[TheForge] Re: Flatbelt excitement

[Mike Spencer]

> I have been planning to use flat belts in much lighter equipment,
> but hadn't considered a spring loaded idler to be needed; now I'll
> include one.

Well, I'm not sure just when an tensioner is useful (or not) or when
it's necessary (or not).  The problem only arises when the machine
can overrun -- run ahead of -- the belt. My 25# Jardine could do so in
theory but doesn't.  Typical flatbelt machinery -- saw mills, machine
tools, wood shop tools -- don't deliver a *constant* load but there's
no other power input so they always deliver *some* load.  But a single
vertical piston on a crank has power input from gravity.

Still thinking about it...
- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^