Hello fellow operators. Had my i3 for almost two years now,

3D Printing
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Hello fellow operators.
Had my i3 for almost two years now, and I suspect that there might be something wrong with my RAMPS board (1.4). It seems that the end stops are misreading intermittently. After some basic physical troubleshooting (testing end stops & wiring) I determined that the limit switches and wiring from the board to the switch is ok, as well as the switch. (basic continuity testing)

When I poll the end stops for open/trigger status (using M119), the printer is telling me that my the MAX end stops for the X & Y axis are triggered, but those end stops should read OPEN since I am not using max end stops, I am only using MIN end stops on my printer.

This issue seemed to just happen all of a sudden yesterday after a few successful prints, but I have noticed that the printer was not operating normally every once in awhile and exhibiting the same operation that is currently producing.

With the end stops randomly triggering when the end stop is not trigged I am assuming means a RAMPS board that has gone bad somewhere. I have not started to poke around on directly on the board yet, I figured i’d reach out to the community for some guidance.

Thanks in advance, if you can understand what I am talking about. :slight_smile:

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I had to jumper my max endstops. But that was the way it came from Geeetech.

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Check for a loose connection on the end stop a loose wire on the switch will do that. on a moving part the solder joint wears over time. Till I sorted my design this was always the problem I had that caused this.

In my case the minimum stop on the X always went and the symptom was that when homing it would not move back thinking it was already homed. and then try to move forward. it would not show during the print as homing had been done.

Then to check if its board or switch disconnect from the board and use a continuity tester on the switch at the connector, to test the board check it by bridging the pins. that should rule out one or the other.

Other than the switch its not really a wear part, the ramps board is mapped onto pins on the arduino mega so the connection between those should be checked next if its oxidation on the pins pulling the two boards apart and reconnecting them should clean it up.

If its inconsistently moving it may be the stepper driver. ( which is more likely than the arduino) but its easy to check swap the driver out if another one if you have or with another axis and the problem will move with it.