Motorize your tomato strainer.

[Worth1]

Folks I am posting this here because there are a lot of people that are on this section of the forum.
It is a way you can motorize your tomato strainer without a lot of money if you have a meat grinder with a square or hex drive.
The pictuer depicted below is for a male hex drive someone here had.
This is also one of the reasons I didn't get the LEM meat grinder.
The LEM has a spline drive for the auger.
It wouldn't be impossible but costly to get a spline shaft made for one.
You could even hook up your hand crank tomato strainer to a KitchenAid mixer this way.
You just dont use the socket and use the right size square stock.
This is what I would do if I ever wanted to strain tomatoes.
Why on earth would I want to get yet another power supply to turn something.

Worth

[JRinPA]

I don't think my meat grinder at 230 rpm would work well with a straight drive. What I think might work well is to output the grinder to a small pulley and put a large pulley on an extra strainer crankshaft. I would want a 4:1 reduction for mine. Then run them offset, mounting the strainer on baseplate of wood and putting blocks on the baseplate to lock the grinder in place.

I ordered a motor for mine - I wanted the extra screens, so as a package deal, the motor did not cost much more. We'll see how long it lasts. For a yard sale find though, using an existing quality motor with a reduction if necessary would be neat and cheap.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by JRinPA

I don't think my meat grinder at 230 rpm would work well with a straight drive. What I think might work well is to output the grinder to a small pulley and put a large pulley on an extra strainer crankshaft. I would want a 4:1 reduction for mine. Then run them offset, mounting the strainer on baseplate of wood and putting blocks on the baseplate to lock the grinder in place.

I ordered a motor for mine - I wanted the extra screens, so as a package deal, the motor did not cost much more. We'll see how long it lasts. For a yard sale find though, using an existing quality motor with a reduction if necessary would be neat and cheap.

I looked on line and saw where a bunch of tomato strainers ran at 120 rpm.

The reason the little ad on motor turns the strainer at 50 RPM is the fact it is a low powered motor that has to be geared down so it would work.

Look around and research small planetary gear boxes/heads.
Much cheaper and cleaner than all of the pulleys and belts.


Worth