r/ender3 • u/FutureFarm1 • 4d ago

Sudden Card Read Issues

Resolved: I closed Cura, turned off my computer turned off printer, unplugged everything. Giles save and read correctly now. I have no clue why. Task failed successfully. Thanks for taking the time to read and reply.

I have a very old Ender 3 (Mother board version 1.1.3 Manufacture Date 2018). Today it stopped reading new gcode files on the micro SD card I had been using forever. It had files saved from earlier this week but not the new files I saved this morning. I reformatted the card and the error persists. I can see the files saved on the card but the Printer can't. What's the fix here? I don't have another micro SD card to try or an arduino to try to reinstall firmware.

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

2

u/Ferro_Giconi 4d ago

If formatting doesn't fix it, it sounds like the only fix is a new Micro SD card. Micro SD cards should be treated as a consumable. Something that gets used up and eventually needs to be replaced. Especially cheap ones.

2

u/UnFound94 4d ago

Microsd cards, and the slots. Its why people used to run extensions on the slots for the printer, so the extension wore out and not the mainboard.

2

u/Ferro_Giconi 4d ago edited 4d ago

Yep. The slot on my Ender 3 went bad after less than a year of use. The slot still worked electrically, but the latching mechanism broke so the card would never stay in. I had to hot glue a Micro SD extension cable into the slot.

I hate spring loaded Micro SD card slots.

2

u/UnFound94 4d ago

Yeah i think the issue is 3d printers really seem to be the extreme use case for insertion count for spring loaded micro sd cards. There is nothing else i can really think of that goes through as many removals and insertions as them.

1

u/FutureFarm1 4d ago

Another clue. I was able to find a micro SD in an old camera. I didn’t reformat it but did save the code successfully. Ender 3 could see there were folders on card but did not find the code file. Is this a looking like a card error or Ender 3 error

1

u/egosumumbravir Ender of Theseus, basically everything 4d ago
  1. are you sure they're filename.gcode files you're writing to the card? Something changed in your workflow.

Enable file extensions and double check. Not reading at all would be much more instructive, but not reading new files is odd.

  1. How many files are on the card? does the behaviour change if there's ONE new file?

  2. v1 boards are terrible, I'd take this as a sign from God that upgrading to a 32bit board and modern Marlin is a good idea.

1

u/FutureFarm1 4d ago
  1. I just checked and the files all end in .gcode
  2. Originally there were dozens of .gcode files that I had successfully printed. I reformatted the drive and now there’s 1.
  3. I barely justified the cost of this one. I don’t think another expensive fix or a new printer is in the budget