Re: Novice Timing Belt question - more questions

Thanks for all of the replies to my questions.

My next step is to come up with a design using locally available
parts. I have motors which happen to have XL pulleys already fitted
to them and I have a few long "Dayco" HTD 5mm pitch closed belts. To
save money my thoughts were to use the imperial XL belt and pulleys
for gearing and the metric HTD for the fixed drive system.

Q Is there any reason why I can't simply cut the belt and use it in a
fixed belt system.

For the idler rollers I thought that a couple of bearings mounted
next to each other(perhaps even skateboard bearings) would do the job.

I'm not sure about the end attachments to fix the belt. They appear
to be rather expensive.
Q Is there a home brew option? ie in between the "half assed" method
of nailing the ends down to milling something out of block of
aluminium.

I noticed a 3d diagram of a CNC where all 3 axis are belt driven. See
Page 167 in the PowerGrip design manual from www.gates.com
The X and the Y are closed and the Z is fixed. Although probably
illustrated in order to sell more belts it is an interesting design.

Also for those that can read french I came across these high level
instructions for a small belt driven machine:
http://cnc25.free.fr/machines/guillaume_coquery_v2/dossier_fraise_cour
roies.pdf
There are also a number of links to other home brew CNC plans which
use cables or M8 thread.

Thanks
Robert