adccommunitymod (AutomationDirect) asked a question.
Created Date: December 14,2015
Created By: CubDenBrewBear
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I'm a complete newbie to this stuff so please try to use too many acronyms or technical jargon if you can answer me. That being said, thank you for at least reading this. I have a cartridge heater, 240v 4500w 2 wire, that I plan on installing into my stainless brew kettle and use it to boil anywhere from 7 to 15 gallons of water. I have a STC-1000 I want to use as the temp controller. I would like some sort of dial, potentiometer, to controller the heat level of possible. Starting from the wall, how do I wire this? And I am comfortable with electricity, I 've redone most of the wiring in my house already. Thanks for your effort.
Created Date: December 14,2015
Created by: Frontier
Every electric brew system and distilling controller I 've built uses a solid state relay to pulse the heater element instead of limiting the current. Using something analog like you 're describing will bring many problems. My recommendation is to get a solid state relay and PID controller. You should be able to set the output rate to act like you had a variable resistor, but without the headaches. If this is something that would interest you, I'd be happy to share a schematic for this application.
Also, the STC-1000 really isn't the best option for this application. Its temperature probe doesn't do too well with hot-side brewing temperatures, and its interface is pretty crummy (unless you 've already done the STC-1000+ upgrade).
Created Date: December 22,2015
Created by: pmt
Heating control
I regularly do heating control with 3 phase heating elements .... in my case keg plant tank heating.
I use the 06 PLC.
In the past I used a TOHO temperature controller and controlled the heating via digital inputs and outputs. Messy and occupied too many I/O's.
Today I use a 4-20mA analogue card with my temperature transmitter. It does everything and more and obviously frees up I/O's.
Programming is simple.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Richard
Created Date: December 24,2015
Created by: talotam
Brew Heater
I have set up my micro-brew contraption with a D05 CPU equipped with the FO-04THM thermocouple card. With the water being constantly circulated via a "Chugger Pump ", I am able to keep the temperature within +/- 1 degree (F) just with on/off control. For strike temperature and mashing, I simply run the heaters 100% until up to temperature. For boil, I have a 0-100% efficiency input to dial back the heater output as temperature exceeds 200 degrees. Usually, a setting of 65% at that point prevents boilover.
Heater outputs are via a 25 amp 240 VAC SSR for the mash heater and a 40 amp 240 VAC SSR for the strike and boil heaters.
I have set up a Maple Systems HMI5070P color touch screen as the communication center. For kicks, I have also connected a wireless router to the screen so that I can access the brewery with my IPhone.
Created Date: December 14,2015
Created by: CubDenBrewBear
I'm a complete newbie to this stuff so please try to use too many acronyms or technical jargon if you can answer me. That being said, thank you for at least reading this.
I have a cartridge heater, 240v 4500w 2 wire, that I plan on installing into my stainless brew kettle and use it to boil anywhere from 7 to 15 gallons of water. I have a STC-1000 I want to use as the temp controller. I would like some sort of dial, potentiometer, to controller the heat level of possible. Starting from the wall, how do I wire this? And I am comfortable with electricity, I 've redone most of the wiring in my house already. Thanks for your effort.