Li Mengxi didn't know exactly how the stone mill was structured and how beans were ground into tofu, but he knew another more efficient way to grind beans.

If you want to produce tofu, you must first have soy milk. In addition to grinding, there is another way to produce soy milk, using a soy milk machine.

The soymilk machine is a barrel with several super-sharp blades underneath, which then whine and grind the beans into super-crushed powder.

It is not difficult to spin the blade, and it is not difficult to spin the blade. It can spin the blade at a very high speed, and it seems to be more difficult than usual.

Li Mengxi's idea was to use manpower or animal power to turn the knife shaft. Even if the knife shaft is not turned fast enough or if it is turned slower, as long as it takes enough time, the beans can be crushed into soy milk.

The problem is that I don’t know which one is faster, the slow blade processing speed of soy milk or the stone grinding speed.

If the too slow knife speed cannot match the efficiency of stone grinding, then there is no need to build a pulverizer.

The tofu industry is about whether the beans in the hands of the people can be recovered. Beans are strategic materials, so the development of crushers is a strategic need.

Li Mengxi started making soy milk machine.

A soy milk machine is actually a grinder, and the key part is the blade.

Li Mengxi recalled the shape of the soymilk machine blade in his memory. It seemed that the blade of the soymilk machine was serrated and the blades were arranged in a lotus shape.

In the first step, Li Mengxi summoned the craftsmen and asked them to make the "Praying Mantis Knife". The reason why it is called the Mantis Knife is because the blade of the crusher is both serrated and curved, just like the blade arm of a mantis.

This is another weird mission.

The craftsmen have long been accustomed to various strange tasks.

In order to make it easier for the craftsmen to understand, Li Mengxi specially used a mantis to solidify the shape of the knife. The craftsmen actually went to find the mantis.

The mantises were hard to find, so the craftsmen called their friends and went out to look for them. After half a day, the craftsmen caught many live mantises.

With the mantis, the craftsmen carefully observed the mantis' blade arm in a clumsy and simple way. With the purpose of being as similar as possible, they not only imitated the shape of the mantis arm, but also the angle and shape of the inverted teeth of the mantis arm.

I imitated it.

It is also a creation with a complex shape. The craftsman is afraid that it will not be forged well, so he chooses to use a mold to make it first.

The craftsmen got good yellow clay and used small bamboo pieces to finesse the mold bit by bit, one tooth at a time.

Two days later, dozens of identical mantis blade arms were cast.

When the knife was delivered to Li Mengxi, Li Mengxi took the knife and tried it. The knife, which had been carefully polished by the craftsmen, was very sharp. At least it was no problem to cut a piece of paper or a firewood stick.

Li Mengxi was worried about the strength of cast iron, but when he thought about it, soaked beans would break into pieces as soon as they were squeezed. So what kind of strength was there? The strength of cast iron might be enough.

With the knives in hand, the next step is for carpenters to make knife shafts and barrels.

According to Li Mengxi's instructions, the carpenters placed the blade in a circular structure at the bottom of a wooden shaft and installed it in the shape of a lotus.

Then, just like a stone mill, there is a chassis under the cutter shaft, a long pushing rod is connected to the chassis, and a long wooden barrel is covered on the chassis. The first prototype is completed.

The test started with a blade crusher on one side and a large stone mill on the other. Both sides started working at the same time. Soft beans that had been soaked for two days were added to the stone grinder and the crusher respectively. After the stone mill was put on the cow, the old cow began to spin. The pens are grinding, and here at the grinder, the cattle are also grinding.

The stone mill is extremely heavy and huge, while the crusher is only made of wood and is very light. Therefore, there is a difference from the beginning. The speed of the cows on the crusher side is more than twice that of the stone mill on the other side.

Li Mengxi gradually gained confidence in the crusher.

As time passed little by little, gradually, white soy milk began to grind out of the graphite.

