Hi Matt one thing i have too wounder is how long they last before need new dies or what ever they called, so say i run pellets 10 hours a day 5 days a week, what would the maintainace cost be, and profit after sawdust/energy/mantanence, at the end of a year if i were selling bags too stores / gas staitions/ ECT. Or is that hard too sell too.
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If doing yourself, I would imagine you would sell more like fire wood. Listing on Craigslist and youd probably have more clients than you can handle if you cut out the cost., The cost for a 40 lb bag of pellets is getting ridiculous. Nearly doubling in cost in the last ten years.
That I dont know, I did ask the guy and the replacement dies are $400.00. Ill just make my own or have then CNC reproduced. Not hard to do, they are made out of tool steel, you then have to heat treat them after machining.
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Thanks Matt makeing own dies would save a quit bit of change. i wounder how many pounds of pellets could be made in 10 hours loading time.
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Kevin. That depends how big your press is. It start at 7,5 kW. Everything under are toys. 10 pounds a kW
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Yes, found it. Not the pdf, but where I got some info for making pellets: pelheat.com. Take a look there if you want to learn about making pellets. It is like baking a cake, all ingredients have to match.
Kevin, do you have time to spend 50 hours a week making pellets?
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Posible if the overall pay was good, Trying too find the cost and maintainance expence related before the actual labor payout.
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What you mean 7.5 kw , would that be 75 pounds hour or less. ?
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150 pounds. Not more. You need a 7,5 kW press for it. 3 kW is 60 pounds of pellets if it can run one hour.
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I think as mentioned the economics will fall fairly flat once the die plate needs to go for surface grinding or replacing. And knowing how tool steel wears, I expect it will gradually dull the edges, it will be a regular maintenance issue, interval depending on dirt content, or melamine chips, etc. And the die plate will last longer, plus all the other moving parts, if the die plate is kept sharp. Less energy expended.
As for bang for buck for processing hours, the pounds per hour, and maintenance intervals of a WK chunker or rebak chunker will outperform pellets by multiples. Yes, wood has to dry, but chunked wood dries fast anyways.
It is an interesting notion, to go into the pellet making business, but I agree that a bigger machine is the way to go, and I would probably look into getting a surface grinder to avoid inevitable expenses maintaining plates. Plus a second die plate while the first is out for maintenance. So you might have to invest 10G to get off to a reasonable start, and it’s not all gravy. I can see it being more practical if a person has a sawmill, plenty of clean damp sawdust to work with, either that, or hook up with a sawmill operation to get their clean fresh sawdust. Too much work and energy invested otherwise.
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Right. That are my thoughts.
Sawdust is for free and available in bulk. Easy handling, etc.
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Thanks for all the info on pellet makeing, interesting prospect with lots of high dollar componets too maintain, tools i dont have for machineing mantanance. and saw dust from an allready running saw mill. More than i want too get intoo at at this time. MAYBE A SAWDUST GASIFIER THOUGH.
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