I have a Ryobi belt sander that uses a Bando S4.5M drive belt (with cogs on the inside). The web sites I've checked are selling this belt for $15 to $20. This is a small belt about 4 1/2 inches long. These prices seem to be way on the high side, I know that much larger automotive fan belts wholesale for $1-3.00. I'd like to find somewhere to purchase this belt, or a generic version, for a price that reflects its real value. Anyone know about this?
John
Hate to bust the balloon, but you're paying for rarity, not weight.
You might try your yellow pages for a bearing distributor in your area. They normally carry drive components such as toothed belts.
Or search McMaster-Carr at
They may be cheaper, but not likely by much.
Good luck,
Tim
I have this belt sander, and was interested in buying one myself 'cause I have a tendency to burn the belts up by stalling the drive roller. I'm pretty sure this is the mcmaster carr part number, but I would check. 7887K72 I don't have my sander handy, so I wasn't sure of some of the dimensions and tooth shape. Go to the mcmaster carr homepage at
I called Ryobi customer service and they sent me a new belt for free. Mine was about a year old, but they didn't care, and didn't even ask for any proof of purchase. It took a couple of weeks, but free is good.
Be sure and keep the belt tight enough that it doesn't skip cogs when you load it down. On my unit, that means tightening the belt until the unit stops somewhat faster when you turn it off. It seems like that would be too tight, but it works fine this way and I can stall the motor without jumping cogs. It's the jumping that eats up the belt.
One of the local belt supply stores (here in Idaho Falls) cuts them for me from a piece of wide belt stock to the sixe I need. I just called them with the part number. they run about $7.00 each.
You should check with a local industrial belt supplier and see what they can come up with.
Thanks for all the good suggestions. I'm trying Ryobi first, even though my belt sander is an older model it hasn't been used much and the belt that broke looks almost new. We'll see how generous they are...
John
Actually, according to suppliers I've spoken with, what we're being asked to pay for is corporate greed. In this case Ryobi's greed, as they've refused to provide much information to consumers and suppliers in order to force them to use and provide only Ryobi OEM parts. I'd bet they sold at least 100,000 of these sanders, each one with a drive belt. Does that sound like a a rarity? Graingers sells similiar looking belts for $3-4.00, which is about what they are worth.
I tried Ryobi to see if they would let me have a free belt...no luck there, I'll next go to the local Graingers to see if I can match up with a $4 belt.
John
You get a crick in your neck from looking over your shoulder for those conspirators sneaking up on you?
This is probably the only company/sander/blurfl in the world which uses unique parts.
Here's the final result of the search for a cheaper drive belt. The local Ryobi repair parts dealers were selling it for $17-22 plus shipping (it was a special order and no one was really sure it was available). Some web sites were selling it for between $15-20. Graingers sold its version (made by DixieSales) for about $15 but wanted $5 handling charge plus shipping of $6-7. Graingers tech support was very good and supplied me with a lot of information, sent me a parts breakdown w/Graingers parts number for the belt sander,and gave me the DixieSales part number, and also confirmed the Bando part number. Checking Graingers web site was a waste of time, they list Ryobi as a manufacturer they carrry but their search machine couldn't find anything from Ryobi. Same with the Graingers 800 number for sales. But fortunately Graingers has a repair parts division whose computers are different, and they had all the Ryobi parts information.
After all that I checked the Bando web site, found about 10 Bando distributors in the LA area, the list price for this belt was $10.30. I ordered it, plus $5 for shipping plus sales tax.
Lesson learned: next time Ryobi will be last on my purchase list. I heard over and over from tool dealers and suppliers how hard it was to deal with them. And contrast this with buying repair parts for my high speed Dremel tool. Most of the parts were $1-4, shipping was free...one time they sent me the wrong parts (it was my fault and I admitted that to them) and they didn't even blink before they offered to send the correct ones for free. Free shipping, reasonably priced parts. That's a company that wants repeat customers.
It was a lot of work to save a few bucks, but I learned a few things so it was worth the effort.
John
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