The start of my brewing empire-wiring a brewmate controller

[paul m]

I've read heaps of useful info on the forum and decided to improve quality of my brew so I bought a BrewMate Dual Digital Temperature Controller from mashmaster with the probe that goes in the beer.
I’ve wired it up. There’s power to the unit. The temperature sensor is working fine. I can hear the relay switch in the box “click” after 3 minutes and cool light becomes solid. But it doesn’t turn on the freezer that is wired to it. Have i stuffed up the wiring?? Yellow wire is power in, grey wire is the probe. Junction box is a food storage container box - cheeper than an electrical box at the wholesalers ($50). Although a bit flimsy after you cut the holes. Any comments appreciated. cheers paul

[David Upex]

Have you take the freezer thermostat out of the circuit, or at least set it to very cold.

[paul m]

I've got it set to very cold. I figure that should be fine since i'll be only going as low as 5 degrees

[DP]

I have a TempMate and the wiring looks quite different from your setup. I'm not sure whether it'll help at all but I've got photos of my wiring setup here: http://damian.peterson.net.nz/2010/02/10/wiring-up-a-tempmate/ and here: http://photos.nice.s3.amazonaws.com/damian/tempmate3.jpg

I suspect that if yours is not working it might be because you need to loop from the power across to the others and then on to the sockets themselves like I did in mine. (could be wrong though; I'm not an electrician. mine works sweet though)

[Rhyno]

Yeah what DP said ;)

Just opened the top on my one which was wired by my sparky brother, and he has a feed running to the heating and cooling circuit, as well as some extra earth's. I'd recommend trying to find someone who knows electrical circuits to wire it up for you.

 

[paul m]

Thanks Damian, good to see your set up is all sweet. The lack of earthing on mine compared to your has me a bit concerned! (i hate being electrocuted). The loop thing sounds like it may be the thing although i didn't see no loops on the wiring diagram. Mind you- school was a long time a go and i did get an e for physics! Maybe i should check with a sparky.

[Richard Jack]

They come with a wiring diagram that is different to the one on the back. The one on the back is a bit confusing... If you can't find yours, I'll take a photo of mine for you or something (just got three more, so got my diagram lying around still).

 

Where are you based? If you're in Auckland, Suplus Tronics in town sell $5 project boxes. Or if you have access to some machines, I have a whole load of aluminium project boxes that are available to be repurposed for the overwhelming cost of a sample of your beers :) I routed out mine on a mill.

[paul m]

Hi Richard, the wiring diagram printed on the back of the controller look identical to the one on the paper instruction (to me anyway). If you get chance to make a pici that would be appreciated.

 

I'm based in sunny Whangarei, 

Re sampling beers- i need to up my game there. i've just done a pear cider and pitched yeast when it was at 28 degrees so i think it'll be a bit like av fuel. Hence the controller- Next project is wort cooler. 

[Richard Jack]

Haha fair enough. PM me your email so I can send you the diagram.

[Dougal]

I found this diagram for the STC-1000 on aussiehomebrewer- works perfectly.

[paul m]

awesome Dougal, yer a legend!

[Druid]

The diagram from Dougal shows the right way to do it.  Try to copy the colour coding too.

 

It takes quite a bit of reading of those diagrams to work out how to wire them up.  It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the 2 terminals for each circuit on the back of the unit are for live and neutral when in fact they are solely for switching the live wire to each circuit. 

 

It's also important to:

 

a) Make sure you wire an earth (green) from the earth on the mains lead to the earth terminal on both sockets.  They are your insurance that an electrical short will result in current trying to take the easiest path through the earth wires and not trying to travel through you on its way to earth, electrocuting you in the process.  Although it appears your setup doesn't have one, if the unit also has an earth terminal, that should be wired in to the earth circuit as well.

 

b) Make sure you get the unit to switch the 'live' wire (brown in the diagram but also red sometimes).  It will still appear to work properly if you switch the 'neutral' (blue or black) but it means that the whole circuit to the freezer or heat pad is still live, even if the circuit is switched off - this is because you have just disconnected the wire that allows the current to return, not the wire that is actually feeding the current.

When I was a kid, an electrician was famously blown clean across our kitchen when he'd switched the circuit off to the dishwasher after my Dad had wired up the isolating switch incorrectly by doing just that.

 

c) try to use the right colours for the live, neutral and earth wires (as shown in the diagram) wherever they are led in case someone tries to work on it assuming you have colour coded it correctly.

I just stripped some of the insulation off the mains feed cable and cut off appropriate lengths of wire to make sure I achieved this.

 

[Tilt]

All good advice here so far - the small contribution  I can make is one of these makes it very easy and safe

to connect up the wires at the "wire joiner"part on the diagram above. 

Use a 20A version if you're planning to plug in a kettle heating element, or 10A if you're just using it to control a fridge.

Bunnings or Repco should have them.