Wednesday 2 April 2014

Motorized Ball Valves

The initial build incorporated Viton diaphragm solenoid valves for the fluid control. Although quite cheap, they come with some added extras... I had a tiny piece of silver insulation tape catch in the valve seat which caused a slow leak from the HLT (Hot Liquor Tank). Yep, the water is filtered with a ceramic filter before the tank, but the foreign object must have been from when we installed the new stainless tanks and insulated them. This leak caused a potentially awesome beer to turn out to be mid-strength and just average. Some would say that it still had more flavour than any dark beer you can buy off the shelf here is Australia!

So I sourced some cheap motorized ball valves and installed one the other night. Its just mounted temporarily at the moment  (hence the cable tie). It comes with a motor connection in which the user changes the polarity dependent on  direction. Opened/Closed feedback is via contacts that sink to ground.
I hacked the old code from the original three-way valve and we were away. Its not that exciting so I didn't take a video.
The new 3-way Motorized Ball-valve

2 comments:

  1. Wow! This is amazing! I'm just working on trying to automate more of the Brauduino controller and my brewery system. I would love to brainstorm / chat get some ideas from you on my proposed set up and how you built your hop dropper (that thing looks amazing!!).

    Cheers,

    Lael

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    Replies
    1. Cheers Lael! Send me an email to brad_goold at dodo.com.au .

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