Belt pulley options

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Proper center-to-center distance.

How do you determine this? I used the online calculator from SDP-SI for some XL belts and pulleys from McMaster, and when they showed up it was way off. So, I'm just going with holding the actual setup tight and measuring it out. Does this sound like a plan?

[Mk.32]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

How do you determine this? I used the online calculator from SDP-SI for some XL belts and pulleys from McMaster, and when they showed up it was way off. So, I'm just going with holding the actual setup tight and measuring it out. Does this sound like a plan?

We used the SDP-SI calculator for over 8 belt runs and they have all been dead on, we are using GT2 3mm and 5mm pitches. I believe you can also calculate this using pitch lengths and diameters giving by the part's specs.

Could you have had an inches metric conversion error? Or an mis ordered part?

[mikegrundvig]

I've used the SDP calculator for multiple projects as well, FRC and others, and it's never led me wrong. I'd suspect something else happened there.

-Mike

[JCharlton]

If you're planning to spin a shooter wheel at high speed I'd suggest urethane belting instead of a toothed belt.

• It's a piece of cake to make a pulley on a lathe
• The center distance isn't critical
• Belting is cheap and easy to make in any length
• If the wheel jams the belt can be set to slip a little preventing a full stall.