My Automated E-Herms Build (LabJack)

[bf514921]

almost, try this instead.
Red: Hot
Black: Hot
White: Neutral
Green: Ground

And for 120 does it go:

White: Nuetral
Black: Hot
Green: Ground

the 240 has 2 hot legs, the 120, only 1 hot leg.

 

[bendavanza]

Since most of the replies have been about your electrical, I'll chime in about your mash. First thing I noticed is the length of the tubing going to your false bottom. That has to get in the way of good stirring. Ideally you would have a short and straight connection to the false bottom. Stirring: You want to do this when you are doughing in, and do it well to make sure there are no doughballs. Since you are recirculating with a HERMS, you should only need to stir this once then leave the grain bed alone during recirculation. If you are batch sparging you would re-stir after adding sparge water. (not for fly sparging, but you only have one pump, so I assume you are doing batch unless you drain into a separate vessel)
Also you don't need a fancy manifold for recirc, just lay the hose in the water level and let it swirl a bit.
As far as your priming problems go, make sure the feed (input) has no restriction, and you may want to try rotating your pump head 90˚ to put the input on the bottom.
One other note, that clear tubing you have 1 section of, I'd be worried about using that for recirculation. It's one thing to use it for a single transfer, like from the cooled BK to the fermenters, and another to have 150+˚ temps circulating for an hour, it may give bandaid flavors.
All that said I am very jealous of your electric rig. I'm slowly working my way that direction from propane. Nice work, nice touchscreen, thanks for the videos.

That's a good question. Like I said, this is my first time brewing AG so I'm not really all that sure of what the stirring accomplishes. I was thinking that I would get some better hydrating if I stirred it every now and again. I guess I was a little worried about maintaining heat as I really don't have any sort of sparge arm yet. Any one have any good info on this one?

 

[CodeRage]

cruelkix, neutral isn't exactly a hot leg and is kind of related to ground. It's explained in the electrical primer on the first post if you want to read it. Good luck and thanks for being a good sport about the constructive criticism.

 

[IrregularPulse]

I don't know what your experience with USB is and if you've ran this yet, but from my experience at work, god help you with those power lines running that close to the USB wires. You have an almost perpendicular crossing and that may help, but from my experience on a daily basis with the USB communication in our industrial equipment (Genius design) you have headaches ahead. Hopefully this is not the case, but just remember this if/when you USB interface starts going whacko.

 

[CodeRage]

Perpendicular intersections are okay, when you run signal wires parallel with high current carrying wire is when you start to induce noise. Best practice is to keep them far away. Which reminds me, I meant to tell you that you did do right by running your control signal wires separate from your power carrying wires for the same reason.

 

[cruelkix]

Which reminds me, I meant to tell you that you did do right by running your control signal wires separate from your power carrying wires for the same reason.

It's better to be lucky than good right? That was just pure luck. I'll try to rememebr the USB/Power thing if I do run in to issues but so far it has been working great! Thanks for the info all!

1 question. On the 120 side of things: For most plugs (like the one I am using on my 120 panel), are the hot leg and the nuetral leg interchangable? If I throw my voltmeter from the hot to ground I get 120. If I throw from Neutral to ground what should I get?

Amazing it all works considering I don't seem to know anything, haha.

Thanks,
Craig

 

[cruelkix]

Since most of the replies have been about your electrical, I'll chime in about your mash. First thing I noticed is the length of the tubing going to your false bottom. That has to get in the way of good stirring. Ideally you would have a short and straight connection to the false bottom. Stirring: You want to do this when you are doughing in, and do it well to make sure there are no doughballs. Since you are recirculating with a HERMS, you should only need to stir this once then leave the grain bed alone during recirculation. If you are batch sparging you would re-stir after adding sparge water. (not for fly sparging, but you only have one pump, so I assume you are doing batch unless you drain into a separate vessel)
Also you don't need a fancy manifold for recirc, just lay the hose in the water level and let it swirl a bit.
As far as your priming problems go, make sure the feed (input) has no restriction, and you may want to try rotating your pump head 90˚ to put the input on the bottom.
One other note, that clear tubing you have 1 section of, I'd be worried about using that for recirculation. It's one thing to use it for a single transfer, like from the cooled BK to the fermenters, and another to have 150+˚ temps circulating for an hour, it may give bandaid flavors.
All that said I am very jealous of your electric rig. I'm slowly working my way that direction from propane. Nice work, nice touchscreen, thanks for the videos.

Thanks for the tips! I had planned on switching my pump to teh vertical orientation just like you said. Also, I will be replacing that hose today. I agree, and thought it wasnt the greatest idea, but I had bought the last 10 feet of silicone hose from the LHBS. They should have more in stock now. The reason the hose looks so long in teh mash tun is because if I made it shorter it would kink. Its not reinforced and it def causes problems while mixing. I will be hard piping it at some point, I just havent gotten there yet. HD doesnt seem to sell 1 ft of 1/2" easily bendable copper tubing.

 

[CodeRage]

Yes, the Neutral and 110 locations are important.

The neutral goes to the wide blade (looking at the socket from the front, it is on the left) and the 110 goes to the small blade on the right.

