I fixed my Elegoo Mars 2 3D printer. Finally.

Fixing it was a series of trials and tribulations, compounded by my own ignorance / stupidity. But it is fixed.

I diagnosed - correctly - that the LCD had died. And I bought a replacement (about £35) and replaced it.

But I messed up the replacement. I was supposed to replace only the LCD, and I did not notice that, when I took out the original LCD, I also took out a sheet of glass/plastic, on which the LCD sites.

Now, while I perhaps should have noticed, the fact that the only official instructions are a video which does not make this bit clear did not help. Had it been a detailed textual description, or even just a better video, I’d have been fine. Oh well.

Trouble is, I did not realise until after I had tried levelling the base with the new LCD in place. And, unsurprisingly, the LCD sits lower in the printer than if it was on the sheet, and so things did not work well.

The outcome was that I broke the replacement LCD, and it took me a while to work out I had broken it.

When I retraced my steps, I realised what I had got wrong, but I needed another LCD to fix it.

After I’d fixed that, it worked again.

Hooray!

Until it did not.

I like printing minis for Warhammer games - mostly for Necromunda - and I was trying to cram as many onto the build plate as I could.

Some prints worked, and I got some really nice creepy / dangerous plants out of them.

But most prints failed after the bottom layers, leaving the bottom layers stuck to the build plate, and the remainder a heap of resin on the bottom of the FEP. Which is not what one wants.

Reading around, it appears that it is important to angle things on the build plate, so that it needs supports. You can’t fit on quite as many models, but this means there is not the coverage of resin on the build plate, which stops it from working properly.

I’ve given that a try - about 10 cycles/prints - and each has worked perfectly with that tip in mind.