Feedback sought: New corretto/KKTO build

[nikko.the.scorpio]

Did 2nd roast with the KKTO yesterday. However I took the modified heat guard from the old TO and put it on the newer and enhanced Aldi TO. 500g of beans, I went with no preheating this time (as I'd noted that a number of other very savvy members don't seem to do this). Now amazingly so efficient was the rest of the system that IC occurred just about bang on 13mins but I didn't have to up the temperature above 175c for the entire roast (and I actually used 150c for first 5mins, then to 1C 175c, then back to 150c to start of 2c).

Very even roast, no scorching or tipping of the beans. Really just a pleasure to use.

Also I think I had slight misalignment of the roaster, stand etc last time - which placed more stress on the motor as this time it worked very well, no real labouring at all - and this is the original quite low power motor. So all positives.

[nikko.the.scorpio]

I wish my roaster had only cost $130! That sir is a good feat. I think mine came to approx $400 for materials used.

Ah yes but I haven't priced in the number of bottles of red, therapists hours or hair replacement drugs needed for the extra effort it took to put mine together! Like I said the $130 is if you place a value on the many items I used but already happened to have onhand and to be honest the vast majority of those really had zero residual value as they weren't used anymore e.g pots, 12v charger, etc. I mean if someone had offered me $30 for those pots several months back I'd have happily accepted it. So somewhere between the $130 and $50 I estimated - and much closer to the latter.

To be fair I just purchased an upgrade for the motor. I checked out whether I could just get a superior motor and put it into the gearbox but too much PITA. Found a very good one rated for 54rpm@12v - at load it's rpm drops to 43rpm but it is rated for a whopping 45kg/cm of torque. And whats more it's stall torque rating is a massive 180kg/cm!!!! No misprint thats really up there. Considering the current one that works but labours a tad is rated for around 6kg/cm. Around $25 delivered and I also should have a backup motor for it (should it ever fail, yanked it out of an old cheapie 12v drill I was meaning to toss away). FWIW it's item 2020560879 on Aliexpress.com

So bring that actual expenditure total to around $80 or so. :-)

Thanks for the pics. I like what you've done! The base looks great, at a little more user friendly height. Mine usually sits on an IKEA Lack table. Your agitator although not 'clean looking' seems solid as. Much stiffer wire than mine, and will probably last a fair bit longer. Got a video of the agitation? Will you need to tighten the bolts at all do you think?

Ah you're very kind mate - honestly I kept the pix a tad low res to hide the blemishes - but like I said I was always focusing on function over form. The good thing about the base is it was very easy to make. I can change the legs out for different height ones easily enough or further stabilise it with a bottom platform that the legs could slot into if desired. But I will leave as is for the moment as it's handy that its so light and also gives easy access to everything.

The agitator was a lil of a PITA, steel with aluminium from different sources and making everything by hand with only pretty entry level tools and novice skills wasn't ideal. I also had to kind of adjust everything to suit the required length of the drive shaft too. So I essentially made the stand (which fortuitously worked nicely to hide the coupler etc) but you've then got to measure all these multiple different bits that went together to make the drive shaft. Not ideal but worked well enough.

Yes, the wire agitators are VERY stiff - they were quite tricky buggers to bend properly. I realised early on that a sexy perfect looking shape/curve for these wasn't necessary and actually getting it too perfectly close to the edges just made bean snags more frequent.

Haha alas I didn't do a bean agitation video but I'll endeavour to try and get one up - if only as yours was so damn good so give me a lil bit to get this organised. :-)

You can see that discolouration of the silicone already - do you think that's from the alfoil rubbing on it, or from high temperature? I read in another thread that doing fan/heatguard modifications could increase the output temperature enough to cause trouble for the silicone tubing as it's only rated to 260 degrees. Just a thought.

