Homemade Ball Mill

[Pyrostar]

Hi

I finished my ball mill yesterday and it works very good.
I ball milled 1cm big charcoal to airfloat dust in roughly 1 1/2 hours.
But the motor became very hot.

The motor is a geared motor:
21W
11-15V DC/2,85 Ampere
3000g/cm torque
316rpm

I added some hose to the rods to give it a bettr grip.
The jar was geared up to 60rpm.

I hope you like it!

Pyrostar

Edited March 20, 2008 by Pyrostar

[Pyrofanatic]

That is a very nice ballmill, But maybee you should buy a bigger engine. Becouse you use a big jar, with a lot of lead and chems.
If you have a higher Watt engine it will turn maybee a little faster. And Your engine wouldn't be hot fast.
My engine is 300 watt, and turns with 1400 rounds a minute, so i had to slow down that. But it makes it more powerfull. After 2 hours of milling is my engine warm but not hot.

[Pyrostar]

Hi

Yea, maybe I should use a smaller jar with less leadballs.
But I am only allowed to run it one time a week, a batch is limited to 100g and running is
max.3 hours.
It´s because of my parents.
It is a shame, but, anyway still better then nothing
I think will only mill the C+S mix together and then I will use the CIA-method.
I think the result will be a very fast blackpowder

Pyrostar

Edited March 20, 2008 by Pyrostar

[Pyrofanatic]

Hmm if you can mill short you can also mill the whole compo at once. I always do it, and if you use a good carcoal you 'll get some very fast meal powder.

[mr.stijntje]

If your available milling time is so short, you could consider making a two- or three-jar ballmill. My ballmill carries 2 jars, containing a total of 4kg's lead and up to 400g of black powder. With two jars, you can mill the charcoal and the meal at the same time. (Off course, using the charcoal you milled the week before) In my opinion, meal gets much faster when you use pre-milled charcoal.

My standard milling times are: 4h for the charcoal, and then 6h for the meal. Well, once you've got that running with three jars (one charcoal 3h, one with meal first 3h, one with meal second 3h) you can make one batch a week. I suppose that'll be enough for you.

It might be hard to get, so I'll explain the possible routine.
First week, you mill one jar of charcoal for 3 hours.
Second week, you mill another jar of charcoal, and one jar with meal, using the charcoal from week 1.
Third week, you mill yet another jar of charcoal, one jar with meal using charcoal from week 2, and the third jar filled with the meal from week 2, giving it another 3 hours.

After week 3, you'll have one batch of 6h milled meal, and from then on you'll have one batch every week.

Well, if you run more charcoal at once, you might also be able to do this with 2 jars.

[Pyrostar]

Hi


I ball milled my first BP batch for 15 minutes, the charcoal was coarse, same as
with the KNO3 (like cane sugar).

The charcoal I used was willow.
Now, the ball mill is turning for 30miutes, loaded with charcoal, the 1cm charcoal pieces were
pulverized to a talc like powder, but I will mill it for 2-3 hours, depends on how long the accumulatorr will last.
But I charged the accu for 10 hours, so it should be fine.
I just love my ball mill

I will mill another BP batch with the pre-milled charcoal and post the difference.

Here is the first BP test:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWjQixFb3V8

I hope you like the result

Pyrostar

Edited March 29, 2008 by Pyrostar