Saturday, August 16, 2008

 

Belt tensioner

One RepRap part not covered much elsewhere is the belt tensioner. Here's the one fitted to my Darwin - it was printed out on aforementioned Darwin using a screwdriver in a clamp-down vice as an impromptu tensioner.

There is another version for ball-chain with a groove in the idler. These allow you to tension up the belt without moving the position of the Z posts.

The design is a little unusual in that I have used a piece of 3mm PLA filament as the axle for the idler wheel instead of the usual M3 bolt. To fix it in place I simply heated one end and pulled it into the body of the idler holder - instant welded axle.

I've just designed one for the lasercut RepRap kit. Hopefully I'll get that run off next week and we'll see how well it works in practice.

Vik :v)

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Comments:
nice!

this was sorely needed.

next up: some thrust bearings plz. the "nut on washer w/ grease" trick just doesnt cut the mustard.
 
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