Low Profile Motorized Grain Mill Cabinet

[BenhamBrewing]

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 out of it (from other projects). I also wanted to put a shelf or a drawer on it to keep my specialty grains in/store my grain scale. I've been powering my Monster Mill MM3 for the past 7 years or so with a drill, so i was REALLY looking forward to actually putting a motor on it. I started in Google Sketchup, and after 4 iterations, i came up with this:

 

[BenhamBrewing]

The cool thing with this design, is that the top flips down keeping it lower profile, and cleaner looking when not in use.

 

[BenhamBrewing]

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.

 

[Kahler]

I really like that it folds down! Does it mill into a bag? Or where will the bin go when folded down?

 

[BenhamBrewing]

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 would fold up inside...

 

[BenhamBrewing]

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, Speed, Animated Diagrams which was AWESOME! Helped to calculate the final RPM's based on wheel size AND how close my mill and motor could be.

 

[TBA]

Very ingenious idea for it to fold up! So did you have the 1 hp motor? Seems like a lot. I use my drill and it has enough power. Any links for cheap motors?

 

[BenhamBrewing]

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 better when powering the mill.

 

[BenhamBrewing]

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.