finished rock crusher

[desert-rat]

I bought the best chain tractor supply had, its 6500 lb test. The mod works well as long as you don't feed to fast. I put a couple really hard large chunks in at the same time and about killed the motor. as long as you let it keep up with what you put in it you can run a 5 gal. bucket in less than 5 mins. dang sure takes longer to get it in the bucket than it does to crush it. the last sample I crushed I got a couple hundred specks of color out of one bucket worth of sample.

 

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[jair]

Are you getting good gold from your ore ? I have 4 chains in mine with the solid steel ends of cutting edges ( wear Iron ) . Works great and last a lot longer , moves material very well and quick .

 

[desert-rat]

im getting some color its not enough to pursue but its about 10X more than I was getting just running dirt from the washes in my sluice. I may build some hammers and hard face or just go an build a jaw crusher to get it down to -1/4" then run it in this one to get it to powder.

 

[desert-rat]

I added an idler pully to the crusher on a spring loaded arm to I can start it if I kill half full of material. works even better and the belt gets a lot tighter so it spins even faster than it did making it almost impossible to force a big enough rock down the 4" feeder tube to kill it. I would suggest putting this on any thing you built its a major improvement

 

[robert2b]

That's what I do. I use my 4" x 6" jaw crusher to reduce the rock to about 1/4". I use 6 chains that are 1/2" in my crusher. The material I am crushing at present is hard quartz and I get about 4-5 buckets of material crushed before I have to flip the chains. This used to annoy me, but with practice I can now switch out the chains in about 20 minutes so it doesn't hold me up that long. I think that if you use the hard faced hammers on 1/4" material they should last you a good while. Good luck in what you are doing.

 

[bobw53]

I added an idler pully to the crusher on a spring loaded arm to I can start it if I kill half full of material. works even better and the belt gets a lot tighter so it spins even faster than it did making it almost impossible to force a big enough rock down the 4" feeder tube to kill it. I would suggest putting this on any thing you built its a major improvement

I always wondered why nobody ever did that. Always a direct belt or direct drive.. I ordered up my pulleys and bought my motor last week (6.5hp Horrible Freight, how can you go wrong?
its almost free!). Definitely adding the idler pulley/spring loaded clutch, nothing to it, and the benefits seem, at least to me, to be quite large... Used that system on a little tractor I built,
and it worked fantastic, you don't even need all that much spring pressure, and you get a little extra wrap on the belt, and you know its not coming loose.

 

[desert-rat]

the drum on mine is about 18" long by 16" across and I may go exchange the 6.5 hp harbor freight motor and get the 10 hp. the one I have now isn't really enough for the size of drum I built. Im having hell keeping belts running due to alignment and the slippage factor when you load it up with larger rocks. im going to start on a rod mill in a month or so as im working 72 hrs a week for the next month or so. I will use the one I have now to get things crushed down to 1/4" then run it thru the rod mill. the gold im getting out of this one is getting deformed and possibly beat down into very small pieces that aren't easy to recover. my thinking is to open up the crusher to 1/4" and check it for gold before processing it with the rod mill. any insight would help!

 

[bobw53]

the drum on mine is about 18" long by 16" across and I may go exchange the 6.5 hp harbor freight motor and get the 10 hp. the one I have now isn't really enough for the size of drum I built. Im having hell keeping belts running due to alignment and the slippage factor when you load it up with larger rocks. im going to start on a rod mill in a month or so as im working 72 hrs a week for the next month or so. I will use the one I have now to get things crushed down to 1/4" then run it thru the rod mill. the gold im getting out of this one is getting deformed and possibly beat down into very small pieces that aren't easy to recover. my thinking is to open up the crusher to 1/4" and check it for gold before processing it with the rod mill. any insight would help!

A few thoughts before you go and buy another motor.. Shorten it up, I'm pretty sure you said that your chains on the far end were barely getting beat, and Jair earlier in the thread showed his
crusher, same diameter but only 4" long, running a 6hp and pushing 2200lbs out in 45 minutes... The other thing, and easier.. Slow it down. From your video it looks like you are over speeding
your crusher. Put a Bigger pulley on the motor, smaller pulley on the crusher, I'm not sure how slow you can go and still be effective, but if you have a 6" on the motor, and a 4" on the crusher,
running 3000rpms, thats 2000rpms on the crusher, and at 16" diameter is .... about 95mph at the end of the chain. I'd guess that's enough, I can crush a rock with a hammer and I'm not
swinging it that fast.

 

[jair]

My crusher runs at an proximate speed of 3000 - 4000 rpm . As close as I can figure .. After all adjustments . Still working grate . And discharges out the Sid of the drum , bottom can't clean fast enough , plugs up.

