5500w ULD element taking too long to heat

Yambor44 said:

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That last photo explains how it got wired wrong. That looks to be live on the outer 2 nuetral in the middle (don't quote me though), which is how the new breaker has been wired.
By the way, should you be taking breakers out yourself (unless you are a ticketed sparky). Here in NZ it is a diffinate no-no to be removing breakers from a mains panel.

jsguitar said:

BTW, just to be extra careful, are they marked as whoaru99 suggested?

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I don't see any markings.

The center terminal looks to be labeled neutral. You really need a meter.

lschiavo said:

You really need a meter.

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This! Ok, dead horse beaten.

I'm hestitant to say anymore just in case. I wish you luck though.

Common sense will help you with the 30A breaker. It is quite plain that it is made up of two identical breakers joined together. One of these only has single screw terminal. The other has two. Wire red and black to the screw terminals that are the same on the two breakers. Wire the neutral (white) to the screw terminal that is just above the white wire permanently connected to the breaker. 'Above' here means if the breaker is sitting flat on its back.

Edit: stop press. The 50A breaker is different. On this one the two outside terminals are marked Load + and Load - and the middle terminal is marked Load N. Connect the red and black wires to the Load + and Load - terminals and the white wire to the Load N terminal.

lschiavo said:

The center terminal looks to be labeled neutral. You really need a meter.

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Yeah. Guess I am done until I can get a pro here. Neighbor never showed up tonight so no meter.

I'll get my engineer friend over here and let him take care of it. I understand now what everyone is saying about the wiring, but if the other is wired wrong as well, I don't want to fool with them. I'd rather be on the safe side even if it means no brewing over the holiday weekend. Don't want to let you guys down by getting fried!

So, breaker going back in the way it is above as I know no fire hazard at this point that way, then someone qualified to check on it when I can get them out here.

I WILL keep everyone posted once that happens.

Thank you all very much for taking time out of your holiday to help me, it is much appreciated.

Rob

ajdelange said:

Common sense will help you with the 30A breaker. It is quite plain that it is made up of two identical breakers joined together. One of these only has single screw terminal. The other has two. Wire red and black to the screw terminals that are the same on the two breakers. Wire the neutral (white) to the screw terminal that is just above the white wire permanently connected to the breaker. 'Above' here means if the breaker is sitting flat on its back.

Edit: stop press. The 50A breaker is different. On this one the two outside terminals are marked Load + and Load - and the middle terminal is marked Load N. Connect the red and black wires to the Load + and Load - terminals and the white wire to the Load N terminal.

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Was just going to correct you, but looks like you did it yourself! This really is one of the fastest moving threads I have been involved in

BTW, regarding the meter, you can get one that will perform just fine for not much money at all or even get a used Fluke on eBay or something. I had someone give me their old Fluke. It's well worth it to learn how to use one (super easy) and will help you troubleshoot all kinds of things around the house as well.

ajdelange said:

Common sense will help you with the 30A breaker. It is quite plain that it is made up of two identical breakers joined together. One of these only has single screw terminal. The other has two. Wire red and black to the screw terminals that are the same on the two breakers. Wire the neutral (white) to the screw terminal that is just above the white wire permanently connected to the breaker. 'Above' here means if the breaker is sitting flat on its back.

Edit: stop press. The 50A breaker is different. On this one the two outside terminals are marked Load + and Load - and the middle terminal is marked Load N. Connect the red and black wires to the Load + and Load - terminals and the white wire to the Load N terminal.

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Like this? I put the white wire on top of where the white pigtail comes out and the black where the white was.


also, the other breaker seems to be wired correctly based on the white wires being stacked, correct?

Yambor44 said:

...but if the other is wired wrong as well, I don't want to fool with them.

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My statement that the other was wired wrong was based on the assumption that both breakers were the GE one for which the link was supplied. Now that you have shown bigger pictures it is clear that this is not the case. Your problem with the GE breaker was caused because whoever wired it assumed that it was the same as the other breaker and wired it the same way which is incorrect for the GE breaker. We spotted that and showed you how to correctly wire the GE breaker but almost pushed you into making the same sort of error with the 50 Amp breaker. With the 50 amp breaker the terminals are H N H. With the 30 Amp breaker they are N H H.

All this aside I do think it would be best to let you qualified friend do the installation or reinstallation as the case may be. Make sure that he is aware that the terminal patterns are different.


For mattd2: Whether working on a panel yourself is legal or not depends on where you live. In blue (left leaning) jurisdictions where unions are strong it often is not. In red (conservative) jurisdictions it usually is. Inspections are required almost universally however regardless of who did the work.

So....don't change the wiring on the 30?

Yambor44 said:

also, the other breaker seems to be wired correctly based on the white wires being stacked, correct?

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Based on that 50A breaker, I'd say it is not a safe assumption to assume GFCI breaker wiring is correct based only on the white wires being stacked.

