New to automation, how to set up a completely electric automated system?

I am a "go big or go home" kinda guy. In this case it's "go big or don't brew." I am making a Brutus single tier style stand. I have free steel for the stand, and the guy providing it is also going to grind it and weld it, so that is going to be taken care of. I have yet to buy and convert kegs as well. This is a long term project. I have decided to go all electric, my garage is already hooked up for 240v (not really sure what the previous owners were using it for). I am going to use Ultra Low Watt heater elements for all of the heating. I am also going to be setting up my own RIMS system as well.

Right now I am researching automation solutions. I have yet to decide if I am going to use the LabJack U3 and a Raspberry Pi or get a BCS. I know I will be controlling 3 heating elements, 3 pumps, and solenoids to control pump speed. I am not new to programming, that will be the easy and fun part for me, but I am very new to basically all electrical setup. Here's how I think it works (assuming in this example I go with LabJack and Raspberry Pi):
Raspberry Pi controls the LabJack
LabJack with RB12 (relay board extension) has relays that trigger bigger relays for the heating elements and pumps
Heaters and Pumps are wired to the garage's circuit and "big" relays

And that's about as far as I know. Is this how it will work? I have yet to see a guide that explains all of this to newbies like myself. I am going to be putting the raspberry pi, labjack, and relays into a sealed "control panel" and wire in an emergency shutoff for good measure.

Why not Brewtroller system?

Brewtroller and BCS are the main options for an automated setup.

Brewtroller is all open source and intended to be completely hackable, but if you want a fancy user interface you have to do most of the legwork yourself. Documentation seems a bit hit and miss. It's definitely for DIY'ers.

I am less familiar with BCS but if you want a 100% automated process I would look at Brewtroller first because it supports volume measurement and BCS doesn't, as far as I know.

Ok, good to know. Thanks for the suggestions. But how would I wire the controller to the burners and pumps? Does that not require relays? This is more what I am asking than anything.

Burners? You said you were going all electric.

Check out http://www.theelectricbrewery.com. It's not fully automated, but it is a really high quality build that gives a lot of details about the usual choices.

Hello,

for your route the brewtroller, imho, would be quite easy to build. With the Opentroller DX1 you can directly drive the 12V valves, without relays.

Just as an example, take a look at this image



Add the 2 pumps you need, connected to the 2 relays pcb on the top left and you're done.

Others could say more, but this seem to be a quite easy way to follow and the support from the bt people is always available in live chat, together with other experienced bt users.

I'd suggest you to take a look at some builds, especially on the flows side, in order to plan your choice and then detail it as you prefer.

cheers

gm

Perhaps I wasn't quite fair to BrewTroller. It's not as slick an operation as BCS but they do offer support on the forum. The boards are not bad value, and if you shop around for the various add ons you could put a system together like this for less than what you'd pay for Auber PIDs etc.

Myself I'm DIY-ing with a Arduino mega & in the process of tweaking the BrewTroller code so that you can auto tune the PIDs.

goingmad said:

Hello,

for your route the brewtroller, imho, would be quite easy to build. With the Opentroller DX1 you can directly drive the 12V valves, without relays.

Just as an example, take a look at this image

Add the 2 pumps you need, connected to the 2 relays pcb on the top left and you're done.

Others could say more, but this seem to be a quite easy way to follow and the support from the bt people is always available in live chat, together with other experienced bt users.

I'd suggest you to take a look at some builds, especially on the flows side, in order to plan your choice and then detail it as you prefer.

cheers

gm

Click to expand...

Ok so I assume the two horizontal graphics second from the bottom are my heating elements (yes, electric, sorry for saying burners in previous post) but what are the graphics at the very bottom, with the yellow ends? I guess I need to do even more research.... The research never seems to end. But it seems that I was at least on the right track. I will head over to the BrewTroller forums, I was hoping to keep it all on HBT, but I will be back and I will make a master post for all of my projects to help people in the future. Thanks for the advice everyone, it looks like BT is the way to go! Keep it coming if you have any more input!