Machine:Orion Motor Tech K40
Board: Laserboard
Firmware: Smoothie
Problem/ Question: I have started noticing an occasional distorted display on start with 2 lines of gibberish across the display as have been seen in some posts here in the past. I’m using the Cohesion supplied 4a external power brick for power. I say this because I know power supply quality was mentioned in those previous posts as some of the users were using non-factory supplied power sources. This all seemed to start occurring since installing the relay outlet that is sold here. Every time the board powers on or off it pulses the relay on and back off very quickly. On boot I think the surge of my pump coming on at the same time as the LaserBoard is causing this distortion to occur. It always goes away after turning the machine off and back on again. It also does not occur with the pump disconnected from the relay. So I don’t think the relay itself is the cause, just the fast pulse on and off is making the pump generate some EMI that is causing the display to occasionally have trouble starting. Is there a way to prevent this pulse of the air assist relay on start?
I tried attaching it to the 5v header as described in the directions for attaching the outlet, I also tried the 24v header as the box said the relay outlet is rated for 3.3v to 60v input. Same result, pulse on start with either header.
Other than this the board has worked out pretty well. I had minimal trouble getting my LightObject Z table to behave itself. I’m just confused by why it has to pulse the relay on and off with every power cycle. I can post pictures of wiring if you think that would be useful. I’m just hoping its a self test function or something simple that I can disable somehow.
Thanks,
~Ben
Edit: If it turns out to be something that can’t be disabled I found this as a potential fix to the pulse on start as it would add a pre-defined delay in to starting the relay that I could set just above the pulse duration.
https://www.amazon.com/Selec-Controls-600XU-1-CU-Analog/dp/B00R5C7MES/