PicoBrew Zymatic

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seabrew said:
How did the replumb project go? Did it fix anything?

My Zymatic stopped heating and it's out of warranty. I ran the full system test, and it appears the heat pump doesn't work. Keg and drain pumps work, but when it gets to heat pump test, nothing fires up. I've run cleaning cycles several times and gunk comes out, but it doesn't heat up on its own.

(Long time lurker, first time poster.)
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@seabrew several of us have replaced the motors with better ones, replumbed all the lines and done some minor upgrades to the HEX loop that improves performance and increases the time between glycol loop top offs. I am crrently putting together the procedure for the mods, but I do have a procedure for the HEX maintenance if you want to try that first, its been used by nearly 50 folks on here with great success.

As for Picobrew, you can stop going to them for answers and help because at this point I think this forum has become the expert knowledgebase. The only thing we can't fix right now is a main board issue, but I'll have that cracked very soon.

PS Still working on the stainless steel step filter...I've actually just been too busy to get to it.
 
The glycol pump always is on when the machine is turned on AFAIK. I know this because it becomes noisy when there's bubbles in the glycol and that noise starts immediately on power on. I scrapped my machine and sent the main board back for my rebate for Z1. One upgrade that you machine hackers can do is put a glycol reservoir in the loop. This is done on biomedical instrument glycol loop. It both degasses the glycol and makes it easy to top off. Also make sure if you ever put anything in there do NOT put in ethylene glycol it is toxic and if the HEX leaks into your wort it can poison you! propylene glycol only
 
As far as the Z reliability vs the Zymatic... I don't work for PicoBrew, and you can look at my history I have been critical of them. I opened the top of the Z and it appears from how they did it that it will be more resistant to failure. Nothing is failsafe.

The major issues of the Zymatic that I encountered were
  1. Step filter cracking no matter how carefully cared for. It seems the moulding of the new filter has been improved greatly to eliminate the sharp bends and complicated parts in the mould where plastic would not evenly distribute
  2. HEX loop plate chiller caking up and then eventually causing error 1: I think now the rinse cycle is more robust. Time will tell on this one
  3. Fluid arm leaking and getting stuck: The straight runs to a multi way valve is much more robust. no moving fluid coupling
So they did improve it quite a bit. I don't think any automated system will be 100% bomb proof but at least now you can get to the parts very easy and replace them vs the Zymatic. Their customer support for all the complaints is quite good too.
 
seabrew said:
How did the replumb project go? Did it fix anything?

My Zymatic stopped heating and it's out of warranty. I ran the full system test, and it appears the heat pump doesn't work. Keg and drain pumps work, but when it gets to heat pump test, nothing fires up. I've run cleaning cycles several times and gunk comes out, but it doesn't heat up on its own.

(Long time lurker, first time poster.)
Click to expand...
Did you check the thermal fuse(s) which would stop heating?
 
Mike Howard said:
Looks like the heating element is bad...shorted out and that's probably what caused the breaker to trip. It's very apparent that the wires leading into the element got really hot, melted and the outer heat shield crumbled. Already found a source and ordered a replacement. Looks like my glycol loop is a couple ounces short again as well, so it's a great time to top it off.

View attachment 601576
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How do I get to this part and the pumps? I pulled the back cover off. Trying to figure out how this thing comes apart, but I don't want to eff it up.
 
seabrew said:
How do I get to this part and the pumps? I pulled the back cover off. Trying to figure out how this thing comes apart, but I don't want to eff it up.
Click to expand...

Hit me up in PM and I can hook you up with a procedure on how to access the lower unit and what parts I have upgraded.
 
Mike Howard said:
Hit me up in PM and I can hook you up with a procedure on how to access the lower unit and what parts I have upgraded.
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My Zymatic recently experienced repeated Fatal Error #1’s and after extensive testing, cleaning, etc. with Kevin he suggested I send it in for repair. I decided against doing that and have disassembled the unit for parting out. Good parts available include the motherboard, power supply, OLED display, solid state relay, stepper motor, step filter and hop components. Perhaps these can help someone keep their Zymatic running and I can recoup a few bucks.
 
Grant McMillan said:
My Zymatic recently experienced repeated Fatal Error #1’s and after extensive testing, cleaning, etc. with Kevin he suggested I send it in for repair. I decided against doing that and have disassembled the unit for parting out. Good parts available include the motherboard, power supply, OLED display, solid state relay, stepper motor, step filter and hop components. Perhaps these can help someone keep their Zymatic running and I can recoup a few bucks.
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I traded mine in for $600. All I had to send back was the mother board. So I have all the parts too, except the board. I wonder if there is a market? I was thinking of using the pump as a transfer pump. Idk.
 
