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This question asks about the reasoning behind thermal runaway protection and how to turn it on. However, how do I know if my printer does not have protection in the first place? Either because it is shut off by default or, if such printers exist, is not a feature of the printer.

For example, the Creality CR-10S, a popular family of printers, has TRP not enabled (or deactivated) for some reason. Since there are a handful of printers (Creality, Tevo, Anet, Prusa, Ultimaker, etc) that seem pretty ubiquitous in the community and are recommended for beginners, it seems like it'd be handy to know whether or not any given printer has this safety feature.

Trish
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Lux Claridge
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  • technically, the nomenclature should be "not enabled" in this case, as "disabled" would mean it was deliberately turned off and it was(is?) not enabled in the default marlin distribution for a long time. – Trish Mar 16 '19 at 15:19
  • I got the impression it was deliberate because why would one turn off a safety feature all willy-nilly like? The reasoning may not be evident, or sound even, but I imagined there was some sort of reasoning. – Lux Claridge Mar 18 '19 at 13:38
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    yes, but they did not *turn it off*, they just grabbed the default marlin distribution (where the community deemed the feature *experimental* and thus disabled by default) and did not *enable* it. – Trish Mar 18 '19 at 13:43
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    Ah that makes sens now. Thanks for clearing that up as well. – Lux Claridge Mar 18 '19 at 14:00

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At the time of this writing (March 2019), many (if not most) cheap printers from the Far East are not delivered with Thermal Runaway Protection enabled as Marlin had this feature disabled as default for a long time (it was for certain so in April of 2018).

I know that Anet printers (A8 from experience) and the Creality Ender-3 printer (experience from another member) come with TRP disabled in the firmware when shipped from the factory. Thomas Sanladerer did a test on his machines and found that it was disabled on the Creality CR-10, Anet E-10 and A-8 had it disabled while the Mini Fabrikator v1 did have no Mintemp/Maxtemp but Thermal Runaway. Even the quite expensive BCN3D Sigma R17 had it disabled in April of 2018 on default.

Among the printers that come with Thermal Runaway Protection enabled are the PrusaResearch builds of the Original Prusa i3.

To test if it is enabled on your printer, you could disconnect the heater elements prior or during printing, see this answer or the process explained in Thomas Sanladerer's Video above or from the start of his safety tutorial:

How to test if TRP is active on my printer?

To test if thermal runaway protection is enabled on your printer, you can disconnect the heater element of the hotend or the heated bed. You can disconnect the heater element while the printer is cold (before start) and also when the heater element is heating up. No heating of the nozzle will take place, so after the period defined by the time constant set in the firmware, the printer will halt if thermal runaway protection is enabled. Power down the machine and reconnect the wires, it is not advised to put them back in; when the printer halted, you should power down or reset the printer anyways. If the printer did not halt, power it down as quickly as possible.

Community
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0scar
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  • While my question was intentionally general, now for peace of mind I ask specifically about Creality. I read that the CR-10S is deactivated and has to be enabled in the firmware, which I've done. So when you say `Creality Ender printer is not equipped with TRP...` do you mean that it's just shut off in firmware, or the printer cannot use TRP? – Lux Claridge Mar 14 '19 at 16:04
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    @LuxClaridge Trish has an Ender 3, I don't know the details of that printer. – 0scar Mar 14 '19 at 16:08
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    @LuxClaridge I added also Thomas Sanladerer's video that showed live on camera him testing the 'parent' of the Ender3 (CR-10) and the firmware is pretty much identical. It had been disabled by default in default marlin distributions in April 2018. – Trish Mar 14 '19 at 19:14
  • @Trish Thanks! That coincides with what I remember reading (which was a hot minute ago). – Lux Claridge Mar 14 '19 at 19:19