Project Idea - EE's input needed

So I am a 31 year old junior EE student getting ready to start my senior project in the fall. I have been thinking of all the possibilities available for incorporating my home brew obsession into the last leg of my education and have finally come up with something worthy of a new design and project idea...

I want to upgrade my RIMs toolbox to run off of induction heat as opposed to the heating element I currently use. Also upgrading from my hong kong ebay PID to some sort of arduino based control.

My thought is to take the RIMs tube, remove the element and wrap the coil on the outside of the tube. When the wort flows through and the temperature needs to be adjusted the rims will produce the required current and heat the recirculating wort accordingly.

As induction is faster and more efficient that either gas or standard electricity I thought this would be a great way to produce a "green" brewery concept. Eventually leading to all induction brewing from mash to boil...

Now, all EEs and other experienced people out there... Is there anything you know that I should be aware of? This is a new idea and I have just began the research on feasibility of this task. All constructive input is welcomed.

BrewSpook said:

So I am a 31 year old junior EE student getting ready to start my senior project in the fall. I have been thinking of all the possibilities available for incorporating my home brew obsession into the last leg of my education and have finally come up with something worthy of a new design and project idea...

I want to upgrade my RIMs toolbox to run off of induction heat as opposed to the heating element I currently use. Also upgrading from my hong kong ebay PID to some sort of arduino based control.

My thought is to take the RIMs tube, remove the element and wrap the coil on the outside of the tube. When the wort flows through and the temperature needs to be adjusted the rims will produce the required current and heat the recirculating wort accordingly.

As induction is faster and more efficient that either gas or standard electricity I thought this would be a great way to produce a "green" brewery concept. Eventually leading to all induction brewing from mash to boil...

Now, all EEs and other experienced people out there... Is there anything you know that I should be aware of? This is a new idea and I have just began the research on feasibility of this task. All constructive input is welcomed.

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I don't see how it can be more efficient than a submerged heating element. Unless I'm missing something here, the element is 100% efficient except for the losses in the wire to it and switching losses.

Your idea is very interesting. What frequency are you considering? I think 10kHz would be great. Unfortunately, you're going to have a problem doing that with 60Hz AC! I think you'll need to FW rectify first, then pulse.

passedpawn said:

Your idea is very interesting. What frequency are you considering? I think 10kHz would be great.

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Thanks From what I have been reading most induction cook tops run anywhere from 30kHz to 60kHz so I was thinking somewhere in that range.

BrewSpook said:

As induction is faster and more efficient that either gas or standard electricity....

Click to expand...

you need to add the text "... in standard stovetop configurations using similar amounts of energy."

That's the important distinction.

You're taking information used to market induction cooktops used in ovens and applying it to your brewing setup. That's not true.

Energy is energy. Doesn't matter what the delivery mechanism is. Putting a heating element inside the liquid (as most electric brewers do, including myself) is about as efficient as it can get since 100% of the heat gets transferred to the liquid.

The only reason induction is more efficient than gas or electric *for cooking on a stove* is because of heat loss into the cooktop, around the pot into the air, etc. It's indirect heating. Induction heats the pot directly without losing heat to heating anything else like the air, stovetop, etc.

As for speed, that all depends on how much energy you pump into either method. So induction can be faster if you go with a higher power output induction element. Otherwise a direct firing element in the liquid could be faster. Blanket statement don't make sense.

Kal

every time you convert one energy form into another, you loose some energy. converting AC to DC, converting one voltage to another, converting electricity to heat, light to electricity, etc.

with a standard immersion heater, you are taking 120v AC and heating up a metal element, which heats the water thru direct contact. close to 100% of the energy used by the heating element goes into the water.

with induction heating, you are taking 120v 60hz AC, converting it to 30k or 60k hz and whatever voltage the coil takes, and then transfering it over the air to the pot, which heats the pot and then the water thru contact with the pot.

you loose energy both in converting one form of electricity to another, and again transfering that energy to the kettle as the induction coil has to electrically couple to the kettle, which can be extremely inefficient. the pot-to-water heat transfer is not even as efficient, as the pot is only touching the water over 50% or less of its surface. whereas a fully immersed heating element has 100% contact with water.

so sure, in certain configurations you might be able to measure less energy consumption per temperature rise with induction over regular electric or gas. but saying induction is faster and more efficient then either gas or standard electricity is not correct.

Based on my senior project (i am a Civil Engineer, not a EE) the scope of you plan seems a bit small. So a few ideas:
you could use the inductive heater in addition to your existing element (better for step mashes)
expand your scope to a ardunio based whole brewery automation system (add things like flow control, hop adders, step mashing etc.... I am working on something like this for myself)

my 2 cents

this is what i built for my sr EET project.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/rookies-first-attempt-automation-229593/

full on automation , PLCs, C#, and what not is still pretty simple for a EE sr project. the work was cake but not cheap by any means. we built a setup that does it all while you play darts and listen for alarms.