Automated LODO Build

[Overkill]

I got into this lodo build project late last year. I was already thinking of building a more serious manually operated system, when I saw what Die_Beerery (shout-out) and some others had impressively accomplished. I hadn’t previously realized just how seriously brewing could be automated and scripted, and so decided to build something similar. I’m somewhat lazy, and it will be nice getting my brew-days back.

I want to build as much of the system as possible from scratch or used parts, and just didn’t see any other way to do so much metalwork, pipework, fabrication without welding. So this is as much a learning to properly weld alloys project as it is building a fully automated lodo brewery. It’s going to be a 3 vessel fully automated system that brews under nitrogen purge. As of early January, a few parts still remain to be ordered, and I’m about to start welding TC fittings onto my vessels throughout this month.

Lots of pictures so bear with me. (trying to embed images)

 

[Overkill]

Sept 2018
-Bought a Lincoln weld-pack 155 flux core welder. Nice older machine I got off CL from a guy who owned a fab shop. He took good care of it and it's internals were in nice shape. It needed modding to run MIG shielding gas.

New helmet. M'URICA!

Didn't have 220 if the garage. So I ran 100' of 6 AWG SOOW in there from the house. Garage was a good distance from the house and wanted to make sure I didn't burn the house down. Voltage drop would also be an issue for smaller cable. Thicker then a garden hose.

Coast Aluminum in Hayward CA. Had the best prices. Bought 60' of 2x2 11 Guage 304 stainless. Was pretty crazy. They let me chop saw the tubes in the parking lot so I could drive them out of there.

60' of SS in my hatchback. I drove slow.

Modded the Lincoln to take shielding gas by installing a solenoid. These machine come up-gradable for gas. I changed out the liner and installed a 10 lbs spool of 304, .033 wire. Tank is 90% helium tri-mix.

My tiny garage with it's first piece of meager equipment, and the steel. This rage 2 chop saw turned out to be a POS I had to later upgrade. But it was cheap and I needed it for getting the 20' pieces of tubing down to 8' and 4' to fit in my car.

Welding is hot. This was the first time I ever welded stainless.

Stainless has about 10% Chromium in it, and it really messes things up. Unlike regular steel, SS carbon crashes (also called sugaring) if not shielded with a no-02 gas. This means if the backside of the weld isn't shielded, and you have full penetration, you get sugaring. Sugared Stainless / welds are weak, have zero corrosion resistance (the whole point of stainless), and are completely unacceptable in general. For practice of technique back-side sugaring is fine, but on a production weld, back-purging with shielding gas or use of solar-flux is required.

A similar test weld I did joining 2 corners, but with the inside shielded using tri-mix this time. I cut a cross section of the weld afterwards to access penetration. You can tell I started off hot and then moved too fast in the middle. This took practice to get right but eventually my welds improved. I have 10 posts of 10 images coming so bear with me.

 

[Overkill]

Getting reasonably proficient with joints.

Some test fit-up.

Top of the frame is cut and ready to be tacked.

Close up of a corner. Good fit-up is important and was very hard because this saw I had was junk. Wouldn't make 45 cuts properly without a lot of messing with it.

Welded joint.

I don't know if you can see it in this pic, but the inside of the frame is back-purged with gas to prevent sugaring (hens the blue tape).

Joint post grind. They say a grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't. That's very true. I wanted the top of the frame flush though so grinding was necessary.

Outside corner.

Another corner. Also have to say grinding is the worst, and stainless dust is toxic. So wear a respirator.

 

[Overkill]

Got a nice press off CL with stand for 100 bucks. Drills straight and will use it for drilling the kegs.

Upgraded my chop saw to a professional Trajan saw. I wish i did this from day 1. Would have saved me so much heartache and probably 2 weeks.

Tacking on the legs.

Once the rest of it was tacked, it was time to weld.

My welds improved somewhat. Not flawless, but will hold nice.

Another joint. Biggest issue was undercut on an inside corner but it's not too bad.

Last Xmas I received a fiber optic pinhole camera. This was the first time I actually was in need of it. Inside of the weld pictured by running a camera through a drilled hole in the frame. No sugaring present.

A shot of how i had to purge the frame. Stainless is a huge pain in the ass for this reason.

