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I tried this quickly today and it didn't go all that well. The flux (Harris stay-clean liquid) seemed to burn off quickly and leave me with a mess that the solder (Oatey safe flo silver solder) wanted nothing to do with. I was trying to solder a 1/2" SS coupler, close nipple, and washer...

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14-5.html

That sounds about ideal from a time savings standpoint - minimize the extra time spent waiting to begin the boil. I use a banjo burner which has plenty of horsepower, so I run it at a lower setting while collecting wort - not bringing it to a boil, just getting a head start. Beginning to...

Hopefully someone who owns one of these can help me with this: What is the diameter of the float ball? How far is it submerged when the valve reaches the point of full closure? (this would let me determine the absolute maximum liquid fill level in my rubbermaid cooler MLT without the float...

Perhaps you should at least give it a try before you make up your mind. I find the iodine test to be pretty straightforward - it either changes color or it doesn't. It's cheap enough to grab a bottle from your local pharmacy, and you can try it in parallel with your method, if nothing else...

I bought one at home depot just a couple weeks ago. It was right with the hoses for washing machines, sinks, toilets, etc. Now I can finally wash cars and brewing equipment with warm water in cold weather... (just in time for the weather to warm up)

email sent :mug:

A globe valve or similar could in fact be easier to motorize as it's multi-turn instead of quarter-turn... But if I can pick up a motorized butterfly zone control valve on eBay for a reasonable price, it's tempting, even if it's not optimal...

My reservations with that: 1) it would effectively reduce my MLT capacity since I can only mount it just so high. Someday I'll have a shiny 15 gal MLT, but that's not in the cards yet, so that would be gravity-limiting for 10g batches. 2) I have not been able to find out if it has enough...

I already have liquid level measurement capability with good accuracy, and also have a float switch I could add as a failsafe backup - and the pump is already under BrewTroller control via SSR. For now, I may implement that just to be safe - with a bit of hysteresis it may only end up cycling...

Well with the application I mentioned (matching flow into/out of MLT) the real goal is to maintain MLT liquid level, which I have the capability to measure, so I don't need to measure the actual flow rate.

So far I had been looking at butterfly valves, which seem to be suitable for flow control, and seem to be commercially available in motorized versions (to the tune of $400+). Of course it's far from impossible to rig a standard butterfly valve with a motor, slap on a feedback pot and set up...

Exactly the kind of practical info I needed, thanks... Oh well, I'll continue my search for a motorized proportional valve, or a way to build one ;)

So today I've been trying to brainstorm a way to implement a proportional electronic valve for flow control at the outlet of my march pump (to automate matching flow rates for the brutus 20 style CRDFM method), and it just occurred to me that it may make sense to throttle the pump itself via...

I hadn't really brewed since last fall - I spent the winter working on my brewing rig and only just recently got it into some kind of usable state. During most of that time, I also wasn't really following things here on HBT... So I returned to find all kinds of new methods and info, including...

Get some of that aluminum foil tape, which matches the reflectix insulation a lot better than silver duct tape, and cover that whole assembly with an even coat of JB weld, and it'll look 10x nicer :mug:

No, a variac is a variable transformer, which changes the voltage of the AC waveform but leaves it more or less a clean sine wave - one that can handle high power is going to be a huge iron core and a whole lot of copper wire; lamp dimmers and router speed controls are solid-state devices that...

An alternative to look into would be speed controls for (woodworking) routers. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=43060 I believe they are pretty much the same thing as lamp dimmer switches, except made for higher currents. (and if they can handle a 15A motor...

Nice idea! Those wire racks are a dime a dozen, and it's kind of nice to not have to build or hack anything - it can go back to being a regular wire shelving rack between brews, or if you decide you don't need it. I use a relatively heavy corded drill for my BC and I have stability issues...

People do just that - for example, a number of the people on the BrewTroller forum, including myself and CodeRage. I don't think anyone's really characterized actual accuracy, but I do know that you can achieve precision on the order of 1mm water depth. The challenge is in reliably feeding...