New Charcoal Grinder Design...
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- Опубліковано 28 жов 2022
- Yes, I have started on the barn repairs, and the sheep fencing, but this is about the charcoal grinder - because they're all important and interesting jobs.
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The bars could have worked if you had constructed them like a boiler fire grate.
The bars of a fire grate are triangular in shape so that the widest part is at the top & as soon as anything passes through, the gap immediately widens to allow it to pass through without it jamming in between the bars..
It might be easier to splay the bars slightly. so the middle bar is vertical, and the bars to either side are progressively angled. The CNC table should make short work of angling the notches in the cross-bars
it would be narrowest at top right? not tryna be a grammar not see, it just confused me a bit when i first read it.
@@willallen7757 yes, narrow at the top, slight wider underneath
@@willallen7757 the gap is narrowest at top. The bar is widest at top.
2:18
I think this idea would be good. If you shape the roller to have disks in it, you could have the roller and the plate mesh together, and the roller could force the charcoal through the plates so that the charcoal won't get stuck between the plates.
This is what I was thinking as well!
@@slaplapdog me three!
Ahh, that's where the last of the carrots disappeared to! Looks like they enjoyed your experiment...
Charcoal clumping between the gaps like that should not be a big problem. As you add more charcoal to the machine, the incoming charcoal should just force the imbedded bits out anyways. So there will always be a little charcoal stuck in the grid, but as long as you keep making charcoal it will eventually cycle through.
Just build a large coffee grinder then you can space the augers blades thingies to the correct diameter to get the grain size you want
Think of this as a large coffee mill which actually works similarly to a rock crusher.
I am in no way engineering-ly minded (I work in IT!)
However I was thinking, would something like a rock crusher do the job, 1 or more pairs of rollers that get closer together?
Or an oscillating plate?
@@peddersmeister @peddersmeister oof i made a major mistake i just looked at the schematics of a coffee grinder and it isn't what i meant at all!! i meant something like a metal/paper shredder in design with two metal augers that drag material through it similar to a how some rock crushers work also wood chippers. man i feel silly now :(
Best words on UA-cam- “I came up with another plan”! (Especially when the come from Tim) Always worth waiting to see what the “plan” is.
I've been applying crushers for everything from coal to very hard rock for a living.
That disk grinder with the slots and gapped wheel looks like the best. Just make it longer, maybe larger diameter. Use what works.
Oooooooooooooooo I like seeing people improve their things! It's why I like this channel so much!
excelent..... round our part....people need to take the green outer skin off walnuts....the most common home solution is a cement mixer. and water....but it is very specific to nuts.
Hey Mum, I'm looking at a video about charcoal grinding! ;)
I am looking forward to see how you catch the bits once they are ground up 🙂
I don't question your decisions but I'd go for a plate mill because it has a very distinct "stuf comes out here" point and you can adjust the size of the bits very very simply. Sounds like less work than a giant wheel, but I'm not the one who has to build it, I'm just sitting here enjoying you having fun building these contraptions!
I really do love your channels. Extremely inventive and practical. I am very grateful that you have chosen to share your knowledge and experience and look forward to all of your future projects. Thank you from a Bristolian who now lives in the states.
The grinder looks like this Ice o matic ice crusher that I have. Going one direction makes them big and the other makes them smaller.
Many years ago I built a napping action crusher for charcoal to be broken down for conversion for black powder manufacture.with a little experiment with the outlet got nice uniform sized granules.
I'm looking forward to seeing it!
You should get an award for entrepreneur of the year
Genius at work can’t wait
Genius. Unbridled genius!
Yes, so true!
Ah wow, That might work really well. You should be able to make the plates how ever you need them.
Sounds interesting! Good luck with the project!
Tim, interesting challenge, but wondering rather than using parallel plates, could they be tapered such that the opening is slightly wider at the bottom and thus discourage the charcoal blocking.....?
Your right and I would add ribs to the wheel that run into the grooves to clear it out as well.
