Introduction: Motorized Coffee Roaster From Popcorn Maker

By www.laughingdogllc.com

I have started my journey in home coffee roasting. One of the most affordable ways to get started in home roasting is with a Whirley Pop popcorn maker. The biggest drawback to this is that it has to be cranked the entire roasting process. This is my solution to that very issue.

My ultimate goal was to keep the original functionality of hand crank, so if I wanted to revert back to the manual version I could in just a couple of minutes.

Enjoy, and dont forget to VOTE!

Step 1: Remove Hand Crank

You will need to remove the hand crank from the Whirley Pop. There is a Allen set screw on the end of the hand crank rod. Back this set screw out a couple of turns so that it slides off of the end of the crank.

Step 2: Modify Motor Shaft

The motor I used is a 12V DC gear motor I purchased a long time ago from Jameco Electronics.

To modify the shaft I connected the motor to a power source and turned it on. I then used a Dremel with a grinding wheel and removed enough material to reduce the shaft size to the proper diameter.

Once the overall diameter was achieved, I then used the end of the grinding wheel to create a flat side.

Take your time during this step. Do not remove too much material at once. (USE SAFETY GEAR)

Here is the link to where I bought the http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_253518_-1

Step 3: Mount the Motor to the Roaster

In this last step you will fish the wire through the hole in the handle and solder the wires to the terminals on the motor (I connected the wires in reverse to make the auger run counter clockwise, sometimes the beans jamb going clockwise)

I used an old power supply left over from some IKEA LED lights. Installed an inline power switch and thats about it.

The motor free floats and is not mounted to the kettle top. I will keep an eye on it to see if I want to mount it permanently in the future.

This modification does not affect the original mechanism and can be converted back to the hand crank in just a few minutes.

Thanks for taking a look at my project and dont forget to VOTE!