Doesn't Make Sense

Originally Posted by newattitude

we pay (now) .05 cents a pound for low grade motors and .10 cents for high. AL transformers are bought as steel. Our buyer doesn't even want the AL motors from washers any more even though there is a lot of AL in them (cast, AL windings).

Washer motors are a real mix up, the housing is diecast (zinc) the winding are something in the 1100, plus a solid hunk of steel, he was probably getting a zorba feed price and the deal went away because the shreder cut back hours



V/r HT1

Originally Posted by newattitude

I don't know how they break down the AL motors but the CU ones end up as ''Meatballs.'' lol, meatballs...

The ISRI specifications are "elmo" and "shelmo". "Elmo" is mixed electric motor scrap. It may include aluminum wound at agreed upon percentages with the buyer.
"Shelmo", also refered to as "meatball", or "shredder pickings" are mixed electrick motors that are removed from shredder material. Again, aluminum wound are allowed by agreement between buyer and seller.

There are some neat Chinese videos of how they breakdown large copper motors. Not sure how they do small ones. I'd assume with some shredding process. I know that one of my yards, all the aluminum wound gets paid as dirty aluminum and goes in the shred pile. Most likely is recovered as "zorba".

Originally Posted by newattitude

I don't know how they break down the AL motors but the CU ones end up as ''Meatballs.'' lol, meatballs...

Aluminum motors are separated out of the down stream(after the shredder) by a combination of eddy current and cross belt magging. they are part of the Zorba stream.
if you have someone buying just aluminum motors, they have set up their equipment to get the most out of the motors, probably sorting the steel core out and getting clean Zorba. it would be a very niche market