Mini Mill Belt drive conversion

I have a friend who has a mini mill which has stripped its plastic gears. He is looking for a replacement 37 tooth helical gear. I have seen in the past magazines a belt drive conversion, but cannot remember where the article came from in the MEW. Can anybody point me to the article or better still are there conversion kits available?

Cheers

Alan

**LINK**

Hi Alan. I got my belt conversion kit from SPG Tools **LINK**

It was a reasonable price. All kits are made to order so you need to send them all the relevant measurements.

extract from email dated 22/10/15 :-

"Thank you for your order, Will you please send me some sizes. Screw centres from front to middle screws, also centres of front screws, motor shaft diameter, quill diameter below the thread. Depending on the age of the machine we find these dimensions do vary.Regards Brian (office) SPG Tools"

I hope this helps.

regards

Hi Alan,

I wrote a two part article 'improvements to an X2 mill' back in MEW in issues 199 and 201, I think my simple belt drive mod is in 201.

In brief, I lost the existing motor support casting and drive gears/layshaft, thinned the spindle washer and fitted a poly-vee pulley over the top end of it. The motor got a small poly-vee pulley (19mm) and went onto a plate supported by two spacers. A simple screw arrangement is used to apply tension but i can't remember how as I haven't had to change anything since it was fitted.

If doing it again I would make 2 or three step poly vee pulleys to give a range of speeds, which would require a larger tensioning range.

Hi, Alan,

I converted my X2 to a toothed belt drive. The only things I had to buy were the toothed wheels and the drive belt. It uses the existing motor (in my case, its the model with the DC motor). I deliberately tried to make the minimum number of changes to the machine, so I could revert to the original system if necessary. Another reason for doing it this way it that it is, when all is said and done, a cheap machine and hardly justifies large expenditure. Some of the mods I found cost almost as much as the machine itself, and I felt that if I was going to go that much trouble, I might as well buy a better machine.

I am a bit under the weather at the moment, but I will take pictures as soon as I can, and if you are still interested, I will put some details together for you. It made quite an improvement to the machine - much quieter, and it seems to produce better results.

Thank you all for your replies. I have forwarded them on to my friend and hope he carries out the conversion you have gone to the trouble to explain. Thanks again

Alan

I'm the friend. Thank you for all your help.

Good luck, James. Do ask if you get stuck.

If you have an old-style X2 with tilting column it's well worth adding a backing plate between the back of the column and the base.

Neil

I fitted one of these Not particularly cheap but it was straightforward to fit with comprehensive instructions and works really well. I believe you can download the instructions independently to get an idea of what's involved.

The noise reduction is impressive.