Yes, you''re right about this and I noticed it from the very first roast. I think it's pretty normal as IIRC the other member I know whose KKTO I viewed had pretty worn looking silicone around the top gasket. I think it's just more noticeable on ours as it's a lighter shade. It's definitely from the heat and not the alfoil rubbing. If one wanted you could put a single layer of alfoil over it to add further protection from radiant heat, which shouldn't impact its sealing benefit too much. I think I'll keep an eye on it - if one gets several yrs use from it I don't see it as an issue but if it shows physical degradation (no sign of this yet, just discolouring) then I'd consider the alfoil over the top.

As stated I use a few layers of alfoil for my bottom gasket and it's absolutely perfect - though a tad more fiddly than the user friendly silicone.

I love that you're approaching this as a "feeling the vibe and using the senses" kind of roaster - complete opposite to me. It's so good to have that visual element as well. Also glad you didn't pre-heat as high as me, as a result of 250 degrees I ramped too fast.. That's the very next thing I'm adjusting on my next roast for sure. These cheap turbo ovens are far more efficient than complaints in the KKTO threads make out.

Well I think you kind of hit the nail on the head yesterday in your thread when you advised that as I'd come from a corretto system the KKTO automatically seemed a LOT more controlled - as that pretty much hits the nail on the heat for me. When I used a HG with a corretto I had a lid on the top but I couldn't see the beans, and so relied on a digital thermometer I inserted through the side wall and into the bean mass.

But having used the KKTO you feel far more confident in roasting by eye - given that you've a pretty good idea of when you want to hit your key roasting points e.g 1C, 2C etc. So I'm relatively confident with that side of things as I'm accustomed to roasting a ~500g batch. To be fair I do have several probes and a digital thermometer available so I might try and think of a couple of ways to use them but I also like the reduction of another layer of detail.....some would very understandably see this as essential but depends on if you really want that absolutely repeatable roast profile or if you're very happy to have variations.

One of the interesting things about using the KKTO manually (rolling it around to try and stir/move the bean mass), which I had the questionable luxury of doing around 4 times - was that you got a very varied roast within the roast. So some beans would end up being borderline Spanish roast (e.g charcoal) while others were very light 'cinnamon' roast type. Ok massively off ideal but it did add complexity to the roast and on that basis alone you do tend to think that if that hodgepodge roast tasted pretty good, imagine how much better the close to perfectly even machine agitated KKTO's results are....so I think by using such a great design we're already well ahead of the curve in many ways. But I think your way is far superior to mine in the ACTUAL results it will put out - the thing with coffee though is that there's so many links in the chain that factor into the end result in the cup that going nuts over one of them is something I kinda question the return on investment from.

Oh yes, they're very efficient little suckers. Especially when you're using a pretty small pot like myself. I've not had reason to crank it up to 250c yet, as is I barely need to turn it above 200c (which is what the vast majority of my roast was done on and that hit 1C at 13min and 2C just around 18-19min. I'll be playing around with it to see whats the best settings but they're definitely not struggling in the heat dept - especially when you've got them well sealed up and insulated.

That latter motor looks great. Built like a brick. 40rpm with 3 agitator arms would probably be close to perfect (if comparing against two arms) with the amount of agitation. If you ever change to a two arm design, all you'd have to do is pump 24v through the motor (according the the listing specs) and you'd be in the ballpark.
With a 1.5mm wall, the tubing looks the goods as well.

Yes, they did look good but interestingly the stall torque rating on those was ~30kg@12v whereas the one I ended up getting was 180kg for it's stall rating! To be fair it was around $4 more but still thats pennies compared to a 5 fold increase - even allowing for the usual Chinese exaggerated ratings thats more than ample several times over. Anyway it should arrive in a few weeks and the good thing is it's like for like so just pull the current one out and pop this in - no changing of any couplers etc needed.

The driveshaft replacement I think will be more long term and perhaps not needed at all - again it's one of those things I'll have to kind of monitor to see if any further damage to it occurs from usage but I believe it's pretty much fine due to the couple of improvised flanges (not gaskets) I made to hold/stablise & protect it from the steel pot edges.

