Best replacement belts?

YOU BET! Those are awesome and thank you. Maybe with those and a little help from the members I will be able to pull this off.

As luck would have it, I'm going into the city on Tuesday and have found a used treadmill for free. Will pick it up then, unless the owner has given it away before I get there. She did say she would save it for me though. I would seriously LOVE to have variable speed on the mill and not have to change belts. It's a real PITA. I'm getting excited about this.[/QU
 
I converted mine over to a 2.25hp treadmill about 1 year ago and it works great. If you can find a mc-60 treadmill controller, they work the best. Has the connectors for AC in, DC out, and plug for 3 wire pot. You can buy them on Ebay for around $50. 20171120_121800.jpg
 
YOU BET! Those are awesome and thank you. Maybe with those and a little help from the members I will be able to pull this off.

As luck would have it, I'm going into the city on Tuesday and have found a used treadmill for free. Will pick it up then, unless the owner has given it away before I get there. She did say she would save it for me though. I would seriously LOVE to have variable speed on the mill and not have to change belts. It's a real PITA. I'm getting excited about this.

With variable speed you can dial in the speed you need to make best cuts. Need to know the speed though.

THIS is the best way to know the speed. Mach Tach tachometer. It gets speed from a sensor on the spindle and you see rpm real time. Also can see SFM Surface feet per minute, dial in the diameter of your end mill for a mill or stock in a lathe and it tells you how fast it is going at the surface.

http://www.machtach.com

Can get it on eBay. Comes as a kit so need to be ready to solder components to a printed circuit board. Very easy couple hour project if you can solder. I have one on my lathe and mill. Excellent tool for variable speed.
 
I picked up a free treadmill the other day and it has a "2hp" motor in it. Don't know what kind of controller but will delve into that more when I get around to this project. There are a few projects above this one on the to do list. lol.

gbfab, your mill looks similar to mine. Do you have any pics of the conversion or a thread about the project?

Cadillac, you're right I will definitely need a tach and thanks for the link. Soldering shouldn't be problem, although I've never soldered anything to a circuit board yet.
 
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This is an old thread, but some of the info needs updating.

The best controller for a treadmill motor (IMHO) is the MC2100. You can get a signal generator for about $10. Set it to 20Hz, and the duty cycle varies between 20% and 80%. The duty cycle controls the speed. Using a handheld tachometer, I made a chart of duty cycle vs spindle speed. Keep the pulleys, I have both a low and high spindle speed. Stays on low most of the time, with a max spindle speed of about 1,000rpm.

The connector that the signal generator feeds into will also provide power for 12V LED lighting, and I'm still investigating using the incline control for a powered head lift.
 
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