Barley Crusher Issues

Owly055 said:

I discovered the other day that grain dust is NOT the culprit. My second roller developed so much drag that I took it all apart and cleaned it again, and re-assembled it. It was still stiff. I began unbolting it from the base, and noticed that the roller had freed up to the extent that it would free spin and coast! I fiddled a bit, and ultimately left one bolt slightly loose, and it worked like a dream.

H.W.

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Won't this mess with your gap. or am I misunderstanding what you're doing? I'd think a loose screw would allow the roller to get out of alignment.

Owly055 said:

I discovered the other day that grain dust is NOT the culprit. My second roller developed so much drag that I took it all apart and cleaned it again, and re-assembled it. It was still stiff. I began unbolting it from the base, and noticed that the roller had freed up to the extent that it would free spin and coast! I fiddled a bit, and ultimately left one bolt slightly loose, and it worked like a dream.



H.W.

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Very interesting! Perhaps leaving the side plates in the mill a little loose will allow the bushings to "self align" and not bind.

There really is no reason why the plates can't have a little float.

Are sealed bearings that expensive purchased in bulk?

I guess a gear driven slave roller is the answer, or larger rollers.

Or even one roller against a fixed plate works with a large enough roller, or so I've been led to believe.

B boy,

I think the gap will remain true, this is just freeing the connection at the base mount of the mill....

Wilserbrewer
Http://biabbags.webs.com/

b-boy said:

Won't this mess with your gap. or am I misunderstanding what you're doing? I'd think a loose screw would allow the roller to get out of alignment.

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No, it doesn't effect roller gap. That's set by the two thick end plates, and the side plates. The loosened bolt only effects the vertical parallel plane of the two thick plates. It could in theory allow the whole thing go out of parallel as a "box", but the bushings themselves prevent that. A little float is a good thing in this case........


H.W.

Oops............ I misread your post. You said the same thing I did.

If I owned BC, I would offer a bushing that was slightly thicker than the base material and fit somewhat loose in a 1/2" hole. One bolt hole would be drilled out to 1/2", the bushing inserted in the hole, and the bolt tightened down. This would allow one to float.


H.W.

Owly055 said:

Oops............ I misread your post. You said the same thing I did.

If I owned BC, I would offer a bushing that was slightly thicker than the base material and fit somewhat loose in a 1/2" hole. One bolt hole would be drilled out to 1/2", the bushing inserted in the hole, and the bolt tightened down. This would allow one to float.


H.W.

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Why not just make the thin sheet metal end plates from thicker stock. This way it can't go out of square when tightened down.

bja said:

Why not just make the thin sheet metal end plates from thicker stock. This way it can't go out of square when tightened down.

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Besides the thin sheet metal plates, the ends are only fastened to the base with one screw each... they tend to twist and bind the bearings.
Next time I have to disassemble and clean mine, I am going to add more fasteners and beefier plates.
Also, a little grease on the bearing shafts helps a lot, but eventually that gets gunked up with grain dust.
Really unhappy with the overall design... in hind sight I should have bought a MM.

bja said:

Why not just make the thin sheet metal end plates from thicker stock. This way it can't go out of square when tightened down.

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Changing the design would call for thicker plates, and aligning dowels, and everything would have to be indexed so it always went back the same way. It would require 8 bolts to hold it together, plus the two bolts that lock the adjusters. Ultimately it would have to be very rigid. All that would add considerable machining and parts cost.

Retaining the same design, simply having one of the hold down bolts with a bushing in a slightly oversize hole would allow things to float enough that they would not bind....... How much machining do you want to pay for?

If the desired result can be obtained in two ways, and one costs a fraction of what the other costs, which would you choose?

H.W.

Owly055 said:

If the desired result can be obtained in two ways, and one costs a fraction of what the other costs, which would you choose?

H.W.

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I would rather pay a little more and have it done right.

Yep. Agree 100%.

I would rather pay a little more and have it done right.

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Yep. Agree 100%.

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Cue the Monster Mill...

Cheers!

