Homemade belt grinder - Part 2 - Upgrades

It was time to address the few issues with my belt grinder.

Belt lining issues and wobble were caused by two things. The lower wheel had quite some play because the motor bearing has worn out. Also, the upper arm was moving from side to side which caused some belt tracking issues.

I added additional bearing holder on the outer side of the lower wheel to minimize the wobble and to prevent the heavy wheel from causing too much force to the motor bearings. The external bearing is much easier to change when needed. However, this causes some extra steps when changing the belt so I will probably revise this solution to use a hinge and quick release lever so that the belt change can be made without any tools.

The sliding upper arm was replaced with a hinge solution. The upper arm can now pivot around the hinge to tighten the belt. The belt tension is now being put right where it is needed. The side to side movement is now gone and the belt tracks properly.

I 3D printed a hand wheel to make the belt tracking adjustment easier and added power switch to make using the machine that much simpler.

In addition, the machine was sanded, painted, and bolted down to a heavy stand.

I quite like my new belt grinder after these upgrades. It's now useful but there are still a few things I will probably want to do sometime in the future. I would like to add removable wheel attachment on the other side so that I can use longer belts and use wheel attachments to grind shapes. I also want to make the belts easier to change so the quick release on the lower wheel bearing holder must be made.