i have been doing some looking on internet as to what i should use for a rod drying motor. I am going to build a dryer that is drum style so it can turn multiple rods at once. here are my questions. What motor should i use? Do i need to pay attention to inch pounds and torque? Also have any of you ever made a dryer that was made out of PVC? All the ones i have seen have been wood and metal. thanks in advance. ike

For a drum dryer, you'll need a larger, more powerful motor. And make sure you get one designed for continuous use. The one I had some years ago mounted a small plastic fan blade on the back of the motor shaft to help keep it cool.

It will be hard to use PVC for the main shaft as it's not stiff enough to carry much load without flexing terribly. I'm afraid you'll need something far more rigid to use as the main shaft of the drum itself.

Look on the photo page under my name to see the drum dryer I made some years ago.

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tom i see on yours you use a belt drive. have you ever done just direct drive? Also any ideas on what kinds of motors? costs? and where to purchase. thanks ike

These type motors are usually about $50 to $100. I used a pulley/belt system so that I could achieve the RPM that I desired (10). You could certainly go the direct drive route if the motor was the speed you wanted and it had the power to turn your drum. Making sure you keep the drum balanced - having rods spread 180 degrees apart with about the same weight, will ease the burden on the motor.

Graingers is one good source for continuous duty motors.

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A good solution to your rod turning motor problem is to use a gear motor. If it is fan cooled - so much the better for better cooling.
Most of my rod dryers run at 6 rpm, which seems to work very well.

If you are using a drum type dryer, one of the larger motors in the 1/5th to 1/4 hp range are nice. With the use of the gearing in the motors, the hp, is less important, since you are gaining torque by the use of the gears.

A good place for locating these gear motors quite inexpensivly is on @#$%&. You can often run across motors like this for less than 20 including shipping.

Figure out your dryer, your drive mechanism, and then figure out your shafting requirements. If necessary, you can always use different size pulleys to acheive the exact drying speed that you want to use.

Take care
Roger

i have a motor now that runs at about 100 rpms which is too much but it has all the H.P i would need does any one know how to gear this motor down??? thanks for all your help fellas. ike

A simple way to do it is to use two pulleys with a 10:1 ratio.
i.e. a 10 inch pulley on the motor and a 1 inch pulley on the driven shaft.
You could use a double shaft / pulley system with smaller ratios, since each pully set will add to the other for the final speed.

Take care
Roger

Try that the other way around, a one inch pulley on the motor and a 10 inch on the driven shaft, for a a 10:1 reduction :)

Chris Richer
Iroquois ON

so i was wrong on the rpms of my motor it is more like 1000 is there any way to reduce this or are we talking a huge pulley? thanks ike