My electric brewery build

[MadGus]

False bottom for MLT arrived, and so did all of the remaining guts and enclosure for the panel! UPS lost my CP part shipment for four days, so I lost this past weekend of build time.

Guess I'll have to spend some additional time on this over the coming weekend to catch up.

Christmas Day brew is looking good!

 

[MadGus]

Loosely spaced out components on panel door. Will tape, measure and start drilling Saturday morning (or maybe Friday evening).

 

[BadNewsBrewery]

With the switches down low and near the edge - keep in mind that the rubber seal around the frame may interfere with that plan, and even if the switch fits fine, remember there will be wires coming out of them too.

 

[MadGus]

Good point... that rubber seal is pretty thick! Going to tape the entire front of the panel and do a measured layout before I cut anything.

 

[MadGus]

Punched all of the circle holes in the CP over the course of this past week.

 

[MadGus]

Ready for primer (once I remove the handles)

 

[MadGus]

Door, receptacles and heat sink installed. Next weekend will be backplate and wiring.

 

[SavoryChef]

Looking good

 

[bufitfn]

Hers my Kal clone! love it

 

[stlblues5010]

I like seeing all the different ways people are doing these. Has anybody got an idea of the cost savings as apposed to purchasing the kits? Keep up the good work and thanks to all those applying their expertise.

Home brewers rock:rockin:

 

[bufitfn]

I like seeing all the different ways people are doing these. Has anybody got an idea of the cost savings as apposed to purchasing the kits? Keep up the good work and thanks to all those applying their expertise.

Home brewers rock:rockin:

I built mine from scratch. Kal has excellent instructions. It is cheaper than buying, but alota work (fun work)

 

[MadGus]

I think I'm about $2800 all in so far. SWMBO will be happy to get the kitchen table back soon. Remaining is probably one or two more small trips to Radio Shack/Home Depot for CP small parts (including a small space heater for the garage... any recommendations?).

There's a complete parts list that I'll publish at the end of my build, and a pretty long list of folks that I need to thank for sharing their knowledge and selling good parts!

 

[MadGus]

Looking good

Thanks! As others have said, it's a lot of work, but fun work.

 

[BadNewsBrewery]

I finished mine last weekend, but it's not running right. Was supposed to spend this weekend trouble shooting but had a little too much fun at a Christmas party and spent the weekend nursing a MIGHTY hangover. Here's hoping yours works right the first time!

 

[MadGus]

Looking for some feedback here, after pondering the wiring diagram that P-J drew up for my panel. Here's what I'm planning to do:

1) Ground connections, all "home runs" to ground post on back of panel including 6# wire from my panel power 4-wire (also will wire ground post from panel door here)
2) Neutral connections, run 6# panel power wire to terminal block, step down to 14# wire, run in series to all 3 contactor coils, 4 PID/timers, flash buzzer, main power light, pump lights, and pump outlets
3) Hot 1 (Blue) connections, run 6# panel power wire to 50A contactor, 6# from contactor to terminal block, 6# to all three circuit breakers, 10# from 25A breakers to each element contactor, 10# from each element contactor to element outet, 14# from element outlet to element light, 14# from 15A circuit breaker in series to element switch, pump switches, and PID/timers, 14# from PID/timers to alarm switches and alarm light/buzzer, 14# from pump switches to pump lights and pump outlets
4) Hot 2 (Red) connections, run 6# panel power wire to 50A contactor, 6# from contactor to terminal block, ???# wire from terminal block to fused resistors and e-stop, 6# to the two 25A circuit breakers, 10# to each SSR, 10# from each SSR to element contactor, 10# from element contactor to element outlet, 14# from element outlet to element light

I'm sure it would be easier to redraw P-Js diagram with different thicknesses shown on all of the wires... I may do that (now that I'm off of work!).

What size wire do I need to run from my Hot 2 (Red) terminal block to the E-Stop resistors/switch? Any reason I should not run neutral in series? Any reason I should not use grounding post instead of terminal block for grounds?

Wiring up everything this Sunday (pending SWMBO approval). Getting close now!

 

[BadNewsBrewery]

No sense in running 6ga to the circuit breakers as the max load that circuit will see is 25a before a trip. Run 10ga to the circuit breakers. Easier to work with and fit in a small box.

You can use 14ga for the red line run to the EPO.

No reason I can think of not to run the neutral in parallel. I opted not to use my panel as the terminal block for the neutral because, and I may be wrong, if something does go south my panel would be energized as part of the path from the faulty wire to ground. As a feed off the grounding terminal block, the panel is still attached, but the errant current will take the path of least resistance and avoid the panel. Maybe?

Also, I did something VERY similar to what you describe. My only change - I ran the output from the 15amp breaker to a small terminal block. That way I didn't have to deal with trying to piggy back all kinds of things off one wire, and it has allowed me to pull individual lines for troubleshooting. You can see the small terminal block in the second photo here, to the right of the breakers.

 

[MadGus]

Thanks (as usual), Kevin! 10# to 25A circuit breakers and 14# to EPO makes sense.

For the neutral, I was thinking about running all of those connections in series, rather than having a terminal block for these. Not that I'm trying to save $5 at this point in the effort, but it seems like a lot less white wire would be consumed through series wiring, as a lot of the components requiring neutral are all located fairly close to each other (i.e. go straight from main power light to pump lights, rather than coming to each from terminal block on the backplate). I'm probably missing something simple here, but what's the difference in running neutral parallel versus serial (maybe a use case on a bad outcome scenario would help clear the cobwebs for me)?

 

[BadNewsBrewery]

My bad. I thought Series, I told my fingers to type Series, and they typed Parallel. They will be dealt with accordingly. Run the neutral in series as best you can, it should save you some wire and headache. I still have a few parallel runs, but only because it was easier to run back to the terminal block rather than try and find another thing to tap off.

 

[MadGus]

Cool.

 

[MadGus]

15A circuit wired up... Now on to frying some turkeys!

 

[MadGus]

Ok... Totally off topic, but...

 

[P-J]

Ok... Totally off topic, but...

???

 

[MadGus]

Aluminum pot with a 15 pound turkey frying away @ 327 degrees. 5th year running tradition for my family on Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas, Paul!

 

[P-J]

Aluminum pot with a 15 pound turkey frying away @ 327 degrees. 5th year running tradition for my family on Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas, Paul!

To you also..

Ok.. Turkey fry... I was really worried..

 

[MadGus]

 

[MadGus]

It's alive!!!! PID programming and full process with water (to clean and observe heat loss) scheduled for tomorrow. Looks like brewing will happen on Friday or Saturday!

 

[SavoryChef]

That's awesome

 

[BadNewsBrewery]

Bad ass!

 

[castermmt]

WOHOOO!! How did you do your false bottom and boil kettle? Does your boil kettle use a screen or whirlpool? Looks fantastic! Nice work and fast. Castermmt

Brewing the wife's Kolsch this morning. 28 degrees f outside and I'm in my slippers and shirt and pants brewing indoors in the winter. It's a pretty good feeling brewing whenever you feel like it despite the weather outside:rockin:

 

[Im_Lars]

Awesome !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!