MY SUPER SIMPLE CONTROLLER

[cranky]

I grew up in the country in Oklahoma, nearest neighbor was about a mile away. Spent 3 years in Louisiana, lived in Northern Minnesota, Alaska, Detroit, North Carolina, Florida, Kansas and pretty much everywhere else. Can't stand the south, too hot, too buggy, The winters in the north have gotten too cold for me to handle and about the only place I want to live is where I'm at although it is too crowded. I have a 10 year plan to get to the country and pretty much do what you are talking about but it is still something for the future.

As far as the garage, I can't even park my walk behind lawn mower in there, wouldn't even think about a car. I need to find time to do some runs so I have an excuse to do some cleaning in there but the flute goes so fast all I have time to do is switch out jars. I need to make a nice big neutral run just so I have time to work on cleaning the place up, I even have to move stuff from one tunnel to the other just to get to the fermenters right now to do my daily check. There is just so much to do right now everything has a priority but the list keeps getting longer and longer.

[frodo]

LOL i HEAR YA!! i hate the BUGs also.
And the heat will take your breath away,
BUT, I can hang out in the woods 10 mths out of the year
I love to hunt,fish, camp or just wonder around with a camera

sounds like you moved a lot, me also
France,N-dakota,Washington state,Alabama,California,Philippines,Fla, Illinois,
Texas,lousana,mississippi, Colorado, Tenn.

Cranky, stop being a damn hoarder and have a garage sale!!!

craigs list is your friend,

I have one rule dealing on craigs list. meet at a public place, not your house

OKOKOK,,,I will confess, I have a barn FULL of crap,,
DUDE, i have 10 {TEN} Lamps in the barn. WTH am I going to do with 10 lamps.
BUT the Wife............
wanna buy a lamp?
How about a Brand new, In the Box, under counter mount Elkay SS sink?


I want to go to Alaska, landed there one time and refueled.
NICE.
Had a buddy go on a fishing trip. They flew him and his brother in, dropped them off for a week
He said a Bear, fuked with them all week. every time they caught a fish.
The bear ran them off, And ate the fish.trashed the camp, pissed on everything
LOL>>>

[cranky]

Cranky, stop being a damn hoarder and have a garage sale!!!

SACRILEGE!!!! I might need that stuff one day, you never know when an antique ark lamp might come in handy or a 1927 movie projector with only a few missing parts, or, or, or 10 lamps!

I have a bunch of stand lamps around my house, some never get used and every other lamp is a Stiffel that I got for nothing because people don't know the difference between a crap lamp and a genuine American made heavy brass tamp that cost $300 new. Even one of the stand lamps is Stiffel and has a hidden switch that you activate by pushing down in the center rod. I'm also storing a bunch of my sons crap although I need to move that to the attic.

I've had to travel for work in the past and used to like the cold but as I have gotten older the cold gets more difficult to deal with but so does the heat. I loved Alaska but the winters really are a bitch, summers make up for it though.

[frodo]

LOL...some people just do not understand that the old stuff is worth more than new plastic crap


LOL...

check this out, used a disposal boot on the element
i showed a picture of the boot, here is one with it actually connected to the element

[jedneck]

Frodo I'm gonna steal ur idea. It looks better than a piece of radiator hose and a ball of electrical tape.

[Hound Dog]

Smooooooth idea there Frodo. I like it.

[cranky]

I like it too. If I do another one I will use it myself.

[likker liker]

Looks good, nicely done

[frodo]

If I can just figure out the same thing but with a 90 on it.

the search continues

[likker liker]

If I can just figure out the same thing but with a 90 on it.

the search continues

What do you need?
Something like a small hose that has a 90 in it? Perform Heater hose you can get with a 90 in it

[frodo]

I have been looking, I want 1''id x 1/2 ''id 90 degree reducing 90

to make it clean. prefer not to use a 90 then a reducer, not as clean

but i am not done looking

[likker liker]

Yah not as clean.

[S-Cackalacky]

Cranky (or anyone), would this work in place of the one you linked in your OP - http://www.ebay.com/itm/SSR-40AA-input- ... Sw-W5UzWMC" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow .

It doesn't have that exact symbol you circled on the pic in your 2nd post. I would like to go with this one because its on ebay and I want to use Paypal for payment. It's a little more money, but shipping is free.

I may be gifted one of the Chinese ready-made controllers, but decided I want to give your build a go just for the experience. Never hurts to have a spare.

[cranky]

Cranky (or anyone), would this work in place of the one you linked in your OP - http://www.ebay.com/itm/SSR-40AA-input- ... Sw-W5UzWMC" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow .

It doesn't have that exact symbol you circled on the pic in your 2nd post. I would like to go with this one because its on ebay and I want to use Paypal for payment. It's a little more money, but shipping is free.

I may be gifted one of the Chinese ready-made controllers, but decided I want to give your build a go just for the experience. Never hurts to have a spare.

I'm pretty sure that one uses voltage instead of resistance to control it and I think that has been a real problem for people. I'm looking right now to see if I can find something on ebay that uses resistance.

[cranky]

I think I have this figured out SC
You want an SSR-40VA like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-SSR-40VA-40 ... Swv0tVeUZe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
If I understand it correctly the VA designates it to adjust the voltage using resistance where VV adjusts voltage using Voltage. I hope someone corrects me if I'm wrong on that. The one you linked and the one I just linked don't have heat sinks. I figure you know it already but the heat sinks are really important on these.

[S-Cackalacky]

Thanks Cranky! I didn't realize there were so many different types. What I saw while doing my search was that some had an AA designation and others had AD or DA (A meaning AC and D meaning DC). Wasn't really looking for the resister thing. So, unless I hear otherwise, that's the one I'll buy.

