Thanks Crispin,
Reply below.
On 02/11/2011 11:22 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
Dear Alex
What a lovely piece of work. The material looks as if there are a lot of
fines.
Yes, to many in that scoop. The stuff in the loader is quite different.
Neither represent our typical fuel.
Have you tried a 'gripper' other than the weldmesh on the chip-side of the
wall?
Not yet. One option is to make a wedge wall like the wedge floors that
use brute force and move material toward the goal. With the wall it's
not clear whether the wedges should bias pressure up or down. We know
that gravity already moves material down towards the goal and that
consolidation impedes flow. Brian Burt thinks the wall should loosen the
chips, and argues that wedges pushing material up would work better.
The current arrangement does a bit of both and works quite well. I
originally thought of using the wire without the plywood so material
would fall through as well as under. It was made to keep our options open.
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.
Sounds a bit fussy to set up.
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.
What is the efficiency loss?
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 is running on 3 phase from a variable frequency drive. Wonderful
things indeed.
It looks so good running in slo-mo like that.
That was fas-mo.
We should take this off list unless a commercial kitchen somewhere wants
one.
Alex
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
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