To be honest with you devo, I had no idea what a hammer mill was until HVP made that comment. Googled it this morning and it seems to be similar. The wire enters the granulator where it is chopped (granulated) in a scissor action between 2 fixed sets of blades and 5 rotating sets. There is a screen beneath the granulator that can be changed out to maximize efficiency based on input material (2mm - 8mm). From the search I performed, this seems to be the extent of the hammer mill. The granulator however has several other components. From this point, the granules are sucked into a vortex and the copper that has seperated from the insulation is dropped into a collection area and the insulation is blown into a filter system and collected in bags. The material that is not seperated in the granulator is then taken into a pulverizer where the granules are beat with a paddle like turbo system. This will seperate any insulation from the remaining material. This material is then taken into another vortex where copper is seperated from insulation. Resulting material is dropped onto a seperation table from there where copper (or aluminum) is drawn up the table to the front and insulation is taken out the back.

Here's a video of one of the machines at work that may help explain:

Easier for a visual sometimes. As High Voltage commented earlier, there is copper dust lost in the seperation process and I'm interested to hear about ways to recover. With our machines it is very minimal but at the capacity they're running, it could add up. Hope this was clearer than mud. Haha.

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