New Octoprint box

[Redbrickman]

I hear what you are saying about the belts, but the quality of belts have improved dramaticaly over the last few years and belt tensioning is not as critical as it used to be. Stretching now only tends to happen after a very long period of use with good belts. With 3D printers there is quite a bit of maintenance required anyway, so part of that routine is check and adjust belt tension.

I guess the aim is always to produce the best quality prints from an FDM printer which by it's nature and process of laying down layers is always going to need careful tweaking. If money was no object then the best resin printer on the market would be the choice or injection moulding but then, where is the fun in that

 

[Steve J]

I hear what you are saying about the belts, but the quality of belts have improved dramaticaly over the last few years and belt tensioning is not as critical as it used to be. Stretching now only tends to happen after a very long period of use with good belts. With 3D printers there is quite a bit of maintenance required anyway, so part of that routine is check and adjust belt tension.

I guess the aim is always to produce the best quality prints from an FDM printer which by it's nature and process of laying down layers is always going to need careful tweaking. If money was no object then the best resin printer on the market would be the choice or injection moulding but then, where is the fun in that

Hate to disagree, but I have personal experience with belts. With the Prusa, I was getting layer shifting, even the y axis belt was fairly snug. I put a tensioner on the y axis belt, and much of the layer shifting went away. Inexpensive 3D printers SHOULD NOT require constant tweaking. Yes, parts wear out, but over the long term, not the short term. The reason the printers need constant tweaking is because they aren't designed properly. And it wouldn't cost much more to do it properly. The Prusa configuration puts more strain on the motor bearings, which puts more slop in the tolerances. The plotters I worked on worked for days without futzing, and we learned what failed and how to make it better. Today's "engineers" don't understand these principles, and that's why 3D printers need futzing. The plotters used steel cables with spring tensioners. Just as cheap as notched belts, but MUCH better. And we loaded the motor bearings differently so they didn't rely on side thrust of the wire pulleys. Closed loop drives allowed the control board to know exactly where the extruder is, not by counting steps, but by actually knowing where the extruder is. I was at a 3D printer show and spoke to several manufacturers about closed loop drives, and got a blank stare. Feedback knowledge seems to be unknown to these folks. This is why 3D printers need constant futzing. I could go on, but for me, 3D printing is a tool to build things, and I want it to just work.

 

[Redbrickman]

Interesting what you say about the Prusa, but I wonder if there is anywhere near the same stretching on fixed bed printer as the inertia and stress on the belts must be less than that of throwing a heavy bed around quickly when doing fast moves etc?

Have you ever considered joining the Voron Discord Channel. It's a place where there is much development and discussion about printers, and there is a specific channel call VoronMods where users can suggest improvements. There is also a channel called Off Topic Theorcrafting where lots of people share ideas about building, not just 3D printers but also stuff like CNC's laser cutters etc. I think you might find it interesting.