My Makerbot 5th Gen started making some deeply unsettling scraping noises, and with great haste, I sprang to inspect the situation. The extruder head seemed to be clearing the build plate and the print just fine. So I began to inspect the many moving parts involved one at a time. After much leaning, squinting, suspecting, and a bit of voodoo, I discovered that the Idler Pulley was the culprit.
There is not much online unfortunately about the Makerbot 5th Gen’s Idler Pulley in particular, and had to do quite a bit of digging before I found anything about the pulley, let alone its name. The only place I found anything on it was Fargo 3D Printing supply and what was there was minimal. I got on the phone with Makerbot tech support and they were helpful, but then they said in order to fix it I would need to send in my machine. Since that was out of the question, I had to find a replacement part on my own. As I mentioned, Fargo 3D had one, but they were out of stock. I turned to Ali Express and low and behold, they had a few options for me, and inexpensive at that. I placed my order and hoped that the print jobs I had from my customers would not pose an issue.
I was super excited when it arrived. But again, there was little info on just how to replace the darn thing. So again it was up to me fiddling with things and hoping I wouldn’t break things more..
Lifting the top portion off was quite interesting.
As you can see from the photo above, there is a little clip that I had to gently/not gently pry off in order to get the top portion of the makerbot off, and again, no images or videos online on how to do this. I also made sure to unplug the camera so as not to yank the cord out… Camera module below…
As you can see from the photo below, I finally got the top of the makerbot and the idler pulley removed. The Idler pulley came off easy enough with an allen wrench. The scrapping sound was coming from the Pulley’s bearings wearing down and coming apart and you can see the bits of plastics dust that were left behind.
Below you can see the Idler Pulley’s bearings destroyed. When on the phone with Makerbot support they confided in me that this particular part tends to fail fairly often and this is a common repair for them.
It took some patients and some consistent pressure, but I got the new Idler Pulley Installed and in place. Looking pretty sweet if I do say so myself.
Once it was installed, I got the lid back on, did a quick calibration and it was running smooth once again! Although it was a bit of hassle trying to figure this out, I still say Makerbot is a great brand of 3D Printer and consistently gives me great prints.
Drop me a line or a comment if you are having trouble yourself and I am happy to help!