Pellets - Fuel and feed

[OldMcDonald]

I noticed an advert on this site for a company that makes pellet presses. They are expensive, although a single press could be used for both wood burners and making animal feed pellets from farm-grown ingredients. They are also used to make fish food pellets - used as ground bait by some fishermen.

Has anyone made a press?

 

[Donman]

I am looking at them too. They look simple enough but I think that is deceiving. The rollers and dies need to be really hard to take the abuse.
They do make pto models that would save buying the extra power source.

 

[Interlaux]

Have not made one but did quite a bit of research. One of the larger in terms of published capacity USA commercial wood pellet plants is close to my house but business is not too good - process is a little expensive - dies,pressure exacting humidity control,binding are some of the more important issues.
What is common for wood fuel is shavings - that is what bio-fuel plants use.

Now if you were making a press to make fish food
Just advertise to buy someones failed-to-work-out wood fuel pellet machine and you might get one cheap.really cheap

 

[D33r3 6r33N]

I am looking at them too. They look simple enough but I think that is deceiving.

That's exactly what I thought too, then I thought she would divorce me if I purchased something that expensive and it didn't work. it's coming next week. (kidding)

I looked around on the internet and it seem like you really have to know what you are doing to produce a half way decent pellet.

If anyone makes their own I'd like to hear about it.

 

[Craig Clayton]

I am also thinking in that direction. I am thinking of buy a pellet stove that is a multi fuel which means it will burn any kind or grade of pellet. Instead of making pellets I am thinking of processing them through my chipper shredder and sieve for grade size. Then take that and cut it with 50/50 graded pellets.
Craig Clayton

 

[OldMcDonald]

I would only use it for animal feed pellets. Chainsaw and block splitter are used for firewood. I had reckoned somebody might have tried to make a wood chip one, and I wanted to pick ideas from that.

 

[easygo]

I have given this more then a passing thought but the proper sized raw material is hard to come by then I thought. It takes some pretty fine saw dust and particular humidity level and a few other things. Then later at a fair I saw a semi truck unload a big mound of sawdust for animal bedding. I asked what that load cost and the guy said around $3000. That was the point when I gave up on the idea.

 

[OldMcDonald]

easygo, The difference is that I have everything I need to make the pellets, including the olives for moisturising the mix. I only need to be able to build the pelleter at a reasonable cost.

 

[easygo]

I think it is worth a shot if you have the raw materials. Now that I think about it that truck load of saw dust must have been at least 15-20 tons (just a guess may be more) of material and that would be four or five years worth of wood pellets for someone burning 3-4 tons per year. One ton of pellets around here costs between $210-270 depending on brand and quality.

 

[204saskman]

i looked at the mills out there but to much money to justify it. I ended up with a grain burning stove. Costs me under 500 winter to heat. By the time i buy the mill/press and material and storage, it wasnt worth looking at anymore. Lots of guys look but its not worth it in the end.

 

[forgeblast]

Check out ebay, they had some cheaper priced pellet mills.

 

[pickstock]

does anyone have any drawings of how they work??

i sort of understand that the material gets pushed through a mold and then cut up but how does all this do it?

 

[flyingcow]

go to Hearth.com - Information on Gas Fireplaces, Wood Stoves, Gas Logs, Pellet Stoves, Fireplaces, Chimneys and Hearth Products and check out the BB for the pellet stoves. Good site.

 

[OldMcDonald]

pickstock, I think the Pellpress link at the top of the page might show you. If not, a wee bit of Googling will get you there. Basically the material to be pressed is in a circular container and rollers push it through a plate with holes drilled in the plate so as to form "rods" of material. The system used (minus the holes) is extremely ancient and still used in my neck of the wood for crushing olives, including the stone, for the making of olive oil.

 

[OldMcDonald]

pickstock, I forgot to add that Bio Green Tech Ltd, Biomass, Pellet Mill, Briquette Machine Sales. shows some decent photos of mills if you use the "more info" buttons on various products.

 

[forgeblast]

pellet mill - eBay (item 330502861383 end time Dec-07-10 13:04:03 PST)

pellet mill items - Get great deals on Business Industrial, Home Garden items on eBay.com!

 

[OldMcDonald]

forgeblast, there is no point in keep directing me to ebay. I live in the far inland of Portugal. Here we either have to make what we want or do without. Whilst I have a little spare cash my neighbours do not. Buying something from the US of A is not an option. This forum is after all "Build it Yourself" and not "Buy it on ebay".