Just broke the belt on the x axis. Rats. I placed an order for a replacement and enough to have some spare replacement belting for the future.
I was wondering how common this is, and about how many hours I can expect to get out of a belt. I’ve only had my Xcarve for a month, and it hasn’t been used that hard as that I’m just learning what it can do and how to do it.
Are your idler pulleys set correctly so the belt is riding right in the middle of them? If they are slightly in or out - the edge of them may be rubbing your belt and wearing through it. You should be able to look at the belt to see if the edges are curled up or not. If that does not look like the problem you may have the belts too tight.
I fully expect a belt to break and have spare on hand. Got my machine in july or august and i run it like i stole it no belt issues as of yet. I do treat my machine like a under paid factory operator after showing up late to work because i cant miss happy hour at the bar. but any way i do push my machine to the upper limits hoping for signs of weak spots so i have a reason to mod more and mod where it will be useful.
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ive broken a few. make sure all your pulleys are lined up. that was my issue, they appeared to be aligned but were slightly off. the belt rubbing on the side of the pulley caused them to wear and eventually break. youll want to look for the belt to be riding in the center of all pulleys
Received new belting earlier this week. Way to go Inventables. really prompt shipping. I spent some of the machine down time going over it with a fine tooth comb. I re-aligned all the pulleys, adjusted the v-wheels, added Loctite where ever needed and stiffened the X axis. Also calibrated the X and Y steps per millimeter. All tuned up and ready to carve.