PDA

View Full Version : Homemade Brass Tumbler Math Demystified



hunter64
02-10-2012, 09:23 AM
Homemade Brass Tumbler Math Demystified.

The latest craze in how to clean your brass is with stainless steel media in a rock polisher instead of in a vibratory cleaner as was the norm for years. Living in Canada I get taken to the cleaners when it comes to cross border shipping and sometimes buying local can be just as hard on the wallet.

Cabelas Canada has the Thumler for $229.99 for there 12 lb capacity tumbler. Some of the bigger ones have a 15 lb capacity.

I thought that I should be able to make one cheaper and be able to hold more than 12-15 lbs total of water,pins and brass. Water itself weighs 8.3 lbs (US Gallon) and then they say you need 5 lbs of pins so that only leaves 1.7 lbs of brass (15lbs-8.3-5). Not sure exactly how much 1.7 lbs of brass is but the amount that I shoot when I get home from the range the bag is heavy and to clean all that brass would take about 4 trips in the tumbler.

So I cobbled together a very crude mock-up of what I wanted the tumbler to look like after watching lots of you tube videos. I did a rough layout on my bench with a piece of wood, some crude bearings, some redi rod, a couple of pulley’s and an old treadmill motor and controller. I put a roller on each end to prevent the drum from walking across the shafts. Threw it all together and tested it out and it worked great.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0347.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0346.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0345.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0344.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0343.jpg


I then saw a you tube video of a design I liked and welded up a steel frame and used some of the posters idea’s on what to cover the shafts with and away I went. Had trouble with the bearings not turning correctly but after I ran them for a bit they loosened up and are now working great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtVHvMNf6tM&feature=youtu.be

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0352.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0351.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0350.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0349.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0353.jpg

All I did was mount the treadmill motor and associated controller on the new frame. I left off the rollers on each end because with adjustable legs I could perfectly balance the base to keep the drum in the middle and not walk along the shaft.

Well I built 4 of them now for my friends over the weekend and every one of them asked me what parts are needed to make the drum spin at the correct amount if you only have a single speed motor like out of a furnace or washer/dryer.

To calculate the size of the pulleys needed with a certain speed of the motor we can use this simple formula.

Motor RPM x Motor Pulley Diameter = Driven Pulley Diameter x Driven RPM

After we are done figuring, this only gives us the speed of the driven shaft on the tumbler
Since we want the speed of the driven shaft on the tumbler we can re write the formula as:

Motor RPM x Motor Pulley Diameter
---------------------------------------------- = Driven Rpm (Speed of the driven shaft)
Driven Pulley Diameter


Then you use the speed of the driven shaft on the tumbler to figure out what the speed of your Tumbler’s Drum is going to be. I combined both formulas into one to make it easier to figure out the speed of the drum. I made up some letter designations to make it easier to follow the formula and here they are:

Motor Rpm= M
Motor Pulley Diameter= MP
Driven Pulley Diameter = DP
Diameter of Driven Shaft = DS
Diameter of Tumbler Drum = TD
Driven RPM of the Drum = DR


M x MP x DS
------------------- = DR or the speed of drum on the tumbler.
TD x DP


Lets try one .

You found a motor at the dump that has a sticker on it that says it turns at 1725 RPM.
You go to Lowes and find a pulley that fits the motor and it has a diameter of 2”.
You buy some bearings for the shaft to run on and they are ½ “ size for your ½” shafts.
You buy a 6” pulley for the driven shaft for the tumbler drum to run on.
You make a 6” tumbler drum out of a empty plastic jar.
How quick will your tumbler drum be turning at?

With our handy dandy formula we can plug in some numbers and find out.

1725rpm x 2” x ½”shaft
--------------------------- = 47.9 RPM or about 48 RPM the tumbler drum will be going.
6” drum x 6”pulley


The Thumlers regular speed is 30 rpm and the high speed is 40 rpm. We don’t want anything quicker than 60 rpm because the brass and contents will just stick to the outside wall due to centripetal force. So in this case we guessed correctly for the size of drum we want and the pulley needed to obtain that speed.



So let’s say we find some 5/8” bearings on sale and our drum size is 8” instead of the 6” we had before.
Using the same motor and pulley sizes what would be our drum speed?