If you wanted to keep your Zymatic running I believe you could use my board. I think that process would make your machine appear as my machine so I would need to transfer ownership. I don’t know if that would create an issue with your rebate or not.
 
Anyhowe said:
I traded mine in for $600. All I had to send back was the mother board. So I have all the parts too, except the board. I wonder if there is a market? I was thinking of using the pump as a transfer pump. Idk.
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Not sure if you saw my next post since I did not do it as a reply. Are you interested in keeping your Zymatic running?
 
@Grant McMillan

You can't just use the Main board as a replacement item. You MUST include the three temperature sensors (and they must be labeled). Picobrew seems to have hard coded the addresses of the DS18B20 sensors so they are a matched set with the Main board. Another screw up on their part, as it prevents the sensors from being replaced.

Also, there was no need to part out your Zymatic, since I have created a procedure to fix the FE#1 constant error. You'd be better off reassembling it, after following my procedure and then sell it as a working Zymatic.
 
Anyhowe said:
I traded mine in for $600. All I had to send back was the mother board. So I have all the parts too, except the board. I wonder if there is a market? I was thinking of using the pump as a transfer pump. Idk.
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How and when did they give you the $600?
 
Mike Howard said:
@Grant McMillan

You can't just use the Main board as a replacement item. You MUST include the three temperature sensors (and they must be labeled). Picobrew seems to have hard coded the addresses of the DS18B20 sensors so they are a matched set with the Main board. Another screw up on their part, as it prevents the sensors from being replaced.

Also, there was no need to part out your Zymatic, since I have created a procedure to fix the FE#1 constant error. You'd be better off reassembling it, after following my procedure and then sell it as a working Zymatic.
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Thank you for that information. As you have pointed out in numerous posts, PicoBrew has made it really difficult to fix things, even as simple as a parts swap. I already tossed the chassis, except for the base unit and parts I listed, so reassembly is not an option.
 
So, I finally started actually brewing with the Zymatic for a couple of brews, and I have actually had decent luck. Well, decent luck thanks to this thread, and Mike Howard in particular. The key for me has been the “heat water” recipe. If I get the water temp above the 102 mark, the rest of the brew goes fine. Otherwise it is nonstop FE1s. I do get some leaking from the front left corner, but not enough to bother with yet. When it is working, the convenience of letting it run in the basement while I’m making dinner and putting the kids to bed is pretty nice. Not as automatic as it was supposed to be, but I look forward to some more experiments with it. I also bought used, so am not $2k deep in it.
 
I have been gifted a Zymatic from a friend who hadn't used it in a few years. I ran a few cleaning cycles and got tons of gunk out, but am still getting FE1s. I've implemented the suggested workaround using a step heat water recipe to get to 115*F, and then it works fine from there, so I can limp along with it at the moment. Planning my first double batch on it this week. Seeing how dirty this was after sitting a couple of years in my friend's garage, I plan to run the deep clean cycle after every brew, and I wrote a "sanitize" recipe that does a 180*F hot water rinse to run before any long term storage. (Six years of being a pro I have learned a thing or two about cleaning and sanitizing - most homebrewers do not clean their stuff well enough)

From looking at the data graphs, it's pretty obvious there is a glycol loop problem that I need to address on this machine. I would love to get my hands on the teardown procedures. I could not figure out in 30 minutes how on earth to get this thing apart, it was clearly not designed with serviceability in mind.
 
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Mike Howard said:
Awesome man!! Glad I could help.
Click to expand...

For anyone squeamish about taking the machine apart to fix the glycol problem - it took me all told about two and a half hours from start to finish, and the procedures were exactly as described, you don't need to be particularly handy to do it yourself.

The most annoying / difficult part of the procedure for me was getting the @*#!ing drip dray off, so I decided not to bother putting it back on, as in my setup I don't really need it anyway.

If you haven't ever removed an Oetiker clamp before - the way I get mine off, is I take the crimping tool I have, and grab the outside of the band where it is attached with the notches. You can squeeze in between the outer and inner bands, and it will pop apart. Then you can use a screwdriver to bend enough to get your fingers in there and just pull it apart / straighten out and remove the clamp.
 
Shout out and big thanks to Mike for his instructions on taking the unit apart. My FE1 was also caused by a lack of glycol. Easy way to tell: turn on your unit. The noise you hear is the glycol pump. If it is surging (not a steady sound) then it is straining to push the air though until it can pull more fluid around.

