Building controller for EBIAB/CraftbeerPi system - some questions

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rkhanso

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Location
Plymouth, MN - terrible tap water for brewing
Hello,
I'm planning on using CraftbeerPi and a Raspberry Pi to control a E-BIAB setup. I have some questions on building the controller. I don't plan on having a lot of knobs, etc in the controller as I'll control everything through the web interface on my phone or a laptop. I was just going to have a heating element on indicator lamp and a buzzer/alarm on the box - along with all the required guts inside.

I have a 50A GFCI Spa Panel connected to a 30A breaker in a sub-panel in the garage. It will handle only the 240v 5500w heating element in the kettle.

I have a separate 120v breaker in the sub-panel in the garage going to a 120v GFCI outlet to plug the wall-wart for powering the 12v for the Raspberry Pi through the Terragady I/O board.

Is this going to cause a potential problem if I have some catastrophic event that shorts things out and trips breakers or GFCIs? Should I instead try and run the 120v off the same 240v line that powers the heating element? I'm thinking of some potential floating ground or phase problem that might make it not safe if I have trouble. I'm not sure how else to explain it. As you can see, I'm not a Master Electrician.


Another question is - should I use the same CraftbeerPi controller on brew-day as for a fermentation control? I'm questioning if I should have a dedicated controller for fermentation temp control. I don't plan on having a large, permanent controller mounted on the wall, but something that can be moved - in case I want to take the system to a friends house. I'd have to have potentially 3 power outputs (one for the 240v heating element, one for 120v fermenting heater and one 120v for fermenting cooling) - and I'd need a larger box for those extra 2 jacks and SSRs with heat sinks. Though in MN, we don't have to cool so much in the winter, nor heat so much in the summer - maybe I can get by with just a single jack for fermentation temp control.....
 
I decided to go with a separate fermentation controller with an SSR in that box. I can Envision times where I might have a fermenter in process while I want to brew some more beer. I think it would be simpler to keep them separate.
 

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