Lost a whole afternoon to a busted plotter belt last Friday...

Was cranking out a set of plans for a commercial job in Reading and my HP DesignJet just started screeching real bad around 2pm. Took me 3 hours to figure out the belt slipped off a pulley, had to pull the whole side panel off. Cost me $45 for a replacement belt from Grainger and another hour to get it aligned right. Has anyone else dealt with these belt tension issues on the older DesignJets?

2 comments

2 Comments

casey39324d agoTop Commenter

Oh boy, I feel your pain. That screeching sound is unmistakable. I had a T1200 that threw its belt twice in one year, and the second time I ended up buying a spare belt just to keep in the drawer. The trick I learned is to check those plastic tensioner pulley mounts, they get hairline cracks over time and let the belt slip even after you think you've got it tight. A dab of Loctite on the mounting screws helped mine stay put for the last two years with no issues. For the alignment, I found that using a bright flashlight behind the belt while slowly rotating the pulley by hand helps spot when it's tracking straight.

the_phoenix24d ago

Oh man, tell me about it! I had a similar thing happen with my old Panasonic deck back in the day, except it was the motor that started making this godawful grinding noise. Turns out a little plastic gear inside had stripped some teeth after years of use, and I spent three weekends trying to track down a replacement before I gave up and just bought a whole new unit from a thrift store (which honestly worked better than the original ever did, go figure). I still have the old one sitting in my garage waiting for me to find time to fix it, because you know, someday I will totally get around to that. Your flashlight trick for alignment is genius though, I always just eyeballed it and hoped for the best, which probably explains a lot of my past belt failures.