Belt Driven instead of Chain driven

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by annie1939

My team hasn't done a belt drive, but there are some products out there that could simplify doing one. AndyMark sells a v belt pulley http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-0592.htm. It was developed by team 1810. It is made in 2 pieces of plastic so that when you need to replace the belt, you just unbolt one side of the pulley and slip the belt on. And being plastic they are light, unlike the traditional pulleys. 1810 could tell you more.

There are also Link v -belts that you can shorten or lengthen yourself. You can also remove a link and thread them like you would a chain and reconnect them. Harbor Freight has some at http://www.harborfreight.com/vibrati...elt-43771.html. Grainger and IBT also have them. I haven't used these, but they look intriguing. I have no idea what kind of slippage they would have.

If you want to go with the Gates Belts, they have a lot of videos to show you how at http://first.gatesprograms.com/video. My team was never organized enough to know what length we needed in time to order.

I know every time I pick up the chain, I keep thinking about how wonderful it would be to shed those pounds.

973 recently started looking into belts, and used them on a few things recently with success. We read pretty much all the documentation Gates has to offer, the gt2 tooth profile is very nice. We won't be replacing the chains in our drive with them for various reasons, but we'll certainly use belts in various places. We LOVE the selection sdp-si has, and we also love the plastic sprockets.