Saturday, January 12, 2008

The Stainless Air Roaster



This is my first home roaster. I built it out of a Poppery II and various bits from the kitchen and hardware sections. I separated the heating elements and the fan and ran them through a single 3 position switch. The body is a stainless canister and the bowl is a Dietz lantern chimney which fits perfectly in the shortened popper chamber. I built in "ground effects" using LEDs in the acrylic legs that change from red to blue as the heating element is turned on and off. The roaster is small and can only roast about 1/4 cup of green beans at a time but it looks great and gives good results.

10 comments:

Thompson Owen said...

amazing design, and the lighting is very cool. you are incredibly talented.

Anonymous said...

I'm curious about your wiring scheme. How you have it wired, is the fan, on cooling mode, the only thing on the AC line (other than your groundlights)? Many folks have recommended stepping down fan voltage to 25VAC when running it alone, but I'd rather not if it's unnecessary.

Anonymous said...

It's been quite awhile since I built this machine so I'm talking from slightly fuzzy memory here. I did have to step down the voltage for the fan. The popper has two heating elements, one of which is in series with the fan-acting as a voltage divider. I split that element off of the fan and tied it in with the main element. The heating elements run on line-voltage AC, I think. I bought a small transformer to step the voltage down for the fan. I also ended up needing a couple of small transformers to run the lights-one for red and one for blue. I needed multiples because I wanted to use a switch that I had on hand and I had access to a batch of discarded transformers that worked with my LEDs. I was working on the cheap so I did what I could with what I had.

Casey said...

Wow! Thanks! I'll e-mail you regarding building one for sale.

coffee_friend said...

Hi Casey,
This is very cool. I'm impressed with your simple and straightforward design. If you're still interested in building another one for sale, please contact me.

--Roger

rsmith05 (a) gmail dot com

Casey said...

Thanks! I will send you an e-mail.

Unknown said...

Casey, do you still build coffee roaster? I am interested in having one as well. Please contact me. Thanks,
Vivian

Casey said...

I guess that I should note that I am hesitant to build these for other people as there are risks involved in using one. Fire danger is always part of home roasting for one thing. Also, since I have to hack the electrical system of the popper, I am concerned about the risk of shock from any mistakes that I may have made. That being said, if anyone is really interested in one of these roasters, let me know and maybe I can put together as kit of parts that will help you build your own.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Hey! I have a Poppery II and I'm interested in this design. How much would one of those conversion kits cost?

Please email me at Rich.L.Hill.3 [at] gmail [dot] com.

Casey said...

Unfortunately, at the moment I do not have the time to put any parts kits together. It has been long enough since I built this one and I no longer have it to reproduce so it would just take me too long figure it all back out. Thanks for the interest though.