I bought a single stage F model that said the relay was 5A but turned out it is actually 10A. You can slide the housing off and take a look at it.
There are details in this thread on building out a single stage.
ebay aquarium temp controller build
- Thread starter android
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
Thanks! I'll have a look; perhaps all is not lost.
Yep. I've gained a good understanding of how to wire the circuit from the information here. I was asking more about how people hid the cables, whether they mounted any junction boxes inside or outside, etc. Apologies if this is the wrong thread to ask.
Thanks again for your help!
-j
I may have spent 23.99 to get it here but I did purchase it from the same seller as quite a few here "mixtea" on ebay. I may have spent a few bucks more than others but hopefully it will be worth the extra couple bucks to get it from a reliable source hehe.. Oh well I cant wait for it to get here. Its getting warm here 85+ so the ferm-chamber will be needed at next brew day!
Neil
Neil
carlisle_bob
Well-Known Member
Hi
You done right.
The ones I took a gamble on came in at 220V.
That after a long string of emails with the seller about how they would be 110V...Bob
Well, the eBay ad/listing said 5A, the one-page "manual" that came with it said 10A, and, when I slipped the housing off, the actual component said 15A! I'm going with the assumption that I'm golden, and quietly hoping they're not using factory seconds or some such nonsense in the construction of these high-dollar contraptions.
-j
jerdes
Active Member
ifpo238 said:
The other constrain is the traces on the circuit board. If the traces were designed for 5A or even 10A and you apply 15A you could release the magic smoke. Once the smoke is released you can't put it back in.
JuanMoore
Getting the banned back together
That sounds like one of the least accurate ways to control the temp that I can think of. The cooling coils are located just under the skin of the interior walls in chest freezers, and even if you got lucky and didn't tape the probe right on top of a coil, it would still cause the freezer to turn off well before the interior of the freezer or the beer cooled to the set point. This will create a lot of unnecessary cycling when putting in a new keg that's significantly warmer than the freezer, which will reduce the compressor life. By securing the probe to something with a little thermal mass somewhere inside the freezer, you can control the temp of the beer accurately without worrying about short cycling from temp swings. It also doesn't require any guess work for setting the temperature exactly where you want it.
carlisle_bob
Well-Known Member
Hi
Actually you have completely missed the point altogether by not thinking it through. The beer is *inside* the wall of the freezer. Anything inside that wall will reach equilibrium with the wall. The only way that would not be true is if there is a heat source inside your beer.
The coils are indeed in the wall, but that in no way creates any extra cycling what so ever. In fact it reduces the cycling. That's true weather you set the cut in / cut out as I suggest or not. Indeed the *original* temperature control for the freezer has a sensor located in the wall of the freezer. It certainly does not make that controller cycle more or create some sort of horrible control situation.
The thermal mass inside the freezer is a "lag" relative to the compressor. The more lag you have the more trouble the control loop will have. Basic control theory guarantees this is true. Regardless of where you sense your temperature there will indeed be issues. A bottle of water in no way produces some magic situation that is ideal.
Bob
JuanMoore
Getting the banned back together
carlisle_bob said:
My wording was a little strong, and I'm sure your method works fine. I just think it has some limitations, and I also think there are alternatives that provide significant advantages. But that's JMO, take it for what it's worth.
Unless you're pre-chilling your beer to serving temp prior to putting it in the freezer, you do indeed have a heat source inside the walls, which will increase cycling using your method, which is exactly the example I gave.
carlisle_bob said:
Yes, but it's isolated from the coils, which is to prevent short cycling. Unless you know where the coils are you have a high chance of being much closer than the factory sensor, and thus increasing cycling. The factory thermostat also has a much larger hysteresis than what I see most people programming for their external controllers, which again will increase cycling.
carlisle_bob said:
The "trouble" you're talking about is lag and overshoot. We're talking about a very slow responding control loop due to the thermal mass of kegs of beer. In this case lag and overshoot are actually desired since they will reduce compressor cycling without having any significant effect on the beer temp.
carlisle_bob
Well-Known Member
Hi
Provided you widen out the cut in / cut out, there is no increase in compressor cycling. If you do not widen them out, the overshoot on the wall does a pretty good job all by it's self. Indeed you are better off widening out the set points.
