Dear Alex What a lovely piece of work. The material looks as if there are a lot of fines.
Have you tried a 'gripper' other than the weldmesh on the chip-side of the wall? I was thinking that downward (45 deg) facing spikes (perhaps a long bolt with the head sticking out and two nuts on the other end) would bite a little harder and slip by if not needed. It was kinda hung up there at the end. If you want to save money and power, do not use a right angle (worm) drive. They are not very efficient though common and popular. If you get a triple reduction in-line box you will be able to get the correct speed (now that you know what it is) without that first gear-up, thus eliminating one chain and sprocket set. The worm drives run hot too. See http://industrial-gearbox.com/cone-drive.php and the third picture down on the right. You can eliminate the end bearing on the shaft and use the gearbox instead. To solve left-right lateral movement put a shoulder on the shaft and a thread on the end poking through. Note that it will be 'foot mounted' in your case. For price and reliability I found Leroy-Somer to be good value but you have to go with what you can get serviced. If you really need a variable speed (because you want a sensor on the line to make it 'catch up' when it falls behind) don't get a variable speed drive. Put on a 3-phase motor and a controllable inverter (push button on the cover or a dial elsewhere). Wonderful things. High starting torque and you can make them run any speed you like because the controller generates 3-phase from a single phase input at any frequency you want. You can happily run a motor up to 6000 RPM so get a 4 pole one and a gearbox to suit your central speed at 60 Hz. It looks so good running in slo-mo like that. Well done. Crispin +++++++++++ If your working on small-ish scale processes using wood chips and flow resistance feed stocks, then you might be interested in a 'minimum' tech, live-wall bin we made mostly out of our 'bone yard' of used parts. The idea is to scale it up, vertically, to a height the loader can still reach, with a capacity of around 1 ton of dry chips, while still being able move it with a skid cart or fork lift. Currently (intended:) it uses one 1hp gear motor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJIZFY_N7U4 Alex _______________________________________________ Stoves mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: http://www.bioenergylists.org/