[QUOTE=readeral;564843Well done Nick! Pretty impressed![/QUOTE]
Again much thanks mate, you've far too kind - I drew a LOT of inspiration from your build and couldn't of gotten my meagre results without the help from you. :-)

[readeral]

I wish my roaster had only cost $130! That sir is a good feat. I think mine came to approx $400 for materials used.

Thanks for the pics. I like what you've done! The base looks great, at a little more user friendly height. Mine usually sits on an IKEA Lack table. Your agitator although not 'clean looking' seems solid as. Much stiffer wire than mine, and will probably last a fair bit longer. Got a video of the agitation? Will you need to tighten the bolts at all do you think?

You can see that discolouration of the silicone already - do you think that's from the alfoil rubbing on it, or from high temperature? I read in another thread that doing fan/heatguard modifications could increase the output temperature enough to cause trouble for the silicone tubing as it's only rated to 260 degrees. Just a thought.

I love that you're approaching this as a "feeling the vibe and using the senses" kind of roaster - complete opposite to me. It's so good to have that visual element as well. Also glad you didn't pre-heat as high as me, as a result of 250 degrees I ramped too fast.. That's the very next thing I'm adjusting on my next roast for sure. These cheap turbo ovens are far more efficient than complaints in the KKTO threads make out.

That latter motor looks great. Built like a brick. 40rpm with 3 agitator arms would probably be close to perfect (if comparing against two arms) with the amount of agitation. If you ever change to a two arm design, all you'd have to do is pump 24v through the motor (according the the listing specs) and you'd be in the ballpark.
With a 1.5mm wall, the tubing looks the goods as well.

Well done Nick! Pretty impressed!

[nikko.the.scorpio]

I just thought I'd take the time to try and roughly calculate the cost of this KKTO - I'll flag up front that if I was doing it again I'd order superior quality components for the motor & driveshaft - also ideally I'd have known exactly what I needed in advance & could have ordered from OS earlier as postal delays and several items not arriving were significant PITAs.

Anyway so what was spent:

* 2 piece pot set: $30 (I actually already had this BUT is misleading to attach a zero value so will price the same as what several others have sourced theirs for).
* Turbo Oven: $30 (Aldi, plus 2 working backup ones 'found' one halogen, one solid state element.)
* Drive shaft couplers (2): $6 (Ebay, only used one 6->10mm but the 8->10mm one might be useful candidates for motor change)
* Copper washers: $4 (Ebay, pack of 20 didn't end up using any)
* 12v 60rpm motor: $10 (Ebay, this ended up being free as was refunded due to being delivered outside 6 week window. Long term I feel this needs upgrading)
* Silicone tubing: $5 (great stuff at the recommendation of Readeral for top pot to TO gasket, used crumpled aluminium foil on bottom pot to pot gasket, which also works very well)
* Thermocouple sensor: $3 (Ebay, unused but perhaps will incorporate down the track)
* Inline light power switch: $1 (Ebay, unused)
* 10mm Aluminium pipe: $5 (Bunnings, used around 25cm of it - in hindsight should of used SS but couldn't locate at non-speciality outlets)
* 1/4" socket extension: $3 (already had and it was only a very short one, used both ends to make easy break drive shaft connection)
* MDF sheet: $10 (Bunnings, only used around 1/3 of it)
* 20mm plastic conduit: $5 (Bunnings, used around 10% of it! Amazing how much of this you get for $5! Almost 3metres of it)
* SS screws: $5 (Bunnings, used 2 of 5)
* Whisk: $2 (Reject Shop)
* 12v PSU: $10 (already had but arbitrary value, used old 2.5A battery charger)
* Fire blanket: $5

Total: $134 of projected spend (actual spend that didn't include items already in my possession, partially used deductions or not used in the project is actually a total of ~$50!). Haha now I just have to put a price on my sanity in tinkering with it so long but by the same token you could say that was 'amusement' and in which case I should actually see that as a positive/credit. Either way very cost effective.

