HERMS Build Planning: DIN Rails or not?
 

I've been seriously planning a HERMS setup (240v, 50a, 2 element, 2 pump) for the past three months or so, and have in the last month entered into a partnership with two local brewers/friends to collaborate on a 15 gallon setup.

In reading a lot of the threads here, I've come across several mentions of people wishing they had started off with a DIN rail setup and that they hope to transition to the same in a further iteration of their build. I come from an engineering background (Mining/Process,) and am fairly comfortable with the overall architecture, design and implementation of a traditional backplane install, but am completely unfamiliar with DIN rails.

Does anyone have a good source for a primer for understanding/transitioning to DIN rails? From what I've read, it would be a great option for us in terms of experimentation/adaption, but am having trouble finding source material to bring me up to speed on the cons and benefits of sourcing components for a DIN setup. Anyone have suggestions?

Thanks!

The DIN rails and the associated circuit breakers (and other components) allows you to mount circuit breakers within your control unit. Standard circuit breakers that are used in a home breaker panel would be extremly difficult to mount within your controller.

With a 240V 50A power feed, it is very important to have breakers within your control panel to limit the current within the associated circuits. In this situation, fuses are not a good idea. With a 240V system, each phase of the 240 should be 'broken' at the same time. A fuse would only open one of the phases.

Here are some links to some of the breakers and the DIN railing:
SUPPLEMENTARY PROTECTOR 2 POLE 25A B CURVE
SUPPLEMENTARY PROTECTOR 1 POLE 15A B CURVE
DIN RAIL 2/PK SLOTTED STEEL

Hope this helps.

I use DIN rails at work to build and organize control panels for various applications. The main benefits of the DIN rail system is that it allows the installer to organize the layout of the control panel and speeds the installation since the DIN rail compliant components clip onto the rail. Here's a link to DIN rail info from wikipedia. Very basic info here but the pictures are somewhat helpful.

:off: If you really want to go all out on your control board you can use wire way or wire duct to conceal the wiring.

Thanks for the responses.

P-J, am I correct in assuming from your response, that I would simply want to design my panel to have DIN rails for the power input and circuit breaking area of my control panel, and then there will be DIN mount terminal strips leading off to my various components? (With of course the relevant fuses, post-DIN mount.) By any chance do any of your previously created diagrams already have a DIN component to them? I know there are DIN mount SSR's, but haven't come across any other related DIN packages...

Most every diagram that I have drawn over the last couple of years that shows circuit breakers within the panel show the breakers as DIN mountable product.

Thanks.

I'll adapt my drawings/components to have DIN rails for the breakers leading to terminal strips, and then the components and ask for feedback at that stage. I thought there might be some more DIN packages for components that I wasn't aware of.

If you look at some of the build threads in this forum, you will see many of them where a lot of components are DIN rail mounted. You have a lot of options.

With my drawings, I show the breaker but do not show an interior set up of the panel. That is something that is totally up to the person building the device.

My plan is based off of a PJ plan and i used breakers snapped on DIN rails as he specs, works great.

It was no brainer for me to use it on the rest of my build too. Level and drill a couple holes and mount a DIN rail to attach components or layout and drill 20 holes to attach the same components. And as a bonus unless you tap all those 20 holes you'll get to pull the entire back plane out if you ever need to replace a component as well. I'm not into that.

You can substitue terminal strips with DIN rail components as well.

Do you by anychance have a build thread or component list for your build? In my (brief) initial search before looking for advice, I didn't find all that many components that attached to DIN's. I would love to be able to source as much as possible that can be hosted on a DIN.

Here's where I got my din rail terminal blocks. I used Type J fuses as recomended by watlow instead of circuit breakers for my wattlow Din-a-mites. 2 30 amp GFCI breakers feed this panel

http://www.zorotools.com/g/Terminal%20Block/00072409/