New Member Intro

[mliptack]

Hello Everyone,

Wanted to take a moment to introduce myself, my name is Max and I live in Milwaukee, WI. I have been brewing for about 11 years now. I am an all grain brewer. Currently using a gott cooler and 7.5/20g kettles to produce mostly 6 gal batches.

Years ago I invested fairly heavily into partially automating a 3 20g kettle system. I chose the Brewtroller at the time and never got the system off the ground after encountering many bugs etc. The system was mothballed entirely after I found out my wife was pregnant with our 2nd child.

This year, I wanted to revive the project, I fully designed my control panel, punched out the holes for all the indicators, switches, PIDs, LCD etc. then ran into the same issues with the Brewtroller, invested more money to try to solve the problem. The forum responses to my issues were sluggish, quickly thereafter I found out that they were going out of business. Wish they would have communicated that to me before I bought more stuff

So I am thinking about making the leap over to the BCS-462 (a decision I should have made years ago - hindsight is 20/20). Over the next few months, I will be doing a lot of searching, I will likely be asking a few questions regarding this change (ex. are the temp probes compatible between systems?), and looking for anyone who has done the same. If there are any good threads about this please point me in the right direction

Cheers!
Max

[JonW]

Welcome Max! There are several builds here that you can peruse to get ideas for your own and we're always here for questions.

I've always had mixed feelings about building the big control panels. I've thought of doing one myself many times, but the reality is that with the BCS, it's not really necessary. I do all my control from the computer screen. Sure, having switches allows you to jump between having things controlled automatically (BCS) vs manually, but the reality is that you can stop or pause things on the BCS screen very easily and quickly also. I think it comes down to personal preference more than any necessity.

For your temp probes, unfortunately they are not compatible. If you're looking to unload your BT setup, I knew there were a few people on HomeBrewTalk looking for components, so you could likely sell the whole thing as a package there.

[mliptack]

Thanks Jon - I appreciate the quick response!

I go back and fourth on the control panel too. My biggest reason for it is for safety - being able to shut down certain aspects of the process while still running others appeals to me. While I'm sure I can do the same thing from the web interface, nothing beats a physical lockout. Who knows I may find that it was unnecessary.

Thanks again!

Max

[pngaudioguy]

I'm in the planning stages of my upgraded build too, and want the physical overrides for the same reason you do. Again, I might not need them, but I like the idea of having a physical switch that I can flip just in case.

[mliptack]

pngaudioguy - are you upgrading from the Brewtroller? While I am fairly new to the BCS platform - if you have questions about what I have done, please let me know.

This is what I have currently - got some takeaways from the electric brewery setup, liked the layout, but I increased the case size a bit and had to add the automation functionality. I have this panel designed in Solidworks.

This is my current control panel

FullSizeRender (3).jpg (106.18 KiB) Viewed 5211 times

With a better view of the heatsink

Here's a slightly angled view to see the heat sink a little bit better.

FullSizeRender (2).jpg (133.91 KiB) Viewed 5211 times

Best regards,
Max

[mliptack]

I am thinking about either:

A) knocking out the space where the LCD and Encoder knob are located and placing something like this display in its place.
7" Touch Panel
Then put a raspberry pi inside the enclosure to power the display.

Or B) Get a custom piece of acrylic cut with something like "My brewery" cut out of it, to cover the hole from the LCD and the encoder. Then use a 19-21" monitor (perhaps an optical touch screen) running on a barebones computer for control.

Any suggestions on which way to go? I Like the idea of the touchpanel in the controller, but at a 7" display, is that too small for any functionality?

Thanks,
Max

[pngaudioguy]

I'm coming from a non-automated system, and simultaneously upgrading from 10 gallon to 25 gallon kettles. My design thread is here in general discussion as well, and I'm also taking some design cues from the electric brewery site.