Why does the Ocmer planetary mixer have 3-armed stars while other top mixers in its class have only two?
Ocmer’s designers have studied the action of both 2-armed and 3-armed stars and concluded that 3 are better for most sizes of mixer (one size has three 2-bladed stars). Not only because there are more arms and blades, but because the blades can be positioned to be much more effective. To start with, the arms can sweep the mixing volume more effectively because the more paths there are, the more times each area can be covered in every minute. This gives better mixing. Less obvious, however, is the angle of the blade. The combined rotation of star and individual blade across the mixer floor shows that the blades should be angled not at right angles to the star shaft but at a slight inward angle. This gives better sweeping action and eliminates lengthways slicing through the mix, which is ineffective and causes excessive wear.
