Using wood for a control box.. Smart or Dumb

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BlkWater_brewer said:
OK, if you want to be technical you raise valid issues, to a point. Wood is not a normal electrical material - I think we all know that. It is easy to work with that simple. Myself, I use a re-tasked heavy plastic Makita tool case for 2 reasons. 1) I had it and 2) it was easy to cut for PID's. It was to be my mockup because after building it I decided I didn't like the layout and was able to change it easily. I have revised it several times to the point where I actually replaced the front panel with a steel plate with what I thought was my final revision. Wrong.

As for ul listed, that and a $2.50 will get you a coffee. I can't even begin to count how many UL listed devices and cords I have had short out and be potential fire hazards. The insurance comment is irrelevant, UL enclosure or not won't make a difference, it's the license of the installer that really matters. This is DIY for home brewing, not commercial grade equipment. There is a difference. With me it's not about cutting corners, it's about getting creative. As to Auberins, a few extra dollars is fine if I can get support easier.
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But it is made of commercial use ssr's,pids and switches designed for commercial grade enclosures thats my point, when these things were designed contact with wood was not considered, they were designed with the notion that they would be in an enclosure approved for them...

These types of components,devices are not designed with a homebrewer (or home use) in mind... Just because they are installed and being used in a home doesnt change the nature of what they were designed and built for and those requirements should be taken into account unless common sense proves its unnecessary,
I repair large commercial imaging equipment and if I brought one home to print in my basement that doesnt mean that its now a home appliance and subject to new precautions?

I have had no issues with support... I had one issue with a faulty 24v powersupply and the ebay seller 2nd aired a free replacement with no questions asked... as for a switch,ssr or three wire color coded sensor what kind of support do you really need? you could buy two or three of everything and have extras if there was a problem and still come out ahead. With those kind of prices your almost better off paying someone else to build it and really support it. Especially if you feel you need to pay someone to show you how to install it. there is endless amount of directions, diagrams/schematics and places like this one which are here for support...

In any case paying all that money through aubrins and using a wooded box is like overpaying for expensive hyped up "monstercables" for your bargain basement low power/ quality hometheater system... its just not practical IMHO.
I have no love for the politics and money making practices that have evolved from what started out with good intentions (electrical approval boards) but like government they are still useful in some cases for weeding out potential unsafe conditions and they do perform testing (I hope!) besides being paid to come to these conclusions so...
 
Regarding a wooden box, not me.

I was working on a ckt board only 2 days ago and watched a yellow tantulum capacitor burst into flame. It was literally on fire, with a nice 3/4" flame above it. Burned for about 3 seconds before I blew it out. WTH, I would have thought that material wouldn't burn like that. I had accidentally shorted the board to a live (but only 24VDC) wire on my workbench. I've had other fires just like that. Even my own electrical brewing panel burned up pretty bad due to a loose connection on a terminal strip on the 240V rail.
 
Ive done lots of torch down roofing with a full throttle flame on plywood.It just browns the wood.Id think it takes a lot to start and sustain the wood burning. Then again how many house fires are there a year. I thought of it and didn't just because I didn't want to jinks myself.
So I made it out of a blastic box :cross:
 
I was under the impression from many threads here that Auberins was better quality.... Maybe I asked the wrong initial question....
 
passedpawn said:
Regarding a wooden box, not me.

I was working on a ckt board only 2 days ago and watched a yellow tantulum capacitor burst into flame. It was literally on fire, with a nice 3/4" flame above it. Burned for about 3 seconds before I blew it out. WTH, I would have thought that material wouldn't burn like that. I had accidentally shorted the board to a live (but only 24VDC) wire on my workbench. I've had other fires just like that. Even my own electrical brewing panel burned up pretty bad due to a loose connection on a terminal strip on the 240V rail.
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Mental note: No panels from passedpawn. Check.
 
So do you think a wooden box would catch fire and a plastic one wouldn't? (that's kind of a trick question, it depends on the plastic)

I don't know if this is relevant or not, but in a building fire, wooden structural members do not fail as quickly as steel.

IMHO, the reason you don't see much wooden-chassis electrical equipment is because wood cannot be stamped or injection molded -- so it's not well suited for mass production. You do still see wood used for musical stage equipment (amplifiers and such), and those as subject to pretty harsh treatment.
 
z-bob said:
So do you think a wooden box would catch fire and a plastic one wouldn't? (that's kind of a trick question, it depends on the plastic)

I don't know if this is relevant or not, but in a building fire, wooden structural members do not fail as quickly as steel.

IMHO, the reason you don't see much wooden-chassis electrical equipment is because wood cannot be stamped or injection molded -- so it's not well suited for mass production. You do still see wood used for musical stage equipment (amplifiers and such), and those as subject to pretty harsh treatment.
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This. I had a 1000watt powerd subwoofer. Box was made of everyday medium density fiberboard. You ever see that stuff burn? I actually use pieces for firestarters.

