Three E's Electric Brewery Build

[Tiber_Brew]

Did you remember to ground it in holy water?

All kidding aside, I feel for ya bro; that's gotta make your heart feel like 200 lbs of lead. I hope that you can get that good looking panel in working order and get some brews under it.

TB

 

[EuBrew]

Is this the only 110V device in the panel? If you plug it into another 110 GFCI outlet and it doesnt pop I would suspect there is something wrong with the GFCI spa breaker or how it's wired. My suspicion is the neutral may be mis wired in the spa breaker. Is this the only 110 device in the panel?

Another thing you could try is to remove the gnd from the power supply and see if the breaker still pops. That would tell you if the problem is due to a ground fault or not.

I removed the ground and it still pops.

Here's a pic of the wiring in the spa panel, and I know I need cord grips, but I didn't have any and was anxious to hook this baby up!! I'll get them on tonight.

I'm pretty confident it's not an issue with the wiring of the spa panel but I could be wrong.

There are 4 more 110V devices in the panel but none of them have a load on them, they're wired through the BT relay board then to receptacles. They can't get power unless the 12V supply is working. After I get done putting some fires out at work I'll hook up my stir motor (the other 3 are pumps and I don't want to break them down but will if I need to) to see if causes the breaker to trip too.

Thanks for the input!!

 

[EuBrew]

Have you considered the possibility of a bad power supply? It may have an internal short...maybe you DID let the smoke out.

Maybe, but like I said, I can wire a plug to it and plug it into a GFCI receptacle with no problems. I hooked up a small motor to it prior to installing in the panel and it worked fine. I'll try this method again tonight to see if the power supply is the issue.

I sware I never saw or smelled any smoke!!!!

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Well, if you can wire the power supply to a different GFCI outlet and have no problems, then I suspect your spa panel is the culprit. However, it's hard to tell from your pictures whether it's wired correctly. You'll just have to trace the wires again...and again...and again. A mistake or faulty component will eventually surface, but it's really hard to troubleshoot your problem without being there in person.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Sorry my replies are so simplistic. Your troubleshooting seems methodical and thorough enough on its own. It's just a matter of finding that one misplaced wire or faulty component...

 

[Windsors]

I had a similar problem. If you find that the problem is not a bad power supply, maybe this thread can help

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/another-electrical-question-experts-161505/

Bill

 

[CodeRage]

I see your problem. the Neutral on the Spa GFCI is mis wired. The Neutral coming from your main breaker should screw into the GFCI breaker. Normally the terminal is located between the L1 and L2 terminals. Then the pig tail goes to the Neutral bus bar which is tied to the rig. Current from L1 or L2 is going straight back to the main panel neutral and the GFCI cant account for the current, this is why its tripping.

 

[trigger]

So there was a little PM conversation going, but I had a thought and wanted to see what others thought. The 12V power supply seems to be the GFCI culprit, as you showed by eliminating it from the circuit and everything else working. It's just not playing nice. When you tested the power supply was it mounted in the panel? If not then I'm thinking that there is a short somewhere in the power supply between a hot wire and the panel, which is grounded. To test this run a resistance test between each of the AC leads and ground and the 12V leads and ground with your multimeter on it's most sensitive setting. They should all come back as infinity when the power supply is mounted. If any of them display a value then that leg is somehow in contact with ground, which would be tripping your GFCI. You should also run the same test from the power supply's cover to ground, and get a very small value (<1). If you find a leg that's going to ground, try unmounting the power supply and placing it on a towel or something else to insulate it from the metal enclosure and run the same test with all of the wiring still connected. If this eliminates the short then it's probably the way that the power supply is mounted that's causing the problem. If the short still exists than it's internal in the power supply, and that will take some more investigation, and probably a new power supply since the thing's brand new.

 

[trigger]

Nevermind! CodeRage spotted it. Doh!

 

[Ohio-Ed]

well sh*t.............................

I got everything wired up finally and tried to fire her up but she doesn't feel like playing nice

Good news is I didn't let the smoke out!!!

