KKTO Home Build

Brett_H

Kelsey wrote:

Cool, Sugru is rated to 180.

I was keen to try this until I saw what they did to that Nikon dslr! Already the most comfortable cameras... oh the horror: I'm out!

Kelsey

I've got to say this drive shaft and motor is causing me a great deal of grief. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Kw8QCfwAU&feature=youtube_gdata_player Plus it's now rarely making it up to full speed. I've read about it elsewhere and have seen it in action - the motor starts at a slower speed then switches to the faster speed. Mine's no longer switching to the faster speed.

Koffee_Kosmo

Personally I would be exchanging the motor for one that works and also seek a window winder motor I suspect that the gears or worm drive mechanism inside the housing are binding KK

Kelsey

Why is a window winder motor better?

Koffee_Kosmo

Kelsey wrote:

Why is a window winder motor better?

Its built similar to a wiper motor but has a thinner profile KK

Kelsey

Gotcha. Mounting doesn't look quite as easy on the ones I'm seeing on eBay, but it's hard to tell. The wiper motor was pretty easy.

Koffee_Kosmo

Kelsey wrote:

Gotcha. Mounting doesn't look quite as easy on the ones I'm seeing on eBay, but it's hard to tell. The wiper motor was pretty easy.

Should be similar KK

Brett_H

Mine starts like yours and I have to apply pressure to the agitator in the direction that it's turning to get it to speed up. Mine turns clockwise and will only turn at the lower speed anti clockwise. Give it some tough love and force it o turn faster.. that's how mine works.

Kelsey

Thanks for that Brett, that got it working! Here's a test without any beans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZs2H7DrPHU And here's a test that I left running for 30 minutes with 600g of green: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fai070do1ww&feature=youtu.be A couple of points:

I've definitely still got some driveshaft alignment issues - the holes between the roast chamber and the insert liner aren't perfectly aligned. I need to fix this
It looks to me as if the older blade (it's slightly darker in colour) needs to be straightened out - the beans on the newer blade are getting more agitated than the ones on the older blade - would anyone else agree?
I think I'll do that spring mod. It sounds like beans are getting caught under the agitator blades.

Nevertheless, I think I'll have a go at roasting those beans tonight even as it is. A heck of a lot of chaff was left in the insert liner even on this test run. Not quite as much as I've seen at the end of a full roast, but I wonder if it wouldn't be worth leaving the beans in there to de-chaff for 30 minutes or more, discarding the chaff, then doing the roast?

GaryatGala

Well done Kelsey, I prefer to vac out after every roast. My feeling is the chaff will add unwanted flavours to the roast because it shares the same environment as the beans. Initially i conducted 3 back to back roasts, and then found the beans had a slightly ashy taste on some batches, so i can only presume it's chaff related. gary at G

Brett_H

Awesome!!! What weight of greens is in thesecond video?

Lacehim

Nice vids Mr K. Give that old one a bash from me. I was going to do while you where here anyway. Re spring mod, happy to help and I think it will make a differance. Best mod I did to my KKTO was to get the twin blade from KK. Less noise and better adjatation. Give it ago. It's 95% done, and not a bad job for what it cost or the time it took to put it all together. Now it's all about the coffee and what's in the cup! :coffee2:

Kelsey

Brett H wrote:

Awesome!!! What weight of greens is in thesecond video?

600 grams

Lacehim wrote:

Nice vids Mr K. Give that old one a bash from me. I was going to do while you where here anyway. Re spring mod, happy to help and I think it will make a differance. Best mod I did to my KKTO was to get the twin blade from KK. Less noise and better adjatation. Give it ago. It's 95% done, and not a bad job for what it cost or the time it took to put it all together. Now it's all about the coffee and what's in the cup! :coffee2:

Yep, that's the plan - I'm going to pop out to Bunnings after dinner and get a fireblanket, finalise my cooler (just gotta cut the holes) and do a roast. I know I should start off small..... but I'm really tempted to just throw 600g in and go for it... 😃

Lacehim

I used zip ties to keep my fireblanket on. Good luck. 600 should be fine, just dont' leave yourself with a small amount if you only have that harrar to roast. PS. Bean Green was next day delivery! ???

Kelsey

I saw that! If it works out tonight, I'll be putting in an order with BeanGreen.

Kelsey

Preheating now.

Kelsey

Aaaaaand we're away!! Already longer than my first popper roast!

Kelsey

First crack came at 11.30mins, with what I thought was SC coming at 15.40mins. Pulled it almost immediately. First crack was relatively easy to hear, SC less so. The final roast looks a little uneven, but not worse than some professional roasts I've had, not sure if that's a characteristic of the harrar or not. Either way, I need to align the driveshaft more precisely (thanks for the tips on that KK) and get the springs on the agitator blade. I'm sure that at least some of the unevenness was down to the blade performance. No matter what, I was going to roast tonight and I'm not unhappy with the results. Thanks for all your help do far KK, Lacehim and AM!

Lacehim

Kelsey. Wow. Nice roast mate. Loved the write up, you really built it up! :laugh: The harrar I roasted looked just like yours, very uneven. If you've placed your BG order you should find that other beans will roast differently and more evenly. SC is quieter from my experience, but is usually accompanied by an increase in smoke too. At that stage it's okay to lift the lid and have a look and listen for a sec. Great job, and it's been a fun experience watching you building it. Great to see the results after all that hard work! 🙂 Your going to be busy over Christmas and New Year roasting to you hearts content! Keep us updated with progress and future roasts won't you.

Kelsey

Thanks Michael! Ideally AM will make it up this week and we'll all catch up and work out the kinks. A couple of little hiccups:

I needed to remove the handles on the inner pot as they stuck up at an angle that prevented the TO from sitting on the top with a nice seal
At the last moment the driveshaft wobble got worse causing a lot of scraping and in desperation to just give it a try I removed the silicone seal between the inner and outer pots and simply tucked in the fire blanket to form a seal. This allowed the pot to sit a little lower and the agitator a little higher
The wobble still caused a bit of 'knocking' in the pot and occasional jumps. I had to hold the pot down lightly to keep it in place

The first I'll fix by either inverting the handles (doesn't seem possible) or by mounting another handle. Everything else will be fixed by sorting out the driveshaft and agitator. All in all, a success!

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