State-Of-The-Art Concrete Mixer

State-Of-The-Art Concrete Mixer MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous 30-3-10 When Gene Luoma needed a new concrete mixer, he decided to build his own. He came up with a totally new design that's unlike anything on the market. "I wanted a mixer that would be easy to use and easy to clean, with low maintenance requirements," says Luoma. The 3-cu. yard mixer mounts on skids and operates entirely on chains and electric motors. The main body is divided into three compartments, with cement in the middle, and sand on one side and gravel on the other side. A floor-mounted feeder chain delivers material from each compartment toward the front of the machine. The chain drops the material into an 8-ft. long, 7-in. dia. screw auger, where water is added by a garden hose that hooks up to the mixer. The auger tube is equipped with specially designed paddles that mix the material and water together into a slurry. A control panel on front of the machine is used to operate the feeder chain, auger, water delivery, cement additives, and an electric winch that raises and lowers the auger. The auger can be removed for transport by pulling two pins. "It works great whether you need a lot of concrete or just a little," says Luoma. "You can mix amounts as small as a 5-gal. bucketful by operating the feeder chain just long enough to fill the auger. "The amount of material coming out of the concrete compartment always stays the same. However, doors at the bottom of the sand and gravel compartments can be raised or lowered to adjust the proportion of cement depending what strength of concrete you want. A small pump can be installed on the machine for delivering additives to the concrete." A big advantage of the machine, says Luoma, is that there's no need for a right angle gearbox. "The feeder chain runs parallel to the sand and gravel chains instead of at a 90 degree angle, so no gearbox is needed," says Luoma. "Any time you use a gearbox you lose efficiency and have more parts to wear out. "Another advantage is that the auger paddles have bolt-on, abrasive resistant poly liners that can be replaced when they wear out." The mixer is also easy to clean out, he says.. "After you're done using the mixer, the only thing that needs cleaning is the screw auger - there's no big drum to clean. Once the auger is empty you use the winch to lower the auger so that it's running downhill. Then as the auger runs empty you use a hose to spray it down." The skids make the mixer easy to load onto a trailer and to go wherever you need concrete, he says. The feeder chain on the mixer is operated by a 3 hp electric motor. Another motor operates the auger. Luoma also makes a 12 cu. yard mixer that's operated by a 10 hp motor and has a 12-ft. long, 12-in. dia. auger. Luoma doesn't build the mixer for sale but instead sells plans so you can build your own. "You can build the small one for about $3,000 and the big one for about $7,000," he notes. "A commercial model with comparable capacity to my biggest model sells for about $50,000." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Eugene H. Luoma, 4423 Normanna Rd., Duluth, Minn. 55803 (ph 218 721-4382 or 218 591-4382; gene@designproforms.com).

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