Close up. That joint had 3 cavities that had to be simultaneously purged. You spend 2 hours of your time purging and taping for 2 min of welding.

Action shot.

 

[Overkill]

Sealing up those purge holes i had to drill!

Time for the top, where the vessels will sit on. Fit up test.

SS 304 is EXTREMELY hard on tooling. I would maybe get 15-20 cuts out of a blade before sharpening. I bought a new Dewalt ($150) specifically for stainless and boy was it a POS. 3 cuts in a 2 teeth chipped. Glad I bought this prime. Returned.

Tacking in the supports. Used some clamps and extra tube to make sure everything is flush on top.

Post welding of the supports, and filling of the purge holes. Post welding of the supports, and filling of the purge holes.

Grinding is super nasty. Wear PPE.

Preview of what I'm planning. First time I had the stand off the shop table.

Top view post-grind.

Still need to weld on foot caps and Electro-passiveate all the welds.I'm going to install height adjustable caster wheels. Also the lower frame will also have supports welded on for piping and the pumps. But I'm waiting to put those on until pipe fit up.

 

[Overkill]

Ok so the frame was coming along (we are into November 2018 now), and I was waiting for a new chop saw. Switched gears a bit to the kegs. I chose kegs as starting material bc they are SS, cheap, easy to get, designed to hold pressure, and already have a curved bottom which will be needed for whirl-pooling. My plan was to drill a boatload of 1.5" holes in them, and MIG weld 1.5" TC fittings in. I knew this would be tricky. Here is a test piece, MIG welded onto a cross section cut out of one of my test 18 gauge thick kegs. I thought to myself this wasn't bad, and might work. I knew it would look ugly (the weld). But I figured I could grind it down to look nice later, so log as it held water and was structurally sound.

I'm going to put port covers on the kegs. First thing was to make a jig to cut holes in the exact center of the keg, at the precise radius I need to fit my 10" TC port. Some youtube videos were helpful in dismantling the keg pressure assembly and how to make a jig using an angle-grinder.

Starting to see what I originally had in mind. I'm going weld on a large 10" TC weld fitting up-top. The cardboard was to create a gas-dam inside for back purging.

Here is the TC weld fitting being fit up. You get an idea of what I'm trying to do. I also wanted to keep the handles. (later i realized this makes welding the fitting on very hard). (Probably a good example of why welders hate engineers).

Was a disaster. In a real setting the amps routinely blew through the 18g keg wall on a test pass. I realized I would have to be EXTREMELY careful and skillful to no blow-through. I'm not nearly good enough. Given that I have 10 x 1.5" TC ports per keg (>30), and 3 x 10" TC weld fittings to do, I knew it would be impossible not to mess a few (or a lot) up. Once you blow through the keg it's ruined and I would have to start over. This simply wasn't going to work.

I prepped another keg for cutting pissed that I had wasted one, but this time removed the entire top rim using another jig i fashioned.

Keg cut up version 2.

Fitting I plan to weld on. But we are done with mig for now as it is just not suitable for this application.

 

[Overkill]

TIG time boys and girls! Xmas came early. I realized there was no way around learning tig for this project, so I bought a new DC machine after reading up on what to get and watching a lot of youtube. (George doesn't care).

All plumed in and ready to cook.

Got a CK 9 bendy head torch and ordered a gas lenses. Machine came with a torch too bulky for thin steel work.

Have to say I like tig WAY more then mig. It's kind of like soldering boards, but with metal filler and an arc torch. Just a test fillet weld on some half inch to 1/8 inch stainless. (this isn't the keg thickness but is the thicknesses of 2 parts I have to tig together for the top-ports on my TC manhole covers.) Needs more practice but it's coming along and looks much nicer then a MIG weld. This is going to work.

Backside of the same joint. Practicing stacking dimes. .045 wire, about 100 amps, 20CHF 100% Argon. Need to work on my speed.

Picked up 40' of stainless pipe from plumbing supply. There is going to be a lot of pipe work.

 

[AkTom]

Nice tutorial. So will tig do everything without the need for mig?

