I’ve confused myself. Electrical sanity and advice needed.

[WildnWhiskey]

G’day y’all. I have my still designs down pretty well and I thought I knew what I was doing for my controller because I copied two options for tried and true methods and was going to let the price when I pulled the trigger do the deciding. (See my other posts on my still designing thread in the pot still section) Then I fell down a massive rabbit hole. Really I should say badger hole because it knocked my head round and then the contents of the hole attacked me and now I gotta find my way out. Also to preface this is that I have very limited electrical knowledge and while I tried to figure this all out I think I just ended up getting my head more twisted around.

So I am trying to run my 50L keg still with a 5500w element. To do this or run any element I know you need a controller. Also gfi is needed because we are dealing with the wonderful danger spaghetti of liquid and electrical wiring, especially with it being converted to dc at high amperage. So this is all pretty standard and I understood all that fine. 5500w=~23A at 240v, run that on a 30A circuit, have a spa panel in line just really for the gfi and a big on/off switch and badda bing badda boom I should be good. Ac-dc conversion will be handled by the components and 10gage wire should be easy to get ahold of and fit with all the parts.

I made a cardinal error in all this when designing plans. In my breaker box there is 30A double pole breakers labeled by the landlord as washer dryer which because I have them in unit makes sense (I live in a duplex and am building my still and another for my friend who is my neighbor, more on this in my other thread). But I didn’t think to check how they are hooked up. And after all the good feedback and advice on cost saving by using extension cords I got yesterday on my other thread I decided to do just that last night.

In my defense the laundry set up is large and old and tucked away under a shelf with some serious after market mounting attached to them so I didn’t want to open that can of worms and I figured that they would have a standard style of 30a plug. Nope! Some genius directly wired them into the wall. Since I’m renting and they came with the house that way I really don’t want to mess with that just yet and getting them moved about is a real pain in the rear. However the laundry set up is located in my kitchen and I knew for a fact that I had easy access to my oven/stove 40a outlet as it’s just in the back of one of my cupboards.

So like a good home hobbyist I went to google (our fickle information overlord long may skynet rein) and fell down the badger hole. In my head it should all run the same just with a different plug and maybe some thicker wire but the online discourse was all fighting over whether this could be done or not, warnings about burning out your devices, super technical diagrams, and unhelpful answers just saying you will burn your house down. With every new search getting me more and more confused.

My Questions:
1. Can I run my 5500w heater element with a Ssr and control module on a 40A circuit?

2. Since the only thing determining the flow of electricity through this should be the draw of max ~23A at 240v can I use 10 gage wire after the initial 8 gage from the plug?

3. Are there any parts in my still controller design that I will need to change out running on this circuit? (My two options down below. And yes I have looked at the stilldragon ones, my reasoning on why I went the way I did on my other thread.)

4. Should I add some 30A bussman fuses into my design to protect my equipment from overpowering?

5. I’m assuming I will now need a 50A gfi spa panel to run gfi on this circuit.

(Remember that these were designed for 30A not 40A)
“Cheaper” Controller: $157per unit.
Box(1):$30
Scr(1): $20.
Screen(1): $20.
Fans(1): $20.
Wire(4ft in 5ft out): $35.
Wiring. Connectors (*): $5.
Outlets/plugs(2-3): $27.
GFI spa panel (1): to be determined

“Fancy” Controller: $277 per unit.
Dspr 400 (1): $90.
ssr 40amp (1): $20.
Heat sink (1): $5
Power light(1): $2.
Light and alarm (1): $7.
switches (2) : $5.
Thermometer (1) : $17.
Thermowell (1): $12.
Thermowell triclamp (1): $9.
Therm connections (1): $6.
Therm wire (6’): $6.
Plug connections (3?): $27.
Box (1): $30.
Wire (4ft in 5ft out) : $35.
GFI spa panel (1): to be determined

[subbrew]

1. Can I run my 5500w heater element with a Ssr and control module on a 40A circuit?
2. Since the only thing determining the flow of electricity through this should be the draw of max ~23A at 240v can I use 10 gage wire after the initial 8 gage from the plug?

3. Are there any parts in my still controller design that I will need to change out running on this circuit? (My two options down below. And yes I have looked at the stilldragon ones, my reasoning on why I went the way I did on my other thread.)

4. Should I add some 30A bussman fuses into my design to protect my equipment from overpowering?

5. I’m assuming I will now need a 50A gfi spa panel to run gfi on this circuit.

1. Yes. The only difference is the amount of amperage a fault would need to draw to trip the breaker. In either case your system is still only drawing 23 amps which is totally driven by your voltage. So the 23 amps may vary a bit based on your line voltage. Example if you live at the end of a fairly long line and it is summer with everyone using AC your line voltage could drop to the 210 or even 205 range. Have seen this happen when the electric company didn't put in a large enough transformer for the load.

2, You can. I do on my system. Does the cord get a bit warm? yes, To warm to touch? not even close. been working for three years

3. No your controller will not know the size of circuit it is drawing from.

4. I wouldn't. The only case that would protect would be if you had a fault it might save your $16 SCR. But given fuse lag time on opening I would not bet on that.

5. That would be good idea. How red neck are you?

[HDNB]

what he said^^^

not sure i'd buy a $200 gfi spa pack, when you could just swap out the breakers for prolly $120.00

run a ground from the kettle to the controller box to the electrics box ground.