There's a problem with how I have my contactor/estop relay wired I think. When I press my start button I get nothing, but when I hit the button on the contactor I get momentary power and the breaker on the spa panel trips.

I checked the ice cube relay and I only have power to 1 terminal (terminal 8), that's the one that is connected to the 2A breaker. I have no power going to my start button or estop button so I'm sure I wired something wrong on the ice cube relay and contactor.

Ohio-Ed can you chime in here? I wired as you described in the PM I sent you.



Any ideas where to start on trouble shooting ?? I have a multi meter.

EDIT:::::::: There's something going on with the 12V power supply. I checked to make sure it was in the 110V position and not the 220V and that's fine. I took the 12V+ and 12V- leads to brewtroller off and it's still the culprit on tripping the breaker. I still have issues with the wiring on the estop though because I can't get the relay and the contactor to latch even with the breaker for the 12V supply off.


I'm slightly baffled because I first unhooked the wires for the 12+ and 12- and had the same problem, ok so it's not brewtroller. Then I took all the wires off and wired directly to a plug leading to a GFCI outlet, no problems there either. If I leave the breaker for the 12V supply OFF in my panel the spa GFCI doesn't trip. I've checked all connections to make sure they were tight and no luck there either. I have traced all the wires back as far as they go and I have continuity on all three, neutral, hot, and ground. Yes neutral is on neutral bus, ground on ground bus.

Anyone have any suggestions???

WOW... A lot of activity, sorry I wasn't able to respond. Sounds like CodeRage and gang have you on the right track. Let me know if you are still having problems with the E-Stop circuit. Also, if you downloaded my drawing, which version are you working from? I posted a couple and have made some additional changes since. If you don't have an electronic copy to post/share for others to help from, let me know and I can try to get a copy online some where.

It's a pretty good feeling when you hit the start button, hear the contactor snap and you know it's alive (not bad when you hit the stop button, hear the snap and know it's dead either). You're gettin close.

Ed

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Ok, that wasn't TOO tough to see from the picture. I have to confess my lack of familiarity with GFCI breakers, though.

 

[EuBrew]

I see your problem. the Neutral on the Spa GFCI is mis wired. The Neutral coming from your main breaker should screw into the GFCI breaker. Normally the terminal is located between the L1 and L2 terminals. Then the pig tail goes to the Neutral bus bar which is tied to the rig. Current from L1 or L2 is going straight back to the main panel neutral and the GFCI cant account for the current, this is why its tripping.

Yeah, I had one of those DOH!! moments about an hour ago and fixed that, I was in a rush wiring the panel because it was almost midnight and I told the SWMBO I'd be in bed at 11, still can't believe I did that, I know better!!

Problem is I still get tripping!!!!!

Another hour and a half and I can spend some real time on it (better make that 3 hours, wife has a list for me).

I'm going to try and wire a motor or something direct to the spa panel using the same 5A breaker in the control panel that the power supply is hooked to and see if I still have tripping. If I do I'll exchange the spa panel and go from there.

 

[CodeRage]

Sorry, I misspoke. The pigtail should go to the Neutral coming from the breaker, the Neutral going to the brew rig is wired to the neutral terminal of the breaker.

 

[EuBrew]

Sorry, I misspoke. The pigtail should go to the Neutral coming from the breaker, the Neutral going to the brew rig is wired to the neutral terminal of the breaker.

I was checking the specs on the end line, for the rotary, girder........

I'm retarded


OK, no more playing with electricity until the 7 month old boy's mama gets home and I can concentrate only on the problem at hand. Need to clear my head and quit making stupid mistakes that I wouldn't be making if I'd slow down a bit.

Thanks everyone, power supply GFCI issues are RESOLVED!!! CodeRage was right, had the neutrals swapped in the spa panel, twice. I pulled off the main house panel to look at how I wired my arc faults for the bedrooms and got it straight. The 6/4 coming in threw me for a bit since in the main panel I didn't really think about the main line because it was already connected to the neutral and ground bus bars and the power plate behind the breakers.

I think I've got the estop right in my brain now too, thanks trigger! Hopefully by midnight tonight I'll have all the electrical tests done (baring anymore special moments by yours truly) and tomorrow I can start assembling the plumbing and doing some water tests!!!!!

