How do i know if I need new wheels or belts? I feel like there is a new noise coming from the area of my y axis stepper motor on the left side as I stand in front ot the machine. I can hear it making a soft grinding noise along the entire length of the y axis as it moves. Machine still operates as normal but if I am going to need something soon I want to be sure I have it on hand. I cleaned and dusted the belts and the wheels, so I am confident that is not the issue. Thanks in advance.
Usually the belts either give way, or won’t retain tension, V wheels are too worn when they either go out of round and stay that way or when they are so worn that they don’t have sufficient contact w/ the rails when the eccentric nut is adjusted to put them all the way towards the rail.
Please check and see if the problem is the flanges on the idlers touching the top of the V rail.
If you don’t find anything obvious to address, let us know at support@carbide3d.com
Some v wheels crack from the inside out. Closely inspect the wheels visually. The belts can last a long time. Originally they were fiberflass then steel and now fiberglass or kevlar. The steel belts seemed to fail looking like they were stretched making the cogs look irregularily spaced. Not sure what c3d is currently using but they are not using steel core belts.
Your pulleys have 2 set screws. One should be on the flat of the stepper motor.
So I took the belt off and manually slid the gantry back and forth. Definitely still feels like its grinding somewhere. Are there wheels or bearings on the guide rail on the outside of the machine that might be cracked or have bad bearings?
There are bearings in the V wheels — if you’re under warranty, let us know at support@carbide3d.com and we’ll get it sorted out.
If you’re not under warranty, we have replacements in the Maintenance Kit:
Email sent. Thank you. On a side note, how difficult is it to change the V-wheels? Do I have to disassemble the gantry? Thanks Will. As always I appreciate your help.
You can replace them one at a time, which makes it pretty straight-forward.
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Each v wheel has a washer between the v wheel and frame. This washer spaces the v wheel away from the frame to allow free rotation of the bearing and for the v wheel not to rub on the frame.
To adjust the v wheel you need a wrench and metric allen wrench. Loosen the metric bolt a little. You did need to loosen much, less than one turn. The newer ecentric nuts are 10mm. After loosening the allen bolt there is a dot on the nut. With that dot up that is minimum size of eccentric. Turn wrench while feeling v wheel. Just as wheel does not free turn and the v wheel trys to move the gantry hold the wrench and tighten allen nut. If you do not hold wrench in position torque from tightening bolt will cause eccentric to move and cause the v wheel to be too tight or too loose. Just tight enough to move gantry is enough. Do not over tighten.
When through grab ends of gantry and pull up and down. The gantry should not wiggle around. Then grab z and pull up and down same as gantry.
After v wheels are adjusted with power off move gantry front to back slowly. If you move too fast you will feel stepper motors energizing and causing resistance. After gantry moved smoothly move z axis left and right stop to stop. The z should feel smooth. Moving the z up and down is only done by manually moving the screw by hand and proves nothing except the z can move.
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