Ballmill, Suggestions?

[injunjoe]

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

[PartTimeScrapper]

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.

[injunjoe]

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.

[PartTimeScrapper]

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

[injunjoe]

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.

[racer_boi]

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

[johnnybeegoods]

pulverizing scrap for separation.

[EcoSafe]

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.

[injunjoe]

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.

[KzScrapper]

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

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

[PartTimeScrapper]

[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.

[Mechanic688]

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

[injunjoe]

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?

[miked]

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.

[injunjoe]

Good thinking Mike and good luck on your journey.

[samuel-a]

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.

[miked]

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.

[eesakiwi]

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

[IdahoScrapper]

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.

[injunjoe]

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