Ballmill, Suggestions?

I am wanting to build a ballmill. I have a few ideas kicking around in my head but would like some ideas.

I found your thread on another forum Gus and was excited to see pictures and read up on it but your posts were gone.

My idea is to use a 20 gallon air tank and mount on each end garage door torsion tube bearings. I have the bearings , bearing plates , and the torsion tube to use as an axle.
I am thinking bicycle chain and sprockets as the drive train as they are easy and cheap to obtain.

A garage door opener would be great as it is geared and is set up with sprocket(not same chain as bicycle though) but will not work! The motor is not made for constant use.

Any ideas are welcome.

Thanks
Joe

Get a motor from a dryer and weld a sprocket to it. OR do a belt drive instead of a chain maybe? Just an idea that popped into my head.

I was also thinking about the pulley stack off an old drill press or lathe. I want to have a choice of speeds.

Thanks for the thoughts.

That should wrk real good. I would think you would need a stronger motor then the drillpress one though.

Yes I agree. I merely want to borrow the pulley stack. There is 3 or 4 pulleys of different sizes all together for different speeds.

This may be a noob question, but what would a ball mill be used for if you dont mind me asking?

pulverizing scrap for separation.

would a dryer or washer tub stand up to the beating. if it would it could be a pretty versatile tool as a ball mill, the holes in the tub would make a great sifter, and the size of the material could be guaged by adding screen arround the out side of the tub.

Olddude I would say no they would not do well. The walls are thin for the size and weight of the balls or rods I plan to use. It needs to be sealed tight as not to let any PM dust escape.

I am looking into precious metal recovery and perhaps refining. At this point I am reading, collecting, reading, building, and more reading!
I am very interested in this process! I have been reading day and night. When I'm not reading I am listening to it through text to speech .

I figure as I read and learn I will start building the basic equipment needed. A vapor hood is also on the drawing board, along with a scrubber.
This is going to be a lot of work and learning, but once you learn something no one can ever take it away from you.

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Originally Posted by injunjoe

once you learn something no one can ever take it away from you.

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I never really gave that much thought till now. Well put.

[QUOTE= but once you learn something no one can ever take it away from you.[/QUOTE]

Oh yes they can. Frontal Lobotomy. I think thats how they spell it.

JK I agree with KZ well put just be careful is all.

Joe have you looked this one over?? just curious, I know you've looked the gold refining forum over. That Steve off the gold forum has his own site, not sure if this is it or not, but he seems to be a real expert on refining gold.
http://www.goldnscrap.com/

By the way; does anyone (bigger e-cyclers) ever use this company??
http://www.electronicscrap.com/index.asp

Thanks for the link Mechanic. There are some very smart folks on the Gold Refining forum.

I find it interesting how complicated and dangerous it can be working with acids and such, yet there are a lot of simple questions being asked.
If someone can't figure out the simple stuff how will they ever proceed with the more complex operations?

I have been giving the gold recovery some thought. I am certain that I will not have an original idea so I looked to what others do to recover gold without using chemicals. Here's a link to a gold panning machine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=4rkhRzLFn6M

I know of other devices are used to seperate natural gold so why not do the same with electronic waste? I read one of High Voltages posts and took from it he uses hammer mills and a shaker table to seperate material by specific gravity. This takes me to where my thoughts are going: Doing the same process to recover copper, Al, lead/tin from the low grade boards that are easy and cheap to find.

Thanks for the original question and the kick start to my journey, Mike.

Good thinking Mike and good luck on your journey.

Than is neat little machine in that video Miked.

Though nice idea, i doubt it's abilities to effectively 'pan' all of the metals from fine (i of what i assume to be) e-scrap dust...
A ball mill is a good start in the recovery effort in any case, as long as you manage to operate it at optinum (speed, grinding media, feed size, duration, dry/wet) you will be able to reduce size down to few microns.

The only question is, will this panning machine could handle that material? I'd have to see it to believe it... and i would still assay the pulp, just in case.
The metalic concentrates will have to go through a chemical process of some kind eventually, after all, the majority of its content is copper and other base metals.