 

[Overkill]

Ordered 3 x 10" Tri-Clover caps, clamps, and weld fittings from china. Each component alone from US re-sellers was >70 dollars, which would have cost $6-700. I ordered them from china for about 20$ a part. Shipping was very expensive (>200 usd) as 3 of these weighed 45kg. With shipping, I paid about half of what I would pay in the US, and I would probably have to pay for shipping in the US also. Wish it was cheaper but I saw no other solution.

They are beautiful. The tops are 1/2 inch thick 304 SS. I was surprised at how heavy they are, and realized it would not be possible for me to drill these with my press like i planned. Way too thick and my experience with the frame told me any bits I would even try to drill with would be toast before I scratched the surface.

So off to the machinists they went! My tolerances weren't too tight as I'm welding in fittings. So the machinists just needed a diagram/markings.

Close up of how thick these caps are.

BT Laser in San Jose CA did an excellent job in about a week. CNC machined these perfectly for me. This job was peanuts for them. They mostly do semi-conductor work and were nice to take this job on. They mentioned the 10 holes broke 3 pilot-hole bits for them. 304 is a machinists nightmare.

Post CNC finished product.

TC weld fittings slipped snugly into the holes. These will be for pressure sensors for hydro static volume determination, Vacum pump and gas purging of the tanks / overpressure valves, and hop additions (4 port cover version).

Why I'm practicing 1/2 inch to 1/8 inch stainless fillet welds is now a bit more clear.

 

[Overkill]

Nice tutorial. So will tig do everything without the need for mig?

I theory yes. For practical purposes if you were making a frame I would still use MIG. It's much faster for that kind of structural work. If you need really nice looking welds then yes you could do everything with tig it would just take longer. MIG was easier to learn the basics of puddle control, heat control, etc. TIG is more a dexterity thing.

 

[Overkill]

2 x Arduino MEGA with wire and Ethernet shields for BruControl Interface.

I had 2 DIN rail mounts for the Mega's 3d printed. Work nice.

Top view

side view

Some stuff piling up. 3 x Broadly Jams Oxyprobe DO sensors. 2 x Broadly James PH high temp probes, some misc parts, 2 x HIM digital to analog controllers for the Mass Flow meters. 24 x 36 x 10 Hoffman enclosure.

Single wire temp sensor wiring / soldering to JX-16 connectors. Pain in the butt.

Did this a bunch of times.

still have to do with a bunch of pressure sensors.

 

[Overkill]

2 x Micro Motion Mass Flow Meters fro measuring SG of the mash and BK in real time.

Same one, on table. They are in great shape, that rusty stuff is only on the sticker. They are made out of hastelloy.

Flange connection turned out to be a pain. These flanges need to be linked up with a specific /same type of flange size and pressure rating (or the holes won't match). I know more then I care to admit about these damn flanges now after pouring several hours into spec sheets ordering their fit up counterparts.

These are weld flanges. They are exact matches for the Mass flow meter flanges. I'm going to weld them to SS pipe, and then right into a 1.5" TC fitting for quick attachment/detachment of the MFMs. If you can avoid buying industrial equipment with flanges, do it. each one of these stupid things is 50 bucks.

RFT9712 Remote FlowTransmiters-Emerson. (1)

RFT9712 Remote FlowTransmiters-Emerson. (2)

The 9712s output is Heart protocol. These HIMs read Heart protocol and can output analog signal, which loop into the MEGA interface. I should be able to get density, Temp, and Flow very accurately.

 

[Horseflesh]

This is far out, man.

 

[Overkill]

Rosemount 1056 PH / modular control meter and Analog output interface to the MEGA. Testing the Ph probes. Bought 2 of these. Both have PH and DO boards in them. If you buy a used 1056 off ebay, make sure it comes with the correct boards. You can't find spare board used, and they are 550 new / board.

Therminator. Been using this currently and am debating if I should have the output of my BK pass though it and go direct from hot BK to cold in the fermentor (while having a separate re-circulation / whirlpool circuit in the BK), or if i should recirculate the BK through a standard non-plate counter flow chiller until desired programmed temp is hit (see Die_Beerery system). I welcome people's advice here, but have some time to choose.

Boil coil for the BK.

Duel 5500W elements for the HLT.

4 x Mettler Toledo DO boxes. All work, some guy on ebay sold me a case for almost nothing.

