I was forced to upgrade my endstops to proximity switches after one of the endstops stopped working a few days ago.
After replacing the switches and confirming that they work, I set out to reconnect my Touch Probe.
It’s not the standard Carbide 3D probe, it’s a simple 3mm plate on one leg and a magnet on the other, which makes the plug only two pins.
But the new Proximity switch board that plugs into the controller board is all 3 pin connectors.
I was under the impression that connection was extremely low voltage, and I also assumed that 2 of the pins on the PROBE slot, either the left/middle or right/middle combination would serve it’s purpose to make my simple 2 pin probe work.
So I kind chose which pins to connect first by eanie-meanie-miney-mo, and the left/middle pins won.
When I touched the magnet and the touch probe together to look for the connection light, I heard the familiar ‘THUMP’ the stepper motors make when you power the machine up or down, and all the lights on the controller board went out.
So now, the board is dead.
Did I just fry my controller board?
I looked for a fuse of some kind but I didn’t find any.
Thanks in advance, and please be gentle.
I know it was a stupid move, and I am smarter than that. But I swear I thought that the voltage from those pins were very low voltage.
Apparently not.
Not an expert here, so I’ll defer to others; however, I will say that working in parallel with support by emailing support@carbide3d.com is a good idea.
I’ve heard of the potential of causing shorts to the board in cautionary tales, so it seems like a possibility in your case - again, not an expert though.
It sounds like it may be too late but I had purchased Omron SW1221-ND from Digikey as OEM replacements for my mechanical homing switches when I damaged one. Some soldering had to be done, but pretty straight forward. Heck, I have spares if you still wanted to go that route - PM me if you’re interested.
The 5v feed on the controller PCB is electronically ‘fused’ and will auto reset after a full power down. If you have taken a processor input/output line to a voltage it can’t withstand the you might have fried something. Digital may be 1 or 0 in concept, but it can also be delicate…
I went ahead and ordered a new board.
They have a newer version out anyway so I figure I would just make this an upgrade opportunity.
I already have the new switches installed, so I am good to go.
But a thousand thank you’s for the generous offer.
Happy Holidays!
Andy,
It’s been a lesson learned for sure.
I assumed since that port was designed for the circuit to be intentionally shorted, that I couldn’t hurt anything.
I have ordered a new board and a Bit Zero while I am at it, that way I have everything that is designed to work together.