Hello all,
Newbie here. Having problems with Left Extruder, it is reversed. Forward is backwards and vise versa. It was working fine for a couple of days and then just stopped working. I disassembled the the extruder assembly and found that the Left stepper runs backwards. Also I have three red LED’s on my Motherboard. The one LED is the “overheating”, and I have found that it is normal that it is on, but then there is 24v, 5v and 3.3v and they are all red. I could not find anything to tell me if these were also red all of the time or if this was an indication of a problem.
Any help would be highly appreciated.
1 Like
SOC3D
2
The motor plug for the problem extruder is likely backwards in the motherboard or motor. This would cause the backwards operation. Note: Don’t plug or unplug steppers while the machine has power.
Hi and thanks for the quick reply.
Yes I agree, but I dont think it magicly turned itself around while I was sleeping! 
Like I said, it was working fine and then all of a sudden it just quit working (stopped feeding), I took it apart and checked the motor and seen that it was running backwards. So I dont know what happened, Im not bad at electronic repair ( did it in the military) but I have never seen anything like this.
Anyone one know if the 24v,5v and 3.3v LEDs are supposed to be lit RED?? Right now that is my main concern? Usually Red is a bad thing…
Have you been fiddling with Machine Options in replicatorG?
Because the extruder layouts are mirrors of each other, one extruder has it’s motor axis reversed. This is a firmware setting. Your machine options page should look like the attached image - B axis is inverted, A axis is not (A and B are the extruders (they’re not really axes, but it’s just terminology)).
The three LEDs you refer to are permanently on, connected to the 24V, 5V and 3.3V rails. These are just a visual check that the voltage regulators aren’t knackered, really. Don’t worry about them.
Lots of lights on the board flash in all sorts of different ways when you’re printing, don’t worry!
Hey slippyr4,
Thanks for the info. First to answer your question, yes I have. I have been messing around with a lot of things in different software that I have ( I was using Makerbot and ReplicatorG ) and another one, I was trying different things and experimenting, just being a newbie… LOL :-).
I don’t remember changing anything in the machine though, I may have. If I did, would it change it in the machine itself? I thought about what you said, so I disconnected the USB and tried loading Filament from the CTC Clone itself, thereby eliminating any changes that I may have made in any software, but it didn’t change, the left motor is still turning backwards.
Thanks again,
Jeff
Also I checked and my settings are just like yours. I committed it to the firmware one more time just to be sure, but no change, motor still running backwards.
Latest update:
I went into the Firmware screen that you showed me and inverted the A axis (sorry I have been saying the left extruder when it is the right one), so anyway when I inverted it of course it goes the right way now, but I that is just putting a band-aid on the problem. Not sure though?
When is it that it’s turning backwards?
- when you load filament with the “load filament” menu option on the printer?
or
- when you print something?
or
- both?
Ok, Stop the presses, I must apologize to all that was trying to help me, I made a very stupid and newbie mistake!!
I was looking it the stepper motor the wrong way. The feeder is of course on the opposite side as the Left motor so of course it will rotate in the opposite direction. So problem solved, with the rotation, and it stopped extrusion because it was clogged. Again I am sorry for wasting your time, and I hope it will not reflect on any further questions that I have in the future because I am sure I will have more.
Thanks,
jeff
Sorry slippry4, look at above post 