I could walk you through the process if you decide to Pursuit with this process.

There are many more process that may come in handy and are very much depended on your skills and setup of your operation.

Sam, I agree that the spinning bowel is an unlikely item to use but there are other mechanical ways to reduce the material. Once its reduced I hope to remove the al, lead/tin from the cu and possible pms. I am very restricted to what I can do, limited to lifting 25 lbs. In response to my physical limits I am trying to maximise my return on what I can get. I look forword to your continued contributions here, Mike.

I like the idea of a LPG tank on its side with a shaft at each end, I'd thought up to now that it would be on two rollers.

I'd been talking to a guy about my problem of cleaning brass bullet shells, they use a rumbler, I tried making one from a microwave turntable etc & it didn't work, just slid all over the place.
He said he had been doing something similar with copper tubes & cleaning the wooden turned products he makes.
He uses one shaft connected to a motor via V belt, on the shaft he hangs a wide car tire & just chucks everything into that, its open to the air too.

I still need something like a rumbler/ballmill though, I figure I can make it windmill powered, no electricity needed & 24hrs a day when it slighty windy.

Ballmill media? Big ball bearings is the most obvious, used metal turning Tungsten Carbide tips may work too.
The only ballmill I have seen is about 30 feet dia, uses baseball sized & smaller metal balls.
Been told by someone that if a single ball is missing from the mix, they can tell when they sieve the dust down, thats out of tons of balls....

Anybody given any thought to Cyclonic separation? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclonic_separation

A meat tumbler might work. I used to have this model shown below. Had variable speed. Air tight so you won't lose any PM dust.

http://www.midwesternresearch.com/images/DVTS100.jpg

Man o man who could not use a meat tumbler? All scrap aside I want a meat tumbler!

Who wouldn't

Ummmmmmmmmmmm meat- Homer Simpson

How about a smaller tumbler like they use to polish rocks,,,??

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

How about a smaller tumbler like they use to polish rocks,,,??

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I don't think you can tumble much meat in one of those.

Agh gee I've hijacked my own thread. Woe is me

^^ lmao

I never did get to tumble my meat in that one. Bought and flipped it for a tidy sum.

Sweet, you flipped a meat tumbler! A guy just can't make this stuff up! It writes itself!

Miked

The commercial process usually involve crushing down to about 0.5-1", ferrous and non-ferrous are seperated by magnets and eddy current and sent to a smelter.
The organics may be incinirated then smelted as is, or reduced in size even more and go trough flotation seperation (shaker table).

The horrible truth is, that recovring and refining metals by your self from e-scrap, will require you to run several hundreds Kilo's per day in an extremly efficient process to make it worth while.

There are sveral components though, that are richer then others and are easily seperated from boards. Those components can be sold outright or processed by yourself reletevly easy.
You can see in my website few examples of them under electronic scrap.

Thank you for your input Sam! I tend to have to much fun at my own expense. It helps me relax after a long day.

I do look forward to picking your brain, thanks for sharing what you know!

Joe

Okay back on subject.

Sam great site you have put together.

Mechanic the thought has went through my head about those little rock tumblers, I have seen them at harbor freight, but think it is way to small and I doubt it will hold up well. I was thinking of trying it but just figured it would be a waste of money.

Your suggestion did get me to thinking of a mid scale sized mill. Somewhere between the lil' rock tumbler and a 20 gallon tank.
A freon tank is what I am looking at. It is just the right size for my first attempt at this! The freon tanks also make great buoys for crab traps and such.

I think I need to concentrate on a furnace also.

I am intrigued by these modern day mining methods of escrap

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Originally Posted by injunjoe

I think I need to concentrate on a furnace also.

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Yes.
I would suggest you to fisrt think of building a small inciniration unit + back burner for the nasty fumes.
You most control the fumes, otherwise your neighbours (and the EPA) wouldn't be so happey. Check your loacl and federal lews regarding plastics inciniration.

Burning the feed will let you mill it in a fraction of the time then it would have taken without.

After inciniration + milling you can either: Smelt, Leach or another mechnical seperation as suggested above.

