Recent content by TheFlyingBeer

Awesome work carkom. I have not been brewing much this year but have also been searching for a more robust head to replace the cake pans. The brakedrum looks like a perfect replacement. Glad to hear it is working for you.

Very clean, looks awesome with the custom decals!

Here is my panel, I am better at engineering than I am at taking pictures: And the inside, some wires need to be straightened out once development is done: Details and build progress are here. Hardware build is 95% complete, just software remaining.

I might have mentioned them in my brewery build thread. Either way they are 3/4" PrimoChill Anti-Kink Coils. They are intended for use in water cooling PC's but have worked very well for brewing. They get slightly relaxed when boiling liquids flow through the tubing but still perform. Only...

It has been a while since I have updated here. I have two pumps built and used one of them regularly as I brewed 5 batches over the holidays. There were a couple tweeks here and there but by the last batch I was gaining confidence to leave the pump unattended for small amounts of time. The...

I will eventually have a way of metering the strike volume, actually two ways. The plumbing plan has strike water leaving the HLT and traveling through the HEX coil in the HERMS tank before hitting the top of the grains. The peristaltic pumps might prove accurate enough to measure strike...

Can't believe it has been over a month since my last post, work is taking priority right now :( I half step currently. There is a trade-off between microstepping and torque, especially at higher RPMs. Now that the control software is becoming stable I will try a few different microstepping...

Thanks! I decided to sneak in a test extract batch tonight (NB White House Honey Ale) to put the equipment through its paces before Sandy shuts this coast down. It has been over a year since I brewed last, first time since Oct 18th 2011. For this brew I have my RO/DI system...

The originally concept for this was to be entirely controlled by a microcontroller, then came the feature creep. I think PLC(s) would be a fine replacement but they wouldn't give me the exact flexibility I have with the mcu approach. Much of the reasoning behind building all of this custom...

I designed on the side of caution. A main contactor is connected to the 50A service input to my power panel. Each of the two element legs are switched by separate SSRs and the SSR outputs are passed through a douple pole single throw relay (sized appropriately). This way, depending on my...

I promised pictures but there isn't a whole lot of physical items to show just yet. A significant amount of progress has been made on both the microcontroller and LabVIEW code: Any number of DS18B20 sensors can be read, there are 8 1-wire channels which could each support a maximum 255...

Awesome job! Thinking I need to pick me up a clipboard...

I will definitely make some videos once it is actually functional. It has been a very busy month and not as much has been accomplished on this project as I would like. I am done wiring up the control panel for all of the functions needed to begin basic brewing. My main focus for the...

Care to share your source for the LED lights?

I mounted mine to a Monoprice.com LCD TV mount that swivels on an arm. Here is a picture: You can see more details in my build thread: post3562704