Direct Drive vs Belt Drive Bay equipment

[Roz]

Does anyone have experience with direct drive bay equipment? Looking to upgrade old bay equipment and considering D&S equipment which is direct drive. Other options being considered are belt drive. Any insights (pros/cons)? Thank you.

 

[MEP001]

IMO belt drive is cheaper long term. I've worked on a lot of both types, and direct drive is always more expensive in parts and always craters hard when there's an issue. Belt drive is a lot more forgiving.

I really dislike D&S equipment. They use the worst solenoids I've ever seen, they have some weird ideas about how water flows that just barely works, and I don't know why anyone would ever mount a Hydrominder where you have a big opening in the tank.

 

[washme1]

Does anyone have experience with direct drive bay equipment? Looking to upgrade old bay equipment and considering D&S equipment which is direct drive. Other options being considered are belt drive. Any insights (pros/cons)? Thank you.

If you want an idea of the kind of factory support available, call D&S and ask for technical support. They will not talk to you and will tell you to contact your distributor. If you say that you cannot reach your distributor, they will tell you that they will try to reach the distributor and have him call you.

 

[Robert2181]

Belt drive is easier & cheaper to fix. Direct sometimes wrecks the key way/shaft. IMO.

 

[Roz]

Frankly my experience with most manufacturer's reps has been mediocre at best. I am looking to move closer to internet speed and most of the reps take their time (days or weeks) responding to inquires and moving forward with a proposal/quote. The car buying experience seems to be better than car wash equipment experience so far.

D&S does have a significant number of machines installed as they list all their locations and types of equipment overlaying a map which is refreshing transparency to a degree. Their manufacturing rep accompanied their local rep for the site visit (on two different days) which is more than most of the other manufacturing companies or their reps. Hard to spend $100k-$175K without seeing it work somewhere and seeing if I like the car wash experience firsthand. Only issue with D&S so far is that few installs are on the east coast so hard to see firsthand.

 

[soapy]

I have had 3 locations with direct drive and 1 location with belt drive SS pumps. Over 23 years I have spent 10 times as much on belt drive failures compared to direct drive. I am sure when either is setup properly troubles would be minimal.

 

[mjwalsh]

I have had 3 locations with direct drive and 1 location with belt drive SS pumps. Over 23 years I have spent 10 times as much on belt drive failures compared to direct drive. I am sure when either is setup properly troubles would be minimal.

Soapy,

On the location with belt drives ... is it a single belt or 2 belts with 2 grooves on both the pulleys?. Mine are double grooved & it is very rare to have a problem caused from using belts.

Not sure on direct drive since Terry Landeen from Specialty steered me away from those when new equipment was bought back in 1987. Out of curiosity ... I wonder about the technicality or installation technique that makes your direct drives the more trouble free option when it seems like almost everyone else says belts are more forgiving to the pumps.

 

[soapy]

My belts are single pulley with 5 hp baldor and cat 530 pumps initially but now switched over to airimtsu pumps. The direct drive are wanner wobble plate designed pumps. Honestly both setups have been good and I like both.

 

[soonermajic]

There's a guy in Okla, whom builds his own SS pumpstands & equipment. Has been doing it for 35 years. He has built MANY pumpstands for guys, & I talked to 3 of them. They swear it is the best system ever, w/ nearly ZERO issues. Something I'll look at one of these days.

 

[Randy]

I' d go with belt drive, they last almost for ever. I just changed my first belts on my S/S equipment, they only lasted 35 years.

 

[MEP001]

Direct drive plunger pumps are IMO more problematic because there's a coupler housing connecting the pump and motor. The worst are the hollow shaft motors that accept the pump shaft. If alignment isn't absolutely perfect, or if something vibrates loose, the failure is very expensive to repair. If I had to go direct drive I would at least use the Lovejoy style coupler that can handle a hair of misalignment.

 

[soapy]

All of my direct drive pumps use Baldor motors with solid shaft and use the lovejoy coupler using wobble plate pumps so that probably helps in my case.