Originally Posted by rcbamm  hey guys, I was wondering if it will be good enough to use a belt driven setup for my X rails? I thought that pretty strong belt with pulleys on both ends would be more "precise" and I think it might be cheaper. not sure, was also wondering if any of ya had some good links on belts and pulleys. |
Hi,
I'm building a belt driven xy table, take a look
here
I purchased my stuff from
EconoBelt as usual I still spent the same but bought better stuff
I went for wide L belts and steel pulleys on .5" shafts.
I had some custom brackets made at BigBlueSaw. These are adjustable to get belt tension. Also, my motor shaft doesn't have any lateral load but rather feeds a separate shaft in bearings. Steppers do not like lateral loads.
My take on the belts is that they work at lengths that ball screws cant, they more forgiving of poor tolerances.
My total cost per axis less motors is $200, the cost difference between a 4ft run and a ten ft run is peanuts compared to the pulleys and mounts.