Design and construction of a red chili impact pulveriser machine.

Abstract

The red chili impact pulveriser machine was designed and constructed from focally available materials for pulverizing (grinding) spice particles such as chili pepper into small size -enough to pass through the holes of the cylindrical sieve positioned beneath- the hammer assembly, The grinding process is achieved by the use of a hammer in beating the material fed into fine particles; the fineness aimed depends on the detachable screen with aperture sizes ranging from 87pm to mm. Based on the power ratings and output shaft speed of the existing grinding machines in industries, it was found that the main shaft speed of 2416.67 rpm transmitted by a belt drive from a three-horse-power electric motor is suitable to pulverize chili effectively. The machine was. designed to be power-operated and portable with overall dimensions of 1000 x 200 x 700 mm. The economic evaluation of the machine revealed that the material worth of Ugx 1.390,000 was used for its construction.