[WildnWhiskey]

@subbrew thank you so much for your continued support!

That’s what I remember from my time working in a hardware store. I ended up in this badger hole being the definition of (know enough to get yourself confused and in trouble.) It’s been amazing regaining memories of things I learned from the old retired electricians as people help me unconfuse myself. The things you forget until a good rattling is crazy.

That’s what I figured would be possible. I figured that if my draw of power shouldn’t be enough to max out a 10gage on a 30A system it shouldn’t on a 40A I’m just living on the edge more and needing to be more careful in case things go wrong.

I figured that the controller shouldn’t care as long as it’s getting the electricity that it asks for. I just also know that things like the Ssr in the stilldragon or the scr say that they are 40A but really shouldn’t be run at that amperage, kinda like circuit breakers.

The fuses were mainly to stop any wires or components from getting extra spicy for any reason and to lower the fault threshold. Because yes the scr may be toast in components but it also likely would be cut off before fire starts becoming a real possibility.

How redneck am I? Well I say my fine gentleman, I’m definitely more redneck than my place of origin and my upbringing may suggest. Though my really redneck friends would still laugh at me and call me a city slicker. Doesn’t stop them from taking my help in changing out their cars axel while getting pissed on whiskey and suds. If you’re asking why I’m bothering with a gfi is that I prefer living and Murphy ,bless his heart, likes to show up and take a swing at me more often than not. Though the added price is definitely making me think of starting without it and splicing it in later.

[Yummyrum]

I’d agree with Subbrew .

Regarding an internal fuse , you may want to add maybe a 1 or 2amp fuse inline with the DSPR400 or any 240v fan etc .Things like fans have thin wires on them and might burn before the Main high current breaker operates .
I’m adding a 2amp breaker to my new controller as I will have a fan , a 24 power supply and the DSPR 1 running through it .

As an aside , an SCR controller and the DSPR400 don’t rectify AC to DC .I know SCR stands for Silicon Controlled Rectifier . You might be right in surmising that rectification is happening .
However , the actual switching device used ( in both) is a Triac which is actually two SCRs connected back to back in a specific silicon package . One conducts the positive cycle , the other one conducts the Negative cycle .

So there is no rectification as such . The elements still gets AC …. albeit , chopped up .


Hehee , just to give your noggin another bash it probably doesn’t need

[WildnWhiskey]

@hdnb Thank you for your advice!

If I wasn’t renting the place I would have happily replaced the breaker. However I am and I definitely don’t want to tip the landlord off that things might be getting interesting around here. While they seem pretty chill and not very nosy as far as landlords go I also want to be as stealthy as possible. Hence the inline gfi build. Also was informed on my other design thread that I could actually just build my own spa panel with just the breaker and a box for equal to or less than what they retail for. So that might be an option.

If nothing else your extra grounding idea has good merit and I will definitely look to include that if all else fails. Grounding beyond what is already in the system can’t hurt can it?

[WildnWhiskey]

@Yummyrum Well shoot. Getting you and HDNB to comment on my thread is gonna make me blush.

I definitely will look at adding some internal fuses as the little packs of them are what? $3? Yeah that sounds like a good deal to me. Plus the in line pods are only another line of defense. It’s an interesting conundrum toeing the line between cost, capability, and accepted risk. I’m also doing all this research so that I can have answers for my friend as what I may find an ok risk to take he may disagree on.

The way you put it there definitely was the most understandable way I’ve seen it explained so far. It’s still half Greek to me but I understand it more. Prolly just an exposure and drip feed thing I will come to understand over time. Thank you for explaining it though!

Might have to write myself a simple electrical circuits for dummies by a dummy here. Just to use as notes or if we don’t already have that in new distillers it can get shipped over to there.

[WildnWhiskey]

Thank y’all for helping me get my head screwed back on straight. Keep the suggestions and advice coming as I appreciate all of it and I’m sure that even if it’s not the most useful to me the lurkers and guest folks who see this might find that it’s the thing that unsticks them from their problems. Also I want to give a big thank you to @elbono and @Salt Must Flow for also being an immense help with this problem as well over on my design thread where I posted the same questions.

[Salt Must Flow]

If you use any controller with a SSR or a SSVR with a heatsink, you'll want to get some thermal paste or a thermal pad.

In your lists for the controller components, it's hard to determine what components you're looking at. For instance you list "thermometer", but I don't know if you meant 'RTD Sensor'. Same with "Therm connections", I don't know which parts you're looking at. Links would really help us to help you.

If you do decide to go with a DSPR 400, I'd definitely use a fan inside the box. The SSR gets pretty darn warm with 240V. I usually just use a 12VDC PC fan and an appropriate power supply because they're cheap.

I have a wiring diagram for the DSPR 400 that shows all of the components I used and it appears those might be the same components in your list. I've built two of those controllers using this diagram so I know it's legit.

[higgins]

I built my controller with a DSPR120 with 25a SSR, but did not get my 12 VDC fan working (either wrong type or bad 12v power supply). After a couple of years of use the power adjustment started working intermittently - sometimes power did not decrease when I adjusted it lower - and after opening it up I found the SSR had deformed considerably from the heat.

When I replaced it last month I found an AC fan that worked with 120/240 and wired it directly to the power switch. Works much better now.