Crowned Rollers for Polyurethane Belt

[JohnFogarty]

Hello CD,

I’ve been digging back through old threads about poly-belt intakes and have come to understand how crowned rollers are important for keeping polybelt aligned properly. I’ve never used the stuff before. I was going to take a stab at printing some, but the threads where folks linked models to one’s they had made for 1/2" hex have all died with the conversion to discourse.

Does anyone have models of crowned rollers they’ve used with 1"wide flat poly-belt they recommend or or models of a 1/2" hex compatible one I could try printing?

Thanks!

[chadr03]

Flat Belt Wheel.stl (1.1 MB)
This is a slightly modified 1.625 Colson wheel and it works pretty well from our testing

[GeeTwo]

Not sure what you’re planning to do with this, but if you’re going to move Power Cells, check out this topic first:

Power Cells jamming upon rolling contact

I have heard stories that some groups of people have found that power cells don’t react well when rolling against other power cells (particularly with some sort of moving belt on one side and a static floor on the other). We have been unable to test this ourselves since we are still waiting for our order of power cells to arrive but it is pretty critical to design so I’m curious if those who have multiple Power Cells (the real deal, not the off-brand ones) and have tested this would be willing t…

@Tom_Line

They are sticky enough that if they come in sideways to a urethane belt they will happily push the belt right off the pulley. Like on an intake.

[philso]

The people who make their own belt grinder often use rollers with constant diameter rollers. They put a crown on one of them by wrapping some tape around it. Scroll down to the end of the “Tracking Arm” section in this link for a photo.

[Samuel5804]

I would first heed the words of @GeeTwo

If you still need your question answered though, we’ve just used shaft collars in the past to great success. Just tighten one shaft collar onto each shaft and roll the belt up on to the shaft collars. The belt should sit right on center of the collars.

[Akash_Rastogi]

In the past I’ve used a quick and dirty solution:

Whatever roller you are using, take a thin section of pvc, cut a slit in that so you can snap it over your roller. Make it 1/4" wide. Use electrical tape to position it into place, with maybe a few extra wraps. That pvc section acting as a crown on your roller should be sufficient to hold it in place.