Pro MakerBot Tip
Occasionally on your Thing-o-matic, you have to tighten the rubber belts that move the X and Y axes. The motor adjustment screws for the Y axis are easy to access, so tightening the belt is simple. But the X axis motor is inside the Y axis carriage and it’s not easy to tighten without taking the whole X/Y carriage out of the machine.You can access the motor by taking the top left cap off the Y axis carriage, but you can’t reach two of the four screws needed to tighten the belt because they are under the front X axis rod. Unless you know this simple pro-tip:
If you file flat the corner of each of your front left X rod holders like this:
Then you can just rotate the rod holders and slide out the rod whenever you need to tighten your X axis belt. See:
After tightening your belt by sliding the motor back, just slide the rod back in and swivel your end cap to hold it in place. I don’t even use the second screw so that I can do this by hand.
Thanks to Jon Santiago for showing me this MakerBot Pro Tip.©©