Pix Belts

[StarTech]

Wait a minute Bert don't give some idiot the idea of just grabbing the belt. There are some out there that would do it with the engine running.

Now in reference to Stens and Rotary OEM spec'd belts I have had problems with them with them being the wrong sizes too. I had huge argument with Stens last year after I brought four same OEM belts and all of them were 1.25" too long; just fell off the pulleys with deck engaged. As a Stens dealer I finally got them to pick up the belts so their techs could check them. A couple weeks later I get an email stating they were crediting my credit card for the belts and shipping charges. It hard to trust Stens if on the very first belt order they screw up.

Hammer actually all pulleys wear overtime. It just like the printers with stainless steel paper guides that I once repaired. I was having to replace the guides because the paper worn through them. Plus often the stamp pulleys actually flex open with belt tension too which why machine pulleys are better if they can be found in right specs.

But in general everything wears but getting that through to an user sometimes seems impossible.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

Hey star tech. Who did you fix printers for and what brand?

 

[StarTech]

Primary the brands were Okidata, Epson, Panasonic, HP, Canon, and Printronix for 16 yrs but was before 2006. The last company was for Standard Register out of Dayton, OH as Senior Customer Engineer covering counties in North Alabama and south Central Tennessee. Lots of windshield time. I don't miss all that driving either. Work for myself now. Now most of the printers are just throwaway except the larger commercial units.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I worked for Xerox for 40 years. For the last 20 of it worked on the big stuff (1,000,000 + pages a month). I am very familar with Standard Register. I serviced out of Dayton. Got tired of the 60 hour weeks and 100 mile callouts. Retired and took my mower business from part time to full time.

 

[StarTech]

I had worked my are down to under 40 hrs a week but that driving across the state every day was a still a little much. At first when I hired in '85, it simple putting out fires caused the Burroughs financial equipment being so poorly maintained and I was putting in nearly 60+ weeks at first myself. Strange they just throw me to wolves at first then after two years finally sent to some their training schools but of course by then I did need to go but they insisted anyways. It was train yourself as you went but at I had the service manuals to read at night.

At the end they were going through that corporate downsizing faze in the '90's and I had area manager that apparently just hated me as I could get things done by going over his head. I just didn't have the time play around for several days for him to decide if he going to do anything. He tried moving me to Birmingham. AL knowing full well I got sick everytime I spent two days down there and he wouldn't tell me of the Chattanooga, TN opening. Oh well whoever took over had to service the area either out of Birmingham, Nashville, or Chattanooga. I actually got along with Dick Fish the company president at the time. He even called me a few times on major projects in my area.

Then I went back to working on copiers but that again another nightmare situation as the previous tech I replaced was a screw hoarder and lazy otherwise. As I got the area under control the company got to where they weren't paying Toshiba on time so they were cutting them off and weren't sending the parts that I needed. Finally I just walked off one day.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I feel... felt? Your pain. Xerox outsourced the parts system to Flextronics so between poor supply chain and FedEx losing packages i got tired of telling customers paying somewhere around $1000 a day on their lease that the part is backordered or FedEx lost it. Fixing lawn mowers is a whole lot less stressful and easier than a million dollar digital color press. No guaranteed 2 hour onsite response times or guaranteed time to repair.

 

[StarTech]

Definitely easier most days. It is those ATVs I work on that is a pain due to compactness.

 

[tom3]

Used to work in a coal fired power plant and saw this a lot. Dust and load, 24/7 operation and the pulleys wear out, belt runs on the bottom instead of the sides. Lose about 60% of the traction. Some pulleys can be re-machined, probably cheaper to replace on mowers.

 

[Padroo]

They make plastic gauges to test pulleys and sheaves for wear. Anytime you see the bottom of a pulley or sheave as shiny as the sides it means it is bottomed out in the V groove and needs to be replaced.
I come from a commercial environment that use a lot of cast iron sheaves and if they were shiny in the bottom of the groove they had to be changed.