Crowned Pulley

Over the last couple of months I've read in the forums about people having difficulty with the belts' teeth rubbing on the pulley flanges or fender washers and causing print quality issues. The other night I remembered that flat belts on a crowned pulley will automatically find the center of the pulley. Flanges or fender washers are completely unnecessary!

I consulted my old copy of Machinery's Handbook, 24th edition, and even though it's from the early 1990's, it has a chapter on flat leather belts, how to splice them, how to design pulleys, etc. The quoted rule of thumb is for 1/8" of crown for every foot of pulley width. That would be imperceptible and probably ineffective on a pulley this size. I suspect that recommendation has to do with the geometry and strength of the leather belts.

I took a guess at a 10mm radius crown for the 6mm wide GT2 belt, and it worked great on the first try. This will concentrate the belt tension in a narrow band instead of spreading it across the