Troubleshooting... long story

[kellzey]

I posted this over on Kal's forum... (www.theelectricbrewery.com/forum) but thought I would share some of my troubleshooting methods for the benefit of electric panel builders here...


I am building a copy of Kal's panel. So references to any of the parts are for the design at www.theelectricbrewery.com

I decided to take a leap of faith and test fire the control panel.

Instead I ended up spending about half of day figuring out WHY turning the key wouldn't power up the panel

Here's my story.

All switches OFF... plugged in power... turned key... No blue light, no power meter, volt meter, nothing... Hmmm...

On the bright side... no magic smoke either. No heat, sparks, flames, funny smells... just silence. I am severely disappointed.

Check GFCI breaker at main power panel... works fine.

Tested the outlet wiring ... works fine.

OK, time to trouble shoot the panel.

First of all, I DID wire up the safety interlock relay... So that was my first guess.

Even though I had already trace checked all of the wires, I decided to do it again. I found one mistake... crossed an x and a Y on one of the element receptacles, but they weren't even connected so that wouldn't do it.

Okaaaaaay.... so now what?

Rechecked all of the screw connections for the wires on the power, element, and pump receptacles.... Nope

Started checking switches...

First thing. I checked for NC versus NO contacts on the switches.... All OK... tested functionality by watching the little red and green tabs move up and down on the blocks as I manually activated each switch.... All OK...

OK, time to bypass safety interlock and rewired the key switch the original way... nothing. No blue light, nothing comes on. (commence head banging on tabletop)...

I went ahead and reconnected the interlock relay wiring.

Once again, I made sure all switches were OFF and I turned the key to ON...

I examined the interlock relay a little closer... Hmmm... I do notice that the little red light on the relay comes on... and the relay closes when the key is turned... so that's good. And it doesn't work when any of the front panel switches are ON... so it's technically working...

But basically... my main power relays aren't energizing.

So... using the end of a wooden spoon I manually activated the power relays. (i.e. toggled the rocker on top of the relay). SUCCESS!... everything lights up.

CAUTION: If you manually activate the relays on an energized panel (or generally poke around and touch anything inside the panel), you run the potential risk of deadly SHOCK. NEVER use a metal screw driver, or other metallic object to manually close the power relay contacts or you run the risk of electrocution, fire, shorting out componenents, releasing the magical smoke inside of parts, or completely frying your project.

OK... so why aren't the power relays energizing????

No idea.... Argh!

Repeat all wire tracing. Everything checks great with a continuity tester... nice clean signals. @($*^$*&%~!!!!!!!!

Frustration is mounting... this SHOULD be working.


I decided to go eat corned beef and cabbage that had been cooking in the Crockpot alll day and have a glass of Irish whiskey to drink away my sorrows. I take a nap on the couch.

About an hour ago I decided to go have another look at the main power relays and pull up Kal's parts list.

Hmm... they aren't the right parts... uh oh!

I check my original order with Pioneer Breaker... I ordered ones with 30VDC coils instead of 120VAC coils... &@^!%#^$%!!!!


But, on top of that, they didn't even send me what I ordered. (i.e. the online order history doesn't even match what I received.) DOUBLE #$*@&%$!!!!!!!

OK... well, at least this might help solve some of the issues. A new order has been placed.

I guess I will focus tomorrow on installing the fittings on the keggles and finishing up the vent ducting.


Lesson learned.

 

[dburgette]

God. I feel for you. Thanks for the heads up. I'm currently ordering everything. I'll be sure to check my parts carefully after reading your frustrations.

 

[kellzey]

I also ordered 120VAC element indicator pilot lights (instead of 220) but discovered that early on.

Check and recheck your parts.

Any little screw up can cause issued. NO versus NC switch blocks, 220VAC versus 120VAC versus 12VDC.

 

[milldoggy]

Check to make sure power(before the main relay) is wired to the key and then returned to the ac motor of the dpdt realy. There are screws on each side of the relay, one hot(connected to key) and one neutral. Your issue is turning the key is not completing the circuit to activate the ac motor of your 240 main dpdt relay. So either the nuertal is bad or the path of power coming in.

Can you post a pic of the relay, the power key, power light?

 

[kellzey]

Thanks Milldoggy, but you obviously didn't get through the entire post. LOL

The problem is not with the wiring.. but that I have the wrong relays (refer to the end of my long-ass post). I accidentally ordered relays with 30VDC coils, versus 120VAC... hence they are not getting the proper trigger signal to activate.

 

[milldoggy]

funny, you are right. I seen that problem before and just figured I respond. My eADD got me

Glad you figured it out. I understand ordering the wrong part. I built mine before Kal had the kit and man it is a process to get all the right pieces. If I where to do it again, I would get his kit in a 50 amp version.

 

[l3asturd]

I almost did the same thing as milldoggy. The first few sentences were screaming wrong coil voltage, glad you found the problem. I didn't even bother checking my relays to verify that they sent me the right ones. Guess I'll find out soon enough. My panel will be fired up within a week. I tried to verify as much wiring as I could with my meter (ohm checks and ground fault checks) but there are still those nervous feelings of smoking things or not enough protection. I'm going to fuse a few lines I feel should be fused as wire protection. Mainly my Power Relay coil doesn't have any protection, so I'll add a fuse to that as soon as I figure out the maximum current draw of my coils. I decided to add inline fuses to the other coil relays too, and then to any source wiring that wasn't rated for at least 15A because that was my CB rating.