If you take a look at the manufacturer's data on the freezer (all that horrible tiny print stuff) they actually have the probe near a cooling coil. I've fiddled a bit with position and you get their numbers and compressor cycle rates with the probe near(er) a coil rather than further away.
Try it it works ....
Bob
Sure, you can widen the cut in and cut out points (and I mean REALLY widen), and hope the beer remains at roughly the temperature you want.
Or you can just use the beer itself as the temperature reference, accomplishing the same thing except that you *know* your beer will remain at exactly the temp that you want.
Or you can just use the beer itself as the temperature reference, accomplishing the same thing except that you *know* your beer will remain at exactly the temp that you want.
JuanMoore
Getting the banned back together
If you're at beer serving temps and using a wide hysteresis and still getting similar cycle rates to the manufacturer numbers, you've got some serious issues. At serving temp it should cycle a fraction as often as the published numbers (which are for below freezing), even with a tighter hysteresis.
And a lot of people (myself included) are using these controllers for ferm chambers, in which case the wide hysteresis you're using to control the cycling would be a bad thing.
That too.
And a lot of people (myself included) are using these controllers for ferm chambers, in which case the wide hysteresis you're using to control the cycling would be a bad thing.
emjay said:
That too.
wfowlks
Well-Known Member
Love this thread,
Quick Question, What did you use to cut the plastic on the project enclosure, It looks like you got a nice clean cut.
Quick Question, What did you use to cut the plastic on the project enclosure, It looks like you got a nice clean cut.
I think (hope) carlisle_bob was referring to a part of the wall where there aren't any coils, or maybe even a frost-free refrigerator or freezer where the walls are not being used as the heat exchanger for the evaporator coils as with a chest freezer. He must not have understood the follow up post referring to the probe being directly on the wall where a coil is. At least I hope so, as I don't think anyone could make a case for placing the probe directly on the evaporator.
While placing the probe directly on the wall is a surprising new one- probe in air, thermowell, and taped the wall of the ferm vessel has already been hashed out in this thread (at least for fermenting) with the definitive winner being placing the probe the wall of the ferm vessel (then insulating).
For a keezer with finished beer, the best 'set and forget' method is to follow the same approach. Simply substitute a vessel with a similar thermal mass/response to the smallest vessel that will be placed in the keezer (to prevent exploding frozen bottles). A thermowell approach would work with finished beer, but taping to the vessel wall is good enough and much easier. It is possible that the wall of a freezer/fridge could serve as this representative vessel, but it would require a bunch of experimentation to determine placement. There would also need to be adjustments if the ambient (external) changes. An easier solution is to just use a bottle of beer.
Whether ferming or serving, since a primary indicator is being used, cycling is reduced as good as can be expected with this type of controller and a given temp variance.
While placing the probe directly on the wall is a surprising new one- probe in air, thermowell, and taped the wall of the ferm vessel has already been hashed out in this thread (at least for fermenting) with the definitive winner being placing the probe the wall of the ferm vessel (then insulating).
For a keezer with finished beer, the best 'set and forget' method is to follow the same approach. Simply substitute a vessel with a similar thermal mass/response to the smallest vessel that will be placed in the keezer (to prevent exploding frozen bottles). A thermowell approach would work with finished beer, but taping to the vessel wall is good enough and much easier. It is possible that the wall of a freezer/fridge could serve as this representative vessel, but it would require a bunch of experimentation to determine placement. There would also need to be adjustments if the ambient (external) changes. An easier solution is to just use a bottle of beer.
Yes, it does.
Whether ferming or serving, since a primary indicator is being used, cycling is reduced as good as can be expected with this type of controller and a given temp variance.
