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malador · 07-15-2012, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JuanMoore

In most cases you'd only break the tab on the hot side (gold screws). That way you only need to run one neutral to the outlet to serve both the top and bottom.

You beat me to this suggestion! I read through first 7 pages thinking i might have useful input. oh well.

**TomSD** · 07-16-2012, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DSmith

Here's a pic of my Love TSS2 with 10' stainless steel tip probe. The outlets on the 2 relays are fused to protect the controller. The switches are a fancy way of unplugging the chest freezer or 40W aquarium heating pad to prevent cycling them if not wanted without changing an internal parameter or to prevent a mistake from a bad parameter setting.

I have a Johnson A419 and have trended data showing that 3F temperature variations is the tightest control possible with the controller probe insulated-over on the outside of the fermenter.

I've trended data with the TSS2 and it can match the A419 control response and also improve control to about 1.2F temperature variations with the controller probe insulated-over on the outside of the carboy. The TSS2 has a lot better program options and seeing the decimal point temperature read-out on the display is really handy.

I've learned that when my freezer turns off after a cycle, the fermenter temperature drops another 1F no matter how big the differential is set. I've found it best to set the cooling differential to 0.5F to keep tight control (freezer cycles about every 1-2 hours) and increase it to 2F-3F when temperature fluctuations don't matter (freezer gets cycled about every 4-10 hours).

Attachment 68376

The fuses are a great addition. Love the look!

DSmith · 07-17-2012, 01:28 PM

I've been trying different parameter settings to see how tight of temperature control can be obtained with freezer cycles every 1.5-2 hours with the controller probe taped on the outside of the fermenter and insulated over. The chart below shows my best settings that result in about 1.2F total temperature fluctuations. I logged the tightest temperature control using a Johnson A419 controller for comparison.

This is the same data as the graph above but with the air temperature inside the freezer shown. A 40W heating pad comes on for a few minutes but really doesn't influence the beer temperature. I want the ability to raise the temperature and the heater would only be on longer when the setpoint is raised.

I plan on using these settings with a 67F setpoint for an ale fermentation and log the temperatures.

This graph shows TSS2 settings that get very close to the best temperature control that the Johnson A419 can do for a probe insulated over on the side of a fermenter. These are good settings for cold crashing, lagering & cold conditioning. Changing the r2 to 10 stops the heating relay from cycling.

DSmith · 08-13-2012, 01:54 PM

I used my new TSS2 for fermentation control with 0.5F differential and overlayed the fermenter temperature data with a very similar fermentation that was done with the Johnson A419 (1.0 differential = smallest setting) - graph below.

The TSS2 had 1.2F temperature swings, the A419 had 3.0F temperature swings. The TSS2 cycled twice often (every 3 hours).

My cold chest freezer keeps cooling the fermenter after it is cycled off by about 0.7F. Decreasing the differential to <0.5F could improve the results a little but it's unlikely going to make a big difference. 1.2F temperature swings is successful control to me.

pikeman94 · 08-14-2012, 03:45 AM

I am about to embark on wiring up my STC-1000, which is very similar to these controllers. In light of that I decided to borrow a friends voltage meter to see how many amps this freezer I bought would pull. When I plug the freezer in spikes to 12-13 amps, but then comes back down to 4.6 amps. My concern is that initial spike. Will that blow the cold side circuit? Is there anything I can do to ease that initial spike?

**erikrocks** · 08-19-2012, 07:33 PM

Here's my enclosure, but I have a slight issue:

So when I plug my enclosure in, the Love turns on fine. When I plug the heater in to the heat receptacle, everything's fine. But when I plug the minifridge in to the cool receptacle, it trips the breaker. I previously had the love hardwired into the minifridge and heater for years (into the same receptacle) with no issues. My wiring is the following:

#1 & 3 probe
#4 all neutrals
#5, 7,& 10 all to power cord (hot wire)
#8 to hot screw on fridge receptacle
#10 to hot screw on heater receptacle

Anyone have any ideas why I'm throwing my breaker every time I plug the fridge in?

**TomSD** · 08-19-2012, 11:16 PM

Sounds like something is shorting or wired wrong. Hope you didn't cook the cold side of your controller. Got a multimeter? That or hook up something with a low draw to see if it will turn on.

**erikrocks** · 08-20-2012, 01:30 AM

OK, I tightened up the neutral wire nut and we're all set. Cool deal.

**TomSD** · 08-20-2012, 06:43 AM

Glad it was something simple and you didn't cook anything!

jtrux · 09-18-2012, 02:20 AM

Great write up. I see the position 1&3 are used for the temp probe in the love controller, my probe has a brown and a blue wire coming out of it. Does it matter which color goes in the 1 position and which one goes in the 3 position?

Thanks