coffee grinder VS ball mill

[snow]

lets say i can get a machin workin on the principle of coffee grinder with about 33000 RPM and it can work without stoping for long time

 

on the other hand we have the traditional ball mill

 

which one will give better BP?

[h0lx]

The ball mill is safer unless you get something like this: http://www.buythebullet.com/, which is meant for liquids, thus no leaks. The BP whould be quite equal, but the ball mill one should be slightly better because the chems are pounded into the pores of the charcoal.

[snow]

yes but this is why we press it...

and lets not get in the other issues but the BP quality

[Mardec]

Funny topic, I put my BP in a machine quite like that magic bullet thing. Just for a minute or less. Then the chemicals are quite fine and well mixed and then they go in the ball mill.

 

Butt ball milling gives better powder. At least that is my experience.

 

A coffee grinder is great for mixing things like C6.

[RUUUUUN]

The BP whould be quite equal, but the ball mill one should be slightly better because the chems are pounded into the pores of the charcoal.

 

If you were able to leave it in a blender for a long period of time the KNO3 would be pounded into the charcoal.

 

IMHO the BP would be equal, But you would have to use different lengths of time, because the blender is moving things around alot faster than the Ball Mill.

 

You would also have to worry about the blender exploding and sending frags of glass everywhere when the blades heat up enough to cause ignition.

[Umphrey]

This sounds unnecessarily complicated and dangerous.

 

 

lets say i can get a machin workin on the principle of coffee grinder with about 33000 RPM and it can work without stoping for long time

 

If you're going to build such a machine, how would you seal the milling compartment? Of all the coffee grinders I've tried a small amount of powder gets down into the motor--this is why you use a seperate grinders for fuels/oxidizers.

 

If such a contraption was built, I would think it would generate an undue amount of friction, afterall, a coffee grinder gets hot to the touch if I run it for more than a minute. My ball mill, running at only ~85rpm, feels warm to the touch after running for just an hour.

 

If you're going to use seperate machines to grind the fuels/oxidizers, then it would probably be safe, but horribly labor intensive and of an inferior product. You'll never get as intimate and homogeneous mixture as the ball milled product. If you're using liquids, why bother? This would again just be messy, labor intensive, and inferior.

 

There is always room for innovation in pyrotechnics, but this does not mean reinventing the wheel is a good idea.

 

However, I would think this principle would be quite useful in powdering various metals, but not for making black powder.

[asilentbob]

We press BP to increase the density to the optimum or close so that it burns faster. BUT, pressing it is just consolidating it into a solid mass with the desired density, it doesn't pound the KN/S into the charcoal's pores.

[snow]

The BP whould be quite equal, but the ball mill one should be slightly better because the chems are pounded into the pores of the charcoal.

 

If you were able to leave it in a blender for a long period of time the KNO3 would be pounded into the charcoal.

 

IMHO the BP would be equal, But you would have to use different lengths of time, because the blender is moving things around alot faster than the Ball Mill.

 

You would also have to worry about the blender exploding and sending frags of glass everywhere when the blades heat up enough to cause ignition.

yap thats what i thought so it will get a nice BP in less time

[snow]

We press BP to increase the density to the optimum or close so that it burns faster. BUT, pressing it is just consolidating it into a solid mass with the desired density, it doesn't pound the KN/S into the charcoal's pores.

the part about the pressing wasnt realy a question

 

anyway actualy as i see it you are talking about corning the BP

while pressing is is for getting the particls closer and make the BP by that faster

[deadman]

I can not see how grinded/blended BP could compare to milled BP. As in a grinder/blender is going to be sending all the ingredients in one simultaneous direction. Where as a ball mill is going to be pounding the ingredients into eachother (others have obviously said). I think it would be a wonderful precursor to a mill, and could actually benefit a ball mill. I would love to see how a mill using 1/4" or 1/8" media would compare to speed/product compared to the traditional 1/2" and 3/4" traditional media. This would cut down on waiting time.

 

Sidenote: I always powder my charcoal in an electric grinder before milling to airfloat.

[Mumbles]

Despite some misconception, pressing actually is designed to slow the powder down, whether or not it always does is another story. The fastest burning powder doesn't neccesarily lift a shell the highest, or burst a shell the best. It serves a few main purposes mainly to get solid grains and consistency in size, which are important in reloading communities. It makes sharper edges on the grains for easy ignition. It makes powder more dense. This does get the chemicals closer to one another, but it also reduces surface area. This does have the advantage of more being able to fit into a shell. Say for a 4" shell it takes a canule of 20g of home made just riced powder. Pressing could perhaps get 25g in there. This is where some of the illusion of the increased speed comes from. At the pressures inside the shell, pressed or not that BP is going to be consumed nearly instantly. 25g is going to burst harder and larger than 20g assuming all other factors are equal.

 

As for the mixing of small and large size balls, this is said to actually increase milling efficiency, but to many is not worth the effort. You need the large media to break up clumps and such into smaller pieces. The small media just doesn't carry the momentum to crush efficiently. The small media picks up when the chemicals are powdered, and starts mixing and incorporating. It increases the grinding surface area considerably. Some debate that the small media would just sink to the bottom of the mill and not be utilized very well. Lift bars could help to solve this though.