<p>One of the thermistor wires had come loose from the crimp ferrules. I re-crimped it and it works fine now. </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T11:06:09.743Z
2018-08-15T11:06:09.743Z
electrophile
<p>This can come from several sources:</p>
<h1>Hardware</h1>
<p>The thermistor or its connections might be damaged, and the fault is only observable when the hotend is hot or moved to a certain area. Start by checking the wiring! You may be able to repair a bad connection easily, but depending what was broken, you may need to replace something. In some cases squishing a thermistor cartridge too much can destroy the internals, so a replacement is needed.</p>
<p>A mainboard failure is more likely to just show a static temperature, and a heater failure would show as maybe not getting past a certain point.</p>
<h1>Firmware</h1>
<p>If it had not worked before or you changed the firmware, the firmware should also be a suspect. The firmware can 'fail' when using the wrong thermistor type/table which can result in a very big offset or bad slope, resulting in wrong or unaccurate readings.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-03-15T08:19:45.783Z
2018-08-16T08:55:42.140Z
2020-06-18T08:29:41.667Z
Sean Houlihane
<p>About two days ago, I started seeing that my hotend was heating up erratically. I first noticed this while printing a part in PETG and the temp jumped to 260&nbsp;°C. I shut down the printer at that time and first started checking the hardware. I noticed that the E3D V6 thermistor had been tightened too much. I disassembled the entire hotend, cleaned everything and then reassembled everything. I thought to retune the hotend and when I tried tuning it at 240&nbsp;°C. </p>

<p>This is where the strange behavior occurs. The hotend steadily climbed up till about 200&nbsp;°C. After that it just went nuts. I started seeing unreal temps such as 646&nbsp;°C and such. At this point I thought the MEGA might be at fault. I replaced it and the hotend (an E3D V6 clone). This had the screw on glass thermistor. Again the same erratic behavior and unreal temp readings. </p>

<p>What could be wrong here? What am I missing? Can this be the heater cartridge? </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-12T13:28:49.700Z
You sure the thermistor wasn't damaged?  You may have it misconfigured -- see for example this old thread  http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?4,260150
Carl Witthoft
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-13T07:27:42.963Z
Good call. One of the thermistor leads had separated from its extension wire.
electrophile
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T08:52:38.153Z
Have you found and fixed the problem? If so, have the answers below led you to the solution? Please vote to accept an answer (using the green tick button next to the question) so this question is not bumped up once in a while and can be removed from the unanswered question list. You may even add your own solution and accept that after 48 hours! If you have not been able to address the problem please update your question.
Greenonline
<ramps-1.4><hotend><thermistor>
RAMPS won't PID tune and shows unreal temps
electrophile
# RAMPS won't PID tune and shows unreal temps

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-03-12)

About two days ago, I started seeing that my hotend was heating up erratically. I first noticed this while printing a part in PETG and the temp jumped to 260 °C. I shut down the printer at that time and first started checking the hardware. I noticed that the E3D V6 thermistor had been tightened too much. I disassembled the entire hotend, cleaned everything and then reassembled everything. I thought to retune the hotend and when I tried tuning it at 240 °C.

This is where the strange behavior occurs. The hotend steadily climbed up till about 200 °C. After that it just went nuts. I started seeing unreal temps such as 646 °C and such. At this point I thought the MEGA might be at fault. I replaced it and the hotend (an E3D V6 clone). This had the screw on glass thermistor. Again the same erratic behavior and unreal temp readings.

What could be wrong here? What am I missing? Can this be the heater cartridge?

**Tags:** ramps-1.4, hotend, thermistor
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: You sure the thermistor wasn't damaged?  You may have it misconfigured -- see for example this old thread  http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?4,260150  
> **username_0**: Good call. One of the thermistor leads had separated from its extension wire.  
> **username_2**: Have you found and fixed the problem? If so, have the answers below led you to the solution? Please vote to accept an answer (using the green tick button next to the question) so this question is not bumped up once in a while and can be removed from the unanswered question list. You may even add your own solution and accept that after 48 hours! If you have not been able to address the problem please update your question.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_0 on 2018-08-15. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

One of the thermistor wires had come loose from the crimp ferrules. I re-crimped it and it works fine now.


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### Answer by username_3 on 2018-03-15. Score: 4

This can come from several sources:

# Hardware

The thermistor or its connections might be damaged, and the fault is only observable when the hotend is hot or moved to a certain area. Start by checking the wiring! You may be able to repair a bad connection easily, but depending what was broken, you may need to replace something. In some cases squishing a thermistor cartridge too much can destroy the internals, so a replacement is needed.

A mainboard failure is more likely to just show a static temperature, and a heater failure would show as maybe not getting past a certain point.

# Firmware

If it had not worked before or you changed the firmware, the firmware should also be a suspect. The firmware can 'fail' when using the wrong thermistor type/table which can result in a very big offset or bad slope, resulting in wrong or unaccurate readings.


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