Ordered a whole bunch of motorized full-port SS ball valves from china for about 20/each. Need to be wired up and I still need to execute on the motorized proportional valves I'm ordering.

3 x BJ OxyProbes. Turns out installing these is tricky. That fat part is exactly 25mm near the red gasket and needs to be tight with a pipe to be water tight. Thats the dry/wet interface. then that threads into a piece that needs to be 1 1/4 British 11 thread. BJ sells each one of these stupid little couplings for 300 bucks. Not about to spend 900 on adapters, so I ordered a 25mM internal diameter pipe fitting (due to arrive), and will weld that onto a 1 1/4 British threaded pipe end. I really hope the pipe fits snug, as this is not a standard pipe size. Otherwise i'm going to have to get a slightly smaller pipe and lathe out the inside to the correct spec. Have to say BJ was very helpful. I emailed their tech support and they sent me their machining QC spec sheet for outgoing parts so that i can machine my own.

25mM Angled port blueprint.

Picked up a mini-fridge and wired it up with a controller to be my Sauergut reactor for auto ph control. Currently just using it as an extra single brew primary fermenter until the reactor gets going.

That's all I have for now been busy with the holidays and work. Hope to update in a few weeks with the kegs welded and probably start wiring up my Hoffman box. I'd say I'm barley 25% done with the project. Long ways to go.

 

[cloudybrewer]

Ambition is a beautiful thing, my friend! Have fun.

 

[clearwaterbrewer]

Ha, half way through I was thinking, man you should have gotten a TIG... and then BAM.. you did... I did 8" on all my Uni-keggles™ I made, they fit a folding false bottom and match the other 8" stuff I have, but 10" is nice! An those mega Din mounts are nice!

 

[crane]

Flange connection turned out to be a pain. These flanges need to be linked up with a specific /same type of flange size and pressure rating (or the holes won't match). I know more then I care to admit about these damn flanges now after pouring several hours into spec sheets ordering their fit up counterparts.

If you can avoid buying industrial equipment with flanges, do it.

This is good to know. I almost bought a micro motion off ebay yesterday with flange fittings thinking "how hard can this flange stuff be? Its only 4 bolts and a gasket." Thanks for going down this rabbit hole, so I can avoid it. I will make sure that the second unit I get also has TC fittings.

 

[OG-wan Kenobi]

Golf R is an awesome car

 

[xdosequisx]

"No, no, I'm not going to go crazy with it or anything, I just want to brew a lil beer."

-/u/Overkill, about 2 months ago

 

[Overkill]

Golf R is an awesome car

Lol thanks. It is, I really like it.

 

[Overkill]

Ha, half way through I was thinking, man you should have gotten a TIG... and then BAM.. you did... I did 8" on all my Uni-keggles™ I made, they fit a folding false bottom and match the other 8" stuff I have, but 10" is nice! An those mega Din mounts are nice!

Thanks! I didn't even think a bout getting the false bottom in yet. That's a good point.

 

[chiefwigms]

Were the pressure sensors the $90 ones on aliexpress? Was looking for something similar to avoid dry firing the element in a stuck sparge, but seem a bit pricey. eTape liquid sensors that were long enough for my kettle and food safe at mash cost a lot too. I ended up getting a short triclamp sight glass with a non-contact liquid sensor mounted to the side of the glass (got a 1-wire switch so that I could use it with my other ds18b20 temp sensors) - haven't fully incorporated it though

 

[Overkill]

Were the pressure sensors the $90 ones on aliexpress? Was looking for something similar to avoid dry firing the element in a stuck sparge, but seem a bit pricey. eTape liquid sensors that were long enough for my kettle and food safe at mash cost a lot too. I ended up getting a short triclamp sight glass with a non-contact liquid sensor mounted to the side of the glass (got a 1-wire switch so that I could use it with my other ds18b20 temp sensors) - haven't fully incorporated it though

no, but I answered a similar questions in the die_beerery thread a few months ago...

"I ordered them to specification in china using alibaba. Specifically, Company: Shaanxi Qijia Automation Technology Co.,Ltd.

