My FULL-ON electric build thread

[TheFlyingBeer]

Tho I hadn't considered LabView - mostly because I don't have access to it!

Luckily I can build executables that run without a full LV installation on the brewery PC.

... how do drain the sink ? Is that a sump pump ?

I actually changed a lot of the plumbing around in my basement because: 1. needed to run a drain and a couple water lines to the brewing room, 2. old plumbing was not that great. Tomorrow I will be finishing up the plumbing to the sink. I was lucky the storage room I am turning into the brewing room was near both my laundry room and my main electrical panel.

That is actually a picture of my old sump pump which was in drastic need of replacement. Yesterday I installed a new fully submerged pump and cover.

I don't plan on using the sump as a drain unless I am washing the floor or have any major spills.

 

[MrWibble]

What does that slc500 usually cost?

 

[Maxkling]

What does that slc500 usually cost?

It all depends, you usually can get the rack and power supply under 100$. The processor depending on the version can be 50-100+. Your regular input output cards are cheap, anything analog will drastically jump up. The biggest expense will be the program for the plc, logix 500. RSLogix 500 starter is around 500$ and RSLogix Standard is around 1200$ and Professional is 2000+.

 

[MrWibble]

mother of god. automation ain't for the poor

 

[Maxkling]

Yea, but ebay can be your friend.

You can find the software there and pretty much anything you need to get going.

 

[clay9_24]

As far as the control system (my main push right now) I plan to use a PC running LabVIEW or custom SW to perform all of the top level control. I have a 15" touchscreen LCD that will be used as the operator interface. The PC will communicate with a microcontroller board I am building to provide all of the low-level system interfaces such as switch inputs, SSR PWM, sensor reading, etc.

tell me more about this microcontroller board you mentioned. I am trying to get away from allen bradley equipment and move to cheap computers and java.

 

[Maxkling]

tell me more about this microcontroller board you mentioned. I am trying to get away from allen bradley equipment and move to cheap computers and java.

http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardSerialSingleSided3

You can build your own microcontroller pretty cheap, Im not sure what the OP is doing, but arduino is a nice and cheap platform to go with. I believe the programming language is C++(not sure that site should let you know, they might have their own).

 

[TheFlyingBeer]

tell me more about this microcontroller board you mentioned. I am trying to get away from allen bradley equipment and move to cheap computers and java.

For this project I decided to try out a newer development kit that uses an Arm Cortex-M3 32bit mcu

. I purchased the LPC1768 version for around $25. Shortly after the purchase NXP had a contest and a survey to fill out which netted me two free LPC1114 Cortex-M0 boards:rockin: Might use one of those for a keezer/fermentation temp controller. These are overkill for what I need them to do but it is always fun to learn something new.

The demo board has two halves, the first is a JTAG debugger/programmer the second is the "target" or microcontroller. It is programmed in C with all the software needed to create basic programs included.

I will be creating my own base circuit board that the LPCXpresso board will mount to inside my HMI. The base board will break out any peripherals or signals I need and mate them to proper connectors.

I already have the code in place for three channel PWM control of my SSRs after reading in a value from the front panel potentiometers while in manual or hand mode. Last week I finally got the 1-wire master code working so I can read in temperatures from my DS18B20 digital temp sensors. Still a lot more work to be done with this.

 

[mountainman13]

Sweet build!

 

[twanger1994]

sweet build!

+1

 

[Lucky_Chicken]

ok... maybe i missed this but are you doing gravity feed or how do you pump water from your HLT to you your MLT then to the BK? the only pump is after the BK

If you have found a way to do this with valving i would be very interested... could save me a pump!

PS: great build!!! make my plans of a 100A 4 element build seem like cake.

 

[Kurt03]

jtsims21: I think close valve2, open valve1, turn on pump1. But how difficult will priming the lines be?

My biggest question is how do you sterilize the path from boil kettle to the fermenter?

do you during the boil recirculate through v5 and v6 for a while and then through v5 and v7?
If so, how is from v4 to where v5 connects sterilized?

Its probably just how im looking at the diagram, im not the best at reading them!

Looks awesome btw, really peaking my interest in starting a full electric build myself!

 

[TheFlyingBeer]

the only pump is after the BK

There are two pumps in my plan. P1 is between the HLT and the HERMS tank.

jtsims21: I think close valve2, open valve1, turn on pump1. But how difficult will priming the lines be?

I am have some very rough designs put together for a homemade peristaltic pump I plan to build... soon as I figure out how to build it. I really like the idea of determining how much has pumped and peristaltic make that super easy.

My biggest question is how do you sterilize the path from boil kettle to the fermenter?

V4, V5, and P2 connect together with a small 3/4" Triclamp Tee. I currently just plan to circulate/whirlpool through V5 and P2 before the end of the boil the tee should be pretty good after that. If I need to I could pump boiling water from the HLT through V4 to the drain but I doubt it is needed.

So progress is very slow... who knew tying the knot would consume so much time and effort.

The brewing room itself is 90% finished with the electrical and plumbing installed. Exhaust fan and hood is in place and works great. Floor is epoxied and walls are painted. I must say, the big ol' sink was one of the best purchases I have made. Cleanup is much more enjoyable than I can ever remember.

Recovering from the honeymoon so I am working on the free part of the brewery: code/design. Below is an idea of the labview controls and indicators I have built for the HLT. I still have an enormous amount of work left ahead but I didn't expect this to be quick or easy.

Trying to put off finalizing the lower level details of the HMI control board(s) until i have everything worked out, I don't want to make two revisions if possible.

 

[Lucky_Chicken]

So progress is very slow... who knew tying the knot would consume so much time and effort.

