Still have some more work to go on it, but here it is put together for a test run of milling the grain. I also managed to cut almost the entire thing from a single sheet of plywood. Trying to keep the cost down.
I really only needed a 1/2 hp motor, but I found an old evap cooler motor for $40 on craigs list. So I thought, why not 1 hp. And as most things with brewing... why not overdesign the thing.. lol. Most of the 1/2 hp motors I saw did not have a startup capacitor... which from what I understand is...
Testing the spacing of the mill and motor was interesting. I got some cheap plywood and mocked up the mill top to see how big a hole I would need to cut for the large wheel and belt. I am using a 1HP motor @ 1725 rpm's. I used a free pulley calculator HERE: Pulley Calculator. RPM, Belt Length...
The plan was to have it mill into a bucket, that sits on a shelf on drawer glides so you can slide it out easily. The bucket in my "brewery" gets used later in the brew day for sanitizer, so it would not live in the cabinet. BUT... i like the idea of it milling into a bag. Then the entire thing...
Its still a work in progress, so its not finished yet, but the build is 90% done. I'll get some progress pics posted here soon. The toughest part has been trying to get the motor and pulleys to work with my mill.
After looking at all the great Mill Cabinet designs on here (and wanting to motorize my mill for YEARS), I decided it was time to draft one up (haha.. draft...). I wanted it to be small enough to roll under my existing workbench when not being used, and be closed up when not in use to keep dust...