1725 x 2” x 5/8”
------------------- = 44.9 RPM So 45 RPM is right in the ballpark .
8” x 6”

You can always buy an adjustable pulley for the motor that varies so you can fine tune the speed of the drum but figuring out what size of drum you want to make and the smallest size of the motor pulley, you can mix and match the size of the shaft and pulley on that shaft so you don’t have to spend extra money experimenting on what you want.


If you know the size of your Drum that you want to make and the size of the motor pulley then with algebra we can manipulate the formula to come up with the size of the pulley on the driven shaft.

M x MP x DS
---------------------= DP (The size of the pulley needed to put on the driven shaft)
DR x TD

Let’s try one out.

You have a 7” drum, a 1725 rpm motor with a 3” pulley on it and you have some 7/8” bearings and 7/8” shaft to use for your tumbler. What size of pulley do I need to put on the 7/8” shaft to give me 60 RPM for the Drum?

1725 RPM x 3” x 7/8”
-------------------- = 10.8” (You would need about a 11” pulley)
60 RPM x 7”

It would be hard to find an 11” pulley so your better bet would be to drop the 3” pulley on the motor to a 2” pulley which running it thru the formula again would give you about a 7” pulley which is more realistic.


You have the driven shaft pulley diameter of 7” on a 5/8” shaft and you want to know what size of pulley I need to buy to put on the motor to give me 55 rpm for my 8” drum.

Manipulate the formula to give you this.

DR x TD x DP
------------------ = MP (Size of the pulley needed on the motor shaft)
M x DS

Let’s try it.

55RPM x 8” x 7”
-------------------- = 2.85” ( You would buy a 3” pulley and that will get you close)
1725 RPM x 5/8”

With an adjustable DC motor like on a treadmill then just buy any two pulley's that you need and you can adjust the speed of the motor to get what you want.


How much to make the Tumbler?

3” pulley 6.00
4.5” pulley 9.00
½ “ shaft for 5 ‘ 9.00
½” Pillow Bearing 13.00 each (52.00 total)
½” heater hose 4.00
Base mounts 12.00 (rubber cups I put over adjustable screw in legs)
1 ½” Square tubing 30.00 for a 8 foot length and I had 4” left over
Motor found at scrap yard

Total $122.00 in Canada

You will get the supplies much cheaper if you live in the US.

I could have skipped the welded square tubing and substituted wood which would have been cheaper but I wanted something to last. As far as the motor goes, look on Craig's List or visit a furnace replacement company or find an old washer or dryer, there are lots of free motors out there.

One online store wants 799.99 US for a 40 lb tumbler. Mine was 122.00 and is just as good and will actually hold more weight.

Only thing left is the drum, I made one out of 8” PVC from a Plumbers Warehouse with a neck down coupler and a cap on the end. Cost me about 18 bucks but I can fill the thing with the brass, pins and water and when I weigh it the scales tip at 55 lbs. A far cry from 15 lbs max in the store bought one and I have a 3/4hp motor driving it instead of 1/30th HP.

dragonrider
02-10-2012, 09:54 AM
Thanks Hunter I will need that.

cajun shooter
02-10-2012, 09:59 AM
That's some very nice back yard handi work that looks as if it may out last the owner.

Mk42gunner
02-10-2012, 11:14 AM
I think we need to make the original post in this thread a sticky.

Robert

Jailer
02-10-2012, 11:40 AM
Your second design looks like BIGDAWG's design from ar15 forums. I'm right in the middle of building mine using that design.

My first attempt at a drum from 6 inch PVC was a failure because I bought the wrong parts so once I get it situated it will end up a bit smaller than I initially intended. Should still hold around 2 gallons of water.

I've got a buddy that works for the water dpt in a local town that got me a piece of 8 inch sch 40. I'm picking that up this weekend for my next attempt at a drum. An 8 inch piece at 18 inches long should do plenty of brass.

Thanks for the math too. Should make things a little easier for us dummy's trying to do this on our own.

hunter64
02-10-2012, 06:49 PM
Jailer: I have seen lots of designs and they are all about the same. I did the mock up with wood and then I went looking on the Internet and came across a few that were detailed like BIGDAWG's. The biggest thing that is missing from all of them is the math so I did it so you didn't have to play around with different pulleys to get what you need for speed.

I work for a gas utility company so I have an unlimited supply of PVC ends that can not be used so I picked a 8" diameter and tried it. The problem with it is that it is not a standard size for caps and adapters so I use it for my dry tumbler stuff in walnut and went to a plumbing supply store to make up a water tight version.

