USB Cables (comms failures)

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1

I have been getting frequent comms failures between my OctoPi & My Ender3 Pro, to start with it was happening around 3-4 times an hour

So far I have swapped the Amazon Basics USB cable that I purchased for the job with one that came with my Garmin GPS device, the Garmin one has a ferite bead on the USB mini end, This reduced the frequency of comms failures by a huge margin probably to 1-2 times a day.
I then discovered that the fridge/freezer in my garage (which my printer was sat next to and plugged in to the same 4 gang extension cable) seems to throw out a load of RF noise and cause a spike in the mains power as the compressor starts up. I have since moved the 3d printer to the other side of the garage and it is connected to a different ring main circuit to the freezer. Again this improved the situation a bit more but I am still getting a comms failure once every 2-3 days.

I've been looking around for some high quality USB cables ideally with a ferite on each end and high quality shielding, can anyone recommend any good cables?

I'm also thinking of installing some RF protection on the fridge / freezer, I have some big RF chokes & suppressors that I used when I messed around with Tesla Coils & other HV stuff several years ago, but to be honest it seems a bit over kill for a fridge/freezer.

I don't think there is anything of use in the log files, they just look the same as most other comms failures.

OctoPrint 1.3.12 running on OctoPi 0.17.0, Raspberry Pi 4B 4GB

2

You could plug the Pi's power adapter into a UPS (to clean up the brown-outs) and simply add a ferrite coil to the serial cable.

3

I have considered a UPS, I think i've got an old one knocking about somewhere, it probably needs a new battery which should be easy enough to change. would it be worth running the printer from the UPS to protect from power outages?

Not sure why I didn't think of a clip on ferrite, i'm sure i have a few around if not they are cheap enough.

I'll see how things go.

4

I never run a 3D printer without everything being plugged into a UPS. You're mostly protecting against brown-outs typical of either poor input power, competing appliances like dryers and refrigerator compressors and halogen lamps.