Yes, I already have a computer heatsink and heatsink paste. I just need to order a pot and a fan to go with it. I'll use a metal cash box from Walmart or an ammo can from Gander Mtn to house it in. Oh, and a 220VAC receptacle. I also already have about 30' of 10 gauge cable.

I want to say, I appreciate that you did a thread about a controller build that even us electrical dumbasses can follow. I'm lost when it comes to electrical schematics. It's important for me, and I'm sure others here, to see actual wire connections in a simple and straight forward way. You did a great write up for the build as well.

Thanks again,

[cranky]

Thanks Cranky! I didn't realize there were so many different types. What I saw while doing my search was that some had an AA designation and others had AD or DA (A meaning AC and D meaning DC).

I didn't either until this morning, I knew the little resistance symbol but guess I never payed that close of attention until this morning.

Yes, I already have a computer heatsink and heatsink paste. I just need to order a pot and a fan to go with it. I'll use a metal cash box from Walmart or an ammo can from Gander Mtn to house it in. Oh, and a 220VAC receptacle. I also already have about 30' of 10 gauge cable.

I figured as much

I want to say, I appreciate that you did a thread about a controller build that even us electrical dumbasses can follow. I'm lost when it comes to electrical schematics. It's important for me, and I'm sure others here, to see actual wire connections in a simple and straight forward way. You did a great write up for the build as well.

Thanks again,

Your welcome. When I wanted to build I found that so many people did so many builds that just had a picture of what looked like a bowl of spaghetti to me or were so complicated I couldn't follow and I spent months figuring out what I think is actually a pretty simple design and I wanted to make it easy for other people who want to go electric. I know the all in ones are getting very popular but I run this thing pretty dang hard and think it does a fine job. I even have the parts sitting on my desk right now to build another one just so I have spares on hand in case of a failure. If I run across another box I might just go ahead and build another one just to have, after all I have more spare elements than I care to even think about, I may as well have a spare controller.

[raketemensch]

Hey S-C, glad to see you're going electric. It makes quite a difference, I can't wait to hear your impressions.

[cranky]

One of the precautions I forgot to mention is to make sure you pay attention to the potentiometer, A couple people got 500 OHM pots instead of 500k Ohm and that caused big problems.

[S-Cackalacky]

Hey S-C, glad to see you're going electric. It makes quite a difference, I can't wait to hear your impressions.

I've been electric from the git go. The controller I currently have is made for 110V. The wiring is 14 gauge and the 10KW SCR is an early model Chinese controller. The new one will be for a new keg build that's still quite a ways off to finish. I'll be hanging on to my little 5 gal. still and 4 gal. thumper for small runs and experiments. I'll also use the old controller for controlling power tools - like my drill on a grain mill.

[cranky]

I us my 4 gallon from time to time, I have a 3000W low density element in it so it can be used on the same controller, I now actually have a 5500W element that will fit it but I think that would just be overkill but I couldn't pass it up for $1.50 or $2. I was thinking the little pot would be nice to do things like gin in it but it requires a minimum of a gallon to cover the element, so to make sure the element was covered I'd have to do 2 gallons of gin and that is pretty much a lifetime supply for me. If I ever get Galliano figured out I'll use the little pot for that but I don't use it much. I'm working on a 1 gallon pot for gin that may also include an internal element, I think I bought one small enough to fit in that as well. It's amazing how once you progress in this hobby from nano stills up to micro you then start thinking about nanos again Or is that just me being weird?

[Hound Dog]

I made my controller like Cranky's and think it works great. Yea SC, if you look at the VA it is on a squiggly line too. I think this indicates it is a variable amperage controller. If I am not mistaken I think Beerbelly pointed that out in a post I read when I was collecting parts for mine. I have the exact one that cranky linked to.

[Scribbler]

Thanks for this thread. I just ordered my SSR-40a

Can't wait!!!

[cranky]

Thanks for this thread. I just ordered my SSR-40a

Can't wait!!!

Your welcome. I hope you saw that conversation between me and S-Cack about the differences and that what we use is the SSR-40Va. The other mistake people make frequently is to get a 500 Ohm potentiometer when the SSR requires a 500K Ohm one.

You won't regret going electric.

[Scribbler]

Oh jeez... Had me worried there because the header on Amazon didn't say -40Va

Fortunately, I followed the link and ordered the part in your original post --- zooming in on the photo, it DID have the reference to a 500K ohm pot.

And yep - I did make note that 'not any pot' will suffice.

Phew!!!!!!

[cranky]

Oh jeez... Had me worried there because the header on Amazon didn't say -40Va

Fortunately, I followed the link and ordered the part in your original post --- zooming in on the photo, it DID have the reference to a 500K ohm pot.

And yep - I did make note that 'not any pot' will suffice.

Phew!!!!!!

[frodo]

cranky,

using the ssr 40a ac 24-380v



I was asked by a electrician [not an instrament, house jocky]
he thought it needs power to work the low voltage side, I wanted to say the ssr is providing the power
if it needs any at all.

does this thing generate its own low voltage for the pot to work?

[FreeMountainHermit]

looks lIke John Deere red.

[cranky]

cranky,

using the ssr 40a ac 24-380v

I was asked by a electrician [not an instrament, house jocky]
he thought it needs power to work the low voltage side, I wanted to say the ssr is providing the power
if it needs any at all.

does this thing generate its own low voltage for the pot to work?

I have no idea, to me it is all pure freaking magic but it works which is whats important to me.

[heartcut]

cranky,

using the ssr 40a ac 24-380v

I was asked by a electrician [not an instrament, house jocky]
he thought it needs power to work the low voltage side, I wanted to say the ssr is providing the power
if it needs any at all.

does this thing generate its own low voltage for the pot to work?

Yes, it does.