is a BCS still a good way to go

paszekj · Post by **paszekj** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 10:49 am

I am beginning to build a home electric brewery and am considering implementing a BCS. I did a fair amount of reading on the wiki and read some reviews a while back and was pretty impressed with the capability of the BCS but just wanted to make sure it's the way to go. It doesn't seem that there is a lot of actvity on the forums and I've noticed the units have been on backorder from the two vendors I was able to find for quite some time now. I'm a little leary of planning to use and purchasing a unit that may not have support available in a few years. I would welcome any input anyone might have. Thank you.

brahn · Post by **brahn** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 11:04 am

The BCS is still in active development. The last firmware upgrade was released last month. This was only a bugfix release, but we have a major rewrite in the works. It's far enough along that I was able to use it to brew a couple weeks ago, but there are still some big pieces missing.

The forum is primarily used for support. I think you'll find that questions tend to get answers pretty quickly, but there isn't a whole of of discussion outside of answering support questions.

Brewer's Hardware is currently showing the BCS-460 in stock and the BCS-462 as backordered. I know they just flashed over 100 units, and that at least some of those were 462's so they should be available shortly if they aren't already shipping.

http://www.brewershardware.com/BCS-Brewery-Controllers/

Post by **JonW** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 11:05 am

The BCS is still the best way to go in my opinion. There's not always a lot of traffic here, but I think that is sometimes due to the fact that most people are able to get up and running with them so quickly and easily that they don't need a lot of support.

The BCS is usually in stock directly at ECC / Brewers Hardware. It is also still under VERY active development with many new features being worked on.

mavantix · Post by **mavantix** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:57 pm

I settled on the BCS a couple years ago and don't regret it one bit. It's a great device and it's worked so well that I don't have to mess with it. I think it's a whole lot more complete of a solution than some of the other pieced together options out there for brewery automation.

paszekj · Post by **paszekj** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 6:05 pm

I appreciate the quick responses. It looks like a great system, I just wanted to make sure it was still continuing to be developed. http://www.ebrewsupply.com has some pretty nice panel designs. I'd like to build my own for the learning process but I think buying it as a kit would eliminate a lot of headaches. I had emailed them a few times and hadn't heard back and was getting a little leery but just heard back from Ryan today. It sounds like he's transitioning into it being a full-time job so I feel like they should have pretty good support going forth. Looking forward to getting the project started.

paszekj · Post by **paszekj** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 6:42 pm

Looking at different kits. Would anyone be willing to take a peek at this system and see what you think?

http://www.ebrewsupply.com/shop/ebrew-k ... 50bcs.html

Would this be a good place to start? Can you think of anything that seems like it would be missing? Thank you!

Post by **JonW** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 7:31 pm

Control panels with manual switches are nice, but not necessary at all. My system has no panel at all, only a set of SSR's and a relay board all mounted under the bottom shelf of the stand. All control is done from the PC interface.

paszekj · Post by **paszekj** » Wed Mar 05, 2014 7:22 am

Thank you. Would be nice to decrease the cost of the build as well.

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