Gates belts complement Australian-made pulleys

As one of Australia’s most experienced pulley manufacturers and general engineering companies, Queensland-based manufacturer, Australian Power Transmission, appreciates the value of their partnership with CBC Australia and Gates to offer complete drive system solutions to their customers.

Originally established in 1945 as AS Dewar’s and Sons, the business was later acquired by Malcolm and Beverley Lyell and rebranded as Australian Power Transmission. Through more than seven decades, the company has specialised in manufacturing pulleys, and now also incorporates CNC machining precision-engineered components, as well as offering fabrication services to a wide range of customers.

The pulleys they manufacture include products of up to 2100mm in diameter and can weigh up to 4t. These pulleys are used extensively on crushers, screens, pumps, and other mining and heavy industrial equipment.

Brett Lyell, who is the second-generation manager of the family-owned business, says the long-standing partnership between Australian Power Transmission and CBC goes both ways. CBC provide the key tools to Australian Power Transmission so that they can manufacture and supply the pulleys and components to CBC.

“CBC provides us with various tooling and hardware that we use in manufacturing of our products and we share with them our expertise around pulleys to help them better assist their customers. Over the lifetime of the business we have produced over 8500 variations of pulleys,” he says.

With CBC being a leading national distributor and service provider of power transmission and engineering services, Brett says he also passes any customer queries regarding belts and other drive system components to the team at CBC.

The working relationship between Australian Power Transmission and CBC Australia offers effective solutions for the mining and quarrying industries, to help optimise the design of their customers’ drive systems and add value to their operations.

“We are experts at manufacturing pulleys, but we don’t directly deal with belts. When our customers contact us with questions about belts, we just pass them on to CBC as they are the experts in this regard. We advise our customers to use Gates belts, as these belts are unrivalled in quality and complement our pulleys very well,” Brett states.

Michael Greelish, CBC’s National Accounts manager for mining, quarry and resources, says in collaboration with Gates, CBC has been able to help mines and quarries achieve higher energy efficiencies through design optimisations.

“People often underestimate the importance of well-designed belt drive systems and how that can impact the overall efficiency in their operations. In an optimised drive system, each component can last longer and run to its maximum life,” he says.