I love the look of it but my one problem is that as you can see I’m all the way at the end of the travel on my motor mounts. Luckily this pretty much works - the belt is loose but not so loose that it skips - I don’t think I’ve ever had a skip.
I feel like I need a couple more mm of travel to get the belts to the right tightness.
These are the @Boardnamics 63mm motor mounts. Apparently the center-to-center distance on these is 56-68mm (https://boardnamics.com/product/caliber-ii-63mm-motor-mount/) assuming my pre-2021 version is more or less the same as the current version.
I feel like I need motor mounts that extend just a smidge more - like maybe out to 75mm instead of 68mm. But I don’t want long motor mounts - I want to keep the ultraboard look with the motors tucked under as much as possible rather than sticking way out back.
I could try getting 285 belts instead of 290 but here’s the thing - I can’t pull in the motors even one millimeter. They are already touching the baseplate under full lean. So if they are too tight I can’t pull in the motors to loosen them, they simply won’t work.
Anther option is to just chill out I suppose. They aren’t skipping so if they are a bit loose maybe it doesn’t matter? If the belts ever stretch and start skipping I can just replace em with fresh ones.
You could very slowly file down the holes of the motor and motor bolts to the left and get some slight movement that way. Might be a pain in the ass to figure out how to get that little dip for the bolts under the belt that need to sit down further. For the ones outside of the belt area, just get some bolts that are slightly longer and don’t make a dip.
I’ve never done it before but it looks like it would be possible if it really bothers you that much. Just prepare for it to take hours. You might be able to use a drill bit to speed things up but you’d need a steady hand and fresh bits.
Or try to fit an idler in there somewhere but it doesn’t look like you have space for one.
I run loose-ish belts. as long as you’re not getting skipping on braking you’re good imo. Especially in this complicated situation where you can’t move shit. bonus is you get slightly better free roll on loose-ish belts.
but yeah, a drill press or mill might do the trick if you just have to have them slightly tighter.
Do you have a dremel and clamp to secure the mount to a bench or table, or a vise? If so, I’ll walk you through the process, it’s not hard at all. It’ll take like 30 minutes at most.
I was just gonna suggest that; no skipping on normal use doesn’t mean no skipping when shit hits the fan. Not an expert but it doesn’t seem like a super hard job so hopefully you’ll be sorted soon
