Fadal guys, I hate to jump into this thread with an OT question, but it is the ideal place to ask because you guys will know what I'm talking about.
I don't own a Fadal, but I came across a set of maintenance manuals that I downloaded. From these I can see the idler pulley mechanism for changing which speed ratio the spindle runs at.
My question is this, how exactly does the mechanism work? I can't really tell enough from the manual. It appears that the active range is selected by applying pressure to the cylinder for its idler. This properly tensions the belt on those 2 pulleys.
That's all fine and well, but what happens on the idle pulleys? Is the belt just sitting there loose and the pulleys spin but don't hook up because the belt is loose? What keeps the loose belt from tangling up in the works?
Lastly, why am I asking these stupid questions? Because I need to build a simple transmission to extend the speed range of a motor by more than what a VFD does and this mechanism looks potentially simpler than fooling with a vari-drive pulley.
Can you help by explaining?
Thanks in advance,
BW  |