I just thought about windshield wiper motors, very strong, and you can probably find one from a bigger vehicle?
I saved some from buses, 24volt, extremely strong, i’ve seen this motors break a 1/4 by 1" flat iron bar when those big wipers frozen stuck.
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If your chipper /shredder has a 1 inch grill you will make the best engine grade charcoal ever ,if i get a chance sometimes today i will uncover my machine and throw a bucket of charcoal down it and video it for you .
If you have no screen in the machine then you are wasting your time will not get it uniformed size at all .
Dave
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The 90v DC motors are what treadmills use, same you can sometimes on the curb and most of the time people just don’t want them, or the belt tension was wrong. But that is the power supply, controller and motor. A scooter would have something similar but lower voltage for batteries.
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The chipper is most likely direct drive and mine had a tapered shaft. However i believe the screen itself could come out to be cleaned which means you could make the size screen you want.
You can also make one. There are a few hammer mills on YouTube that just used bolts on the end of a chain for hammers attached to an axle shaft. 5 gallon buckets to 55 gallon drums for the shell. One 55 gal one was used to crush char for biochar production, in that case they wanted fines.
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I have a 2-stage trommel that I made with 5 gallon buckets. The first stage has 1" holes, and a concrete weight that tumbles around inside, and the fragments from this stage drop into the 2nd stage with 1/4" mesh. This lets ashes and fines drop out. It’s kinda slow but makes nice uniform product.
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The enclosure is the remains of a failed rainsoft appollo II water softener that just happened to be the right size and shape for this. The motor is an AC gearmotor, I could have also used a 24v wheel chair motor.
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Although Ill prolly stay with using shovel. The PVC idea got me thinkin though for a stupid simple grinder.
All you need is a 2 inch auger bit and a section of tubing. Cut a hole on one side the tubing / pipe to allow feed stock in and use a drill to spin the auger inside. The aguer drive out the finnished ground charcaol. Could spit it out onto a an inverted screan.
There was a wood chipper built this way that was posted here on this forum some time ago. Basically the same concept but with charcoal and this would really be easy to make.
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That is almost exactly what I had, but yours is much better construction. I just wrapped the drive belt around the bucket as a step down gear. The input hole really wasn’t big enough to get the shovel in so I added a chute.
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