Awsome.. im halfway through building my own.. wasn't sure if just chains would be enough.. after seeing that it won't be an issue.. have 3 rows of 10mm chain on either side of shaft.. total of 6 and a 9hp motor.. cant wait to see this thing go
Don't use an octagon, the angles will allow the debris to strike the sides with a lot worse angles and lead to eroding faster. Try the brake drum from a truck tire/wheel/axle. Pick a common size so when it wears out you can easily find a replacement, and form your sides so no modification is required to the drums, just slip them in and tighten.
Use two pulleys or one serpentine belt and pulleys. But your going to have to put a set screw all the way through the shaft or the set screw may not be big and strong enough for the hard impact when you put rock in it. A couple of diameters bigger on the set screw and use stainless set screws. Your gonna have to drill and tap if you do that but I recommend you do both the pulleys and bigger set screws. That should fix it and weld a couple of high beads across the drum for a struck plate. 7018 welding rods is a hard metal and works good for strick plates.
+E. Fifield Good idea, I have another mod along that line that I'm going to do this summer. Making an autofeed hopper, then a spray/mister attachment for the output tube, and then it'll feed wet straight into a Gold Cube. So basically a guy can toss rock in and then get gold ultra concentrates out the other end all automated.
Nice little mill you've built there, good job. The problem with the pulley's is heat. Make sure they're lined up perfectly . Any side loading on the pulley will heat it up quick. Use steel pulley's and I would recommend a double pulley system so that two belts are working together. The belt(s) take an enormous strain. The engine's four stroke cycle gives just one power stroke every four rotations. Add to that the energy required to smash the rock and you can see there are large opposing forces on the drive belts. Good luck!
Definitely your experiencing expansion from heat due to friction. You can try to eliminate the friction or at least lessen it. As well as you could try a cooling option like a small recirculating water tower... Good luck. Decent build for your first time. 👍 Observe. Test. Repeat as necessary.
That's awesome! Wish I were handy enough to build something like this, I'm probably just going to go the manual route for now (get a fence post setter + something heavy to drop down it).
Yeah man that's the secret to getting things done, just do what you can with what you have, it's being out there doing it that counts! I use my hand mortar and pestle all the time still.
Your stuck pulley on the shaft is caused by galling. That will friction weld it to the shaft. You need to use an extreme high pressure moly grease on your mating parts. Thanks for the vid and good luck!
That's a nice crusher, but a sad attempt at PPE. That mask will not reduce the amount of dust you are inhaling, maybe the tiniest bit, but hardly even measurable. A good half mask might cost you $50 but could save your life. Or a shit load of pain. Pleurisy sucks, I mean, really really sucks, you don't want it, and that's the mild side of inhaling that dust.
Looking good & with the improvements will be better...somebody mentioned heat, but also balance (your chain bolts could be half up/down, not all in one direction. Just like losing a lead weight on a tire rim, you feel it at speed) you could get a hose B-valve & a 1/4" drip tube & 90°, for the pre-cube for control. An all-in-one, mini-pross-plant. Sounds promising. Put a video up showing it off when you do..... good luck
Had you chosen the octagon shape you could easily make replaceable wear plates that bolt to the inside with countersunk bolts. That's how commercial crushers, mixers and hammer mills are made. With proper maintenance the commercial mills never wear out. Many commercial mills and mixers are round but have replaceable round plates in lots of pieces. I replaced a few of them in my time. Almost always ended up cutting out the bolts with torches or air hammers but it beats replacing the entire machine. On your pulley, aluminum and steel expand and contract at different rates when heated causing electrolysis, a sort of weld like bonding of the metals. Switching to a steel pulley will make removal easier. Keyword: easier, not easy. Some Antiseize on the shaft might help too. Bearings? All you can do is move up the the highest quality bearings your wallet can stand and keep them cleaned and lubed properly. Eventually they all fail or get stuck. Bigger shafts usually have longer bearing life but again it is all about what your wallet can stand. I once saw an idiot pulverize rock in a giant cement mixer. It worked but the boss was none too happy about it.
Thanks for the video, very nice. Gonna build one myself. That pulley looks pretty cheap. Might be flexing and expanding or warping. Try a different pulley type.
I don't know why im fascinated by this machine but this thing is mad deadly if not used correctly........seriously it turns full rocks into DUST in seconds.....I don't know anything else that can do that cept a press lol..........just imagine if a hand accidentally got a rock through it on a regular straight pipe one and the rock piece flew up....oooo.......that would seriously suck.
