I am cleaning my air assist fan. When putting the carriage plate back on and re attaching the belts, the glowforge instructions on this forum state that the ridges of the belt are suppose to face inward and smooth surface on outside. Mine is definitely the opposite. And the way I see the belt attached to the carriage plate, I don’t see how I could have made the belt flip. Are the instructions in the forum incorrect?
Can’t check the X-axis belt at the moment, I’m running a long job, but ridges inside (touching the wheels) is correct for the side ones…going to assume inside as well for that axis.
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The x-axis belt’s ridges should be facing the air assist fan, as shown in this picture:
You mentioned reattaching the belt. When you removed the belt, did you remove the metal assembly attached to the belt as well? Do you have any photos you can share? Thanks!
When I had to clean mine (before the instructions to do so were posted) I removed the clamp that secures both ends of the belt. I had assumed it was a closed loop and not a strip. When I realized that it was opened I was concerned about achieving the correct belt tension, but I was relieved there was plenty of smoke stain on the belt where the clamp wasn’t covering the ends, and it was obvious exactly how many of the belt teeth were under the clamp. 
Because the clamping plate has corresponding teeth to fit the belt, I would be surprised if it were initially assembled wrong - but stranger things have happened.
On the subject of the belt teeth, I noticed on the two ‘laser tile’ jobs I’ve run there is vertical banding you can see best on his arm. I don’t think it coincidence that the pattern matches the spacing of the belt teeth. Just wondering if there were any way around that, like maybe flipping that belt…?
@jpw0100, the drive sheaves on the stepper motors are cogged to match the belt teeth for positive displacement. If you didn’t disconnect the clamp that holds the belt ends, It must have been done that way during initial assembly. I find that surprising just because as I said above, the teeth in the metal clamp that secures the belt ends to the carriage makes it obvious which way is correct.
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Thanks for the responses. After I posted on here, I continued to look at the instructions on this website and trouble shoot and found out my problem was related to the way I had the belt laying over the carriage plate. I set the belt on the carriage plate exactly as shown in the pictures and everything worked out great.
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I’m glad you resolved it! I’m going to close this thread. If you run into any other trouble, please start a new topic, or email us at support@glowforge.com. We’re here to help!