No, they haven't. If you need some in depth analysis, I can give you links to some threads where this has already been thoroughly thought through- one involving 5 physicists, most with phd's.
wfowlks said:
Well, that process could be a real 'pita'. Because of melting plastic. As for the first step, I was using small hole cutter on a drill machine, and then a jigsaw. Later, for finishing touches, some fine rasp.
carlisle_bob
Well-Known Member
Hi
Wide hysteresis at the chamber wall does not equate to wide swing in a keg of beer. There's a *lot* of thermal mass in the keg. It averages out the air temperature. The air temperature is an average of the wall temperature. To be fancy about it, the keg acts as an integrator.
If you are sensing in a bottle of water, the chamber wall is already swinging quite a bit. Toss a thermocouple (or what ever) on the wall and watch it. Different parts of the wall will move different amounts, but they all swing quite a bit.
Bob
carlisle_bob
Well-Known Member
Hi
Early on in this sub thread I did point out that if you have a heat source, none of these methods are optimum. Having the sensor in a bottle of water or on the wall of the chamber *both* will give you an error if you have active fermentation. The only way to really control the temperature of an actively fermenting fluid is to sense in that fluid.
Bob
Hi
Actually you have completely missed the point altogether by not reading (or thinking) it through.
For ferming, I said to use the wall of the vessel; and for serving, I said how and why it was advantageous (and optimum for this type of controller) to use a bottle of liquid in the same way for maintaining serving temps. This is due mainly to it being a primary indicator, as opposed to your method using a secondary indicator (which causes more issues with control system design that the lag or overshoot in a keezer). Besides not having to experiment with where to place the sensor, and what differential to set, you don't have to worry about any bottles freezing (many people store bottles in their serving keezers). As long as the sensor vessel is as large as the smallest vessel, you get optimum (minimum) cycling as well.
I already stated that your method of using a secondary indicator (wall of freezer) can give the same results as using a primary indicator (wall of vessel). The difference is all of the experimentation (time) involved in tuning the system, which is not something most people would want to do. In fact, it is possible for a secondary indicator to provide superior performance when its temps lead the controlled vessels temps (due to external ambient temps in this case). The rub is that it would require even more tuning and different regimes for any seasonal (or daily) swings in the ambient temps, and no freeze protection either.
That was all based on a passive wall (like a fridge). Placing the probe directly on a evaporator coil, there is no way in real practice you would ever get a system to perform anywhere close to the bottle of beer method.
Any more control theory talk needs to focus on primary vs secondary indicators, because that is biggest difference between your method and everyone else's. And quit mixing ferming and serving strategies.
The only way to get any better performance with a standard freezer is with some kind of predictive control system, which is what placing the sensor on the passive wall of the freezer mimics. The main issue with these type of systems is the difficulty of tuning them, especially with varying ambient temps (garage), and is made even more difficult when the only tuning parameters available are moving the probe to a new spot on the wall or adjusting the temp differential.
A great idea to really get to the bottom of this would be to start a new thread and invite Cat22 to have his 'probe in air' (even for ferming) do battle with your 'probe on wall'. He was equally as passionate that his way was right as well.
JuanMoore
Getting the banned back together
You are repeating what everyone else is saying, but applying it incorrectly. Everyone is saying that the freon, air, and everything in between gets much colder (and hotter) than the controlled vessel. The rest of us are just saying that trying to figure out what that temp swing is so it can be programmed into the controller is a whole lot more difficult than taping the probe to the vessel you want to control, setting the temp you want, choosing a reasonable diff value, and walking away. Not to mention that, given the diff range limit on these controllers, your method is certain to increase cycling.
For your approach, integrator is an awfully fancy name for a passive heat sink (keg) that will approach, or if your control system sucks, hover around, the average temperature maintained inside the freezer.
As long as the 'probe on coil/wall' approach gets thoroughly ridiculed in this one. I saw his post the other day, and was tempted to comment. Since it seemed to go unnoticed, I let it be. When the guy still defended his strategy, even after several posts to the contrary, it now unfortunately needs to be beaten into submission.Fantastic idea!This thread is already so rambling and cluttered that newer members have a lot of trouble finding the info they need about the controller that this thread was started about.
