RCID

Mixer Mill

The RCID worked in partnership with a local Industrial Design consultancy to develop a new design of Mixer Mill. This is a device for automatically mixing and grinding materials by placing them together in a vessel along with balls of an appropriate material and shaking the container repeatedly until the required grain size and mixture is achieved.

Our partners designed a case around the mechanism produced by the RCID. The mechanism had to be designed to withstand repeated fatigue loading and included a novel design of quick-release clamp to hold the mixing vessels.

The RCID designed the electronics around a PIC microcontroller, which was programmed to provide Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) motor control and allow time and frequency adjustment and control. A prototype board was produced, allowing our partners to build and compliance test the system.

The motor control uses an open loop control system to drive a Permanent Magnet DC motor. The PIC microcontroller PWM output drives a power electronic circuit to provide the basic start, stop and speed control operations.

Additional features including safety interlocks, thermal cut-out for the motor, number of cycles, control lock and number of repetitions are entered by the user via a membrane keypad.