There was a question on another thread: "I wonder if you can 3D print a timing belt?" That I think was intended as a joke. But I thought it sounded like such a dumb idea I'd have to try. So I did.
I am converting a Harbor Freight Mini Mill to CNC and have now made all the parts. Except for standard off the shelf hardware, all the parts are 3D printed. I want to work out the easiest path for CNC conversion and then publish it so as to allow more people to have CNC capability. So I'm now assembling parts and needed a belt. I was able to make the conversion to CNC with no machined parts. I fully expected the belt to fail as soon as I applied tension. It didn't. Then I thought that as soon as I'd rotate the pulley the belt would break. it didn't so I fired up LinuxCNC and ran the splash screen forwards and backwords and got bored after it just worked about 8 times back to front. About the belt. I went to the SPD/SI web site and found a 133T, 3mm pitch, 9mm wide GT3 profile belt and clicked "download CAD file". I printed the file with no modifications and using the defaults setting in Cura with PLA plastic. PLA is a hard plastic not noted for being flexible. Below is a video of the belt in operation. It is also the very first time this mill has moved under computer control. It is just the bare minimum of parts installed for this stunt. The Z and X motors are laying flat on the bench. The Z motor has a bad driver and is *very* noisy (and replacements are out of stock). I placed a bit of blue painter's tape on the belt so you can see it move. https://youtu.be/GPXICb9rSoE -- Chris Albertson Redondo Beach, California _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
