I have the main panel painted, at least on the outside. I went with a black truck bedliner spray. It has a rough durable texture and seems to cover much better than the hammer tone paint.
Everything seems to work so far... almost. the e-stop is still not hooked up, and the buzzer is not yet installed. I did get the panel much more rigidly mounted. I had to modify the tv mount that i had bought to shorten the extension as well as add box tubing structure to the back of my panel to add rigidity. The whole panel is much more rigid now, i am pleased.
another problem that i am having is getting the second GFCI working. i have the donut style GFCI's in the side of my panel and one of them will not close it's contactor. it just clicks rapidly... i have to do some more digging on that, updates to come.
i did a water heating test to see how quick i could bring water to a boil. it is very hot outside, and the water from the tap was around 83-85F. approximately 10 gallons was added to the BK, and i turned the elements on full blast and watched the temperature climb. there was a visible boil when the temperature reading was at 206. I don't know if that means i need to somehow calibrate the temp sensors? maybe it is other factors playing in, although i do not think i am at a high enough elevation to shave 6 degrees off the boiling temp. temp sensor placement? It took 10 minutes to bring the water to a visible boil.
Everything went well, except for the fact that the little heat sink i am using got hot enough that i could not hold my hand on it... and that is with only 2 of the 4 SSR's firing. I am going to have to do something about that i think or i am going to likely burn up some SSR's. maybe i will add a fan (easy) or install a bigger heat sink (harder, more expensive).
Also, just when i was about to tell everybody how great these chinese pumps are, as i attempted to push the boiling water out of the BK into the HEX and out to a bucket, i broke the pump within about 10 seconds. the pump ceased and after taking it apart i found that part of the magnetic drive (the magnet itself) split from the plastic impeller and had wedged itself against the wall of the inside of the pump motor. Do you guys preheat your pumps? Do they normally handle the temperature shock OK? i know most people are running a totally different pump, this is why i ask.
pics with the pretty LED's
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