2" X 72" Belt Grinder Project
I 'think I told you guys some time ago that I was working on building a 2" belt grinder. Well, today I finally got it finished enough to try it out.
The frame is welded up out of square steel tubing salvaged from a workout station/weight lifting bench I got for free off of Craig's List.
The DCV motor and motor controller were also obtained for free from a treadmill I found on Craig's List. The rest of the parts are all from stuff I had in my shop except a 5K ohm potentiometer for the speed control. I bought that from Amazon for a few bucks.
Unfortunately I quickly discovered several issues.. (I love that word - "issues". . . . In most cases it usually means F-ups, including this one.)
First the large 'work-wheel' isn't really round. It was probably great for the lawn mower, or whatever I got it off from, but at any speed, it is a problem.
The bearings in the idler/tensioner/adjustor - wheel, also came from the workout bench and were designed for very slow rotation. (Like pulling weights up and down by hand.) They got hot as hell in a very short period of time.
The adjustor mechanism needs to be 'tuned' as it doesn't hold the idler wheel on exactly on the same axis as the motor drive wheel and working wheel.
However, it did work! The belt went around and I could grind on it, it just isn't the smoothly operating machine I was hoping for.... Yet!
It's a heavy machine though, I'm guessing 50 pounds or so.
Back to the "Seat-of-the-Pants" design board..
Roger