Could you, USMiner, or anyone else hazard a guess as to how well this machine would handle slag? Slag pulverized to a fine size, a bit larger in size than a powder (don't have a mesh size handy ATM)? Flour is probably a good description of what I'm looking for, in fact. Would crushing slag just wear this machine out...with or without hardened steel in the various places the designer suggests might improve the longevity of the machine?
That thing is AWESOME!! I have a small little cylinder hand crusher that is terrible. I wish I had the tools to build one. I have the motor. Any chance you would be interested in building another? They are way to expensive to buy online. On another note, we live up in near Chaffee, seems like you visit there from time to time. Drop us a line if you want to hit it up. My parents have some private land on Ark😃
+NRCR Diggers Haha thanks, it was fun to build. I learned to weld on that project. I don't think I'll have the time to build another of that size in the next year or two, but I do have plans to build a smaller 2" portable one for hiking in mountains and whatnot. I used to live in Colorado but I live in Wyoming now, I have a claim on the Ark but I don't get down to CO as much I'd like anymore. Private land would be awesome, if you want to run a 5" dredge on it sometime let me know. :)
+USMiner Sounds like a plan! I have taken our 4 in Dalhke down once, water was to cold at the time. Give us a shout if you are coming in town. We do a lot of metal detecting to. I just picked up a Makro Gold Racer. NRCRDiggers@gmail.com
+NRCR Diggers Cool got your email saved. Good luck with the Gold Racer, read good reports on it so far. I am waiting for the Nokta Impact to come out, might end up buying one of those as a do-all VLF machine.
Have you done anymore with this since '15? I'd really like to see more circuit boards processed, but separate of other materials. Did you solve the pulley and strike plate issues?
my guess is the dust can be broke down to almost atomic sizes and up to 200 mesh , and the dust is getting in between the shaft and pulley causing it to seize on the shaft . prob wouldent hurt to wear a mask of appropriate type , just like a welder stainless steel and aluminium stay in the lungs for ever , just like gravel dust . good luck
Aluminum on the steel, different expansion and contraction ratios. I discovered the same thing, on my original BMX ball mill before I removed the shinky motor, the pulley was relatively welded on.
Since I have no clue what "galling" is I'll just say that I'd have you stick a damp cloth lid on that thing or you'd be getting a few choice words from me and my re-do Laundry Bill ; )
lol! My neighbours would gather with pitchforks & torches if I did that in my back yard, and by back yard I mean the newly vacated Parking Space which I intend to now turn into a USEFUL outdoors workspace. I miss smashing stuff to bits and rebuilding it. These videos do make you think though about how many machines built to do one job would be perfectly usefully doing another after fairly minimal conversions. I mean, why has it taken 200yrs for the world's best scientists to work out that we could use a washing machine powder dosing function???
Would that work for a glass crusher also? We go thru a bit of liquor bottles at the house haha. I’d like to make something similar. Have all the welding and cutting equipment and a lot of metal
Cool idea but not for circuit boards which contain arsenic. This is absorbable through the eyes and ducts...but the dust can but drawn off by a simple strong covered suction system that is isolated and exhausted through a double HEPA filtration system.
Try a tapered shaft or anti seize , you can buy hard surface wear plates in just about any shape & thickness . They look like square washer with the center hole as your button weld for much less stress on the mild steel than continuous weld hard surfacing ? Great video thanks for sharing
Yeah the Flail head is generating large amounts of heat while striking rocks combined that with rotational friction the steel shaft is expanding inside the bearing & aluminum pulley. Stronger shaft steel with different composition in the steel would defer some heat. also look at a different pulley composition as well.
Get a bucket lid cut a hole in it to cover the top of the bucket use a old towel or rag on top will stop your dust clouds try reversing your pulley on the shaft and lube it with high temp grease use blue loctite. On the set screws
Cool the pulley off. The metals could be growing reducing the tolerances. You might be able to over come this by using copper anti seize. But if you don't need to remove the pulley and it's running true, just leave it. My 2¢
You seem fairly handy with a Welder. Use hard facing rod to weld across the bottom your going to be doing something like a build up weld with the hard facing rod. That would help a bunch.
