perhaps it's already been done, but i was thinking that a vertical shaft lawn-mower engine might make a suitable power source for a non-towed mixer. old lawn mowers are readily available for pretty cheap. mounted the flange of the engine base to a couple of 2x4's so it will sit across whatever you want for a mixing drum. a shaft welded to the downward pointing drive shaft of the motor with a blade on the bottom - what ever length/depth you need for your drum. you might even go with a shaft that has a keyway that fits the drive end of the motor, so you could take off the mixer shaft. you could have a small "pulping" blade that would thrash the paper/carboard material to pulp, then a larger blade that would be good for mixing in the concrete. i'm home in thailand at the moment. haven't seen a conventional lawn mower in the 10 years i've been coming here. but they do have an abundance of hardworking Diesel engines that they use for "iron buffalo's", e-tan farm trucks etc. they have pulleys on the engine that they run drive belts off of to work irrigation pumps, pond pumps, threshing machines tons of things. a mixer could easily be powered by one of these: http://www.siamkubota.co.th/ (website is in thai, but you get the idea of the engines) didn't get to it this time at home, but next winter when i'm here, i want to build a "cool room", a small airconditioned room so the family has relief from the heat in summer season - obviously needs to be a well insulated building so we don't have a spend a small forturne on electricity and an air-con unit. PC would be ideal. i'm going to experiment with using rice hulls - another thing they have in abundance here. i can get a giant bag for 5 cents.
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