Diagram for BCS 462 with motorized valves
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...and bumped again. I'm in the same position, and am havnig some trouble figuring out the BCS -> 5VDC relay board -> 12VDC transformer -> motorized valve wiring.
JKoravos
Well-Known Member
Maybe if you post a little more detail someone could help you out. What's the issue you're running into?
I've been struggling with the various wiring diagrams provided by KLD for their motorized valves. I have 7 of their 3-way KLD20S valves with the BD3 wiring option. I'm wanting to control them through the BCS-462.
I think I have the THEORY figured out to about the 80% level of confidence, but I haven't applied electricity to any of that theory yet!
I'm still confused on the idea of the relay board being active low, but I'm assuming I can deal with that through the NO/NC terminals - I'll just have to play around with it, I'm guessing.
Here's what I came up with - yeah, I'm using a lot of terminal blocks, but I fell into having 100 of them (Phoenix Contact), so I figured I might as well use them.
Thoughts?
View attachment KLD Valve Wiring Schematic (BD3).pdf
Last edited:
JKoravos
Well-Known Member
I've been struggling with the various wiring diagrams provided by KLD for their motorized valves. I have 7 of their 3-way KLD20S valves with the BD3 wiring option. I'm wanting to control them through the BCS-462.
I think I have the THEORY figured out to about the 80% level of confidence, but I haven't applied electricity to any of that theory yet!
I'm still confused on the idea of the relay board being active low, but I'm assuming I can deal with that through the NO/NC terminals - I'll just have to play around with it, I'm guessing.
Here's what I came up with - yeah, I'm using a lot of terminal blocks, but I fell into having 100 of them (Phoenix Contact), so I figured I might as well use them.
Thoughts?
Yeah, I actually just bought that same relay board to control via Arduino. Since you have NO and NC contacts it shouldn't really much make a difference on the relay on state. I don't know anything about the BCS-462 so I don't know if you can change that on the controller side.
As far as the valves go, I'm confused as to why you have a +12V and -12V rail? It appears you're putting 24V across the valve. Otherwise the way it's wired in your diagram makes sense to me, though i agree that the wiring diagram for the valve is odd. I don't get why you would apply 12V on two separate input leads to get it to switch states.
In cases like this I usually just play with things until they work or I blow them up.
Yeah, it's that "blowing up" part that keeps me drawing instead of building!!
JKoravos
Well-Known Member
I view blowing things up not as a failure, but a learning opportunity.
Yeah, I actually just bought that same relay board to control via Arduino. Since you have NO and NC contacts it shouldn't really much make a difference on the relay on state. I don't know anything about the BCS-462 so I don't know if you can change that on the controller side.
As far as the valves go, I'm confused as to why you have a +12V and -12V rail? It appears you're putting 24V across the valve. Otherwise the way it's wired in your diagram makes sense to me, though i agree that the wiring diagram for the valve is odd. I don't get why you would apply 12V on two separate input leads to get it to switch states.
In cases like this I usually just play with things until they work or I blow them up.
Regarding the valves... my guess is that the actuator keeps the two 12VDC circuits isolated, much like a mechanical contactor keeps the coil and contactor circuits separated. One +12VDC is simply hot all the time, while the second +12VDC operates a coil, pulling the contactor with the other +12VDC circuit from one contact to another (switching states) based on whether it is hot or not (relay switch), thereby turning the valve to the desired location.
This is only a guess, though - I haven't (and I likely won't) tear one apart to see.
Where you have -12Vdc on your diagram are you meaning this is the negative side of the 12Vdc supply, or that it is supplying -12Vdc relative to 0Vdc (ground). I guess the otherway to ask my question is if you hooked up a multimeter over a +12Vdc and -12Vdc terminal would the meter read 12Vdc or 24Vdc?
As for the relay board - Active low means that the inputs pins on the board have to be brought to 0V to turn them on. This may be an issue depending on how the BCS is setup. If the BCS is not setup with a pulldown resistor (internal or external to the MCU ) to force the output to 0V when not on it will most likely not turn on. I don't know how the BCS will handle it sorry, and I don't know how a suck-it-and-see approach will affect the BCS (don't want it blowing up on you)
I intended for the -12VDC to be the negative side of the power supply, hence the "-" in front of the 12VDC, and the +12VDC to be the positive side, again hence the "+" in front of the 12VDC. That's how they're coming off of the 12VDC Mean Well power supply. The red, green and black colors I'm using are based on the color of the leads coming out of the valve actuator. So, I have +12VDC coming in on the red lead, and another +12VDC coming in on the relay-switched green lead, with the black lead being the return.
The multimeter you mentioned should read 12VDC across the red and black leads - but hey, I'm a marine biologist, not an electrician - hell, for all I know, the multimeter could just as easily read "pfsssssssstt!!"
As for the BCS, yeah, at some point I'm probably going to have to throw caution to the wind, place my fire extinguisher on top of the bench, and just plug in the wires and see what happens.
As you said, failure is a GREAT teacher!!
JKoravos
Well-Known Member
I see what you're saying. The power supply actually says +V and -V on the terminals. Hopefully, if you have a 12VDC power supply, +V = ~12VDC and -V = ~0VDC.
When I went back to look, I noticed an error on the power out leads from the 5VDC power supply. The previous PDF has been corrected and uploaded again.
All that is left is to determine which initial state I want for each of the seven motorized valves, and then figure out whether I can achieve that state by using either the NO or NC terminal on the relay board.
I should know soon...
I intended for the -12VDC to be the negative side of the power supply, hence the "-" in front of the 12VDC, and the +12VDC to be the positive side, again hence the "+" in front of the 12VDC. That's how they're coming off of the 12VDC Mean Well power supply. The red, green and black colors I'm using are based on the color of the leads coming out of the valve actuator. So, I have +12VDC coming in on the red lead, and another +12VDC coming in on the relay-switched green lead, with the black lead being the return.
The multimeter you mentioned should read 12VDC across the red and black leads - but hey, I'm a marine biologist, not an electrician - hell, for all I know, the multimeter could just as easily read "pfsssssssstt!!"
As for the BCS, yeah, at some point I'm probably going to have to throw caution to the wind, place my fire extinguisher on top of the bench, and just plug in the wires and see what happens.
As you said, failure is a GREAT teacher!!
Yeah that is what I thought was going on - so I think the 12v stuff is good.
As for the BCS I am leaning towards betting that it would have the pulldown resistors in place (as otherwise the output when not on could "float" and potentially turn stuff on when you don't want it to). You will need to get your head around the fact that when you turn the bcs output on the relay will actually turn off - but as you mentioned using the NO / NC side of the relay will sort your problems out.
Good luck!
The BCS output will be on and off throughout the brew session anyway, so it's going to be used both ways - I'll start out recirculating water within the HLT (flow of water to the left upon leaving the pump), and eventually moving water over to the MT (flow of water to the right upon leaving the pump).
I guess I'd prefer that when the system starts up, I don't have all 7 valves assuming a new position, drawing amps from the 12VDC power supply simultaneously - the Mean Well I have can handle up to 0.84 amps at 12VDC, and even running all seven at one time would draws less than 0.6 amps, so I'm probably fine. A bigger power supply would fix that, but still - it would be more efficient if, at the end of a brew session, all the valves shut down in the position that they'll be needing to be in when I start the next session.
The theory starts getting tested starting this weekend... I'd like to be electric brewing for the first time in May!!
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