Too much unequal pressure because every stone gets a blow and warps. This will damage the bearing collar. As a solution I would think of just another holder.
I think finding an old cast iron pulley may solve the problem. I do suspect rock dust getting into the thru bearing also. Adding a spray into the output should be quite easy by using a hose and an old nozzle or shower spray head into the side of the output feed. I would also use a closed bucket to catch the dust on the output tube. Rock dust + lungs= silicosis. Get a good NIOSH/OSHA quality mask and spare filters.
if thats an aluminum pulley wheel it will heat up with the stress of the belt possibly slipping when doing larger stones. if its steel it should not do that
+E. Fifield It's cast iron I think? The pulleys from Surplus Center. I gave it another try without the key before I left for the winter and same thing happened after 4 buckets run. Had to shatter the pulley off the shaft with a hammer and the bearing collars were stuck too. Had it oiled and it wasn't rust, they were stuck by friction. Total mystery to me...Thanks for the comment and input though.
+USMiner I would think that the vibrations are transferring down your input shaft onto the pulley also any heat that builds up will not help what have you used to reduce vibrations? try a better bearing, try a stronger metal for the pulley (hardened).
just change out the aluminum pulley single belt to steel double belt on both motor and crusher with keys and that will solve that problem. too much friction and stress on one belt and single pulleys
or, there may be a way to, if speed wasn't a factor, just do a direct shaft connection from the engine to the crusher. that would eliminate the need for the pulley, and belt, and with the right connection, could even make for super easy maintenance. certainly also, using much harder materials that won't were so fast would be good. you could bring a hose from your screen output to your bucket, and use something like a shop-vac or similar sucking machine with a very fine filter to remove the bulk of that flying dust, and possibly even further concentrate the pulverized materials. if, perhaps you wanted to use this with an electric motor, that could also simplify the mechanical parts, depending on your ability to properly wire up the electronics and knowing the power you would need... and save on fuel, if not electric bill. other than that, you have a pretty good design going, and heck, you get the gold, so thats a bonus right there eh... lol
If it's an aluminum pulley the ID of the shaft bore is shrinking reducing the tolerances. The shaft should grow too because it's steel. A steel bore will open up, so in theory a steel pulley would work better with a steel shaft. Take the set screw out and opt for a steel key, and some anti seize and you got yourself something special. For even more tolerance, take it to the lathe, center it on the 4 jaw Chuck, and bore it out .05mm. that should account for dirt and debris.
good job on your build. I'm going to use the same engine for mine. I can understand those areas becoming difficult because of the heat expanding and metal in your axle. do you feel you could do more buckets per hour with the size of rock Crusher you built if it had a higher horsepower.?
Yes, for that size feed I feel it could use either more horsepower, an electric motor (more torque than gas), or potentially some hammers at the end of the chains to provide more inertia once up to speed. My hardrock mining needs decreased though (for now anyways) so it's nothing something I pursued further yet.
you can stop the dust from the outfeed tube by having lid on the bucket for it to feed into, then a filter bag fit next the the outfeed tube on the lid, this allows the air to flow but traps the dust. I would also want to stop the dust from getting into the motor.
You are right, it definitely needs dust collection. That would be a good method, but I'm planning on building a wet system that mists the powder and drops it into a Gold Cube simultaneously to automate the cleanup and keep the dust down.
I need one...looks like I could cut out a section from a hot water heater tank...maybe even use the bottom, even though it's curved. Could you explain the design more? Do the chains hit anything that's not airborne? They're not supposed to hit a plate?
+mikefromspace A hot water tank would wear out very quickly if not shatter (if its cast iron) and I doubt its as thick as we need it to be. I am going to add AR plate or something hard like that in the bottom of mine to prolong life. The chains hit the ore as it enters and then slams it against the hoop, towards the bottom (a reason the designs with screens on the bottom fail). A plate at the bottom would be useful. The body (hoop) doesn't need to be curved, I think an octagon would work as well, and be cheaper. This spring or summer I am going to get some 1 inch lexan and bolt it on the front instead of the metal and film what happens inside, should be interesting, but might not show anything but dust, with a high speed camera it'd be really interesting though.