There have already been a few people burn up their brand new chest freezers, some the first day, by taking the 'probe in air' advice that was being foisted ages ago as the best method by a few vocal people. The 'probe on coil' method is equally bad. The compressor killing "hot starts" may not be as big of an issue, but cycling is going to increase dramatically. How long would it take for the coil to exceed even the 10C max differential of these controllers- 20 seconds?
smittygouv30
Well-Known Member
I just finished my keezer build and currently have my temperature probe just sitting at the bottom of the keezer. Its there mainly bc I'm waiting to brew my ESB and wanted to use the whitelabs vial as the container to submerge the probe in. I've been following this thread somewhat to find what is best for long term survival of my freezer.
What is an acceptable cycling time for the freezer? Right now I have my freezer set at 37 deg and it will kick on above 40 deg and usually carry the temperature down to 34. When it kicks on, its on for about 7 minutes and then kicks off for about 30 minutes. That seems like a lot of cycling to me. The keezer is in the house so it's not exposed to extreme temperatures. Also the collar is not insulated, I just used 2" pine behind 1" oak to make the collar.
What is an acceptable cycling time for the freezer? Right now I have my freezer set at 37 deg and it will kick on above 40 deg and usually carry the temperature down to 34. When it kicks on, its on for about 7 minutes and then kicks off for about 30 minutes. That seems like a lot of cycling to me. The keezer is in the house so it's not exposed to extreme temperatures. Also the collar is not insulated, I just used 2" pine behind 1" oak to make the collar.
carlisle_bob
Well-Known Member
carlisle_bob said:
The "rational" way is massive temp swings from below-freezing to exceeding the temperature of the thermal mass. Most controllers don't allow anywhere near such a wide hysteresis, so even setting it to the controller's maximum will have far more frequent cycling than is ideal. And even if you can find a controller that allows for such a wide hysteresis, you're just making yourself play a ridiculous guessing game with regards to the stable temperature of the thermal mass, as opposed to being certain that the SERVING temp is *exactly* what you want (fermentation generates its own heat, so in that case you can't even maintain a stable temp).
Basically, there's no advantage to fixing it to the wall, but several disadvantages. As such, the superior method is clear. As cwi already said, it technically CAN offer better control, but it requires a far more advanced control system than these single-probe temp controllers we all use, so it's irrelevant for most of our purposes, and certainly irrelevant to this thread.
My previous opening comment needs repeating- read thoroughly.
I stated that 'probe in air' has the hot cycling issue, and your 'probe on coil' (or wall) should not have that issue, because it is attached to the coil which will continue to chill (or the wall which has some mass). The 'probe on coil' method is guaranteed to cycle more frequently than necessary because the probe will be chilled past the temp diff almost immediately, shutting off the freezer. The 'probe on wall' method, as long as the walls are not part of the evaporator, will behave better (though far from ideal), but the controller temp and diff settings still have to be homed in on by trial and error to get the desired beer temp and avoid freezing of smaller vessels.
If you try to add in the additional constraint of minimizing cycling, the tuning task becomes almost impossible. For the 'probe on vessel' approach, controlling cycling is simply a matter of choosing the largest differential that you can live with, and you have optimal cycling for that temp/diff.
Either way, on coil or on wall (which method you use isn't clear), your approach has zero benefits for a keezer or ferm chamber implementation.
The best advice to avoid killing your freezer is to go get blackout drunk so you forget anything carlisle_bob posted.
The main thing that helps avoid cycling is to have the probe on something thermally massive, and also a lot of thermal mass in the freezer- never run one empty. Equally important is to never leave the probe hanging in the air, especially with a small temp diff setting. The single most important thing to prevent instant death of your compressor due to a 'hot start' caused by unusual conditions is to max out the ASD of the controller (10 min?).
With a proper setup, cycling can be controlled by the temp diff setting. This setting also determines the swing of your ferming beer, so there is a tradeoff between a tight temp variance, and compressor cycling. Most people are happy using a 0.5C diff setting, since the thermal mass of the vessel minimizes cycling enough to be acceptable.
