Thursday, March 8, 2012

Do Belt Drives Generate Dust?


Belt drive systems are reliable, require low maintenance and are clean running. It is normal, however, for belts to generate small quantities of dust and particulates during operation. Rubber V-belts, Micro-V, Polyflex JB, rubber synchronous, TruMotion, Poly Chain, etc. belts all have individual and unique dusting characteristics, so “normal” behaviors will vary.

The quantity of dust generated from all belt drives is influenced by many factors including belt type, sheave and sprocket surface finish, drive alignment, belt installation tension or slippage, whether belts are new or used, and others. And not surprisingly, smaller drives tend to generate less dust than larger drives.

New belt drives generate the most dust during the first 24 to 48 hours of operation, and then dusting should taper off significantly. If dusting seems unusually heavy or continues after the initial run in period, this is abnormal and users should look more closely for possible causes.


For small synchronous belt applications that are sensitive to dusting, the Gates TruMotion construction is available on a made-to-order basis. TruMotion belts utilize materials and treatments that minimize dusting, so are well suited for clean operations.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Design Flex Pro: US and UK Version Correction

If you use Design Flex Pro for US customers, you must check your installation – see below.

Many of the new computer images have the default language/culture set to English-UK. This makes the computer look OK to English-US users, but does not make Design Flex Pro (DF-Pro) work correctly for US users.

  • Notes required by US legal do not show up correctly for people using English UK.
  • Some fields used for NA but not used in Europe do not show when English UK is selected.

Once DF-Pro is installed, changing the computer culture will not change the selected language.

Design IQ is not affected as it does not have a separate language for English-UK.

To correct this for DF-Pro:

  • Open DF-Pro – make sure it is the only copy open
  • Go to Tools Languages and make sure the language selected is correct for your area. If in the US, this should be English, not English-UK.
  • Close DF-Pro to make the selection stick.