Belt Driven Vs Direct Drive Fan

Direct drive or belt drive.

Belt driven vs direct drive fan.

In the former the motor connects to the fan wheel with nothing in between. Belt drive fans have two additional bearings. In addition belt driven fans are less efficient than a direct driven fan of equivalent size due to transmission losses. There s also no belt residue and these fans cost less to maintain generally speaking because belts don t wear down and break.

7 8 etc the flexible drive coupling loss is immeasurable and ignored so its drive efficiency follows that of an arr. In the later there is a belt sometimes more than one connecting the motor to move the fan. Deciding between a direct drive fan and a belt drive fan is fairly straightforward once you know all of your other variables like fan size application space fan speed needs and likely wear and tear in your application. Note that for shaft driven direct drive fans arr.

On both direct drive and belt drive fans the motor has two bearings. Direct drive fans have no power transmission loss since the propeller is directly connected to the motor shaft. 4 direct drive fan. Where on a belt drive fan the fan motor shaft has a pulley connected by a belt to a second pulley.

Unlike belt driven fans there s less energy loss because there s a reduced amount of friction as the fan operates. On a direct drive fan as implied by the name the fan propeller is connected directly to the shaft of the motor. The second pulley is connected to a shaft that drives the fan propeller. As energy costs increase it has become desirable to transition to a more efficient means of driving fan systems.

Direct drive fans should be designed for acceptable bearing life. More often than not the maintenance cost of this kind of fan is also comparatively lower. Greater efficiency is the biggest pro of direct drive fan configurations. The two bearings on direct drive fan motors which are 7 horsepower and larger are typically regreaseable.

This is because of the fact that the amount of friction is greatly reduced in case of this fan when the fan is operating. Direct driven fans mount the motor to the fan shaft in order to directly transmit energy.