We are witnessing the industrial revolution right here
pretty wild, I've been contemplating a good way to break up charcoal over the last week... good luck👍
for the granular charcoal system i would go with somthing like a rock crusher ..1 face open at bottom to granule size desired one face hinged at bottom ...serration on each face interlock ...its a crusher not a mill since you arent looking for a powder but a uniform chunk size. thanks for the vids
In your ressearch, did you also look at gyratory/cone crushers? They are relatively simple in design and really great at crushing at a consisten size, aswell as they can be continously fed. They also self clear and rarely clogs up.
Anything that relies on gravity just wouldn't work, I think : - (
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 That's the great thing about a cone crusher, it actively forces the material through instead of relying solely on gravity.
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 plus the weight on the material ontop will help push the ones under it down.
That's one thing in your experiment with the grates you did not consider, more material on top will push the one that gets stuck in the grate, through it.
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 Off topic but in regards to your roll forming machine I think you need to build consecutive sets of rollers that gradually bring it to final form. With the first roller barely doing anything and the last being the final profile or slightly more to allow for it flexing back.
The sets of rollers need to be easily adjustable in height independently of the other rollers, this allows you to create perfectly flat sheets.
I used to work at a factory that had FrameCAD U channel roll formers used for making studs and beams for construction and from doing maintenance work on the machines I figured out this is basically how it is done.
Also having a coolant catch tray underneath and a pump constantly lubing the rollers should help prevent wrinkling and kinking.
plate crusher, like used for rock crushing. Variable sizes easliy adjustable, easy material control, efficient. just 2 plates at an angle one side pivots with a cam on the open end. pretty easy to build too.
also my first thougt
a jaw/plate crusher relies on gravity though - wet charcoal wouldn't fall through at all, I think
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 it will be fed by the stuff on top of it, granted the last wee bit would need to be pushed, but I assure you it will work, The jaws are set up nearly vertical and the vibrate a fair bit so gravity will have some effect.
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 but in order for the charcoal to bridge it needs to rest on something but the jaw is moving so i dont think it can. My two cents
good luck on the new build!
You are going to need to having it far enough in the air so you can fit a container under it to catch the crushed bio-char. Probably just high enough to get a fish box under there. As you crush the bio-char you will get peaces that will go on the other side of the wheel, so you may want to rig it up in a way so you can fit several fish boxes next to each other under the wheel. If you look at the root chopper, you can see that you can stick a container under the blade that covers both sides of it.
Thanks Tim
Fun. But the way this is usually done is with an eccentric cone crusher. The cone set adjusts vertically for the grade of output. And eccentricity is adjusted to control the pressure. Everything falls, eventually, through to the receptacle or conveyer beneath. For your application, 1 meter tall cone set in cast concrete with a 1/2 HP motor would be more than good.
You could just copy the design used for ore crushers (a Gyratory Crusher). It is just a cone with a rotating shaft in the middle. The shaft rotate in a small circle and fed from the top so gravity can to the feeding of new material to crush. It is an energy efficient way to crush and fast, but the way you describe will be fun to watch. 🙂
That or a jaw crusher would probably work well. Clogging might still be an issue, but not one that couldn't be solved.
I make my own biochar and just put the charcoal through a 4.5hp garden mulcher, which is essentially a small hammer mill. That works pretty well, but the charcoal must be damp or you end up with a cloud of dust.
@@Gumbatron01 An advantage with the Gyratory Crusher design is that when dialled in the size will be fairly even and less dust size is generated.
"A plan so cunniing that you could pin a tail to it and call it a fox."
I'm thinking that applying the design of a self-cleaning garlic press might work. You know, the sort which has plugs that fit the holes and push all the material through, ensuring it is about the same size. Trouble is, it would have to be of absolutely brutal dimensions, so maybe the wheel is better after all.
It will be most interesting to see how you solve the problem of charcoaljamming up the works.
Always good to see what you are going to come up with next bro. Safe travels
If you had used a grinder to relieve the lower sides of the blades in this design the charcoal wouldn't have stuck.
