Broken spindle belt on SpectraLight - What is this thing?

[Sporqster]

Well, the spectralight wasn't really designed for cutting Aluminum, and I wore out the obviously old belt... but I can't seem to identify an exact replacement from Grainger or McMaster-Carr....

What is this thing and where do I get a replacement?!? It says "MB-330 C3 MADE IN JAPAN" on the belt... It is just under 13" long (330mm, probably?)

[carlhelquist]

Since you posted this in September you may have already figured this out, but the machine in a spectraLIGHT mill is a Sherline. I ordered two drive belts for my mill from Sherline after a completely avoidable accident that stalled the spindle and melted the belt in two before I noticed what was going on (see what I mean about avoidable?).

[carlhelquist]

You can cut aluminum on a spectraLIGHT as long as you respect the limits of the machine. Just use appropriate tooling, lube, spindle speed, and feeds. You may not be knocking off large quanties of metal in each pass, but with a little patience you will get there. If it's grunting, you probably need to back off. That's one "advantage" a manual machine has over CNC. You can feed the part into the tool by hand, and by feel and sound judge if the feed is correct and adjust as needed. With CNC you need to know what the correct speed is and program it correctly. Good Luck.

[Sporqster]

Yes, I figured that out and got a new one- two actually just for good measure. I've been cutting aluminum with a 1/4" mill .05" deep at a time, 1IPM, no problem. Just not very exciting to watch!