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I didn't seal the thermowell in the cooler. It is several inches above the liquid level and I drilled it so it fits pretty snugly. Silicone should work fine though. I have yet to get my conicals to seal. I am using a 1/4" o-ring. The gasket someone posted earlier that fits around the edge...

The difference between the hi AC and low as far as I can tell is the fan speed, so it doesn't really mater. The compressor is either on or off, there is no variable level of cooling in the coils. The coldness doesn't matter at all because it is triggering off of the thermocouple that you...

Don't get me wrong, I really like the controller. It just takes a lot of time to design and build the circuit and write the software. I first built one for a chest freezer fermentation compartment and this is an expanded version. It is really reliable and like you say, I have the flexibility...

Here are a few more pics of my system including the Flexwatt heater and Arduino controller. For the Flexwatt, I have the 3" piece that you can see in the picture and two 12" pieces on the cone. If I were to do it over again, I would not use two different widths as they do not heat up to the...

Here are some pics of my AC. My connections are in the side, but I just notched the upper lip of the cooler. It should be ABOVE the coolant level. I did not use quick connects because I don't really plan on disconnecting it, so save some money and potential leaks by taking the tubing directly...

I built an arduino based controller, but it is a big pain in the ass, so unless you want a good project, I suggest using something off the shelf. I am heating my conicals with flexwatt tape. I use a pulsed output with an on time of 40secs and off time of 10 secs and the flexwatt never gets...

It sounds like your unit is very similar to mine and you are on the right track. Remove all the outer shell. You can remove the blower on the cold side. There will likely be styrofoam and/or plastic ducting that can be removed also. To make it easier, once you remove all of the sheet metal...

Dual stage with water first and a large volume of glycol would work great. If only there was more time and money. Once the city water heats up a bit more, I will likely start letting the wort come into the conical a little warmer, like 80-85 so I can transfer faster and then use the glycol to...

What would the purpose of the plate chiller be? I was thinking about how to use the glycol in my plate chiller to cool the wort, but because the wort volume is so much larger than the Glycol volume (30gal to 6 gal for my system), I don't think it will do me much good. I have a 5000 BTU/hr AC...

For smaller fermentors like this, running the pump continuously is really inefficient. The AC unit will cycle on a lot more often to cool down the glycol because the pump will heat it up. In a bigger system, the pump will need to be on more to cool larger/more fermentors, so having it run...

Packet, It looks like the temp on this pump is 120F. Are you using it hotter than this for CIP? Any issues?

Here is a tip we learned a couple of weeks ago. Do not clean the coils with hot water with the coils disconnected. One of the compression fittings popped of because the coil was filled with glycol and had no pressure relief.

What is the best practice for getting the lid to seal. I don't see an o-ring on packets BOM and he mentioned earlier that he tried weather stripping with limited success. If anyone has a solution please post with part numbers or sizes of o-rings.

I am building a Arduino based controller that is based on one a made for a chest freezer fermentation chamber. It has some LED indicator lights, a encoder/button (similar to a car radio knob) for changing settings and a 4 line x20 char LCD screen. In normal mode, it will display the temps of...

I will post some pics soon. I mostly followed packets build plan. 1) Since it is winter and cold in my garage, I will be using the flex watt heater tape and reflectix insulation. I hope to test it this weekend. If you read up on this, it is almost exclusively used for reptiles, so there are...

I am building a 2 conical system with a custom Arduino controller. Just about have all of the plumbing done. Tested the conicals yesterday and no leaks! Hope to have beer fermenting by the end of January.

I am looking at insulation type for the conicals. Any reason that you picked neoprene over polyethylene or some other foam insulation?

Thanks for the great link. I made up a spreadsheet to do the calculations. It is an excel sheet saved as xml spreadsheet, so let me know if it has issues.

I am going to buy some flex watt tape, but need a little help. I am expecting my conicals on Tuesday, and since I don't have them in hand, I don't have exact dimensions. A couple of questions: 1) How many watts do you think will raise a 15 gal plastic conical 20-30F if it is insultated? Is...

I had the same issue and switched to this one: http://www.brewershardware.com/1.5-Tri-Clover-Butterfly-Valve-Squeeze-Trigger-TC10VBFVST1.html I like the other one better, but really want to use time off during the holidays to build this thing.