Y axis belt rubbing against wood plate, fraying?
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 7:27 pm
Right after I finished my last print (a simple Expo marker holder, which printed perfectly), my Y axis was having a really hard time returning to it's endstop. I shut off my printer, let things cool and then tried to manually move my Y axis carriage up and down.
When pushing the carriage upwards I feel considerable resistance, which I also feel to a lesser extent going downwards. I can visibly see the belt fraying and rubbing against the wood plate that is the top of the base. I can also see the belt twisting slightly.
It's a bit hard to see the idler bearings since it is all hidden inside the tower / stepper assembly, behind the tower beam, but when I feel around I actually don't feel anything different than on the other axes! Clearly something is misaligned, but I'm having some trouble pinpointing what.
I slightly loosened the bolts holding the two idler bearings together, hoping that the extra "play" would allow the belt to self-align, but it doesn't seem to have changed anything.
I can easily replace the belt, but I'm concerned that it'll just get frayed again right away unless I figure out what is causing this issue. Anybody have some ideas about what this might be a symptom of? Could the tower be so far out of alignment all of the sudden that the belt now doesn't line up with the idler assembly?
Here's a quick video of the symptoms: https://vid.me/4jX8
When pushing the carriage upwards I feel considerable resistance, which I also feel to a lesser extent going downwards. I can visibly see the belt fraying and rubbing against the wood plate that is the top of the base. I can also see the belt twisting slightly.
It's a bit hard to see the idler bearings since it is all hidden inside the tower / stepper assembly, behind the tower beam, but when I feel around I actually don't feel anything different than on the other axes! Clearly something is misaligned, but I'm having some trouble pinpointing what.
I slightly loosened the bolts holding the two idler bearings together, hoping that the extra "play" would allow the belt to self-align, but it doesn't seem to have changed anything.
I can easily replace the belt, but I'm concerned that it'll just get frayed again right away unless I figure out what is causing this issue. Anybody have some ideas about what this might be a symptom of? Could the tower be so far out of alignment all of the sudden that the belt now doesn't line up with the idler assembly?
Here's a quick video of the symptoms: https://vid.me/4jX8