1

I recently installed the newest Sailfish on my CTC and it worked great. I then installed an active fan soldering in a MOSFET to the extra port. I then connected the fan 24V positive and gnd into the the “other/extra” green plug. I didn’t have a connector so I used a soldering iron and directly soldered them to the pins. When I turned on the printer the LCD flickered so I assumed I shorted something out. Hoping I didn’t didn’t do any makor harm I took out the MOSFET and disconnected the soldered fan. Then to my surprise my CTC started up normal, but when I try to preheat the LCD starts to flicker uncontrollably. When I turned off power via the switch the LCD continues for a second to flicker and then shuts down. I am afraid to try any of the other commands to see what happens in fear of causing more damage. Any ideas what to disconnect or where to go from here?

2

I suggest you double check all of the cables running to the board that hosts the LCD. there may be a simple kink or at worst double check the components on the mainboard have not been overheated by your soldering. (Please posts pics)

3

Thanks for the reply. I went through all of the connectors and labeled them all so I know where they go easily. After disconnecting all connectors and cleaning up the solder from the failed MOSFET solder job I reconnected all of the wires one by one while checking with the power on to make sure it was not each component. The printer is now up and running, but no active cooling fan… I am afraid to re solder on the MOSFET and possibly damaging my Main Board… I also in the process of soldering on the MOSFET decided it was a good idea after the first short to scrap between the traces on the four legs of the MOSFET to make sure there was no excess solder I could not see with the magnifying lens. Could I have cut a trace on the board between the legs with the scraping? I am not sure if there are traces between the MOSFET leg pads. I have a set of green connectors to plug into the extra port on the way. So if I didn’t damage the MOSFET portion of the board I might give it another shot.

How much of an improvement is an active cooling fan for bridging… could I just connect it in parallel to the underneath 24V fan for the circuit board or the 24V extruder fan???

4

So everything is working fine now? A cooling fan is pretty useful but I suggest, instead of wiring one in, Use several 9v batteries and a variable resistor instead of going straight into the board.

5

Yes you can connect a fan directly to the power supplies, I would put a on/switch in the return power NOT live feed this way you won’t burn the switch out. You could also put a poitimeter in the 24v feed to the fan so you can control the fan speed. Hope this helps? Where are you based ?