Like I flagged earlier i do think that I'll need to replace the current motor. It's rated at 6.5kg/cm of torque but thats kind of borderline for whats required & I do suspect that it'll end up burning out before it completes too many roasts. Even if I wasn't looking to upgrade I'd still want to keep a backup motor around as its the part of the system most likely to fail (everything else being relatively static/simple).

There's basically several options.

1) Keep the existing motor's gearbox & simple order a similar speed motor but of superior build quality: The gearbox thats on the current motor is actually used with several superior models and so it's quality is likely reasonable. If a failure occurred it's likely to be a motor burnout and so this could just be replaced (which I think is a very simple switchover). ~3500rpm motor needed.

2) Keep it simple and order something similar BUT rated at high torque: Something like 331659176525 is rated at double the torque (13.15kg/cm) and is same mount & shaft diameter.

3) Or for basically the same price get something that should have significantly more torque e.g 351493959520 - would have to change to the 8mm->10mm coupler & adjust for right drive shaft height but while not given a torque rating it looks a considerably superior piece of kit. At 12v it is only doing 40RPM (vs ideal 60-70) but I have 3 agitators on my unit (rather than standard 2) so I don't think the actual amount of bean movement will be far from ideal).

Am leaning towards the latter as it just looks considerably superior to the other two - like thats a really significant gearbox & if you had an issue you could just replace the motor. I'd have to adjust it's mount height/depth so that it meshes up with the current drive shaft length but should be easy enough to put in.

For the drive shaft I figure some 10mm stainless steel tube is the best bet. Tube means I can just use the same design of popping the socket bits in the end for an easy connection. Also much easier to drill than solid steel rod. Rubbing against the pot edges would not be an issue, but I actually think this won't be as vital a replacement as the motor and with the gasket in place the aluminium shaft will last a long time (I'm planning on regularly checking it for wear to monitor this). Something like this would be a good replacement though I might be able to find local cheaper: 111778677806

[readeral]

Oh wow, massive post concurrent with mine. I'll have a read..

[readeral]

Hopefully she's a good dancer!

I've been having a great time with my KKTO, so you won't know yourself once it's all rigged up. Still got lots to learn (e.g. realised that my preheat basically stopped any controlled drying phase from occurring!) but damn is it so much easier than my popper, and my neighbours Corretto.

I've written a few cautionary notes on my thread, might be worth having a read and adjusting while you have the chance.

I've also found that the insulation of the fire blanket is entirely sufficient in decent weather. Obviously haven't done roasting in cool weather, and won't for a few months, so that will be the real test, but for now, pretty happy with it.

Nice score on the TO tops! You could chat to a sparky friend and see if you can modify it - or wire in a TC4, which I would so love to do, but with purchasing a new TO top it's a costly experiment.

[nikko.the.scorpio]

Ok, sorry for the delay in getting back with pix and a 'final' wrap up - a few things came up and my OCD required them taken care of before I could be distracted by anything else. Before I get into things I'd like to again specially thank Kosmo_Koffee for his fantastic design, wonderful documentation of all aspects of this that he's freely made available and also his consistant happily & constructively given feedback & suggestions. A real credit to you!

I'd also like to thank Readeral who's given me a heap of help, linked many very useful items & just generally been a massive aid in the whole project. Plus he's a heck of a nice guy to boot and though his KKTO makes mine feel very much like the ugly cousin thats quite ok with me! So much thanks Al!

Has been an eventful past 24hrs. I thought I had it all put together properly & coming from an IT background whenever you do a new hardware build you stress test it thoroughly prior to commencing active use. So on Sunday night I fired the TO up to ~250c and put it on. After 10mins or so the engine became a tad more laboured and a slight shake developed and then a few minutes later it stopped completely. I quickly killed the TO and the motor to assess the cause. There was a burning smell that I couldn't locate the source of & wasn't sure if that was to do with the motor stopping or not. By this time it was quite late and I put a fan on it to cool things and went to bed, not sleeping well as I was pondering the issue.

