After a longer cut (around 2h) one belt (top right) wouldn’t retract all the way. In fact it wouldn’t retract at all. I increased the retraction force in some steps and needed to go up to 4000 to fully retract the belt. After that I felt, that this motor was a bit warmer than the others. Right before the cut I made the fix for the “push to extend bug” and put in the 3D-printed belt guards.
Is it possible, that something is stuck? How can I try it (without disassembling)? The motor is completely locking the gears. Is it possible, that the motor is stuck?
The first thing that I would try is to fully extend that belt and then retract it again. It does sounds like something is binging in there, but extending the belt and retracting it can often fix that issue.
I have seen this problem one time, however, it was the bottom left that would not retract. It was late in the evening, so I just powered down Maslow4 and the computer connected via wifi. The next day, I powered up and it retracted ok. I have not seen that problem since, could there be internal heat that was causing a problem? The motor on mine did not seem very hot, so I discounted excessive heat possibility. Still don’t know what caused the problem.
If your bearing holding the pin for the belt rollers becomes slightly unseated (raised) a tooth of the metal gear can strike the bearing housing and lock up. But in your case it was solved by changing the motor current so this may not be what caused your issue
If that’s the drive gear with the set screw, can try giving a little more of a space under the gear can avoid that happening. If that happens, I’d also recommend checking the set screw is securely in because the gear could be traveling a little too.
How does one “fully extend” the belts? From what I have seen, “extend all” does not “fully extend” the belts, except for maybe on initial setup. Is there a command that can be entered to “fully extend” all (or one) belt(s)?
Yes, Thats correct. Extend all only extends enough belts to make it to the anchors based on the frame dimensions in the Config settings. So here is what you are going to do to extend them all the way-
Go into the Setup menu, and then go to the Config menu, and set the retraction force at like 100 and hit save. Then hit retract all, you may hear the motors start and stop, but you should soon see messages that all 4 belts have been retracted though they won’t actually move. Then hit extend all and pull them out till they stop. Then hit retract all, they shouldn’t move again. Then hit extend all and pull then out again and just continue that cycle until the belts are all the way out. After that, go back into Config and bump the retraction force back up to 1300ish or whatever you had it set to before. Hit save and then retract all. It should pull all of the belts back in and respool everything nice and neatly.
