Fast electrics use of tooth belt drive?

[Roog]

So far I have been looking for gearboxes to suit my forthcoming electric tethered race car, but I noticed someone using tooth belt drive in a YouTube video demoing the differences between senseored vs sensorless motors He was driving a turbo/supercharger.

I am now looking at this as an alternative to gears and yet the ones I have been able to find are limited to feeble 3D printer drives, hardly capable of dealing with 1000W electric drive system.

I am able to ramp up the power slowly so absolute strength shouldn’t be necessary but does anyone have experience of using such systems and where I might be able to buy them?

please excuse my shonky typos I have lost most of the sight in my right eye (I hope this will improve) and its a struggle to hit the right keys on my iPad!

 

[Greywolf74]

The only belt drives I know of are the one for the xmaxx and the ones that some of the 1/10 scale onroad cars use. I'm not sure I see any advantage in going with a belt drive vs a gear drive but I also dont see why it wouldnt work either if thats the path you end up going down.

Dont worry most of us in here are old enough to be dealing with handicaps of our own so we understand

 

[Roog]

Thanks for the empathy @Greywolf74 I am sorry to say that my injury was self inflicted, a fragment of drill bit embedded within my eye, I only mention this because like so many I have never used special/proper goggles or mask when using a battery hand drill, I rely on my glasses as being adequate, sadly they did not prevent a shard from a broken drill getting past. Two operations later I encourage everyone to take appropriate precaution. Sorry H&S appeal over!

I fancy a toothbelt because they should be easier to align, I hope that they will be quieter and as a custom fabricator they require less critical build, they offer alternative, possibly more flexible Motor location, maybe? :0)

 

[Greywolf74]

Thanks for the empathy @Greywolf74 I am sorry to say that my injury was self inflicted, a fragment of drill bit embedded within my eye, I only mention this because like so many I have never used special/proper goggles or mask when using a battery hand drill, I rely on my glasses as being adequate, sadly they did not prevent a shard from a broken drill getting past. Two operations later I encourage everyone to take appropriate precaution. Sorry H&S appeal over!

I fancy a toothbelt because they should be easier to align, I hope that they will be quieter and as a custom fabricator they require less critical build, they offer alternative, possibly more flexible Motor location, maybe? :0)

Yeah, I'm terrible about relying on my glasses too. Also, good point about the tooth belt

 

[BarnFabRC]

I don’t know if you have access to McMaster-Carr where you are but hey have a selection of toothed belts ranging from 3mm to 85mm in width with various reinforcement materials including Kevlar. Also the corresponding pulleys.

A toothed belt or a chain is the most efficient way to transfer force, so I think you’re on the right track. They also can be incredibly strong. Harley Davidson and Yamaha have been using Kevlar reinforced toothed belts for the final drive on their motorcycles for years. One of the benefits is, other than setting the belt tension properly there is nearly zero maintenance required. They also run very quietly.

Hopefully this helps with your search!

Also I’m 100% with you on wearing safety glasses! I too got a chunk of metal in my eye years ago while drilling some brass. They were able to remove it with no lasting effects fortunately, but it was not an experience that I do not want to re-live.

 

[tntpoof]

Safety First as the Russian Hacker always starts his debacles off. Too many 1$ stores these days with Decent safety goggles and other gear...went thru to many sitting in a dentist chair having a Doc grind steel shards outa my eyes in my early 20's and I wore safety goggles with a welding shield and Guys 60 feet away would throw so many hot sparks my way and then get in my eyes.Thanks to the 3 shipyards I was at for 25 years.

 

[ahr43]

New Era used to offer a belt drive top fuel electric RC. Think the owner was out of New Jersey, U.S. I bought, built and raced one as belt drive back 2005-2006. Gave me no issues running an 8T neo-magnet motor on 8cell NiMH. Later transitioned to 4.5T brushless on 3s. Did a hasty on-line search but found no useful images. Ebay or another online re-seller may yield some parts.