Thanks again everyone!!!

BREW ON!!

 

[EuBrew]

WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO!

Got the latching relay figured out thanks to HBT!!!!!!!

I haven't checked to see if I'm actually getting voltage at all of the receptacles but I'd be willing to bet I am.

All of the switches are working in the manual position, start button works, power supply works, LED's work.

I haven't run Brewtroller through it's paces yet but all the relays are working correctly.

Sorry for the bad pics.

Here she is lookin like Christmas!!

Switches off

Inside of front panel

The guts with all the pretty green LED's showing relay's are active

More relay LED's, red this time

one last pic, things started to get a little messy when all the wires for the Brewtroller were run to the front panel.

Thanks again for all your help everyone!!!

 

[jonsmorrow]

Congrats! glad you got it sorted. Looks great!

 

[trigger]

I'm really glad it all worked out. Hope I was able to help out.

 

[Ohio-Ed]

Nice job, gotta feel good seeing it all lit up!

Ed

 

[EuBrew]

I'm really glad it all worked out. Hope I was able to help out.

All I can say trigger is YOU DA MAN!!!

 

[trigger]

Sweet, now get going on the plumbing. I want to see this thing in action. So far so good, though.

 

[EuBrew]

Not a whole lot to report, SWMBO had a honey do list I spent 12 hours on last Saturday then Sunday she spent 8 hours shopping so I got to take care of the seven month old monkey man.

I did discover I needed to order more wire to connect my 2 and 3 way motorized ball valves, one more thing that got lost in the shuffle.

After reading the GFCI keeps blowing thread I got paranoid about my JB Weld potted elements. Never fear!! I hooked up the BK element since it already had water in it from my leak test and flipped the switch to manual control and voila! It was pretty cool to hear the hissing of the water warming up and NOT hear the click of the GFCI!!!

Leaving for Christmas tomorrow morning so the build will sit patiently waiting for me to finish her up (more patiently than me unfortunately).

Hopefully the SWMBO will let me spend some time on it so I can maybe give her the inaugural brew on New Year's Day

Merry Christmas everyone!!

 

[EuBrew]

OK so the New Years brew didn't happen. I'm gettin damn close though!!

I have all the stainless plumbing done, all the valves are hooked up and functional, well the were hooked up, now I'm troubleshooting my pressure and volume sensors so I had to disconnect everything from the Brewtroller board so I could see what the heck I was doing.

To do list for tomorrow is

1. Run wiring for new work light
2. Figure out the problem with my temp probes
3. Get pressure sensors working
4. Rework valve wiring so it's cleaner and I can see the BT board better.
5. Run wire and duct for exhaust fan

I'll take some pics tomorrow after I clean up up a bit, it's embarrassing how quickly things get messy when I'm working on a project sometimes!!

 

[Tiber_Brew]

I'll take some pics tomorrow after I clean up up a bit, it's embarrassing how quickly things get messy when I'm working on a project sometimes!!

Don't be embarrassed! I omitted several pictures of my build thinking they showed too much clutter, but in hindsight, I probably should've shown them since the mess is to be expected and some important steps might be left out. Personally, I'd excuse the mess to learn what you're doing.

TB

 

[trigger]

Are your sensors just giving error codes? I, erm, I mean a friend of mine who built a control panel recently, had this problem when he first plugged mine in (I'm using PIDs, but it looks like you've got RTDs and 3-wire pressure sensors). What he'd done is soldered all the quick disconnects for the sensors the same way. That put the wire orientation off. What he had to do was go back and make the male end (the one mounted on the panel) the mirror image of the ones on the cord so that the wires corresponded to the ones on the probe. At least that's what he told me. I would never make this mistake, though, since it's pretty obvious...

If you're not using color coded wires inside your control pane, though, you can always just swap wires on the terminals until you find which goes where, if I'm even describing your problem.

 

[BrewBeemer]

EuBrew, congrats it's alive.
Questions; you have the manufacture and part number of the pressure sensors plus any specs like what the pressure range as well the output signal or voltage output range? Thanks.