I am working on a project to recycle agricultural plastics. I’m a farmer not an engineer, so please excuse my ignorance.
Has anyone worked on or have knowledge of a PTO gear reducer that would work with the basic shredder design? Basically a gear box that would reduce the 540rpm coming off your average tractor PTO to something closer to the 72rpm of the shredder.
I have searched the forums, but haven’t come across anything.
Side note… from my initial research it really seems like a better idea to buy a used granulator than to build the shredder from scratch no? I’m finding them on ebay for <2k, which seems in line with what it would cost in parts to build a good one from scratch. Am I missing something?
yup, searching Ebay for ‘plastic granulators’ gives you lots of bum for little money as 2000 Euro but most of them don’t show the blades (where to get new ones,…etc) nor give indications what kind and size of plastics it can deal with. Also, 2000 are rather entry machines with not that much HP, it’s rather 4000 – 8000 you have to spent to get something decent…I know my self a good crusher should have at least 8KW and should have an entry of 70 cm by 40 cm.
Bare in mind that the PP crusher was designed around house hold or street waste. User feedback unveils that the recommended power is 2.2 KW and more for industrial waste.
So there is no way around asking the seller on Ebay for more details(mileage, specifications, maintenance…). Technically you should get way more out of such machine since the manufacturers have extreme cheap suppliers. Being a while into DIY, it becomes pretty clear that buying something complete (and proven) instead of building it from scratch gives you the best value for your $$.
I would also check that you can sell the machines again (keep watching offers on ebay) since there are not many who stick really long to PP
I would say, used granulator can be an option, the same condition in my country which is cheaper to buy the NEW granulator than build the shredder…
but to be note that granulator is less customization, dave design is more like DIY version, so that we can play around… moreover, slower safer
