Brian
I have some experience with grain augers. And that setup would work
well only the delivery end allowed the shot to drop into a hopper. The
augers are not designed to deliver high output pressure. In order to
push material, especially oxidized shot with lots of friction would need
a lot of torque and a heavy screw. Also lead shot like grain would
freely flow downhill through an auger once the pitch was steep enough. So if
you got the nose too low, all of the shot would flow forward.
Do you not have room from a lead block or cylinder?
Is this system going to be dry? And how much weight do you
need to move. I am going to move about 1 ton, but I'd think you
would need to move only 40 pounds or so. You could then use a cable
system or a "lead screw" (see
http://www.velmex.com/manual_lead_screws.html )
To move it with a lot less torque.
Best Regards,
Doug Jackson
In a message dated 5/24/2004 11:37:09 AM Central Daylight Time,
ojaibees@ojai.net writes:
Hi All,
I have an idea for a trim ballast system. It basically
consists of a long pipe, probably stainless 1" dia, which would run the
length of the sub. Running through the inside of the the pipe would be
a long screw which, when activated would turn either clockwise or counter
clockwise, kind of like a grain silo system. The screw would move
lead shot either fore or aft depending on where you need to trim the
sub. At each of the ends there would be a space where the lead shot
would accumulate but with a slight pressure (possibly from a spring
) kind of like a piston arrangement so that the lead shot would always
be availible to feed in which ever direction you would need to
balance. Does anyone know if lead shot would move like
that? It would definatly have to be geared very low.
Brian