I opened up my sliding panel saw and saw these belts and pulleys. I think it's missing a couple of belts. Does anyone know what kind of belts I need?
3 Answers
It's not missing belts. It has pulleys of varying ratios so that you can adjust the operating speed.
The ratio of diameters between the two spindles let you trade between speed and torque as needed for your current work.
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Further to Matthew's answer, if you DID fit four belts, or moved one existing belt from the big-small combo to the small-big combo, then the saw would be fighting mechanical resistance.
This will either stall your motor, drawing a lot of power and possibly blow a fuse, OR one/both ratios of belt will slip, causing low blade torque and rapid wear on the belt and perhaps even the sheave will suffer wear.
Don't do this.
If you move both belts to the other ratio, then your motor will spin the same speed but the blade will spin FASTER but with less torque. This might be needed if you have a small diameter blade fitted and need the tooth's cutting speed to be higher.
Why are there two belt positions for one ratio? Added grip on the pulley through increased contact area, AND decreased resistance in the belt from bending around the pulley - a thicker belt has to distort more for the same bending radius.
There's a small element of redundancy too - if one belt goes the other one might let you finish the cut or the day, but then you'd replace both.
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They are your common everyday V-belts also known as fan belts.
The threaded rod on the left side with the two nuts is to tension the belts and/or to loosen belt tension to change pulley place.
Should check to see if the size is on the belts in case you want to replace them. It should be marked somewhere on the outside face.
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