Precision 3D Printed Belts

Flat belts for cassette and turntables

The story of 3D printing belts goes back a few years now, and actually started with dbx encoded Vinyl – Whaaat? Well if you want the full story have a read of the article here.

The short version is I got into restoring cassette decks and was looking forward to seeing these lovely decks performing as they would when new or as close as is practical. Particularly import to me was their W&F (Wow and Flutter) performance. So I bought in belts from reputable sources, some supposedly premium and spent good money on full sets of belts… But I just couldn’t get any near acceptable figures. I mean were talking about decks capable of 0.04 WRMS, but getting 0.1%+

At first I thought there was something wrong with the decks, that I’d missed something while servicing the mechs. Eventually I realised it was the belts and went through all the belts I’d bought and got a terrible sinking feeling when I realised they were all bad belts.

I even tried some finishing techniques which did improve the results but by the time they worked acceptably the belts were so thin its was not practical to leave them on the decks.

This gave me a very long pause for thought. Sat next to me was my 3D printer and I remember thinking… “What if…”

The rest is history. Little did I know it would take me over 2yrs and a tonne of frustration to perfect the process.

So welcome to my belt printing service!