Troubleshooting help

DustBow said:

Ok, I just can't see where the 2 power lines to your PID are coming from - I see the one small red wire coming off the main white, but don't see the other power line coming off the main black.

These guys know more than I do tho, I'm sure you'll get it figured out.

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I do not have a wire running from the large black power wire to the PID. I only have 120 VAC going to the PID. I don't believe I need 240 VAC to it. The small black wire connects to the large green wire at the terminal for the ground going to the PID

Ok, but I don't think the PID needs to be grounded. It needs 2 wires for power tho - either 2 hot lines for 240 or 1 hot & 1 neutral for 120.

Hopefully someone can back me up on this....

Then again you are getting some power since your PID is on and you're getting a temp reading, right?

So I could be way off....

DustBow said:

Ok, but I don't think the PID needs to be grounded. It needs 2 wires for power tho - either 2 hot lines for 240 or 1 hot & 1 neutral for 120.

Hopefully someone can back me up on this....

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Exactly. No ground.

For this setup you should really have 4 wires coming into your box. 2 hots a neutral and a ground. Seems like you dont have a ground since you are getting power to the PID.

I think the wiring diagram you showed is based on a 120v setup but it is hard to tell without seeing the context of where it was originally posted.

He should be able to power the pid with 240v. Then a neutral is not needed in this system. As I said earlier, if the green is equipment ground the pid may trip a gfi upstream which I hope is part of the plan.

But you still need both hots to power with 240 right? not just 1 and a ground?

DustBow said:

But you still need both hots to power with 240 right? not just 1 and a ground?

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Yes. That's correct.

I can't see a low voltage DC supply to control the SSR. The SSR you are using looks like it needs a 12VDC control supply.
Can you take a better photo of your external SSR?
The PID should also have a schematic of some sort on the side of it.

I'm having trouble keeping this straight, but hopefully it's the issue. I should have 240 vac going to the PID from the terminal strip? Does that mean one wire from the white connector and one wire from the black connector? Should they both connect to #2 on the PID? Or one to 1 and one to 2? Do I not need a wire running from the green terminal to the PID at all?

Here is the SSR
http://www.kegkits.com/Merchant2/me...de=W&Product_Code=40A-SSR&Category_Code=EBREW

Yes, both hots to the PID, no ground to the PID.
Check your manual, but I think you just wire both hots to the same PID terminals as you would for a 120 setup. You're just swapping out the neutral for another hot.
Again, check your documents to make sure.

It just dawned on me the very serious problem that I'm having in understanding the wiring within this setup. The wire being used is a 3 wire cord meant for 120V power. It has been repurposed for a 240V feed. The wires (as illustrated in the photos) are still the black, white & green conductors that have been repurposed.

To the OP. Go to the store and buy rolls of electrical (Ace Hardware will have them) tape in the colors required for your set up.

A roll of White, Black, Red & Green will get you there.

Now with that, flag the wires (in other words - cover the insulation color completely) within your controller using the tape so that each one represents the actual electrical circuit intended. This should be done anytime a wire is repurposed. Mistakes like this can kill...!!!

In your photos, Green is not ground but something else. I do not have a clue what you repurposed that wire into.

Wow. What a waste of time messing with this.

Good luck.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to be rude, but none of this is repurposed wire. It is all 10-3 wire purchased from a hardware store. The plug, components, and everything were bought as a kit.

tunaboatbeer said:

I'm not sure why you feel the need to be rude, but none of this is repurposed wire. It is all 10-3 wire purchased from a hardware store. The plug, components, and everything were bought as a kit.

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Rude????

Wow.!!!

Ok. So the Green wire in your photos is really a ground wire and not something else?

correct, the green wire is a ground

Then you are powering your pid using the ground conductor and the White conductor which would be neutral.

Never happened.

He needs both Hot 1 & Hot 2 wired to the PID to get it to function properly at 240, correct?
So does he just use the same 2 PID terminals as he would for a 120 feed?

I know most PID's can run on both, but mine is an Auber and I have it on 120 so I'm not 100% sure if the terminals remain the same for 120 vs 240 power on his model....

I think he just needs to take the small black "power wire" from the PID and tie it into the main black wire at the terminal block instead of into the green ground.

P-J said:

Then you are powering your pid using the ground conductor and the White conductor which would be neutral.

Never happened.

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The white is the other leg of 240. It's allowable in a cable or cord. Marking it with tape can't hurt.

DustBow said:

He needs both Hot 1 & Hot 2 wired to the PID to get it to function properly at 240, correct?
So does he just use the same 2 PID terminals as he would for a 120 feed?

I know most PID's can run on both, but mine is an Auber and I have it on 120 so I'm not 100% sure if the terminals remain the same for 120 vs 240 power on his model....

