Gantry Misalignment V-Core 500
I recently discovered my gantry was not running parallel to the frame. I checked the frame squareness and it's within 0.5mm on the diagonals and the sides are parallel. BUT my gantry was out of alignment by more than 5mm when measured between the gantry ends and the frame. So I realigned the gantry to less then 1mm of misalignment from one end to the other against the frame, tightened the gantry screws and re-tensioned the belts. Now after a couple of prints the gantry is 5mm out of square again!!! The only thing that makes sense to me is that I am using a different brand belt for the x and the y motors. Other than this, does anyone have any ideas on why this might be happening?
5 Replies
genetic-orange•2y ago
Solved: I think. It turns out one belt tensioner was bottoming out (hadn't originally noticed this) so that I couldn't apply sufficient tension to one belt. Slight belt trim and re-tension and things are looking much better.
belt tension indeed can be used to 'square' your gantry. so dissimilar belt tensions alone WILL rack your gantry
genetic-orange•2y ago
Yeah always learning.
The culprit was the uneven belt tension. It was skewing the gantry even when the gantry was set dead parallel to the frame before tensioning the belts. With a V-Core 500 there is a lot of torque applied to the gantry by uneven belt tension due to the length of the gantry.
congrats!
genetic-orange•2y ago
Beer maybe? 🤓