i beg to differ with ya.....when my belt started to come apert, the teeth on the inside of the belt went away 1st. as it got worse, the head traveled a different distance each time i tried to use it.....i know the strip tell it what do do, but between the slip of the belt and change of its position to encoder strip...it wouldnt work right. then when i got a NEW BELT... i was under the same idea that the postion of the belt to hed didnt matter. IT DOES. took me 3 times tearing it down and getting the belt EXACTLY aligned to the head.