Farm Feed Systems

Small semi-automatic pellet plant for making animal feed

1 Company background Farm Feed Systems Ltd was incorporated in November 1999. Philip Herbert, the Company founder and Managing Director, has been involved with Agricultural feeding machinery for 25 years, and is considered to be an expert in the field of pellet production from small scale plants. The Company has supplied animal feed Pellet Mills around the world, and since 2002 the Company has diversified into supplying wood and straw pelleting plants to make biomass fuel for boilers.

2 Input materials Essential Criteria For Pellet Mills to operate successfully there are three imperatives: a) Moisture content of raw materials must be kept below 16% To produce a quality pellet, massive mechanical pressure is required to create binding of the raw materials. However, the greater the moisture content, the poorer the pellet quality. Additionally, friction within the Pellet Die creates heat and if the Die temperature exceeds approximately 900C, moisture will begin to gasify. Experience tells us that if moisture content exceeds 16%, pellet quality will begin to suffer. a) Particle size Raw Material for pelleting should be of a consistent particle size. Shavings will cause blockages in the feed mechanisms and larger bodies (chips and off cuts) can cause mechanical failures. Any raw material needs to be chopped to the point where it will flow into a hammer mill. Ideally, powders or small granules make ideal materials for pellets. b) Material types Although it is possible to pellet many types of materials through a single Die, compression is controlled through the addition of water and pellet binders. Different materials require different levels of additive. So if the materials being presented to the Pellet Mill are constantly varying, it will be very difficult to control pellet quality resulting in too soft or too hard pellets. However, if differing materials are presented in a consistent ratio and mix, additives can be adjusted to suit and quality pellets will be produced. FFS also produce the Hawk Proportioner Mill to mix up to 6 ingredients together in a constant ratio.

3 Plant capability: The equipment shown below is designed to produce 1 tonne output per hour from a variety of raw material ingredients for animal feed.

Key Components:

The raw materials hopper of galvanised steel holds 200 litres of ingredients. The sides are angled to prevent bridging of materials.

At the base of the loading auger there is a small hopper to allow injection of a binder at the required concentration.

As the transfer auger moves materials up to the Feedstock control hopper the feedstock and binder mix together.

Feed Stock Control Hopper: Feed stock is delivered to a control hopper mounted above the pelleter. Bin full and low level sensors are strategically mounted within the bin to control the operation of the transfer auger. If for some reason the low level sensor receives no response, an alarm will sound to warn the operative that the pellet mill will need to commence a shut down routine. 33HP (22Kw) Pellet Mill: Feed stock is received from the control hopper and is fed to the pelleting chamber via an inverter-driven variable speed feed screw. The inverter and speed controller are mounted in the control panel together with an ammeter to monitor full load on the machine. Prior to the pelleting chamber, material passes through a turbulator which allows for the mixing of additives.

The pelleter is fitted with water, vegetable oil and binder dosing systems. Liquids are pressure fed through variable speed peristaltic pumps from tanks mounted on the side of the control panel. Both tanks require manual filling.

Suitably dosed material will pass into the pelleting chamber which is fitted with 2 dimpled roller assemblies and a Die. The materials are squeezed by force through the die openings by rollers, which produce long tubes of compressed materials. These are cut by a rotating knife to the desired pellet length.

Vibratory Sieve: Hot pellets exit the Mill onto a vibratory sieve. Any dust and crumbs that are mixed with the pellets fall through a 4mm screen and are then sucked into a dust extraction unit which allows for re-cycling back into the raw materials bin.

Inclined Pellet conveyor: Hot pellets fall onto an inclined pellet conveyor. The belt speed is variable in order ensure that pellets have chance to cool before falling into a suitable container.

Control panel: The plant is supplied with a pre-wired control panel. The panel is fitted with all starters and overloads for every motor plus inverter drives, speed controller, ammeters, manual override switches and audible warnings/lights.

Maintenance and technical support

The plant is warranted for a period of 12 months from the date of commissioning. This warranty covers replacement cost of any part or system shown to be defective but does not cover replacement of consumable items such as Dies and Roller assemblies. Damage caused through incorrect operation of the plant is not be covered.