For crushing ceramic chips?

[goldsilverpro]

I can't imagine those plastic ball mills, in the links, being heavy duty enough. I think they're mainly for slow grinding and polishing stones. I would think you would need at least 3/8" steel and an assortment of good sized balls. Something like Harold built. A photo of it was on the forum. I tried grinding ceramic CPU packages in a heavy duty ball mill a little bigger than Harold's and it took a good 2 hours. You need more of a crushing action than a grinding action.

We once had a large set of powered, adjustable, steel rolls, originally used for some sort of paint manufacturing. If I remember right, the 2 rolls were about 6" in diameter X 12" long. They were mounted side by side to each other, rather than one above the other. We had a hopper that fed the parts into the rolls, from the top. We mainly ran alumina ceramic, side brazed, IC packages through them. Crushed them into about 1/8" -1/4" pieces in one pass. Worked great and was fairly fast. Didn't damage the steel rolls very much. Usually, they ran most all day.

 

[Harold_V]

You need more of a crushing action than a grinding action.

Absolutely! Anything less is a huge mistake and will serve poorly, if at all. The dynamics of crushing abrasive substances dictates that you must hammer the pieces, not abrade them. If a ball mill runs at the improper speed, pieces are worn down, not crushed. Such action is tough on the mill, wearing away the much softer steel instead of crushing the charged material. It is for that reason that a burnishing machine or tumbler will not serve well to crush ores or ceramics.

A ball mill that runs at the proper speed runs the charge near the apex, then drops it. It is that dropping (hammering) action that does the crushing, not a rolling action.

An alternative to a shredder (blender) would be a hammer mill, where weighted hammers are spun on pivots, and don't rely on keen edges to reduce the size of the charged materials. In both instances (ball mill or hammer mill) the device must be constructed of substantial material if a decent service life is expected.

Building such devices is not beyond the ability of a basically equipped welding shop, assuming good engineering practice was employed. There are self aligning bearings on the market that would eliminate the need for machining the trunnions, assuming they can be welded on the drum with reasonable precision. Machining is best, but not always an option.

Harold

 

[rainmaker]

Seems like a person might be able to invert a inline internal combustion engine, remove the head, resurface the piston heads with a hard material, attach a low speed electric motor to the crank and make a serviceable hammer mill.

Just a thought

Rainmaker

 

[Harold_V]

Not a very good one, however. The strength of the entire engine would be woefully lacking. Pistons are way too soft and weak to support the loads, as are the heads and walls of the cylinders. Not sure the rods would be happy, either. You'd end up with busted components quite quickly. Think what happens when a valve floats.

Worse yet, small bits would instantly wedge between the cylinders and pistons, stopping the entire operation in short order.

Harold

 

[CFirehawk]

Check out http://www.willitblend.com Even if sheerly for entertainment purposes to watch their blender-abusive videos or for the woefully impatient. I mean, look at what it does to complete electronic devices. POWDER. In about a minute rather than overnight in a ball mill. They're expensive but when you require a rapid yield you won't get any more rapid than that. Past that, watching some guy totally obliterate random objects in a blender is a joy unto itself.

 

[aflacglobal]

That is one mean ass blender.

 

[lazersteve]

I love this post! :lol:

I put in a request to see if a 486 ceramic cpu will blend. We'll see if they respond.

Steve

 

[aflacglobal]

I'm thinking lawnmower. :shock:

:roll: :roll: :roll:

 

[usaman65]

try a cofee grinder

 

[Irons]

A great way to quiet the neighbors having a party at 3 AM. I imagine a hammer mill would do likewise but at about 20 more db. 8)

 

[Harold_V]

A great way to quiet the neighbors having a party at 3 AM. I imagine a hammer mill would do likewise but at about 20 more db. 8)

If you've never been around one in operation, it would be hard to understand the level of noise they create. My ball mill could easily be described as a miniature. The charge consisted of balls from 2" diameter downwards, to about 3/4", along with a generous sprinkling of some rollers from large roller bearings. They were roughly 1" in diameter, and perhaps 1¼" long. I had to wear ear protection when it was in motion. The noise was actually painful to the ears.

Harold

 

[The Refiner49er]

Irons might be on to something...

Before I got too far along on this thread, I am thinking a garbage disposal might be the tool for the job. Haven't tried it, but I have an old one and I am going to take it for a test drive.

Several theoretical advantages are worth considering.

1- The addition of a small amount of water would likely minimize or eliminate dust.

2- The water would also effect transport of the material (slurry) to a downstream container, providing a efficient "flow through" vs a "fill and empty" method.

3- The grinders original design is inherent to the processing task objective, little or no modification may be necessary.

Has anyone else tried this approach? I will follow up this post after validation or destruction of this garbage disposal.

 

[Harold_V]

The problem you'd have with a garbage disposal is that it's a hammer mill, and discharges fairly large substances. By sharp contrast, a ball mill that is not continuous feed can run material until it's reduced to miniscule particles, flour, really. I'm not suggesting it won't work, but it won't do the job a ball mill will, if for no other reason, it allows fairly large objects to be discharged immediately. In a ball mill, while a few large items may find their way out of the discharge, for the most part they are kept inside and pounded until they are so fine that the water flow carries them out the discharge side. Obviously, I'm referring to a mill similar to the one I made, which was a continuous feed/discharge machine. I had restrictors on the discharge side to prevent large pieces from being discharged, but I also classified the material, returning pieces that I felt were too coarse to be effectively leached with cyanide.

