I just saw your posting-shame on me I only look at the new postings anymore now that Herr Wolbier has installled that feature :^(

Your belt sound like its something you should run away from as soon as possible :^)

The biggest factor is belt life of course as every inch of that belt goes overe the head pulley through the drive pullies and around the tail pulley thousands of time a day or week I woul dbe worried about longtitude cracks in the carcass on both sides of the belt and stress on the mechanical splices. Are you using Flexco splices

for your belt?

If it were me I would be checking that belt and the splices every day with out fail- ■

Barry I guess the simple answer is sales-let the buyer beware. ■

Barry, it is allowed for becuase conveyor belts carry a wide variety of applications. If you are handling carrots, the ply splices will have a minimual effect on belt life. Although the comment about having to go around the pullies millions of times is valled and will cause the factory splices to fail, it will only shorten the belt life by, say, 5%. Now if you are droping 12" minus ore on a belt, the factory splices will fail very quickly, resulting in a 75% or so loss of belt life.

Mfg. use factory splices in the plies to minimize fabric shorts or drops. What ever the reason, seak out belt manufacturers that do not do factory splices.

Ron Marler

Legg Co. Inc.

www.leggbelting.com ■

I have seen a lot of belt's with ply joins, especially once you start looking at belts over 1600mm, never seen to many issues with it.

I am curious how the belt manufacturers complete these ply joins

Shane ■

Hello Shane,

If you are refering to longitudinal splices, (since 1600mm is only 63" I'm going to assume you are refering to a longitudinal splice) it's usually a socondary post cure process. The method is the same as with a lateral field splice. It involves plying down the belt carcass, buffing, cleaning, applying cement, drying, apply new skim rubber, and cook it or re-vulcanizing for lack of a better term, usually accomplished in an I-Beam press. Typically, and in our case exclusively, this is done by an indipendent distributor with those capabilities. There are a few things that can be done during the manufacturing process to help reduce labor at the distributor, but mostly it's just like a field splice only it lasts for weeks.

If you are refereing to a lateral ply splice, this is done by butting the ply ends, cut on a bias, in the laminating or lay up process. The orginal vulcinization of the rubber holds the ply splice. It will put a weak point in the belt, and as everyone knows, the weakest link is usually where the failure will occur.

Longitudinal splices do perform very well in the field. We had a distributor do a large run of profiled belt for a new chip plant in Ont. requireing very wide belt, it has ran for several years now with no problems. It's the lateral splices that will get you in trouble both from and impact and flex fatigue stand point.

Regards,

Ron Marler

Legg Co Inc.

www.leggbelting.com

rmarler@leggco.com ■