Source for belts?

for refurbishing a tape deck, I need some belts. I googled a few places but nothing very inspiring (not a great selection).

Anybody have a source they like and use?

(If you?re just going to Google, don?t bother, I?ve already done that?)

Thanks!

Reply to
DaveC
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Russell Industries bought out the old Projector-Recorder Belt Corp several years ago and still carries the "PRB Line":

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They should have your belts. Just give them a call.

Reply to
Ken Layton

But do they say whether they are new belts or old stock (so half perished already)? The total absence of any supplier stating they had new belts made me move over to cutting my own belts , flat and square , from silicone rubber kitchen products, no returns yet from broken examples.

Reply to
N_Cook

Though I think overpriced like everything else, I had a good encounter with Adamsradio. adamsradio.com IIRC.

I did look around and it seems that all the belts we paid fifty cents from back in the day are now five bucks. AND MORE ! The flat belt for that capst an will be more than five bucks. Maybe twenty. (actually that belt affects the wow and flutter spec of the deck and should be as right as possible)

But I can attest to the quality. I would use them again, unless someone rea lly really killed them on price, and mean alot less than half. It is more i mportant to have quality belts when you are spending time to take the thing apart and change them.

In the old days we just bought belts in bulk. For VCRs n shit. Today, thing s are different.

There are other PRB line dealers out there and they are your best best bet. I just mentioned one. Price a bit high but a fast ship and everything was up to snuff, all I got to say. Other than that, I don't even remember where this outfit is.

I am not sure if MCM and all them still carry PRB line stuff. Seems like re ally few places carry anything like that these days.

Reply to
jurb6006

A heads up about PRB belts. Back in the 90s some of their belts would double the wow and flutter of the mechanism. Had better luck with MCM belts.

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Reply to
Chuck

ut

I have had excellent luck making belts myself from fresh O-ring stock. Or, from O-ring suppliers. Where a 'weld' does not matter, from stock. Where it does, from a supplier. They come in about every size (circumference) and d iameter from a millimeter or two to 20+mm in circumference, and diameters f rom 10mm to over a meter. And in enough materials to cover about any need.

One of many, many:

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My local plumbing supply house has not let me down yet as far as that is co ncerned. Not also that O-rings often do a fine job even where flat belts ma y be OEM. If there is any sort of lip on the wheels, there is rarely a prob lem. Note that diameter does not matter where belts are concerned as long a s the tension is sufficient for traction. The pulley sizes are all that mat ters. And new materials often have a much higher tension strength than OEM belts typically of neoprene or even basic buna rubber. So, thinner O-rings may be used ILO flat belts if clearances are critical. And, as we all know, buna-rubber is not good around electrical stuff...

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Reply to
pfjw

I've always wondered about the freshness factor of their stuff these days. They must be selling dozens of belts a month these days.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

The problem is balustre/bulbous pulleys which must have flat belts. If its possible to cant over the motor and pulley, it is possible to cut belts from smooth flat rubber sheet and offset the set by the degree of cant to the pulley axis. I often use Orings for pulley tyres, often using 3,2 to take up the width and one centred on those 2 to make the depth to bridge the gap to capstan drum or whatever.

Reply to
N_Cook

If I ran a company supplying rubber drive belts, I'd make great play in my blurb, that they are new cut/moulded stock. As none of the companies I've found selling belts for legacy equipment say this, I assume they only have old stock , next to useless stock.

Reply to
N_Cook

Nothing quite like an old plastic bag with the stained imprint of the rubber part.

Any idea how they correctly make say a VCR idler tire? Molded one at a time? cut from a tube? I've always wondered.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

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Look up "back-up" rings - they will be flat on the OD, and concave on the I D (and may also be turned inside-out). And pretty much ideal for shaped pul leys, whether concave or convex. Some care will need to be exercised on cho osing the material, however, as these beasts range from spongy-soft to PTFE (quite hard). Nitrile is probably the best option for small electronics ap plications. Again, the range of sizes available is quite astounding.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Reply to
pfjw

There will always be sources of O-rings because they are used in all sorts of areas. Anyone know of other uses for the very thin flat drive bands 0.5mm thick, other than old tape recorders and projectors? Vacuum cleaner bands are for power transfer and always too thick ,even sliced in half , retaining one fair face to go against the drive pulley. Some old style photocopiers used to use thin 0.5mm and 20mm wide rubber bands for paper conveyance, easily sliced down in width, but I only ever saw one size of perimeter

Reply to
N_Cook

There are dozens of sources for miniature drive belts, ribbed, notched and flat. There are many hobby applications (I use them for drive belts on a mi niature R/C submarine I am building (a 5-year project)). But consider robot ics and any of several other applications, hobby and commercial.

