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Post by Ben on Apr 26, 2011 8:21:57 GMT -5
The motor in one of my CocoaTown Ultra melangers is dying and I'd like to replace it with something more powerful.
The motor in the ultra is from Marathon Electric---model D 037, although I can't find that on their site to get better specs. It's about 5" in diameter with 3 mounting bolts.
I've looked around but all the motors I've found are a larger diameter (5 5/8") and have 4 mounting bolts.
There's enough room in the ultra for the larger motor, but it would need a new mount plate or some sort of conversion mount.
So, has anyone replaced the motor in one of the cocoa town ultra melangers or figured out how to mount a (standard?) blower motor?
Thanks, Ben
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Post by oaxacalote on May 10, 2011 12:39:25 GMT -5
What's the point of getting a more powerful motor? Better nib grinding? Longer lasting? I spent a tremendous amount of time replacing the motors in a couple of Santhas with a larger 1/2 hp motor without any notable improvement in performance. I would consider a stock replacement a good option.
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Post by Ben on May 11, 2011 9:16:19 GMT -5
My main reason for going more powerful is better nib grinding.
I pregrind my nibs in an old, olde tyme peanut butter grinder. It really needs new grinding plates, so for now it doesn't really put out liquor so much as chunky nib butter. Even with pregrinding somewhat, though, the existing motor struggles when I add too much.
I really want to shorten the amount of time it takes to get nibs into the machine. This is one of my big bottlenecks at this point. I'm hoping that the more powerful motor will allow me to add more of the preground paste in at a time.
Longer lasting would also be good. I burned the existing motor out in about 6 months. Another thing I'm hoping for is slightly larger batches. I've found that I have to stay under 8 lbs. I wouldn't mind being able to go up to 9 or so.
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Post by Ben on May 11, 2011 9:26:26 GMT -5
I should mention that since my original post, I've gone ahead and bought the motor that Brad recommended in this post: chocolatetalk.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=gotopost&board=santha&thread=179&post=968I used his idea of using the flat steel with holes to make a mount for the new motor. I replaced the existing plastic mount legs with long bolts and coupling nuts for added strength. I just need to get a fan for cooling which I'll be doing tonight. I'll try to take and post some pictures tonight. If this works out, I'll be swapping out the motors in my other ultras, too. I also want to add a switch to control the speed so I can mess around with slower conching.
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Post by jtoddm on May 11, 2011 12:34:17 GMT -5
Do you heat the bowl before / while adding the nib paste? We have a pretty similar set-up with the ultras and a peanut grinder, and have found that heat makes the difference. The cold granite base and rollers draw a lot of heat out of the chocolate and make it harder to work with, but when they have been warmed up (and for the first 15 - 30 mins of grinding) a lot of those problems go away.
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Post by Ben on May 11, 2011 18:04:38 GMT -5
Yep. I heat the bowl and rollers as well as the nibs. I also have started heating the peanut butter grinder for good measure. I still have to add the nib paste pretty slowly.
Are you able to add it more quickly? Does it slow down the ultra?
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Post by jtoddm on May 12, 2011 23:22:58 GMT -5
We don't add the chocolate paste super fast, more like in the time it takes us to grind the nibs, we are adding them at the same time. We used to have lots of problems, but found that as long as the belts were super tight and we added heat, it usually goes smoothly. If it looks like it is slowing down, we wait and let it heat up some more before adding more of the paste.
We have noticed that some of the beans are harder to get going (e.g. the costa rican ones we bought on here). We've occasionally run them through the peanut grinder twice, but again, with heat and tight belts it hasn't been too much of an issue.
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Post by oaxacalote on May 16, 2011 4:38:45 GMT -5
Lots of similarities for us. Heating the nibs, drum and roller makes a bigger impact than pre-grinding the nibs. It's all about liquefying the cocoa butter through heat and grinding the nibs enough to release the butter. I've done a test batch with and without pre-grinding and it didn't make much difference in the total time necessary to add the full amount of nibs (though the pre-grinding does speed up refining). The other helpful trick we learned here is to pop a washer on top of the spring to increase tension. Huge impact on refining time. Note that we're using Santhas rather than the Inno machines. Not sure this would work with the design of the Ultra.
