Painting electric motor for grain mill?

[brad2157]

I am starting a motorized grain mill build. I picked up an electric motor, mm2 grain mill, and lovejoy couplers on eBay as a package deal a little while back. I’m always just as much concerned about appearance as well as functionality. I was wondering if I can paint the aluminum electric motor? Has anyone done this before? I know the motor is all aluminum and has heat sinks around the casing itself, but I’m not sure this will be running long enough at any given time (for home-brewing quantities) that it would ever get hot enough. I haven’t been able to find much online, other than I would need self-etching primer to get paint to adhere to the aluminum properly.

Thanks ahead of time for any help regarding this.

 

[Owly055]

I am starting a motorized grain mill build. I picked up an electric motor, mm2 grain mill, and lovejoy couplers on eBay as a package deal a little while back. I’m always just as much concerned about appearance as well as functionality. I was wondering if I can paint the aluminum electric motor? Has anyone done this before? I know the motor is all aluminum and has heat sinks around the casing itself, but I’m not sure this will be running long enough at any given time (for home-brewing quantities) that it would ever get hot enough. I haven’t been able to find much online, other than I would need self-etching primer to get paint to adhere to the aluminum properly.

Thanks ahead of time for any help regarding this.

Aluminum doesn't hold paint very well........ do a Google on it so you know what you are doing and get a good bond. For your brief infrequent use, the insulating value of the paint as relates to the cooling capacity of the motor is pretty much of a non-issue. It's kind of an ugly beast, made more so by the sloppy casting and raw aluminum, and no amount of paint is going to make it pretty. Personally I'd fabricate a nice shield to hide the motor and capacitor. Cooling air is drawn in from the rear, and discharged over the vanes for cooling on this motor with nothing passing through the motor and over the windings..... a sealed motor. Because of this cooling strategy, a shroud covering the vanes and the rest of the motor would actually improve cooling by keeping air moving over the hot surfaces. Make a nicely crafted metal shroud and paint it.............

H.W.

 

[Dovage]

I paint commercially and resedentially. 20 years experience. 100% acryllic exterior house paint bonds well to aluminum. However not sure how the heat will effect the paint. A good bonding primer is never a bad idea. XIM makes a great one and it comes in a spray can.

 

[brad2157]

I paint commercially and resedentially. 20 years experience. 100% acryllic exterior house paint bonds well to aluminum. However not sure how the heat will effect the paint. A good bonding primer is never a bad idea. XIM makes a great one and it comes in a spray can.

Awesome! Thank you for the info! I really appreciate it. I probably need to do a couple of test runs to see how warm it gets. I’m thinking no more than I’ll use it for 5g homebrew batches, it won’t get ran very long at any one time.

 

[ClaudiusB]

I was wondering if I can paint the aluminum electric motor? Has anyone done this before?

I painted my aluminum pump housings with a primer first then with a spray-paint from the big box store.

 

[cyberbackpacker]

I painted my aluminum pump housings with a primer first then with a spray-paint from the big box store. View attachment 553748 View attachment 553750

Claudius, nice to see that you are still around. I have two c114 sanitary pumps (1/2hp and 3/4hp) I am running on my new rig-- it is nice to see this picture of your pump as I do not feel so crazy doing so now.

What size batches are you normally brewing? I am assuming you throttle the output back quite a bit?

I have had my pumps for a few years but have yet to actually run them on a batch as I am in the midst of a three year (and still counting) build on my new system!

 

[ClaudiusB]

What size batches are you normally brewing?

I brew mostly 10 gallon batches but can go for more. I have two mash tuns in use, the largest can hold 200 liters (52 gallons).

I am assuming you throttle the output back quite a bit?

I have had my pumps for a few years but have yet to actually run them on a batch as I am in the midst of a three year (and still counting) build on my new system!

I have five pumps (different sizes) in use for the different brewing processes. Four are centrifugal and the one pictured is a positive displacement pump (lobe style pump) which requires a VFD control if regulation is needed.
I run most of them full open.
Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

[brad2157]

I appreciate all the info. I decided to hold off on painting for now during my build. It would be easy to take the motor off to paint it when/if I decide to. I did buy a black project box to hide the capacitor and wiring to make it look a little better.

 

[brad2157]

The finished project...