I think he just needs to take the small black "power wire" from the PID and tie it into the main black wire at the terminal block instead of into the green ground.

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Do verify the terminals but it looks like the photo of your pid above confirms 240v supply.

I confirmed that the polarity is correct. I connected both hot wires to the PID and the display doesn't light up.

Have you measured voltage across black and white on your power cord to verify 240v?

The way you have it wired, the black wire on the power cord could be dead and it would do exactly what it has to this point.

When I touch the multi meter to each individually at the terminal strip they each read 122v

Try measuring across them. If they are the same leg, you will see 120 to ground on each and 0 between L1 and L2.

Gotcha, when I put 1 probe on white and 1 on black it reads zero

We just found your problem. Thank god. Now you have to trace your cord back to the source and get it connected to two opposite legs. Are you using a receptacle or coming direct out of a breaker panel?

I'm using a 3 prong receptacle on the wall

Measure voltage at the receptacle to see if you get 240 across the hots. If not, that receptacle is wired wrong then. It is probably connected to two single pole breakers on the same leg. You would need to get a two pole breaker and replace the two single poles with that. It is possible that there is only 120v at the receptacle and someone just jumped it out to both legs...take the cover off and verify a 3 wire feed to the receptacle. I hope you are planning to get some gfci protection in here somehow too.

Wait.... A three prong wall socket? Is this a 3 prong 240V AC dryer socket, or a standard 115V wall socket? 240V is two 115 (110, 120, what ever) that are from opposite legs in the distribution panel. I never checked the phasing of household wiring with the O-Scope so I don't know if they are 180 deg or 120 deg out of phase, but that is not really required information. What is required is a picture of the socket you are feeding from, and if you installed it, how is it wired up?

It is connected to a 2 pole 30 amp breaker. Black wire connected to one pole and white to the other.

Check for 240v at the breaker and the receptacle. Your problem is somewhere in between those. Try firmly resetting the breaker as well. Sometimes a pole wont make a connection if not snapped to the "on" position firmly. You may just need to replace the breaker.

I think the problem is going to be more difficult to fix. If you are reading 115V on each leg to ground, but 0V line to line, then whatever is feeding these lines is on the same phase. Is your distribution panel single phase? I have one of those in my house, why they chose to do this I do not know, but a single hot wire is fed in and jumped to the other phase. This box in my house is full, and runs only receptacles so it doesn't impact me, but if I were to try to do what you have, I would have the same results.

BrotherGrim said:

I think the problem is going to be more difficult to fix. If you are reading 115V on each leg to ground, but 0V line to line, then whatever is feeding these lines is on the same phase. Is your distribution panel single phase? I have one of those in my house, why they chose to do this I do not know, but a single hot wire is fed in and jumped to the other phase. This box in my house is full, and runs only receptacles so it doesn't impact me, but if I were to try to do what you have, I would have the same results.

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This is a very good point. I hadn't thought of that scenario.

Yeah, it kind of sucked. I am in the early stages of putting together an e-brewery, so I had to install a new panel to distribute 220 into my garage. I had two panels, one 220V outside which feeds stove, dryer, ac, etc. and the 110V panel which feeds receptacles, including all the garage receptacles. Fortunately, I have the tools and skills to install a new panel to feed my new 220V needs.

When I measure across the hots at the breaker i get zero. My breaker box has 3 other 2 pole breakers, a 30 amp, a 40 amp, and a 60 amp. I measured across each one of them and it read 1.

1 Volt? Across both hots should read 220-240v, not 1. Is your mulit-meter on the right setting or fried? 0 makes sense from what the others have said - there's no voltage across the same phase, but 1 makes no sense to me.

I didn't change the setting between measuring 0 on the brewery breaker to measuring 1 on the other 2 pole breakers. What setting should it be on?

The 1V measurement is going to be normal if you have a load on one of those circuits. The load will pull down the voltage making a very small potential between the two different circuits. Sounds like you have a single phase distribution panel. Either you need to figure out how to split the one you have, install a new panel, or convert your system to a 110V system.

well crap. Installing a new panel and going to 110v are not good options. Guess I need to figure out how to split it.

Can you post a picture of the panel with the breaker wiring exposed?

If he had a single phase panel he would have gotten 0 across all of the 2-pole breakers. He's getting 0 at the new (brewery) breaker and 1 at the others. I would imagine if you measure across the two feed lines to the breaker at the main trunk line, you should get 220-240. If you get 0, it's a single phase panel.

Wow, sorry man, this has really spiraled out of control from a simple "what did I wire wrong in my brew box" question.....

Good luck, you definitely have some knowledgable people here to help

(nothing can ever be easy can it? )