[protoserge]

FRC836 (The RoboBees) used a Gates timing belt for drive in 2012. It was fairly reliable, considering it was a tensioner/idler system (we had one belt go off pulley three time during the season in competition due to ball interference). Ideally, you should design the system to not have this "feature".

The biggest issue with timing belt drive is supply. We had optimized the drive (pulleys and belt lengths) only to find that Gates and their supplier were out of stock. It was a frantic back-and-forth telephone ordering process to get a solution that worked.

The above post has a lot of great resources. I would highly recommend using the off-season to develop a size chart for belt length with variables of drivetrain dimension and the torque/speed requirement (determines pulley diameter/teeth) to make the ordering process as painless as possible come build season.


Specs (placeholder for later)
Rear-biased, centrally mounted AndyMark SuperShifters
60 tooth pulley (6 wheels all had this pulley, rear axle drove center axle)
92 tooth pulley (main drive to rear axle)
25 tooth pulley at AM SuperShifter

This is off memory, but here is a general layout of the drivetrain (I'll have to get a photo).


- — - — - — - — - — - —

Rear-----AM---------Front
|90|-----25--------------
|60|---------60
-------------60--------60