Sbuoncri's Automagic Brewery Plan

I'm very new to all of this but I've drawn up a very simple 3 vessel automated system based on JonW's rig. His design is really simple and clean. Mine would be electric.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/single-tier-3-pump-bcs-462-automated-rig-204705/

The systems I've seen seem to use way more valves so I feel like I'm missing something. The drawing below would use three 3-way stainless valves and one H20 valve. I'm drawn towards using a BCS-460 because of simplicity and ability to monitor it from my iphone.

Thoughts?



A few ideas that I would like to implement but I haven't seen it used in someone's system:

1. Sight Glass Level Sensors - 1 per vessel
http://www.stedham.com/sightglass.htm

2. Liquid/Flow sensors - to protect pumps/elements from running dry. Or stuck sparge sensing? Not completely sure what the abilities are of this sensor.
http://www.stedham.com/flowswitches.htm

Looks cool to me. I'm currently building a tweaked version of the Brutus 10. Just finished welding up my stand yesterday. I like your sight glass sensor idea, I've seen that on another brew rig on YouTube. As far as the flow sensors go I personally wouldn't use them it's just adds another element to break or malfunction, plus if you use a magnetic pump such as the march pump you can run those dry without damaging them. Good luck on your build

Happy Brew Year

I don't believe the BCS has general purpose analog inputs to be used for flow or volume sensors. If you want to go that route I think your only options are brewtroller or build your own controller.

I think you are going to want to add valves to adjust the flow for each pump.

crane said:

I don't believe the BCS has general purpose analog inputs to be used for flow or volume sensors. If you want to go that route I think your only options are brewtroller or build your own controller.

I think you are going to want to add valves to adjust the flow for each pump.

Click to expand...

I think your right about the sensor for flow sensors but the other is a capacitive sensor that fits your sight glass and looks like it can activate at a target volume. Anyone able to confirm that with bcs?

sbuoncri said:

I think your right about the sensor for flow sensors but the other is a capacitive sensor that fits your sight glass and looks like it can activate at a target volume. Anyone able to confirm that with bcs?

Click to expand...

$100 a pop just to be able to sense a single volume. Ouch. You are correct that it has only a on/off digital output. I don't see how sensing a single volume will be of much use. Unless every beer you brew has the same amount of grain your HLT and MLT volumes are going to change.