[Jeff Pahl]

Originally Posted by ksafin

have you ever had an issue with the belt falling out of the sprocket?

I'm just wondering because I feel like a flanged sprocket is a safer bet.

The 60T shown is used on our wheels. I don't think it is even offered with a flange, but then I've never looked. The small sprocket on the other end of the belt has a flange and keeps the belt in place. And where the sprocket is in our drivetrain, there's not enough room on either side of the sprocket to let the belt fall off. We've run variations of the same basic design for two years now and have never had a belt come off (~80 matches).

For an application like the OP was thinking about, I'd try to put some thin plastic flanges on the sprocket (made from something like a Cool Whip container lid) or some other sort of spacers to hold the belt in place. The design shown in the picture is not suitable for the application in question, the center hub would need to be different. Picture is just to show an example of what is possible in terms of material removal on the Gates sprockets.

If you move up to wide belts, like the Brecoflex that were popular several years ago as tank treads, you can get them with a "rib" in on the toothed side that will track in a grove in the pulleys.