hey guys im turning my tumbler by hand right now. I had a 1/4 horse power motor mounted at the bottom with a v belt going from the motor
and around my 55 gallon drum and it was spinning to fast how do i reduce the speed of the drum thanks james
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Need to install a larger pully on the drum and a smaller one on the moter.
im using the drum as a pully and i have a 1" pully on the motor
small drum (55 gal plastic) is setup the same way. Mine spins about the same as a dryer. The drum is about the same size as the dryer drum. I am using an old dryer motor for power to. I'm not sure of the rpm of the motor.
You need to get a motor which has a gear reduction, like above post, slower rpm's are needed.
You have three options: #1 reduce the pulley of the motor. You are already at one inch, you could try to get it to run right on the shaft of the motor with no pulley at all if you are using a flat belt versus a v-belt. Which i would assume you are using if you are turning the drum directly with the belt. Option #2 enlarge the distance of the driven part, which is the drum, this would be pretty hard and annoying to do, but it is possible. Option #3 reduce motor rpms. You probaly have a pretty high speed motor on there, you could try to trade it in at a motor supply company for a slower one. You would actually be getting a little bit lesser value one, so they might go for it. They do have variable speed motors but i doubt you have one or would want to bother getting one. You could steal one out of a treadmill but this requires a little work, and experimenting cuz you will need to reset the torque and max/ min speed dials. Just so you know what you are doing if you go to trade in your motor there is a nameplate on the side of the motor that should tell you horsepower, voltage, phase, and most importantly rpms. Your rpms is probaly way too high.
Put in a third idler pulley// this will increase belt length and slow drum speed
Idler pulley will only allow a longer belt.
Now go to Ace Hardware, True Value Hardware and find a arbor, normally they are used for bench grinders.
You will want to try different pulleys on the driven end.
Use your one inch pulley on the motor, the driven end of the arbor as large a sheeve as you can find.
this reduces the tumbler arbor side of the drive speed a lot.
Now using about a 3 inch pulley on the tumbler drive side and that belt on around the drum it should give you about 60% reduction in drum speed.
where can i find a gear reduction assembly
a gear reduction motor or a DC motor and put a dimmer switch on it to regulate the speed. I personaly have a DC gear reduction motor on mine with a variable speed. Mine is not bigger then a pop can but would run mu tumbler if it was full of gravel. Check Ebay for one. Ebay almost always has a couple for milling machine axis drives, they work the best and will never stop or burn up. An AC motor cant take the variable speed thing for long because they heat up too much.