Well I disassembled everything and shipped the BC back. I'm anxious to see what needs to be fixed. I did take a closer look at the rollers. They appear to be pretty worn down. I'm starting to think this may be a big part of the problem.

In the mean time I went ahead and got a MM3. This thing is a beast! It's built like a tank.

I put the 2 grain mills next to each other and all I could think of was that it's like putting a full-sized Snickers bar next to a fun-sized Snickers bar. The difference in the size of the rollers was surprising.

I guess that's what an extra $100 will buy you. I'm hoping I made a good choice for the extra $$.

b-boy said:

Won't this mess with your gap. or am I misunderstanding what you're doing? I'd think a loose screw would allow the roller to get out of alignment.

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This is only one bolt in the particle board base, and only slightly loose so it doesn't bind, and no, it will not throw anything out of alignment. Mis-alignment was caused by the base not being perfectly level. The bolt forced the end plates to be out of alignment vertically, which caused the binding.


H.W.

Still waiting on my Barley Crusher. Sent it out. No email, no communication of any kind. I'm just assuming they got the mill. Weird way to run a business.

On the other hand I got to use my new MM3 the other day. Wow - it is an awesome piece of equipment. It chewed through 12 lbs. of grain in under a minute.

Looks like my repaired Barley Crusher will be sent out today. He didn't say what the problem was.

So, it takes 3-4 weeks if you include the shipping to get one fixed in case anyone is interested. That's about what everyone predicted.

If my BCer goes south like yours ill probably do the same thing. Get the MM3 and send in the BCer and sell it when it gets back.

That is really weird with the lack of communication.

Got my mill back yesterday. No note or any correspondence about what was done to fix it. It looks like new rollers and a new o-ring. I've seen posts talking about the elusive o-ring. Mine never had one, so I wasn't sure what it was for. Looks like it is a way to drive the other roller if the grain doesn't work. I hope that wasn't planned as a permanent solution for this mill. Well I'm going to give this a try on Saturday and make sure it's fixed.

b-boy said:

Got my mill back yesterday. No note or any correspondence about what was done to fix it. It looks like new rollers and a new o-ring. I've seen posts talking about the elusive o-ring. Mine never had one, so I wasn't sure what it was for. Looks like it is a way to drive the other roller if the grain doesn't work. I hope that wasn't planned as a permanent solution for this mill. Well I'm going to give this a try on Saturday and make sure it's fixed.

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Mine came with the o-ring. You're right, it helps prevent stoppages, but isn't itself entirely necessary to the function. Even with the o-ring I have had *minor* stoppages, though nothing a slight backward rotation wouldn't fix immediately.

If the BC fails though, I'm just going to buy a mill with 2 driven rollers, attempt to get the BC fixed, and give someone else a good deal on it.

Sold my refurb'd barley crusher on e-bay. Got $110 for it. That covers about half of my MM3. I'm good with that.

My name is Randy I own B C Products where we make the Barley Crushers. I would like to take a minute and apologize for the lack of communication we have shown over the last couple years.
We are a family business, Recently i went through an ugly divorce. The ex wife was working here up till almost the end. This in hindsight was a bad idea. Toward the end i tried to keep distance between the two of us, i was going to do my job and let her do hers. She wasn't. She wasn't responding to emails or letting me know that there was issues to deal with. It took a while to realize what was happening when i did she no longer worked here. I was married for 20 years when this occurred. I lost focus for a while.
I realize personal issues are no excuse in business and not trying to use it as an excuse, just an explanation. Since this time has past i have made many changes, taken on a new role in the company and have been making sure emails and repairs are done on a timely manner.

I care deeply about this business and making a quality mill at an affordable price. I will continue to try to regain the name we had before this happened.

If anyone has any issues with their mill please email me at [email protected]. I will answer your emails in a timely manner and we will get your mill back to running the way it should be working.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and if there is anything i can help you with please email me at [email protected]

Randy
B C Products Enterprises Inc.

Thank you Randy. My mill has been great for me since 2007. Good luck.