Sure enough next morning with the system all cooled down I had a closer check and the holding plate that sits over the wire agitators had it's edges just catching/rubbing on an aluminium disc I'd siliconed over a DIY gasket I'd made in the hole for the top roasting pan. I stole the inspiration for this from Readeral.

One of the issues with my design (which was always kind of done as a challenge to see how little I could spend to make it - though in hindsight this was highly stupid, as I made some things much harder for myself & also I'm suspect on the longevity of several bits....but anyway I will replace those in due course) was that the motor to driveshaft was made up of MULTIPLE pieces that were connected together. Thus having a perfectly straight driveshaft to minimise stress on the motor & rubbing on the holes in the pots etc was always going to be a challenge.

KK's brilliant design has the motor connection that the drive shaft slots into and thats literally it - one lovely piece of driveshaft all the way up. So mine? Ok well bear with me but I had the motor 6mm shaft, then a 6->10mm coupler, piece of 10mm aluminium pipe with a female socket bit in it, then a male socket bit thats mounted in another piece of 10mm aluminium tube! So getting all of these perfectly straight with each other was challenging. Thankfully the coupler has a built in tolerance for being slightly off centre by having a spiral groove/cut in it but still getting the drive shaft to go perfectly up through the holes in both the pots is tough.

So I was finding it was rubbing a tad on the top/roasting chamber pot. I didn't want to make the hole larger than needed, lest it make the issue worse so I made a small gasket from a piece of leftover thermal silicone lined with fibreglass from the breadmaker. I placed this in the hole, put a slit in it (as it was slightly small), siliconed in place on top and bottom, then put cuts in the vertical top and bottom so that looking down it was cut into quarters, I then siliconed these down onto the roasting pot so it wad a very strong hold. I later siliconed an aluminium ring/disc (which I had pulled out of an old HDD) over the top of this on top to help protect it from the bean mass.

Haha long winded way of saying this is what was rubbing on the drive shaft's holding/backing plate. Had to remove part of both with the rotary tool, it then worked fine.

I went with 3 loops of stainless steel (from a whisk), 2 of them I was able to have curved forward but one had to go backwards. Easy enough to do but it pays not to obsess too much about having them close to the edge of the roaster, doing this just increases the chances of beans getting stuck/jammed. Anyway the silicon gasket worked really well as I had been getting rubbing on the driveshaft against the steel pot and that would not have been sustainable with it being aluminium (in hindsight I should have gone with steel rod but I couldn't find any).

ANyway so feeling I'd corrected the issue I again set to testing it. So first it was an empty roaster with no heat. I ran this for 40mins non-stop & worked well. So the next test was with 500g (my normal roast size) of beans. The motor did labour a little (though to be fair I'd not heard it under load before so it could just be normal) but again 40mins later and no issue at all other than a few jammed beans, which I adjusted the agitators in from the edge to alleviate.

Oh and I'd painted 3 beans with red nail polish and ensured that I used them in my testing. Worked REALLY well, the beans were disappearing and then coming back for a few secs then ducking out of sight again over and over - which is exactly what you want to see as that shows the bean mass is being rotated both up and down as well as around the chamber. Very happy with that and thats a brilliant idea to test in that way so much thanks to whoever came up with that!

So the final test to do before an actual roast was the one that'd ended in failure 24hrs earlier, empty roaster but with full/maximum heat. And I should point out that as I'd 'found/rescued' two working TO tops a few days earlier I'd decided to 'tweak' the heat shield on one of them to maximise the amount of heat that was hitting the beans (rather than the heat shield) - KK had cut some holes around one of his but I went a bit further cutting it so that all that remained was the perimeter and then 3 sections from each of the screws that met in the middle (think a Mercedes logo). FWIW I'm unsure about this - seemed to work well but perhaps a lil too well but I'll see.

