Auto Feeder for my bucket sluice

[soupfreak]

I decided that spoon feeding my bucket sluice was a tad tedious, so I set up this nifty auto feeder:



The funnel comes from the auto parts section of Walmart. The plastic tube was cut to just above the top rim of the sluice, then I taped a #47 cake decorating tip to the end.

I found a $5 mini massager in the Walmart pharmacy that I attached with cable ties to agitate the material.

Still have to dial it in a bit, but seems to be working great. Cleaning the sluice after 1 full hopper seems to be a good balance.

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[russau]

ive always heard that you never add dry cons to a wet system.itll make the really fine gold float on out of the sluice. check your tailings and see!

[soupfreak]

ive always heard that you never add dry cons to a wet system.itll make the really fine gold float on out of the sluice. check your tailings and see!

You're right, I never thought about that. Thanks for the insight (I am still a bit new to using a sluice.)

Since the cons are dropping into the water, the fine material would essentially not break through and float straight out.

So now I'm thinking that if I angled a trough above the sluice, then made a spray bar and ran it the length of the trough and fed material at the top, then the cons would be under the flow of water and enter the sluice wet.

Am I on the right track here or am I missing something?

[russau]

i think your seeing what you need. i also run a alum triangled trough that has a pointed exit for my cons. i have a small 12vdc bilge pump that sprays a Little water over the cons to slowly feed the cons into my cleanup device(which ever one i decide to use at the time)the auto feeder controlls the water and material that goes into my device. and the more you can controll each eleiment(water/cons/feed/tilt) the better you will be in saving your fine gold.i feed my cons very slowly through these feeders to controll my captureing of fine gold.the smaller the gold, the slower i work!

[Gravelwasher]

Just thought maybe a small diameter 2-3mm plastic hose on a drip or real slow flow run into the hopper before you load it with the cons then turn on the water supply to the hose when set up to fluidize the tip of the con feeder, might work?

[russau]

it just might do that!!!one way to find out!