The specs are:
Model: CAP-WS Pressure Sensor
Accuracy 0.2%
Pressure Type: Gauge (G)
Range:0-20kPa
Temperature Range:-40-150 degreeC
Output:4-20mA
Power:24V
Connection: tri-calmp 1.5 inch
(clamp mounting 50.4mm)

I sifted through a dozen supplies and took a lot of quotes before choosing them primarily on price and reputation.
I went with a little higher pressure rating (20kPa instead of 10) and higher burst rating (3x). At a 3psi max pressure, .2% FS accuracy i should get about 0.2 gallon of volume accuracy while still having enough room to pressurize the vessels to 2-3psi with N2. I bought 2 per vessel, and intend to subtract the head pressure from the vessel base pressure to calculate volume. In theory I should be able to do this https://www.viatran.com/static/medi..._notes/liquid_level_measurement_tech_note.pdf
"

I think there were about 50-60 each, but i bought a whole bunch in bulk. I need at least 6, and will have a couple in a few fermenters also. die_beerery has a link in his thread to ones that are like 30 bucks I think (his don't have a thermal heat exchange i believe / aren't rated for high-temp but probably doesn't matter), but I'm not sure how well they work. I think he said bc he pressurizes his vessels to nitro purge at +1 psi (I will also be doing this same thing) it doesn't work well due to the head pressure. I intend to have one in the head and the bottom, and do hydrostatic determination, and hope it works better for me. Its also why I went with a higher pressure rating on mine, and higher burst rating. My error and ability to measure volume accurately will be slightly greater (-/+0.2 gallon for me), but I can still accurately measure pressure with I think up to 1-3 psi in the head. ie...

 

[BrunDog]

Really cool work so far!!!

 

[AkTom]

Kudos all. I enjoy reading threads like this. I don’t understand most of what I read. I think I’m slowly absorbing some of it.

 

[Snake78]

Looks like a fun build. Being one to analyze process instrumentation (force of habit from my primary job), I have a couple thoughts on the Micro Motions.
- Due to the way Coriolis meters function, make sure you support the meters by the pipes attaching to it (not directly) and make sure there is no torque on the meters when installed (inlet and outlet attachments should be nearly perfectly lined).
- I cannot tell the model off-hand, but hope that the flow rate you plan to have through them will provide the accuracy you need. I know for flow, the error is worse at lower rates, but it is a consistent and can theoretically be corrected (if that is confusing I can try to explain better). I do not know if the same hold true for density, but I would be surprised if not.

Can't wait to see the progress and the implementation of all the pieces.

 

[Overkill]

Looks like a fun build. Being one to analyze process instrumentation (force of habit from my primary job), I have a couple thoughts on the Micro Motions.
- Due to the way Coriolis meters function, make sure you support the meters by the pipes attaching to it (not directly) and make sure there is no torque on the meters when installed (inlet and outlet attachments should be nearly perfectly lined).
- I cannot tell the model off-hand, but hope that the flow rate you plan to have through them will provide the accuracy you need. I know for flow, the error is worse at lower rates, but it is a consistent and can theoretically be corrected (if that is confusing I can try to explain better). I do not know if the same hold true for density, but I would be surprised if not.

Can't wait to see the progress and the implementation of all the pieces.

Hey thanks for the advice. I have not tested them yet. They are the DS100s. I spoke to micromotion about them. And likely at the flows I will be using their accuracy will be off by 10%. I do wish in retrospect I purchased the 50s as these are pretty huge but I got a good price and they are in nice shape. However Mocromotion said that their density calculation / error was MUCH lower then the flow rate. The flow is actually calculated from the density variable and this has a higher error margin. I should be able to get accurate gravity to 0.00x +/- 0.002, which I'm cool with. I will have a dozen inline flow meters through the pipes anyways so the flow rate doesn't concern me as much.

I have given some thought as to how to mount them but am still looking into it. I'm aware that they are suppose to be supported by the pipes. Whether I orient it pipe top-side or down-side remains to be figured out. I'm almost done with the kettles and will be moving to pipe-work soon. Which is when I'll be mounting the MMs in. Likely in the next 1-2 weeks ill do another pic-dump update.

