Harold,
It has been a small project that I just started recently. In fact, I did most of the work mounting and wiring just last night. I don't need to roast much at a time, but the drum can certainly be replaced very easily with a larger one if needed. The heat gun is strapped to a stand that I had made for something else, but I just cut the legs shorter so the heat would be pointed directly at the middle of the drum. There is a switch and plug on the right side. The top plug on the receptacle is switched, and the bottom one has constant power for the heat gun, so it can heat up and cool down without the drum rotating.
The motor is a 24vDC motor, running off a 12vDC Wall Wart. This still needs some tweaking, as the lower the voltage, the slower it turns. I may end up whipping up a variable power supply on a bread board, and see if I can vary it nicely with a pot. I found 9v works nicely, but for some reason the 9v power adapter I have doesn't want to work.
The reason I went this route for my new one as opposed to a fluid bed popper, is with the popper, agitation, and heat, both rely on the airflow, so if you change 1, all 3 get changed, and it becomes more challenging to control, even if the popper is modded to bits and you have independent fan and heat control. This way the agitation is provided by an external device, and the heat can be controlled independently using a router controller. Plus, I can change the chamber size and shape in the future, and I could even change the heating device, if I find a more suitable method.
Talk of the roaster aside, the two places I have gotten beans from are Sweet Marias, and GCBC. Both have given mighty tasty results.
How do you find the agitation? Given that the heat gun is mounted in a fixed position I might expect the beans need to be turned over more often to avoid a hotspot. But maybe all those holes are providing enough traction to move them around. I hope it is proceeding well.