My worry with the beet cutter type is the gap needed at the sides of the hopper to clear the protruding teeth may either clog up or spill charcoal
Of all the strange jobs I've done, running a pet crematorium is one of the oddest. I mention it, because of the cremulator machine. After remains come out of the incinerator, they need to be ground to a consistent size. The cremulator does this. It's a rotating, pierced steel drum, perhaps double the size of a washing machine drum. Inside it are fist sized steel balls. The remains are put in, it's rotated, the balls smash around, the bits fall through the holes in the drum into a collection pan. Incredibly loud, but very effective. It's the design I plan to use when I need to build a char crusher.
Thanks - yes, that would work too.
My first thought was a hammer mill, or a soil grinder set to something coarser than dust.
The cheesegrater idea should work fine, though. Maybe consider a conveyor belt for loading it, so you're not shovelling the charcoal up so high to get into it.
nice, cant wait to see how it works out!
I think the heavy roller idea would have worked, if the roller had ridges that would run down into the grooves, and push the charcoal out. But I look forward to seeing the machine that you showed at the end :)
Drill holes in a cement mixer drum .
Brilliant!
This man is relieving the big 4 timeline.
It’s incredible on what you make mad respect dude.
This should be good!
those were beautiful sheep we saw for a few moments there. I think you just need a larger version of your original machine.
Your old charcoal chopper is exactly like my nut grinder. Put whole nuts on top and get "large" nut chunks turning one way, and "small" nut chucks going the other way.
Brilliant
check out hand cranked nut crackers/shellers on amazon because of their rod design it doesnt fling out the charcoal so you can fill the hopper all the way up and the rod has almost no friction against the charcoal. the small tiny ridges on the rod are just enough to break it without getting stuck on anything and it has 4 ridges on the rod giving it 4 cutting edges per rotation. I know the nut sheller is too small but its design is really good if it was scaled up I think it would be the one of the best shredders.
It's the wheel of fortune
I appreciate how inventive you are!
It feels like you don't reinvent the wheel, but instead slightly tweak it, again and again!
I hope this charcoal grinder works out!
Try two rollers spinning counter to each other with a pinch point between them. The distance you set apart will determine the average particle size on the output
Mulino per cereali e granturco non dovrebbe essere male ❤
Exciting!
Have you thought about, instead of a flat roller, something more like a series of cogs? So they would push through the grid and out the other side.
Grid plates - modify one of you rail cart wheels with more flanges to fit into the gridplate slots, pressing the ccoal through?
hi Tim, I am very interested in your pneumatic locomotive, I really want to see how your locomotive pulls your new cars, I understand that you cannot use it now due to a weak compressor, a 3000 psi compressor is very expensive, but what if you use a LARGE low pressure tank, you can either buy an old low pressure tank or make your own, about 1 cubic meter or more, it will have thinner walls and therefore it will be lighter than high pressure tanks but due to its size it will not fit inside locomotive, You can make an additional car for the locomotive where there will be a LARGE low pressure cylinder and from it to supply air to the locomotive, can you do this? I would be very happy to see
I think that if you had put a knife edge on the tops of the grate design (time stamp 4:30 to 5:20) it would cut the charcoal and not present a flat surface that it could build up on. If you still have that handy you can still try it ... :)
Perhaps a feeder wheel to supply the raw charcoal over a vibro grate. Similar to a roller with offcentred axle. Wheel and vibro then belt driven. Would need experiments to optimise rates for each part. Have fun.
You are ingenious in the true sense of the term Tim!
I thought maybe you could build some kind of flour mill for the charcoal
If you grid the side faces/flanks of the grating plates to form a shallow angle, so they are thinner at the bottom, then the gaps between them will open up as material is pushed through and that should prevent the charcoal from packing up. Its similar to the "draft" angle built into casting molds, or the "relief" angle ground into cutting tools. It's a small detail, but very impactful.
Cheers!