I just couldn't see buying a tumbler that could only do about 1/3 to 1/4 of the amount I need cleaning at one sitting after a day at the range.

I can now do all my .223 and .45acp together at once. My 45-70's in another batch and my 38 spl in a third batch. With a 15 lb model I would have had to do 3 batches of .223, 2 batches of .45acp, 2 batches of 45-70 and 2 batches of 38 spl.

Jailer
02-10-2012, 07:45 PM
I just couldn't see buying a tumbler that could only do about 1/3 to 1/4 of the amount I need cleaning at one sitting after a day at the range.


Exactly the same reason I went ahead with my build. Why spend nearly $200 for a small tumbler when you can build one for about the same price that will do a large amount of brass at once.

With the amount of 223 and 45 that I go through the Thumler just wasn't an option.

SlowSmokeN
02-11-2012, 02:19 AM
Can you put up a couple of pictures with the tube on it running

Thanks

hunter64
02-11-2012, 08:51 PM
A guy at work has it for a few days. When it gets back I will post a few pictures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtVHv...ature=youtu.be

This is basically the same other than he uses a single speed motor to drive his and his 8" drum is slightly longer than mine, the rest is the same.

BigShot
02-11-2012, 10:03 PM
Impressive workmanship!

Jailer
02-11-2012, 10:59 PM
I picked up my 8 inch piece of sch40 so my 8 inch drum should be finished in the next couple days or so. Once I get that done I can get working on getting the steel cut for the frame.

Everything else is ready to go, I'm just holding off having the steel cut until I have a finished size on my 8 inch drum to work from.

hunter64
02-17-2012, 09:47 AM
Did 500 .357 Magnum brass last night and after 1 hour I took the lid off to see if that was enough time in the tumbler. There were a few cases that still needed a bit more so I put it back on for another hour.

The brass looks absolutely new, inside and out and even the wife commented on how clean they were. The brass was absolutely filthy before they went in, most were range pickup that had been sitting in the dirt for who knows how long.

I know how to post pictures but is there a help me file on the site somewhere that teaches us older folk how to post video?

beagle
02-17-2012, 01:36 PM
My old shooting partner who is a master machinist and his son got together and made what we call the "Tumbler from Hell".

They machined a nylon gear and a base fitting for a 5 gallon plastic bucket and set it on about a 45 degree slant. An old washing machine motor geared down ran it. Nylon slats were run inside the bucket to break up the payload and cause a tumbling affect. Used with regular media, it would tumble about 3,000 9mms at one time. It works well.

Another acquaintence made a tumbler with a DC motor and set it in his pickup bed and he'd tumble to and from work every day and save electricity.

You never know what you can come up with until you give it a try./beagle

montana_charlie
02-17-2012, 02:58 PM
the brass and contents will just stick to the outside wall due to centripetal force.
Centrifugal force
CM

hunter64
02-17-2012, 09:34 PM
I always thought that Centrifugal force was the theory (or Math) behind an object spinning on the outside of an axis and centripetal force was the actual object doing just that.

Not really sure but the idea is that if you turn the drum too quick the brass and pins will stick to the outside wall and not much cleaning will happen. With water as the medium instead of air I am not really sure the theory still holds true and you just might be able to go quicker.

Anyway 2-3 hours is all that is needed to clean lots of brass. Compared to running my vibrating brass cleaner all day with walnut shells and not even coming close to the same cleanness as the stainless steel pins, I am really happy.

Beagle: I once seen a club member years ago use a cement mixer to clean his .45acp brass with lizard litter, he could put a lot of brass in there also. As Plato said. "Necessity is the mother of all inventions" or something like that.

montana_charlie
02-17-2012, 10:40 PM
I always thought that Centrifugal force was the theory (or Math) behind an object spinning on the outside of an axis and centripetal force was the actual object doing just that.
Centripedal force (generated by gravity) prevents the Moon from escaping, and centrifugal force (generated by velocity) keeps the Moon from falling on our heads.

