White OWL Brewing
New Member
Good evening brewers,
Today I thought I might share my DIY Brew Controller. It controls the mash-in process in my recirculating eBIAB (DIY as well) and provides the PWM signal for the boil process.
The heart is a PID controller from LeiChuang TEC and some SSR-40DAs to control the heating element and the pump. The 3rd SSR is unused at the moment, I just put it in because it fitted and I had one extra. Might add some extra feature in the future. A KETOTEK monitor shows voltage, current, wattage and watt-hours. Lastly a MeanWell RS-15-5 provides the 5V for the indicator LEDs on the front panel and the side-fan which pulls air over the SSR heatsinks. (Not that they get seriously hot anyways...)
The PID controller is auto-tuned for keeping the temperature at 65°C with the total power-output limited at 50% while mashing. Theoretically I can increase the temperature by 1°C per 48 seconds but as I'm not running the pump on 100%, that's a bit too much power going into the mash, therefore limiting the total output at 50%, to gently raise the temperature in a step-mash or for mash-out. In the boil I'm utilizing it's manual function on a 75% - 80% PWM duty-cycle (depending on weather/air pressure(?)) to keep a vigorous boil. In the past I simply boiled without a controller by just pumping 100% power into the pot, but thanks to the manual PWM function I realized that I can reach the same roil in the pot and the same boil-off by using less electricity, which saves me just a bit under 1Wh per brew-day.
The case is designed by myself in Fusion360 and printed on my trusty Ender 3 Pro.
In the photos I was just in the assembly step, that's why the left side-wall and 2 screws were missing.
Today I thought I might share my DIY Brew Controller. It controls the mash-in process in my recirculating eBIAB (DIY as well) and provides the PWM signal for the boil process.
The heart is a PID controller from LeiChuang TEC and some SSR-40DAs to control the heating element and the pump. The 3rd SSR is unused at the moment, I just put it in because it fitted and I had one extra. Might add some extra feature in the future. A KETOTEK monitor shows voltage, current, wattage and watt-hours. Lastly a MeanWell RS-15-5 provides the 5V for the indicator LEDs on the front panel and the side-fan which pulls air over the SSR heatsinks. (Not that they get seriously hot anyways...)
The PID controller is auto-tuned for keeping the temperature at 65°C with the total power-output limited at 50% while mashing. Theoretically I can increase the temperature by 1°C per 48 seconds but as I'm not running the pump on 100%, that's a bit too much power going into the mash, therefore limiting the total output at 50%, to gently raise the temperature in a step-mash or for mash-out. In the boil I'm utilizing it's manual function on a 75% - 80% PWM duty-cycle (depending on weather/air pressure(?)) to keep a vigorous boil. In the past I simply boiled without a controller by just pumping 100% power into the pot, but thanks to the manual PWM function I realized that I can reach the same roil in the pot and the same boil-off by using less electricity, which saves me just a bit under 1Wh per brew-day.
The case is designed by myself in Fusion360 and printed on my trusty Ender 3 Pro.
In the photos I was just in the assembly step, that's why the left side-wall and 2 screws were missing.
