Clamping should be very helpful, but if you do decide to motorize, I'd recommend direct drive and a high torque motor like this project with heavy duty drill (or better for light roasts to be able to keep the needed speed down): Single Dose, Low Retention Grinder Project

If not direct drive, you will need large pulleys and a heavy duty timing belt as I found out building another grinder. No less than HDT 5mm pitch - 30T - 16W, and probably more than 30T for good margin.

When I was using my Pharos I came up with this:

Pharos: Making Grinding Easier with a "Grinding Bar"

When I mean light beans, I mean filter of Tim W. for espresso
If you didn't grind something similar it is hard to explain the force needed.

medium-dark needs negligible force compared to ultralight
In either case, clamping is fast and helps. Just for example I bent and finally broke a lighter clamp (15-20cm length), because of the force generated.
Better to get heavy duty one

Before we moved back to the states, I used to lap grind with the Pharos. Since coming back I got lazy and started using my drill. I just added the extra nut above the lever and that was it. It is not a pretty set up, but it is fast and easy--just hide the drill when not in use.
I don't remember anymore, but I think my Pharos is a 1.1 with a 2.0 update.

Here is my hack for securing the Pharos 2. Installing the bench dogs into the countertop was a non-starter and even drilling them into a cutting board I thought would be inadequate. Ive attached thick rubber feet under the mounting board so that the feet grip the sink.

I made a multi use countertop top from three Ikea cutting boards, the "APTITLIG" (10$ each), two bench dogs and a scrap piece of oak board.
Dyed one of them a little darker and put two bench dogs on it. The top top usually rests on a rubber sheet.


The bench dog board is not glued but slides out so you can mirror reflect the setup if you wish:


Or, if the bench dogs for some reason become a nuisance and you want to put something else in there, like an electric grinder, or perhaps to use the top top for something different temporarily (like baking or whatever) you can slide an APTITLIG minus bench dogs in. And maybe store your bench dog equipped APTITLIG with your Pharos.



The APTITLIG has nice slanted edges that makes it work great for something like this. Glued two of the APTITLIG to the scrap piece of oak board I had laying about. It was almost, but not quite, the right size. Cut a 25 mm/1" strip off the leftmost board and glued it to the other side of the oak base board (with the help of dowels as you can see). The APTITLIG bench dog board was used to get the correct distance, just held the boards in place with some clamps as I drilled a few dowels in from the bottom and while the glue dried .




Since it is wood and bamboo it will never be a perfect fit - it varies slightly with temperature and air humidity. But I find it to be good enough. For the dry days you can always add a thin plastic shim, if you think it moves too much.