Kenmore vacuum cleaner belt

myminifactory

This is a replacement motor drive cogged belt for Sears Kenmore vacuum cleaner power head, Sears p/n 20-5285, "Power-Mate Vacuum Cleaner Belt". Also fits other similar vacuums, eg. Whirlpool. Can be also used as a generic cogged belt maker. I got tired of the belt in my vacuum cleaner power head breaking whenever it wrapped up something and having to run down to Sears for a new one, which was $7 and half the time they were sold out anyway. So I just made my own. This has been tested and somewhat to my surprise, actually works. I used Makergeeks' ecoFlex PLA (I have no connection to them other than as a customer). Other flexible filaments may work too. If you make this with something else, I'd love to hear about it. Note that NinjaFlex does not work - it's too stretchy. The Openscad source is included and it's fully parameterized so you can easily use this code to make your own cogged belt for any other purpose. Because flex-fliament can be tricky, I've included my printing recipe in the instructions. Just one thing - this is for non-commercial use only. If I see these appear on Ebay, I'm gonna be peeved. UPDATE: 1/22/15 Well it looks like I spoke too soon. My belt ran well for about an hour total use and then began to stretch out. So I guess while this design still works, it should only be considered an emergency replacement until you can get a new OEM belt. I will note that the official belts have nylon reinforcing threads in them, no doubt for the exact same reason. Bottom line, until we get an improved flex filament with better strength properties (or a way to embed reinforcing threads in the belts) this isn't a permanent fix.