Help with RIMS and Pump Control Panel

[SaevaVeritas]

Greetings all,

I am working on a simple control panel for my brew stand. The plan was to have 120V power coming in to three outlets which are on simple switches all in "weather proof" conduits. Two outlets are running march pumps and one is running my RIMS tube which is a 120V 1500W tube

I have every thing wired up in my conduits but I realized in my haste to put it all together I put the switches on the neutral line (ugh!). Where this is a brew stand application and only sees power for a few hours every month I think the risk is minimal for a shock but wanted to run it by y'all and see what came back. We are looking at a few hours of work to disassemble and reassemble and I would rather not if its safe! I have included a simple diagram of the current wiring.

 

[doug293cz]

Few things:

• You need to switch the hot lines, not the neutral. Switching the neutral is a code violation.
• The element switch needs to be rated for at least 15A @ 120V. Cheap toggle switches like you show are very likely rated lower than that.
• Two pumps will draw a total of about 3A. A 1500W element will draw about 12.5A. You need to plug this into a 20A circuit.
• Running a RIMS element with just an on/off switch is just asking for scorched wort. I have never heard of anyone successfully running a RIMS without either a PID or EZBoil controller.

Brew on

 

[SaevaVeritas]

Few things:

• You need to switch the hot lines, not the neutral. Switching the neutral is a code violation.
• The element switch needs to be rated for at least 15A @ 120V. Cheap toggle switches like you show are very likely rated lower than that.
• Two pumps will draw a total of about 3A. A 1500W element will draw about 12.5A. You need to plug this into a 20A circuit.
• Running a RIMS element with just an on/off switch is just asking for scorched wort. I have never heard of anyone successfully running a RIMS without either a PID or EZBoil controller.

Brew on

Hey thanks for your reply. Let me be more clear on my set up. I am running switches rated for 20A and I already have a PID controlling the element. The RIMs and PID will plug into this outlet to draw their power.

 

[augiedoggy]

Isnt the pid inside of this panel? if so why not hardwire them inside the panel? Thats how its normally done.

 

[SaevaVeritas]

Isnt the pid inside of this panel? if so why not hardwire them inside the panel? Thats how its normally done.

This is my goal eventually but I bought the rims/PID from a guy on Craigslist and I wanted a quick, cheap, and easy way to turn the PID on and off so I don’t run the element dry.