There is no reason to wait until you have a yeast vial to use some thermal mass to control cycling. Just tape the probe to any thermal mass, like a bottle of beer, then insulate it. That is the method commonly used for keezers. There are more than a few people that have their probe directly in liquid, but many don't trust the chinese probes to remain waterproof for long submersion periods.
For fermenting, tape it to the vessel wall (like the side of a carboy), and put insulation over that. Additional passive thermal mass, provided it is already at ferm temp, can help reduce cycling further, but a fan may be needed to prevent undershoots as well as help with heat transfer from the passive mass to the ferm vessel.
One scenario you wouldn't want extra thermal mass in the freezer is when you are crash cooling a batch, since it will add additional time to reach the final temp.
JuanMoore
Getting the banned back together
The cycling you're experiencing probably isn't frequent enough to burn up the compressor quickly, but I'm confident that it cycles considerably more often than the few times a day mine cycles. By your own admission you had to fiddle with both the probe placement and hysteresis settings to achieve your desired serving temp and compressor cycle rates. If you're happy with how your probe placement performs, that's great, but please stop trying to convince others of it's benefits when there clearly aren't any.
This^
smittygouv30
Well-Known Member
cwi said:
Wow, thanks a bunch. That is extremely helpful information. I'll have to mess with the settings to see about changing the ASD. I don't remember seeing it when I connected my controller.
ASD (Anti-Shortcycle Delay) is called 'compressor delay' in the STC-1000 manual, and is F3 in the menu. There is no logical reason not to max it out at 10 min. It is also automatically activated at power up to prevent a hot start in the event of a momentary power loss.
BrewBug
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2011
- Messages
- 41
- Reaction score
- 1
Well I just finished building mine and may have an issue that I hope someone can help on. In regular outlet it powers up just fine and seems to run normal, at least with nothing plugged in as heating or cooling source. My issue is that when I plug the unit into my homes GFCI outlet and turn it on, it immediately trips the GFCI. DO I have something wired wrong?
zachattack
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2012
- Messages
- 2,808
- Reaction score
- 323
A tripped ground fault means current is leaking to the ground. Did you accidentally hook the ground up to the neutral? That would make it run, but it would be very dangerous.
A common reason a GFCI will trip but the appliance works fine on a normal outlet is that the neutral is tied into the ground. Where do you have the ground attached that is coming in to your project box? It should be attached to the grounding ear(s) on the receptacle(s) and nowhere else.
zachattack
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2012
- Messages
- 2,808
- Reaction score
- 323
If I hadn't of gotten a phone call while writing my response I would have beaten you...
carlisle_bob
Well-Known Member
Hi
If you believe that the compressor on a normal cheap / small freezer only cycles once or twice a day that's fine. My observation of brand new freezers does not match yours. For a very large freezer or a cold environment anything is possible. The published data from the manufacturer also does not back up the few cycles a day observation.
Bob
Have a few questions regarding the diagram and pics in the OP. The diagram shows the probe connected to 1,5,6,7 with one wire and to the hot side of one of the sockets with the other wire. But the first picture appears that it's connected to 3 & 4 of the temp controller. There is also some green wire in the diagram that appears to be connected to the hot second socket and the probe but I don't see those wires at all in the pictures or how you'd connect that third wire to the probe.
raouliii
Well-Known Member
Interesting. I wasn't aware that any manufacturers were publishing data on compressor cycling when using an auxiliary temperature controller with the sensor placed on an almost ideal 20Kg thermal mass, in a freezer that likely has several other similar vessels acting as, to use a fancy term like you are fond of doing, defluctuators.
You really should wait until you actually own the controller discussed in this thread, not the 220V you ordered after all of your equally deep analysis of the seller had you convinced it would be a 110V model.
You do not have this thought out properly, and seem to be very closed minded to any methods that differ from your own. There are people here that are equally (or more) intelligent, educated, experienced, knowledgeable, etc. as you. You might try considering the opinions offered up here, even though they might conflict with your ill conceived ideas.
