Making an Auger (feed conveyor) from Washers ...and mathematics! 

Yes, I don't know why, but the one I used originally didn't seem to give the correct results and I also could not figure out how they'd arrived at the formula they used.

Cool. You should donate the guy a tip if you made money from that!

Yes, that's why I still often use HSS tooling over carbide.

I think that would be a perfect application for something like this, and also the sort of project arduinos were made for! Good luck!

Andy what program does the calculator work in? Ive viewed the file but none of the fields are editable@@AndysMachines

You win the prize! I'm surprised nobody got it sooner! Yes, the third way I was thinking of was just to take a flat strip and twist it into a spiral using a blacksmithing or similar method.

That,s also a good idea to twist a flat iron.both of your ideas are good.thank you so much. With youtube we learn more.

I always wondered how hard this would be. Unfortunately where I am you need to drill to 200 feet to hit the water table.

@@AndysMachines That depth would definitely present more challenges for sure. I used 3/4 pipe and had to screw it together and unscrew it many times as I was extracting the dirt out of the hole...

Glad it helped!

@@AndysMachines One quick question, your formula is the ID+R and OD+R or it's something different?

@@supersherpa2011 It's just the ID of the helix (diameter of the rod it will fit on) and the OD of the helix (total outer diameter) and the pitch determines how much it is stretched out.

Thanks! As for the meat grinder, I've never looked inside one and I would be guessing, but could the spiral fins on the walls provide some of the grinding action? ie. a chopping/shearing action between the wall and the auger? If that is what they are for I would expect the number and or pitch of the fins on the walls to be different to those of the auger to even out the grinding action. Meat grinders are probably cast with the internal features in place, but then you have the problem of how to make the pattern with the internal spiral!

my guess is mixing the meat ?

Yes you can probably find them ready made, but you'll need to know what to search for, eg, meat grinder, post hole auger, grain conveyor etc.

Yes, that's a really good way of doing it. If I were making more than one I would probably put in the extra time to do it that way. Once set up properly it produces very consistent screws, it does take a lot of turning force to rotate the shaft though, it can be done in a full size lathe in low gear, but not sure my small bench-top lathe would do it.

Yes, you certainly could cast a screw, but that's actually much more sophisticated than I was thinking. There's another quite basic method. I don't need high precision for this screw, it's only nudging random flakes of plastic along a short tube. My screw is quite rough and ready, I didn't even grind all the welds smooth. If I wanted to make a really good one I might consider casting it in bronze from a 3D printed pattern, leaving a finishing allowance and then machining the outer diameter to size.

This is the direct link: www.patreon.com/file?h=41672326&i=6367786

Actually I already did that, some years ago (not the best quality video): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cf4dQ2xw4OM.html

I assumed that the thickness was negligible, which for me it was (2mm for a ~ 50mm dia screw). But yes, if you use very thick flights it will have an effect and make the calculations more complex. As you form the flight, the corner of the inner leading edge will angle inwards making the ID smaller, if you then force this over a rod of the correct ID it will affect the OD or pitch. You could account for this by either putting a chamfer on the inner leading edge of the flight of the same angle as the helical angle so that after forming it is parallel with the axis, or you could increase the ID in the calculation from the actual ID to account for the thickness, eg. add 2x thickness x sin(α°) to the required ID, where α° is the helical angle. There are probably some other subtle effects that would be caused by forming thick material that would also throw the expected results off, so it's likely to be a bit of trial and error.

12mm rod, 23.8mm ID washer, so almost twice the diameter 1:55

I do everything in metric units, however the speadsheet will work with either metric or inches as long as you use all of the same type.

@@AndysMachines Great ! Thank you!

It doesn't matter which units you use as long as they are the same throughout.

They're not actually that uniform, you can see a bit of wobble as it spins. The welded stack of washers was just stretched out by hand.

Welding always causes some deformation, in this case not enough to cause any problems, but yes if you need very tight clearances you might have to make it oversize to start with and skim the outer edge.

Yes, as long as you keep the same units throughout it works with either.

@@AndysMachines Thanks a lot

It' here: www.patreon.com/posts/41672326

Thanks for your help

Did you download the spreadsheet? The first formula I couldn't get to work either, which is why I made my own spreadsheet.

It works for me, when you get to Patreon click on 'screw conveyor calculator1.xlsx' next to the paperclip symbol.

@@AndysMachines says "this site cant be reached. check if there is typo..."

www.patreon.com/posts/41672326 What part of the world are you trying to access the site from? Could it be blocked?

You can pretty much ignore the thickness, unless they are very thick and you a drawing them out to a very long pitch, then the inside diameter will decrease slightly and the outside diameter increase as the corners tilt in/out.

I used millimetres, but it works for either.

it works in either, even inches, as long as you keep all the units the same.

spin it faster

Yes, it can be downloaded for free from my Patreon page, no signup required.

Thanks a lot