Aligning the gantry on FFCP 2016 help!

[wirlybird]

never removed one - but looking at it - sees pretty simple.
Squeeze it flat, slide belt out. And reverse to put back.

having just had a tentative squeeze - it's not going to be that easy, and I'd use pliers, the metal ends of the spring are sharp :-)
But i'd put money on them being based on clothes peg springs, they are virtually identical.

Apparently I'm not the only person who noticed either:

Yea, I've done it sort of like the video. When you look at the spring one end is hooked at the end of the loop so it will stay on the belt and the other is straight like in the video so it can slide onto the belt. It was a pain to do in close quarters with needle nose pliers. I think if you could compress it so the two ends are up and the coil part is lower then it could slide onto the belt and when you let go the ends would go out towards the sides and the coil part would move up. I'll have to try and if it works take some pics.

[wirlybird]

Here is just what I did before on another machine. It's not so easy when it's up in the machine and you have no room or visibility!!

[curious aardvark]

but did it work ?

[wirlybird]

but did it work ?

On the one I did this on I was replacing a belt and the clip was a pain to get on while it was all in the machine. I will try another method later to see if the idea will work.

[jfkansas]

Generally to realign the gantry with fixed pulleys, you have to kind of grip it and rip it. Essentially skip the belts into position.

[wirlybird]

Got the gantry re-aligned. Undid the belt on one side and got it straightened out then got the belt back on. A bit of a pain but it worked and we are up and running.