CM

hunter64
02-20-2012, 10:36 PM
Thought I would update what the final product looks like with the motor/controller mounted. I have had lots of requests to take some pictures.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0356.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0355.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e304/1964bigfoot/IMG_0354.jpg

nanuk
03-17-2012, 06:08 AM
Centripedal force (generated by gravity) prevents the Moon from escaping, and centrifugal force (generated by velocity) keeps the Moon from falling on our heads.
that is how I was taught it in grade school!
CM


Thought I would update what the final product looks like with the motor/controller mounted. I have had lots of requests to take some pictures.



hunter64: any reason to couple the shafts together or do you think having only one power shaft driving the bucket will be enough?

hunter64
03-17-2012, 08:55 AM
hunter64: any reason to couple the shafts together or do you think having only one power shaft driving the bucket will be enough?

I was concerned about that also. When I first started it up to give it a test run, once in a while the drum would slow down with the rear shaft driving and the front shaft idle. I figured that maybe the pillow bearings needed to be broken in first as they were stiff to move with just my fingers when they were out of the frame.

I made sure the bearing were full of grease and I turned on the tumbler and let it run overnight with no drum on it, just the motor turning the bearings. In the morning I removed the shaft and tried the bearing again by hand and I noticed a huge improvement on how little effort it took to turn compared to what it was when they first came out of the box.

So I switched the front bearings that were not driven to the back and put the back ones on the front. That is all it took and it works perfectly now with never slowing down.

In hind sight I was testing the tumbler with a drum that was empty and only weighed 5 pounds or so at the most. The next time I tested it the drum was full of brass and water and pins and is close to 50 lbs.

I am going out to the range today so sometime this evening I am going to take out the tumbler and before filling the drum with brass i am going to try it again on the rollers without anything in side and see if it slows down. Most likely it will not as I have run it about 40 hours so far.

Catshooter
03-17-2012, 09:10 PM
Nice work hunter.


Cat

hunter64
03-17-2012, 10:32 PM
Thanks Catshooter. I have built 6 of them so far for local shooters, I am getting really got at it. First one took me about 3 hours, now my last one I was done in under 2 hours. I guess you learn a few short cuts along the way.

Nanuk: Went out to the range today and shot off 8 boxes of .38 spl thru the old Uberti revolver and on the last box , the first cylinder full I pulled back the hammer and the hand broke. Oh well it had to go sometime, I think this is the third hand that I have replaced but I have thousands of rounds thru it and it is my back up anyway.

When I got home I put the tumbler barrel on the rollers empty to see if it would stall and I ran it for 10 minutes without incident so I guess it was just really stiff bearings that needed to be loosened up as I mentioned before.

I found some 30-06 range brass that was out all winter in the same general area as the ones I found earlier, the snow had melted some more for me to see them. 3 hours in the tumbler with the 38 spl brass and they look brand new again. Amazing.

NavyVet1959
12-18-2017, 03:19 AM
And yet another thread made virtually useless thanks to the changes at Photobucket... :(

dikman
12-18-2017, 04:25 AM
Yep, I run into it all the time on forums. Photobucket doesn't deserve to have any business from anyone!

NavyVet1959
12-18-2017, 05:06 AM
Yep, I run into it all the time on forums. Photobucket doesn't deserve to have any business from anyone!

I used to store mine on my Google Drive storage and Google provided a method where you could share the photos embedded into web pages. Unfortunately, they changed that and I had to go back to all my old posts and change the URLs to the new location that I used for storage of the photos. At least with this site, you can edit your old posts, but on many sites, there is a time limit on how old of a post you can edit. I'm thinking that it *might* be possible to do it via Google Sites also, but they've changed that over the years, so it's probably not good to rely on them to stay the same either.

nun2kute
12-18-2017, 09:43 AM
dang, i red threw that hole post hoping for new pic's at the end ............[smilie=b:

William Yanda
12-18-2017, 10:05 AM
Manipulate the math or buy a $20 router controller to modify the motor speed.

jmorris
12-18-2017, 10:50 AM
Eliminate the math entirely by getting a gear motor and use a direct drive.

dragon813gt
12-18-2017, 11:04 AM
And yet another thread made virtually useless thanks to the changes at Photobucket... :(

Think it's bad on gun forums? Automotive forums have been gutted because of it. Almost all the DIY threads are now useless. Since repair manuals, actual repair manuals, for newer vehicles are virtually nonexistent those threads were indispensable.

bob208
12-18-2017, 11:17 AM
way back when we did a lot of brass. we used a cement mixer lined it and the paddles with rubber. we could do large amounts of brass.

W.R.Buchanan
12-18-2017, 03:58 PM
Yes Photobucket sucks big time! I got around all that by simply storing all my pics in "My Pictures" in Windows.