 

[Snake78]

Hey thanks for the advice. I have not tested them yet. They are the DS100s. I spoke to micromotion about them. And likely at the flows I will be using their accuracy will be off by 10%. I do wish in retrospect I purchased the 50s as these are pretty huge but I got a good price and they are in nice shape. However Mocromotion said that their density calculation / error was MUCH lower then the flow rate. The flow is actually calculated from the density variable and this has a higher error margin. I should be able to get accurate gravity to 0.00x +/- 0.002, which I'm cool with. I will have a dozen inline flow meters through the pipes anyways so the flow rate doesn't concern me as much.

I have given some thought as to how to mount them but am still looking into it. I'm aware that they are suppose to be supported by the pipes. Whether I orient it pipe top-side or down-side remains to be figured out. I'm almost done with the kettles and will be moving to pipe-work soon. Which is when I'll be mounting the MMs in. Likely in the next 1-2 weeks ill do another pic-dump update.

That is good to know about the density error. My experience in density measurements are for using them for determining gas density; for that you either have a meter correctly sized for accurate flow (say a 2") or sized for accurate density (a 1", with supersonic flow).

For orientation,there are three possibilities: tubes down, tubes up, or flag pole.
With tubes down, gas pockets are prevented in the measurement tubes, but liquid will always stays behind.
With tubes up, the unit is self-draining but air pockets can cause errors.
With flag pole, there is less chance of gas pockets and the unit will be mostly self draining (not familiar with this model, so not sure of measurement tube shape).

Yeah, I tend to over-analyze things a little: a process analytical scientist that studied engineering.

 

[wyowolf]

Some amazing work! TIG learning curve is a bit steep ... esp on SS!

 

[Overkill]

Some amazing work! TIG learning curve is a bit steep ... esp on SS!

You bet. I have it pretty down at this point. Prep work is 90% of the effort. Good fit up, clean surfaces, selecting correct amperage, proper back purge is 90-95% of the work. About to make some uploads.

 

[Overkill]

Play time was over. Took a few weeks to get comfortable with TIG. Prepping the kegs involved grinding and applying acetone to the weld surface.

Argon gas dam construction near the top of the coupling as high as i could get it. Argon is expensive as I've learned.

Argon gas input tube. It takes surprisingly long to get a good large volume purge . Have to get that gas spread out towards the bottom as its heavier then air.

Proper 10" coupling fit up.

Sealed up and ready to weld. Lets hope it goes better then the first go around.

Went much better.

Post brushing. Still have to electro-clean/polish and passivate all the welds.

I welded the lid coupling on the inside and outside to get a full seal. This will be ground flush.

Shot from the lid inside. Weld ground flush. (close up)

Needs a bit more grind in the bottom inside but you get the idea this went pretty well.

 

[Overkill]

It wasn't going to be practical to build a gas-damn for every 1.5" tc fitting that needed welding, and since I have 30-40 fittings to weld, a solution was needed. This is a back-purge box I built. It contours to the inside radius of the keg.

This part is non-sanitary so i solar fluxed it instead of back-purged. This stuff is great for preventing sugaring in non-sanitary applications or in situations where residual weld slag isn't a problem.

All zipped up.

The box in position back-purging a fitting being installed. Some tape helps make a perfect seal, clamp keeps box in position, and I installed a gas in fitting. Reduced my gas purge footprint 10 x and works beautifully. Parts are ready to weld with 1 minute of back flow at 20 CHF.

 

[Overkill]

Like I said, there are a lot of fittings to do. This is one of my glacier tanks orders. There are more.

The purge box was complete, but something had to be made to keep the fittings in place, gas flowing through them, and aligning them 90 degrees to the kegs. Was inspired by a tig torch gas lens and machined some parts from aluminum. Aluminum is soft (most important), cheap, and easy to get your hands on. It also doesn't weld with DC current (needs AC), making it ideal for SS application and reduced the risk of welding my part to the couplings during full penetration.

Gas dispersion holes.

Outside cap. The center is for a bolt to keep the parts together and the hole is for gas-out.

Inside shot.

The completed assembly. Cheap and easy to make. Took a few days to figure out how to do this.

Fits perfect. Nice and snug. Very much like a giant tig torch head. The bolt will be passed through a perforated plate on the inside of the keg, keeping the fitting in place for the tacks.

