220V Power to feed a Speidel Braumeister

[brad2157]

I'm looking to go electric and possibly picking up a 20l Speidel Braumeister. I'm currently renting a house and do not have a 220V plug available in the garage (or a free open one in the house either). I only have a few 120V outlets in the garage. I'm 99.9% sure I wouldn't be allowed to add a 220V circuit to the garage, nor do I really want to spend the money doing so, knowing I'll be moving out in a year or so. Saw an old post some time back from where someone was selling a BM that came with a 110V > 200V step up transformer to power it. I'm assuming this is a safe device to use and would work nicely in my situation, but here is what I came up with below.

I know that typically the power measurements are posted/listed as "peak power" and not constant/RMS power output for inverters/transformers. I know to power the BM 20l, you would need something that would put out at least 2,023 watts constant (2,000 watts for the heating element and 23 watts for the pump). The specs listed for the BM are 220-230V with at least 10amp protection.

If I were to purchase one of these 5,000 watt transformer units, would this work to safely power the BM? From the power calculations, I think I should be fine power wise.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008GQTXS0/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

5,000 watts peak = 3,535 watts continuous (RMS Power)

RMS power = Peak Power x 0.707


Has anyone tried this before?

 

[golfindia]

These stepup xfrmers were brought up recently here. No matter what magic happens inside the box, the laws of physics still apply. The current associated with 2000W will be higher at 120 than 220. You have to do the math and make sure your home wiring will handle it. Maybe possible with a 20A 120 outlet, 15a might not be enough.

 

[brad2157]

Golfindia, thanks for the reply.

I looked more into this last night. The 120V outlet circuit in the garage is on a 15A breaker. I emailed LiteFuze and was told it needed to be on a 20A circuit. This leads me to my last option without asking the landlord to potentially add a new circuit in the garage. I have a 220V plug behind the clothes dryer that I would be able to get a 50 ft 220V welder extension cord / generator cable and plug it in on brew days and run it into the garage. I measured last night and would need approx. 38 feet to make it to the garage entry way door. That leaves me around 12 feet of cable length to get along one of the walls in the garage, not to mention the cord length coming from the Braumeister.

 

[ajdelange]

I know that typically the power measurements are posted/listed as "peak power" and not constant/RMS power output for inverters/transformers. I know to power the BM 20l, you would need something that would put out at least 2,023 watts constant (2,000 watts for the heating element and 23 watts for the pump). The specs listed for the BM are 220-230V with at least 10amp protection.

220V X 10 A = 2200 rms is the apparent requirement for your device. The transformer is not 100% efficient so you must supply it with half again as much power, ~ 3100 W for it to deliver 2023 W. That means the 120 V circuit would have to deliver 3100/120 = 26 amps. Does not look promising.

The 0.707 (1/sqrt(2)) factor relates peak power within a single cycle to rms power. Thus the peak power requirement is 3100/0.707 = 4384 W and is not relevant here.

The extension cord from the clothes dryer outlet looks like a better option. I assume the 220V plug is 3 wires (Hot, Hot, Earth) i.e. that there are no 120 V components in the machine. Make sure that your dryer plug is furnishing those same wires. In newer installations 4 wires are required but in old H,H,E was acceptable. Just be sure the earth of your machine is connected to the earth of the house.

Another possibility, and I don't recommend this unless you understand thoroughly how a house is wired and not really even then, is to take 120V from a convenient outlet on one phase (side of the transformer) and 120V from another outlet on the opposite phase. You obviously must be very careful here because if you accidentally interconnect the two phases you will be shorting 240V.

 

[brad2157]

Thank you for providing that information. I totally skipped over the obvious power calculation Power = Current x Voltage. I think by what was stated on the specs is that it's 10A maximum. It's somewhat tricky to read it all, as pretty much everything I have found is just the English translation of the original German manual.

I am going to use the clothes dryer 220V plug with a 50 ft extension cable to get it to the garage. The house I'm renting is newer, so it has the new standard 4-prong 220V plug (NEMA 14-30). Now I'm just left with doing some research to locate the correct series of cable/plug/adapter, etc... to get it from the existing 14-30 220V outlet to the needed C13 plug on the controller of the BM unit itself. I'm almost 100% positive that I'll end up having to wire something up along the way, as I'll be going from 4-prong power to 3-prong somewhere along the way to feed the BM.

 

[brewman !]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?p=7866832#post7866832

 

[brad2157]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?p=7866832#post7866832

Great information! Thank you for sharing! There are some ideas in there that I didn't even think about.