Link Belt on BP Clone

[MrWhoopee]

A couple of days ago I noticed the belt on my J-head clone had a cut in it. Trying to finish what I'm doing I kept running. Today a chunk peeled of the belt, but it is still running. Not wanting to tear into it, I ordered a link belt off Amazon which will be here tomorrow. Anybody done this?

 

[mmcmdl]

Not on a mill , but on a lathe . Yes

 

[markba633csi]

You'll be punished by the machine goblins for doing that

 

[darkzero]

I haven't but I have ran link belts on things that required the belt to move pulley positions for speed changes. They don't like that & wear out much faster from frequent changes unless the tensioner is able to give it plenty of slack. Having to roll the belt over the pulley seemed to be what caused the accelerated wear.

Link belts are way to expensive for that. I went back to conventional v-belts on those machines. There was no benefit running them on those things anyway, I had extra so I tried it, but whatever, I don't have those machines anymore.

On my current lathe & air compressor, I've been running the same link belts on them for years. Never have to mess with the belts so they haven't worn the way I mentioned above. What I experienced was the links stretching out & eventually develop cracks from fatigue. I've only used Fenner Powertwist belts though.

 

[OTmachine]

I have one on a Barker that was a production machine. Works good!

 

[mmcmdl]

I had to put one on an old Atlas lathe with the rear countershaft setup . The guy was coming to buy it and I broke the belt when testing before he came . No noise and ran smooth and he never called back to say it had issues . Might have been a Fenner but not sure , came from MSC . I have about 5 or 6' downstairs somewhere .

 

[GeneT45]

A side benefit (depending on your motor and spindle) is that link belts will often dampen vibration. A friend greatly improved the finish from his single-phase A1SA (IIRC, that's the style) mini-knee mill by replacing the solid belts with linked belts.

GsT

 

[RaisedByWolves]

I have one on my mill.

Its so old that the surface has turned brown and is flaking off.

It looks like someone coated it with shellac, but it still works fine.

 

[Earl]

I put one on my Enco mill, a BP Belt drive clone. It runs quieter and has less vibration than the solid belt.
Didn't have to remove the motor to replace the belt. Cost a bit more than a solid belt but well worth it.