 

[dozer4412]

Just wanted to say this is extremely cool, and congrats on your pimp system. I don’t know much about electrical, but listen to CodeRage, your system is far too cool for you to get hurt using it.

 

[cruelkix]

Yes, the Neutral and 110 locations are important.

The neutral goes to the wide blade (looking at the socket from the front, it is on the left) and the 110 goes to the small blade on the right.

Thanks. If I had them wrong would the pump be running backwards?

 

[cruelkix]

Just wanted to say this is extremely cool, and congrats on your pimp system. I don’t know much about electrical, but listen to CodeRage, your system is far too cool for you to get hurt using it.

Thanks for the kudos man. Yeah I will def be doing most of these things before I brew again. I'm really glad I posted all this stuff so CodeRage could tell me how much I screwed up! (but in complete and total seriousness as well!)

 

[IrregularPulse]

Perpendicular intersections are okay, when you run signal wires parallel with high current carrying wire is when you start to induce noise. Best practice is to keep them far away.

That's what I was saying. If you have to have them cross, at least you have them perpendicular. Glad to see it's not giving you any issues. I'm scared away from USB for life after the headaches I've had with it from our equipment. Nice build!

 

[LabJackSupport]

Noticed a couple items I can comment on related to the LabJack U3.

I was under the impression that the Digital I/O lines could only supply 3.3V and you are switching a 4-32V SSR without amplification. Am I missing something, or does it just work anyway?

In the first picture of post #21, I can see that the analog outputs (DAC0 and DAC1) are sourcing current to a couple SSRs. They can provide 5 volts and plenty of current.

Following the wires from that picture to the 3rd picture, it looks like some FIO (digital I/O with 550 ohms of source impedance) are connected to more SSRs in the sourcing configuration. This looks like the SSRs are being turned on with 3.3 volts (with 550 ohms in series), and thus is not meeting the specs of the SSRs, but likely is providing enough current to light the internal LED and turn on the SSR anyway. The proper way to connect would be the sinking configuration described in Section 2.8.1.4 of the U3 User's Guide, where the I/O lines provides ground for our 5 volt supply:

http://labjack.com/support/u3/users-guide

I don't know what your experience with USB is and if you've ran this yet, but from my experience at work, god help you with those power lines running that close to the USB wires. You have an almost perpendicular crossing and that may help, but from my experience on a daily basis with the USB communication in our industrial equipment (Genius design) you have headaches ahead. Hopefully this is not the case, but just remember this if/when you USB interface starts going whacko.

I would agree that Ethernet (which we also offer) is generally more robust (it is isolated unlike USB), but we get good performance from USB also.

The most common "strange" problem we see seem to be related to electrical arcs and the USB host. For example, a mechanical relay with no snubber is used to control an inductive load like a motor, resulting in ugly arcs when the motor is stopped in particular. This arcs radiates an EM transient to the USB host, or perhaps some combination of radiation and conduction through common ground brings it to the host. The host then forgets a device is connected and requires you to plug/unplug to get it back. We don't see this too often, and it can be addressed when someone is seeing it.

One other thing we see is related to a USB suspend bug in Windows XP. I recommend everyone turn this off for a simple fix to this:

http://forums.labjack.com/index.php?showtopic=4510

 

[cruelkix]

Following the wires from that picture to the 3rd picture, it looks like some FIO (digital I/O with 550 ohms of source impedance) are connected to more SSRs in the sourcing configuration. This looks like the SSRs are being turned on with 3.3 volts (with 550 ohms in series), and thus is not meeting the specs of the SSRs, but likely is providing enough current to light the internal LED and turn on the SSR anyway. The proper way to connect would be the sinking configuration described in Section 2.8.1.4 of the U3 User's Guide, where the I/O lines provides ground for our 5 volt supply:

http://labjack.com/support/u3/users-guide

Its funny how you forget things that you did on purpose. The other SSRs I bought do not have an LED and CAN turn on with only 3 volts supply. This is why I have them wired the way I do and am not having any issues supplying the required voltage. Sorry. I should ahve been able to answer that earlier but I forgot I did that on purpose!

Regardless. Thanks for the link for other people to use if they need it!

 

[cpeneguy]

What temp sensors are you using and where did you purchase them. Im in the process of gathering all the materials to go all electric and fully automated. Getting tired of filling propane tanks and brewing in the 90 degree heat.

 

[cruelkix]

What temp sensors are you using and where did you purchase them. Im in the process of gathering all the materials to go all electric and fully automated. Getting tired of filling propane tanks and brewing in the 90 degree heat.

I used 3 of these guys.

Then I bought 3 of theseCompression Fittings to punch through the side walls of my keg.

I put the temp probes into SS Temp Probe Tubes and slide them in and out of the compression fittings.

I used a little thermal compound when i slid the temp sensors into the temp probes. Soldering the wire to the end of the temp sensors was a pain in the butt and I ruined one, but i am terrible at soldering small stuff/anything (shaky hands).

All in all it cost like $50 for all 3 (minues the compression fittings of course, with them its like $100). If you can find some really small gauge wire (like 24) it makes life easier. I used shrink wrap and epoxy to seal the end of the SS probe to make it as water tight as possible.

 

[cpeneguy]

Thanks for taking the time to respond and give me so much information. I've been trying to track down what types of sensors to use and such for a while.