I'm plotting and scheming my retrofit...
And one question about mounting my X and Y steppers has occured to me...
I see most retrofits are belt drive with toothed pulleys rather than the motor being directly mounted.

Why?

Is there some advantage to belt drive rather than directly mounting the motors to the X and Y shafts?

The motors I have are dual-shaft, so I had planned to direct mount, and since I have two handwheels on my X axis running manually won't be a problem there,... my Y axis I had thought of mounting a handwheel to the portruding shaft of the motor.. (with a cut-off switch so I don't do bad things to my driver...).

So other than access to the shafts and handles, is there an advantage to pulleys and belts that I'm not aware of?

Paul F.