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Sublime8365 · 12-05-2012, 11:11 PM

OK so I got everything wired up and finally got around to testing it the past few nights. Hasn't been working 100%. When I power everything up, the PID display is fine and I seem to be getting accurate (or at least close enough for now) readings on the temp. The element turns on. The heat exchange seems to work fine.

2 things aren't working though:
The switch is not turning the element on/off. It's on regardless of what position the switch is at.
The PID is not controlling the element. Is stays on all the time. My water heats up to where my set temp is and just keeps on heating.

Any ideas as to why this would be? I'm pretty confident I wired it to the "specs" of the diagram I posted. Are there any "common" mistakes that would cause this that I could check?

Thanks in advance.

**BadNewsBrewery** · 12-05-2012, 11:28 PM

Post photos of your PID, SSR, Contactor, element selection switch, and recepticals. Otherwise it's a guessing game.

Sublime8365 · 12-12-2012, 12:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BadNewsBrewery

Post photos of your PID, SSR, Contactor, element selection switch, and recepticals. Otherwise it's a guessing game.

Ok I'll post pics as soon as I can. Reading through the forums a bit it's possible that I have a faulty SSR I guess.

How would I test that with a voltmeter?

Would that affect my contactor not working with my switch?

inhousebrew · 12-12-2012, 01:57 AM

Subscribed.

I like the simplicity of your design. I'm going for something similar. Can you post some more pics just to see what you got going on. Was this all pretty easy to wire up? I'm just learning about this kind of stuff now but have a pretty good idea of what to do but was just wondering what you thought.

**BadNewsBrewery** · 12-12-2012, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sublime8365

Reading through the forums a bit it's possible that I have a faulty SSR I guess. How would I test that with a voltmeter?

Your PID should put out a small DC current, around 12VDC. Using your multimeter in DC mode, disconnect the SSR feed from the PID and set it to manual at 100% - check the voltage across the two posts; if you have 12VDC, good. Turn everything off, reconnect the SSR to the PID, and disconnect the main feed in / out of the SSR (the 120v line). With your meter set to measure ohms, check across the two posts - you should get little or no reading. Then turn on the PID, set to 100%, and measure again - you should measure a much higher reading, indicating that the switch has closed and you have a clear path for current. How your multimeter is set up may change how your output looks, depending on whether you have a digital or analog device. If all that has worked so far, plug it all back in as normal, and take voltage readings (AC) from the power-in post on the SSR (touch one lead to the post, another to your neutral hub (120v) or the other hot line (240v), doesn't matter). Then do the same for the power-out post. Both should read the same with the PID at 100% manual.

This should, hopefully, get you to where we can figure out what's wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sublime8365

Would that affect my contactor not working with my switch?

Your contactor has nothing to do with your SSR. The ability for the contactor to open / close is totally independant of what the SSR is doing. If your contactor is not closing the circuit correctly, then you have a problem there and no amount of trouble shooting the SSR will fix it.

-Kevin

Sublime8365 · 12-12-2012, 11:28 PM

Ok here it is. Sorry in advance if it looks sloppy (it is), I'm a novice at this stuff. Also, I know I have a green wire for hot in one instance. sorry for the confusion.

Hope you can follow (look at both pics to understand the labeling)

More pics of contactor:

grandequeso · 12-13-2012, 01:21 AM

are you feeding your element with a regular wall receptacle mounted in the side of your toolbox / enclousure? If so there should only be one set a wires going to it.

Sublime8365 · 12-13-2012, 01:46 PM

Duh, I'm an idiot. Thanks.

Sublime8365 · 12-26-2012, 09:54 PM

So last week I made the fix that I thought would solve this once and for all and it didn't.

Those 2 sets of wires going to it were 1) for the power input from my wall outlet, and 2) the outlet to the heating element.

Obviously that doesn't work on the same outlet so I installed another and now my element goes out one and the wall outlet goes in the other.

Problem is that now the element won't turn on at all (regardless of the way the switch is flipped). So before it wouldn't turn off, now it won't turn on.

When I flip the switch I can hear the contactor switching on/off but the element won't go on. Any ideas?

grandequeso · 12-27-2012, 01:19 AM

Thats a bad idea. you made a "dead man's cord"