Electric Brewing on a PLC - Wiring Diagram

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wubears71

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I'm in the process of building an Electric Home Brewing based on Kal's design on http://www.theelectricbrewery.com. The major difference between his design and my design is that I'm going with PLC/HMI controls versus a control panel. I'm a chemical engineer and design and implement control systems for a living so such a project is right in my sweet spot.

For controls purposes, I've chosen a Direct Logic DL06 PLC. I've been wanting to try one of these cheap PLC's for years, so this is the perfect project to give it whirl. If I don't like it, I'm going to swap it out with an older Allen Bradley SLC500 I have laying around at work.

The other control difference I'm implementing is to use a Cascaded control loop on the Mash Tun Temperature control. The Mash Tun Temperature Control Loop will set the HLT Temperature, which in turn will control the HLT Heating element. This is a very similar setup that I use in full size industrial applications. Of course, I can always put the HLT Temperature Control Loop in Auto versus Cascade and just control HLT temperature.

Here is the panel I'm building for this brewery.
Panel%2520Layout.jpg


Here is the Wiring diagram:
Power%2520Distribution.jpg


Finally, here is the I/O wiring diagram:
IO%2520Wiring.jpg


Feel free to provide any tips or let me know if I overlooked something.

Unfortunately, the Blichmann Brew Kettles are on back order so it will probably be the end of April or Early May before I get this project complete.

The last thing I'm working on is picking out the HMI. I'm thinking about a panel mounted HMI, but may also just put the software on a laptop powered by the external outlet on the side of the cabinet. This way, I have a programming node/HMI on the same PC.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.
 
first I love see that you are going to be using a plc . I my self will some day get around to this for now I will hold off on the 2300.00 rockwell licening . I would not let blichmann pot hold you up . Ihave two of these and I payed great money for them . They suck I meen therre supper light thin and all of the fittings are bolkhead style . Got to midwest brewing and order the polar wear brew pot . They are heaver and way better little extra for weling you will be set and loving life . One last thing if you are dead set on ****y pot that are over price . Call great fermentations 5127 East 65th Street Indianapolis, IN 46220
(317) 257-9463

ask them about some scrach and dent one heck you going to be drilling hole in them any how.
 
Its unfortunate that there isn't a "personal License" or something similar from Rockwell. But then again, Rockwell is a bargain compared to Emerson's DeltaV Licensing. Even as one of only 50 Rockwell Solution Partners here in North America, we pay $$$$ for licensing.

Thanks for the heads up on the Polar Pots I'll check them out.
 
just in case you hadnt seen it... check out http://advancedhmi.com/

Sweet. I was going to roll my own but I have to check this out before doing so. I have licenses for Wonderware, FactoryTalk, iFIX and about a half dozen other HMI products but my goal is not to have to use any of the high $$$$ HMI software to avoid having to buy a license that is not work related.
 
Here is the panel so far
750163da.jpg


I'm still waiting on some parts.

Also I decided to switch out the 10 gallon kettles for 20 gallon Blichmann kettles. I figure if I'm going though th effort of doing this I might as well set myself up for 10 gallon batches.
 
Here is my in progress SLC5/03. I'm just using my turkey fryer setup because I'm kinda in the middle of getting the house ready to sell and build.
DSC00250.jpg


Here is my old version of Advance HMI project.
HMI.jpg


I choose it over RSView because of the ease of using the source code of Advance HMI. It is very easy and very versatile.
 
I have a DL06 in my drag car that I use for data logging and the dual stage nitrous control. For the price you can't beat them. I also have rs logic 500 on unlimited installs if I were to use a micrologix 1500. Which can be found used on eBay. This may be an interesting thread.
 
Is there an idiot's guide to this stuff? I took a look at a site selling the DL06's, which look reasonable in price, and I get the overall idea of replacing a bunch of hard-wired relays with a PLC. But I am somewhat confused about the software required, etc.

Thanks!
(As an aside, I'm a co-author on three software patents and while retired from the corporate grindstone teach programming classes...so although I'm an old dog, hopefully I can still learn a few new tricks.)
 
Is there an idiot's guide to this stuff? I took a look at a site selling the DL06's, which look reasonable in price, and I get the overall idea of replacing a bunch of hard-wired relays with a PLC. But I am somewhat confused about the software required, etc.

Thanks!
(As an aside, I'm a co-author on three software patents and while retired from the corporate grindstone teach programming classes...so although I'm an old dog, hopefully I can still learn a few new tricks.)

This is a good starting point.
http://www.automationdirect.com/static/manuals/d006userm/d006userm.html

The DL06 is very basic in regards to programming and can be a little bit of a PITA for anyone not familiar with ladder logic. RsLogix is much more user friendly IMHO but the DirectSoft Software cannot be beat considering the price.

Here is a link to a download to Directsoft
http://support.automationdirect.com/demos.html#ds5

Download and play with it as that is the best way to learn. The only limitation to the free version is that it only allows 100 words of logic but other than that it has all the features.
 
