A1 Y-axis belt fraying

Did my first maintenance today on my A1, bought 13 days ago. This is my first 3d printer and I’m totally new at this. I was a bit surprised when I opened the chassis and found a lot of debris from the Y-axis belt, as well as visibly frayed and rough edges. This is happening only to the rear of the bed and the belt even has a couple spots that are already all the way past the black and showing the inner core.

Attached is a photo showing the fraying (I cleaned the debris up before I thought about taking a picture), and you can see on the edge near center and far right where the core of the belt is already visible. All of the printing has been done with basic PLA (either Elegoo, Anycubic or Inland brand) using default setting for the Elegoo and Inland and the lower max nozzle temp of 210 that Anycubic specifies. No speed changes to anything I’ve printed yet.

So first I was wondering if it is normal for this much wear this quickly. It has been used daily anywhere from as little as an hour to as much as 8 hours, but that’s still probably less than 50 hours total use. And second, is there any info on mean time to failure for these belts so I can get an idea of when I need to order a replacement (as well as how many replacements I may need to keep on hand).

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Good morning! I have the same problem with my A1, which I bought less than 30 days ago. Did you manage to solve it? @usuário_3268691422

I sent pictures to support and they replied that it’s just part of the normal break-in on the belt, even when it goes all the way down into the uncolored core of the belt. They did also let me know that the belt is covered by the warranty so if it does turn out to be excessive and the belt breaks, at that point they will send a replacement. Mine doesn’t seem to be getting any worse and still just has those same two spots where the white core is visible.

1 Like

Thanks, I was worried because my prints started to look horrible and I saw these parts of the belt, so I associated that it could be that. Do you know what could be causing this? It was perfect 2 days ago, now it’s horrible. :frowning:

This is all still too new to me to offer much advice on quality and what causes problems, but if it was the same file 2 days ago and nothing has been changed with your settings my first guess would be that your filament is getting too moist. If this is a different object than what you printed 2 days ago then that opens up a lot of other possibilities that someone more knowledgable than me would need to help you with.

I tested it with a new filament, and everything remained the same. I honestly don’t know what to do, I thought it was a problem with the axles. Thank you very much for your time.

My X1C with 350 hours has frayed belts as well, even up to the core. There is no drop in print quality, however it is noisy when the frayed parts of the belt move over the pulley at high speed. Definitely not a big issue, but I did not expect it after about 4 months of (in my opinion not very intensive) use.

I have had my A1 for a few months now and noticed the black shreds from the belt at maintenance. I have greased the Y axis at least five times now and the belt is still going strong.

I did buy one of each of the belts and a couple of the other parts so if I did encounter a failure that I wouldn’t be down for a week while waiting for a new belt.

Have seen the same thing. Sounds like it is normal and I will keep watching it.