Coal Hopper Needs an Auger/Shaker

 
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Flyer5
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Post by Flyer5 » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 7:18 pm

McGiever wrote:The ACME Hopper Thumper...

You take a rubber mallet and attach the very end of its wood handle to a pivot or hinge and then attach that pivot near to the upper rim of hopper hanging downward...
next fasten a sturdy length of cord to the mallet just below the rubber head and route the cord to your choice...the left or right side of your Strato Lounger using a number of small pulleys as to allow for ease in pulling cord with little binding to apply a series of jerks and Thump that coal into it's place. :P
This I would pay money to see. :)


 
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Post by dcrane » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 8:15 pm

EarthWindandFire wrote:Most of the guys answering this thread have auger type boilers etc which don't experience this problem. As a Leisure Line stove owner, I can attest and sympathize to the frustration with the hopper. Matt had the best reply, a small device attached to the bin may indeed be the answer.

During the coldest part of winter, I stuff the bin at 7:00 am and RUSH home at 5:30 pm before the stove runs out of fuel. Several times I was almost too late, the surface tension of the rice coal causes it to bind and leave 40 lbs of rice stuck against the bin - useless.

A stove or boiler in the basement could benefit from a tall narrow bin, not a wide deep bin as installed.
I agree... has to be an easy solution for gravity feed hopper... its all in the angle of the dangle, or what causes it to become "fused" together so to speak? it could be as simply as a layer of fiberboard between the hopper and heat, it could be a slight change in angle or multiple angle bends on the 300lb hopper sides, etc.... where does the "fusing" occur, whats the angles.... I need pics!!!!!!!

rubber mallets on pulleys and levers threaded up into your living room is pretty cute (i played mouse trap as a kid too ;) )... but that's not a solution :mad3:
Last edited by dcrane on Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 8:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

 
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Post by Rob R. » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 8:16 pm

dcrane wrote:i need pics!!!!!!!
Order one of the stoves/boilers. :P

 
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Post by dcrane » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 8:18 pm

Rob R. wrote:
dcrane wrote:i need pics!!!!!!!
Order one of the stoves/boilers. :P
Im trading Dave for one :dancing: .... somehow, something, someday :shh:

 
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Post by Rob R. » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 8:26 pm

EarthWindandFire wrote:Most of the guys answering this thread have auger type boilers etc which don't experience this problem. As a Leisure Line stove owner, I can attest and sympathize to the frustration with the hopper. Matt had the best reply, a small device attached to the bin may indeed be the answer.

During the coldest part of winter, I stuff the bin at 7:00 am and RUSH home at 5:30 pm before the stove runs out of fuel. Several times I was almost too late, the surface tension of the rice coal causes it to bind and leave 40 lbs of rice stuck against the bin - useless.

A stove or boiler in the basement could benefit from a tall narrow bin, not a wide deep bin as installed.
I feed my boiler out of a 55 gallon drum, and there is a lot of coal inaccessible by the auger. I'd estimate about 150 lbs.

 
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Post by EarthWindandFire » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 8:44 pm

Rob, out of my entire 85lb hopper, less than 40 lbs are burnable. If anyone can engineer a solution that can be fielded, its Leisure Line. People complained about the noise from the combustion blower and they fielded a better blower, which I bought. The motor is whisper quiet, of course mine has a defect, but thats my luck. :mad:

 
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Post by Rob R. » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 8:45 pm

Does anyone have a picture of one of these hoppers? (I completely realize I jabbed Doug for asking the same thing). :oops:


 
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Post by EarthWindandFire » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 8:49 pm

I just filled mine so a picture won't really help. The solution would be a tall, very narrow tower, like a silo I guess. The wide square boxes really don't feed the coal very well. However, a tall hopper wouldn't look very good if the stove were located in a living room.

 
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Post by dcrane » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 9:00 pm

Rob R. wrote:Does anyone have a picture of one of these hoppers? (I completely realize I jabbed Doug for asking the same thing). :oops:
ha... in yo face toothy you want pics too ;) ... come on Matt & Dave.... give us something to do!

 
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Post by titleist1 » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 9:13 pm

Three suggestions....they all involve duct tape so you know they are high quality! ;)

1- take a cell phone and put it on vibrate, duct tape it to the side of the hopper. Call the cell number twice a day or as necessary.

2- take an alarm clock that has one of those annoying buzzer alarms and duct tape the buzzer mechanism to the side of the hopper, set the alarm for twice a day or more if necessary.

3- take a chair massage pad and duct tape it around the hopper. plug it into an intermatic timer and set as many pins as necessary.

Happy to help out!! :D

 
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Post by Flyer5 » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 9:27 pm

The simple explanation is coal is so old it does not realize it is supposed to follow the law of gravity.

 
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Post by EarthWindandFire » Mon. Nov. 25, 2013 9:39 pm

Last year I rigged up a cuckoo clock with a cuckoo bird that would strike the side of the hopper with its beak every hour on the hour. Eventually the cuckoo bird flew the coop and he hasn't been seen since. Too bad, I spent nearly ten grand on the patent application. ;)

 
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Post by Rob R. » Fri. Dec. 06, 2013 5:42 pm

Flyer5 wrote:The simple explanation is coal is so old it does not realize it is supposed to follow the law of gravity.
I used to work at a pharmaceutical company that had a really old book about coal bins/bunkers and studies about how the coal would flow, and how the different sized pieces. The same principles applied to solid dosage granulation - it is no easy feat to design a hopper that will empty completely without rat-holing or segregating the material.

 
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Post by plumber » Sat. Dec. 07, 2013 11:57 am

I've come to accept this as a unique part of burning coal. I just give the hopper a whack whenever I walk by it. It doesn't matter the coal, wet, dry, rice coal just likes to bridge. Only time I didn't have that issue is when I had a few bags of buck.

 
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Post by kstills » Mon. Dec. 09, 2013 1:23 pm

EarthWindandFire wrote:Most of the guys answering this thread have auger type boilers etc which don't experience this problem. As a Leisure Line stove owner, I can attest and sympathize to the frustration with the hopper. Matt had the best reply, a small device attached to the bin may indeed be the answer.

During the coldest part of winter, I stuff the bin at 7:00 am and RUSH home at 5:30 pm before the stove runs out of fuel. Several times I was almost too late, the surface tension of the rice coal causes it to bind and leave 40 lbs of rice stuck against the bin - useless.

A stove or boiler in the basement could benefit from a tall narrow bin, not a wide deep bin as installed.
Are we talking about the bit that hangs up at the very bottom of the hopper?

With a flat hopper, I'm not sure you'll ever get rid of that. They had fielded requests two years ago about putting in angled plates on either side of the hopper, but that would have reduced capacity by, you guessed it, 40lbs.

My rice has never tunneled, but I also never empty the bin completely. And since I burn year round, I probably have some of the original coal I started out with three years ago in that hopper...


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