Heating Element Control

[LWTCS]

Don't forget. The 12/3 has 4 conductors (with ground). And the "cord" is stranded and very plyable. Not like romex.
The ground will also be jacketed.

[Dnderhead]

220- 240 has 4,, 115-120 has 3.????

240 two hot,, one neutral ,,one ground
120 has one hot,, one neutral,, one ground

right??

[Pamulli]

220- 240 has 4,, 115-120 has 3.????

240 two hot,, one neutral ,,one ground
120 has one hot,, one neutral,, one ground

right??

US 240 has two hot one ground.

[Pamulli]

This is turning out to be really frustrating. I have tried two cleaning runs with plain water and the controller brings the water to a boil, but I can't get it to drop back down. The thermometer at the top of the column is staying at 212 F. I haven't tried it with alcohol, but I'd think that if it is getting the water too hot then it would be even worse with alcohol since I want to be down in the 190 F range. When I turn it down the humming sound it makes changes so I assume that the controller is doing something, but the low just isn't low enough.

So am I right in thinking that if I can't drop plain water below 212 F then there is no point in running alcohol?

I'm using the off the shelf dimmer to power my 240V Triac so would this be because of the dimmer or the Triac? I know that Bob421 said he built a 240V controller with the same parts list I used, but he stripped down the dimmer and replaced the Pot and he didn't get good results either.

It is hard to believe that there are 27 pages of posts in this thread and it still feels like I'm trying to reinvent the wheel here....

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[MuleKicker]

water boils at 212, your not going to get your collumn temp to change that by varying heat input. say you crank it up, collumn temp rises to 212. you should be able to slowly lower your heat input until you can no longer sustain a boil. then your collumn temp will drop. do some reading on this, alcohol is the same way.

[Pamulli]

water boils at 212, your not going to get your collumn temp to change that by varying heat input. say you crank it up, collumn temp rises to 212. you should be able to slowly lower your heat input until you can no longer sustain a boil. then your collumn temp will drop. do some reading on this, alcohol is the same way.

MuleKicker, I understand that. What I'm saying is that my controller isn't lowering the temp below boiling when turned all the way down and thus the problem.

[LWTCS]

220- 240 has 4,, 115-120 has 3.????

240 two hot,, one neutral ,,one ground
120 has one hot,, one neutral,, one ground

right??

US 240 has two hot one ground.

Just sayin,,3 wire has 4 conductors.

Should anyone employ the DPDT switch with 240 volts (or the like) then you'll need the extra wire to step your power down.

[MuleKicker]

gottcha.. so your not cutting your phase enough. isnt there a resistor on the control leg of your controller? can you vary that resistance to effect it? not to familiar with these.

[Pamulli]

gottcha.. so your not cutting your phase enough. isnt there a resistor on the control leg of your controller? can you vary that resistance to effect it? not to familiar with these.

There is a resistor, but I don't know if changing that is the answer....I'm hoping that someone who understands this better than me can answer that.

This is my parts list.

Dimmer: Lutron D-600PH-DK
Triac: LittleFuse Q6040J7 - Mouser PN 576-Q6040J7
Wirewound Resistor: Arcol HS25 75R 1% - Mouser PN 284-HS25-75F

[crazyk78]

Hi All,

I have a quick question in regard to the dimmer switch.

I'm not sure if this answer is going to be as easy as I think.

I'm thinking of using a 2000W element.
Run off 240V (Aus)

I can get a dimmer switch with a load range of 20 - 400W.

Reading the posts in this thread, I notice that everyone is recommending a 600W dimmer. Will 400W be ok?

Also when I look at the electrical diagrams that are floating around on here does the 75Ohm 25W Resistor control the wattage going through the dimmer? If this is they case, why the need for such high wattage dimmers?

Thanks

[Bob421]

This is turning out to be really frustrating. I have tried two cleaning runs with plain water and the controller brings the water to a boil, but I can't get it to drop back down. The thermometer at the top of the column is staying at 212 F. I haven't tried it with alcohol, but I'd think that if it is getting the water too hot then it would be even worse with alcohol since I want to be down in the 190 F range. When I turn it down the humming sound it makes changes so I assume that the controller is doing something, but the low just isn't low enough.

So am I right in thinking that if I can't drop plain water below 212 F then there is no point in running alcohol?