At the end of the subs life the power supply failed dramatically. Scorched the inside of the cabinet really badly.
 
The fact of the matter, no matter how you guys keep trying to justify its use, wood is not an acceptable enclosure for a Homebrewer. PERIOD. Your not going to change anyone's mind on that. If still think it's safe then have at it. Just don't get upset when one of us says "I told ya so!". It's really not hard to do the safe thing, just look at your service panel, why is it designed the way it is? Why is it as big as it is? Why do you have to follow special procedures when using Al wire? Why does your panel need to be inspected before its used?

These are all valid questions, and they do apply to your house and industry. If you can't answer them then you have no business thinking using wood as a enclosure to contain a fire is a safe practice. Yes it's there to contain a fire.

Just spend the damn money and do it right already!!!!
 
RussPDX said:
I was under the impression from many threads here that Auberins was better quality.... Maybe I asked the wrong initial question....
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Nope. I had a 2352 stop recognizing the RTD. I replaced it, and took apart the one that wasn't working. It was a terrible looking set of chinese ckt boards in there. Quite a kludge really. Very low-budget.

Also, the graphic membrane will wear out, crack, and expose the buttons underneath. Nobody puts a membrane like that right over buttons without a dome or carbon puck or something. It's designed to fail.

I had left my control panel outdoors for a month, on a patio. There was corrosion inside the Auberins PID that apparently resulted in a short ckt or something. Also, the terminal screws were rusting. My fault I suppose. My point is that although they do work, they are cheaply-made products. I did by another one though :(
 
augiedoggy said:
But it is made of commercial use ssr's,pids and switches designed for commercial grade enclosures thats my point, when these things were designed contact with wood was not considered, they were designed with the notion that they would be in an enclosure approved for them...
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These $36.00 PID's and $15.00 or less SSR's are nowhere even close to being commercial grade, or change that to industrial grade components. These are light duty imitations. Heavy duty PID's can cost over $300. each. These components do the job but you get what you pay for and we aren't paying much. PID's are plastic cased, SSR's are meant to mounted to heat sinks. What you mount the plastic component in or heat sink too is really not the point. We are really just splitting hairs here.:mug:
 
trimixdiver1 said:
The fact of the matter, no matter how you guys keep trying to justify its use, wood is not an acceptable enclosure for a Homebrewer. PERIOD. Your not going to change anyone's mind on that. If still think it's safe then have at it. Just don't get upset when one of us says "I told ya so!". It's really not hard to do the safe thing, just look at your service panel, why is it designed the way it is? Why is it as big as it is? Why do you have to follow special procedures when using Al wire? Why does your panel need to be inspected before its used?

These are all valid questions, and they do apply to your house and industry. If you can't answer them then you have no business thinking using wood as a enclosure to contain a fire is a safe practice. Yes it's there to contain a fire.

Just spend the damn money and do it right already!!!!
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I think the problem is, you're not the final arbiter of of what's acceptable or not. That responsibility falls on individual. I really don't care what materials one uses, as long as it's an informed decision.
 
trimixdiver1 said:
The fact of the matter, no matter how you guys keep trying to justify its use, wood is not an acceptable enclosure for a Homebrewer. PERIOD. Your not going to change anyone's mind on that. If still think it's safe then have at it. Just don't get upset when one of us says "I told ya so!". It's really not hard to do the safe thing, just look at your service panel, why is it designed the way it is? Why is it as big as it is? Why do you have to follow special procedures when using Al wire? Why does your panel need to be inspected before its used?

These are all valid questions, and they do apply to your house and industry. If you can't answer them then you have no business thinking using wood as a enclosure to contain a fire is a safe practice. Yes it's there to contain a fire.

Just spend the damn money and do it right already!!!!
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Despite your high opinion of yourself, your authority/superior intelligence here is purely an object of your own imagination.

Constantly referring to those who disagree with you as stupid and/or cheap asses only widens the gap between you and credibility.

PERIOD
 
Man this is a HOT topic... Get it?

z-bob said:
I think the problem is, you're not the final arbiter of of what's acceptable or not. That responsibility falls on individual. I really don't care what materials one uses, as long as it's an informed decision.
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Who said he was the final arbitrator? He didn't... I think he was merely stating his opinion based on his experience so the OP could make an informed decision. And I believe most people that work with electricity on a daily basis would agree with him due to safety concerns, but that is my opinion.


laradactyl said:
Despite your high opinion of yourself, your authority/superior intelligence here is purely an object of your own imagination.



Constantly referring to those who disagree with you as stupid and/or cheap asses only widens the gap between you and credibility.



