[Redi]

I'm seeing these belt gearboxes all over the internet. Anyone has any info on them? Are they good/bad idea? And looking at the price why would you use this over a cheap-ish planetary gearbox with less than 15 arc-min backlash?

[ger21]

Belt drive probably has less backlash than 15 arcmin.
Gearboxes tend to be higher reduction, and are designed to work with servo motors.
5:1 belt drive is designed for stepper motors.

[Redi]

Realistically speaking how much backlash does this thing have? less than 10 arcmin? Less than 5? Even lass than that?

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
you may be getting hung up on the backlash in either the gear or belt drive, but the biggest source of lash is between
the pinion and rack.

Lets say the lash between the pinion and rack amounts to 0.05mm (approx 2 thou) then the extra lash contribution by the gearbox/belt drive is another
0.01mm (approx 8/10ths) then who really cares? Even if you spent thousands of dollars on a gearbox and got zero backlash the lash between pinion and rack will still be
there and totally dominate the lash equation.

Craig