Anyway so I ran this final test for 20mins and again I started getting a bit of smoke that I couldn't locate the source of. I turned everything of fearing that the silicon gasket was suffering. But upon inspection that was fine. I then realised that the cause was the external wrapping/insulation I'd made up. I'd used the oven glove type design of a layer of cotton and then two layers of Insul-Bright, for the cotton I'd used one of my wife's old discarded singlets (which was she's quite petite worked nicely to fit just around the pot) this was doubled over and a double layer of the Insul-Bright wedged in the middle protected by the cotton. Well alas the heat was too much for the cotton, which had started to break down and had crisped up and become very crumbly & was prolly only another 10c off off catching fire! So I instead went with a fireblanket folded over multiple times, ziplocket this in place and then pot the slightly tatty looking cotton & Insul-Bright layer over the top. Overkill but I'd have just had to toss the old layer if I'd not used it.

Oh another thing I'd noticed was that when I ran the TO and then electric motor from the same power board off an extension cord that the motor suddenly went a tad slower when the TO was turned on. I know other folks have suggested this before & I was dubious but it definitely pays to either have a very high amperage extension cord or use two of them (which is what I did).

Also after the motor had laboured a little with the load of beans I recalled KK's advice of using a 2.5A power supply - whereas I was using only a 1A one. So I thought this might assist the motor a tiny bit. I remembered I had an old 12v battery charger that I no longer use, so I pull that out and tested that it worked fine with the motor - which it did. And it was bang on 2.5A output so a perfect match.

So I figured I was ready to go with an actual roast! 500g of beans (can't recall off the top of my head exactly what it was but I tend to always go with the KJM type blend of 4 different region beans). Preheated for 5mins on around 175c. Added and kept at this heat for another 5mins, then went to 200c before upping to 225 just before I expected 1C. Got 1C perfectly at around 13min (sorry I don't do roasting software & decided I'd roast by sight rather than using a thermometer). Didn't burp but instead dropped it back to 200c through rolling 1C. Kept it at this level and as soon as I got the first 2C occurring I dumped into my new cooler (which makes a HUGE difference) and cooled with another fan on top for a push-pull cooling effect (works ever so well, completely cool in 30-45sec).

Suffice to say I was very happy...no issues at all in the roast. Everything worked very well. The beans were far and away the most evenly roasted I have EVER roasted in 5yrs+ of home roasting. With the HG-corretto roasts they'd generally be pretty good but often there'd be some tipping or scorching of the beans. When I had to improvise in this KKTO before I had the motor and had to swirl the beans by moving the saucepan around (which was a PITA but it can be done) I got a LOT of variation with beans either burnt to a crisp or very underdone. But the proper KKTO stirred things beautifully (as the coloured bean testing had shown) and a really lovely even roast was the result. Basically it was chaff free as well, just a few bits in it but otherwise absolutely perfect.

Oh whilst I am sure the KKTO's superior design is largely responsible for the very even roast I'd also taken to preblending my beans for my next roast in a smallish sealed container on the same day I do the proceeding roast...so essentially the 500g will be sealed for around 2 weeks to help even out the moisture level of the 4 different bean types. Dunno if that actually assists much but I've been giving that a try recently just out of curiousity.

Bagged it immediately and had it this morning, absolutely lovely. One of the best roasts flavourwise I've ever done. Like seriously good, even the wife was remarking on how lovely it was and she isn't a great pundit for such things.

This post is getting way too long (my apologies for it's rambling nature) so I will post some pix and lodge another post later with final costs, some improvements I'm already planning and a few other things.
IMG_0126 by NG, on Flickr
My modest little KKTO! The conduit legs keep it nice and light plus easy to access everything. The pot has 4 silicone feet on it's underside so there's a ~3mm gap between it and the MDF's surface - piece of alfoil on top just to give a lil more protection. Did have a cover over the motor but removed to keep it cool.

IMG_0127 by NG, on Flickr
The cheap little motor (which I'm already planning on upgrading) - MDF very easy to work with thought you've got to seal/waterproof the whole thing.

IMG_0125 by NG, on Flickr
Roasting pan with the old hard drive aluminium part over the silicon/fibreglass DIY'd gasket, looks ugly but works very well.

