Thompson puffer questions....

[Vorra65]

Extremely happy with aquiring a lightly used Thompson DW. After returning home, I was excited to see what this whole DW craze was all about.
Our home was built on dredge tailings (Cosumnes) supposedly. I had a pile of dirt from a landscape project, so I classified 4 buckets down to 1/4 and away I went. What a cool little machine....Tested with very small lead chips, and a few in the 2/3 g range. Very pleased that it recovered all lead, as well as some very fine specks after panning the cons.

Is there a difinitive answer as far as a replacement 12v motor, is the same motor still available ?
And mine has the variable speed switch ( that doesn't work) is there a low/off/high switch that will replace it?
And last but not least, battery recommendations ?
Trying to stay lightweight.

Thanks in advance, from a dredger turned DW'r........

 

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[Reed Lukens]

If you read down in this forum, your answers are all here. We just talked about the motor this spring

 

[Reed Lukens]

Here it is. I just did a quick search for "Thompson Drywashers"
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/drywashing/621073-get-em-while-you-can.html

 

[Goldwasher]

Extremely happy with aquiring a lightly used Thompson DW. After returning home, I was excited to see what this whole DW craze was all about.
Our home was built on dredge tailings (Cosumnes) supposedly. I had a pile of dirt from a landscape project, so I classified 4 buckets down to 1/4 and away I went. What a cool little machine....Tested with very small lead chips, and a few in the 2/3 g range. Very pleased that it recovered all lead, as well as some very fine specks after panning the cons.

Is there a difinitive answer as far as a replacement 12v motor, is the same motor still available ?
And mine has the variable speed switch ( that doesn't work) is there a low/off/high switch that will replace it?
And last but not least, battery recommendations ?
Trying to stay lightweight.

Thanks in advance, from a dredger turned DW'r........

I'm the one who sold it to ya glad you are happy with it. Go to the thread Reed linked it's the one I told you about.

 

[Vorra65]

Reed, thanks for the link. I had read that thread earlier, just didn’t see any clear lead as to which wiper motor was used or where to get the low/off/high controller. Can’t imagine Bill would have used an exotic motor being he created such a simplistic effective washer. I’ve spent hours lookin at images of wiper motors and have yet to see one that looks like mine.
I’ve also seen the variable speed controller on EBay, and would really like to find the non variable switched version.

 

[Vorra65]

Yup, real happy. Have been doing some simple stuff to it. Added some Delrin bushings to the Hancrank assembly, and reworked the connector link between the puffer and the motor.
Makes for no wobbling around. Also lightened up the handle on the crank, every ounce counts much like your poke ..��
Hopefully someone can help ID that motor, and I’ll still be lookin for the 2 speed controller. Thanks again, hope your new coil is workin .

 

[Seden]

Ok folks, now for a picture of what's inside the switch box:



and...

On the switch, the wire at the top goes to the positive battery lead. The Negative battery lead goes to that light colored yellow wire also at the top. The motors blue wire goes to the center of the switch and the lower tab on the switch goes to one side of that Dale 1 ohm 10 watt resistor while the other side of that resistor goes to the top tab that connects to the positive battery lead. The toggle switch used has 3 positions. The usual up and down positions but has a center off position. Hope this clears things up. The Devils in the details as some wise guy once said.