Originally Posted By: kenAbbott
Possible, but probably not. Would be a good test to see though. I would try to lower the spin plate while a jam was occuring. This may be simplier said then done though. If the material starts to flow, then you would know that the hopper and material are just not setup/designed correctly and right on the edge of plugging. If it did flow, you would more then likely see ratholing, where the material flows only from the middle of the pile and the sides fold in. This is the age old issue of first in, last out. This would indicate the hopper walls are to resistive (carbon steel vereses stainless steel) to material flow, along with shallow walls, not enough slope.


I'd like to get a clarification from some of the people that are having jamming problems. Is the blockage stemming from feed not coming out of the hopper, or actually plugging somewhere further past that? What feed is causing the problem? I do notice the "ratholing" problem that Ken explains in his previous post, and I have had a plugging problem with generic food not flowing out of the hopper (pellet size too big and bridging the hole). The flip side is I've had too much food coming out at once even on the lowest setting (AquaMax 500) and Greg Grimes sent me some block-off plates. Those reduced the hole in the bottom of the hopper so I could feed a reasonable amount of AM 500 instead of 2#-3# at a time. IIRC, I enlarged the hole in the block-off plate to 7/8" and that seems to be a good size for the AM 500 for my application.

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