IMG_0124 by NG, on Flickr
Drive shaft with the male socket bit coming out of the aluminium pipe. The rubbing/abrasions on it were mainly done in early testing. Adding of the silicon gasket essentially alleviated this BUT I am still thinking I might have to replace it down the track with a steel one.

[nikko.the.scorpio]

Ah well I couldn't help myself and had to take a peek, yours looks great! Haha I think yours will be the belle of the ball and mine will be the lass with the 'great personality' who's sitting by herself waiting to be asked to dance! haha but to be fair right from the get go I knew that I was kind of doing it to try and get the same end results (on the roasting front) with minimal emphasis on looks - rather doing it for as little expenditure as possible (which I kind of regret now as it's made things that should be simple a PITA but c'est la vie).

The stand is a triple layer of 16mm MDF cut into ~220mm x 220mm squares. Glued and clamped together. Then inserted 4 x ~35mm screws into it to ensure it was rock solid. Drilled a central 25mm hole that the female socket bit connects to the coupler to the motor's drive shaft. So all that sits inside the MDF, nice and out of the way. The motor I went with was the Zheng one thats not massively dissimilar to the one KK sourced. 60rpm from a 12v 3500rpm motor.

Anyway I rigged up a mounting bracket for it on a piece of spare metal sheeting. Thankfully from all my IT projects had just enough tiny screws that were able to screw into it, that's then screwed into the underside of the MDF triple sandwich. I might rig up some kind of basic plastic cover for it but I'll just use something simple like a spare old flower pot or an old yogurt container - could of screws or similar to hold that over it.

The 4 legs were going to be wooden dowel (haha the big legs on yours look great!) but I ended up going with a length of 20mm heavy duty plastic conduit which was around $4.50 for a ~4m length! 4 ~15cm legs are cut and the 20mm holes have been drilled on the underside, just need to put in and anchor once I've made sure they're all even. Have some lil rubber feet I'll prolly hot glue onto the base of these.

Just waiting for the MDF sandwich to dry from the coats of black paint & varish I put over it (MDF very easy to work with by very vulnerable to moisture). So I'll let that dry and then bung another layer on top for good measure.

I've got some little silicone feet that I might glue onto the top of the platform to lift the pot up off the MDF, dunno if I will do this or just put some scrap cotton etc in between. As I changed from that earlier design that was using the breadmaker's motor I have 3 small holes drilled in the base of the pot that I can simply pop one of the intended screws through and then drill a hole in the MDF and that's an instant anchor point....but unsure if I will do this yet.

Then once I have the final height of the stand done I can finalise the agitator's position etc. Luckily I watched your excellent videos as I had thought the curves on the wires were meant to be concaved but obviously this is incorrect. So they should be easy enough to knock up.

For external insulation around the roasting pot I think I'll use some of the left over insul-bright I have. Layer some cotton underneath then double a layer of insul-bright over this. Either stitch the two together on the wife's sewing machine or just tie them in place & cable tie.

Haha the entire thing will look a bit of a Frankenstein but if the function is good (and it will be very small, light & easy to replace - alter bits on I'll be very happy).

On an amusing sidenote they have a council cleanup in our area soon and 2 Turbo oven tops were out in front of a house just down from me...I figured I'd use them for spares and brought them home. SUre enough both of them work perfectly! So I now have a couple of backups in this area as well!

Sorry for the lack of pix but my 'gal' is ugly enough as is that you need to let me get her all together first before I show off her nastiness. ;-)

[readeral]

Erm, yeah. Finish your stand before having a look :P

Good to know you're moving forward though! How'd you go with the motor decisions?

[nikko.the.scorpio]

Hi Al,

Cheers for your post - I was actually wondering the same with yourself.

I was held up waiting for what I thought was the correct coupler I'd re-ordered from China - turns out I'd accidently ordered the wrong one AGAIN - but I managed to do a bit of a workaround so I could use it, so the drive shaft is all done.

The second hold up was due to me being a tad distracted as I'd bought a 2nd hand woodworking table (Actually an old Triton Mk3 for buffs of this area) - as we've only a small garage this was a bit of a PITA but makes cutting wood much easier.

