In our quest to realign America, we’re always on the lookout for intriguing applications. Sometimes they pop up in odd places. My buddy Steve Matthews with PdM Solutions spotted this situation while in the field (literally!). This has to be a maintenance headache–there were plenty of belts laying around.
How would you tackle this?
We have some ideas but would love to hear what you think!
9 Comments
What is the RPM’s for the driver and the driven?
Benard, we are not sure of the RPM.
What in the world is this? This belt is twisting & I believed that the belts will failed in no time.
Mel, Thanks for you comment. We totally agree, these belts won’t last long!
By offsetting the motor and adding a universal with bracket would help. By the looks of this setup, we would call this a “budget build”. A movable motor base is needed also. They could have poured the new concrete with a step pad with embedded bolting. As I said earlier this was cobbled together to just get it up and running. That frame has pieces of the original application the motor came on. Pretty funny.
Patrick, it certainly is a “budget build”! Thanks for your comment.
Looks to be a water screw for field irrigation. Given that they would most likely not speend alot on modifications I would use belt hogs to align so that the laser crossed the face of the pulley along the shaft centerline. This would still have skew but be beter than it looks now.
I agree with Jerry…sometimes the job being performed just isn’t worth the extra money being spent to improve the longevity of the drive components. You could spend thousands on some offset direct drive shafts, or a different belt type/profile (round)..etc. My guess is that they may just run to fail, and when the water stops pumping they send Joe repair guy out to flip a new belt on it. $30 for a belt, $30 for labor…everbody is happy. Send joe out in another month to replace the belt again. Sure it could be much better BUT MAYBE NOT NECESSARY.
A universal with bracket would likely add complexity and I doubt has any payback.
I would leave it as it but ensure the angles coming off each side of the pulley are the same.
With the same angle on each side one can be assured the angle is at it’s lowest value.
And I would keep a couple belts on hand. Obviously this does not run 24-7.
Without knowing the mean time between belt failure and the number of hours there isn’t much else to do here.