Purchased an X1E from MatterHackers and received it in mid January. Seems as though the honeymoon period is over… The past week I’ve been having sporadic power failure issues. The whole printer will shutdown no fans, display, lights, nothing, seeming randomly. I was running some ASA with the chamber set to 60C the first time it died. My first assumption was that it was overheating in some way. Put a box fan on it to see if that helped, no change. Eventually started playing around with it more and I’ve had it die when idle and room temperature, so that undermines my overheating theory. So far in the past few days it has probably died a dozen times all at different times, idling, mid print, pre print, and post print and on different print files.
The weird thing to me is that when it dies the power switch in the back isn’t glowing even though the printer has power from the outlet. Flip the switch off and back on and the printer fires back up. My guess is power supply issue of some sort? It is running on a surge protector along with another 3D printer (MarkForged Onyx 1) which isn’t experiencing any power issues. I’m planning on running it straight to the outlet just to eliminate the surge protector as a variable. Anyone else experiencing something like this?
I’ve got service tickets in at MatterHackers and Bambu, crickets for the past three days.
The lighted switch in the back is before the power supply so if it is loosing power it would point directly to something external of the printer. My guess is your surge protector outlet is failing. As you suggested, run it straight from the wall and see if the issue clears up.
That’s what I assumed too, however I just did some tests to help identify the issue. The printer was dead with the illuminated (unilluminated at the time) switched on. I removed the plug from the back of the printer and with a multimeter verified it was providing 120V AC. I plugged it back in and the switch (still in the on position) did not illuminate. I then removed the surge protector from the equation. Plugged it in straight to the wall, same result no illumination on the switch even though it was in the on position. I cycled the switch off and on and the switch illuminated, printer fired right up.
From this I can safely say the switch is not directly powered by the cord, but must be controlled by something within the printer. Whether that be a resetting fuse or controller of some sort.
The X1 series uses a 6A glass fuse, not resettable. The switch, fuse, and cord socket are all one assembly. You could try a new fuse, but I suspect the switch is bad internally and not maintaining contact.
I had to remove that switch and did not notice it to be special, just the lines going to the fuse and led and going to the power supply. Take you fuse out, it might just be an issue with the fuse poor contact or it is an electronic fuse that just resets after a while.
I did remove the fuse, verified continuity, and reseated it. No changes, printer still died. Based on the pictures from the tutorials it looks like the switch is failing somehow. I’m waiting for a response from MatterHackers before tearing it apart. Since it is still under warranty I’m hoping they will just send me a new one.
If they don’t have one in stock just get one from amazon, if it’s not the issue, just return it and if it works and you receive a replacement from matterhackers within 30 days, you can still return it.
there is a chance that your neutral line is loose in the breaker box, I have had outlets that read 110v but can supply no current due to a bad connection
Welcome to the forum! So I don’t have a X1E but several months ago one of my X1Cs had the same symptoms as the OP. It turned out that one of the connectors behind the power inlet had vibrated loose to the point it was making intermittent connection. The wires are connected to the inlet using crimp on connectors. If your printer is having random power loss this could be the problem. If that’s the problem you can just push it back in place (with the power disconnected!) and it should fix it.
and if it works and you receive a replacement from matterhackers within 30 days, you can still return it.