Hey guys. What is your opinion about 20mm wide belts? Looks like the new Onsra Velar 2.0 is using them in combination with idler pulleys.
A wider belt should be stronger and not have as many issues with slippage. If run with an idler belt, they probably could be run with pretty low tension making for an efficient drive train.
Thoughts?
I think 20mm belts are awesome BUT there’s not many pulleys available to suit and it potentially adds to your track width.
Flux Motion used to sell 20mm belts and pulleys and they were great
I love 20mm belts, but like Al said, there aren’t too many pulley options. I use radium’s 20mm wheel pulleys.
I’m kinda surprised Radium didn’t go with 20mm belts as standard on the mach1 tbh. It definitely can put down enough power to warrant them.
Love 20mm belts, but with everyone switching to geardrives, motor shafts are sometimes too short for the motor pulleys. I make up for it by using collared pulleys.
I think a little more resistance can also be felt. I tried 15mm’s on my Flux instead of the 20mm to see if there was a difference. Yeah it had better free-roll and picked up on throttle a little better.
I went back to 20mm’s again though, belt skipping is zero with these on
Did you have any difference in noise?
Idea has 20mm pulleys too. I think he has some that go to 28mm 
Do longer belts have the same benefit? Whether it’s from longer motor mounts, idlers, or increasing the size of both pulleys.
I have 520mm belts I can take them off and on with no tools as it can be looser and fits around 7” wheels no problem.
Based on my experience, I would hazard an educated guess that increasing the size of both pulleys (even if keeping the same ratio) would help tremendously.
This is making me wonder if I should switch to collared pulleys too to have 2 more screws to hold onto more of the inside since I have a mismatch currently.
How dangerous would you say having about 3mm of a 16mm steel pulley out past the end of the shaft is on an 8mm round with a key and two grub screws? That’s what it ended up at on the build I’m doing and not sure if I should be worried
Probably one of the least dangerous parts of an esk8
I would not worry about that as long as the pulley has a keyway and the pulley flanges are set up in such a way that it doesn’t want to walk off the shaft. (motor pulley flange on the motor side of the pulley and wheel pulley flange on the wheel side of the pulley.
Thanks - that’s what I was hoping, I think everything is pretty aligned so hopefully not much pressure toward the side.
I experienced this recently with my Ion drive V1.
111s.
Runs much nicer with 44/16 compared to 40/14.
It seemed quieter and great freeroll with the larger pulleys.
No idlers…
Interesting that you noticed more resistance.
yeah i’m kind of autistic that way😅 For example i also notice when a record is playing like a couple of tenths or hundredths percentage% to fast or slow on my turntable (!?)
Lets say it should be 33,33 rpm , and the record plays at 33,55 , i will notice it straigtaway🫨 ! Then I would want to fix the settings on my player (sort of pitch control) because this fraction of a difference could piss me off 
And this is a VERY little difference in speed mind you
But the noticable part in the belt-difference is a “combined” feeling of better pickup and better free-roll , not so much that like “there’s 5 more BHP man !” 
Nope, no noise difference… Although i was wearing a full face helmet at the time i got to say☝🏻
Have you ever gotten to try Newbee drives?
I actually get a sense of less resistance with them even though I always think there is so much resistance with the tires anyways…
Nope, not a fan of the drives in general. MUCH easier for me as a clean asfalt-good weather rider to maintain belt drives. Maybe i’ll give them a go sometime (drives in general). But i stronlgy believe that a belt catches and absorbs a lot more “stress” than a direct drive teeth driven gear system, the gears catching a lot of blows / wear + tear
I do however understand there could be less “drag” with geardrives compared to belts, yep 
I do really like belt drives when I can get one that works well.