I'm using the off the shelf dimmer to power my 240V Triac so would this be because of the dimmer or the Triac? I know that Bob421 said he built a 240V controller with the same parts list I used, but he stripped down the dimmer and replaced the Pot and he didn't get good results either.

It is hard to believe that there are 27 pages of posts in this thread and it still feels like I'm trying to reinvent the wheel here....

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I would say mine works very well. The only slight issue that I have is that it has a very small amount of knob travel between simmer and raging boil. Like about 3 sharpie marker widths but it will definitely turn down below boiling.I haven't had time to experiment with a resistor across the pot yet.
I only used the chip from the dimmer (it is exactly the same dimmer inside btw) and used a 500k pot. My original pot was something like 250k which would make sense that yours doesn't turn down far enough and mine does. If you have a higher value resistor handy you could try it inline with the dimmer, it should help make up for the lower resistance in the pot.

[MuleKicker]

gottcha.. so your not cutting your phase enough. isnt there a resistor on the control leg of your controller? can you vary that resistance to effect it? not to familiar with these.

There is a resistor, but I don't know if changing that is the answer....I'm hoping that someone who understands this better than me can answer that.

This is my parts list.

Dimmer: Lutron D-600PH-DK
Triac: LittleFuse Q6040J7 - Mouser PN 576-Q6040J7
Wirewound Resistor: Arcol HS25 75R 1% - Mouser PN 284-HS25-75F

right. from what i understand with this setup is that the resistor will determine how fast/slow you charge the capacitor and fire the triac.

[Pamulli]

Bob,
I have a 500K Pot. I thought you weren't too happy with yours, but now that I know yours is working well, I'll strip down my store bought dimmer and use the Pot since I already have everything I need for that. I may try adding a resistor to the Pot too to help with the sensitivity...if I can figure that out.
I can't believe how long it is taking me to get this thing working. Between the controller and learning to weld stainless this thing has been a real pain. I'm ready to get to distillin'
I'll update the previous documentation if I ever get this thing working well.

Thanks,

[Odessit]

Hi All,

I have a quick question in regard to the dimmer switch.

You can use any dimer, but you must replace a triac and set it on a radiator.
Usually in dimers used triac of BTA136 or 139.
If to replace a triac on BTA26 or BTA41 on a radiator, it is possible to manage a current to 25 (40) ampere, it is 6 (10)
kilowatts of power.

[rad14701]

I prefer using a low power triac to control the high power triac, which is what the dimmer switch does... I use a standard 600W 120V dimmer to control a 40A 400V triac to control a 1500W 120V element... If I wasn't going to use that method I'd just build a dual time constant circuit from scratch and skip the dimmer altogether...

[Odessit]

I prefer using a low power triac to control the high power triac...

I think, this really simple and effective decision. What schematic do you use?

[rad14701]

I prefer using a low power triac to control the high power triac...

I think, this really simple and effective decision. What schematic do you use?

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 7#p6814207

[Odessit]

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 7#p6814207

Thank you.
I used similar connection, but i used a resistor 360 ohms 0.125 watts. He did not warm up. But I have 220 volts, on 120 volts I would apply 200 ohms. Is your resistor heated?

[rad14701]

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 7#p6814207

Thank you.
I used similar connection, but i used a resistor 360 ohms 0.125 watts. He did not warm up. But I have 220 volts, on 120 volts I would apply 200 ohms. Is your resistor heated?

I use a 75 Ohm 25W ceramic block resistor and it gets warm to hot to the touch...

[Pamulli]

Since the controller I built with an unmodified dimmer isn't working, I need to break down the dimmer and add a new Pot and Capacitor. I already have the parts, but I haven't been able to figure out how to connect everything and it isn't obvious how it's done when I look at the off the shelf dimmer. I have several pages of notes from this thread, but nothing really explaining how the new POT, Capacitor and TO-220 go together.

I understand that the Pot has 3 terminals and you use the center and one outside, but I'm not sure what the center and outside ones go to? I would think one terminal goes to the Gate on the TO-220, but which one and what does the other terminal on the Pot go to? I also have the film capacitor and I'm not sure where it goes? In a PM Rad said he has always connected the center pole and outer pole with the capacitor, but I still don't see how the pot connects back to everything.

From previous posts I know that the TO-220 is wired so that MT1 goes to the Resistor and MT2 goes to the Gate on my Power Triac, but that's all I've been able to figure out.

