GT2 belts, is it worth the extra money to buy steel reinforced belts or are the standard fiberglass reinforced ones more than enough? Would steel help reduce the need for re-tensioning in the future? They are a 25% premium over the standard fiberglass.
I’ve used a few different brands of fiberglass reinforced ones. The really cheap set that I bought on eBay needed retensioning but my stuff from Printrbot has over 1000 hours over the last 9 months and has been fine. If you are going to get good belt to start with I don’t know that there would be much added benefit
Wouldn’t steel fatigue over time?
@ThantiK that was my thought as well. I would think that steel would be more apt to stretch than the fiberglass.
Well depends think about steel belted radial car tires, or guitar strings, Some steel is very fixable.
@Griffin_Paquette most belts have Kevlar in them, I know tires have steel almost exclusively, this Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/3qem3l/what_material_is_best_for_a_gt2_belt_for_your_3d/ seems to lean towards steel. I think I’ll end up going that route…
If you don’t have a problem paying the extra 25% then go for it!
@Griffin_Paquette the extra $2/meter is stomachable:)
I have actually seen an appreciable difference in print quality using quality belts. I have some belts that I bought from China, and some belts that I bought from misumi. I can tell you right now the feel of quality in the ones you pay a little extra for gives you an extra vote of confidence.
@Eclsnowman thanks, not sure if these are just a different brand of Chinese or not… Too bad my Misumi order is 1/2 way here, I’d just as soon bot from them!
My reprap is about 4 years old and almost at daily usage since first assembly. Never had to retention anything. I don’t know about fiberglass belts but I have steel ones and I have no need to retention them. Works like a clock. Good luck with Your build!
@Zohar_Karabelnik awesome, that’s what I’m looking for!
Don’t do steel belts, they will be fatigued and damaged by standard GT2 pulley sizes (eg 16-20t). They have a larger minimum bend radius than fiberglass or aramid.
If your belts need retensioning more than once, ever, they are very low quality and you need a different supplier. Neither fiberglass nor aramid yarn will creep over time.
@Ryan_Carlyle too late ! I already ordered them. Oh well, if/when they fail I’ll upgrade to a domestic brand (good year or something). IIRC the belting that I bought is going around a larger 30(ish, I don’t recall the exact size) pulley so it may be ok. I’m ordering the belts for the small pulley (20tooth) locally and will buy better quality ones for those
They’ll probably last plenty long. Depends on how much you use them. Could be fine for thousands of hours, hard to say. Printing in a variety of areas of the build plate (instead of just the center) will help enormously.
I originally used 16t pulleys on my P3steel printer. Didn’t take long until the belt on the X-axis cracked. I then switched to 20t pulleys, seems to be fine now.
Going from the standard 6mm width belt to 9mm also makes a difference