It's awesome to see someone else going this route with a PLC. I have a Siemens S7-1200 with a 6" HMI that I'm hoping to get set up for mine. The only issue I have now is figuring out the best way to get the RTD signals into the PLC. Any reason you went with an RTD module over a signal conditioner?
 
It's awesome to see someone else going this route with a PLC. I have a Siemens S7-1200 with a 6" HMI that I'm hoping to get set up for mine. The only issue I have now is figuring out the best way to get the RTD signals into the PLC. Any reason you went with an RTD module over a signal conditioner?

Cost. I needed to buy an analog card anyway as the DL06 on has discrete inputs out of the box. I would have had to purchase an AI card so I just spent a little more for the RTD card and avoided having to buy signal conditioners.
 
I'll be watching this thread closely. I'm a controls engineer and have an AB processor and HMI I'm playing with for my electric build. I'm already jealous of your panel. Looks nice! My stuff is in a computer case for the time being. I am loving getting it all set up. There is so much cool stuff you can do once you get a PLC in the panel. At the moment I have the capability of trending temperature to a USB stick that sticks in the back of the HMI. I will probably start a thread soon.

Mine is so haphazardly thrown together at the moment I didn't even want to hear all the posts about how I was going to get myself killed. :D
 
I love PLC Direct but the way they do analog really sucks. The CPU can't read inputs simultaneously so you need to write a program just to read the inputs. Plus it's octal based and needs to be converted to decimal to read. Plus you just can't read the values online without sending each converted value to a register and putting it into your logic. It's a PITA. I almost went that route but just didn't want to spring for the RTD card when Auber has built in RTD inputs. Have you checked out AB's new Micro 800 series PLC? Has free downloadable software. Price is supposed to be competitive with PLC Direct...
 
I'm using the Micro830. Version 1.01 of their software just came out a couple weeks ago. Version 1.00 was extremely buggy although 1.01 is a vast improvement.

The Micro800 series uses a different software suite than any of the other AB processors. It is much different from both RSLogix 5, 500, and 5000. I can type up a comparison in the next week or so if you guys are interested. The software is free off the AB site. It is called connected components workbench. I would suggest downloading it and playing around with it before anyone bites the bullet and gets one of the processors. I suggest building a simple program before making any commitment. You have to convert numbers (ints or reals) to "time" variables before they can be passed to a timer. Also - If you multiply an int and a real you have to put it in a real variable and then convert the real to an int. It won't convert for you with the MUL, DIV, etc blocks.

It does support PID control and the component series of HMIs are very reasonably priced although programming for the controller and most the component HMI's is done through USB.
 
Yea I hate the octal to decimal conversion stuff. When DCS gurus say PLCs have no business controlling process they are referring to PLCs like the DL-06. I'm a Control Logix Guru and a DeltaV Guru and the only thing I haven't been able to do with CLX that I could do with DeltaV is advanced process control out of the box. However Real applications requiring Fuzzy Logic, Model Predictive Control, etc are few so I never buy the arguement that one cannot do process control with a PLC. Well I should really say PAC.

If I was automating more than just 3 RTDs and had a bunch of Analog stuff there is no way I would use the DL06.
 
I'm using the Micro830. Version 1.01 of their software just came out a couple weeks ago. Version 1.00 was extremely buggy although 1.01 is a vast improvement.

The Micro800 series uses a different software suite than any of the other AB processors. It is much different from both RSLogix 5, 500, and 5000. I can type up a comparison in the next week or so if you guys are interested. The software is free off the AB site. It is called connected components workbench. I would suggest downloading it and playing around with it before anyone bites the bullet and gets one of the processors. I suggest building a simple program before making any commitment. You have to convert numbers (ints or reals) to "time" variables before they can be passed to a timer. Also - If you multiply an int and a real you have to put it in a real variable and then convert the real to an int. It won't convert for you with the MUL, DIV, etc blocks.

It does support PID control and the component series of HMIs are very reasonably priced although programming for the controller and most the component HMI's is done through USB.

I'll have to check it out next week. I wonder if we as an integration partner have access to any prebuilt libraries.
 
This thing is so new, I doubt it. Jump on the knowledgebase and search around. There is a lot more stuff now than there was a couple months ago but it is still limited.
 
This may be a little :off:, but I used to do a lot of VHDL design for FPGAs while I was in school and always heard that it was similar to PLC. Do you have experience with both and/or do you know how similar they are? Unfortunately, my job has me pushing a lot of paper and hardly any engineering design so I have fallen out of doing the cool stuff but was just curious.
 
This is a good starting point.
http://www.automationdirect.com/static/manuals/d006userm/d006userm.html

The DL06 is very basic in regards to programming and can be a little bit of a PITA for anyone not familiar with ladder logic. RsLogix is much more user friendly IMHO but the DirectSoft Software cannot be beat considering the price.

Here is a link to a download to Directsoft
http://support.automationdirect.com/demos.html#ds5

Download and play with it as that is the best way to learn. The only limitation to the free version is that it only allows 100 words of logic but other than that it has all the features.

