Thread: Belt Drives
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Unread 04-10-2010, 13:26
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Brandon Holley Brandon Holley is offline
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Re: Belt Drives

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris is me View Post
Fun question: I've heard that belt drives never stretch. Does that mean if you CAD appropriately and use exactly the right belts, you don't need tensioners other than to more fully engage pulleys? I've seen photos of 1717 robots with belts used without tensioners before... Are they a requirement, or just nice to have?
Theoretically, yes, you should be able to design the distance between centers to a correct interval and end up with a belt without tensioners. However, the belt drives I've done have all ended up with tensioners. This was just to bulletproof the setup should anything change throughout the course of the season. The nice thing about these tensioners was they did not need to be variable. It was literally a piece of delrin turned to the correct diameter and placed over a standoff that was inline with the belt path. We had little issues with the belts with the tensioners in place. Post-season we ran without tensioners to test the setup and did end up failing a belt (sheered teeth) after 3 or 4 post season events. Luckily we had replacements at the ready and did a quick swap and reinstalled the tensioners.


I would say if your considering a belt setup, order some samples and just play with them yourselves. Use the fall to develop some kind of a prototype using belts. It doesn't need to be an entire drive system. Maybe even try to do some lifetime testing and see if they do stretch in your applicaation.

-Brando
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