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I think I may have bought the wrong conrtoller, looks the same as the stc but is doesnt have that decal on the front, it also reads in farenheit. the wiring sticker says loading 1,2 ; power supply 3,4; function control 5,6 ; temp probe 7,8. How do i hook this sucker up? not very good at electronics. Thanks

I just got one of these as well. I have a stc wired up that I have been running for 6 months. Wanted a second for my mini fridge and ordered what I thought was another STC. It reads in farenheit. The directions are horrible. Mine read different than yours. Power supply is 1/2. I have black from source to 1, white from source to 2. 3/4 are temperature probe, check probe installed and sitting a bottle of water. It says function control is 4/5, WTF? I have nothing to terminal 5. 6/7 are switch to load. I have black from source to 6. black from terminal 7 to outlet. White from source and green(bare) from source to outlet. The thing I like about this controller is I can switch it to control the outlet to heat or cool by switching the HC setting. The problem i am having is it doesn't turn the damn refrigerator on consistantly. I have it set for 50* and it is clearly reading a temp of 60* inside refrig. but the light doesn't blink for the compressor delay and the damn thing comes on when it wants. I think it might me faulty. I ordered 2 of them going to switch in the other one tomorrow. Oh, it handles 10A just like the STC controller
 
I have to say thanks again for all the wonderful ideas. I ordered the parts three weeks ago got the parts (all but the lights) and had this up and running for my first all-grain ten gallon batch this last weekend!! The lights finally came in from china today and installed (working like a champ). Just need a black faceplate for the outlets and im all set!!

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Neil
 
I love this place. Made mine today. I wanted to keep it small so everything was a tight fit. One outlet is cold, one hot, and the remaining two in the back are always on for fans and etc. That is not it's permanent home yet. Just testing everything.

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So quick question, given the temp probe with the unit, how do you guys measure temp, do you just suspend the probe in a jar of water, and keep it a degree or 2 cooler for the first few days of fermentation, or do you use a thermo-well and fill the rest of it with water so that it can have an accurate temp?
 
wfowlks said:
So quick question, given the temp probe with the unit, how do you guys measure temp, do you just suspend the probe in a jar of water, and keep it a degree or 2 cooler for the first few days of fermentation, or do you use a thermo-well and fill the rest of it with water so that it can have an accurate temp?

For ferm chambers, a popular and very accurate method is to tape the probe to the fermenter of the most recently brewed beer, and then tape something insulative over it (folded up paper towel, rag, etc).
 
^ works very well. my question is if I am going to hook up a computer fan (suspended in a hanging basket in my freezer) to keep the air moving. Am I only wanting it to come on while the freezer is running or am I ok with plugging it into one of my always 'hot' or always on outlets?

Neil
 
^ works very well. my question is if I am going to hook up a computer fan (suspended in a hanging basket in my freezer) to keep the air moving. Am I only wanting it to come on while the freezer is running or am I ok with plugging it into one of my always 'hot' or always on outlets?

Neil

I'd run it continuously. It's not going to do much running otherwise, since for a ferm chamber the freezer will only kick on for a few min once every several hours.
 
I'd run it continuously. It's not going to do much running otherwise, since for a ferm chamber the freezer will only kick on for a few min once every several hours.

Agreed. And for a properly built keezer it won't kick on that much more.

Chest freezers are big and you'll see a pretty big temperature difference between the top and the bottom if the air isn't circulated. The good news is you can underpower a 12V PC fan (use whatever wall wart DC power supply you have lying around) and chances are it'll still provide enough air movement. The fans are quiet and use almost no electricity.
 
Excellent thanks for the replies. I have a bunch of 12v power supplies (work for an isp so many router power supplies around) to use. I will rig one or two of them up in there tonight and circulate away.
I got it all rigged up with dual web-cams inside the fermenter (so i can sit at work and watch it bubble away).

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Neil
 
Thats just a screenshot of it btw lol.. dont stare at it for too long.... I need to find a place to send the stream to so it isnt eating up all of my bandwidth when im viewing it on multiple computers...

neil
 
Honestly its just a couple of $4.50 webcams off amazon.com lol. I just threw a pc together running webcamxp and have it pushing video to the web.

Neil
 
Just got done putting together my first control box and I am running trials on the freezer before I do any cutting for my draft tower.
Took me about 2 hours to cut the project box and about an hour to wire up the controller and receptacle.

Will be making another control box for my keezer that I keep in the garage for lagering and cold crashing.

I have my controller set up to just COOL and it will be controlling the freezer and a fan for cooling the draft tower.
 
I put together my box yesterday, but I have a problem. Only the heating works. The light goes on for the cooling, but I don't get a voltage read. It actually worked once this morning, and I got a voltage reading, but before that, and since then, I have not been able to get a voltage reading. Could I have a bad unit?
 
Putting mine together soon. Got a PVC 6x6x4 junction box for 12 bucks at Menards. Could fit four outlets and two controllers in this thing. Might actually do that eventually...
 
.... The light goes on for the cooling, but I don't get a voltage read. It actually worked once this morning, and I got a voltage reading, but before that, and since then, I have not been able to get a voltage reading. Could I have a bad unit?
If the cool indicator is blinking it's in delay, steady lit then you should have contact closure. Check your wiring.
 
