Round Belting - Solid vs. Hollow, Polycord vs. McMaster

[ebarker]

I have bought poly cord in the past but we didn't put it on a 'production' robot.

During AimHigh a girl on a team from Florida showed me how to weld it. She used a lighter and heated the ends and pressed the ends together and clamped it. I cannot remember the setup hold times but if you setup a jig it should go easy.

Also the cord is designed to have a certain amount of tension so you need to figure out how long you really want it then make the cables and then mount them. Think of them as tough rubber bands.

If you know someone that has a nice sheet fed Heidleberg press you can probably some some of this stuff in action.

I'm gonna run on a little more while I'm here.

FYI - we may make a conveyer out of timing belt, probably the XL size, and use plastic pulleys scattered across a drive shaft will filler between the pulleys. the filler will be turned down the the inner pitch diameter of the pulley. plastic pulleys are cheap and you can get them with single, double, and no flange.

timing belt is made in large tubes then is sliced like a giant salami.

you can go buy any width timing belt you want if you order it from www.econobelt.com or www.sdp-si.com , for example 2 foot wide if you like. There are whole families of standard length.

and the belts don't need to be as wide as a moon rock, only wide enough to touch the crown.

and similiar to the timing belt, you can get flat belt (un-timing belt).

right after we shipped aim high robot I went to a Harley Davidson bike ralley and saw some custom bikes with 4 inch wide belts driving between the engine and wheel. It was totally cool looking and had graphics imprinted onto the belt.

does anyone know how to do the printing ?