Prusa i3 Extruder Carriage Belt Mounting

Friends -

Please see this belt mounting strategy on a modified Prusa i3 Extruder Carriage.

We are printing the extruder carriage as a 2 piece clamshell. See picture at [docs.google.com]

Here's the embedded picture:



Design Rationale for Belt Mounting:
1. Removable plug is used to fix belt into place. No clips or zip ties needed
2. One side is fixed first with first plug.
3. Then the second side belt is woven through the hole in the removable plug.
4. Belt is tensioned as needed.
5. Second plug is inserted to fix belt
6. At that point - belt is fixed - it can't slip out, nor can the plugs slip out - because the teeth in the 3D printed Extrude Carriage piece hold the belt firmly

Has anyone else used this strategy? Does it work? Any pictures of examples?

Marcin Jakubowski and Michel Dhoore

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2016 03:09PM by marcin_ose.

That looks a lot of same which I had in my mill. The vibrations from spindle loosened the belt connection in a half hour.

I ended up something like shown in picture. I just cut pieces of aluminium until I had something which worked but the principle can be seen. The bolt pushes the nut and the belt goes up and stays connected.

It isn't fast as your idea and there isn't as much room but it should be doable. This loosens the belt when tightening upwards so the belt has to be tightened on idler or motor side. The forces to compress the bolt are quite small and m3 is almost overkill.

This is my favorite self locking belt clamp design. [www.youmagine.com]
Tension has to be adjusted elsewhere, but this will hold the ends without any possibility of slip.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]