Kegerator Solenoid Locks

I'm looking for some opinions on these solenoid valves:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Solenoid-1-4-SS-Valve-Air-Water-Gas-Diesel-12v-DC-Volt-Stainless-Steel-Viton-/111137864606

Being stainless, I'm pretty sure they should be ok to use.

Thoughts? Opinions? Advice? Good place to look for information?

Thanks!

They are beautiful!

Now, whatcha' wanting to use them to do?

Your thread title says "Locks".

My thought is to tie it into an adruino or raspberrypi board and require a pass code to pull a beer from my kegetator.

That's a neat idea and they could work well. My only question is the Viton that is probably used for the diaphragm inside them. Viton is a chemical resistant rubber but I have no clue if it will impart any flavors/odors with long term contact with something like beer. I would get one and test it out for a little while before you invest in any more.

So after doing a bunch more searching, contacting customer service at a few different retailers I order one of these:

https://www.oscsys.com/store/product/1002271

I'll update back here with some results. Might be a week or two.

Please do let us know how it goes.

Our RaspberryPints digital taplist software launches tomorrow. I'm hoping to incorporate solenoids in a future release, but haven't been able to identify a model that doesn't impart off-tastes or create foaming issues.

As you can see there is a metal screen of some type inside. I'm pretty positive this is going to foam the crap out of the beer, but time and testing will tell.

I'm going to pick up a few parts this week, and hopefully get some testing in next week.

I'll keep you posted.

Quick Update. I removed the screen from the valve. Picked up two 1/4in threaded x 1/4 MIP. I push my beer at 8psi.

Here's a video of it: [ame]http://youtu.be/dxxh6ReXRwI[/ame]

I'm going to call this a success. This is a fully carbed hefeweizen being poored. I think I'm on the path now. I'm going to look into doing either a 3/8 or 1/2 valve to up the flow rate. I'm not positive on this yet, but at minimum I'm going to pick up a raspberry pi and start tinkering with getting the valve to fire using that.

Very nice work.

I'm looking at these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Solenoi...851?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c3a9e862b

Quite a bit cheaper. They react slightly slower, only require 400 mA (vs 600 mA), and are less than half the price. The tradeoff is that you lose some stainless and viton for nylon and EPDM. Nylon is used in MFL/FFL taper washers and EPDM is used in tri-closer gaskets, so both are beer-safe.

The main difference is that the ones I linked come with push-fitting connectors (John Guest), and as I already have close to 100 of these fittings in my keezer without a single leak, I trust them heavily... and I'd only need a few stems to attach them to my existing lines. The inlet also has a narrower ID, but I'm not convinced that will increase line restriction meaningfully.

Incorporation into RaspberryPints is probably a ways off (real world commitments), but will post here if/when I get these working.

BTW, how does your hef taste at 8 PSI?

Even at water's freezing point, you'd only be looking at 2.4 vol. Most hefs are in the 2.5-4.0 vol range.

The hef was carbed at 12 psi, but unfortunately inside my keezer I only have a single regulator to push beer. So I push them all at 8, and inevitably they do lose carb over time.