John McPhee used 3D printed pulleys to perform a belt drive upgrade on his X1 mill. His article describing the upgrade appears in Model Engineer & Workshop, Vol. 234, No. 4762, March 2025. You can download John’s STL files for printing your own pulleys from this page, together with the OpenScad files that produced them.
John says “I decided I would look at 3D printing as much of the project as I could. In the end the only parts I had to purchase were a T5 x 10 x 340 toothed timing belt at about £6.00 and a spool of PLA printing filament at £10.00, this definitely give me a smug feeling. Aluminium plate, an earth bolt, fixings, some ring crimps and a bit of earth cable that were required, I already had.“
Advert
Enjoy more Model Engineer & Model Engineers’ Workshop Magazine reading every month. Click here to subscribe.
Article Tags:
About the Author
Hi,
I'm the editor of Model Engineers' Workshop magazine and, for my sins, one of the website admins.
I'm a model engineer, and in the past I have written for ME and MEW, but I won't claim any great stock of expertise, just plenty of enthusiasm. Before becoming editor I used to post on this forum as Stub Mandrel (and may occasionally still do so).
If you would like to find out more about me, my personal website is www.stubmandrel.co.uk/ and I have an author page on Amazon at amazon.co.uk/Neil-M-Wyatt/
Feel free to send me a 'pm' (message member) but these are a bit slow and clumsy, so if you would like to get in touch with me by email use neil.wyatt@mytimemedia.com
If you want to send me a friend request, don't! Nothing personal – but I refuse all requests so I don't have to choose which ones to accept and which to reject.
I'm always glad to hear your views on the magazine, and particularly keen to encourage new contributors to 'have a go', so let me know if you have any ideas for articles.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Neil
