Fitting belts within your frame

[dellagd]

Originally Posted by Joey Milia

22t is the absolute largest you can fit in 2in 1/8 wall tubing. We offset the baseplate rivets from the belts and we do the center drop by pushing the outer wheels up 1/16 and the middle wheel down a 1/16th. I think if you did it all from just the center or just the outer you would get some rubbing. Going 3/32 either side of center to get 3/16 total should be possible though. (please check in CAD though I haven't looked at it for a while)

We chose to go with 2x2 instead of 2x1.5 because of how tight the belts are in the tube. 1.5 doesn't leave much room for things poking into the side of the tube (like gearbox bolts or the caps for access holes) and we were worried about rubbing the sides of the tubes.

Yeah, this sounds like a good option. Makes life a lot easier since we're not at the point where we can make our own gearboxes yet and all the Vex shifters are designed to easily mount onto a 2 in height frame member.

[chrisfl]

Would you be able to create a slot in the top and bottom of the tube to allow clearance for the pulley to extend out of the tube a bit? Then the belt would be going along one or two outer sides of the tube. I haven't done this before. This would help save space within the interior of your frame for electronics and subsystems.

[Mike Marandola]

Originally Posted by chrisfl

Would you be able to create a slot in the top and bottom of the tube to allow clearance for the pulley to extend out of the tube a bit? Then the belt would be going along one or two outer sides of the tube. I haven't done this before. This would help save space within the interior of your frame for electronics and subsystems.

If I am understanding what you are saying correctly, you wouldn't be able to get the belt in since it can't be split. Unless you are talking about making one long cutout running the length of the tubing. In that case, a lot of strength will be lost.