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3D printer/CNC belt tension measurement

Measures belt tension for 3D printers and CNC machines

steven-j-greenfieldSteven J Greenfield
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Too loose a belt, it can skip. Too tight, it can stretch and affect accuracy, and create more wear on parts. The most common way to test this is to pluck the belt and use an app on your phone to measure the frequency. Then hopefully someone can tell you what frequency it should vibrate at for that particular axis on your particular printer or CNC.

I can't reach the belt to pluck it on some of my 3D printers. This thumps the belt and measures the frequency. It report the frequency and calculate the belt tension. I may build a test fixture to test and measure the common GT2 belts at different spacings and tensions to come up with my own chart/calculator.
https://gatesbeltsandapplications.blogspot.com/2017/10/calculating-tension-from-hz-some.html

I may use a Teensy 3.0 just because I have some, but it'd be better to use a Nano if that is sufficient.

A small supermagnet on a 3D printed compliant mechanism. It will be made to fit between the space in 2020 extrusion.

I've been alerted to a simplified FFT called the Goertzel algorithm. If the fundamental frequency never has to go about about 4.5kHz, a standard 8 bit 16MHz Arduino may be sufficient in speed. This is based on the max 9.6kHz MSps sample rate and Nyquist theorem that says less than half the sample frequency can be captured. A 4.5kHz lowpass filter of sufficient sharpness should do just fine.

Goertzel Algorithm An efficient way to implement FFT using Arduino

If this is not fast enough, even the meanest Teensy 3 and up will handle it easily.

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