after a long time lurking the board, reading and mostly learning, i registered to ask you experts some questions for myself.
I like that you all have big main fuses for your houses (I even red 100A+, lucky bastards
My house in Sweden however is not that nice equipped, I only have 3x 16 amp fuses (3 phase 220v/380v, or 235V/XXX if i measure it) and to make matters worse, some of those amps might be in use (in the winter by the 3 phase, heat pump for example, and of course never forget what the wife is doing in the kitchen
To be able to make some nice moonshine (and beer!) without having to wait a long time or have to do it every week, I want to make a new kettle. The kettle I’ll order soon will be 80L (21 gal) stainless steel "thermoport".
To be able to heat this in a timely fashion (I need 1 degree C a minute for making beer) I need 6KW+ heating (a little more without good isolation). I want to use all 3 phases together for that. But to avoid problems i want to be able to adjust the total power when needed (and to avoid the start up/cold amp spike with certain heaters?), and to make it even more complicated I want to be able to use a pid controller.
I want to install 3 3KW heaters in the kettle, i found these two on eBay:
1: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Water-Boiler-He ... 0959514644" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
2: http://www.ebay.com/itm/AC-220V-3KW-Wat ... 1017804385" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Q: which one is better? I think option 1 has a lower total density than option 2, which might avoid scorching. I also think option 1 has more heat a the start part, which would better divide the heat in the kettle (the 3 heat elements will be places 120 degree difference to each other)
Q: anybody know what kind of material the "gold" part is? (eg safe for moonshining?)
I found that to be able to adjust the total power used I can use a Solid State Voltage regulator (3x) like this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/25A-24-380V-AC- ... 1225075096" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Q: one potentiometer for 3 ssvr's, should it be wired parallel or serial, will there be any problems due to the ssvr's being on different phases?
Q: i noticed that there are ssvr's that go to 480V maximum, is it possible to use 3 ssvr's on a 9KW 3phase 6P 3tube heat element wired in a Delta? Like this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AC-380V-9000W-6 ... 1436862340" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Q: will the pid controller have any problems with switching 3 solid state relays that are on different phases?
Q: should the pid controller wired serial of parallel to the 3 ssr's
Q: aren't there pid controllers (or some other easy way) that use resistance instead of switching a relay so they can be connected directly to the ssvr, avoiding the relay? (and the extra heat sinks)
Sorry for the many questions, for most I already looked up the answer, so they are just to double check my findings
Sorry if my English is weird, it's not my mother's tongue.
Greets and thanks in advance,
Melt_Down