Just finished putting my box together, will upload pics in a little. But similar to ajrichie, my unit is not switching the wine fridge on/off. I have it wired to only cool, using it as a thermostat, and the fridge is on 24/7. I do not have any wires in the heating contacts. Do I need to bust out the multimeter to check the relays? I set the temp to 5C, and when its above the cooling light is on, then when its below, the heating is on, but the fridge does not turn off. What am I missing.
 
You need power to both sides of the receptacles. If you want to just cool, run wires only from the cool section of the controller and don't break your black side tab.

Hope this applies to what you say your problem is without turning on your fridge.
 
I have the 120 hot from the wall, that goes into the main power on unit, and the power position of the cooling. On the switched side of the cooling, I have a wire that goes into my outlet. The neutral goes into unit and on neutral side of outlet. This is not right? Thanks.
 
You need power to both sides of the receptacles. If you want to just cool, run wires only from the cool section of the controller and don't break your black side tab.

Hope this applies to what you say your problem is without turning on your fridge.
 
Look the first page of thread.

If you want to jus cool-then don't wire any connections from the heat circuit of the controller and leave the tab on the electrical receptacles intact. This will give you two receptacles that will power on when the temp probe hits the target set temp.

This is how I have mine set to cool freezer and run a circulating fan when the temp set is met.
 
Sorry...I can't make sense of your wires completely. A good rule of thumb is to use the proper color wire for each leg of your circuit. You have two black wires on contacts 1 & 2...you should have a black and a white. The other thing is to connect each leg where it needs connecting to and not splice for convenience. You meed two black wires and two white wires connected to your receptacle. Electricity doesn't allow for you to take shortcuts.

Check your connections again and make sure you have connections for every point. If you have to, re-wire the circuits.
 
If none of the tabs on the outlet are broken, then it looks right to me. You have hot going direct to outlet, and also to STC power. Then you have neutral going to STC power, input of cooling. Then you have neutral coming out of cooling to other side of outlet. Again, if no jumpers broken at all, you should be working on the cooling side.
 
I appreciate your help, but in the picture, black in on 1, white is on 2? I don't know what you're looking at. 3-4 is probe, and 7-8 is switched black going to receptacle. No one is making shortcuts here.
 
I was looking at it on my iPhone while cutting my lawn....my bad.

Check and re-check your connections....and then check your programing.
*Remember to push the power button to lock in your programming settings.
 
Upon further inspection, here is where its at. When wired like I have it, the heating circuit at posts 5-6 work as they should, when not in heating mode, no continuity, and when the unit is powered off, they are off. However, the cooling circuit, does not behave properly, it remains on in cooling/heating mode, and when the unit is powered off.

So I thought maybe just cooling side is bad, so switched wiring and made it into heat only mode. Now I am getting the opposite effect. Does this have anything to do with the wiring diagram on unit saying 10A/240VAC above posts for cooling/heating? Should I just put another hot power lead into non-used side? Very confused here.
 
...it remains on in cooling/heating mode, and when the unit is powered off....
It looks like you're wired correctly but that behavior is wrong. Are you checking continuity of the relay or are you only checking voltage at the receptacle? What are your programming parameters? F1, F2, F3 & F4
 
I've checked voltage across the different ports, as well as continuity. Should the heating/cooling relays remain open with no power? I would think they would open up. Hopefully its a function parameter setting. I set F1 to 5, F2 to 1, F3 to 3, F4 to 0.
 
I've checked voltage across the different ports, as well as continuity. Should the heating/cooling relays remain open with no power? I would think they would open up. Hopefully its a function parameter setting. I set F1 to 5, F2 to 1, F3 to 3, F4 to 0.
I believe you should get an open circuit between 7&8 and 5&6, when the unit is powered off. Disconnect your receptacle wiring and check. Your parameters look good. When the probe measures >= F1 + F2 AND it's been F3 minutes since the last ON time, 7&8 should have continuity until the temperature drops to F1. When the probe measures <= F1-F2, 5&6 should have continuity until the temperature rises to F1.

The cooling & heating lights are steady in cooling & heating mode. The cooling light blinks while the delay-on is timing out.

If this doesn't work for you then you may have a stuck relay. Did you happen to mis-wire the unit at any time?
 
The unit was never mis-wired to my knowledge. Seems like the relays are stuck or something since when powered off 5-6 7-8 remain closed. I'm approaching my wit's end and I've wasted enough of humanities time on this one today, will let it go and reassess tomorrow. Thanks for all the suggestions.
 
I should rephrase... It was off and the power went out. When it came back on the controller turned on.
 
Damn this is a long A$$ thread...
However, I ordered an STC-1000 so I better build one of these too. Maybe in the 10 days it takes to get it, I might get through all of these posts!
 
TBaGZ said:
I should rephrase... It was off and the power went out. When it came back on the controller turned on.

Never seen that happen, but just build a switch into the enclosure if it really bugs you.
 
I seem to be cursed with USPS. After having my first controller get lost in the mail, the second appears to either be lost or stuck in customs. Ordered 6/25, processed through the LA sort facility on July 3rd, an no tracking updates since. :/
 
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