belt drive extruder. Finally got some hardware and printed up the motor mount side. Seems to move quite freely, not tried it under power yet. Still need to print the other side.
Very interested to see if this works.
Belt drive extruder? Never heard about this idea. What are the benefits from an belt driven extruder instead of an direkt or geared extruder?
I suppose it improves linear accuracy and distributes grip over a greater contact area, minimizing filament stripping?
Aye, keeping the filament in perfect shape was my thought for trying it. and like a tank tread should get large traction for little pressure.
I’m interested in how well this works, and especially how much of the motor’s torque goes into deforming the belt (compared to deforming the filament with a hobbed bolt).
Am i right in assuming this is intended for 1.75mm filament?
Also keep in mind that friction is not dependent of the contact area, but only of the frictional coefficient between the materials and the normal force, so adding more rollers beyond the point where the filament is in contact with more than a couple of teeth won’t make much of a difference in the achievable output force.
In any case, a belt should eliminate the variations of the extruded amount due to different normal forces and also get rid of the need to calibrate the extruder.
Hm, will be interesting to see if the “grip/friction” is good enough.
I’ve also seen that you have modified your replicator to a bowden system.
I thought about the same for my replicator 2x to reduce the weight of the print head and hopefully improve print quality or increase the speed.
Do you still using the makerbot firmware?
Still using standard makerbot firmware, I have just reduced the feedrate a little to account for larger fillament drive gear on my clone. The bowden system sounds a lot less stressed that the original.
The print head seems to be quiet similar to the replicator 2x. I think, if I can find some time, I’ll try to build a bowden system for my printer.
The general print quality is the same? I have heard that this system is a little bit “unstable” because it’s less direct.
If this does work, it’d solve the problem you get with traditional hobbled bolts that when it DOES slip, it’s not going to fill up the teeth with plastic and ruin the grip even further.