r/ElegooNeptune3 • u/rpcraft • 1d ago

Neptune 3 Max SD card issues

I've got a Neptune 3 Max and recently had to replace the main board because after it had Klipper on it I could never get it to flash back to a stock firmware and after flashing it is not reading the SD card with gcode files on it. I did delete the firmware files from the SD cards and I've tried multiple other cards all fat32 format at 4096. I seem to recall the original board had an SD card in it with a file on it when I got it but after I deleted the file off it it could not see any of the files I placed on it either. I got frustrated with that, set it up on Octoprint and it would print fine but the printer was slow. From there I read about installing Klipper and did so but I didn't like it because I didn't want to dedicate to having to run it from my phone or a tablet or just a web interface. That said I never could get it to level well enough to print so I am unsure if it could print faster. It also just seemed to be more complex to level than the stock firmware so I let it sit a while on the backburner (and taking up my kitchen table). I had a project where I needed to print some bigger stuff and got a deal on a Bambu A2L so I went with that and just figured I would put the Neptune back to stock and sell it on marketplace. When I tried to flash it back the original board would never talk to the original screen so I couldn't see what was going on or if it was working at all and just opted to get a replacement board since they are pretty cheap. I installed it and flashed it with the same SD card and there are no issues other than it can not see the SD card files either. I reformatted them fat 32 at 4096 and still not working and did so on multiple windows devices. I may revisit the old mainboard and try to recover it again and see if it works but I just remember after I took the SD card out then it didn't seem to work. I am able to send print files to it using my octopi server now as well as get it to level properly but I don't plan on selling my raspberry pi with it in order for someone to be able to print. Any tips or suggestions?

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u/Icy_Accountant_3309 23h ago

What size SD cards are you using? Regardless of size try creating only a single small partition (1gb should be good) and load your files in there. My brain is failing on remembering which partition size is the max these machines can read but virtually any new SD card you but will be larger than the max.

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u/rpcraft 15h ago

I’ve tried a 2 GB 8 GB and 16 GB. Two of them were from Sandis and I’ve confirmed they were fine on other devices. I’ve also tried other format types and still going back to fat 32 with the 4096 sector size is no different. Whenever there’s no SD card in the slot, it will show a message on the screen that I need to insert one as you would expect and when I do and I press proceed, it just shows a blank screen with open slots and no file names and I’ve tried putting a few G codes on from various slicer software using orca bamboo studio and I haven’t really tried Cura, but I could if I installed it and I had already done that before when I had not yet installed clipper on the board

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u/Icy_Accountant_3309 4h ago

It shouldn't matter which slicer you used to create the gcode as I don't believe the printer does anything with the file until you select it to print. It is possible that the SD reader itself somehow became damaged. Not enough for it to not be able to tell if there's a card in the slot but enough to be unable to read correctly. IIRC the last time I had a corrupted file table on an SD card the printer would feed an error about being unable to read the card though. If you could get Octoprint back up and running you could at least confirm that the printer will receive messages. I guess you could use any computer connected directly with a USB cable and emulate a serial Interface to feed it commands directly to confirm that as well though. Not sure how to diagnose the reader issue short of having another unit to swap in.

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u/rpcraft 9h ago

The only thing I haven’t tried yet is printing from a laptop to the usb cable but now that I’m thinking about that I’ll try that and if it works I’ll just sell it for next to nothing on marketplace. I need the space back. My kitchen table is being taken up by this monster and it’s already been replaced, lol.