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Gates belts, pulleys and idlers now available!
As a community, we need to care more about the rigidity of the belts positioning our printers. As you’re probably aware, one of the most effective methods to increase the stiffness of a belt is to increase its size and width. It’s for this reason, that we at E3D are offering belts in greater sizes than the puny 6mm standard used as the current market standard across 3D printers.
If you just want to go ahead and buy them then click here, if you fancy finding out some more then carry on reading!
Because who doesn’t like it stiffer, wider and longer?..
Product Title |
Size |
Internal Diameters |
Pitch Circle Diameter |
|
---|---|---|---|---|
Belts |
Gates 2GT Belt | 6mm | n/a | n/a |
Gates 2GT Belt | 9mm | n/a | n/a | |
Gates 2GT Belt | 12mm | n/a | n/a | |
Pulleys |
Gates Pulley with 16 Teeth | 6mm | 5mm | 10.19mm |
Gates Pulley with 18 Teeth | 6mm | 5mm | 11.46mm | |
Gates Pulley with 20 Teeth | 6mm | 5mm | 12.73mm | |
Gates Pulley with 20 Teeth | 9mm | 5mm | 12.73mm | |
Gates Pulley with 20 Teeth | 12mm | 5mm | 12.73mm | |
Idlers*all idlers are 20-tooth equivalent |
Gates Toothed Idler | 6mm | 5mm | 12.73mm |
Gates Toothed Idler | 9mm | 5mm | 12.73mm | |
Gates Toothed Idler | 12mm | 5mm | 12.73mm | |
Gates Smoothed Idler | 6mm | 5mm | 12.73mm | |
Gates Smoothed Idler | 9mm | 5mm | 12.73mm | |
Gates Smoothed Idler | 12mm | 5mm | 12.73mm |
Product variations available for purchase
Even if you don't opt for a wider belt, these genuine Gates belts offer significant benefits over other no-name belts.
Enhanced stiffness and damping
Genuine Gates 2GT belts have notably better stiffness than clone belts on the market. This is due to the inclusion of a generous helping of glass-fibre reinforcement, which carries the tensile or stretching loads of the belt. More reinforcement, more stiffness. Additionally the construction of these belts results in better damping, meaning that despite being stiff they are also less prone to ringing as vibrations settle quickly. Overall this results in less overshoot at corners and reduced ringing or ‘ghosting’.
Stiffer, wider, longer.
We’re happy to be offering our belts in the very common 6mm width as a direct drop-in for most machines out there. However for the more enthusiast machine designer or modder we’re also carrying these in 9mm and 12mm widths. These extra wide belts means more fibreglass, more tooth engaged with the pulley and therefore a much more impressive stiffness. We expect these wider belts to be very beneficial to those designing machines that operate at higher speeds, carry heavier loads, or need to traverse longer distances.
We’re also carrying pulleys and idlers to match, (see below).
A truly superior grip
These bad boys are fitted with a nylon fabric tooth facing, giving them their distinctive red teeth. This tooth facing material protects the tooth from wear, eliminating that classic black dust that builds up at pulleys. An additional benefit is that the tooth facing increases the stiffness of the tooth, increasing the overall stiffness and control authority of your linear motion. The facing also results in smoother running with less friction and noise.
Perfectly profiled teeth
Gates are the inventors and experts in GT tooth profiled belts, their tooth profile having undergone multiple subtle iterations improving grip and registration over the years.
The convex profile is purposely designed to engage the grooves on the pulley with a firm grip that eliminates backlash. This is achieved by making the teeth ever so slightly longer than the pulley’s groove they fit into. The design is intentional: the belt’s tooth actively deforms into and fills the pulley’s tooth-groove locking it into place with a perfect interference fit which markedly reduces unsavoury backlash which would otherwise sully your prints.
Pulleys & Idlers
But for this system to work properly the Gates belts need to be paired with Gates pulleys and idlers which are precisely machined to fit with these teeth. Using ill-matched belts and pulleys can introduce error which can, in turn, introduce backlash or cause tooth deformation and wear of the belts.
