I was trying to get rid of that printer 😅. The school had two Creality CR-5S that were donated from a Chinese university. You won't find anything about them online (except for one YouTube video describing how terrible they are). Not sure how much of a gift it was to the student.

I was wondering if the new motherboard worked? I have the exact same problem. I was wondering how long did it take for you to get your motherboard? Are you in Canada or US? Was the swap easy? just plug and play?
- Yeah the new mobo worked for a while, I think it took around 8 or 9 days to ship to US. The tracking site never updated past saying the shipper was waiting for the item (even a week after it was delivered). But I started having some really odd issues with it after a month or two. I'm still not 100% sure what the cause of the issue was or if it was even specifically mobo related (I posted a lot here during that time if you peep my post history), but I ultimately ended up replacing it with an SKR mini E3 mobo, which I'm much more happy with.
  Replacing the mobo should just be plug and play, all the cables are labeled, well routed, and are appropriate length, so it's easy to rewire the stock configuration. Just to be safe though I would grab the newest version of the board firmware from their GitHub page and flash it, no telling what version it ships with.
  
  thanks for the tips!
  I was actually looking at switching to The BTT octopus v1.1 in the future so I can do true dual z with dual extruder.
  was it hard to swap it for a btt board? I assume you can't just plug and play.
- Yeah the new mobo worked for a while, I think it took around 8 or 9 days to ship to US. The tracking site never updated past saying the shipper was waiting for the item (even a week after it was delivered). But I started having some really odd issues with it after a month or two. I'm still not 100% sure what the cause of the issue was or if it was even specifically mobo related (I posted a lot here during that time if you peep my post history), but I ultimately ended up replacing it with an SKR mini E3 mobo, which I'm much more happy with.
  Replacing the mobo should just be plug and play, all the cables are labeled, well routed, and are appropriate length, so it's easy to rewire the stock configuration. Just to be safe though I would grab the newest version of the board firmware from their GitHub page and flash it, no telling what version it ships with.

Do you have a picture? looking at images online, there's... alot of LEDs on that board. There should be documentation somewhere saying what it means. (Not holding my breath on that documentation...)
since the LCD and fans turn on, it's unlikely to be a power issue. (a bad PSU will usually either just not work; or work until there's high draw and crap out on you.)
It's unlikely to be a physical connection issue, unless there's some sort of jumper pins for flashing fresh firmware, which might put int into a different mode for that. (i assume you weren't doing that recently?)
I suspect something happened to the firmware; If you have a copy of the firmware, either the stock firmware or whatever you flashed last time it was working it may take a fresh firmware from the SD card. Personally, I'd hunt down what the board does during boot first and identify what that LED means.
if you can, also check the board for signs of physical damage, something may have shorted out, etc. if it's hardware, you'll need to work through Elegoo for replacements.
- I also suspected a firmware issue but hadn't yet tried anything. I just loaded the stock firmware on to an SD card and still no response from the printer.
  I managed to find a circuit board diagram for what I believe is my main board. There are several indicator LEDs, but I think most of them are for indicating that a heating element or fan is turned on, I only see one LED in the diagram that looks like it should be on with the printer.
  I've just tried completely disconnecting the BLTouch and reconnecting the stock cables. No change in behavior.
  
  Note that in this picture the nozzle thermistor has been disconnected, but the behavior is still the same.
  
  When you flashed the firmware, did it do anything to show that it was taking the firmware?
  either way, I'm thinking you'll have to get help from Elegoo- either instructions to clear it, or a new board. Apparently, though there's two boards in those printers that need flashing. (the main board and the LCD touch screen.) Unfortunately, I can't find any resource online identifying what the LED's indicate :/
  EDIT:
  So I found MKS's github, which seems to have things for the board here, but i'm not seeing any board hardware stuffs that match a Robin Nano_DW v2.1

31 comments