Upgrading belts

My printer has GT belts. In an attempt to upgrade my machine I bought some GT2 belts and metal pulleys from Lulzbot. The new pulleys have the same number of teeth but they are a little smaller in diameter and of course the GT2 teeth are smaller. I choose these as with searching for the best belts the GT2 seemed to be the choice in RepRap.

So, what I want to know is if I will need to calibrate my machine changing the firmware once I do the upgrade. This scares me a little as I have never done this before and am a little worried about messing something up. I can do hardware and electronics no problem but the software end is mostly a mystery to me. I do know my machine uses Repetier firmware and I do have the Arduino app from a kit I played with a few years ago.

The same number of teeth but smaller will need new calibration. Just work out the math for how many steps per mm of travel there should be with the new pulleys, and the software side is just a matter of replacing the right number with the new one, compile and upload. You can get through it.

Anyhow, breaking things is just another way to learn right?

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Dale Dunn

Anyhow, breaking things is just another way to learn right?

True but I do rely on my printer for part of my income. Probably not as hard to do as my imagination makes it.

You can upgrade your firmware at the same time with Repetier's fancy configuration tool. Grab your old configuration.h file from the old firmware and use the fancy step/mm calculator to find the new numbers to input. You will get new firmware in the process. Make sure you change the EEPROM so that the settings are fully transcribed.

Using the Prusa calculator may be helpful, too.

^This guy

Surely the pulley diameter isn't a factor - just the belt pitch and the number of pulley teeth

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Waitaki 3D Printer

Belt pitch and number of teeth are easier ways of calculating the diameter, namely when all you have to do is plug it into a calculator [like the one posted here twice] and it's done for you.

The only pulley that I saw on Lulzbot was a 16 teeth GT2... so that at least narrows it down by quite a bit.

Right from the Prusa calculator

There should be a few lines in your configuration.h tab in the Arduino window, that need to be checked/changed:
Search for each line, and change or double check where needed.
#define BELT_PITCH 2
#define PULLEY_TEETH 16
#define STEPS_PER_ROTATION 100
All your jumpers are on the ramps board (I'm assuming RAMPS)
#define MICRO_STEPS 16

This is assuming that you have stepper motors that are 1.8 degrees in step angle, if you know you have 0.9 step angles then change to #define STEPS_PER_ROTATION 200 but I guess I'm assuming that you have a 1.8 degree step angle.

And of course the gcode:
M92 X100.00

Please anybody correct me if I am wrong.

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Larsen -
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Creative Shift Workshop

Thanks, yes it's the 16 tooth G2. I have a Gen6 board (not ramps).

I think I can figure this out now except one thing. I am on a Mac and the firmware is currently setup at 250k baud rate, my Arduino program does not have a 250k baud rate setting.

Not sure how I am going to get the firmware onto the board once I get the proper settings changed. Any ideas?

That's simply a setting. So long as your EEPROM number is different your baud rate will update to the new one and that is what it will run at.

Good Luck!

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Larsen -
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Creative Shift Workshop