140 replies to this topic

[miniskinny]

Hey guys,
I see that making ball-mills is/should be quite a project, if you are concerned with safety or quality of powders at all. Though I do support the making of a ball mill, as you can customize it, and the creativity that it would take, and even the hard work. But sometimes, it's just better to buy one; Ball mills for sale
I'm always preaching in the name of united nuclear, since they have provided me with SO many desirable services. I know other web sites are worthy of recognation, (spelling?) such as skylighter.com; they are better at selling larger quantities of items, and supply quite a few feet of fuse while they're at it. Anyway, I've typed too much;
-mini

[Zinginex]

Hey i'm going to make myself a ball mill soon. I'll probably try and do the roller design but i sort of made a practise one. All it was was a 4 double A battery powered motor with an elastic band on it. The elastic band would then go around the pot i was using for for the ball mill jar. I put a wooden rod going through the pot and the end of the rods were put through little wooden towers with holes in them so the pot was above the wooden board base. The pot roughly turned at about 80 rpm. This did seem to work OK so i was just wondering what your thoughts were on this design.
By the way i hope im not stealing the authors topic. I just thought that this was a topic on ball mill designs.

Edited by Zinginex, 24 January 2007 - 10:25 PM.

[JamesH]

I thought the following link would be useful to anyone interested in designing and building their own ball mill -

http://www.watchrepa...g_a_tumbler.htm

At the bottom of that page there are a few links to other ball mill/tumbler construction pages and a very useful pulley size and RPM calculator.

[maxman]

Just upgrading my mill to something bigger. I have a mains motor with an RPM of 1380. I have rollers etc and belts are no problem but I cant find a pulley to fit the motor shaft. The shaft is 10mm round with a flat half at the end. Has anyone any ideas of websites in the UK that might be of use? I could also do with a pulley arrangement as my rollers will be belt driven as they are the same as the ones on thegreenman.me.uk website

[portfire]

Just upgrading my mill to something bigger. I have a mains motor with an RPM of 1380. I have rollers etc and belts are no problem but I cant find a pulley to fit the motor shaft. The shaft is 10mm round with a flat half at the end. Has anyone any ideas of websites in the UK that might be of use? I could also do with a pulley arrangement as my rollers will be belt driven as they are the same as the ones on thegreenman.me.uk website

Hi maxman
This place should cater for your every need This is the pulley section


http://rswww.com/cgi...r...e&Nr=avl:uk


regards
dean

[maxman]

Yeah thanks I've had a look there, but I cant see a pulley that will fit my motor shaft. I could do with one with a grub screw to tighten up on the flat. It's amazing how much stuff RS has but when you come to look for something specific nothing is suitable

[TheExplosionist]

Regarding thet motor shaft, you can fit any pulley to any shaft. You just need the correct taper bush.
Creating a keyway on a shaft from scratch without a milling machine however is a lot of work. Does anyone know where you can get keyed shafts?

[Zinginex]

What i don't get is they say their is a simple design for a ball mill but the metal locks and "block bearings" are definitely not simple plus the way the motor has to be attached to the pulley system or rollers... Or maybe making a ball mill isn't for a 15 year old... lol anyway

I'm hoping to make a ball mill using a design i read from somewhere where all you need to do is secure the motor to the underside of a wooden board then on the top side attach wheels or rollers and then get a rubber belt and place that around the motor (the bit that spins lol) and around the milling jar. Any advice/tips?

[paul]

Thats exactly what will my mill will look like!

Got a strong 100upm motor for 30€ and paid 50€ for the rest of the stuff (I wanted a quality mill finally). I used the
passfire calculator to get all the sizes and values. I´ll use a milling jar which is 18cm in diametre, 15mm milling material.
It´ll rotate at an optimal speed of about 80upm (75 is optimal, 110 is critical speed).

Think it´ll be fun to build. I´ll post pics and/or videos building it and working with it!

Edit: Thats the design, you´re talking about basically:
Something that is definately missing is a CLOSED, motor room and a COVER so you are not able to
get your hands/hair into the rotating parts. It´ll ripp off body parts with ease...

Edited by paul, 03 January 2008 - 09:54 PM.

[Zinginex]

Thats exactly what will my mill will look like!

Got a strong 100upm motor for 30€ and paid 50€ for the rest of the stuff (I wanted a quality mill finally). I used the
passfire calculator to get all the sizes and values. I´ll use a milling jar which is 18cm in diametre, 15mm milling material.
It´ll rotate at an optimal speed of about 80upm (75 is optimal, 110 is critical speed).

Think it´ll be fun to build. I´ll post pics and/or videos building it and working with it!

Edit: Thats the design, you´re talking about basically:
Something that is definately missing is a CLOSED, motor room and a COVER so you are not able to
get your hands/hair into the rotating parts. It´ll ripp off body parts with ease...

oh how I'd love to have a ball mill like that lol... but i don't have a clue how they get their rollers attached into those bearings so they can spin round and how they attach those wheels to them lol let alone where they find those parts

The idea i'm thinking of would be liek that with the motor underside the wooden board but the rubber belt would be attach directly around the ball mill jar and it would rotate the jar on either rollers or wheels.

Edited by Zinginex, 03 January 2008 - 10:53 PM.

[icarus]

re keyed shafts just file or grind a flat on the shaft so the screw or allen key in the pulley cant slip

[FrankRizzo]

icarus is right. The easiest thing to do is to simply grind a flat on the shaft and use a set screw. Another trick is to make that flat a ramp profile; the screw is much less likely to back-out that way.

This picture is a bit exaggerated in the depth of cut, but you get the idea.

[Bonny]

Another way to keep set screws from moving on the shaft, is to 'spot' the shaft with a drill...meaning drilling the shaft slightly where the set screw will be. use a bit the same size of the set screw.Only drill deep enough to show the radius of the drill bit.
Also, when tightening set screws, tighten it, then 'crack' it loose (it should make a sound) and re-tighten. It helps the set screw bite into the shaft.

[Pyrogeorge]

Is it safe to use lead balls(weights)who fishermans has as alternative solution??

[seymour]

Yes, but I do not think they are hardened. Also, musket balls are most likely a lot cheaper.