Seeing this, "Stop!" Li Mengxi temporarily stopped.

He climbed up to the crusher and took a look. At first glance, the beans in the big wooden barrel were still intact. He stretched out his hand to grab a handful and saw that the beans were all intact, with no scratches at all.

Li Mengxi comforted himself that the characteristics of the stone mill determine that the stone mill outputs quickly, but when a certain time is reached, the crusher will crush a large number of beans at the same time, and then the efficiency of the crusher will win.

Grinding beans is a long and difficult process. The test lasted for a whole day. By evening, the stone mill had ground more than 70 kilograms of beans and three large barrels of soy milk. As for the crusher, Li Mengxi went over to check. The beans in the bucket were still mostly intact. I grabbed a handful of beans and searched for a long time before I found one with scratches.

At this point, the test can be declared over. The efficiency of the crusher cannot be compared with stone mills, but it cannot be compared with stone mills at all.

(Could it be that the knife is not fast enough?) Li Mengxi was thoughtful.

If the problem is the speed of the knife, whether it is human power or animal power, the human power and animal power drag the knife shaft and roar, no matter how fast it runs, it is only three to five times the rotation speed of the stone mill.

Looking at today's test results, the blade has been spinning for a day, and it has almost no effect. Even if the rotation speed is increased three to five times, it still has no effect. And if we switch to an ultra-small grinder, it can be hand-cranked at a speed of It just changes the speed from three to five times to three to fifty times, but the efficiency is still far from enough. Moreover, the ultra-small crusher has extremely insufficient production capacity and requires a lot of craftsmanship to produce. It is really not a good method.

When human and animal power were not enough to solve the problem, Li Mengxi thought of water power.

Animal power cannot make the millstone whine, but if the water speed is fast enough, the water speed can give the millstone a huge rotation speed.

Overnight, Li Mengxi summoned craftsmen to build a waterwheel. At dawn the next day, Li Mengxi took the waterwheel and crusher to find water.

In Julu territory, they found a small stream with sufficient water and fast flowing water. The craftsmen installed the waterwheel at the water's edge, and then asked Li Mengxi what he was doing down there.

Going down, of course, we need to connect the water tanker and the crusher, but how to connect...

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Li Mengxi discovered the key to the problem at once.

It is easy to let the water flow move the waterwheel, and it is also easy to make the crusher move.

However, the waterwheel rotates vertically, while the millstone and grinder rotate squarely on the ground.

Li Mengxi raised his head and observed the large waterwheel in front of him. The waterwheel followed the direction of the water flow and was squeaking and turning under the wash of the water.

After looking at it, the linkage method had not yet been thought of. Li Mengxi looked at the small buckets hanging on the water tanker and was very puzzled. He did not understand why the water tanker hung these buckets.

I called the craftsmen nearby and asked, and they said that when the water wheel rotates, the bucket will pick up the water and rotate it to a high place. When the bucket tilts, the water will be sprinkled into the sink and directed to the fields.

.

"Oh! Divert the water!" Li Mengxi suddenly realized.

The problem lies here. Now we need to use a water truck to drive the crusher. There is no need to divert water. It would be a waste of energy to carry redundant buckets on the water truck.

"Call it done!" Li Mengxi temporarily terminated the test and prepared to go home.

Before solving the problem of the linkage between the water wheel and the millstone, we must first solve the problem of the water wheel, and first make a special water wheel specially designed to provide power.

Back in Julu, Li Mengxi spent a long time thinking about the structure of the waterwheel. The wheel-like waterwheel made by the craftsmen seemed a bit crude to Li Mengxi. He thought of fan blades and propeller blades, which seemed like a water turbine or something.

It relies on water flow to drive the blades.

Li Mengxi intuitively felt that propeller blades could make better use of water power.

The question comes again, what is the shape of the propeller blades? It seems to be oblique, curved, and fixed in one direction.

