OK as promised here are a few photo’s and a short video , this is the order in how i get my charcoal if i do not need huge amounts to run a engine for a few hours ,
I start by taking charcoal out of my slow combustion fire by placing it into saucepan’s with lids and allow to cool for a short time before transferring them into a larger 25 litre can where i squash it down with a block of wood to allow me to get more into the can .
The hole size is smaller than i mentioned before they are roughly 3/4 inch holes in the grill and in the video you will see that even though i poured about half a pan of charcoal onto the rotor that was not really enough to push through the grate as it needs a load onto top all the time to force it through the holes and notice the hammers never swing up its just the rotor crushing the charcoal against the grate that does the work
That is the smallest to largest pieces i ever get out its all a fantastic engine grade size , any dust falls or smaller than 1mm falls through the Shute onto the ground like this
With the hopper on and charged battery’s on 24 volts i can get a 25 litre can done in about 3 mins and the dust is dependent on if i have hardwood , i get a small amount of dust and on soft wood i get at least twice as much blowing around .
Here is the link to the internals video . crushing charcoal - YouTube .
Cody if you want a more consistent sized fuel i believe that the best way is to make sure once reduced it goes through a grill /grate with what ever size holes you would like your charcoal to be .
Dave
Brilliant! Setting out in the weather uncovered for 10 years producing huge volumes of engine grade fuel. “these types of machines can be found at the side of the road or for very cheap money on line” Simply retrofit with a 10 RPM motor.
“not many people have ever been that interested in what i have and how well it performs” Too simple?
Cody,
If you decide to use both saw blade shafts, that’s ok, I’ll come up with another plan. I might even get my friend the machinist involved. I get friend of the family discounts.
I must drive down the wrong roads. I would pick it up just because I didn’t know what it was. The last thing I picked up was a lawnmower. it has a broken weld/bolt where the deck and the front wheel connect. But started up first pull.
Sean i too used to think like that when i first come over to Australia everything was hard to come by and was expensive compared to what i paid when living in the UK , but then once a year every suburb around Melbourne has what is called hard rubbish collections .
Its 1 time you are allowed to put out nearly anything on the front of your house for the council to come and take away , its like Christmas week after week people driving around going through mountains of goodies and then moving onto another area few weeks later once all the best stuff has been taken i wont even tell you some of the items friends have found worth Thousands of bucks, as they say ones man junk is another mans treasure
Bruce you got it the too simple rule is one i like to live by why over complicate something when a simple solution will get the job done just as well and cheaper as well most times .
Got the double axle made up, and you definitely have to spin both to get anything done.
However, it works at very slow speeds very efficiently. I just need to add spacer discs in between each blade to prevent long pieces from slipping by.
It stopped spitting charcoal out the top and I’m glad about that.
Dave I really like how your setup is essentially a very slow speed hammer mill/rotary rock crusher. I guess since it’s going so slow, it’s really just the bars shoving the char through the sized grate? I’ve seen you mention it before but never saw what it looked like.
I should look for a pair of wheelchair motors for this dual axle crusher.
I am having one issue right now, if I fill up the hopper it will bridge. It’s just a straight drop to the blades though.
Cody if the material is hanging /bridging then there are a couple of reasons why , but first tell me what speed are the blades turning , and how ae you driving them ?
Dave
I’m just rotating them by hand by turning the pulleys, I don’t have two motors of a similar speed right now.
I’d say maybe 30 RPM by hand? If even that fast.
The bigger pieces about chocolate bar sized are bridging, so some will get ground down and then I have to agitate the hopper to get it to feed more. It’s just friction I think. Once I get it motorized I can feed it in smaller amounts to prevent hangups. I had the same problem with my other crusher.
Ok well that is slow enough ,so that is not a problem , so the only other reason for not all falling on top of the blades will be that there is not enough gap between each tooth for it to grab the next bit .
Cory i used to Granulate waste plastic for over 30 years and i know what will and what will not go down and through a certain type of granulator its all in the blade configuration , do you have photo you can show me ?
I don’t have a photo on hand but I must say the blade is fairly fine toothed. But what I’m noticing is the charcoal hanging up a few inches above the blades. Maybe my hopper is too small. It’s sort of rhombus/half trapezoid shaped, straight vertical on three walls and one at an angle.
those blades are great for cutting wood , but crap at chunking/ cutting / crushing charcoal .
If you look at those blades and imagine you could cut out at least 2 teeth , so tooth then skip skip tooth then you might get a little better but you would also need to cut some depth into the blade as well maybe .
If you got some old blades just try it you will see what i mean , what is happening is the charcoal is just sitting flat on top of the teeth rather than dropping down between
I don’t think they have to be at the same speed but I honestly would use a belt, and put a twist in it to reverse the direction.
I think rather then cutting out teeth, just make the kerf smaller which automatically means less dust. The risk of clogging goes up, but you aren’t really cutting a 2x8 even if you do hit a brand. If clogging goes up then cut out teeth.
Got two small pulleys to try to make the shafts spin opposite directions. I’d like to make this idea work at low RPM.
Only issue now is the shafts are so close together I’ll need like a 13" maybe 14" belt. With a cloth tape and no twisting, it measures out to 12" on the outside of these pulleys.
I’m trying to think if I could substitute belts for something else, but I think the general friction of the system will get in the way.
I may try to use two similar sized chain sprockets and put chain all around one, and the teeth of the other going between the links. I’ve seen this done on motorized bikes to make a sort of kick start.
Only other idea would be to make two wooden wheels and glue serpentine flat belt scraps on both, and have them super tight against each other.
The way I’m attaching the pulleys is to just have a nut on either side and tightening them together.
The last thing I picked up was a lawnmower. it has a broken weld/bolt where the deck and the front wheel connect. But started up first pull. 