Yeah, go ahead, bitch, bitch, bitch....
That weekend got busy, and I got distracted, and... and... and...
Bottom line, I'm STILL working on that damned box, but I'm a LOT closer!! In fact, I finished the dimensioning in MS Visio just YESTERDAY, and I should be heading over to the wood shop here on base this week, probably Wednesday evening. The project also "grew" just a little, from one Omega CN9000A to control the heat exchanger in the mash tun to SEVEN - COUNT 'EM, SEVEN Omega CN9000A's, one controlling an additional heat exchanger for the HLT (maintaining my strike and sparge temps), and the other 5 monitoring various temps; 3 inside each of the HLT, MT and Kettle (yeah, I know when it's boiling, but I also want to know when I've hit my pitch temp during the whirlpool), and then 2 more monitoring my chill water in-flow and out-flow (I want to know when to ice down the pre-chiller). Oh yeah, and I added an Omega PHCN-37 pH Controller so I can monitor the pH in the wort heading to the kettle during the sparge, with the controller cutting power to the pump when it hits my set value.
I've had to stuff 2 heat sinks/solid-state relays, a fast-blow fuse bank, 8 controllers, 7 switches, 5 110V electrical outlets, a GFI outlet, a master power switch, and 2 fans into a 500mm x 300mm x 250mm wooden box. Because I can't mount the PIDs in anything thicker than about 1/2", I've opted to inlay an aluminum plate into the lid, so I'm having that "engraved" with the labels to the HLT, MT, Kettle, the ons/offs and auto/manual for the switches, as well as the in-flow and out-flow.
One last switch... I had to have a switch that controls which of the two hot water heaters actually gets the power to respond to it's associated PID, since I don't have the power to drive BOTH heaters at the same time - too many amps!
Honest!! I'll post pics when it's (or at least closer to being) done!!
Eat your heart out, Doc!!!
Namako
