The 462 is finally wired.

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bbrally
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The 462 is finally wired.

Post by bbrally »

I've had so little time to work on this project that it was starting to feel like I'd never complete it.

It's wired to run my brewery, coffee roaster, and fermentaion chamber. But until the brewery gets more of my time it's only running my coffee roaster.
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JonW
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Re: The 462 is finally wired.

Post by JonW »

Looking good!

I'm a home roaster as well. I'd be interested in what type of roasting setup you're using the BCS with.
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Re: The 462 is finally wired.

Post by bbrally »

I haven't even run a batch of beans through it yet, but all seems to work with the 462 doing the controlling. Maybe this weekend it'll see it's inaugural batch.

I got a great deal on a bbq and modified it to fit my needs.

It has a 24vdc solenoid from valves for projects for the gas valve, and a constant pilot light for a flame source. A ball valve is upstream from them for a quick shutdown.

The 24vdc rotisserie gearmotor was an ebay find, and it drives the basket which was made from stainless found at a scrap metal dealer and rolled to form a cylinder. The ends are two Ikea stainless bowls welded on the ends with square holes in each end for the rotisserie stick and another hole on one end for the beans.

The temp probe was from Brewers hardware.
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JonW
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Re: The 462 is finally wired.

Post by JonW »

Very cool. Looks like about 5lb capacity? Keep this thread updated with how the roaster works please.

I use a turbo oven /stir crazy design. Only one pound at a time, but I only roast every two weeks and do 2 or 3 batches.
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bbrally
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Re: The 462 is finally wired.

Post by bbrally »

I'm about five months behind, but I finally put my first batch of coffee through the roaster.

It roasted coffee, but there are still kinks to work out. The biggest was a complete lack of thinking when I grabbed an extra pilot light I had left over from the brewery.

The brewery uses low pressure propane burners and thus has low pressure pilot lights. The bbq uses high pressure propane. The pilot lights aren't exactly compatible. The picture shows an overly rich but managable pilot light, but when the valve shuts off the main burner, the pilot light gets all the extra pressure and turns into a blow torch. In fact the pilot light alone was enough to keep up the temps once the main burners got them there. I'll have to find a proper pilot light.

The other problem was my wiring for the temp probe is placed too close to the motor. It caused the temps to be a bit erratic. This will be a simple fix.

I was surprised my home made basket worked perfectly. It has the same dimensions as RK Drums 6 pound model ($340 online, I have about $10 into mine), though I'll never put that much coffee at once through it.

Today’s run was with a half pound of very old espresso beans. So old I'm almost afraid to put them in the espresso machine.
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Way too much pilot.JPG
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The finished product.JPG
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JonW
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Re: The 462 is finally wired.

Post by JonW »

Yeah, killer pilot light there!

Where's your chaff going?
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bbrally
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Re: The 462 is finally wired.

Post by bbrally »

There are holes in one end to load and unload the beans. I use a funnel with the small and enlarged to cover those holes and then just dump in the beans.

Alot of the chaff finds its way out of those holes and all over the bottom of the bbq. The rest falls into the cooling tray when the roast is over.
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Re: The 462 is finally wired.

Post by bbrally »

I finally finished the brew stand enough to brew a batch of nut brown yesterday.

It had lots of teething problems, but none of them I couldn't sort out enough to finish the day with 10 gallons in the fermentor. I'll have to spend some time now correcting the problems before the next batch. (little things like leaks in a few threaded joints, a valve plumbed in the wrong place (how did I overlook that one!), a relay that failed closed, and more I can no longer remember)

I did have one problem with the BCS that I'll have to investigate. It being the first brew, I had to make some changes to the programming on the fly. But when I hit the "apply" button, sometimes the change would take place imediately. Other times I had to stop the process and restart it for the change to take place. I'm going to have to investigate this some as I'm not sure if this is normal, there is a problem, or I was only imagining this.
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refreshments, please excuse the clogs..jpg
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Re: The 462 is finally wired.

Post by ECC »

Whew, so shinny... Very nice.

I can't think of any settings that wouldn't apply immediately (by design anyway). Network settings require a reset, they are clearly marked. Some settings may take some time to take effect, for example changing ramp mode parameters, or updating pid coefficients. However it sounds like you are updating settings in the Add/Edit Processes page, which all should update immediately. Let me know if you find one that doesn't act the way that you think it should.
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Re: The 462 is finally wired.

Post by bbrally »

I tried preproducing the problems I had last weekend. Here's what I did:


I reset to controller to defaults in order to start with everything at zero. I confirmed all outputs in the systems settings page were enabled.

I clicked the process0 tab to run process0. The green process0 light came on. In the edit process page under process0 state0, I checked out0-control and out0-directly controlled. I then hit apply.

Out0 came on.

I then unchecked out0-control and out0-directly controlled and hit apply.

Out0 stayed on, but the directly controlled radio button went out.

I then went to the main control page. The process0 green light was on and the green out0 light was on.

I went back to the edit process page and confirmed that all outputs were unchecked in process0.

I clicked on the process0 tab to toggle it off. The green process0 light went out but the out0 light stayed on.

I finally hit the allstop and the out0 finally went out.

Turning process0 back on, all outputs stayed off.

I tried this many times and it is the same for all outputs (0 - 17) on the 462, but works properly for the expansion cards ouputs.

I also tried this same procedure using process0 and output13, process 5 and output0, and process5 and output13 with the same results.




I then set up a simple two state process.

state0 - out0 on, win0 to goto state1.

state1 - out0 off.

When I run this process it works as expected, the out0 going on for state0 and off for state1. this process runs properly for all outputs (0 - 17) and expansion card outputs.


Can anybody else replicate this?
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