MakerGear M2 24V V4 Hotend Randomly Stops/Pauses Mid-Print

[w22]

I have been using my MakerGear M2 24V V4 Hotend almost every single day since I bought it in February brand new and it has literally given me absolutely no trouble whatsoever until this week randomly at any given time during both USB print and SD Card Print through Simplify3D's latest version 3.0.2 software any of my prints just stop suddenly and the way it stops is quite randomized.

For example with one print it was .gcode with everything customized in slic3r with appropriate settings for MakerGear M2 24V V4 Hotend via SD Card and the print stopped printing a planter/vase about 5% into the print as I noticed on Simplify3D, the X, Y, & Z coordinates weren't moving and my extruder as well as heated bed were at 29 degrees celsius, normally at 215 and 70 respectively.

Another example I was printing via USB with same settings above minus the SD Card and the odd part of this is the printer paused about 20% into printing the vase/planter which was an .STL file but the X, Y, Z coordinates were rapidly changing as if it were still printing but the MakerGear M2 was in-fact paused while the bed and the extruder were actually still heated at 215 and 70 degrees celsius.

I've confirmed my Mac Mini is up to date with El Capitan at 10.11.4 and I literally have absolutely nothing running in the background nor any applications with the exception of running Screen Sharing to remote into the Mac Mini and monitor the print session which I thought at first was the culprit but some prints I've remoted back in via Screen Sharing and the print succeeds completely and the print has never paused immediately after remoting in nor closing out of the remote session. I always leave Simplify3D open to continue the printing process but I don't have to be remoted in the Mac Mini in order for the print to succeed as I've been doing this for eight months with zero problems.

My WiFi has absolutely no problems and all other devices work just fine on it and I've rebooted the MacMini, started it in Safe Mode, turned the switch on the power block of the MakerGear 2 off and on again, I'm out of ideas as every which angle I attempt to correct this issue ends up failing. It's especially confusing when some prints actually complete and the size or length of time for the print doesn't have an effect on the failure rate.

I don't believe this matters but just giving it out there just in case: I'm using True Blue filament from Hatchbox and I'm using it straight from the shrink wrap immediately on arrival from shipment and nothing is jammed in the extruder.

Lastly, all the fans are working as they should and nothing sounds out of the ordinary. I've made absolutely no major changes to the MacMini nor ever have upgraded the printers firmware. I'm flat out stumped.

[Jules]

Is the nozzle moving, but no filament is coming out?

Or is the nozzle stopped too?

[w22]

The nozzle always stops, in addition, I downloaded Simplify3D on another Mac, installed and activated it, made sure nothing else was running on the other Mac, ran a USB print, stopped about 6% into the print just completing about 60% of the planter/vase first layer base AKA I've been ripping frisbees off my bed instead of pots.

[sthone]

A few Questions.....

First - When the printer stops is it always on the same print file? (If it's the same file every time that file may be corrupt.) Try printing a different file and see what happens?

If it still stops on a different file it might be a Computer/USB cable problem.

The best way to tell if it's a computer/USB cable problem is to print directly from the SD Card. Start the print with the "Print from SD Card" Button (red arrow) and once it starts printing unplug the USB cable from the computer. If the print stops at any point after that you have some other kind of problem.
(Note- If your starting the print from the other button (blue arrow) your not really printing from the SD Card.

[w22]

I'm getting SD card initialized failed turning the printer off and on and quitting and re-opening Simplify3d.

The memory card is formatted as Mac OS Journal but should it be Case Sensitive or MS-DOS or FAT or does that matter at all?

Tried another memory card and still get SD card initialized failed and I can't retrieve the list of .gcodes while earlier this morning with the same printer issue I could though.

[sthone]

Maybe you have a loose cable going from the card reader to the rambo?

Pop the cover and see it everything is connected is the only thing I can think of at this point.

[Jules]

Yeah the only thing I could think to add was to make sure you ejected the card correctly when you removed it from the computer. (But that might just be a Windows thing.)

[w22]

Will pop open cover now. In the meantime though, would that cause a print to fail when it's printing via USB?

As for safely ejecting, that's on Macs as well and I always do that before pulling out the card.

[ednisley]

The memory card is formatted as Mac OS Journal but should it be Case Sensitive or MS-DOS or FAT or does that matter at all?

The Marlin printer firmware assumes the SD card has a FAT filesystem (either FAT-16 or FAT-32 will work), but you must use simple file names in the 8.3 layout: VASE.G, not Pretty Vase - rev 3.gcode.

SD cards eventually go bad and produce unpredictable, non-reproducible failures. When in doubt, start with a fresh card.

[w22]

OK, it's not the SD Card nor the reader. Got it working as it was formatted as Mac OS Journaled and worked immediately with FAT MS-DOS. My only thing left I'm guessing is the .gcode file which I downloaded off of Thingiverse which was then customized with Customizer. (See attached).

I'll try printing something else but I recall other prints stopping randomly halfway, at 5%, and a few other percentages keeping this really bizarre.

Let me know if the file isn't attached. It's showing attached when uploaded but I don't see it in my post.

*UPDATE*

I've greatly narrowed down the situation! After every print attempt with any file via SD Card, .gcode, .STL, and via USB, every single print stops after the first layer. Earlier, the prints would stop 30%-50% and now after the base of the print AKA first layer, every single time the print freezes, I have to turn back on the extruder so it doesn't stick to the bed when I jog controls to bring the bed back down and the extruder back to its default position. Ever heard of this single layer print freeze issue?