MooMooBrew

Recipes 

Interesting that this is submarked under electric brewing, couldn't one also automate gas burners?

just a thought.

P-J

Recipes 

Very true.

But that would still require the use of PIDs or some other electrical control devices to automate a fire driven system. So it's electric after all. No?

P-J

JonW

Recipes 

Well, using that logic, any system that has a pump or any electrical device is an electric system. I think "Electric Brewing" gives the impression you are doing electric heating. If anything, the "Electric Brewing" forum should have just been renamed to "Automated Brewing" since it requires some type of automation to make it work.

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l3asturd

Recipes 

Problem is, I know a few people who just flip a switch to turn their elements on for boil, they don't automate anything.

This sub-forum should probably just be it's own forum, since, as stated, you don't have to be electric to be automated.

IrregularPulse

Recipes 

This is what I'm concerned about for this forum. The general homebrewer's understanding of automation. Having switches and lights on a control panel that you manually manipulate is not automation and shouldn't go in this subforum. As long as this line gets drawn and clarified early on, I think this subforum could turn out some cool stuff. Assuming we have enough brewers around here with the money and know how to tackle such a system.

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jpalarchio

Recipes 

Agreed.

My thought when I started asking about this was for the people that want to work with motorized valves and want to do some more advanced tasks like measure volume electronically. The hope is that it would avoid the comments of "I can just turn my own valve" and "just use a stick with markings on it".

So is an off the shelf PID a form of automation? I suppose. But it's not what I would expect here.

I'd like to see this forum include discussion on various sensors, actuated valves, microprocessors, output devices (LCDs) and the websites / custom apps developed to support them.

Rbeckett

Recipes 

Irregular.
I am currently building a brew troller. I have decided that the most cost effective way for me is to add components and different levels of control slowly. I have to get the stuff to work with a switch, then add the electronics to control the switch, then add the logic to decide what switch to control. So it is an evolutionary kind of thing. I just learned some basic and advanced electronics, so I have to stumble and stagger till I get a grasp on the how I can implement it. That to me is a major part of the whole automation concept. Maybe I see it wrong, but this is what building the automation part of it is for me, anyway. So yes, I have switches for now, then transistors, then PIC chips, then one button and I get beer as an extended natural progression. Just my POV, yours may vary and thats OK to, as long as we are working to a goal different goals are OK.
Wheelchair Bob

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Join the Automation sub forum in Electric brewing for a discussion of components and control systems. I did!!!!