Panel Mount RTD connectors

[BrewBeemer]

ROFL!

We had a non union contractor use our conduit run for his low voltage control wire run. Way up high in a hidden area at a 2" LB we placed about 30 wraps of #14 wire around his control wires and applied 70 VDC. All his insturnent metering at the panels were useless. Contract bid without installing conduit cutting corners cost him plus getting caught. Yes outside noise, longer the run with parallel conductors the greater the risk.

 

[gunner65]

Can you run two of the RTD quick connectors to the same PID RTD input? So I could use the same PID and control box to run the hlt and bk (not at the same time of course)/

 

[Walker]

I'm bot sure I follow you here. The pid can only support one probe at a time. You could have one connector on the panel and swap which probe was plugged into it, I suppose.

But, more importantly... Why do you want a probe on the kettle? It serves no purpose.

 

[gunner65]

Can you not set the pid to say 212F on the kettle? and that is what I meant to say two probes two ports and one pid (can two ports be connected two the same pid input without any interference?). I see alot of people here running the pids in manual for the BK but I really dont get that why not use them with temp control? I think it would be nice to see the and control the temp of the boil. I am just curious.

 

[Walker]

No, you can't do that reliably. The temp of boiling wort is a constant, be it a low simmer or a geyser boiling over all over your brewery.... It's the same temp.

you want a pulse modulator for controlling a boil, which is what the PID "manual mode" is doing. And you don't need temp feedback to the PID in manual mode.

 

[gunner65]

Still curious....If a PID can control the hlt temperature (that being the most crucial in the system) why cant it hold the boil at say 208-215 range? The environmental chamber I pulled this off of is very precise in the plotted measurements I would think that it could hold a temperature setpoint.

 

[klyph]

Like walker said, the difference between low simmer and volcanic geyser cannot be determined by the sensor probe. As the liquid reaches boiling point, vapors carry heat energy away. This means the liquid part remains 212 though the rate of evaporation may vary tremendously. The system will either apply way too much heat and induce exponential vapor production (boilover) or it will hit boiling, turn off, hit boiling, turn off, ad nauseum.

 

[Walker]

It's a a matter of physics, because you are operarting at the point where some matter (the wort) wants to change from a liquid to a gas.

Straight water at standard pressure boils at 212*F. It won't boil at all at 211*F, it is is physically impossible to heat the water to 213*F, so forget about a "range" when boiling. It happens at one very specific temperture.

A PID could just turn the element on 100% of the time and it would maintain a boil at exactly 212*F. It would be a violent boil, but it would be a boil. That's not what you want.

Feel free yo try it if you want.

 

[gunner65]

So it is the boiling point itself that causes the problem and the PID has no problem with maintaining a perfect say 170F? That has been puzzling me since I started my research. Thanks for the answer.

 

[Walker]

That's correct.

 

[gunner65]

Sorry to jack your thread but this has had me wondering why for sometime, the engineer in me couldnt let it go. We use these pids in environmental chambers to control boilers that inject humidity into the chambers which makes sense they turn the element on full blast until enough steam is injected to ramp the humidity to the desired setpoint then turn off. Anyway that will save me the cost of a second npt threaded RTD. I will have to have one for the BK at first as I will be using it for batch sparging until I get my hlt built then I will move to the hlt and plug the hole on the BK.

 

[Walker]

I don't mind the jacking.

Are you building a herms or rims, or are you just looking for a way to heat water to the proper temps automatically?

 

[gunner65]

at this moment I am will be using the keggle for a sparge water heater and BK. In the future I want to build a herms.