I added a 3-way splitter in the tube coming out of the heat exchanger (HEX) where there was a large bubble of missing glycol. I ran some new tubing up to and around the top of the unit and filled it up with glycol. This is my glycol reservoir. I purged as much air as I could and filled the tube.

With the unit on (runs the pump) I slowly raised the left side up about 2-3", held a few seconds, lowered it and then did the other side. Each time a few more air bubbles rose up the tube to the top. I repeated this quite a few times until the pump sounded like it wasn't surging anymore (and I was tired of doing it).

With everything put back together except the top, I tried to brew a new batch. I got the FE1 error again. After a few curses I tried again and it ran to completion! By the end of the batch half of my tubing was empty again. I feared a leak or missing clamp. No. It was missing that much glycol. I refilled the reservoir and it has been steady ever since.

Here is a picture of the top of the unit. The tube circling the fluid arm is the new glycol reservoir.
ZymaticGlycol.jpg

Note: when I was cleaning my keg after the fermentation, I took the posts apart and found them pretty clogged up with grain bits and other stuff. In the future, I will be removing both poppets (centers) before each brew session and replace them for the fermentation.
 
Those Z preorders were probably all that kept the lights on. Chances of firmware/backend release? Bahahhahahahhh.
 
There were several people that got the buyback payouts from what I have seen on the facebook page. They had to take the control board out of their Z and send it in to get it. There were also several that got their buyback for the Pico S/Pro as well. But I don't believe everyone received theirs.
 
Writing on the wall for a couple years now....when you suck that bad at CS you gotta know the management sucks too. Glad I'm off the grid now and do all of my own Zymatic maintenance...
 
Kevin posted on the official PicoBrew forums. Quoted below..


As you may have heard, we are currently in the process of being sold through the WA State Receivership process. The party of investors who have been funding the operation of our company over the last year have submitted a bid and plans to continue its support during this process. We anticipate no interruption of sales or support to our valued customers during this period.
 
macgyuver said:
Are you spoofing the pico servers with your OG Z
Click to expand...

Yea, but I'm in the middle of coding a RPi with CraftBeerPi to mimic the PB process. I've got the stepper arm working and the pumps, but still a long way to go. Hopefully by mid summer I'll be able to release the code to anyone who wants to go dark.
 
seabrew said:
How do I get to this part and the pumps? I pulled the back cover off. Trying to figure out how this thing comes apart, but I don't want to eff it up.
Click to expand...
Mike Howard, do you have step-by-step instructions on how to disassemble the Zymatic? I have the top off and can see that one of the tubes running down the left side of the unit has a huge air bubble in it. I'm sure I need to see what's going on in the bottom of the machine but don't want to get myself to the point of not being able to reassemble this beast. Thanks!
 
macgyuver said:
There were several people that got the buyback payouts from what I have seen on the facebook page. They had to take the control board out of their Z and send it in to get it. There were also several that got their buyback for the Pico S/Pro as well. But I don't believe everyone received theirs.
Click to expand...

I got an applied discount for my Pro to my Z purchase. They just had me keep the Pro which was nice.
 
macgyuver said:
@Virginia_Ranger

Hopefully I will get that email about my discount, payback, whatever it is they are doing for my Z2 purchase... We shall see, but I am not holding my breath.
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It is my understanding that they sent out e-mails late last year and you had to reply soon after to get money back on zymatic. Now that they are in receivership, you should be holding your breath to know if they continue as a company.
 
Brian C said:
Mike Howard, do you have step-by-step instructions on how to disassemble the Zymatic? I have the top off and can see that one of the tubes running down the left side of the unit has a huge air bubble in it. I'm sure I need to see what's going on in the bottom of the machine but don't want to get myself to the point of not being able to reassemble this beast. Thanks!
Click to expand...


PM me and I can help you out...
 
All, I've stumbled across this as I'm having the same issues with my Zymatic and am preparing to pop it open this weekend. By all indications I have air in the glycol loop and am planning to add a reservoir as mentioned. One question I haven't seen answered is where the glycol is going. I don't have any indications of a leak but it seems like this would be an important question to answer as I go through this process.
 
Greg R said:
All, I've stumbled across this as I'm having the same issues with my Zymatic and am preparing to pop it open this weekend. By all indications I have air in the glycol loop and am planning to add a reservoir as mentioned. One question I haven't seen answered is where the glycol is going. I don't have any indications of a leak but it seems like this would be an important question to answer as I go through this process.
Click to expand...

Send me a PM and I'll hook you up with a procedure I wrote...
 

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