The other problem I think you'd face with a garbage disposal is the effective lifespan. I'm of the opinion that the nature of the material being fed would be abrasive enough to quickly destroy the pivots on which the hammers mount. They're not intended to be subjected to abrasion, so they're made accordingly.

Bottom line-----it's worth a try if you have an old one, but I wouldn't invest in a new one for the experiment. Your money would be better spent elsewhere.

Harold

 

[Irons]

Ear plugs not included:

http://tinyurl.com/3d9sxz

This amazing rock crusher is ideal for the gold prospector interested in a light-weight and economical high-speed machine. Material is gravity fed into the hopper and drops into the center of a high-speed tube. The centrifugal force throws the rock into a hardened steel impact wall at speeds in excess of 400 miles per hour. The harder the rock, the easier it shatters into instant powder. If any uncrushable particles are fed into the unit it will automatically pass them without damage or hesitation. All material after crushing then passes automatically into a five-gallon bucket sealed chamber providing a low dust environment. Ideal for crushing all types of quartz, schist, limestone, etc. This new machine is also ideal for crushing black sand concentrates to release any encapsulated micron gold for further processing. Mounted to a vertical 5 horsepower engine, capable of producing up to 2 tons of grind in just one hour in a single pass. Multiple passes may be desired for finer grinds. Designed primarily as a pilot mill and not a production machine. The maximum rock size that this unit will handle is one inch. Weight 85 Lbs.

 

[macfixer01]

Irons might be on to something...

Before I got too far along on this thread, I am thinking a garbage disposal might be the tool for the job. Haven't tried it, but I have an old one and I am going to take it for a test drive.

Several theoretical advantages are worth considering.

1- The addition of a small amount of water would likely minimize or eliminate dust.

2- The water would also effect transport of the material (slurry) to a downstream container, providing a efficient "flow through" vs a "fill and empty" method.

3- The grinders original design is inherent to the processing task objective, little or no modification may be necessary.

Has anyone else tried this approach? I will follow up this post after validation or destruction of this garbage disposal.

I think I might have mentioned it here previously somewhere but my machinist friend made a nice grinder for his homemade charcoal out of a garbage disposal he bought at a yard sale. It runs dry so he had to bypass the thermal overload switch and set up an external cooling fan for the motor end. Even so he only runs it for 20 minutes or so at a time then lets it cool awhile. It actually grinds quite fine, however charcoal is fairly soft stuff. Material that is too large could easily be sieved out and fed through again. Actually in a real hammer mill they have replaceable screens which retain material in the chamber until it's small enough to pass through.

macfixer01

 

[Anonymous]

I would suggest a tire for the container on your ball mill. I have seen pictures of large rock polishers that people have made with them.
If you put plywood plugs for the centers and some foam on the outside of the plywood they can be quited even more.

 

[Exibar]

I was thinking of using a blender

Not a bad idea, actually :wink:

Although, unless it's a blender from hell, I doubt it would last for long. Maybe if you fabricated a cutom heavy duty impeller, but the motor would surely give out before long.

Now, if you were to build one from scratch, with super human components, then we're on to something......

Fever

will it blend?

You'll be amazed at what this blender can blend.... Too bad it's like a $400 blender... I wonder if it will do CPUs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l69Vi5IDc0g&feature=related

Mike B

 

[Noxx]

Ya the «will it blend?» website is quite funny.

But I don't think the blade would last much long with ceramic CPUs lol

And imagine the noise it would make...

 

[Scott2357]

I posted this in another area a few days ago where a guy was using a meat grinder for CPUs but don't know how to link to it so I'll cut and paste...

I'm new here so I don't have any proven methods yet, but I think a hydraulic press might do a better job.
You could make a steel containment pan for the press plate to fit into so flying chip bits would not be lost.
The press plate and the pan plate would need to have irregular or grooved surfaces to aid in concentrating
pressure points for efficient use of crushing force. Preferably plates would be inverse patterns of each other.
I can't give a good reason, but I would probably process chip pins and lid plates first then crush packages.

Check out http://www.harborfreight.com and word search for 'ton press'.
You can get up to a 20 ton model for less than $200. Much less if you only plan to crush plastic chips.

Well, I guess it is a little pricey compared to a 50 cent meat grinder but I was thinking long term here. Besides, it has a lot more uses than cracking chips.

To name a few..

Prospectors could use it to crush gold/platinum ore.

If you're into catalytic converters and hate cutting them open (as I do), you could partially crush the bodies so the fractured honeycomb pieces would just pour out the end.

... and no blistered hands!

 

[Harold_V]

I saw your original post, but didn't think much of your suggestion. Here's why. (I'm not trying to be rude, just practical).

As you crush material, the surface area increases rapidly. What may break under 20 tons will spread and triple the area, stopping the crushing action. The process will work if you can keep the amount inside the plates to a bare minimum, but that would slow you down to a crawl. I'm assuming your objective is to crush items fine, not just break them in large pieces.

I guess it all depends on what you expect from the press. My purpose was to reduce the ore I processed to fine particles. That would have required tonnage that is unimaginable with a press, but with a ball mill, surface area is not an issue. It's the reason ball mills are used. If, on the other hand, all you want to do is fracture chips, you may get by fairly well.

I assume you understand that manual hydraulic presses are quite slow acting. Such a setup would work poorly if you had an abundance of material that needed crushing.

Here's something for you to consider: If your intention is to break ceramic pieces in small chunks, you might consider a small assayer's jaw type crusher. Instead of parallel plates, it has jaws that close from one end to the other, allowing the fines to drop out, keeping pressures reasonable. It should do a nice job, and do it quickly.

Harold