Belt and pulley upgrade

[rcamber (Bob Amber)]

Can I upgrade my belt and pulley system to the large set like what’s on the pro?

[Julien]

Hi @rcamber,

I guess a short answer could be : “possibly, but you probably shouldn’t”.

There is no official upgrade path to do it, and it will not be a simple upgrade, since you would need to change stepper motors too to get longer shafts too to accomodate the 15mm pulley/belts.

This is being discussed in this other thread:

Where can I get pro stepper motors

I don’t have the budget to buy a Pro so I am designing my own upgrade to linear rails for my standard SO3 using HGR15 rails mounted to the stock Y rails and a 80 x 120mm extrusion for the X rail with side plates similar to the pro and I need to source 3 nema 24 steppers with the longer shafts and 15mm pulleys. Does anyone know where I can buy them?

Just upgrading to 15mm belts on a stock Shapeoko may not be interesting anyway, since you would then likely be limited by other factors in the machine, depending on your usage. There is a subtle balance between parts, the Shapeoko has its own consistency, the Shapeoko Pro has its own (higher rigidity) design point, and mixing and matching is likely to be a costly way to end-up with an unbalanced machine.

[rcamber (Bob Amber)]

Thanks for your reply