Tumbler Part 1 - home made

In this video I describe my attempt at making a home made vibratory tumbler for deburring and polishing parts. After about $50 in materials and several days of my time I concluded that it was an utter waste of time. I have another video showing the Eastwood tumbler that I bought shortly after making this vid, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny5COmE_EMQ

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• eastwood
• vibratory
• tumbler
• heavy
• duty
• home
• made
• scratch
• deburr
• polish
• walnut
• shells
• corn
• cob
• media
• ceramic
• pyramids

[ArtistBlade1972]

John, an AC induction motor's speed is set by the line frequency and the number of poles in the motor. For every 2 poles added the speed is divided by 2. 2 poles=3450rpm 4 poles=1725rpm etc. To control the speed you must control the line frequency. You can buy a commercial variable frequency drive, or make you own should the need arise. Dimmer switches work fine on universal motors running on AC (motors with brushes).

[JohnGrimsmo]

@ArtistBlade1972 Great info! Thank you for sharing and teaching me something new, I didn't know that poles in the motor dictated RPM but it makes sense. I knew about VFD's but they're waaaaay to expensive for this rinky project. However I do want to get at VFD for my lathe!

[ArtistBlade1972]

@JohnGrimsmo Anytime brother. VFD's are designed to operate 3 phase motors, but they will drive a single phase motor using 2 outputs. Not sure what your lathe has but if it is single phase it's best to put a dummy reactive load on the unused output.

[JohnGrimsmo]

@ArtistBlade1972 Good to know. Right now it's a 110v single phase 1HP motor, a bit more HP would be nice as well as VFD control (in my dream world haha). I don't have 3phase in my shop, stuck with two lousy 15a circuits which is barely enough if I'm careful. Gotta do some serious re-wiring and get 220v out there.

[themediocrepirate]

Well that was disappointing. Did you try different kinds of media?

[JohnGrimsmo]

@themediocrepirate Not with this tumbler, the overheating motor prevented me from running it long enough to properly test any kind of media. I like the concept of this design, but it would just take so much dicking around to get it to work well. I'm happy with my eastwood one, new vid posted!

[Nosferatu1022]

"If you don't know what it is, Google it.' So matter of fact. Epic.

[detectiveinspekta]

Nice setup. Looks a little slow though.

I made one using a car polisher and some plastic containers. I removed the polisher motor which already had a offset weight attached to the shaft. Cleans rifle cartridge brass in less than 1 hour.

[MrNastytater]

Actually,you sent about $250 for your tumbler...But you have about $45 in experience in trying to save a dollar...Was a good design that you had going...I kinda was hoping that with the skills that you have you would have come to terms that you needed a fan blowing directly on the motor and your homemade tumbler would have worked fine...Anything to cool it down while it was running.

[AntiParam]

Why not Just install a Metal Disc on your AC Motor and cut one side to make it un-even that way no parts to fly off lol and melt some glue stick on the lid of the first bucket. it has more friction to help with the moving around of the 2nd bucket

[JagdtygerII]

@JohnGrimsmo

I hate to tell you this but if you paid $10.00 for your motor in your tumbler, you paid $20.00 too much.YOU can find clothes washers and dryers on Craigs list for free and once you remove the motors, you can easily sell the steel scrap for another $10.00-$20.00. Keep that in mind for your next project that needs a motor.

[md4872]

Use a dimmer with a triac. Do not exceed it's current rating.

Disconnect the start winding, capacitor and switch if applicable.

With the triac wired to the run winding, you must start the motor by hand in either direction first, then apply full power then you can reduce the speed.