I have literally thousands of pics of my Jeep Project and they would have been irreplaceable if stored in Photobucket. I would have sued them ! I have over 900 pics on my build thread at 4BTSWAPS.com

Can't understand why more people didn't store in their home computers.

Randy

MUSTANG
12-18-2017, 04:06 PM
The TRUTH about "Cloud Storage is emerging. Those pictures and files you store "In the Cloud" no longer belong to you as the creator; they now belong to whatever Corporate "Cloud" entity has the file. I am a strong advocate that NONE of my files are stored "In the Cloud" if I can help it.

Similar lesson - different specifics - that I passed on to the Son's numerous times. If you are paying the bank or credit card company for an item YOU DO NOT OWN IT. If we are relying on an Interment "Hosting" or "Cloud Hosting" site to link our files, we no longer own it or control it; we are renting it or using it at their pleasure. Same goes for annual fees to use a Word Processor or other software.

NavyVet1959
12-18-2017, 04:43 PM
Yes Photobucket sucks big time! I got around all that by simply storing all my pics in "My Pictures" in Windows.

I have literally thousands of pics of my Jeep Project and they would have been irreplaceable if stored in Photobucket. I would have sued them ! I have over 900 pics on my build thread at 4BTSWAPS.com

Can't understand why more people didn't store in their home computers.


Hopefully, you backup those photos to other machines / drives / or DVDs periodically. Having them stored in one place is dangerous whether they are just at an online site like Photobucket or on your local hard drive.

My philosophy is to store the master copy of photos on local computers and to also have copies online of the ones where I want to link to them directly from posts in forums. That keeps me from having to upload the photo each time I want to reference it. It also means that if I've posted a link to that photo to multiple forums and I have a better photo that I want to use, all I have to do is replace the original photo that they all link to and it will get used by all the different sites where I originally posted it. For the most part though, I just store the smaller resolution photos online and keep the full resolution photos locally. There's rarely a good reason to post a 4Kx3K resolution photo online. Web forum posts should probably resized to be around 320x200 to 640x480 in size and at a higher JPEG compression so that you don't adversely affect those who are viewing the posts on cell phones with limited bandwidth.

Tazza
12-18-2017, 04:45 PM
I was told that you can always download your images from photobucket, you just can't use them on third party sites like forums that we all did.....

I keep getting emails to upgrade my account, what a deal, about $400, i give them the big middle finger.

NavyVet1959
12-18-2017, 05:14 PM
I was told that you can always download your images from photobucket, you just can't use them on third party sites like forums that we all did.....

I keep getting emails to upgrade my account, what a deal, about $400, i give them the big middle finger.

$400? That's ridiculous... You can get a real web hosting company with pretty much unlimited bandwidth & storage and your own domain for a lot less than that -- around $10US per month, IIRC.

If you have a Gmail.com email account (or are willing to get one), you might be able to use Google Sites to store your photo and link it here... I have one, so let me give it a try. Come to think of it, I might have tried this before, but I don't remember whether it worked... Here goes...

https://sites.google.com/site/navyvet1959/miscellaneous/glock-handguns/glock-21-45-super-%2Bp%2B-320.jpg

It worked!

So, that might be an option for some people...

Grmps
12-18-2017, 05:28 PM
I Get free treadmills on craigslist, you get the motor, variable speed control, rollers, belt pulleys and a steel frame to work with.

Tazza
12-18-2017, 05:30 PM
I have used tinypic too, google isn't a bad idea, hopefully they won't pull the photobucket BS later on.

NavyVet1959
12-18-2017, 06:00 PM
I have used tinypic too, google isn't a bad idea, hopefully they won't pull the photobucket BS later on.

I suspect that Google won't do the same thing that Photobucket did... They will do something *different*... :)

They previously had something that I believe was called Google Pages... So, you create your personal web page there and it all seemed good... Then they changed it to Google Sites and the URL changed plus their "port" of your page either looked completely different or it just did not have the same capability as the previous Google Pages. I think what happens is that they have some kids for developers over there and they just want to try new things and don't care about backward compatibility.

Since it was possible to link directly to a JPEG store there, I have to wonder if I could create a folder on the site and store HTML and JPEG files there and use it as a true hosting site and not be constrained by the look and feel that they impose on you with their templates.