 

[desert-rat]

mines a side discharge as well. I could play with the speed by playing with pulley sizes but I really don't want to run it much slower than what it is now. I run the motor about 2/3 throttle most of the time unless im in a big hurry then I rap it out. I think for now ill leave it as it because its pretty damn fast at running material and cleans out well. the belts are a pain because no matter how tight you get em when you drop a big ole hard piece of rock in it slips some. im running an "A" belt and need to be running a "B". im looking for a trailer now so I don't have to haul stuff home to crush I can just crush it on site and bring home the powder to clean up.

 

[jair]

I used to bring it home but I had a lot of clean up at my house doing that way , I have set up my trailer to do all the work out on site if time given , I picked up a gold cube to get it down to very little to bring home . Good luck on your set up , I'm sure it will be good .

 

[Eh U Guyz]

I had a 4x1.5 inch paddles to attach my chains to on my first crusher. I found it rolled alot of the material and caused excessive chain and bearing wear. It was a sample crusher. 10 inch diameter casing 20 inches long. My second crusher that I run now is 16 inch octagon made with 7/8s plate steel 6 inches wide. I welded 1 inch paddles to my shaft. this allows for more chain to whip and shatter the stone. And the octagon shape causes the stone to bounce around and shatter against the plate, rather than the chain. I also offset the shaft to have a higher clearance at the top of the crusher. This made a huge difference on my maintenance. I now run 1.5 ton or more before having to open her up for chain replacement or flipping. I am more than happy with it but it still is too slow for my water table

 

[SaltwaterServr]

I had a 4x1.5 inch paddles to attach my chains to on my first crusher. I found it rolled alot of the material and caused excessive chain and bearing wear. It was a sample crusher. 10 inch diameter casing 20 inches long. My second crusher that I run now is 16 inch octagon made with 7/8s plate steel 6 inches wide. I welded 1 inch paddles to my shaft. this allows for more chain to whip and shatter the stone. And the octagon shape causes the stone to bounce around and shatter against the plate, rather than the chain. I also offset the shaft to have a higher clearance at the top of the crusher. This made a huge difference on my maintenance. I now run 1.5 ton or more before having to open her up for chain replacement or flipping. I am more than happy with it but it still is too slow for my water table

Love to see a photo of it if you get a chance.

 

[Eh U Guyz]

I am just finishing up a few last assays before I head back to the bush to get mining. So, pardon the pics. they do show it working. I am testing a new design of classifier underneath and hope to have it built into the stand with an auger to take it directly to my water table, wet. Wont get the auger done before I leave, But the new classifier and stand should be done in a couple days. If I have time I will take some pics of our sample crusher. It works well, but is what it is... for assays, not production.

 

[Eh U Guyz]

From your pics I would suggest that your belt issues are due to your paddles that the chains fix to. There is minimal clearance between it and the ends of your drum. this gives a place for the stone to catch and it will cause much havoc and wear. As well. Have you tried to space your chains. If the rock cant veer it will only tumble. so in theory, you are wash machining the rock. I have found that in a cylinder style drum that 90 degree variations instead of 180 degree allows for the rock to tumble and bounce between chains. You are 2 sets of chains. Go to four. an X , You will still use the same amount of chain because they will be offset. This will keep the shaft much tighter aligned as well as give the stone separation from one chain to the next. it also keeps momentum up, drum wear down, with other big benefits.

As well, You must allow a small amount of slip. If your tension is too tight on the pulley then the jars and impacts are destructive to your equipment, from chains, bearings, shafts and motor.

Oh, and I will double or even triple classify depending on the size of gold in the host rock. In the end, I pulverize everything. but when the vein has nice flakes its easier to catch than micron gold. and seems to add up faster. Although, remember, if there is big gold, then there is small gold. And every flake and speck adds up. This is why I went water table instead of cube. I always get an additional 30 percent plus of micron as I do flake or larger. And If we are already crushing, well, it only makes sense to get all of it!

 

[Mad Machinist]

As well, You must allow a small amount of slip. If your tension is too tight on the pulley then the jars and impacts are destructive to your equipment, from chains, bearings, shafts and motor.

Um, in a word, NO! If you need any slip to protect your equipment, then you are using the wrong belt and sheave setup. By there very nature and construction, v-belts will stretch to accommodate shock loads and if the tension is set properly then the belt will slip if it the impact crusher jams. Misalignment of the sheaves is far more destructive to equipment due to side loading of the bearings.

Everything you never wanted to know about v belt drive design and setup.

http://www.bandousa.com/html/pdfs/bu-143manual.pdf

Here's a simple write up on using a string or straightedge for aligning the sheaves.

http://www.maintenanceresources.com/referencelibrary/v-belts/simple.htm

Sorry all, forgot the link to the alignment article. This has been a week from hell at work and next week doesn't look much better.