STC-1000 full setup?

[judasegg]

Hey,

I've been thinking about getting into lagering for a while, also crash cooling my brews. May be able to pick up very cheap mini-freezer at auction. I guess my question is 2 parts:

1) Can i use the same small freezer for fermentation, cold crash, and lagering? It would be great to put FV in there, at 18c for some fermentation, then change temp control to 0ish for cold crash.

2) I am hoping to use STC-1000 with a tube heater. My understanding is you plug freezer and tube heater into it, and the STC switches between them as necessary. What I don't know, is what else I need? The STC-1000, a tube heater, some outlets, and some wires and a project box, but how do i know which to buy? I honestly know nothing about electronics - aren't there different wire gauges, what about the type of outlet needed for a fridge, does it need a fuse? etc.

[Fil]

1) Yep

2) the key bit of kit is a strip of 13-15amp leggo like connectors with at least 9 connectors.
u want the hi amp rated ones as the fridge compressor is probably a high power device.

for cable i used an old kettle lead as a doner, but any 13amp rated cable will do, 1.5mm sq cable iirc

you can wire the fridge and heater directly to the controller, but if you box it in a bigger box and mount sockets for the plugs for each device, you can if brewing ag with a hlt use the controller to govern the heating elements (if 10amp or less). you wont need an extra fuse in the circui.

using a leggo type connector as a backbone for the wiring makes it easy, divide the strip into 3 x 3 sets of connectors, one for power in (live neutral and earth) wire that to a plugged lead to supply power.
the 2nd set of 3 connectors designate heating, and the third set designate cooling.

supply neutral and earth feeds to the heating and cooling connectors from the power in set.

feed a live and neutral wire to each of the stc1000 power in terminals (polarity isnt an issue), fromn the power in set.

then just feed the live to the heating connectors via the stc1000 heating relay and the same for the cooling live feed via the stc1000 cooling relay.

then wire the sockets or the devices directly to the heating and cooling circuits.. done..

there are utubes on this and someone has posted a nice pretty wiring schematic which i cant find n lint to right now..

if u want to use the controller to govern elements in a hlt that are rated higher than 10a you will need to look into adding a more powerfull relay to do the job.. as the built in one will handle 10a loads and under.

wire the thing up before u buy/find a box to fit it in, the device is small but after u have the wiring done it could take more space than u originally thought.

[NobbyIPA]

the stc 1000
wiring instructions
the stc has a connector block on it with 8 screw connectors
marked 1 to 8
first from a wired 3 pin plug with a good length of cable attached thread the cable and secure in a hobby box or what i used was a sandwich box thingy
then in side you box container whatever your using attach a [at least 15 amp block connector] one block connector for each [live, neutral,earth]cables
the earth goes to your single gang plug sockets
live block connections

so your live block has 1 wire from your mains in and 3 wires out
wire 1 goes to port number 1 one the std 1000 you now have live supply to your stc 1000
wire 2 to port number 5
and wire 3 to port number 7

neutral block again 1 wire from mains in and 3 wires out
wire 1 goes to port 2 on the stc 1000 you now have neutral supply to stc 1000
wire 2 goes to your 1 gang socket neutral cold supply plug you now have a switched neutral to your cold output plug
wire 3 goes to your 1 gang socket neutral hot supply plug you now have a switched neutral to your hot output plug

earth is connected to both of your 1 gang plug sockets

switched out put from stc 1000
plug in the sensor into port 3 and 4
the striped or marked cable goes to port4
the other to port3

that leaves 2 more connections left to do[2 x live wires] from port 6 and port 8
port 6 is switched power to your cold 1 gang socket
port 8 is switched power to your hot 1 gang socket
hope this helps someone

[NobbyIPA]

Stc1000
PC Fan
and a Dimplex Tubular Heater 60W
resulted in this

STC1000 TEMPERATURE CONTROL
£14.20 DELIVERED FREE ON PRIME

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009 ... 3/k1qo.jpg[/img][/URL]

red and blue /hot and cold

[/URL]

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DIMPLEX TUBULAR HEATER 60W AND BLOW OFF TUBE FROM FERMENTER

20 QUID NEXT DAY DELIVERY HERE

http://www.alertelectrical.com/prodvar/ ... 4/bkwf.jpg[/img][/URL]

[NobbyIPA]

STC1000 SET UP


F1- set the desired temp level.
F2- set the temperature variance.
F3- set the compressor delay.
F4- temp calibration value.

