Vibratory finisher project

Gallery, Projects and General > The Design Shop

<< < (2/5) > >>

Alan Haisley:
Thinking of a tumbler got me to thinking of my clothes dryer. It uses an open frame AC motor with a small pulley driving a flat belt that wraps the drum. Without opening it up, which I am only allowed to do if it breaks, it's impossible to determine the mechanical advantage but it's a lot.

Given a plastic drum, open on the top, with a bearing on the bottom center and using a bracket with rollers to stabilize the front edge, I can see how a tumbler could be built. A friction wheel driving the rim could be an alternative. For variable speed perhaps a friction cone driving an idler driving the rim could be done. In that case, the motor would either need a bracket that could be moved back and forth or some kind of sliding spline driving the cone with the cone movable to get variable speed.

Not every solution needs an electronic controller.

Alan

Leeway:
Thanks, Guys. I actually considered how a washer works. Something could certainly be done with belts like that, especially the barrel type finishers or tumblers. They basically just roll around.

I found this link the other day.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3012198/Deburring-Metal-Finishing-Information-Booklet

Pretty informative stuff there. I have looked around and even new machines anywhere near this size are thousands of dollars.
My parts are all fairly small with the biggest being maybe 11" x 5" 11 gage CRS sheet. Smallest is maybe 1.5" x 1".

I was thinking about this setup. My motor would actually be mounted to the frame, as would the bottom of these springs. I would turn a rounded end on some coupling nuts so that they could swivel as needed. I would put a standard pulley on the motor and mount the offset plate to it. I could even make the offset adjustable. Loosen the bolts and twist the plate. It would be centered at one end of the adjustment and give may 3/4" at the other end.
Not too difficult to make with a cnc mill. :thumbup:

At 1/2" offset, this would give the barrel an inch of moving range. Turning @ 1725 RPM, that is quite a bit of shake.

I will get some more drawings up soon. This will become more clear by then. It is also very simple with only a few moving parts.

Alan Haisley:
Lee,

I'd worry about the motor bearings if you use a shaking rather than tumblering model. Maybe there is some way to decouple the side forces from the motor ... an intermediate thingie that actually provides the shake perhaps?

Alan

shred:
John's post reminded me that all the big tumblers I've seen have had a slurry of liquid and media in them (ceramics of various sizes mostly), so you may want to plan for that sort of mass to slosh around and seal up.

Another similar device I've seen for power-deburring and finishing smallish parts is a rotating mesh basket set at an angle with a bead-blaster shooting into it. Sort of like a standard clothes dryer but with a blast nozzle in the door.. No media is used in that except the blast media, but it does a pretty good job cleaning stuff up.

SPiN Racing:
I bought one of the Harbor Freight ones.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93252

Its mediocre at best. Honestly. I found that putting a wire brush to something gently for 30 seconds achieves the same results.

I had some stainless steel items that I was polishing and or de-burring. And the thing was... with 8 items about 3-5 inches long, with some sharp edges from turning on the lathe, they took around 12-14 hours to become smooth enough.

Honestly I could have spent about 30 seconds on the lathe with some emry cloth to achieve the same results.

If the items were more convoluted, and difficult to clean and or sand.. then it would be worth it in my mind.

Problems I had... the vibration caused it to have all sorts of parts loosen up.
It also fell over at one point during the several weeks I used it.

Now it basically collects dust as an option I dont use often. I know of options where I would use it.. but I have not needed it recently. I think If I had a slew of bolts and or nuts and things that needed corrosion removed, and or rust, I would break it out.

An alternative I use on Engine rebuilds... I have a 55 Gallon Drum that I cut 1/3 off the top. I put 5 gallons of Simple Green into it, and the rest water. Then I put it on a turkey fryer/propane cooker, and bring it to a boil, then put the engine parts into it via a coat hanger.
After boiling them for 3 or 4 hours, turn the gas off and let it cool to very warm. Remove and voila clean parts.
The liquid is "enviromentally safe" other than the stuff boiled off.

Navigation

 Message Index

Go to full version