So, now that I've got wheels on this band saw the next thing I need to do is
figure out how to power it.
So, the motor's gonna go here and there's gonna be a belt that goes around the back
for the lower wheel and that powers the band saw.
Now the logical thing to do would be to use a motor like this.
This is a 1 horsepower 3500 RPM motor.
And just put a really small V-belt pulley on there.
So that I get about the right speed.
And then the V-belt runs around that and runs
in a groove around the back of the wheel.
That's what I did for my other band saw and it's worked out really well.
But for this one I want to experiment with using a flat belt.
The reason I want to use a flat belt is because with a V-belt
running around a very small pulley there's an awful lot of bending and unbending
and wedging the belt in and out of the pulley.
Which uses up a fair amount of energy, you know?
I want to avoid that. So, I want maximum power left over for my band saw.
So, I've made a flat belt pulley with some flanges on it
for this old motor that I trash picked.
And for the flat belt for the time being I'm gonna use
this old timing belt. This is from a Honda Civic I think.
And, just flip it inside out and I basically have a flat belt
to run on this pulley. And this is a crown pulley.
So, if I get it just right I should be able to keep this on center.
Now, I'll probably get a slightly narrower belt
once I finish this up but for now I just want to make sure I can get
this working using this timing belt.
This motor that I'm using is actually an old pool pump motor
that I picked out of the garbage and I need to fix it.
And it was also running the wrong direction.
And on the label it says that it's not reversible.
But I managed to reverse it anyways.
And it's only got a half inch shaft. And this is just held on
there by being rammed on there.
It'll slip sometimes, so maybe I'll have to varnish the inside of the hole
to make that pulley tight. We'll see.
Now, this pool pump motor is not ideal.
For one thing it runs at 3600 RPM.
For another it only has mounting
facilities on the front which I couldn't use so
I built this bracket
to hold the motor. And these things are actually cove cuts here
to match the curvature of the motor and then
a couple of hose clamps hold it on there.
And it's nicely wedged in between those pieces so that'
really holds it in place. So, so far so good.
I made a large pulley that's attached to the back of the bottom wheel.
And that has a crown on it. See here?
Which will help the flat belt
stay on center Because the belt
the flat belt will always clamp to the highest point on the pulley.
And, there's a bit of a flange here.
So that if the belt slips and hits the flange, it's not gonna start chewing
into the inner tube tire on the wheel.
So, I managed to get this belt to track exactly between the flanges
if I turn it forward. But it's all very tweaky because now if I
turn it backwards it tracks the other way around.
So, what's happening is this motor is not quite parallel
and I need to just adjust the axis a bit.
Flat belt tracking does require a lot of precision.
I really recommend if you build a band saw
don't use a flat belt. Use a V-belt. Because
a V-belt is just much easier to get to work.
So, let's plug her in.
Well, no disaster yet.
So, I put the blade on and I put a fair bit of tension on it.
You can kind of hear it pluck like a guitar string.
And that has the possibility of moving the
alignment of the bottom pulley a little bit.
So, the interesting thing will be how will this work when I turn this on again.
Well, still no disaster so I think I'll keep that flat belt for now.
Now, before you think it has to be this complicated.
A V-belt here which is what I used on the previous band saw
is really easy to set up and it's not sensitive to alignment.
And, this one has served me quite well.
I've been using it a lot over the past year.
And it runs rather smooth.