PROGRAM LIKE THIS

Press and hold the 's' button for 3 seconds. The screen will display 'F1'. Press the 's' and up arrow button together until you reach your desired temp.
Then press the up arrow an the screen will display 'F2'. Press the 's' and up arrow again to pic your desired variance and then press the up arrow on its own. Screen will now display 'F3'. Repeat the process to reach desired compressor delay and then press up arrow to show F4. Then repeat process again to set desired calibration value.
Once you have finished then press and release the standby button once to save your settings.
In normal operating mode, press the up arrow once to display your stored set temperature and the down arrow to show your stored set variance.

[judasegg]

Sorry guys but i dont understand. Can someone provide links to what i need to buy?

I thought it was:
2 outlets with 3 wires comng out
3 diff color of wires
Stc1000
Tube heater
Wire with mains plug at end
A box to put it in

The disconnects for me are:
- all the parts will have diff colored wiring so i have no clue what is ground or pos or neg
- additional things like do the outlets need to be fused.

[jmc]

Sorry guys but i dont understand. Can someone provide links to what i need to buy?

I thought it was:
2 outlets with 3 wires comng out
3 diff color of wires
Stc1000
Tube heater
Wire with mains plug at end
A box to put it in

The disconnects for me are:
- all the parts will have diff colored wiring so i have no clue what is ground or pos or neg
- additional things like do the outlets need to be fused.

If you don't understand wiring etc ask a friend who knows to help.

Its 13A you're using so its not safe to just guess.

[Horatio]

I'm sure I have seen STC1000 for sale all wired up in a project box? If you're not sure about the electrical stuff then may be best to buy one already done? If I can find it I'll post a link.

[masterosouffle]

http://www.homebrewbuilder.co.uk/temp%20control.html

[timbowden]

i'm rubbish with electrics so went the route of buying one from homebrewbuilder. Yes it costs more but its a done job, and a nice one at that!

tim

[judasegg]

Hey,

I've been doing some more research on this. Can you confirm if the following is correct?

- Wires should be 3-core stranded 15a 1.5mm
- Plug for stc-1000 unit should be 13a.
- use 15a connector blocks to connect wires (or will they be too small to fit the 1.5mm wires?)
- use 60w Dimplex heater.

I do have one question regarding the sockets (either trailing, or attached to housing) --- should these sockets be 13a fused as well?

[NobbyIPA]

everything is fused from the plug going to the STC 1000 in so not necessary
but both sockets are earthed
all your bits and pieces are correct you can get higher rated connector block than 15A so as to fit thicker cables if you want to but 15A minimum

[AnthonyUK]

Hey,

I've been doing some more research on this. Can you confirm if the following is correct?

- Wires should be 3-core stranded 15a 1.5mm
- Plug for stc-1000 unit should be 13a.
- use 15a connector blocks to connect wires (or will they be too small to fit the 1.5mm wires?)
- use 60w Dimplex heater.

I do have one question regarding the sockets (either trailing, or attached to housing) --- should these sockets be 13a fused as well?

If you are making for yourself and will only ever use it with low current devices then you can use lower rated parts.
As the STC-1000 is rated to 10A the recommendation is to use parts to safely use the full current load.

[alexlark]

Over the weekend I finally wired up my STC-1000 to my fridge. I'm only using it to store and serve beer so I haven't bothered with a heater. I may add one at a later stage but at the moment I just wanted better control over beer temp.

It just occurred to me, shall I place the probe in a bottle of water instead of in free air? What do you do?

[jmc]

Over the weekend I finally wired up my STC-1000 to my fridge. I'm only using it to store and serve beer so I haven't bothered with a heater. I may add one at a later stage but at the moment I just wanted better control over beer temp.

It just occurred to me, shall I place the probe in a bottle of water instead of in free air? What do you do?

I tape it to the outside of my FV with duct tape.