About the 30A breaker in question, if the GE model number on that breaker matches the model number(s) in that GE data sheet, then ensure it's connected per those instructions.

whoaru99 said:

According to that cut sheet the breaker lugs should be labeled "load neutral" and "load power". Should be easy enough to confirm the connections black to load power and white to load neutral.

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Found it!

As I have it NOW, red is on load power and white is on load neutral.

Here's a pic:

Long as white/neutral is on "load neutral" I'd re-install and let'er rip. With the white/load neutral part ensured, the order of red and black doesn't particularly matter because each will be on a hot leg either way.

The comments in #90 were based on the breaker picture you posted in #81 which is not the same breaker as in #89 and I was typing those comments while you were posting those last two pictures. As I have no information about the breaker actually in the panel I can't say that the 50 Amp one is wired correctly. If it is not you would be having trouble with that circuit of the same sort you are having with the 30A circuit so I suppose it must be OK but I'd have your friend check it. The 30A breaker is OK.

ajdelange said:

The comments in #90 were based on the breaker picture you posted in #81 which is not the same breaker as in #89 and I was typing those comments while you were posting those last two pictures. As I have no information about the breaker actually in the panel I can't say that the 50 Amp one is wired correctly. If it is not you would be having trouble with that circuit of the same sort you are having with the 30A circuit so I suppose it must be OK but I'd have your friend check it.

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Gotcha. Sounds good. In the mean time, I know this works and though I never got clarification on it, someone said earlier whoever told me to take the 50 out gave me bad advice. So I put it back like this wired the way it was before with the white in the middle in the neutral spot.

Not necessary was it bad advice. There is no compelling reason to have a circuit protected way higher than necessary to get the job done (with a little cushion, of course) even if the components can take it.

whoaru99 said:

Long as white/neutral is on "load neutral" I'd re-install and let'er rip. With the white/load neutral part ensured, the order of red and black doesn't particularly matter because each will be on a hot leg either way.

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I'd be inclined to do this. Fire that thing up and give us an update so we can celebrate your success!

Wow, go have some Thanksgiving dinner and pass out from over-turkey-ing, and the thread tripples. From what I can tell, it looks like the problem was identified - you had the black and white swapped, so your PID was getting 240 and the heating element was getting 120. If you install the breaker as you have it in post #96, and the wiring in the panel remains as is, I believe it will work.

Of course, the biggest lesson here is to have the right tools for the job...
-Kevin

BadNewsBrewery said:

Of course, the biggest lesson here is to have the right tools for the job...
-Kevin

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Or, RTFM, in so many words.

Turn up the volume so you can hear the element! One more VID downloading now for the final on strike water temp/time.

Ding ding ding!! You were getting 1/4 power previously. Now you're getting full power. Great success. (And all done w/out a multi meter)

BadNewsBrewery said:

Ding ding ding!! You were getting 1/4 power previously. Now you're getting full power. Great success. (And all done w/out a multi meter)

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I knew you guys could do it!!! I'll post one more when it's up on the final times. Having about 7F overshoot so far. Maybe an Autotune? When I spoke to the tech guy at Aubern Instruments he said I did not need to do that, however I read on here where most say to do one.

The PID will learn the system over time. Autotune forces it to learn faster. If you're already up to temperature it may be too late to try and autotune. I'm not sure on the best proces but Kal recommends setting it for a normal mash temperature (150ish) and when you're about 10* under hit the Autotune. You should be fine though.

BadNewsBrewery said:

Ding ding ding!! You were getting 1/4 power previously. Now you're getting full power. Great success. (And all done w/out a multi meter)

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Sure. Two days and umpteen post later...I still think he should ask Santa for a multi meter.

No doubt. There was some degree of sarcasm in my post, I just forgot to use the sarcasm font.

Yambor44 said:

Having about 7F overshoot so far. Maybe an Autotune? When I spoke to the tech guy at Aubern Instruments he said I did not need to do that, however I read on here where most say to do one.

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Were this controller really a PID controller then tuning would absolutely be necessary. But this isn't a PID controller - it uses fuzzy logic and my understanding is, appropriately enough, fuzzy. As the controller does have an autotune function I would assume that some sort of tuning is necessary. I would do an autotune. That should reduce your overshoot immediately. Even if the controller has algorithms that allow it to refine the 'tuneset' as it 'learns' you can shorten the learning period appreciably if you give it a good starting point.

The tuning parameters depend on the thermal mass of the load, the rate at which it loses heat, the rate at which the heater can supply heat and the rapidity with which the temperature of the load can change. Thus, and this is a common problem with PID control, a system tuned on 5 gallons of water isn't properly tuned for 6 gallons of mash.

lschiavo said:

Sure. Two days and umpteen post later...I still think he should ask Santa for a multi meter.

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Nah, only about a half a day overall including 8 hours sleep!

My neighbor actually left a MM outside my garage brand new in the case. Looks like the harbor freight variety. The prongs were not long enough to get a reading in the outlet so I just went ahead and fired it up.

My friend the engineer is still coming by at some point to check it.