Pulleys
These come in standard 5mm bore, with dual grub-screw holes. Suitable for attaching to most NEMA17 motors with a 5mm shaft.
Toothed Idlers
It’s fairly common practice to simply use bearings instead of toothed idlers. No wonder: they’re difficult to find online. But this should not be the case. Quite simply put, the tension of the belt when combined with the flat surface of a bearing crushes the teeth of your belt! This reduces registration accuracy and significantly shortens the life of the belt. Whereas, a toothed idler allows the belt to glide freely and gently cups its teeth as it traverses around the curve.
Smooth Idlers
Smooth idlers complete our offering by providing idlers with precisely and carefully matched diameters that coincide with the belt's pitch circle diameter, allowing for easy design of parallel belt paths. This ensures that the tension of the belt remains constant throughout the stroke of the belt. Refer to Gates' Design Guide for more info.
Not only this, but Gates’ smoothed idlers have correct flanges, clearance and are super concentric, meaning the diameter and positioning of the centreline is precisely aligned to keep the belt straight and true.
We Needed These Belts in Our Life
We're sure you’ve heard of our recent endeavours into the magical world of ‘ToolChanging’. Well, when considering which belts (and pulleys) to use in the E3D Tool-Changer all of our engineers were in unanimous agreement that the tool changer needs to have genuine Gates Belts. These belts are widely known to be the finest belts out there- running smoother, and with more accuracy than any other belt on the market. It was then that one of the team jestingly pointed out that we don’t even sell these belts to our customers. Well why the hell don’t we!?
Verdict
We at E3D are both delighted and proud to be stocking Genuine Gates belts for our customers at long last. The effort that goes into their production and quality control really pays off. Gates offer a standard other belt providers just can’t reach. If you’re interested in purchasing official Gates Powergrip® belts please click here.
I’m not 100% sure, but if you go to www.gates.com, they don’t even list a 2GT belt. Maybe they have an asian division that makes a 2GT belt, although I’m not sure on that. But basically all of the Gates knockoffs are 2GT. Real Gates belts are GT2/GT3 and they show these products on their website. If these are indeed genuine Gates belts, can you please post a link to this belt on their website or clarify exactly what you are selling?
Thanks
Thanks for your comment. These belts are genuine Gates and they are extremely good, we use them on on our motion system with way better performance and logevity than cheapo belts. For clarification, these belts are 2GT not GT2/3, this was a mistake/oversight on our behalf when these were first uploaded. The pulleys are matched to the belt (2GT) and work extremely well with the belt they are sold alongside. Again, this is from long hard testing on our ToolChanger machines. The pulleys are correctly dimensioned to accept the belts - including flange dimensions and clearance according the gates drive design guidelines, and were designed on our behalf by a gates application engineer. The pulleys were manufactured by a Gates approved/certified pulley manufacturer. Hope this clarifies some things for you and please get in touch again if you need further info.
Thanks, E3D
There are two companies operating under the name 'Gates'; Gates USA and Gates Unitta, both derived from the parent Gates company and both very well renowned for their quality of belts. The two standards have slightly different and therefore technically incompatible tooth profiles, but that's about it.
Thanks, E3D
I checked both
https://www.gates.com/
and
http://www.gatesunitta.com/
none of them mentions 2GT belts
http://www.gatesunitta.com mentioned timing belts, but no catalog or part info.
Well, that does not really mean anything.
The real question is still the same: what are the differences between GT2 and 2GT belts and pulleys. Have you received the answer from manufacturer since dec 14th? I guess that if the manufacturer is good enough 2 weeks should be more than enough to find the profile drawing and pass it to the client. The best thing would be providing the plans for belt profile and pulleys with all dimensions.
Yes the belts are sold in continuous lengths.
Thanks, E3D
Yes you can, we do on our E3D ToolChanger. Just make sure you check belt paths and alignment.
Thanks,
E3D
Max operating temp is 80C.
Thanks, E3D
Unfortunately we're unable to make every size available right away and because the small ones typically work for most applications we've opted to sell these.
Thanks, E3D