Motorising the Grain Mill

Judie has experimented a lot with bread making over the past year and now that Michael is helping to get the wood fired oven project done I wanted to get onto the grain grinder motorisation project that has been sitting on my to-do list for the past year.

The cast iron wheel on our Country Living Grain Mill has a V grove that can allow the mill to be belt driven. The company that makes the mills does produce a motor that can drive it but it is well out of our price range so we have decided to build our own system using a small drill press.

I got the idea when a hardware catalogue arrived in the mail advertising drill presses for $100. I paid less then $100 for my drill over 15 years ago and seemed like the perfect fit for the job.

The grain mill needs to be turned at around one revolution per second so that it doesn’t get hot which the manufactures say can destroy some of the nutrients in the grains. The gearing block in the drill reduces the drills motor speed part of the way with an engine belt that I got from Supercheap Auto dropping it the rest of the way as it wraps around the mills large cast iron wheel.

I started by stripping the drill press of everything that was not needed for the project. There was nothing complicated in this and all the parts came away easily. I removed the base plate and a pin at the top that held the drill column in place and then pushed the column through the mounting block and attached it with some 40mm fencing clamps to a frame made out of scrap steel pipes.

Be very careful with the drills wiring, it is high voltage and you need to make sure that the insulation covers don’t come off the connections. There were also two earthing wires screwed into the cast iron mounting block which I made sure I reconnected when fitting everything back together again.

You shouldn’t turn the mill wheel without grain in it as this will rub the plates together and damage them so I fully unwound the springs for testing. This meant that the wheel on the mill spun freely without resistance.

When all connected up the mill turned at two revolutions per second with no load. I believe that once the mill is tightened up again and has grain added that this will slow down to less then a rev a second.

I need to get a few more clamps to finish this so I will add more photos when it’s finished.

I Love my Electric Bike!

I bought my Aseako electric bike a few months ago and absolutely love it. It is very solidly constructed and wasn’t particularly difficult to assemble and get ready to ride. The European model E-bikes were really tempting but started out at more then twice the price of the Aseako which was out of my price range.

The green tyres were not the standard ones that come with the bike. Two weeks after getting it I blew the rear tyre which really annoyed me as it had only been used for a short time and it had only been ridden on sealed roads. Changing the rear wheel on a heavy E-bike on the side of the road is difficult and unappealing and was a bit of an issue if I planned to use this as my second vehicle and main form of transport. I ordered some Tannus tubeless tyres and got them fitted at Giant Cycles in Rockhampton and am really happy with them. The tyres are a very tough polymer that are solid filled and are perfectly satisfactory for urban street use. If feels great to know I can go on a long ride and not have to worry about getting home after a blowout.

The bike is powered by a 200 watt motor connected to the peddle crank and the battery gives the bike enough power for around 20 km with a 90kg rider. The battery itself is quite light and can be unlocked and removed from the back frame for charging. The torque does tend to fall away as the battery gets closer to empty so I usually put it onto the charger at the end of each day.

The E-Bike laws have changed since I got this bike so they don’t sell a version with a manual throttle anymore. The Law now allows 250 watt motors to be used but not with throttle controls. Instead bikes must be fitted with a pedelec controller which applies the power in proportion the the speed that you peddle. I always turn the pedelec controller off when riding my bike as I consider it to be dangerous. I have found that you can often forget that you have it switched on and find that when starting from a stationary position it can kick in and give you unexpected forward momentum. I can just imaging getting thrown under a bus with this type of miscalculation so I stick to the throttle.

The council has been putting in a fantastic bike path that runs along the old railway line starting near the old railway station in Yeppoon and going past my place and up past the golf course. When it is finished it is going to make it really easy to commute into Yeppoon by bike.

Smart Drive available

I have a LG washing machine that uses a 'Smart Drive' style motor in it if anyone would like it. These are the type of motors used in power generation projects and wind turbines. I already have some other ones so if anyone would like this one then please contact me. You will have to take away the whole washing machine.