PERIOD
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Again, I never saw him say he is smarter than everyone else or claimed to be the authoritative figure in this forum, but maybe he does have the experience to give an informed opinion.

Please quote where he called someone dumb or a cheap ass... He said that he thought it was a dumb and this is somewhere where you shouldn't be cheap, but those are his opinion and he didn't attack the OP (like you did him)...



I only gave my OPINION here because I didn't think the unwarranted emotional responses were necessary. Now blast away at me too...
 
BrokenHorn said:
Man this is a HOT topic... Get it?
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My only argument here would be that of high'er end audio electronics in which wooden casing is a mark of luxury, and, as mentioned before much of the amplifier industry houses their top ends in wooden enclosures, ex Peavy etc..

But he specifically said wood not good for homebrewer so, meh.
 
laradactyl said:
Despite your high opinion of yourself, your authority/superior intelligence here is purely an object of your own imagination.



Constantly referring to those who disagree with you as stupid and/or cheap asses only widens the gap between you and credibility.



PERIOD
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I really think you have some issues of your own. Wow
 
Look, I think we can all agree that you will likely die a fiery death if you even consider making a control panel out of wood, even though there is no evidence to show that there is any real danger of a fire happening because of said wood and a spark created by a short. The survivors of your demise won't get to claim any insurance either, since you didn't use metal and didn't get your control panel UL listed like all responsible electric brewers do.
 
LandoLincoln said:
Look, I think we can all agree that you will likely die a fiery death if you even consider making a control panel out of wood, even though there is no evidence to show that there is any real danger of a fire happening because of said wood and a spark created by a short. The survivors of your demise won't get to claim any insurance either, since you didn't use metal and didn't get your control panel UL listed like all responsible electric brewers do.
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What this guys says, you know the guy who used open flame propane burners on a wooden brewstand for years. ;)
 
The topic here: The OP wants your opinion, Smart or Dumb. If you state dumb, and back that up with whatever you think supports that, it's not a personal attack. Right?

I will say this: my first panel was in a metal enclosure, and my current one is plastic. Plastic is MUCH easier to deal with. Same with wood I'd bet.
 
Okay.

Trimixdiver is not the only person on here with an electrical background. And everyone with an electrical background is not necessarily in agreement with him. Opinions are fine when they are stated as such. But when they were stated as "fact" I reckon I took it a little personal.

My career of corralling electrons began in 1968, I retired in 2006. The last 25 years of that time I was involved with the protection and contols of high voltage transmission lines as well as the generation of electrical power. Now THOSE were some control panels! So in my own opinion I DO know what I am looking at when I see a few components mounted on a bit of plywood, even though I do not agree with trimixdiver's "facts".

Besides, what do I care, I just brew in my garage on a propane burner. Though I do use a heat stick (BrewHardware's Hot Rod) with a 2kw element for hot water in my garage. I'm sure that the 60 year old timer that I use to control it might raise a few eyebrows, even though it is not made of wood.
 
The timer.

2014-11-24 08.54.40.jpg


2014-12-01 13.36.43.jpg
 
Thanks. For several years my main responsibility was the acceptance testing and certification of newly installed high voltage substation equipment. Though I now lack most of the test equipment, the curiosity and desire to "prove it" when a question comes up remains. Chemo and radiation have happened since then so I make no claims that my test results are anything more than my test results. But I do have a ball out in my garage shop.:)
 
RussPDX said:
I was under the impression from many threads here that Auberins was better quality.... Maybe I asked the wrong initial question....
Click to expand...

Their pids may be yes since they might actually be made by them of they may control quality by manufactuer instead of just rebranded like the ssrs and such they sell.
Although I own 8 off brand ones and yet to have any performance issue with them...
But the other products they sell like the sensors.pids switchs and enclosures are all someone elses mostly from china suppliers.. they just buy in bulk mark up the price and stock/sell from a local warehouse... they offer better support if you need help wiring a switch or led indicator but for most this isnt needed since theres plenty of resources online and here...they do what many companies do now day and Give the false impression that its a suerior product made by them.... I can tell you how many times I see the truth of this lie every day at work....

quick trivia question Did you know that levis jeans was bought out and closed up years ago? all the jeans sold under thier logo are now made by another company in egypt.... its kind of like the pabst blue ribbon or whats happening with rolling rock... at least those use the same recipe

theres a difference between being cheap and being an educated consumer..
 