Ben, I also followed Brad's post to replace the motors on our fleet of three Santha Spectra 10s. Then I found a higher efficiency motor with similar specs that I used on the second two. Overall impact wasn't that great. Running the motor at lower power setting gives the same speed as high setting, but better energy efficiency and lower running temps (motor and chocolate). We're putting a SPDT switch on the machine so we can run it on high power when grinding nibs and low power after the first hour to improve efficiency and avoid heating our a/c production area any more than necessary. I had to reduce the sheave size and ended up with 120 rpm (can't find a sheave to put it back at 160 rpm as with stock metric motor/sheave), so the refining takes longer now. A lot of little trade-offs, not sure there was much gained at the end of the day to compensate for the time spent. Though the new motors are equipped with a auto thermal shutoff, which should provide better safety. On the other hand, I discovered that at the low power setting, the motor/capacitor didn't have enough juice to start spinning the drum after a shutoff. The first night I left the rebuilt machine unattended there was a power outage. When power returned, the motor received juice without spinning and overheated and burned itself out. Seemed dangerously hot, so not sure when the thermal cutoff was supposed to kick in. Grainger kindly replaced it anyway!
How long does it take to pre-grind with the peanut butter machine? We're blitzing the nibs, sugar and vanilla in a blender on steroids, which is a bit time consuming, but worth our while.
Nice exchanging notes.
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Post by Ben on May 16, 2011 9:54:59 GMT -5
The peanut butter grinder claims 2lbs a minute. I haven't timed it, but that seems about right. My hope was that the grinder would put out a gritty liquor, but like I said, I get more of a chunky paste.
How long does it take everyone to get a batch of nibs (5 or 6 lbs) grinding in their melanger? Even with pre-grinding, I've found it takes me a couple hours.
Brad's original comments on upgrading the motor, and Alan's follow-up comments, mention improvements in the initial time required to add the nibs. So, you didn't get similar gains, oaxacalote? My motor is in place and will be used for the first time on Wednesday. I'll update this thread with how it goes either way.
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Post by Brad on May 16, 2011 11:36:51 GMT -5
On a capacitor-started motor, you can't reduce the power to the motor to control rotational speed. It will ALWAYS burn out, and be a serious fire hazard. The whole purpose of the capacitor is to build up enough "oomph" to kick start the motor.
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Post by jtoddm on May 17, 2011 12:55:22 GMT -5
Ben,
For a 5-6 lbs batch we'd probably add the paste in 3-4 additions, waiting about 5-10 minutes between, but holding off if it looks like the machine is struggling. Not sure why it would take so long for you, only thoughts really would be to 1) add more heat 2) make the belts much tighter or 3) find a better peanut grinder.
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Post by Ben on May 17, 2011 14:16:45 GMT -5
Thanks jtoddm. The cutting wheels on my pb grinder probalby need to be replaced, but I'm hesitant to do so if it's not going to make much difference in time. Is the paste you're getting runny at all?
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Post by oaxacalote on May 17, 2011 17:44:20 GMT -5
Thanks for the pb grinder numbers! We do the same grinding technique as jtoddm, running 8lb batches. Add a bit of nibs, any cocoa butter, then the rest of the nibs in about 3 portions. If c. butter is melted and drum/rollers are pre-heated, this takes 20-30 minutes regardless of pre-grinding. Ben, I didn't find that the 1/2 hp motor made as much of an impact as tightening the belt on the machine. Then again, I don't run the machine on the highest power setting in order to reduce noise and heat. I believe I tested it once or twice, saw that it didn't greatly improve grinding time (still not a magic dump in the nibs and walk away machine) and decided to use the lower power setting instead. We also back off of the tension a bit when adding nibs, but not so much that unground nibs accumulate under the rollers, and then increase it after about an hour when everything is running by adding a washer or two on top of the spring.
My understanding is the same as what Brad states: you can't control the rotational speed on these motors by reducing power. However, the motor has multiple power settings, which draw different amperage, and can be switched between by using the different power supply wires. They all run at the same rpm, but with more torque (and higher amperage draw) on the high setting than the low.
Ben, the absence of c. butter increases viscosity and slows the grinding. So perhaps chalk that up as a tradeoff for the flavor and character you're pursuing with your chocolate.
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Post by oaxacalote on May 17, 2011 18:42:59 GMT -5
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Post by jtoddm on May 18, 2011 0:33:32 GMT -5
yup, that's the one -- though it's not perfect either. if fed too quickly it can trip the breaker. I've heard there are newer ones that have better motors and are adjustable... we bought ours used and it has a lot of wear.
As for the paste being runny, it really depends on the bean. some of them have much higher fat and it comes out slightly liquidy. For other beans, it is more of a thick paste -- those give us more of a problem. Some of our ultras have tighter belts than others, so if they start to struggle, sometimes we will move the bowl to a machine that we know to be better/faster.
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