Connecting Millmaster to drill

[Cafestol]

Does anyone have any experience running their millmaster (or similar) on the recommended 1050W mixing drill? The available connections are a "12.7 mm (1/2") keyed drive shaft" and a "3 flat triangular shank drive shaft designed to fit a 3/8 th drill chuck". Also, what is the small metal match sized 'key' supplied with the mill for?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm not very technically minded with these things!

 

[philrob]

The match size key is to fit in the groove in the mill shaft and locates the handle if you use that.
I don't use a drill on mine, as I tried it a few years ago, and used a spider coupling at the time.
I gave up on using a drill when I realised my mash efficiency went down by 5 to 10% compared to hand milling, so I reverted to using that.
I have the original MillMaster now for about 15 years. I mill 5 kg by hand in no more than 10 minutes, so it's no great hardship for me.

 

[Cafestol]

Unfortunately they don't seem to come with crank shafts anymore. Do you know how fast your drill was running? I thought the idea was that using a high torque, low speed drill it's within the suitable rpm range.

 

[philrob]

I ran it as slow as the drill would go. It was a big drill from Aldi. A popular drill was a green shed ozito,but I'm not sure that particular model is still available.
I know lots of brewers use a drill and are happy with their results.
Try it and see how you go.

 

[Grmblz]

Does anyone have any experience running their millmaster (or similar) on the recommended 1050W mixing drill? The available connections are a "12.7 mm (1/2") keyed drive shaft" and a "3 flat triangular shank drive shaft designed to fit a 3/8 th drill chuck". Also, what is the small metal match sized 'key' supplied with the mill for?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm not very technically minded with these things!

The drill you link to is the one you want (sort of) it used to be available in two varieties, the one currently available and another with a 13mm chuck. Unfortunately they have discontinued the chuck version, which would just connect to the three sided drive shaft on the mill.
You need a "mixing" drill with a planetary gearbox, a normal drill that is speed controlled by the trigger will not have enough torque (power) to run the mill at low speed, if indeed it will even run slowly enough.
You could faff around trying to connect the ozito using connectors etc, however a quick google came up with, for an extra $10 DETROIT 1050W 13mm D-Handle Mixer Drill DMX13
It still has trigger speed control for fine tuning, but because of its gearbox it will turn a lot slower and with a great deal more power than a conventional drill.
The mill will have to be mounted to a board, your option after this is to hold the drill, and the mill whilst milling, and using your third and fourth hands pour in the grain whilst the mill is running (give it a try it might just work for you)
Alternatively mount the drill to the mill board, put the whole thing on top of a bucket, turn it on and pour the grain.
I've attached my solution, the brackets, bolts etc are all off the shelf bunnings, the mounting bolts are inserted where the original drill handles went, the hardest part of the whole thing was finding the correct bolts (size and thread type) and cutting them to length.
fwiw: these mills are designed to be hand crankable, so it follows that you can't really mill too slowly, you can however mill too fast resulting in a whole host of problems, various recommendations (Dr google) suggest 300rpm up to 500rpm, 300rpm is 5 rev's per second, put a texter mark on the chuck, and count really quickly, a second is a surprisingly long period of time. Yeah it's a bit imprecise but it will at least get you into the ball park.

 

[Ballaratguy]

I got a 12v drive motor from a golf buggy. Works really well
Some people have used the drive motor (if it’s the type that connects directly to a wheel) from a kids electric car. These are often advertised for Bugga all or free in Facebook marketplace

 

[Cafestol]

Thanks for all of the advice. Before I first posted here, I actually managed to mill one batch by attaching a wrench to the triangular shaft. Milled up fine but my hands were a bit banged up in the process!

I'm going to return the drill I bought and will update you on my eventual solution.

 

[TwoCrows]

Millmaster fluted model using a Makita cordless drill on low setting. Wet condition the grain, no issues

 

[Tangle Foot]

I’ve just bought the Detroit mixing drill. Good torque. Nice low speed. BUT, I’m using the chuck to attach it to the driveshaft on my mill, and cannot get it to grip securely. I tightened the chuck using the supplied chuck key as tight as it would go, and rotated the drill multiple times tightening each of the three chuck holes. I found that during the course of 10 minutes of milling the drill would slip on the, drive shaft. Pictures attached.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to attach this more securely.?

 

[razz]

Doesn’t the mill master have a shorter drive on the other side that is suited for drill chucks?

 

[Tangle Foot]

Doesn’t the mill master have a shorter drive on the other side that is suited for drill chucks?

I don’t know if the mill I’m using is a MillMaster. I got it secondhand. It only seems to have a crankshaft on one side of the mill. I thought it was just a keg land dual roller mill.