controlling FV temperature with solenoid valve

[Kev888]

Looking very smart, there!

Cheers
Kev

[Deller12]

Cheers Kev I think I'm nearly done building stuff now at long last

[Deller12]

Well the the system seems to be working fine the solar pump does a great job of pumping the warm water round the coil.

[dynamic dave]

Dear Santa please can I have this pretty please ...............

[Deller12]

Lol Dave Santa been here for the last few years and I still add to the list

[Deller12]

Hi Guys,

I finished my keeping the conical warm project it works a treat As soon as the warmer weather arrives I will swap over to the maxi cooler to cool the conical. A few picture below for anyone who is interested.


Cheers

Lee

So far this set up has been holding temp bang on. As the conical is in the garage i have only had to worry about keeping the beer warm as it's very cold. I was thinking of using a small motor bike oil cooler and a couple of 12volt pc fans to look after the cooling side of this set up. I know a few of you guys use maxi coolers but thought this may be a simple solution? Anyone got any of thoughts on this ?

[Belter]

Lee what's the cone? Is that on your boiler so you can pipe the steam outside? I'm looking for a solution in my garage for extraction. Ideally pipe outside through the wall

[Deller12]

Lee what's the cone? Is that on your boiler so you can pipe the steam outside? I'm looking for a solution in my garage for extraction. Ideally pipe outside through the wall

Hi Lee,

The cone sits on top of the boil kettle and connected to a 4” duct that runs to stainless steel chimney on the roof of my garage. Its works really well no extraction fan is needed the steam rises on its own. I do get some condensation dripping back but does not cause me a problem. This may seem strange but I extract more steam without a fan inline.


Lee

[Belter]

I need something like that. I want to brew indoors is this something you've made yourself?

[Deller12]

One of my sheet metal work guys knocked it up for me

[Belter]

Nice. Sounds like you have a great source of brewporn creation.

[barneey]

Just been reading through this post again and wondered if the 3 way solenoid is still the best way forward with a PID to control things?

Cheers

[Kev888]

It probably depends on the situation: I'm intending to use separate solar pumps rather than valves because I'm planning to control a number of FVs and I didn't want to divide the existing 3/8" recirc so many ways - plus I already have some pumps no longer used for brewing. But if the recirc pump is up to what you want then valves may be simpler and more reliable if you can find large enough bore ones at a decent price; I'm sure you could use two separate valves if the three-way one is hard to find.

Most people with only one FV to cool seem to just turn the recirc pump on and off which is even simpler, though they can get a bit more ice building up without the agitator running full time - I seem to recall Vossy having trouble because his in/out recirc tubes were a bit too close to the ice bank and could freeze up, until he tweaked things. IIRC he just moved or insulated them (or something simple like that), but with lee's/dellers prompting I just replaced my (broken) cooler's thermostat with an electronic one which can be set to whatever I want, so that could be another way to control the ice build up. Though the valve approach in this thread still seems a more complete/professional solution to me, as it lets the cooler run almost completely as it was designed to do.

Cheers
Kev

[barneey]

Cheers Kev the idea was to use one of these as the valve, assume the 5 second close time isnt a problem?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-way-motoriz ... 073741289?, controlled via a relay & PID with a relay output.

[Kev888]

I have no experience of that valve but it looks quite decent to me in the listing, and a good price. I can't see the 5secs being much of an issue, at the rate of cooling you'll get with a large-ish FV I wouldn't expect it to be able to cause noticeable over/undershoot in that time.

The listing doesn't seem to give the bore anywhere though, which is often a limitation of small valves. I'd guess that even if it is reduced from a 1/2"NPT fitting its still likely to be big enough to work with the 3/8" recirc without additional restriction, but you may want to check.

Cheers
Kev