+USMiner Wow, thanks for the fast response. I'm only crushing brown glass which I grow gold from using a custom microwave oven 2700F, 3kw. It beats mining. It must be like flour or close to it. Took me weeks to finish this oven but crushing glass with a pulley, a 100lb 4" diameter rod inside a couple of pipes is really only fun for a workout. I have 2 hot water tanks of different sizes. I might use the smaller one as the disposable inner section. Just wish my plasma cutter wasn't shot. Gotta sell some gold and buy a new one, American made this time. By all estimates, I should easily be able to produce over 2oz Au daily using this machine. Maybe I'll just buy a pulverizer haha but I love engineering.
+mikefromspace I've never heard of gold from brown glass, do they use it as a coloring agent or something? Seems pricey... This crusher might be overkill for glass, it'd definitely powder it though, it's like flour, make certain to wear a good filter mask. A cheaper and easier to build method might be a ball mill since glass crushes easy compared to quartz, if I was building something out of a hot water tank that'd probably be the direction I'd go. Those take longer to pulverize though, and are clunking and loud for hours or days, this chain mill chews through anything pretty much instantly.
+USMiner Well, the glass powder makes more gold. It's not there in spectrograph tests 'till it goes through the process of microwaving at 2025F with certain plasma inducing triggers. Clear glass makes gold also, but at a higher temperature. Brown glass has copper and nickel, so it heats up sooner. I'll probably use a vacuum cleaner bag collector with a vapor mist to get the rest. Each brown beer bottle yields $180 in gold minimum.
+Segment Fault Me either, not quite sure how its happening. I have an idea for another video where I am going to replace the front of the crusher with a piece of 1" clear polycarbonate and film what happens dropping stuff in there. Not sure if it'll work out due to all the dust and stuff making it hard to see inside though but maybe?
Some crushing implement with sharper edges could work better. When the chains fly around, they push against the air, and it could cause lighter particles to be forces around the chain by the air. A sharper implement would concentrate the impact force at the edges - something like a steel cube formed around half of a chain link, for example - but it may be difficult to find something suitable. And, I see material being lost in the dust going by way of the air - I suggest that it could be prevented and said material recovered, by somehow forcing all output material to run through a curtain of running water, dissolving the aerosolized dust particles into the water - but to recover the dust, you would need to somehow separate the water, either with a centrifuge machine or sun drying or whatever is determined best.
+Segment Fault I actually have a very makeshift sprayer attachement that attaches to the output tube of the crusher and feeds into a Gold Cube for processing ore. It works ok but I need to make a more permanent one and prevent it from gunking material up at the tube exit which is the problem this one has. I'm also going to build a vibrating autofeed tray up top so everything is automated. A flail like a cube would need to be made of very hard metal which is cheap to replace, this thing eats up steel like crazy. Not so much on circuit boards, but on quartz the chains just take a thrashing, after only 3 or 4 buckets they are almost gone on the impact edge.
Hardened steel security chains (will break a bolt cutters jaws) may work, but expensive. You can also try welding the leading edges with hard surfacing rod - used in the heavy equipment industry to slow down wear and replace worn surfaces.
Trying to figure out how you spent $500 on your build?? I am guessing the motor? I would think all the plate and square tubing and hardware could be bought for around a $100.
Built that at the height of the oil boom in Wyoming, metal was crazy expensive here due to rig repairs. So was any kind of shop labor, such as bending the hoop, which I later determined wasn't even necessary. That was $250 for the metal and labor from memory. Then $100 for the engine. Another $150 or so for pulleys, shafting, belts, bearings, nuts/bolts, spool of welding wire, paint, chain, collars, and various supplies to fix goof ups since I was just building from my head and not a plan. Also had to buy some tools I didn't have like a metal chop saw. It adds up quick... Good news is the new smaller one I'm planning on building this winter to carry on my ATV will be much cheaper after lessons learned and an oil/gas bust.
USMiner Ahhhhhh....ouch. Sounds like the lessons I usually learn...the hard ones. Yeah I think I have done that once or twice with a project or 2 myself.
USMiner Good job though. I am thinking I will build one but just for the backyard. I work in pipe fabrication so I think I can keep the cost down and I think I want an electric motor instead of the gas powered. But I do have an old lawn mower just sitting around...hmmm.
Nice, let me know how it goes. I'm looking at electric too, it'd be nice to be able to run this one inside a shed or something, or have a small portable one that I can just plug into my truck battery.
Use a dually or 18 wheeler brake drum and get face hardening welding sticks and weld up lines of that to prevent wear. That's what they use in industrial crushers and the lips of tractor buckets