 

[Overkill]

Ok so after starting this project I realized my HLT is too small. I wanted to be able to strike at least 10 gallons and still have enough water in the HLT from the pre-boil left over to sparge, and to run the herms, without having to refill the HLT and do another pre-boil. I also have about 5g of water requirements to keep the herms coil submerged. A 15 gallon HLT was just too small. A normal person would have just spent the 400 dollars and ordered a 30 gallon SS tank from ebay. I had several 15.5g kegs, so i figured it would be easy to zip 2 up and make a 30g tall kettle like I wanted. It was not easy, and I recommend nobody ever does this. I did it, but wish I had gone the easy rout. I read about it a bit and the hard part is getting a good fit up. So i build this little jig....(took 1-2 hours)...

Jig

Mount for angle grinder on jig. Jig wasn't really worth it's time to make. The only way to do this without touch up is turning it on a big lathe. And this thing just wasn't that much more accurate the a well drawn line and a patient angle grinder cut.

Touch up worked pretty well. Painstakingly ground the keg edge flush to this slab of SS i had leveled. Oh btw I had to do all this 2x, with another keg. Man do i wish I just bought one nice looking one from ebay but since I'm a slave to sunk cost fallacy i finished it.

Fit up was "OK".

More Fit up.

From the inside you can see they aren't the EXACT same diameter. Required a lot of tacking to get it to fit up right.

Gas damn, more fit-up shots.

Inside joint post weld and some grinding. It's sealed and and strong, but not crevice free. I have found this acceptable for the HLT as no wort will ever be inside of it, only water. I hope so at least.

Another shot of the inside weld joining the 2 kegs.

 

[Overkill]

I'm using 2 x 5500 watt ripples. They need to be side by side and i didn't want to stack them, eating my volume up. That means they need to be parallel. The holes had to be drilled at an angle, and the fittings installed parallel to each other, not perpendicular to the keg. This was annoying.

I build a special part just for these elements to keep the fittings oriented correctly.

You get a sense of the angle here. It's not insignificant.

Fit up is nice.

Another fit up shot.

Post weld. Pulse on the top one, old school 80 amps with pedal on the bottom. I don't like pulse and have stopped using it. No need for it.

Non-pulse weld close-up.

Penetration is complete. I'm running hot and i'm moving fast. I want full penetration to avoid seams and leaks, but also don't want to cook the chromium too much. This shot is about half way post grind you can see the weld puddle came fully through the joint. Aside from a weld bulge, there is now no difference between the metal of the keg and the coupling. This will grind completely flush.

Element fit-test post weld, pre-grind. Fits nice.

This is going to boil some water.

 

[Overkill]

Installing some fittings.

Swiss cheese inside shot after drilling.

My little assembly holding the fitting in place.

Post weld pre-brushing. 80 amps with pedal (probably around 50 amps), .045 308 filler, 1/16 2% thoriated tungsten, gas lense, ck9 torch. Gotta watch those fish-eyes.

Post clean up same weld.

Inside post grind. Needs a bit more on top. BTW this is all in a 32" deep HLT. This is very hard to reach with an angle grinder. I can barley see inside when grinding. The normal size non-joined kegs will be way easier.

Another fitting.

Bottom port (1 of 2).

Progress at the time of the shot. I have the fitting down to about 30 minutes from drilling the hole to welding them in at this point.

Some view of the 2 keg joint. Added a few reinforcement welds at a couple spots I thought were thin. I know it looks rough in general but I will be polishing these to a reflective shine once welding is finished. More uploads to come later tonight.

 

[BrunDog]

The problem with this thread, is it isn't INSANE enough

 

[bradccook]

This is amazing man....

 

[Overkill]

Herms 1" ports have a flange inside and out. So I had to weld the inside in first, using this other thingamajig i made.

Picture of second one being installed...

Sanitary weld between the two fitting. Weld ground down before polishing.

Top and bottom herms ports completed.

Inside view of herms ports. Also visible second bottom output, weld not ground down yet.

Herms and elements installed, and all welds ground. Only one port remains for the HTL (the tangential whirlpool inlet), and it still hasn't arrived from china.

 

[Overkill]

The lids have a flat bottom, so this part similar to the one used for the kettle side-ports was made.

View with fitting in place ...

With top cap...

gas inlet side

In position on the lid...

3 of the 4 welded in...

These were welded on both sides and this is the backside ground down post-weld.