THANKS for the links!
 
I made some good progress the past few days. All the 120/240 is wired except for one terminal and the ground to the cabinet and I just started the 24VDC wiring. Once that is complete I will start my continuity checks and then fire it up to do a panel checkout.

I had to move some stuff around from my original design to accommodate the bottom receptacles as their depth was greater than my original specs. Also I arranged things to keep all low voltage in the right raceway and all 120/240 in the left raceway.
1e3d533d.jpg


This has really been a fun project.

I also decided to use the Advanced HMI as a basis but am in the process of writing some custom code to better satisfy my needs. It however is one excellent starting point.

Finally, I picked up a great working freezer yesterday on CL for $25 that I will use as my fermentation chamber. Right now I'm debating whether or not to bring it into the PLC or use a local Love controller. I'm leaning towards a local controller since we will be moving in a year or so, so there is no guarantee it will be anywhere near my panel.
7a1ad849.jpg
 
This may be a little :off:, but I used to do a lot of VHDL design for FPGAs while I was in school and always heard that it was similar to PLC. Do you have experience with both and/or do you know how similar they are? Unfortunately, my job has me pushing a lot of paper and hardly any engineering design so I have fallen out of doing the cool stuff but was just curious.

Kinda, VHDL is a more scriptic sytax language than a ladder or block logic of a plc. IMO VHDL is a little harder to lean due to having to have a knowledge of a language such as C and understanding gates as opposed to a simple I/O concept. If you have a good understanding of VHDL and Gate Arrays, PLC coding should be a walk in the park.
 
The Blichmann Kettles finally arrived yesterday and I got them all set up except for the Herms coil. I went to install it and I realized I had male NPT compression fittings and I needed Female ones. Hopefully by this weekend I can fire it up and do a leak test.

28583d29.jpg
 
Things are nearly complete. All I'm waiting on now is a new Herms Coil and I totally destroyed the one I coiled myself. The coiling went fine, but the installation not so much. I have a new one on order directly from Kal's site.

In the mean time, I started putting together the HMI. I'm using the freeware Advanced HMI package, which works great!

Here is a screen shot of the main display that I Started putting together. Last night I was doing some testing by recirculating water with the Wort Pump. It works great.

brewery1.jpg
 
wubears71 said:
Things are nearly complete. All I'm waiting on now is a new Herms Coil and I totally destroyed the one I coiled myself. The coiling went fine, but the installation not so much. I have a new one on order directly from Kal's site.

In the mean time, I started putting together the HMI. I'm using the freeware Advanced HMI package, which works great!

Here is a screen shot of the main display that I Started putting together. Last night I was doing some testing by recirculating water with the Wort Pump. It works great.

1000 degree mash temperature? I'd say the result will be on the malty side. :)
 
I love the interface, very simple compared to others out there (BCS).

I've got no experience with PLC's. We run our fermentation hall with a PLC to turn glycol on and off, but I've got no idea how it really works. I know that it's a logic based controller.

You've got an amazingly detailed wiring diagram. Thanks for that. As a beginner with PLC's, how difficult would it be to assemble for an electric HERMS system? I'd imagine there is alot of programming and coding involved.

Currently working on a Brewtroller controller EHERMS.
 
I finally had a chance to make beer with my new home brewery. I chose to make a Blue Moon Clone mainly because I wanted something easy and also something that would be liked by a wide variety of beer drinkers.

It was a long day and I should have done a better job prepping as I screwed up a few things along the way like forgetting to ground the correander until 2 minutes before the addition and waiting too long to assemble the fermentor, thus boiling too long while sanitizing it.

I really missed my gravity - 1.029 Actual versus a 1.052 Target. I know it was due to the grain crush as I didn't think it was good enough, but instead of adjusting the grain mill, I went ahead anyway. Also I had some issues with the grain bed and kept loosing flow and temperature until I added another .5 gallons of water to the Mash Tun. Once I did that, Recirculation through the HERMs coil took off. Unfortunately, the 45 minutes I spent fighting it also screwed up the Mash. O well. I'll try again in a few weeks.

Here are a bunch of pics:

The Single Tier Setup:
2012_0512FirstAllGrainBrew_0001.jpg


The Hot Liquor Tank
2012_0512FirstAllGrainBrew_0004.jpg


The Mash Tun
2012_0512FirstAllGrainBrew_0007.jpg


The Boil Kettle
2012_0512FirstAllGrainBrew_0008.jpg


A shot of the HMI:
2012_0512FirstAllGrainBrew_0010.jpg


Milling the Grains:
2012_0512FirstAllGrainBrew_0020.jpg


The Assistant Brew Master:
2012_0512FirstAllGrainBrew_0025.jpg


Sparging:
2012_0512FirstAllGrainBrew_0028.jpg


Filling the Fermentor:
2012_0512FirstAllGrainBrew_0037.jpg


An Empty Boil Kettle:
2012_0512FirstAllGrainBrew_0041.jpg
 
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