Sediment Level and Air Lock?

[PCeditorpro]

I have been brewing for only a little while now and the engineer and computer scientist in me though it would be fun to try and automate the entire bottling process(Mostly because I make a mess and robots can be much cleaner.). Start with siphoning from fermenter into a holding tank where it would then be put into bottles(That would be run through a cleaning solution) then capped . But I have a few questions about my design for the fermenter right now.

1. Is s standard air lock ok? I was thinking of just welding onto the top of the fermenter I was making a 1in long pipe that a rubber stopper and air lock would fit into.
2. For removing the home brew I was thinking just a small pipe running from a point somewhere above where the sediment would accumulate but I'm not sure where that point would be.
3. I was going to just make the bottom of my fermenter cone shaped and flush the sediment and unusable brew down the drain making for easy clean up. This would also making cleaning easy. Just fill with water and cleaner scrub a bit. Then just open the bottom and it all drains out. Does this sound reasonable?

 

[helterscelter]

I have been brewing for only a little while now and the engineer and computer scientist in me though it would be fun to try and automate the entire bottling process(Mostly because I make a mess and robots can be much cleaner.). Start with siphoning from fermenter into a holding tank where it would then be put into bottles(That would be run through a cleaning solution) then capped . But I have a few questions about my design for the fermenter right now.

1. Is s standard air lock ok? I was thinking of just welding onto the top of the fermenter I was making a 1in long pipe that a rubber stopper and air lock would fit into.
2. For removing the home brew I was thinking just a small pipe running from a point somewhere above where the sediment would accumulate but I'm not sure where that point would be.
3. I was going to just make the bottom of my fermenter cone shaped and flush the sediment and unusable brew down the drain making for easy clean up. This would also making cleaning easy. Just fill with water and cleaner scrub a bit. Then just open the bottom and it all drains out. Does this sound reasonable?

1) or run a tube from your airlock pipe into a bucket of sanitizer (this would be a blowoff tube).. most larger conical fermenters have a blowoff tube design.. smaller fermenters are setup for airlocks.

the only question about airlock vs blowoff tube is how much headspace does your fermenter have and how much head space will your beer consume when it's at full tilt -- not enough headspace in the fermenter could result in a clogged airlock and ultimately cause all sorts of nasty problems/messes.. you also have to consider the amount of co2 coming off the fermentation -- a very large volume of fermenting beer may not be able to vent fully through a single airlock..

2) most conical fermenters have a racking port that does exactly what you describe

3) this is exactly how a conical fermenter should be used.

I probably wouldn't recommend building your own fermenter for this sort of project. there are plenty of ready made conical fermenters available that have all the features/functionality you need/want. if you're really keen to build your own bottling line, I would focus there; rather than designing everything from scratch buy the uninteresting things off the shelf where possible and spend your effort/time on the part that is interesting to you..