High Performance Composite V-Belts (HPC V-Belts) - Part 1

Fitting a new v-belt to a drive can be a nightmare for a maintenance engineer – particularly if you have to totally dismantle the drive in order to fit the belt.

Firstly, you check you’ve got the right belt on the van, if you haven’t, it’s a trip to your nearest belt distributor to buy one – one hour lost. Once you have the right belt, you can set about stripping the drive or removing the pulleys to fit the belt. As you’re probably aware, if it’s in a particularly dirty environment chances are it’s going to be a difficult job just getting the pulley off.

These methods, utilising traditional V-Belts, have been used for many years and maintenance engineers up and down the country still use them today. But it doesn’t have to take a long time to fit a new belt, in fact, it can be quite an easy and fast procedure using uniquely designed High Performance Composite (HPC) V-Belts.

Traditionally, High Performance Composite V-Belts were used as a temporary replacement to get the customer back up and running quickly. However, more and more maintenance engineers are now fitting HPC V-Belts as permanent replacements – and with good reason.

The composite v-belt has many excellent characteristics which make it a perfect choice, both for maintenance engineers and for customers alike.

In harsh operating conditions HPC V-Belts offer longer belt life when compared to conventional rubber v-belts. For applications such as stone conveyor drives for example, heavy shock loads and exposure to abrasive aggregate and dust can cause excessive wear - resulting in premature failure. The HPC V-belt would not only provide greater resistance against these conditions – with an increased belt life of up to five times longer, but it’s link belt design would also absorb vibratory stresses.

If you have a maintenance nightmare, like a “stacked” hard to reach drive, such as a bowling pinsetter, the HPC V-Belt is most definitely your best solution. Instead of dismantling the drive to fit a new belt, you can have the job done in a fraction of the time with a HPC V-Belt. Simply by making it to the required length on site and fitting the HPC V-Belt with a quick twist of the wrist, the job will be completed easily and quickly.

Of course the beauty about HPC V-belts is not just in their performance and fitting. They also come with the added benefit of reducing your belt stocks.

Some companies carry hundreds, sometimes thousands, of spare belts, making stock costly and difficult to manage.  Instead of holding many different endless rubber belts, it’ would be so much easier to keep a couple of HPC V-Belt packs  on hand, providing  almost 100% coverage – Just think, no more hold ups, no more time wasting, and more importantly, no more downtime!

Acorn Industrial Services Ltd is an authorised distributor for Fenner Drives Belts, and hold NuTLink, PowerTwist Plus and SuperTLink High Performance Composite V-Belts in stock.