Noob question thread! 2020_Summer

[b264]

@Kai

Since switching one of my boards to single drive, it has started just DESTROYING belts. Wears the teeth right down. I’ve killed 2 in the last month. My guess is I need to adjust the tension some, but I figured I’d ask if there’s any other reason that would cause this. Literally only thing I changed on the setup was going from dual to single.

How did you align the motor mounts? Are they perfectly straight?

This works well for me

@b264

Alignment – the best way I’ve found to perfectly align belts is

• get motor mount (without motor) snug on hanger, then loosen a tiny bit so it moves
• install wheel and pulley with no speedring (washer) between the hanger and inner bearing.
• push motor mount flush up against wheel pulley so they are touching each other
• keep those held tightly together while you tighten motor mount clamps
• make sure mount is flush against, and touching, the wheel pulley, and there is no gap or misalignment
• finish tightening mount clamp all the way
• make sure again that mount is flush against, and touching, the wheel pulley, and there is no gap or misalignment
• when you’re all done, take the wheel and pulley back off, add a single 1mm speedring (washer) and just like that, the pulley will be perfectly aligned and 1mm away from the motor mount plate
• if you need it further away when you are doing tensioning, then add more washers

And also make sure your pulleys are concentric and don’t wobble at all as @taz mentioned. That’s super important.

Aside from that, it is normal for a single drive system to be more stressed in every way possible. Any problems or irregularities are amplified as well.

Bigfoot is the best single drive I ever built, and it’s got the balls of a lot of dual drives, but it took a lot of iterations to get there.