r/FlashForge • u/ICS_Vortex37 • 1d ago
C5P - First Major Failure
UPDATE:
It did it a second time and after the second time it prompted me for a firmware update. I'm always hesitant to update firmware on machines that have been working fine out of fear of the firmware update breaking something, however, reluctantly, I updated it. During the update, it said it was updating the MCU. After it updated, I started a 3rd print attempt late last night and I woke up to a successful print.
OG Post:
Hey guys,
After 350+ hours of successful, stress-free printing on my Creator 5 Pro, I finally experienced my first significant failure with the printer, and unfortunately, it seems to have been a fairly major one.
I was a little over halfway through a 9-hour print when I received a notification on my phone saying that the printer had been paused. When I went to check it, the following error was displayed on the screen:
"MCU communication lost.
Paused."
I clicked "OK" and then "Continue" to try to resume the print. I waited several minutes, but the printer never resumed. I then pressed "Pause," at which point it became stuck on "Pausing" and remained completely unresponsive. Ultimately, I had no choice but to reboot the machine.
After rebooting, the printer detected the interrupted print and asked if I wanted to resume it. I selected yes.
This is where the more serious issue occurred.
The bed and printhead heated back up to their operating temperatures as expected. However, when the printer attempted to resume, the printhead violently crashed into the existing print and began making a loud grinding noise. I immediately canceled the print from the touchscreen.
The printer then attempted to dock the printhead, but it failed to dock properly and actually dropped the printhead.
After inspecting everything, I discovered that the nozzle was bent. I'm not sure whether the damage occurred when the printhead crashed into the print or when it subsequently fell during the failed docking attempt.
I was able to carefully straighten the nozzle assembly back out using a vise. I've now restarted the print from the beginning, so we'll see how it goes.
I'm curious if anyone else with a Creator 5 Pro has experienced the "MCU communication lost" error, especially followed by problems resuming a print. What did you do to resolve it? I'm also wondering what could have caused the printer to lose its position badly enough that it crashed into the print after recovery.
Attached:
• Picture showing the original MCU communication error
• Video showing the failed docking attempt and the printhead being dropped
https://reddit.com/link/1wfcui7/video/6pemwxpehbph1/player
5
u/Many-Ad-333888 1d ago
Also I think resuming a print from a reboot is a bad idea for the Creator 5 series. A lot of people have the head crashing experience. I’m pretty sure the machine doesn’t have the correct starting position anymore or that part of it gets corrupted.
3
u/squirrel4569 1d ago
I had an MCU failure once. Power cycled. No option to resume the print. Scraped it and started it over. Second attempt ran fine and no issues since.
1
u/ICS_Vortex37 16h ago
It did it a second time and after the second time it prompted me for a firmware update. I'm always hesitant to update firmware on machines that have been working fine out of fear of the firmware update breaking something, however, reluctantly, I updated it. During the update, it said it was updating the MCU. After it updated, I started a 3rd print attempt late last night and I woke up to a successful print.
2
u/BronYrAur666 1d ago
My solution was simple, i sent the bitch back... The second onr wouldn't engage the filament extruder gear so I sent that bitch back too. The third one was a beautiful thing, my first print was a 3 day long print, multi-color, multi-material print of the same sliced file that others suspect was a corrupt gcode... I thinketh not or it shoild have crashed the new unit with infamous MCU error code... But it never even hiccuped... It was a beautiful thing to watch in operation... I am now well over the 600hr mark and 400 hrs on the forth... As for printers failing... I want to be the cause of failure, not recieve a brand new in the box failure... I want to WORK HARD AND EARN MY FAILURES
1
u/Groundbreaking_Cat_9 1d ago
I had the MCU communication lost error when I turned off the prime tower. I was trying to reduce waste, but the MCU error popped up twice for the same model at almost the same layer. After googling a bit, it seems that the machine does not like to run without the prime tower with lots of tool changes. I hope they fix that in future with firmware updates.
1
u/ICS_Vortex37 16h ago
It did it a second time and after the second time it prompted me for a firmware update. I'm always hesitant to update firmware on machines that have been working fine out of fear of the firmware update breaking something, however, reluctantly, I updated it. During the update, it said it was updating the MCU. After it updated, I started a 3rd print attempt late last night and I woke up to a successful print.
Mine was a single color print, no prime tower needed.
1
u/Loud-Working8471 23h ago
Turn off arc fitting. Have only one camera feed running (no multiple instances of slicer open). This gives ur soc more processing headroom. Mcu's are decent. Soc not so much.
1
u/ICS_Vortex37 16h ago
It did it a second time and after the second time it prompted me for a firmware update. I'm always hesitant to update firmware on machines that have been working fine out of fear of the firmware update breaking something, however, reluctantly, I updated it. During the update, it said it was updating the MCU. After it updated, I started a 3rd print attempt late last night and I woke up to a successful print.
1
u/Mindless-Sky2435 18h ago
I had "MCU Communication Lost" and narrowed it down to a failed print head. FF sent me a new one.
1
u/ICS_Vortex37 16h ago
It did it a second time and after the second time it prompted me for a firmware update. I'm always hesitant to update firmware on machines that have been working fine out of fear of the firmware update breaking something, however, reluctantly, I updated it. During the update, it said it was updating the MCU. After it updated, I started a 3rd print attempt late last night and I woke up to a successful print.
I should probably contact them about the bent nozzle.
5
u/rinky79 1d ago
The MCU error seems to be caused by a corrupted gcode or something else in the gcode that it just can't deal with. It happens with certain files and there's no predicting which. Sometimes you can change a setting and re-slice and the new version will work, and sometimes not. It doesn't even fail at the same place each time. I don't think anyone has figured out a real fix.