For those who have a delta:

3D Printing
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1

For those who have a delta:

Has anyone considered a belt tensioner where one screw on each carriage has one end of the belt in some way looped around it and you tension the belt by rotating the screw? The screw is horizontal when looking at the printer. Of course the screw wouldn’t move horizontally in or out of the carriage.

Ideas? Thoughts?

2

I think the reason we haven’t seen this yet is that it is hard to keep the screw from unscrewing and the belt loosening. The belt tension is quite high.

3

I agree @Daniel_Jones , but that is why we must innovate :slight_smile:

4

It would be interesting if someone uses a guitar string tensioner on their slider. I also like the picture that Peter posted.

5

I’m specifically looking into doing this idea with aluminum/bent metal. No printing.

I was thinking just now of using something of a mechanism where you have teeth and a (springy metal?) and as you turn the gear/knob/etc it would spring to the next tooth and keep it from spinning back. I am sure there is a name for this mechanism as it is not new, but I am drawing a blank.

6

Ratchet?

7

Yes exactly.

8

A ratchet would be the ideal way to tighten a belt with small incremental turns. The challenge is making it a compact design.

9

I should mention that this is for open belt design.

10

My preference would be a worm drive since it could be loosened as easily as it is tightened. I am looking on eBay right now for a guitar knob that might be useable on my delta.

11

I’ve gone round and round on belt tensioners. Check out our new implementation on the plus. The simple has a straight forward one too but it’s two screws.

12

We started implementing a slot on our idlers a couple months back. Some of them had screws which pushed the idler up the slot, but we abandoned that idea and now just set them with a fish scale.

13

The idler in my machine is secured with a M5 bolt to its tower extrusion channel slot. To tension I slide the carriage against the idler and then tighten the bolt. Finding a good tension is easy because it takes so little time to iterate and once it is adjusted it stays put. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwzf52nsMh0GTTM0Tm9iVWlNMGs/view ( slide 14A)

14

+shai schechter This one maybe quite inspiring. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:309341