Volumetric MnO Feeder Pilot Project

Project Name

Screw Conveyor Precision Feeder

Project Codenumber

UnAssigned

Notes

This is a project to determine if it is possible to accurately meter granular manganese into our clay recipes (at 0.2% by weight) somewhere in our production system (before the pugmill). The speed of this device needs to be intelligently controlled by measuring the feed of the clay it is to be metered into.

The questions that need answering:

1. How accurately can this type of device meter the granules.
2. How well can it start and stop.
3. How much power is required to turn the auger?
4. Will the granular material flow freely, even after sitting in the hopper overnight or a weekend.
5. Will the rate of feed be affected by the amount of material in the feed hopper?

Uncertainties:
1. We don't have weight belts (yet), so clay feed is not being measured.
2. The pugged product is always about 21% water, that could provide a signal to control the speed of this device but it would have to feed directly into the pugmill.
3. Can it be failsafe, having a guarantee that granules are never feeding when the clay flow has been interrupted.

I will initially 3D print a small hopper, then later we can fabricate one big enough to hold a 50kg of sand.

Initially, we just need to step the auger to see if it works. Then later, provide feedback on a display for speed setting. Control could be done by three buttons: Faster, Slower, Stop.

Volumetric Screw Feeder Design

Stepper motor, auger

Notes

*We need to design a small working prototype of a screw conveyor and hopper to demonstrate that granular manganese can be fed accurately and consistently (granular manganese is a black heavy sand). The ESP32 needs to measure the amount of water passing in a pipe and for every 100 grams of water it must feed 1 gram of the manganese (into a pugmill that is mixing clay with the water). The full-scale device that our machine shop will build will need to be able to handle hundreds of kg the manganese sand per day.

Here is a collection of pictures and documents to support the project.

Open Powder: https://youtu.be/NpUA0E3mnnk

https://jenike.com/services/conceptual-functional-engineering/feeders/
https://www.dowsongroup.com/
https://wamgroup.com/en-GB/corporate/MFamily/306/Screw-Conveyors-Feeders

We need a volumetric feeder that would feed a heavy granular material onto a conveyor at about 40g/minute but adjustable dependent on two possible inputs: The amount of powder passing on a weight belt or the volume of water going through a feed pipe.




https://www.vision-solutions.ca/en/contact/
https://www.brabender-technologie.com/fileadmin/media/Werksnormen/DS60/PDF/DDW-M-DS60-E.pdf

Phone 514 315-7583
South-Central Ontario 905-242-3451
South-Western Ontario 519-496-3894

We need a screw feeder to deliver a 60-80 mesh high specific gravity granular material into a continuous mixer (about 40g/minute) controlled more precisely as a proportion of the volume of water being delivered (1g granular per 100cc water). The Brabender DDW-M-DS60 seems promising. Can you guide us to install and configure this? We are new to PLSs but I am a computer programmer. Thanks.

Pictures

L4557 Volumetric Screw Feeder Design drawing

Our other screw conveyors follow this simple design, we know how to work with in.

Wiring

From https://github.com/embeddedlab786/Stepper_Motor_L298/blob/master/Simulation.pdsprj

The micro-controller hardware I have

In the center top is a Nema17 stepper motor connected to a 3D printed mockup of the bottom section of a screw conveyor (I will print the top section, lid and small hopper later).
Attempts to make this work have failed because of all the extra wires needed to get the external display working (something is not connecting right).

The DM542 Microstep Driver (upper right) is needed because this motor demands much more current that the smaller ones used in other Arduino projects.

The T-Dispaly S3 has an integrated display, that eliminates many wires. And it is far more powerful than the Arduino.

It is not certain that the T-Display S3 is the best choice. I have multiple M5 controllers (shown on the far left), these have batteries and displays and cases, they are very nice ESP32 units and are capable of driving motors.