Greg Rutter

Watts Clever

I just received a set of these "Watts Clever" plugs that were ordered of eBay seller benjeroo610.

At $33 for the set I think they are a great idea. You can add one of the sockets to each of your energy hungry devices or power boards and then turn them all on or off with a remote control.

The really great thing about the remote is that it operates with a radio frequency rather than using infrared so it will work around your entire house. After I ordered this I saw Mitre 10 selling something similar but I haven't tried their one.

I stumbled onto this unit when I was looking for a way to turn on water pumps for the Aquaponics system using a microcontroller (Netduino) as a smart timer. I didn't want to play around with 240 volt switching but all of the mains power switches that could be controlled using low voltages were built for American 120 volt appliances.

The WC device works on a common frequency that is simple to make use of to allow a program to remotely control mains power outlets.

Greg Rutter

Mad Max wind power!

I was at a lawn to lunch meeting recently and Alison showed me some photos of a wind turbine that Frank had built from some old truck parts and a washing machine motor.

It’s an early version that is putting out about 150 watts and is being used to charge the water pumps batteries.

Not all washing machine motors can be used for power generation but you can commonly find usable motors in smart drive systems such as the Fisher and Paykel models and many LG washers. There are lots of instructions on the web about how to wire these motor correctly to allow you to generate 12 or 24 volt outputs.

I think Alison's one is an awesome reuse of recyclable parts although the weight of the axle and differential used may be bleeding a lot of power from the unit.

In this case the turbine generates enough power for it’s intended purpose and cost little to build so the end result is an excellent solution.

I was at the dump recently and there was a F and P washer sitting in the recycle section. I had a chat to the guy working there and he let me take it away for the princely sum of $5 dollars so building a wind turbine has now found it’s way onto my extensive to-do list!

Greg Rutter

TT - The Gap

I was in Brisbane a few months back and had the pleasure of meeting Chris and Joan W who are involved in the organization committee behind The Gap transitional towns movement.

Chris and Joan have been involved in sustainable practices for a number of years and I was very excited to see a number of very interesting adaptions that they had incorporated into their own lives and into their house.

Chris has connected up the house with alternative 12 volt wiring and outlets. LED lighting fixtures were strategically placed throughout the house and outlets were positioned in places that made them accessible for use with major appliances.

The entire 12 volt system was built very economically with standard multimeter's fixed into position to measure the voltage and current draw and a small bank of salvaged batteries from UPS  (uninterruptible power supplies) devices that received a charge from PV panels on the roof.

The outlets are different to 240 volt types which avoids any confusion for someone who is unfamiliar with the use of 12 volt power systems in a house.

Chris told me that there have been several times when there have been power outages in their street or suburb and they didn't find out about it until later as all the electrical appliances that are important to them just keep ticking along.

 I had a ride on this electric bike that Chris built using a conversion kit from Oatley Electronics.

The bike uses a hub mounted style motor and runs off a small battery mounted on the back.

At first when I started peddling I couldn't really feel the effect of the motor but as it built up momentum you could really notice the improvement that it offers when you want to travel up a hill.

Australian laws on electric bike motor wattage's are really restrictive and I believe that if the government ever decided to limit e-bikes by using speed governors as many other countries have done rather then by enforcing crippling wattage limitation then this will become a fabulously popular form of transportation.
 

Home made solar oven

Solar oven side view

 Around two sides of the house including over the entire verandah, Chris and Joan have made use of this magnificent passion-fruit arbor that has made a substantial impact on the ambient temperature on the inside and around the edges of the house.

The difference in temperature on the verandah was very noticeable and removed the need for any artificial cooling to be provided on the day that I was there.

I also took a trip out to the permaculture gardens in The Gap which is part of the work being done by members of the transition group. This garden is only a short walk up the road from where I use to live when I was in Brisbane and it was interesting to see how much the community there was starting to move behind these grass roots actions.

Greg Rutter