Slipping pulleys and fixing it too many times…
http://baldwisdom.com/tale-of-three-pulleys/
This is one of those things, where if you ask the community about it, they would probably tell you right off the bat that 3D printed pulleys are a no-go. 3D printed pulleys were a relic of the beginnings of the reprap foundation where the main goal was to have most of the printer, printed from another printer. This includes electronics, etc (we actually have past reprap projects that used filament laid down on copper as an etch resist for making boards!).
We moved away from the idea pretty quick as the reprap project expanded and got more focused on getting quality out of the prints. There are just a certain set of components that you do not want printed or to be of low quality. There ARE some instances where printed is ok though! The spectra line + printed idlers are a good printed part which could be used in place of the GT2 belts and pulleys. I think @Brook_Drumm is even using this method now on the newest iterations of the printrbot. You don’t even need pulleys, you simply use the stepper shaft
Kind of the newest iteration, but more importantly, the cheapest iteration — the Printrbot Simple uses braided spectra. The others are still belted.
Yeah, but that scares me (braided fishing line). Sounds like more fiddling. I’d rather pay a little more or have more specialized parts (like pulleys and belts) to have less maintenance
@Kevin_Osborn while that is true in principle, the spectra direct on stepper shaft has worked very well in mine. The issues are different things.