406's New Toy... I Mean Tool

Hey everyone,

Hope your scrapping is going well. For the past 6 months I've been working on building my own shredder. If you look online for one it's going to take a minimum of $8-$10K. I decided it would be easier for me to design and build my own one. After a few months of designing and revising I was ready to get the parts cut and put together. It took more than expected because I had more of an expense on milling the axels. So far this project was planned to be at $3k at the most. I am now $500 over that, but it's almost done. Last night I assembled the unit for the first time and I gotta say, It's looking good. I thought I'd share a few pictures of the parts. I'm doing one hard push today and tomorrow to finish shredder. Once it's running I will definitely post a video because after all, who doesn't like a good video of stuff being shredded up?

https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/atta...tid=4435&stc=1https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/atta...tid=4433&stc=1https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/atta...tid=4431&stc=1https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/atta...tid=4432&stc=1https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/atta...tid=4434&stc=1https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/atta...tid=4430&stc=1https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/atta...tid=4429&stc=1

I was going to ask about that- it looks a lot closer to being ready to shred than the parts were when I last saw you. So, does this mean that you want me to dump.... errr "bring" those printers to you now? o:)

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Originally Posted by matador

I was going to ask about that- it looks a lot closer to being ready to shred than the parts were when I last saw you. So, does this mean that you want me to dump.... errr "bring" those printers to you now? o:)

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This one is almost done. Hopefully I'll have it ready by the end of the week. As soon as I run some materials through it to see how well it works I'll have a good answer on the printers. Once all of the "undocumented features" of the current one are worked out I'll be starting on the big one for processing larger stuff.

Well. There have been a few undocumented features to the unit like that it tears itself apart. I mean who doesn’t love a piece of equipment that tears itself apart? I’ve reinforced the unit for a third time. On the last round the gear box actually locked up. It didn’t damage the unit, but for a gearbox that has 420 foot pounds of torque that’s a concerning thing. Especially since it was a fairly thin piece of steel that caused it. I have the unit set up again so I’ll be doing some load testing tonight. If it does not go according to plan I’ll be ordering another $500 in blade spacers and $150 in gears. Gotta love the load testing side of things

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Originally Posted by 406Refining

I mean who doesn’t love a piece of equipment that tears itself apart?

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That's how the neighbor has always farmed. What can go wrong, right? At least it locking up didn't blow the gearbox out. I haven't seen your machine together, so no clue if you could put a slip clutch or something in there maybe?

A lot of these types of machines will have a mechanism that will reverse the spin. I assume there is some sort of sensor that detects when there is a jam.

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Originally Posted by blackgold12

To bad it doesn't work and I guess we now know why one would set us back $8-$10K

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I was really really hoping it would go together perfectly on the first round, but I'm only $3,500 in so I've got some wiggle room before I hit the $8k mark :)

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Originally Posted by mthomasdev

A lot of these types of machines will have a mechanism that will reverse the spin. I assume there is some sort of sensor that detects when there is a jam.

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I've seen the reverse spin controller that many shredders have and that is something that I plan to put on the bigger shredder (possibly this one too). My dad is helping get that part designed/built since he's an electronics design engineer with 35 years of experience. He looked at it and said it would be easy to do. I have never designed a circuit board in my life so it's really awesome that he's helping on this project!

Honestly, if you end up spending $8000 on this compared to an $8000 commercial shredder, I'd rather have the one I built. Sure, the "professional" one should be perfect out of the box. But, if it took me an eternity and the same amount of money to build my own, I'd know WHY everything worked the way it did. If I ever build one though, the Lord knows that I'll end up with some Rube Goldberg machine that looks like it should belong on a Ukrainian YouTube channel....

"Not far". LoL, 2000kms is the length of NewZealand !

America must be HUGE !!

( I can drive across NZ in about less than 4 hours.)

Out here, we look at large distances like it's nothing. Many people in Wyomign will drive 100-200 miles to go to Billings for weekend shopping. It's just a normal thing out here

It's been a busy few weeks/month on this little project. I ended up getting the unit running, but is struggled with processing thin steel. I did try a server hard drive and it just about killed the unit and snapped the chain.

After upgrading the gear ratio from 1:1 to a 1:2 and going 2 levels up on chain size I tried the shredder again. It was able to chomp up those little laptop hard drives just fine....until I tried an aluminum platter unit, then I just tripped the breaker.

I ordered another gearbox to connect to the blue one. It seems the major issue was torque related. With this new gearbox I was jumping up from 420 ft/lbs of torque per axel to 2100 ft/lbs of torque.

This worked really well! Unfortunately when I tried a big piece of material it tore the wooden frame apart. Why wood and not steel? I didn't want to have a steel one built until I was sure everything was good to go.

The next step and hopefully the final step is going to be to install the thinner blade spacers and get the steel frame finished. I think this project may be in the home stretch!

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Originally Posted by 406Refining

It's been a busy few weeks/month on this little project. I ended up getting the unit running, but is struggled with processing thin steel. I did try a server hard drive and it just about killed the unit and snapped the chain.

After upgrading the gear ratio from 1:1 to a 1:2 and going 2 levels up on chain size I tried the shredder again. It was able to chomp up those little laptop hard drives just fine....until I tried an aluminum platter unit, then I just tripped the breaker.

I ordered another gearbox to connect to the blue one. It seems the major issue was torque related. With this new gearbox I was jumping up from 420 ft/lbs of torque per axel to 2100 ft/lbs of torque.

This worked really well! Unfortunately when I tried a big piece of material it tore the wooden frame apart. Why wood and not steel? I didn't want to have a steel one built until I was sure everything was good to go.

The next step and hopefully the final step is going to be to install the thinner blade spacers and get the steel frame finished. I think this project may be in the home stretch!

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At this point, you HAVE to get it working! No matter the cost.... Even if it costs more than a commercial already built unit, it's the principal of it lol.... Plus you'll know everything about it and know how to fix it and keep it running forever once you get it working 100%

Oh, you Montana people and you're "Do everything by the book attitude". I need to introduce you to "Redneck Ingenuity"! Gearbox too weak? Rob one from a combine! Tripping breakers? Hook a Ford 8N to it for power! Still not enough power? Well, just get a bigger tractor to run it!

You just have to get in the mindset of "Is there a way to make this work, but in a more silly way?". If the answer is "No", you've reached peak levels of Wyoming-grade design! Or, at least the peak levels of my designs :D

It's been a while since I posted an update on this project so I figured I'd do that today.

This project has definitely become more difficult than it was initially planned to be. I got the steel frame added to the shredder and started running material through it for what seems like the 11th time. It was going well until the chain driven gear started spinning. As it turns out, the torque on the end of the shaft was so high that the gear literally spun a 1" thick steel shaft in half. I guess that's what happens when you use low carbon steel axles.

I made a few design revisions to make the part of the axle that spun off thicker. I also upgraded to high strength chromium steel. After milling it was sent to be induction hardened so nothing will break this time. I got the shredder going and after a few adjustments it is now able to shred desktop hard drives! The crazy part is that the whole gearbox and motor assembly is mounted to a 1/2" thick steel plate and I'm pretty sure I saw the plate flex upward.

I tried one of those thicker server hard drives and ended up busting a key. Today I get to find a current meter so that when the shredder binds up it will reverse instead of busting a key. The other thing that needs to be added is a plate to go in between the cutting blades to stop material from wrapping around the blades.

I would definitely say that this project is in the homestretch! Just a few little parts to add and I can start working on the next one.