Sunday, April 15, 2012

Kitchenaid drill adapter

Update: this coupler has started to fail. See details on the update post, as well as a new model. Here are the links to Thingiverse and Shapeways, but be aware the current 3D printed plastic material ("White Strong Flexible") is not proven for long-term use.

Update: here's a video of it in action with the drill adapter clamped directly onto a Hario Slim Burr Grinder. Actually works pretty well as is, so I will put the piece on Thingiverse soon. Lots of refinements planned though.

A while back I had a brief flirtation with the idea of DIY Kitchenaid attachments, but never really got going on the project. Then recently, jeffkobi posted a nice Instructable on how to attach a Kyocera manual burr coffee grinder to your Kitchenaid and it rekindled my interest (not least because I own the same model burr grinder).
I really liked jeffkobi's idea of using an inexpensive Milescraft 90 degree drill adapter as the intermediary between the mixer and the grinder. So I've been trying to develop some simple 3D printable pieces to make it easier to couple the drill adapter to the Kitchenaid attachment hub. This is a work in progress and is going to take at least one more iteration to refine, but I'm pretty happy with how it looks so far, so here's some teasers.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for doing this. I am just starting to look at making a adapter for the that would fit a traditional pasta maker (which i already have) and produce a cheaper version of http://www.amazon.com/KitchenAid-KPRA-Roller-Attachment-Mixers/dp/B00004SGFS

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  2. Hi Rudy, that's great; I was thinking about working on a pasta roller too as I also already have a manual one. Right now I'm still trying to nail down a good square size for the bit; I used 0.45" but that seems looser than ideal. I haven't been able to find my calipers since we moved house recently :(.

    For a pasta attachment you probably don't really want the 90 degree adapter, so that will make things a little easier. The main problem for a pasta attachment is probably that the machines are heavy, so you need something substantial to hold the machine up?

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  3. I posted a video of this in action at the top. Seems to work pretty well although need to design a better coupling to the grinder and I'm also working on ways to hold things in place. Will post this first simple piece to Thingiverse soon though.

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