Thought I'd dive in. Been lingering for a while. Anyways I'm a Mechanical design student, semi toker by nature and as part of a project from Uni, have been asked to create something which solves some of the problems associated with that thing. It can be anything. Well... I thought why not a 'herb' grinder. It's pretty mechanical, has plenty of interesting geometries to tinker with. I know what pi&%es me off with my grinder, but then I'm no expert. So I thought I'd put it to you guys, What's qualities would you have in a grinder if you had the opportunity to create the perfect grinder. What really annoys you about yours.
I approve of your project topic haha. I have a santa cruz, which addresses a fair amount of typical grinder problems (perfectly milled teeth, different teeth design for ripping, better holes, finer screen). But i know one thing i haven't seen any grinder do is prevent the build of pollen over all the threads that screw the pieces together. This makes putting the grinder together and taking it apart difficult, ya know. Maybe if you could have the internal chambers be separated from the fasteners? Maybe a different fastener than screwing the pieces together, like a seat belt buckle design or how a glass on glass jar has that rubber seal. Or you could have the pieces with grooves for large keck clips Just spitt ballin, hope its helpful
Design a machine that makes twisting the grinder 99% effortless, and like a 2 spin max for optimal results? Patent that bitch lol
yeah seriously I agree lol. If your looking at a multiple stage grinder make the threads way bigger instead of so fine it takes 20 seconds to unscrew some, buzzkill lol 60% of the time, it works every time.
Try and design something that is not common among grinders. I did a short product design course at college and if you can have access to a program called CAD I would sugges using this to create a computer prototype. The cool thing is you can use the program to make actions move for example the grinding. Test it out and let us know what happens it will be sick to see !!! Stay Smokey! !
Design a grinder that doesn't require superman strength to unscrew. After I smoke, I always twist the grinder closed tighter than I intend, and i don't realize it until the next morning when i'm trying to smoke and i can't fucking unscrew it! This has been happening for months and i can't remember to remind myself "don't close it so tight" maybe i jus tneed to strengthen my arm/grip haha
I never understood why the threads on grinders had to be so fine. I would love to find one that opens with a half twist.
That's an epic project! One of the things that I hate about my grinder is the terrible squeaking sound it makes when you grind anything, and the holes are way too small sometimes. Otherwise it's nice and sharp! And it's hard to get all the keif out of the screen, so some sort of automated scraper would be pretty cool! You should find a material that works like tefflon that the keif doesn't stick to, so all of it collects at the bottom! Someone above me said some small lid on the side for dispensing, I think that would be cool. Maybe something like on the those big salt shakers you get that have the fold-in, metal spout so pouring it into a bowl or a paper or any other thing would be more controlled. The ones that look like this maybe? It could be magnetic so it doesn't easily come open while you're grinding!
Check out the green shark grinder. It has some cool features. Santa Cruz has some cool features as well. I think the effort required in turning would be a cool problem to solve.
It's because when your grinding it can cause the grinder to open. The santa cruz & green shark grinder have the best threading that I have experienced.
Some of these were already mentioned. *convertible from 4 to 2 pieces *make all the weed fall to the chamber, sometimes for me a few pieces won't go through *only 2-3 turns to grind up all the bud; my shitty grinder takes about 5-10 *make it so that the kief doesn't collect on the walls/sides of the grinder. occasionally it sticks to the sides *easier to screw on/off the different chambers, no squeaking *ALL anodized or titanium or just something really consistent and w/ no residue. this is the key
so the holes that the bud goes through should be no bigger than 3/16" (yes you might have to twist a bit more to get the weed fine enough to get through the holes, get over it, it's worth it), blades should be sharp and strong so they won't go dull, needs good grip on the lid, there should be maybe like 1/16" gap between the blades, maybe have an attachment for the lid to give a bit of extra leverage, use something other than a magnet to hold the lid on, make sure the edge of the lid doesn't come into contact with the bud so that you dont have to worry about keef buildup making it tougher to grind. i'm actually designing a grinder like this myself after coming up with all this but you're welcome to use these ideas too