Spiral pages are extremely complicated things, and communication with craftsmen through verbal communication and sketches is no longer enough.

There was no other way, so Li Mengxi could only bring mud, and based on his impression, he clumsily shaped the shape of the propeller blade.

After squeezing the mud, Li Mengxi looked at it again. He felt that the paddle he kneaded was 80% similar.

A group of craftsmen were summoned and the paddle model was passed around to the craftsmen.

Things that cannot be explained clearly or painted clearly can be clearly seen by craftsmen with the real objects.

The structure of the propeller blade is complex. It is neither curved nor straight, but slanted and twisted. It looks simple, but it is not easy to make.

Things that require delicate processing and complex shapes are difficult to forge and difficult to work with, so casting is the only way.

In view of the fact that the iron was too heavy, Li Mengxi asked the craftsmen to make the iron leaves as thin as possible.

After a day's work, the next day, the craftsmen cast a pile of iron leaves as big as a fan.

Using these iron leaves, he made a new waterwheel, and Li Mengxi took the waterwheel and a small mill to the waterside again.

This time, the useless bucket was removed and replaced with a more delicate oar blade. After the waterwheel was installed in the stream, the waterwheel started to rotate lightly.

The speed of the waterwheel with the changed blades is obviously advantageous, and it spins loudly.

The test was successful and the blade structure can indeed increase the rotation speed.

After waiting for the waterwheel to rotate for a while, Li Mengxi ordered the waterwheel to be turned over and reinstalled. In the previous installation, the paddles were in the direction of the water flow. This time, the paddles were facing the water flow.

Once the waterwheel was reversed, the changes were huge. The waterwheel turned so fast that the water flow made a splashing sound.

It turns out that the propellers were installed backwards before, and the speed of the waterwheel is indeed closely related to the direction of the propellers.

The test of the waterwheel has ended. Next, the power of the waterwheel is transmitted to the stone mill.

The difficulty of combining power is that the waterwheel rotates vertically while the millstone rotates horizontally. Li Mengxi stared at the tall waterwheel and imagined in his mind that if the millstone was also erected, it seemed feasible but not feasible.

Stand the millstone up and connect a pole to the waterwheel, just like the relationship between the ox and the millstone. The oxen rotating in a circle slowly rotates the stone mill. This structure is very simple.

But this seems to be a problem, because whether it is grinding grain or soy milk, the grain will flow out from the gaps in the millstone.

In the flat millstone, the grain is not easy to fall out, but in the vertical millstone, the grain falls out too easily, which greatly affects the efficiency.

Another point is that when the millstone is grinding flour, you have to put the grain into the grinding hole. If the millstone is placed flat, the grain will automatically fall down. But if the millstone is placed vertically, you have to use a stick to push the grain in. This problem,

Perhaps the problem can be solved by tilting the millstone slightly, but with a tilted millstone, the transmission becomes more troublesome than with a vertical waterwheel. To reduce the transmission trouble, tilt the waterwheel as well. Oooh, a tilted waterwheel is more troublesome than a vertical waterwheel.

You don’t need to think about it to know that the utilization rate of water power will be extremely poor.

From the efficiency of water utilization, the difficulty of transportation, the difficulty of construction, and all aspects of consideration, placing the millstone vertically is an extremely poor choice.

Not only the millstone, but also the pulverizer. If the pulverizer is placed vertically, the beans will not fall onto the blade.

Based on various considerations, the waterwheel must be upright and the millstone must be placed flat.

Li Mengxi tried his best to search for memories. He recalled all the things that moved vertically and horizontally at the same time. After thinking about it, Li Mengxi remembered a complicated structure - gears.

The gear seems to be a flat gear and a vertical gear. The teeth of the gears that are perpendicular to each other are stuck together. Once the vertical gear rotates, it will shake the horizontal gear, and vice versa.

(Gears...) Li Mengxi's mind was full of images of gears surrounded by thorns.
To be continued...