Need some reference design for a quick and dirty belt driven linear feeder

[pk_volt]

Our goal is to have a linear feeder that can move ~11" in around 3-4 seconds.

We have a stepper motor we'd like to use, and we assume it can run at around maybe 3-500 rpm. That's why we thought using a belt drive would be a bit easier to reduce the need of gearbox etc.

I've done some searching, but haven't really found a good easy solution for us to implement our very raw prototype.

But we'd like to make something cheap first as always just to see if our idea will work. We have numerous ball bearing/linear motion supply distributors here, so I'm sure we can acquire parts fairly easily.

many thanks.

[blackbeard52]

give a bit more details. is the material flat, round, weight....

will this be a pinch feed? what kind of material?

[pk_volt]

Hi,

The material we are feeding is just fabric at the moment, max size is probably around 20"x26"ish?

So weight of the material is almost close to nothing. However, we still want something that can slide back and forth smoothly and there is hardly going to be any force acting on the feeder.

[blackbeard52]

It comes to mind you could use a stepper mounted in parallel with a 24 inch rubber roller. much the same as a printer or plotter. controlling the stepper would be a simple setup. Since i dont know the application (if it is DIY or production) A down and dirty setup would be an old plotter, utilizing the printer or serial port as the control.

Bob

[pk_volt]

Hi,

thanks for the reply.

Right now we're thinking of using L brackets and 608 roller ball bearings.

something like this.



we're thinking of putting a simple belt drive underneath the table and clamp the belt onto the sliding table. Not sure if it's a good idea, but it does fulfill our gear ratio requirements.