I break up my charcoal for the garden in a cheap purchased garden shredder that uses a single low speed coarse gear which draws in material and pinches it against a clearance adjustable aluminium plate. The aluminium is somewhat sacrificial in the event that it’s adjusted too close it doesn’t destroy the gear.
This works well enough for me but I’m not trying to process anything like the quantity that you are but perhaps it’s a concept you might also consider.
i just use a 1/4 grid or3/8 hardware cloth . you can back it with a really serious corrugated piece for strength. judt use a strong bottle or some other rolling thing, as soon as charcoal is fine enough it goes thru
What if the roller had grooves in it? The blades of the grate could fit into them, and the pushy-outy bits would press the charcoal "bridges" would get pushed through.
I lover your video's ceep going
Amazing! 😀
Hi Tim (and Hurry Home Sandra!). I am with the suggestions of the bars/grid being formed as triangles, like an inverted capital letter "A", wide at the top, narrow at the bottom, so the gap between bars is narrow at the top and wide at the bottom. The static bar seems like a simpler design (KISS) and then all you need is a roller, like a lawn roller, that is pivoted at the far end of the handle so that the roller can rise and fall according to the volume of charcoal as you shovel it in. Allowing the lawn-roller wheel to rise and fall reduces peak loads on your engine, and allows you to "pre-load" several shovel-fuls and then sit down for a minute for a sip of tea.
Cheers, Chris
A piece of tube can work. This prevents charcoal collecting on the top of the triangle. The roller presses the charcoal into the area between two pipes and when it passes the narrowest section it can fall freely. Also pipes are inexpensive and widely available as scrap.
@@HyperburnSeroo If you have enough tube, then the device could double as a cattle-grid! Or else just re-purpose a cattle-grid. Cheers, Chris
Vibration is your friend, as the big wheel turns could the hopper be vibrated on some sort of cam to ensure a smooth feed and no clogging of the charcoal?
Can't wait to see where this one goes!
I feel the stone crusher is the best coz you can set the knapping effect
How about a stamp mill with grates under the stampers and a hopper to catch it ? I do like that grinder though !
Even if the charcoal sticks, it will still probably be pushed though by the charcoal on top of it (in your initial designs).
Kind of like meat is pushed though in the manual meat grinder.
Have you seen the drill they used to drill the Channel Tunnel? You building a stationary one of those but your feeding in with a hopper.
Hammer mills used to grind grains for fodder work very much like You need. You only have to change the grate to one with bigger holes.
Combine this with some sort of heated drum so when it passes through. It will dry the charcoal as it compresses it when it becomes damp
Watching this guy try to figure out how to heat the drum would be a hoot. The obvious solution for drying the charcoal is just a long conveyor belt through an oven, which is what any factory would use, but he doesn't have time for that. Better to try twenty different ways to mash charcoal through holes. All of which would have worked had he just stuck with it rather than thinking the charcoal was "stuck". One wonders what he does with a clogged toilet...
I think you should fabricate a new cheese grater plate for your beet chopper as a prototype. Heck, that with a new plate hooked up to your engine might be enough.
Great idea! Thanks. I'll have a think.
What about a cement mixer or barrel on an axle with holes drilled in it about the size of the granules you need? the rotation would smash it all up and if you put a sleeve around it except for the bottom then it could come out under gravity perhaps
A smaller weight wheel rolling inside a square mesh cage wheel, use bars... not flat ribbon steel to make the grid.
A really big flywheel?!? You can't get much more victorian than that!!
Look at Bamford Oil Cake Breakers.
Very cool looking forward to the finished design, or the next iteration!
You could use a shaker mill, various trays of reducing mess sizes stacked on top of one another. Shake the trays to give your the required charcoal particle size.
Good luck on your design, can't wait to see what you come up with.
OK, it will be interesting to see you do a wheelie 😀
But seriously surely it would be simpler to add steel rails to the roller surface that intersect with the grid (like the teeth of two intermeshed cogs, just very wide cogs, one of them being flat)
These rails would have the effect of forcing the crushed charcoal though the grid as well as dodging up the crushing as each side of the rail would enact a scissor-cut to the lumps.
