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