Homemade soil screener

[tractorgp]

Sections of tires take the place of regular springs and hinges to suspend the screen on the main chassis. About 100 tons of material screened so far. Just posted a video on Youtube. I'm also working on
a video showing more details on the build. Found an old galvanized table at scrap metal yard that was just the right size for the chassis. 6-1/2 HP gas engine drives the screener.

 

[OldMasterTech]

Works well - would like to see the "shaker" mechanism closeup?

 

[rasorbackq]

Sifter is my next project to be built. Seems to work well.

 

[tractorgp]

Works well - would like to see the "shaker" mechanism closeup?

Here's a closeup. I made it so that the weight can easily be adjusted.

 

[ishiboo]

Wow... going to have to build one of those. Amazing how much easier screened soil is to work with in the beds.

I never thought the weight would be so easy to build... I thought you would drive a shaft on an eccentric to really get the bed going. With such a simple vibration you have going it seems pretty easy to do!

Very cool, thanks for the post

 

[Gordon Gould]

Very nice. I never imagined the mechanism could be that simple either. Sure beats a screen over the bucket and shoveling on dirt to be screened by hand. Thanks for posting that video.

 

[tractorgp]

Very nice. I never imagined the mechanism could be that simple either. Sure beats a screen over the bucket and shoveling on dirt to be screened by hand. Thanks for posting that video.

Had to do some experimenting to get the weight "right". Started with a much heavier weight first and things got pretty hairy vibration wise so just reduced it to what you see now. I'm considering increasing the weight a bit to handle wet soil better - but not sure about that yet.

 

[CNC Dan]

You might be better off if you were to load from the other side. Looks like you might bust a headlight with a rock.

 

[Arc weld]

Screens are usually loaded from the other side so any big lumps or rocks don't hit the loader and create a pile preventing you from dumping. I think the 100 tons is just a little exaggerated based on the video. 200,000 lbs. of loose soil like that would be well over 500 bucket fulls in your little loader. I think it would be better to mount the engine higher so you don't need such a long belt. The way the belt is slapping around, I don't think it will last too long.

 

[tractorgp]

Screens are usually loaded from the other side so any big lumps or rocks don't hit the loader and create a pile preventing you from dumping. I think the 100 tons is just a little exaggerated based on the video. 200,000 lbs. of loose soil like that would be well over 500 bucket fulls in your little loader. I think it would be better to mount the engine higher so you don't need such a long belt. The way the belt is slapping around, I don't think it will last too long.

The video shows just a sample of the material processed - your estimate of 500 buckets full would be somewhere in the ball park of what has been done so far. (I'm building a road and lawn and use both the sifted soil and the rough output for these jobs). The idea was to load from the other side but because I had an existing frame (chassis) and I didn't want to cut it down to suit my BX25. So I ended up burying the output side of the screen in the ground about 6 inches to make it comfortable to load from the output side. I've had a few heavy rock hits (as CNC Dan mentioned) but no damage. Loading from the output is much more fun as you can just sit and watch the screening action. I'm trying to get another video done showing more of these details. I will post it if it looks good enough.