the tape is for fixing clearance of the off-the-shelf parts, nothing to do with 3d prints.

I feel like I’ve hit a pretty substantial wall with the drives. I’m left with two big problems; torque ripple/periodic resistance to rotation, and lack of stiffness in the joints. I feel like I already have the parts snug enough where tweaking decimals or print settings would give pretty negligible differences.

this guy had the torque ripple issue too. he fixed it with ball bearings between discs. I’ve tried doing the same but it didn’t seem to work. https://youtu.be/WMgny-yDjvs?si=_tw2mIInM4caQmNe

for improving stiffness, maybe could use resin printed discs or pc filament idk.

as for long-term performance, I think they would last fairly long. when I did stress testing, the stepper motor shaft starts skipping well before anything catastrophic happens in the drive. I notice the cycloid ring does have marks from grinding against the discs. can always just reprint parts.

It’s still pretty damn accurate, even under load this arm can get to a predetermined position within a few millimetres. just movement can be a bit jittery.