Ha! didn't know or i could have warned you, thats why I only got to brew 10 gallons last year. Congrats!

 

[TheFlyingBeer]

The GUI mockups are rolling along so I thought I would post the current progress to get some feedback. I have implemented several of the controls and indicators in LabVIEW and they work well on the touchscreen.

I am trying to do this piecewise so most of the automated process control code will be added later but the GUI elements will reflect those abilities even if they aren't available.

Here's the current state of the design:

The layout is pretty busy but there are lots of things that need to display status or be controlled. Thoughts/suggestions??

 

[wyoder]

This looks incredible. I'm very excited to see how it all comes together! What type of control algorithm are you planning to implement for the pumps, elements, and valves?

 

[hatfieldenator]

I'm SO incredibly jealous of your brewing room! Nice!

 

[TheFlyingBeer]

This looks incredible. I'm very excited to see how it all comes together! What type of control algorithm are you planning to implement for the pumps, elements, and valves?

The ball valves are getting their own embedded control boards that handle the motor control and position feedback, I will send them a 0-100% command.
The pumps are still a major TBD part of the brewery, soon as I figure out the torque/power required to run them the motor selection can begin. I am hoping to use some large stepper motors as they are relatively easy to control and monitor position.
When the elements are in Hand or Auto mode they will be run by a SW controlled PID loop. In PWR mode they are run with a manually selected PWM duty cycle using a potentiometer on the front panel.

I'm SO incredibly jealous of your brewing room! Nice!

Thanks!

 

[android]

pretty stellar man, thanks for sharing.

 

[omockler]

Nice build!

This might be a dumb question but how are you planning on tuning your PID loop? I was thinking about doing something similar but I couldn't decide if it would be worth the time to write some auto-tuning code or if I should just manually tune the loop. Just looking for other opinions.

 

[TheFlyingBeer]

how are you planning on tuning your PID loop?

There are subVIs to implement auto-tuning but I have not explored much with those. I have a plant simulation setup and have basically been manually tuning the loop. Hopefully by the time this is ready to rock I will understand the autotuning feature with greater detail. Either way, my front panel will have the parameters buried in it some where so I can update it on the fly if needed...

 

[Brewer Gerard]

Looks like it's gonna be a one of a kind, great build.

Interested to know how all this talks back to labview. Is it simply a DAC in your PC monitoring some sensors. Do you even use a DAC? Is Labview the only software package you need to monitor and control a setup like this.

I hope you're a process control engineer or you know way to much about this stuff

 

[Tinga]

subscribed to pretend like I know what going on.

 

[wyoder]

The ball valves are getting their own embedded control boards that handle the motor control and position feedback, I will send them a 0-100% command.
The pumps are still a major TBD part of the brewery, soon as I figure out the torque/power required to run them the motor selection can begin. I am hoping to use some large stepper motors as they are relatively easy to control and monitor position.
When the elements are in Hand or Auto mode they will be run by a SW controlled PID loop. In PWR mode they are run with a manually selected PWM duty cycle using a potentiometer on the front panel.

Wow, quite ambitious! I've been daydreaming of doing something similar, but with a little less automation. You're an inspiration to us all...

Are you building the valve's servo boards yourself? Once you've got fully adjustable valves, do you think the fully adjustable pump controls are still necessary? Is your microcontroller being used as the I/O board (ADC, DAC) for labview?

 

[TheFlyingBeer]

Wow, quite ambitious! You're an inspiration to us all...

I would hold such kind words until I can actually make a significant portion of this thing work. Looks good on paper, but reality can be a tough one.

Are you building the valve's servo boards yourself? Once you've got fully adjustable valves, do you think the fully adjustable pump controls are still necessary? Is your microcontroller being used as the I/O board (ADC, DAC) for labview?

The valve boards I am building myself. I have the schematics sitting at about 90% and the mechanical layout of the PCB is also at about 90, just need to route it once the schematic is complete.

Since my goal is to build a pair of peristaltic pumps I would like to control them as a means of monitoring how much volume has been pumped. I don't have any plans on implementing level sensors for the MLT or the BK but with a peristaltic pump I should be able to roughly track the fluid levels. This may be too much work and I will have to redesign for a different set of pumps -- not throwing in the towel just yet.

There isn't a whole lot of analog going on in this setup, temp sensors and valves will be digital. The microcontroller will act as the DAC/ADC for labview handling all of the low level functions (SPI, I2C, PWM etc).

 

[lonepalm]

Subscribed....getting ready to do this over the fall.

 

[joenads]

it's stuff like this that makes me wonder how i ever got my engineering degree...well done!

 

[wyoder]

There isn't a whole lot of analog going on in this setup, temp sensors and valves will be digital. The microcontroller will act as the DAC/ADC for labview handling all of the low level functions (SPI, I2C, PWM etc).

Have you selected the digital temperature sensors? Are you using a master temperature sensor IC with remote transducer/diodes? Looking into this myself, would love to hear how you're planning to monitor temperature...

 

[TheFlyingBeer]

Have you selected the digital temperature sensors? Are you using a master temperature sensor IC with remote transducer/diodes? Looking into this myself, would love to hear how you're planning to monitor temperature...

I picked up a 10 pack of Dallas 1-Wire DS18B20 sensors and they work well. No fancy signal conditioning or cables required and the accuracy is good enough for me. I purchased some thermowells from Derin at BrewersHardware to solder into triclamp caps. The LPCExpresso board will talk directly to the DS18B20's, being a 1-wire sensor you can pretty much expand the sensors to as many as needed without HW changes.

 

[wyoder]

Thanks for the link. I've ordered a few of these to play with. Glad to see that BrewersHardware sells these already embedded in the sleeves, very handy!