How much should belts wrap around each pulley?
Most applications are designed so that belts wrap between 120 and 240 degrees around their pulleys. If the force needed to turn a pulley is very small, then you may not need more than 90 degrees of wrap. However, tension in urethane belts declines over time, so what is acceptable today might not work in two years. Therefore, if in doubt, increase the belt wrap as much as possible by moving the pulleys further apart and/or by adding an idler pulley that forces the belts to wrap more about the drive and driven pulleys. The more wrap you have, the less the belt will tend to slip, and the more force will be exerted on the other pulley. If you have enough surface contact (i.e., a lot of wrap), then there may be enough friction between surfaces so that everything continues to work, even after the belt becomes limp.
