The Siren Board

In the late 1970s, for a few minutes, we heard what sounded somewhat like a low strange siren.

It was more powerful than anything we had EVER heard.
You could tell the sound was extremely powerful.
You could hear it echo from other areas, plus it traveled over 2 miles
to get to our position.

I believe it was someone having opened a hatch on some kind of rotating
(spinning) device which pulverized scrap metal from automobiles.

I was told it spun at very high speed and that a piece of metal dropped into it actually MELTED when smacked by the unforgiving great mass of the huge rotating armature. (Was I also told it took hours for the huge armature to stop spinning?)

Anyone know anthing about such a device?
Have never heard it since.

I've heard of a device called a "Kondirator." It shreds metal until it falls through a heavy gauge screen (think 4" thick.) It could either be the hammers passing the screen, or it could be hydraulics. Most likely the latter.

Do the hammers spin?

This sounded like some kind of huge spinning object which emitted the
terribly loud powerful sound when chamber opened.

Very shocking impressivevidence of power.

I've read about these types of machines; they have hammers on a huge rotating drum and they are turned by a diesel engine of 1,000-6,000 horsepower, some are even more powerful than that. They turn at around 600-2000 rpm depending on the engine.

almost sounds like a bio mass grinder.
and the way they sound like it takes hours to stop spining sound like an disc chipper ..or brush chipper (more commenly known as)
agrcultural high school (yes im an aggie kid) taught me alot on chippers. in the morring ill find some info on chippers bio mass grinders (which use eather spinning hammers or a drum with hammers on it to chew away any thing you feed it) * some can take trees up to 9'to 12' diamter and any thing such as metal asphalt concret the list goes on* but ill get you some links in the morring for you if you like Robert.

~nick

loudmouth wrote:almost sounds like a bio mass grinder.
and the way they sound like it takes hours to stop spining sound like an disc chipper ..or brush chipper (more commenly known as)
agrcultural high school (yes im an aggie kid) taught me alot on chippers. in the morring ill find some info on chippers bio mass grinders (which use eather spinning hammers or a drum with hammers on it to chew away any thing you feed it) * some can take trees up to 9'to 12' diamter and any thing such as metal asphalt concret the list goes on* but ill get you some links in the morring for you if you like Robert.

~nick

Yes, thank you, Mouth.

I work partime for a tree company.
(Just promoted myself to "branch" manager...)

Years ago my boss had a chipper which spun so quickly that it sounded like a siren. Would drop pitch as wood was pulled in and chipped.
I recall they pulled wood in in a matter of only seconds.

At least one person has gotten clothing caught on a piece of wood and been pulled in and "morselized" before they even had a chance to do anything about it.

Our Vermeer chipper has toothed feed wheels that must be engaged to feed wood.
If one is caught, they grab the safety bar and the feed wheels reverse.
Bar must be pulled out to feed wood in.

It's huge cutting disk does not turn fast enough to "siren", but it'still noisy
and we must wear hearing protection.

Did they have bio-mass chippers in 1976?

I recall being told this was for metals in a junk yard.
Also that some metals liquified when hit - the impact was so forceful!

Thank you,

Alot of stuff will make a siren sound. If you wanna get tetnical on it, pull-back-and-let-go-cars, blowing on a fan, a violin, etc.

robert,
Heres some larger feed chippers,
http://www.banditchippers.com/index.php ... 5&lineId=1

and some of the best in the indusrty ,CBI,biomass shredders
http://www.cbi-inc.com/grinders.html
http://www.cbi-inc.com/grinderANNI.html

but this is that I think you were realy talking about
auto shreeders or metal shreders
http://www.metsominerals.com/inetMinera ... 256F-7388B

and that chipper you were taking about the one that takes light brush in less then seconds is known as velosity style drum chipper, the chipper dosent have and feeder drums and the chipper knives are on a horizontal drum the enegine will a a pre set rpm and will automaicly keep the drum up to a set rpm then let it cost down and then let it rev up again and so on. since there is no feeder drums their is no way to stop some thing once its feed in. i woke up to one of these types of chippers working and i swore it sounded like a siren but found it was very old and needed to be scraped it self ...

Nelso90 wrote:I've heard of a device called a "Kondirator." It shreds metal until it falls through a heavy gauge screen (think 4" thick.) It could either be the hammers passing the screen, or it could be hydraulics. Most likely the latter.

There's a street cleaning truck in my city's fleet that uses some type of hydraulic drive system for the wheels (it only hits 25-20mph max). The operator usually drives it quickly between the maintaince yard and the places that are being cleaned but every time it slows down from maximum speed for a traffic light; it has a whine down to it that resembles a Q siren. We've heard it passing by a couple times and though it was a fire truck.

Ive seen the same thing with the street cleaners i belave why it whines like that is a hydrostatic transmtion.