DaveSeattle
Well-Known Member
I built a hop carousel to use with my BrewTroller microcontroller for automated hop dispensing, and thought some of you might want the plans:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...8188&authkey=!ADiRYtEXiU2mHa0&ithint=file,zip
It has 6 slots, each of which can hold about 3 oz. of pellets or 1 oz. of whole hops. The carousel is 3D printed in two parts on a MakerBot printer but is easily adaptable to other printers, though you'll need a reasonably large bed size for it to have decent capacity. Note that it takes a long time to print, about 24 hours per piece on the RepRap, due to the size. The .scad files are OpenSCAD files.
This is designed for use with this motor:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B1KXV3Q/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
But is easy to adapt to any other. On that particular motor I found it easiest to solder my wires on, as the connecting terminals were very small. In v2 I'll have some kind of protective case for the motor and wiring.
After printing, you’ll need to lightly sand the outside edges of the inside piece so that it turns smoothly, and you may need to drill out the hole in the carousel to fit the motor. Note that the motor spindle is just a compression fit (i.e. jam it in there). Because of the motor’s gearbox, you’ll need to attach the outside piece of the carousel to the motor. I used epoxy for this. It only needs to be affixed enough that the dispensing hole can't get bumped out of position - the outside piece doesn’t take any structural stress. I could rework the part so that the gearbox sticks up inside the center piece, but that would be a pain and this works well enough. The base part also has an indent that I had intended the motor to fit into, before I noticed the gearbox; this is still in the STL file but doesn't affect anything.
You’ll need a clamp to mount this to your kettle. I used a hose clamp around the handle of my keggle that connects to a series of L brackets that hold the thing in the right position. It’s quite light so it doesn’t take much to mount it securely.
Lastly you’ll need something to control it. I use the BrewTroller to emit a 400 ms pulse per desired rotation. This isn’t perfect (the rotation isn’t perfectly even), but close enough to work. V2 will include a sensor to stop it at exactly the right time.
Pictures attached. Aesthetic appearance was not a consideration, though you could make this look pretty fairly easily.
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...8188&authkey=!ADiRYtEXiU2mHa0&ithint=file,zip
It has 6 slots, each of which can hold about 3 oz. of pellets or 1 oz. of whole hops. The carousel is 3D printed in two parts on a MakerBot printer but is easily adaptable to other printers, though you'll need a reasonably large bed size for it to have decent capacity. Note that it takes a long time to print, about 24 hours per piece on the RepRap, due to the size. The .scad files are OpenSCAD files.
This is designed for use with this motor:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B1KXV3Q/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
But is easy to adapt to any other. On that particular motor I found it easiest to solder my wires on, as the connecting terminals were very small. In v2 I'll have some kind of protective case for the motor and wiring.
After printing, you’ll need to lightly sand the outside edges of the inside piece so that it turns smoothly, and you may need to drill out the hole in the carousel to fit the motor. Note that the motor spindle is just a compression fit (i.e. jam it in there). Because of the motor’s gearbox, you’ll need to attach the outside piece of the carousel to the motor. I used epoxy for this. It only needs to be affixed enough that the dispensing hole can't get bumped out of position - the outside piece doesn’t take any structural stress. I could rework the part so that the gearbox sticks up inside the center piece, but that would be a pain and this works well enough. The base part also has an indent that I had intended the motor to fit into, before I noticed the gearbox; this is still in the STL file but doesn't affect anything.
You’ll need a clamp to mount this to your kettle. I used a hose clamp around the handle of my keggle that connects to a series of L brackets that hold the thing in the right position. It’s quite light so it doesn’t take much to mount it securely.
Lastly you’ll need something to control it. I use the BrewTroller to emit a 400 ms pulse per desired rotation. This isn’t perfect (the rotation isn’t perfectly even), but close enough to work. V2 will include a sensor to stop it at exactly the right time.
Pictures attached. Aesthetic appearance was not a consideration, though you could make this look pretty fairly easily.
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