I have left it on all this time and it held the temp at 172 with set point of 165. So far nothing has melted or caught in fire.

If it's holding a steady temperature, you should be able to adjust the temperature differential. I haven't done this step yet, but it's written up on Kal's website.

Congrats on getting it working.

Have you stirred it really well to make sure the reading is accurate? When it's not boiling, it helps to keep the water moving.

ajdelange said:

Were this controller really a PID controller then tuning would absolutely be necessary. But this isn't a PID controller - it uses fuzzy logic and my understanding is, appropriately enough, fuzzy. As the controller does have an autotune function I would assume that some sort of tuning is necessary. I would do an autotune. That should reduce your overshoot immediately. Even if the controller has algorithms that allow it to refine the 'tuneset' as it 'learns' you can shorten the learning period appreciably if you give it a good starting point.

The tuning parameters depend on the thermal mass of the load, the rate at which it loses heat, the rate at which the heater can supply heat and the rapidity with which the temperature of the load can change. Thus, and this is a common problem with PID control, a system tuned on 5 gallons of water isn't properly tuned for 6 gallons of mash.

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Thank you. I will run the auto tune and report back once I have my results.

Last strike water vid as promised.

Yambor44 said:

I knew you guys could do it!!! I'll post one more when it's up on the final times. Having about 7F overshoot so far. Maybe an Autotune? When I spoke to the tech guy at Aubern Instruments he said I did not need to do that, however I read on here where most say to do one.

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You need to autotune. I put it off on my system for a while, but after doing it it appears to be perfectly, critically damped.

BadNewsBrewery said:

If it's holding a steady temperature, you should be able to adjust the temperature differential. I haven't done this step yet, but it's written up on Kal's website.

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Thanks. Found it. Here's the link if anyone needs it. Toward the bottom of the page under Programming.

http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/control-panel-part-2?page=11

After re-reading, it may not be the right answer. You need to use the offest to compare your probe to a known temperature - so if the probe is reading really really icey water as 35* you know the offest is 3*. Your problem seems to be a tuning / autotune issue, and 'faking it' with the Pb adjustment may not be the right answer.

Sorry to point you in the wrong direction, though you should still calibrate your probe to a known temperature anyways.

BadNewsBrewery said:

After re-reading, it may not be the right answer. You need to use the offest to compare your probe to a known temperature - so if the probe is reading really really icey water as 35* you know the offest is 3*. Your problem seems to be a tuning / autotune issue, and 'faking it' with the Pb adjustment may not be the right answer.

Sorry to point you in the wrong direction, though you should still calibrate your probe to a known temperature anyways.

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No problem! I did end up setting the Pb back to zero during the boil. I noticed it was reading 7F degrees lower than the analog and thermopen (which was the amount I programmed it, -7F) so I set it back to zero and it then read the same.

I'll do an auto tune here shortly.

Boil went fantastic! Once it hit boiling I gave it a couple of minutes at 100%, then bumped it down to 75%. That seemed to be a decently aggressive boil without splashing out of the top. Started with 13 gallons and ended up with 11.25 gallons after a 2 minute boil at 100% and 60 minutes at 75%.

Trying to Auto Tune this morning. Followed Kai's setup on the PID via his website. Then followed these instructions for AT:


Fill your Hot Liquor Tank with water and set the Hot Liquor Tank PID to a typical mash temperature of around 154F. (I set at strike temp of 165F)

Once the water is approximately 10 degrees below the 165F set temperature, set the At setting to 2. (did these at 155F)

Auto tuning will automatically start after 10 seconds. For the next 10-20 minutes the PID will automatically turn the heating element on and off multiple times to see how fast temperature rises and drops in order to set the proportinal, integral, and derivative parameters automatically. The A/M light will blink during auto tuning. Once auto tuning is complete the At setting will return to the default value of 3.

It has been 20 Mins thus far. The A/M button isn't blinking but the set temp is flashing from "At" then to "165". My current real temp is 210F.

Any idea's? Wanted to brew today if possible but looks like I monked something up.

I'd just try again. For some reason, I had to run a few cycles of AT on mine. I ended up stepping up a few times. I started with something like 150 and tuned to that then set to 160 and tuned to that etc... It worked eventually.

Yeah, I tried again.

Right when it hit 155F I heard the element switch off when I was pressing the set button to go INTO the AT setting. Went ahead and set it to AT anyway. As soon as it kicked back over to flashing "At 165" the element cam back on and was still on when it was approaching set temp of 165F.

So I went back into the At menu and set it back to default of 3 (took it out of AT) and when it switched back to main screen the element switch off. It then held it at 167-168F.

So for now I will not run AT. Never could get the A-M button to flash on and off as well.

i have experimented with electric brewing and found the diameter of the boil pot makes a big difference i started with a sanke keg with a 5500 watt element, the problem with the keg is the diameter is to wide and the heat was not concentrated in the middle of the pot so the heat disapated faster than the element could heat it up, i then switched to a bayu classic 11 gallon pot and it will boil 7 gals in 20minutes.