Oh Noes! Broken Belts!

Broken Belts from McGuire Bearing

New Belts from Polybelt.com (grey ones are steel reinforced)

Well broke 5 of the 6 belts I bought from McGuire bearing. I figure this could be due to a few reasons. One could be is that they just can't handle the load. They work for awhile then break while using the board. Also one of the bigger pulleys was off center a bit and had wobble. Another reason is because with the 1/5" pitch on the smaller pulley there are on 4 teeth in it at any one time. There possibly might need to be more to get a better grip and prevent as much wear. One solution is to buy better constructed belts. The old belts I think were neoprene with fiberglass reinforcement. I bought some of PolyBelt.com. 3 regular rubber belts and 3 steel reinforced polyurethane belts which will hopefully bet stronger and more durable. I also found some kevlar reinforced belts on sdp-si.com which might be worth trying if these don't work. Another solution if that doesn't work is to switch to MXL size (0.08" pitch) pulleys and belts which will have much more teeth per inch. And possibly wider belts.