Bob, if you see this, please let me know how you connected yours since you just did this.

I promise to update my dummed down diagram once I get this figured out for those of us who find electrical schematics a bit confusing.

Thanks,

[Bob421]

Ok let's see if I can get this done on my phone during my Lunch break.
the the resistor is hooked to the load side of the power wire. I thInk I attached it at the triac( mt2?)
Then the other side of the resistor goes to the pot and the power in of the to220 (mt1 I think)
the other lead of the pot goes to the gate of the to220. Mt2 of the to220 goest to the gate of the triac.
Main wire in to mt1 of the triac and out to load from mt2. The cap is essentially connected across the to220 gate and mt2. I may have mt1 and mt2 backwards as I can't really lookk it up righ now. In this description I think of mt1 as power in and mt2 as power out and the gate is the valve that regulates the flow.
Check out my picture and a post of the schematic I used in my post on this page.
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... &start=330
if you squint really hard you can follow the connections. The powr triac is in the box and the to220 is outside.
The load(element) side is going out the top of the box. The other leg of main power goes straight thru to the element.
I hop this helps. I probably made it worse. If I can get some time I will try to take better pictures this weekend.

[Gr8brewer]

If I can get some time I will try to take better pictures this weekend.

Id be mucho happy to see this

Cheers

[crazyk78]

Hi all,

Iooking at the diagrams floating around on here, the Active wire runs straight to the heating element.

Does it matter if the neutral runs straight to the element and the active goes through the regulator?

Thanks,

[Bob421]

I didn't get time to take apart my controller but I did a quick and dirty sketch in paint. I tried to use different colors to make the connections clear and I included the schematic that i used.
Ymmv but mine works.

[Pamulli]

Bob, thanks so much for the sketch. That really helps me out a lot.

[snideman]

Since the controller I built with an unmodified dimmer isn't working, I need to break down the dimmer and add a new Pot and Capacitor.

That's so weird I did everything exactly as you told me in the PM and the controller works fine for me, could it be that our dimmer switches have different resistances and hence more control? What is this double time continuem stuff Rad's talkin' about? Here's some picts of my set-up.

My pot rig.

My pot rig.

[rad14701]

Something with that sketch doesn't look right to me... The voltage coming from MT2 of the high power triac should be running through the 75 Ohm 25W resistor before hitting the potentiometer... I think my previous schematic provides a more accurate interpretation, and one that I know works with 120V... A 240V circuit is going to be less lenient on wiring mistakes... Straight power out of the MT2 of the high power triac will fry the potentiometer...

I'll take a closer look later to make sure I'm seeing things properly...

[Bob421]

It does go through the resistor first. Light blue line.
But what has me confused is that it looks like to me the mt1 of the dimmer chip is conrtrolling the gate if the power triac. And the the power triac is using mt2 to power the element. Seems lime one would be backwards.
But it does work.

[Pamulli]

That's so weird I did everything exactly as you told me in the PM and the controller works fine for me, could it be that our dimmer switches have different resistances and hence more control? What is this double time continuem stuff Rad's talkin' about? Here's some picts of my set-up.

P1010054.JPG

P1010054.JPG

Snideman, glad yours is working. There must be something different about ours although I have no idea what double time continuum means...sounds like it could be powered by a flux capacitor to me. Mine kind of works, but just won't go low enough. Turning it up and down does change the heat, but I can't get it to go below boiling so my output stays at 212F and I'd blow right through my run.

[Pamulli]

Something with that sketch doesn't look right to me... The voltage coming from MT2 of the high power triac should be running through the 75 Ohm 25W resistor before hitting the potentiometer... I think my previous schematic provides a more accurate interpretation, and one that I know works with 120V... A 240V circuit is going to be less lenient on wiring mistakes... Straight power out of the MT2 of the high power triac will fry the potentiometer...

I'll take a closer look later to make sure I'm seeing things properly...

Rad, if you do see a mistake please let us know although Bob's is working so I would think it is right??

The problem with the schematics on here is that those of us who don't know what the various symbols mean have a very hard time interpreting them. The dumbed down schematics/drawings are much easier to read for the electrically illiterate and would probably go a long way to generating less questions. That being said, you have been a great help to me and I appreciate you answering these same questions over and over.