My Power Controller

[Anavrin]

I recon I run at about 120volt for a spirit run, if you look at my pics when I had my volt meter connected, (earlier in this thread) you can see a black line on the dial of my controller, this is the point where my power is just enough to get enough vapour for reflux to start, any lower and I don't have a high enough temp at the top of my column, that's with a meter of 54mm copper filled with 6mm raschig rings.

However!

My setups all changed now, I'm running 20litres of strip tomorrow, I'm changing my packing to SS scrubbers and I'm going to be running my torpedo bubble section too, I'm guessing the sweet spot will be somewhere else!

[ant]

Sounds as though they would do then. I had a chat with my techie mate and he lectured me on the approximate nature of metering a clipped ac waveform without a true RMS (expensive) meter.

I assured him the result worked well enough in practice and he humphed a bit. He reckons that despite the load being likely to have a small inductance rather than pure resistance and that the resistance would increase with temp, it would be simplest to put an ammeter on the power input side for a reasonably proportionate indication of wattage.

Volts always 240 on the input, resistance close to fixed and inductance only slight means that half the input amps means half the wattage and so on. Ohms law. So I might just try that. Essentially that is why Easy's method works well. He is monitoring the input not the output. No clipped waveform on the input side.

[H12rpo]

Well I've read the thread and it all got a bit technical didn't it? (The links are very old too)

Firstl, will I need a power controller on a pot head on top of a T500 boiler? (It would seem that it's easier and more controllable with one)

Secondly, is there an off the shelf plug and play controller available from evil bay that anyone is using successfully? (Although I do like that one with the meters on it)

[Leatherman]

One of those questions I could find answer anywhere so far. Looking forward for answers as well.

[Easydrinker]

I think that I posted this a couple of weeks ago?
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1001&p=7791&hilit=power+controller#p7791
Does it help any?
Old links do work.
Robert.

[H12rpo]

The Chinese power controllers from evil bay look to be the way forward.all for under a tenner :-)
However the boxes only seem to have connection points for live and neutral ins and outs ....what about the Earth wire on the boiler lead???

[Brewhunter]

I've just ordered one from still dragon, bit overpriced but hopefully easy to build.

[packapoo]

Hmmm. Given where they're from I think the price is quite reasonable really.
Be keen to hear how you get on with the build.

[packapoo]

The Chinese power controllers from evil bay look to be the way forward.all for under a tenner :-)
However the boxes only seem to have connection points for live and neutral ins and outs ....what about the Earth wire on the boiler lead???

Disclaimer: I'm NOT a sparky.....

I have one of those/something similar.

Mounted it in an enclosure. The enclosure had a normal 3-pin power lead in and on one side has an equally normal wall socket mounted. Earth wire from power lead attached directly to the earth connection on the wall socket. Live and neutral wires were routed into the controller, then from controller outlet side to the wall socket.

My boiler lead has a normal 3-pin plug to fit the enclosure mounted wall socket.
Seems to work although I thought it wise to beef up the heat sink on the controller.

Smarter folk then me have laughed at my enclosure but passed the circuitry as okay....

[Mash]

I am not a sparky either.

Earth wire is not a power cable, it is not part of the circuit. It is for safety.

Any thing metal that has electric in it should be connected to earth.

Your radiators are earthed, just by connecting that earth wire.

Earth the boiler separately or connect the earth through.

If the controller has a metal chassis it too should be earthed.

You can connect earth directly to the casing.

Post a pic of the one you have.

[H12rpo]

Here's the linky to the still dragon wiring instructions........very helpful

https://www.stilldragon.org/uploads/man ... 131020.pdf

[Brewhunter]

Thanks for the link I'll be taking a good look at that later.

[Easydrinker]

The Chinese ones are just as easy to wire the earth.
If you can't see it, maybe you shouldn't be doing it.
My enclosure is a large Tetley Tea bags tin, it has attracted a few smiles, but is fully earthed.

Robert.

[packapoo]

I prolly should have said on mine chassis is earthed and gave it fan assistance for cooling.