I also had about my millionth change of design for the stand/base for the unit - though I think this one is the simplest & most user friendly of them all - I'll post up some pix later today - am just about 50% through making the stand, need to get some wooden dowel and drill a few holes but thats about it.

Saw you've posted again on your build but haven't read it yet, as literally heading out the door but look forward to seeing where you're at - haha I'm sure I'll feel bad when I see as it'll be fantastic! The grass is always greener.....

Cheers, Nick

[readeral]

Hey Nick,

Where you up to with this one? I'm curious...

Al

[readeral]

Looks like you're on your way then!! Well done!

I totally get the whole 'prefer to put in my time than money' thing. I do that all the time, but usually with things like building my own website or graphic design. For me, another reason I went KKs parts, is because I would have spent the same $$ (and more) on tools (and more time on learning to use them!) instead. I live in an apartment, so don't own a shed of tools.

My very first car cost me $2000. A few months later, it was sitting on the side of the road with a blown head gasket, as the bloke who sold it to me hadn't had tubing replaced. A few thousand $ (and months saving) later, I was back on the road - and then something else went..

In 18 months of owning the car, I drove it for maybe a scratch over 6 months, spent $5000 all up on it, and sold it with a newly replaced starter motor for $1100 and 6 days rego left. I learned a big lesson in the meaning of 'sunk cost' (and what it felt like to owe family significant money!)

[nikko.the.scorpio]

@kk, you're right and in hindsight perhaps thats the superior choice. I came from a really poor family and I do often tend to make the mistake of not properly pricing in my own time plus PITA factor on top of the 'most cost effective' route/bits. As often - and this might have been one of those times, getting something that might cost more upfront is actually more cost effective overall! (and perhaps also int he longer term as i know your parts are absolutely top shelf quality)

Haha but anyway I'm so deep in this sucker now I'll ride it out for better or worse.

I've actually had a rare stroke of luck (on this project anyway) - as previously stated I cut a small 1/4" socket extension bar up with an angle grinder. I then chamfered the leading edges around the cut section. I then cut off a section of the aluminium tube and gently hammered it in. Once I got it in a bit I applied a little heat from a blowtorch and put it in a bit further. Ended up with an exceedingly tight fit (absolutely no way it's twisting/spinning, even given the heat of a roast). There's around 15mm of socket bar up inside the tubing. I'd considered applying some epoxy or super glue before/after but it's so firm, even when heated I don't think it's needed.


Also pictured is the other end of the cut up socket extension which will act as the joint for this - it will be screwed into the 6mm to 8mm coupler thats onroute (it's pictured in the 8 to 10 I already have). Suffice to say they connect exceedingly well giving me the easy connect/disconnect option thats ideal. The Aluminium will be very easy to drill so the agitator/backing plate should be much easier to fit (I was dreading drilling into that steel so a huge relief!).

[readeral]

But really - KKs parts have been a dream to work with. You wouldn't need to buy all the bits I did as you have a different pot set, just the motor and shaft. You could fashion your own agitator if you wanted.

[readeral]

Haha talk to my wife and she'll tell you it hasn't nearly been straight forward! I'm always 'umming and aahhing' wanting to make sure I thoroughly understand the 'why' of KKs instructions before I move forward, just in case I screw it up and then need to make adjustments to fix it.

But, in another sense you're absolutely right. I haven't had to make many decisions, KKs parts are well designed and work together, and aside from my over-active engineering brain wanting contingency plans for every step, the actual steps taken have been very simple.

I'm with KK on this one. Pick up his motor and drive shaft and you'll be laughing.

Or just make it fixed. Don't pull the pot to dump it. It'll make cleaning the chaff out a pain, cause you'll have to unscrew parts - but heck, better than nothing!
You really do want it to be one connection from the motor to the shaft - and then if need be one connection on top of the shaft to your agitator. You could have it in two parts that both come out, that'd be ok.