No doubt the buyer was happy to no longer have to pound his meat, and instead tumble it!


What about a lawn roller? Already have most of the bearing setup ready to go, or could possibly hang it as is, and cut in a door.

http://www.northerntool.com/images/p.../174886_lg.jpg

I'm keeping my eye out for an electric concrete mixer. HF sells them but not cheap enough for me to buy new. I hope it will work for a cheap small mill. Mike.

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Originally Posted by miked

I'm keeping my eye out for an electric concrete mixer. HF sells them but not cheap enough for me to buy new. I hope it will work for a cheap small mill. Mike.

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I have one that I use to make potting mix, garden soil, oh and mix cement in but it would not work out well!

For one, it is loud as a penned up rooster without anything in it.
They would not hold up well turning for a few days at a time.
A mixer is made to just mix for a short cycle with a large volume.


I am happy to see refiners coming on the forum to offer there help. I will be taking this more serious and not waste your time with my jokes. Again I say thank you.

Have found quite a few ball mills on youtube. Some using materials/designs I would have never thought of.

Happy Birthday Joe!

Here's some pictures of my homemade ball mill, first I incinerate the chips then run them through the mill after milling use that electric magnet to separate anything magnetic then into some acid to get rid of other base metals before going after the values.

The gear reducer is 60/1, the front plate used to seal the unit fits inside the drum then held in place with strong backs secured from the outside.

http://i814.photobucket.com/albums/z...d/100_4914.jpg

http://i814.photobucket.com/albums/z...d/100_4915.jpg

http://i814.photobucket.com/albums/z...d/100_4916.jpg

For a ballmill, you want it to be a large diameter & small width.
The balls have to rotate with the side of the ballmill, then at almost the top, drop down onto the scrap at the bottom of the mill & crush the scrap.
Like in the wiki picture http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../Ball_mill.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_mill
A rock polisher or small dia ballmill is just going to polish the scrap untill its dust, that'l take ages.

So, maybe 3 foot dia & 10 inches wide

Ball mills come in all sizes, some use rods instead of balls to grind the ore, e-scrap is treated as you would ore.

My mill is about 18 inches in diameter by 30 inches long and only has 6 balls, the trick is having a lifter bar welded to the inside of the drum to lift the balls to top dead center before falling onto the chips.

Here's 4 large mills located at one of the sites I visited to have a look an a crane.

http://i814.photobucket.com/albums/z...d/100_4866.jpg

Thanks for the pictures and thoughts. That is a nice setup you made there. I like the drive shaft setup, is that gear box from a PTO?
You mention lifter bar to lift the balls to top dead center. Would a length of angle iron up on edge to make like a scoop do the trick? Or maybe just a flat iron standing on edge with a bead along the top edge?

What was milled in them huge mills? I will guess corn or grain.

Angle iron or flat bar will do the trick, when the mill is set for off loading the bar is resting top dead center so as not to interfere with unloading., the gearbox is something I had laying about and the drive shaft is made up from I believe bits and pieces from a tractor PTO.

The drum for the mill is a crop off of an oil line pipe and is heavy wall, the bung to unload came from a metal barrel, the wheels that the drum ride on came from an old cart.

The balls came from a real ball mill like that shown in my second picture, they're about 3 inches in diameter.

Those large mills above were used at a mining operation to mill the ore, they belong to one of my neighbors. I suspect that he has replaced the armor plate tiles inside and will offer them fro sale it they are not already on the market as mining is not his line of business.

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Originally Posted by johnnybeegoods

pulverizing scrap for separation.

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Is there a poor man's way to pulverize scrap--other than putting it in a trash can and smashing it to bits with a sledgehammer. I'm trying to break up misc. plastic parts, electric plugs for instance, to quickly and cheaply seperate out aluminum and brass. It's not economical to spend hundreds on a ball mill or similar device for this purpose, and smashing the parts with a sledge hammer takes too long and is too much work. Surely, someone has developed something workable for this type of low-yield, low-profit seperation, right? Or, is the best solution simply to chuck these metal-ladden plastic parts into the shred pile and be done with it?