BlkWater_brewer said:
These $36.00 PID's and $15.00 or less SSR's are nowhere even close to being commercial grade, or change that to industrial grade components. These are light duty imitations. Heavy duty PID's can cost over $300. each. These components do the job but you get what you pay for and we aren't paying much. PID's are plastic cased, SSR's are meant to mounted to heat sinks. What you mount the plastic component in or heat sink too is really not the point. We are really just splitting hairs here.:mug:
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the 3-600k machines I service use plastic pids that arent any different in design as the "cheap $36 dollar" ones you speak of..I have seen and replaced many watlow and omron ones...in my opinion there nothing speacial about them other than better quality components... cheap ones are usually copies of these. Mine were all less than $25 btw...;)
 
augiedoggy said:
quick trivia question Did you know that levis jeans was bought out and closed up years ago? all the jeans sold under thier logo are now made by another company in egypt....
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Where did you learn that? According to their investor site, it's still a privately held company, owned by descendants of the Levi Strauss. I don't doubt that the jeans are made in another country though.
 
passedpawn said:
Where did you learn that? According to their investor site, it's still a privately held company, owned by descendants of the Levi Strauss. I don't doubt that the jeans are made in another country though.
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Well I remember it being on the news about 10-12 years ago that they underwent some kind of buyout or sale and all the factories were going to be closed and they would be made made by someone else in egypt...
one of the dye companies that made the dye for the jeans was local and have since gone out of business... My father worked for the chemicaltank truck outfit who accidentally dyed the erie canal blue when I was a kid :)

I guess my point is regardless whos still getting fat off the profits the "image" of levis jeans was that they are an American icon .... thats now gone and closed up in America and made in egypt.... yet if youve seen the latest commercial or were your average commercial you would never know...
I have many customers in in manufacturing (or used to be) and many or them are now owned by larger competitors and pedel foriegn products they import and rebrand as their own some use the old manufacturing warehouses for storage and some just move to an office suite.... Sometimes its not as bad as that...
for example I was at fisher -price toys a few weeks ago and somehow I missed in the past that they are now owned by Mattel who was a competitor.... Yet they continue to market under the old brand? to me thats to deceive the customer, if not what else is it?
yet so much is going that way... we have korean deawoos being sold as chevies and the people buying them usually have no idea...
joke is on the uneducated assuming customer.
 
I know this is a bit off topic but my Phillips plasma tv died yesterday and when I pulled it apart to troubleshoot the problem I discovered that every component inside was made by Samsung.... So its a Samsung rebranded and sold under the phillips and magnavox brandname as well as a samsung according to the model #... And its an old one from 2006 which from what I read was before Phillips stopped making their own home theater equipment and leasing their name to other manufacturers to make money off of....

you just never know what your buying these days...
 
For what it's worth, a guy I know in the neighborhood built a Kal Clone, and since he builds custom skateboards for a living he decided to build his control box out of wood. It looks outstanding. He also used cheap knockoff Chinese electrical components, i.e. not Auberins.

I didn't think anything of it for the past two years. Then I found this thread. Hmmm... It's some kind of miracle I suppose. But he's still alive and his house hasn't burned down.

Turns out a little common sense goes a long ways.

Also, your insurance company won't give a **** what material your box was made of if you burned down your house. If you pull a permit and pass the electrical inspection is what they care about. So if you're not pulling a permit then it's a moot point about UL listing and insurance.
 
geoffey said:
So if you're not pulling a permit then it's a moot point about UL listing and insurance.
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Why would you pull a permit? Your plugging a device into an outlet... An old wood tv is not most likely UL approved, has electrical components mounted in a wood box, and not "safe" to today's standards. If it burns your house down nothing can be said from your insurance company other than a tv caused a house fire.
 
You'd perhaps pull a permit for the installation of the outlet or the spa panel, etc. Not many people have a 240v 30 or 50 amp GFCI outlet existing in their house.
 
geoffey said:
For what it's worth, a guy I know in the neighborhood built a Kal Clone, and since he builds custom skateboards for a living he decided to build his control box out of wood. It looks outstanding. He also used cheap knockoff Chinese electrical components, i.e. not Auberins.

I didn't think anything of it for the past two years. Then I found this thread. Hmmm... It's some kind of miracle I suppose. But he's still alive and his house hasn't burned down.

Turns out a little common sense goes a long ways.

Also, your insurance company won't give a **** what material your box was made of if you burned down your house. If you pull a permit and pass the electrical inspection is what they care about. So if you're not pulling a permit then it's a moot point about UL listing and insurance.
Click to expand...
No need to be sarcastic...chances are he wont have an issue with the wood but that fact remains that metal or plastic rated for electrical use is a better chioce... and they make chances even better that there wont be a fire.
 
geoffey said:
You'd perhaps pull a permit for the installation of the outlet or the spa panel, etc. Not many people have a 240v 30 or 50 amp GFCI outlet existing in their house.
Click to expand...
thats true.... I could always pull a permit and have mine inspected again like I did after installing the one for my hot tub...If I wasn't moving next year.
 

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