So, I created a subfolder of "web" and put an HTML file in it. Getting the link to the actual file ended up with this:

https://sites.google.com/site/navyvet1959/web/conversion-factors.htm

When I click on it, the browser asks me whether I want to just download the file or to open it in another browser window. That's not acceptable behavior for a web page link, so I would say that it doesn't really work that well for that purpose.

And if I go into the HTML editor for the "web" page and paste the contents of "conversion-factors.htm" into it, it tells me that some of the HTML tags that I'm using are not allowed and the page looks a bit different than when I coded the raw HTML.

So, I would say that for now, storing JPEG images and linking them in posts on other forums is probably safe, but doing the same with HTML pages is not really usable.

dragon813gt
12-18-2017, 06:09 PM
The TRUTH about "Cloud Storage is emerging. Those pictures and files you store "In the Cloud" no longer belong to you as the creator; they now belong to whatever Corporate "Cloud" entity has the file.

All this was in the TOS. If people don't read them, I know they're ridiculous, that's on them. In this case ownership was clearly stated early on in the TOS. It's why I don't host pics of my children or family on there. Same w/ pics of myself. I think I've uploaded a total of two pics of myself since I started using the internet in the mid nineties.

None of the pics were lost on Photobucket. They just stopped allowing third party hosting. I used a service in the past that did shut down and I lost those pics. People that don't store pics on their physical computer are begging to lose them.

Flickr is still free and allows third party hosting. You retain more rights over the pictures. The site was designed for photographers. But the app doesn't generate links for the pics. And the workaround through a browser, in desktop mode, is cumbersome. Since most people access the internet on their phones this is a dumb decision on their part. For most people on this site it won't effect them one bit.

Tazza
12-18-2017, 06:10 PM
Someone always wants to fiddle....

That is essentially what i wanted to do too. I have web space with my ISP, but it is only about 20 meg, i upload files there and link to forums from it. I know this data is safe, but simply not enough of it to be of any real use. I don't know how google drive works, if you could store files there and the location was static or not, or if you must have a login and password to gain access.

Worst case, i could get a server somewhere with space, and simply use that, but the issue is if the company goes bust, data is gone. The only way around it is to have your own hostmark and backups of all data, so no matter what happens, your data can be put back up with the same links but a different server. How far do you go?

NavyVet1959
12-18-2017, 06:27 PM
Someone always wants to fiddle....

That is essentially what i wanted to do too. I have web space with my ISP, but it is only about 20 meg, i upload files there and link to forums from it. I know this data is safe, but simply not enough of it to be of any real use. I don't know how google drive works, if you could store files there and the location was static or not, or if you must have a login and password to gain access.

Worst case, i could get a server somewhere with space, and simply use that, but the issue is if the company goes bust, data is gone. The only way around it is to have your own hostmark and backups of all data, so no matter what happens, your data can be put back up with the same links but a different server. How far do you go?

Google Drive *used* to work, but they changed it so that you can't host photos to embed into web pages anymore.

If you go with normal web hosting provider with your own domain, even if the web hosting provider goes out of business, you still own the domain and all your links are relative to the domain, so you would just need to get another web hosting provider and upload your web to it. As long as you consider your local PC to be the main copy of your web files and the ones on the web site as just supplemental copies, it will not be too painful if you have to switch web hosting providers. If you are one of those people who think that storing the primary files "in the cloud" / on the net somewhere to be acceptable, then you will probably be in for a rude awakening one day and we'll get to say, "Well, I told you so..." :)

If the $10 per month for hosting your own domain seems too much for you, then you could get together with a couple of friends and split that among a few people. As long as no one went crazy with storing full resolution images and sharing them on the site, an account could probably be shared by a dozen friends and the web hosting provider wouldn't even notice the bandwidth being used. Now, if you started sharing video files, it would probably get noticed since they can be rather large.

Tazza
12-18-2017, 07:44 PM
I'd never EVER trust cloud storage as my primary storage site for my files. I have been around long enough to see companies go to the wall, taking data with them. I store my own files at home, i really should have multiple copies of data that i don't want lost, but i'll do that when a drive fails and i loose the lot :) you know how it goes, we don't take our own good advise till it's too late.

jmorris
12-19-2017, 10:15 AM
I'd never EVER trust cloud storage as my primary storage site for my files. I have been around long enough to see companies go to the wall, taking data with them.

Photobucket user?

Tazza
12-19-2017, 06:03 PM
Former photobucket user, yes :)

The files are still there for me to download, i just can't share them on forums like i did before.