You think outside the box. Sooner or later, you'll find a fix for your tether car. Good luck. 'AC'

Oh, and yeah on wearing safety glasses. Like BarnFab. above, got a piece of stainless steel lodged in my eye from grinding underneath a chassis - impossible to fit a set of safety glasses. Not only got the eye injury, but adding insult to injury was given three days off without pay for safety violation.

 

[WickedFog]

I was going to suggest McMaster also but BarnsFab already did. It's a great source for feeding your creativity. aliexpress.com also has a lot of miscellaneous stuff like this, as long as you don't mind waiting on the slow boat to deliver your parts. Even Amazon may have some things like belt drives for various projects.

 

[bill_delong]

The evolution of RC started with chain drives for the very first 4WD which would evolve to belt drive and eventually shaft drive would prove to be the most efficient and durable option.

Arguably the biggest failure of RC was the belt driven SC10 that was discontinued about as fast as it was produced by AE. There were too many design flaws with it that the engineers gave up with not a single update to the platform which I believe was the only generation of race grade by AE to never get a single update

 

[DavidB1126]

the only cars I seen now currently that have belt drive are onroad cars, and I believe schumacher for offroad cars still do it aswell.
Every other 4WD car today is most likely shaft driven. Never heard of chain drive. Probably because I don't go back that far.

 

[bill_delong]

Dan Laney is credited for making the very first 4WD Gold Pan RC10 as a chain drive, more info here:

https://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?t=3363

 

[WickedFog]

The 4wd Kyosho Javelin/Optima was chain drive back in the 80's. They later added a belt drive option to them. My Javelin never had a single problem with the drive chain system.

 

[tudordewolf]

I got some belts and pulleys from this AliExpress store. HTD-3M is what I used, a little beefier than the GT2 belts common in 3D printers, and the wider you go the more torque it can transmit.

With a 3660 motor, the big wheel in that pic is 55mm across, for scale, and that's a 12-tooth pulley on the motor:

That's 6mm wide belt, I bet 10mm would handle quite a bit of power.

 

[Roog]

Thank you everyone, and thanks for the heads up for McMasters-Carr, in fact the person who posted the electric turbo video on YouTube also responded with this same company for belts, great stuff although I have yet for find a matching pulley set on that sit. I shall keep looking. Also I have now found lots on eBay an aliexpress, I think I might go for 5M.

OK so I have been drafting a few sketch schemes, one based on the belt drive and the other bevel gears, I can see pros and cons with each, hopefully you can figure out what is a motor/belts/gears /battery//controller on my non annotated sketches! please let me know your opinions:

Belt drive option was to be based around a vertical ‘blade’ chassis but on reflection this might be better use Ali angle for greater rigidity but also greater weight, shown using a 2:1 ratio and 15mm wide belt. Yes it’s a narrow car but don’t forget it will be attached by a steel tether

Second option here is conventional bevel gears, again 2:1 ratio, this allows for a narrower car too!
The flat chassis either has to be thicker or reinforced to minimise flex.

both drawings need detailing and reliable means for restraining the battery in such a high G application

I have one other option which I have not drawn up yet, but is similar to above but uses a pre-made enclosed right angle gearbox, the down side is that it has 1;1 ratio which I am less confident with finding a suitable motor match.

 

[WickedFog]

The motor mounted horizontally with belt drive will make for a simpler motor mount. The bevel gear option looks like you would be limited for adjustability for various gear ratios, unless you widened the chassis. Because in the bevel gear option, if you change the ring gear, your motor will have to move front to back as well as side to side to accommodate various pinions.

 

[Roog]

Agreed @WickedFog thank you for your thoughts. Aligning gears is not my idea of fun plus a larger crown gear would require a big slot in the flat chassis further weakening it.

 

[Roog]

I have ordered a pair of 2:1 ratio sets of pullies and 15mm wide belts in both 3M HTD and 5M HTD sizes. I shall see how these hold up!