This came up in one of my other threads and I thought I would pass along my adventure to my fellow 3D modelers. Because if it happens to you there are some things to know. First before I get down to the nitty gritty, I want to give Mike Williams a hefty thank you for all of his help when it comes to everything 3D printing. He is walking me through the process and is very helpful. Everything I share here is his knowledge and experience passed onto me.
So what happened? I was unable to get a successful print no mater what resin I used and no matter what settings I used. I would get partial prints stuck to the plate then it all went to poop. Mike suggested that I watch the machine print without the resin vat in it and watch the screen and see if it looked like it was lighting up the layer correctly. This was after seeing what I thought was a good screen test. But it turns out in doing this that my screen was randomly failing. I would get blank spots but not always and not always in the same spots. But definitely was not lighting up correctly. I am pretty sure I toasted it when I filled the vat to full with resin and had an overflow when the plate dropped in. Thats my assumption at this point.
So this means a new screen. Mike said it was an easy fix. And depending on my specific model there was an opportunity to upgrade it to a monochromatic screen. On the Anycubic Photons (the older ones) they used a couple of different boards which may or may not be able to be upgraded. If it is a proprietary board (an Anycubic board) then unfortunately it can not be up graded without a board replacement as well. Well that was my case. So I did have to stick with replacing it with another color screen. I ordered the right one from Chitu, a company that makes replacement parts for most all of the machines.
To replace these its pretty simple (at least in theory because I haven’t actually done it yet). You open up the case, tons of Youtube videos on this) and you disconnect the screen wiring harness from the board. Then you gently pry/pop the screen loose from the case. then various people do different things to put the new screen in like using double sided tape to afix the screen to the case and then you reconnect the wiring harness to the board (either with or without the supplied adapter which is crucial depending on which of two types of screens you have and is supplied with the new screen). And then you should be good to go. There is a possibility that you have to flash the board with new software. But that seems easy as well.
I have only gotten as far as partially disassembling the machine. I have it to the point where I am ready to disconnect the screen and pop out the old one. I am waiting for the new one to arrive before doing this. It has made it from China to LAX but says its delayed, go figure. I will take some pictures of the progress so that those who run into this can see how it is done (or not done depending on my success).
