What is the normal control board "Life Expectancy" ?

[Obewon 99]

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I purchased an M201 in Jan 2016 .
In May 2016 the control board burned out and would not heat the bed, the control board was replaced free of charge. First 2 pics

2016-11-21-14-23-25.jpg (204.7 KiB) Viewed 14903 times

In Nov 2016 the replacement board started acting up by taking 7 hours to run a 3 hour print job when printing from the sd card .
Eventually I smelled something HOT and thought I saw a small wisp of smoke and shut it down and started looking at the board and found the 3rd picture.
A replacement for this board is not Free !! 3rd pic

It seems there is a serious realiabity issue here , because I think something like this should last more than 6 months !

[Errol]

Aren't they supposed to have heatsinks on them try putting them on and add a cooling fan

[Obewon 99]

The first 2 pictures were of my first board (older version) and had larger chips with heat sinks.
the 3rd picture is of the replacement board (newer version) and has smaller chips mounted flat on the board and
no mention was ever made about mounting heat sinks on them.
I had made a bracket for the control board fan and mounted it about 2 inches directly over this area of the board, when I first got this board ,
but as I said this board started acting up when I started noticing that when printing from the sd card was taking longer and longer when printing the same
print. I fact the feed rate reading on the LCD kept reducing by itself, without me touching it !

[Errol]

Have you checked the output voltages of your power supply to ensure you not overloading your board it is supposed to be 12v

[Obewon 99]

M201 has a 24v power supply, and yes the power supply is providing 24 v

[Errol]

Can you monitor the power supply while you are printing there are some issues with the board and heat bed failing. Have a look at this and it shows that the board that you have appears tobe an older version (http://www.geeetech.com/wiki/index.php/ ... iring1.jpg) Or this (http://www.geeetech.com/wiki/index.php/ ... sa_I3_M201) . This is from another site (The PSU that ships with the M2 is a 24V, 18.8A switch-mode power supply: Meanwell SE-450-24 . The PSU ships prewired and tested. Before first plugging it in, the AC voltage input switch should be checked, to verify that it is on the correct setting for the local AC supply - in the United States that's 115V, while many European countries require the switched to be set to 230V.

The output of the power supply is cable containing three circuits running in parallel off the output of the PSU, running to a Molex connector. The pin arrangement, with the screw terminals of the connector up and the wires extending towards the observer, is:
[+24V - + - + -] . The three circuits power different sections of the RAMBo (covered below).

Hope this helps

[Obewon 99]

The first board was a Rev. A board and was replaced in May because it burned out the connectors for the heat bed (see pictures #1 and 2)
The current board is a Rev. B board (see picture #3) and has a burned out transistor circled in yellow ! What I wanted to know "is the circled transistor associated with the heated bed circuit ?
When I smelled something burning and saw smoke I turned it off and uninstalled the control board from the printer to get the picture
As far as the PSU is concerned it's ouput is 24 volts , but you said they ship with a 24 volt 18.8 amp PSU ,BUT MY PSU IS 24 VOLT 15 AMP PSU

[Obewon 99]

Could the lower output amperage be causing the control boards to burn out ?

[Errol]

I don't think to low is it. have you checked heat plate for any shorts that could have shorted out as it's printing causing it to draw more than it should. I think that if the power supply was too low it would be causing it to trip out and it would be overheating.What temps are you heating your bed to

[Obewon 99]

You stated that M201 printers ship with 24v 18.8A power supply, but my parts list states 24v 10-15A power supply and that is what I have (see picture)

I am heating the bed to90 degrees C and the AC switch is set on 110V for my area.

No abnormal readings when checking the heat bed either !