Flashforge Creator Pro - replacing plastic pulleys

thingiverse

My trusty FFCP has been a workhorse for the last year, churning out over 2200 hours of printing with minimal issues - that's almost 8.5 kilometers of filament. So yesterday I decided to give my printer some much-needed TLC and took it apart for maintenance, swapping out the plastic pulleys in the process. After reassembling everything, I was thrilled to find that the original adapters didn't need to be changed, but when I started a new print, the size of the prints no longer matched up as expected. After some investigation, I discovered that the 17-toothed plastic pulleys were the culprit and ordered new pulleys with 16T to see if this would resolve the issue. I also created a topic in the FlashForge group for discussion - you can find it here: http://www.thingiverse.com/groups/flashforge/topic:9788 Update: December 14, 2016; I received some valuable feedback from the discussion group and it's clear that having 17-toothed pulleys is essential to prevent printouts from being the wrong size. I managed to find some compatible pulleys on eBay for half the price of those available on the FlashForge USA website. Update: December 16, 2016; After swapping out the X-axis pulleys with 20 teeth and putting back the original plastic pulleys on the stepper motors, my prints are once again accurate in size and quality. It turns out that the top corner pulleys don't make a difference as long as those on the stepper motor have the correct pulleys with 17 teeth. I've posted some additional pictures to illustrate the improvement - you can see how my printouts were affected after so many hours of printing, but changing the pulleys in the corners has restored them almost to their original state. Next up is waiting for the metal 17T pulleys to arrive and swapping out the plastic ones on the stepper motors. Update: December 22, 2016; Yesterday I received the 17T pulleys and replaced the plastic ones on the stepper motors - all seems to be working smoothly now. My conclusion is that most pulleys would work for the corners as long as you remember to use 17-toothed pulleys for the stepper motors. Update: January 12, 2017; After printing an additional kilometer of filament over the last few weeks, I can confidently say my printer is back to its old self. I'm now planning to upgrade the standard bearings with the custom ones I created and published yesterday - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2031470 - to make it more silent. Some recommended resources for S2M 17T pulleys are: http://www.flashforge-usa.com/shop/parts-accessories/belt-pulley.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Makerbot-3D-Printer-Accessories-timing-pulley_1590215055.html https://www.amazon.co.uk/Teeth-Motor-Drive-Timing-Pulley/dp/B00R1LSTIQ http://www.ebay.com/itm/2pcs-GT17-GT2-6-GT2-17T-3D-Printer-Pulley-Bore-5MM-2M-Open-Belt-Width-6MM-557-/321381340637?hash=item4ad3d215dd:g:M6oAAOxycD9TT2SZ