Beevo needed a larger tumbler....
The small Horrible Freight one was really too small and the larger one they sell is not worth the money for the size increase. I have seen a couple home brew tub types on the net but they were built around the 55 gallon drums, I needed something a bit smaller.
I elected to use a 15 gallon water barrel for the tub and build from there. I selected this as the base because they are pretty much universal in size, so "replacement parts" will always be available. The drums typically cost $10 - $15.
I used the half with the bung in it so that could be used as a drain for rinsing
or unloading the media. We'll see if my hunch is correct, that I can pull
the bung and turn it on to empty the media into a bucket. The upper
rim of the frame is 1 1/2" steel angle. All nuts you see in most of the
following pictures WILL be replaced with Nyloc's...
Inverted
view of the upper frame and tub.
The
framework for the upper assembly has been tacked into place. Two bands
were added to support the center of the drum. In this view the motor
bracket has been added. Cleverly I remembered to put the motor at the
opposite end of the bung!
Detail
shot of the motor mount. The wobble shaft will be mounted to the inside of
the frame at the right center of the image. As of 3/29/15 I am still
waiting for parts...
The pulleys are tentatively selected at 2.25" (motor) and 5.2" (wobble shaft). This will give me 800 - 850 rpm on the weights.
4/4/2015 This was woefully too slow, coupled with the mass of the steel weights it jackhammered its way across the driveway.
Test
fit of the motor. The only motor I could scrounge in the shed was a 220v
1P so I guess that's how it will be powered. (I have lots of 220v
extension cords) Wobble shaft will be mounted half way between the tub and
the bottom framework. The pulleys will be on the outside of the frame due to
the size of the wobble shaft pulley. In this view the upper frame is
sitting on top of the base frame which is made from 2x4 and 2x2 steel box.
At a later date I may fill the pieces of the 2x4 with lead for ballast. I
do not plan to bolt this down unless absolutely needed. A set of three
open spring vibration mounts will be placed between these two frames. Each
mount has a working range of 11 - 55 pounds. The current weight of the
frame, tub, motor, shafting with weights (shaft, pulleys and weights are
estimated at this time) is 80 lbs. This is right at half of the working
range of the mounts. Media will account for another 15 - 20 pounds.
With a load of parts I should be at the 75% point which is where the guy at the
mount company said I needed to be.
4/15/2015 Remember the Hubble and the pesky problem of Units? One group of engineers was metric and another was SAE and the telescope was myopic? Well in reading the spring mounts catalog I goofed. The mounts were rated in Nm, not pounds. When I set the tub assembly on them, it hit bottom. {;o)
I got new mounts that are rated higher (26 to 63 pounds) and it all works as expected now.
The motor is mounted in some rubber washers to help as best as I can with
keeping it from shaking itself apart.
4/15/2015 This wound up being a useless effort.
Here
is one of the completed counter weights. I plan to use two weights and
phase them 180° from each other (balanced) to begin with and then work them
closer to each other to tune the unit to the best "wobble". 5/8" hole to
fit the shaft and two setscrews for securing the shaft. They are made from
3" steel round, 2 1/2" thick. I may elect to dimple the shaft with a drill
bit when the final location is determined.
4/2/15 Even one of these was too much mass and I was turning the shaft at too slow a speed. It literally bounced across the floor like a jackhammer. The pulleys were reversed to get a higher speed on the wobble shaft and a slightly smaller weight was made from aluminum.
The
motor shaft end of the wobble shaft. I wound up with a pulley change.
The smaller pulley is on the wobble shaft while the larger is on the motor.
This was still too fast and I started moving down in size on the motor pulley.
The
wobble shaft at the end away from the motor pulley. The aluminum weight
has two holes to select mass.
Detail
shot of the new weight.
Pre
painting test fit, shown here without base frame or the spring mounts. I
tried a number of pulley sizes to get the action correct.
I subsequently moved the motor to the base frame as the mass of the motor dampened the action at the motor end.
5/2/2015
Here is a shot of the (hopefully) final drive setup. The motor was
moved to a mount welded to the base frame. The spring action of the tub
keeps the belt at a nice tension.
Here
is the tumbler with the dolly attached. The wheels on the other end just
clear the ground when it is sitting flat. The bottoms of the 2X4 box iron
have Scotch Tread® to keep it from walking around. Prior to
putting it on it appeared to be a non-issue. The dolly levers the unit
high enough to clear the 1" lip on the garage entrance and the wheeled end does
not drag when moving.
Detail shot of the dolly, it is in the lifted position. A couple of Harbor Freight casters were stripped for the wheels.
The polisher now works as I had hoped (and expected) it would. Very little excess hardware was purchased, I have 4 pulleys, 3 spring mounts (already tasked for another project) and 3 belts left from the trial phase of the machine.
Here's a video of the Completed Tumbler.
© Beevo 2015