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Are only a very few.

I find it interesting that those who are "in the trade" tend to think withi n the trade and not outside it. A lesson I learned from a former colleague that struck home came to me as follows:

Butch (his nickname, Bruce his given name) drove a Harley, kept a full-bloo d wolf as a pet (he was a registered, trained, wild-animal rescue professio nal) and drove our company truck for a living, and was a NASCAR fan - but, possibly the most gentle person I have ever met despite all visible indicat ors to the contrary. He would order his drive belts from Grainger at 1/4 th e cost of the same Gates belt from HD, and this before the "net". He taught me that single-source parts really were not - that nobody made every part and piece of everything they sold, and that well over 50% of the time, the OEM source is out there, and ready, willing, and able to sell the *exact* p art at a much more reasonable price.

Stuff is out there. It may not say Revox, Panasonic, Sony, TEAC or whatever on it, but it is certainly out there. Take 10 minutes to look and be pleas antly surprised.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Reply to
pfjw

I read some interesting bits in that Parker pdf.

I wonder how you lathe-cut rubber drive belts? Mention of fungus, is that the reason that old belts "melt" into that intractable black gooey mess? and once one belt in some kit goes that way all the other rubber bits in the way of belts & tyres go the same way in rapid succession. I thought there might be mention of Richard Feynman and his unsurpassable NASA press-conference cutting-thru-the-crap demo with a hardware-shop O-ring and a glass of iced water as they brought up rocket propellants and O-rings, but no.

Reply to
N_Cook

When sizing a belt:

for example, an old flat, wide (10 mm?) capstan belt measures 9 inches on the ?belt measurer-thing?, how much do you subtract when shopping for a replacement size?

And for the 3-inch tape-counter belt (round cross-section, ?o-ring?)?

Thanks.

Reply to
DaveC

none of the linked items are what you'll find in a a tape deck, vcr or slide projector. sorry, but they don't run off industrial timing belts. No pinch rollers there either, or tires (VCR idler for example).

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

Tires are easy. Remove old idler, machine small groove in OD. Fit with O-ri ng of correct diameter & circumference. Replace idler. Done. Usually no nee d to glue, either. Flat idler get flat rings if necessary, or soft hemisph erical rings. Note that perfect roundness is also achieved by this process.

Repeat: belts need only fit reliably. They do not affect rpm. They do not h ave to be a exact match. A nitrile toothed belt inside out will do fine.

Graf, Breco, Parker (Euro, UK, US) all make 0.5mm belts in many materials, smooth, ribbed, toothed, fiber-reinforced, or not. Let your fingers do the walking. McMaster-Carr is a stocking distributor for many makers, and sell both flat stock and ready made belts of many types. The world is a big plac e, and much of it is at your fingertips.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Reply to
pfjw

a) Rubber/rubber like belts shrink in diameter, but increase in circumferen ce/thickness. So belt tension tends to increase as this is a double-whammy in practice. But, a brand new belt will have some initial give. The rule-of

-thumb is deduct no less than 5%, no more than 10% from the diameter of the old belt. The longer the belt, the higher the deduct.

b) Belts are cheap, mostly less than 1 US$ each. Bracket the size if in dou bt.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Reply to
pfjw

If you can manage to domesticate them, wolves are extremely intelligent. Half wolf and half German sheperd works really well.

It is illegal to keep wolves in some parts, not sure why. They are no more vicious than any wild dog would be if out in the wild all its life.

Reply to
jurb6006

The belt-sellers I've dealt with seem to suggest that you subtract 10% of the old belt's size, to allow for stretching.

Reply to
Dave Platt

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