Toothed belts for DROs

As I ponder my DRO dilemma .. squeezing things under the table of my
HMill, I'm also staring at the drive system for the scanners I've taken
apart.

The scanner uses a toothed timing belt to move the carriage around,
tensioned by a spring loaded pulley.

It gets a guy to thinking

hmmmm...

Is there any reason not to use a similar arrangement to turn a rotary
encoder - a timing belt and a couple of pulleys - thereby converting
linear to rotary motion ? And save all the fuss with dial cords and
whatnot ?

I mean, we trust timing belts and pulleys enough to act as heavily
loaded drive systems for our CNC machines .. why wouldn't we trust them
enough to drive an unloaded encoder as a DRO ?

Just wondering ...

Alan

--

Alan Rothenbush | The Spartans do not ask the number of the
Academic Computing Services | enemy, only where they are.
Simon Fraser University |
Burnaby, B.C., Canada | Agix of Sparta