Belt Driven Vs Direct Drive Fans

There are some advantages and dis advantages direct drive and belt drive exhaust fans and supply fans have over each other.

Belt driven vs direct drive fans.

You have a fan a motor and maybe a coupling. In addition belt driven fans are less efficient than a direct driven fan of equivalent size due to transmission losses. Generally such fans are cheaper than direct drive fans of comparable size. However a belt drive fan has power transmission loss due to the friction between the belt and sheaves and due to the drive shaft bearings.

Where on a belt drive fan the fan motor shaft has a pulley connected by a belt to a second pulley. Belt drive fans have two additional bearings. Direct drive fans www airdistributor net official blog. May 3 2019 fanmann33 8 comments.

This is because of the fact that the amount of friction is greatly reduced in case of this fan when the fan is operating. The second pulley is connected to a shaft that drives the fan propeller. Unlike the belt driven fans in case of a direct drive fan there is lesser energy loss. 7 8 etc the flexible drive coupling loss is immeasurable and ignored so its drive efficiency follows that of an arr.

Direct drive fans have no power transmission loss since the propeller is directly connected to the motor shaft. Belt driven fans offer greater flexibility in terms of rpm speed. Either of these motor mount options can typically be found in wall mount exhaust and supply fans roof mount exhaust and supply fans inline duct fans and air circulation products. Direct driven fans mount the motor to the fan shaft in order to directly transmit energy.

More often than not the maintenance cost of this kind of fan is also comparatively lower. The two bearings on direct drive fan motors which are 7 horsepower and larger are typically regreaseable. They re also typically more silent than the alternative. As energy costs increase it has become desirable to transition to a more efficient means of driving fan systems.

Note that for shaft driven direct drive fans arr. Direct drive fans require fewer parts and thus usually less maintenance. On both direct drive and belt drive fans the motor has two bearings. Since there is at least a 3 percent drive loss for a belt drive fan and no v belt drive loss for a direct drive fan the direct drive fan by default will be more efficient.

When compared to belt drive fans which require belts sheaves and bushings direct drive is just plain simpler and maintenance folks tend to lean toward direct drive for daily maintenance.