WCD CAD Practice

[AdamHeard]

Mike, I'd agree the click CAM tensioners are too coarse. Since the distance is so small, I bet a smooth CAM without any clicks could be used just fine, and with a much smaller ratio during rotation. This shallower CAM would be less likely to loosen from load as well.

Originally Posted by Chris is me

You don't need a tensioning system at all to use a belt drive. If anything, designing to exact center distances with a belt drive is better as it eliminates any chance of the belt run pairs being tensioned unevenly.

There's no reason that the belt pulley walls would bend, regardless of how they're attached to the assembly.

Exact C-C actually guarantees all the belt runs will be at uneven tension.

When you do exact C-C the belt tension is set by the c-c distance plus the sum of all your manufacturing tolerances (which includes the belt! and that can be more than a thou on drive length belts!).

Gates has a lot of great documentation out there that explains this and many other factors with their belts. It's a great read for any team who runs belts.