StillDragon® Community Forum

Welcome!

Be part of our community & join our international next generation forum now!

In this Discussion

DIN Rail Mounted Clock Timer or even a Kitchen Digital Timer?

edited January 2016 in Accessories

Hello,

My name is Alex Voss. I'm with Alligator Bay Distillers.

We are currently operating with 3 DSPR controllers supplied by Auber Instruments. We've returned to Auber and have 3 EZboil controllers and an RTD sensor on their way so that we can outfit our system to engage at a set time early morning hours and maintain when certain temperature reaches.

Has anyone used a DIN rail mounted clock timer or kitchen digital timer to achieve such a command?

Comments

  • Hi Alex,

    Thanks for logging in.

    Hopefully some of the smart fellers will chime in soon to help you out.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • I use the BCS-462 and have turned my boiler on from my PC and my phone...

    That being said, you definitely should have some sort of independent safety that will power it down completely if it exceeds your setpoint.

  • I thought the first rule of safety, stilling-wise, was always have someone in close proximity to the still during a run. SCADA stuff is cool for the master distiller to watch from the golf course or wherever, but someone should always be close and have eyes on in case you need to push the oh shit button.

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • I'd think in a work environment so long as the risk assessment has been done thoroughly and the fail safes addressed then it's up to the management and operators. You can even heat the liquid in a ban marie boiler before you introduce the charge.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • I agree. Preheating the working fluid or mash water is not a problem. Making ethanol vapors is a different story.

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • edited February 2016

    @vossup said: Has anyone used a DIN rail mounted clock timer or kitchen digital timer to achieve such a command?

    Not sure what your asking. Are you looking for something like this?

    Or a DIN mounted kitchen timer??

    I've used these to stick custom PCB's on some DIN rail. You could do the same with a five buck timer.

    Screw the clips to a board and glue what even you want to the board.

  • If I understand correctly, he is looking to preheat and hold temp for a large kettle charge.

    The kettle is essentially underpowered, so a preheat would reduce many hours during the distilling day.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • Exactly.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • So the existing temp controller set to 10° under BP and turned on the night before would achieve this no?
    If you wanted to minimise the hold time and have it kick in at 3AM then one of the units in the first link I put up wired upstream of the SSR might do it?
    Not that I would recommend running like that. You wanna make sure your insurance company is cool with it ;)

  • edited February 2016

    Good idea on a HLT for mashing, bad idea for a still.

    Omron H5L panel mount time switch, I believe it has a din rail mount too.

    Get it off eBay for $35-50 or so, dont pay the $200 retail price.

  • edited February 2016

    Also, despite the current carrying capacity of the time switch, you should be using a contactor and not switching the load directly.

    And, like I said, this is a bad idea. Especially considering that the best case failure method is that the unit lights up the elements in an empty tank, and you end up burning out your elements. The worst case is that everyone dies.

    For the sake of a purely theoretical discussion.

    Someone else had an interesting approach to this problem that I thought was slightly, just ever so slightly safer. In one of his element ports, he used a very small heating element, something like 500 watts or around there. It could not possibly bring the kettle to a boil in the time period between switch on and someone being present in the distillery. In fact, it probably wouldn't bring the kettle to a boil at all once you factored in the heat losses, etc. In this situation, you probably aren't bringing the kettle temperature to near distillation temps, but you would be pre-heating a bit, and saving some time. On the down-side, you are giving up a port.

    I would imagine it would be prudent to stay below the closed cup flash point of wash, which would be about 120F.

  • It's an approach that certainly has it's merits but I agree that you have to put the right poka-yoka's in.

    To protect the elements, you would need a level sensor and for the temperature, you could use the distillery controller & heat until 120F (or whatever is safe based on the wash) and go to 1% power or similar. That way you could get the pre-heat done without compromising on safety...

  • I would air gap the preheat system as entirely standalone with its own temp sensor and add a secondary limit controller to cut power to the system based on slightly higher set point. I'd also use a manual reset relay such that if the secondary limit controller trips, it requires a manual reset to turn the preheat system back on. This along with an extra low wattage element. The level sensors also a very smart idea.

    Goes without saying that this would be absolute insanity on a low wines spirit run, as there would be very few differences between a preheat system and a bomb.

  • Or just spend the extra hour during startup doing bottling or TTB reports.

  • Auber is apparently upgrading their 200's to 210's that have a mashing mode (basically a combo of the 200 and the EZ boil). These things are pretty legit IMO, you can just set the power adjustment to turn back to 0% if you were afraid of going over the threshold of preheat to production temps. It will either hold temp or turn off completely depending on how you set it... I see no real issue using these with a timer to preheat a jacket and as long as you set your desired temp well below ethanol production, not much with a charge either especially if you have your water supply rigged to also turn on. I know this isn't totally fail safe but at the end of the day that's what happens when we bring in machines to do our job

    @vossup there's someone here in town essentially doing this, I'm waiting to get a reply on what they're using. Are you using a jacket? agitator? Have you considered turning on your water supply using the same method?

  • You want something else as back up though. When an SSR fails they usually fail closed.
    The tiny element solution is a good one. Finding more power somewhere so you can just fire up when you get to work is better. Maybe offset shifts might help perhaps.

  • I suggested an independent safety such as a water heater has, separate temp sensor (either mechanical or electrical) and wired into the contactor.. and thinking about it now, a vent to the outside that can send vapor into space.. maybe a 3-way valve on the PRV...

Sign In or Register to comment.