Oak Still Controller rebuild / replacement

[GABrew]

Hey All-

Last year I bought a 100l jacketed boiler/4 plate still. Overall, I'm really pleased with it, and I'm starting to get the hang of running it. It's a lot different than my homemade pony keg boiler and Home Depot build Leibig condenser, lol. Like I said, I'm mostly really happy with it.

Where it's lacking, in my opinion, is the controller. All the internal components feel really cheap and flimsy. It does work, and I can absolutely run my rig with it, but I'd really like to make it better. I'm using this right now to drive 2x 3Kw elements of a 220v dedicated circuit I installed in my panel.

I can't seem to be able to find it now, but somewhere in here, I found a link or a reference to a controller / component that was programmable so I could say things like "100% power until temp at probe 1 is 150f then 30% power" or something along those lines. I don't want to try and automate my still, but it would be great if I could hand off a little of the "heat up babysitting" I do.

I guess a few questions if you'll humor me....

1. Do you know what I'm talking about? Some sort of programmable device that I've seen in here (and as a product for purchase on a manufacturers website)..

2. Is there any decent recommendation for an "off the shelf" controller? I'm not really sure I'm up for a DIY controller build. If I can buy something, I might prefer that.

3. I've seen reference to folks building controllers for each other in here .. is any of that still going on? I'd love to entertain hiring someone in here to rebuild my Oak Stills / Chinese controller for me.

4. If none of the above works out for me, I'll search for (and take recommendations for) good threads or builds that I can take on myself if I need to.

Thanks yall.

csh

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