Milesvdustin's electric brewery build

So it finally began this weekend. I have all the holes cut in my panel, its painted, and mostly everything is mounted. I need to get some screws to mount my heat sink and ssr, and the terminal boards to the backplate. Then, its wire it up and see what happens. I need to figure out my wall power, I bought one of the gray gfci cords. Only have a three wire outlet in the garage at the moment. Here are some pictures that show my progress.

Untitled by milesvdustin, on Flickr

Top of the enclosure with all my holes cut out. I used a dremel tool with a cutoff disc to cut the holes for the PID.

Here is the bottom of the enclosure. I used the dremel to make the rectangle for the outlet, and I used a 2 3/8" hole saw for my power input receptacle, and a 1 1/2" hole saw for the two element receptacle holes. A step bit made the hole for the thermocouple hookup.

Untitled by milesvdustin, on Flickr

These are my fuse mounts. I didn't want to use chassis mount fuses inside the panel, so I found these at Radio Shack for a couple bucks each and used em. Reminds me of aircraft fuse holders. I used a step bit to create the holes for these as well.

Untitled by milesvdustin, on Flickr

Here they are on the inside


Untitled by milesvdustin, on Flickr

I found some spade style terminal lugs that will slip over these connections tightly and will utilize them instead of soldering.

Here is the inside of the lid of my enclosure. I put the E stop switch a touch too close to the outside, it BARELY rubs as I close the panel. No big deal, I will just take a file to the lip of the box and make a bit of room. But its so slight I might not.

Untitled by milesvdustin, on Flickr

And last but not least, here is the front panel, all installed and ready for wiring.

Untitled by milesvdustin, on Flickr

I used a greenlee punch to make all the holes for the lights and switches, except the element switch. I used a step bit for that one. I have that switch oriented so that up with be boil kettle, and down will be HLT. Right next to it are the lights that will indicate which element is on. Below the timer are my pause and reset switches for it, and then the pid and pump switches to the right. I used the push on push off switches for those. I will left room for another PID and another pump switch in the future. I plan to make this a HERMS system. I should be able to run this thing with only one thermocouple on the outlet of my HLT water flow to regulate that temperature during recirc. The mash temp will match that, and I will just use the boil kettle on manual mode. I doubt I will really need a second PID. I will continue to update this as I progress!

I like those fuse holders. Wish i had seen them before.... good luck with the build

Thanks radio shack had a lot of useful items. I need to go buy more terminal lugs and such. Wiring is the biggest pain so far! I need to order some labels for everything as well.

Untitled by milesvdustin, on Flickr

Made some serious progress on the wiring today. My fingertips hurt from pulling all the little wire strip pieces and bending the wires around. Only place I found that had the spade style lugs that fit the PID and timer is Lowes. They are like 3 bucks for a ten pack, but it works so whatever. All I need to do now is wire in the pump outlet and switch, and run power to my PID and timer switch and then its business time. Still gotta get the outlet in the garage going though.

ITS ALIVE!!!! Powered it up today after I got the garage outlet all squared away. Works great, except I switched the indicator lights around so they light up backwards of the switch position. Easy two wire swap to fix it. First thing I checked was the E-Stop, works perfectly.

A few questions about the timer. What mode and relay mode should I have this thing in for just normal counting down? I think I have it in mode 8 right now. I screwed it up and bought momentary switches for the pause and reset functions. I just gotta buy some normal ones and fix that. I may just make pause a normal and keep reset as a momentary. I am going to go ahead and add a second pump switch and then it will be complete. Now its time to start building up the beer brewing side of things! Huge thanks again to P-J with all his help on the wiring schematic.


Untitled by milesvdustin, on Flickr

Looks great keep us updated on your build

Life got CRAZY and many things happened in the last Four years! I had a son, took orders to recruiting, and subsequently got out of the Marines. I finally dug all my brew stuff out of storage (yeah, no brewing for the last 4 years!) and I am getting back into this. Will likely just run electric kettle until I have some money to buy all the fittings and tubing and crazy stuff I need to finish out the HERMS. I had even forgotten how I had my switches set up and all. Looks like I need to buy a few things to finish out the panel and fix my timer switches.

I hear you. I'm two years + into my build its amazing how much life gets in the way.