X-pulley issue on Shapeoko Pro

[LiamN (Liam Newcombe)]

@Eric1

spinning (though I cant remove it yet, waiting for a gear extractor). Looking at past topics on this issue looks like there are two solutions for this:

1. Flip the pulley so the grub screw connects to the flat part at the top of the shaft. Easy solution but concern this moves the pulley further out and maybe bending the stepper motor axle in the long term ?

2. Filing part of the axle flat for the grub screw.

So my question is , between these two solutions which one is recommended ?
Thanks,
Eric

So, I guess you’ve seen this post then with the inverted pulley ?

PSA: Check your X axis pulley before assembly

I noticed that from the factory one of the X axis pulley grub screws doesn’t tighten onto the D profile of the shaft. Maybe it was just a one time fluke, but in the official assembly video I noticed it was the same way. To resolve this, just flip your pulley around and make the end flush like this picture. Also recommend backing out the grub screws and using blue loctite (Gel kind is the best). None of our pulleys had loctite from the factory even though we were told they would be. In the futu…

I’m not sure you need a gear puller, but if you’ve ordered one anyway it won’t hurt. Do be careful with the thin lip end of the pulley, these are generally pressed on and come off quite easily.

Although you’re right to worry about moving the load point further down the stepper shaft, inverting the pulley is not going to significantly change the load point. The inner round face of the pulley sits on the shaft so the loads should still be applied approximately where the belt tension is centered.

As for filing the shaft, I would not do that, it will definitely weaken the shaft and make it more prone to a fracture failure later on (which is a known issue).

HTH