[smoore]

wow, I couldn't find any info. One dead link to a manufacturer of the casino cleaners.

I don't think your machine has to be so complicated to include a bike chain and wheel... find an old squirrel cage fan, strip the outer hull off of it and figure out a way to mount the chips onto the cage. Put a rheostat on the power cord to control speed and then it's a matter of getting the abrasive in contact with the chips. I would imagine the easiest way to do that would be to mount it below the cage. You could use a spring to provide a consistent pressure. Another advantage of having the abrasive below the cage is containment of chemical (even if it's just water).

A medium size squirrel cage would fit at least 20 chips on it's surface. I'm not sure how you'd attach them though... perhaps a friction fit holder. I don't know what those "airtights" are like you guys use for the collectable chips.

gl, in any case.

edit: BTW... this contraption I've thought up is pretty damn dangerous. Don't lose a finger trying to make it work!

edit again: a way to hold abrasion against the chips AND collect chemical constantly would be to use another motor with either a brush or terrycloth pad held at the 8-9 o'clock position on the cage. The bottom would be in a resivoir of chemical and the top would contact the chips on the cage. it would have to be a pretty big brush/pad in order to get all the way across the cage. If you did it like this pressure could be adjusted via the clamping system, no need for springs.

Honestly, the easiest way I can think to do this would be to create a "chip vice", It would be a perforated plate over a resivoir of chemical with fixed braces to the West and South and sliding braces on North and East. When you "rack" chips into it the sliding sides of the frame are pulled tight and then wingnutted, holding the chips against each other. Place the chips in there and use that dish brush from the other thread to hit all 30/50/100 of them at once on a side. Let soak for a minute or two and hit them again... After the flip side is done you have to do the edges by hand.

The loading/unloading of any automated machine WE could make will probably take longer than the actual cleaning cycle. Add that to the occasional damaged batch and simply finding a way to use a hand-held power tool on many chips at once probably comes out on top. You get the advantages of batch processing but still have to put the abrasive on the chips YOURSELF. You will see if you start to damage them. Having 30+ chips damaged by an automated process would SUCK.