In case anyone is interested in making their own pellets here's a machine on CL to make your own
http://maine.craigslist.org/grd/4568849749.html
http://maine.craigslist.org/grd/4568849749.html
That too. hahaha. It's a lot of work! Gotta have the moisture content just right. Gotta have a BIG area to cool the pellets before bagging. Gotta have bags and a holder for them. And on and on and on. And of course, you have to have a good supply of feedstock of some kind.I'm too lazy.
Great way to use up the sawdust!I worked as a cabinet maker while attending college. We heated the company with wood pellets made in house by a machine the boss purchased in Switzerland It worked very well. It was a ram the would compact the pellets from all the saw dust we generated. We would fill the basement with the pellets and heat the company all winter
I watched one work a few years ago that a dealer had bought in the hopes he would be able to sell a bunch of them. He had played with it for two weeks before he held a open house to demonstrate his machine. I actually felt sorry for him as he went through the motions of making pellets. First of all it was made to make pellets for animal feed, secondly the pellets fell apart after they dried, and thirdly it was way slower then advertised.The machines were made in China. I went as far as to get quotes from a Chinese supplier for both machines plus 3 sets of replacement dies/rollers plus an extra screen for the hammer mill. The price SHIPPED to Charleston, hiring a broker to get it through customs (no customs fees), plus shipping to my door on a drop tailgate trailer totaled $4000. Yes, you can buy the machine from people here who have done the leg work that I did but it's still WORTH just $4000 new plus a reasonable amount for his labor. Plus the dies wear out very fast, require quite a bit of prep work (reaming and polishing) before they will work, and there is a steep learning curve. I planned on having the dies/rollers cryogenically treated to prolong their lives. Before I paid even a fraction of what is asked , I would want to see it make pellets for an hour. Looking at its condition, I seriously doubt it would happen.
Man that corn is cheap. It is triple that here.
THAT'S the real kicker! There is no easy (cheap) way if the moisture is above the threshold!Get back to me when ya figure out a way to dry the wood before feeding it to the pellet masher.
That's why I said "(cheap)" in my message. There's nothing CHEAP about pumping btu's into something that you are going to work like heck to convert to pellets to burn to get btu's out ofMost commercial systems run the sized raw material through a dryer/ preheater stage before introduced to the compression unit.
This is what he was missing, besides about $10K too much, http://www.mataminc.com/woodfuel.phpMy brother-in-law has a flooring company and has plenty of dry material to compress into pellets. So he bought a pellet mill, spending about $15,000.00. It was hit and miss on making a quality pellet - some were decent, others fell apart right away. He spent quite a bit of time trying to get it sorted out, without any luck.
His bottom line after loads of research: if you want to make pellets in a quantity and quality that justifies the investment (time, expense, labour), plan on spending about $150,000.00.
He tried several binding agents. We are both a couple of farm boys who can fix anything, and he is a former professional mechanic. We could not get consistent results that he could honestly market as a decent pellet.This is what he was missing, besides about $10K too much, http://www.mataminc.com/woodfuel.php
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