BCS power?

[MeLoveBeer]

Congrats on what looks like a great build Ed.

[ukbrewer]

Ed,

I'm sure I'll have a bunch of questions for you. Glanced over your homebrewtalk thread. Very impressive!

[clearwaterbrewer]

I am surely not the first to think 'USB is 5volts, why can it not power a BCS'.... There are all sots of places this leads to once you have USB, 12V car adapters, 100-240v auto-sensing adapters, etc...

I have one of these that came with a 2.5" portable Hard drive enclosure..

http://www.amazon.com/3-5mm-Barrel-Jack ... B003059FAI


seems to work just fine... oops, did I just void my warranty by saying that???? crap... errr... I meant I *bet it would work just fine*!


-mike

[JonW]

Mike,

While the voltage may be 5 volts, the amperage output from the USB would likely be too low. If you were just running the BCS off of it, it would probably work. However, when you start hooking up SSR's, relay boards or other devices to the BCS outputs, you start pulling more amps then what the USB port can likely provide. Some USB ports do allow up to 500 milliamps of power, so it is possible that you could do this if you were not driving much off the BCS.

Another reason to use the wall wort power supply though is that you can leave the BCS running without any computer attached. When I'm not brewing, my BCS is still running to do temp control on my kegerators and fermenter.

[clearwaterbrewer]

Mike,

While the voltage may be 5 volts, the amperage output from the USB would likely be too low. If you were just running the BCS off of it, it would probably work. However, when you start hooking up SSR's, relay boards or other devices to the BCS outputs, you start pulling more amps then what the USB port can likely provide. Some USB ports do allow up to 500 milliamps of power, so it is possible that you could do this if you were not driving much off the BCS.

Another reason to use the wall wort power supply though is that you can leave the BCS running without any computer attached. When I'm not brewing, my BCS is still running to do temp control on my kegerators and fermenter.

I was thinking them you could use any USB output device, not just a computer... mainly inside a control box.. How much does a SSR draw from the BCS, looks like max is 10mA, so we are well under the 500mA of USB...

-mike

[ECC]

The USB cable is technically out of spec... The BCS needs a minimum of 6vdc, .66A (660ma). But if it works for you, that's great. The only bad thing that I can think of happening is the 5vdc might drop out, since the input/output regulator needs >5vdc to work properly. The main processor works on a separate regulator, which is still within spec so it will work fine.

One major part of the power budget is the ability to source 300mA from the +5dvc pin for expansion cards. So if you don't use that, at least the current supply is in spec.

[jubalon7]

Bottom center of this picture you can see what I ended up doing with the wall wort.
It is a simple 2 wire receptacle zip tied to a DIN mount. Not what I was originally looking for but VERY simple.

Ed
[/img]

I'm in the planning stage of my control panel build, and I would love to do something like this to power the BCS. My design is based on theelectricbrewery.com control panel, so it includes a master on/off switch that controls a relay that feeds wall power to all the components. I want the BCS to control freezers as well, so I'd like the ability to switch it on and off independently of the rest of the control panel. I've attached a crude MSPaint mockup of how I think I should go about doing this. Will this work? I'm a bit of a newb when it comes to stuff like this, so forgive me if it's a dumb question

[clearwaterbrewer]

I have 4-wire 50A entering my panel and the two hot leads go to a contactor. Then all the High Voltage/Current that feeds SSR's, relays, etc off the contactor's outputs...

My 6VDC and 12VDC power bricks inside the panel, however, I have powered from the aux terminals on the input side of the contactor, so they are hot any time the unit is plugged in.. I have a momentary switch able to turn the contactor on, then once on, is sealed on by it's own output (unless e-stop is pressed and breaks the coil circuit). Also able to turn the contactor on is an output from a relay that is driven by the BCS... Currently trying to determine the best way to have a momentary output from the BCS other than a process with a kill timer on it... This allows me to run through all the BCS processes and such without actually powering anything, but the SSR and relay indicators let me verify my processes

To your subject, my fermenter is remotely relayed, so at the panel, only Low-voltage is needed to be on for that to still operate... an SSR turns on just fine over a 50' long length of CAT5..

[flux]

use one of these http://www.directedstore.com/manuals/528T.pdf $14 on amazon with prime!