Just a thought, the wheel sounds more awe inspiring ❤️
Cut holes in the bucket of the concrete mixer. So the appropriate sized pieces fall through.
Looks cool
self made machines, i love it!
What about an upside down or sideways lawn mower? You could attach a circle (old saw blade or new plasma cut circular blade) Then lets say the hopper is on top with it ending on half or 3/4 of your modified blade of an old lawn mower. So big junks can't get through if you build a skirt for it, but small ideal chunks can as the wheel whirrels and you get a great product. I seen a wood chipper design that they just cut a hole in the top of an old gas push mower, and plunged the limbs through to get chipped. Well, you could do the same thing but add a hopper you could agitate to let your charcoal drop through. Nice thing about this old chipper design is that the mower stays on the wheels and upright.
ua-cam.com/video/XYq2ZnpZZUk/v-deo.html very sketchy but this video is similar to what I have seen. I know you could make it somewhat safe and larger scale.
Yes, that could work too - thank you
Awsome video, tho what about two wheels rotating against each other, but with a space between that you can shift. That way the coal goes down and can only pass once it's at say 7 mm. Two metal wheels with maybe some small nobble bits on the surface for traction?
I suggest a horizontal mangle with roughened steel rollers. If you make the distance between the rollers adjustable, you can adjust the size of the pieces that come out the bottom. The longer the rollers, the more throughput you will be able to have, but the more power you'll need. If wet charcoal sticks to the rollers you could fit 'combs' to continuously scrape it off.
I can see a problem with having wet charcoal, as the amount of water in each batch will vary. Some of your customers will be getting more water and less charcoal for their money than others. Not a good sales tactic!
What about car wheels close together spinning with the proper gap between them and a bucket below to catch. Simple quick cheep and you can vary the sizes you want
Still think your original disc chopper is the best as the rotating blades can also be wiped as they move too. Just upscale it!
I don't know if you have them over there. top loading washing machines. You can modify the washing machine leaving most of it all intact creating a spinning drum that would force it out centrally there's a agitator that you can probably put into a chopping blade to force it more into the outer drum of the washing machine might have to drill the holes a bit bigger
You can make a cheap "barrel" with chicken wire with the desired size of rectangles. Then you drop in the charcoal and some grinding stones. Through the holes in the chicken wire the charcoal granules will fall down. I think this is much less susceptible to sticky charcoal. The ends can simply be of wood or metal. The grinding stones don't have to be bought and can be randomly collected as long as the diameter is larger than the holes in the chicken wire. This is also how a garbage disposal facility filters their garbage by size and sometimes mass.
a cylinder, something like a 100 pound liquid propane tank, set at an angle with cheese grater type cutting notches in it rotating at the bottom of a large hopper.
i promise that i typed my previous comment before you got to the chopper.
SOLUTION Yes have a big roller to break up the wet charcoal BUT have another roller with spikes that follow the crusher the spikes go between the bars clearing the clogged charcoal
A soil sifting trommel ike they use for gold processing- will already be set to the size that you want
Rotary crusher would likely be easy for you to make, and can have adjustable sizes easily.
Rotary crusher is a bit vague - can you explain what you mean?
I suggest to copy pellet making machines. Or an hammer mill will force the wet characoal against the grid
Your roller needs to have lobes that mesh between the steel plates and push the charcoal through them. As new charcoal falls on top, the stuck bits gets smooshed further between the plates by the lobes of the roller
Why not two opposite turning steel wheels, with a gap of 7mm? Kinda like the wood chipper you have. I have seen some mills work like it, that are used just to break the casing of the grain, so animals could digest it.
*@Way Out West - Workshop Stuff*
7:33 Maybe make a smaller scale version first, to work out all the kinks & see if the concept is fully viable.
You could probably attach a flywheel to a smaller version & get a similar performance anyway.
5:55 I also like that the old design has an auger to push in new materials into the grinder, try to copy that too.
Hammer mill with screens.
Sounds great:3