Barry wrote:
Michael,
What I hoped would be a fantastic outcome has now devolved into a totally frustrating experience. I finished the control panel and got it powered and everything at first appeared ok. The HLT kettle worked fine as did the alarm for it. I then tried the boil kettle, and while it started heating correctly, after about 30 seconds it kicked off the breaker in the spa panel. To see if it was the kettle or the circuit, I plugged the boil kettle into the HLT receptacle and everything was fine, so now I figured it was in the boil circuit somewhere. I tightened all the screws again but no luck. I switched the ground wires that went to the boil and HLT receptacles but no luck. I then thought I would test the boil receptacle by swapping the two receptacles but it still kept flipping the breaker after 30 seconds. I then put the receptacles back in their original places and went up to eat lunch. Later, I went downstairs again to continue troubleshooting, but this time, as soon as I threw the key that powers the control panel, the spa panel breaker tripped immediately. I've checked all the wires and everything is tight and in its proper place. I guess I could have a bad spa panel, or it could be a myriad of other things, but at this point I'm so frustrated I could just pitch the whole thing. I'm going to have an electrician friend come over and take a look, but after that, I'm not sure what I should do. I had such high hopes for this project since I have always wanted to do an electric brewery but now I'm not sure it's going to happen.
Barry,
Don't worry, we will find the issue. Can you please post more information?
What kind of breaker do you have in the SPA panel...how may amps? Can you post a picture of the wiring of the SPA panel?
Do you have a multimeter?
Rgs,
Michael,
With the help of a friend who's an electrical engineer, I was able to get it figured out. She was able to look at all my wiring and grounding and all of that was fine. The problem turned out to be that the metal from the SSR and the heatsink was touching the case. She said that normally you float the DC ground to be separate from the AC ground. As soon as we separated the SSR/heatsink from the case using some fiberglass insulation tape, everything worked fine. Sorry for the rant, but after spending all of the time and money on this project, it was very frustrating to not have it work. She was very impressed with the control panel and I had to tell her that I had very little to do with it other than following directions. Hopefully this will help someone else if they experience a similar problem.
Barry,
Good that your problem has been resolved. However, how did the heat sink touching the enclosure trigger the GFCI?
Only the back (metal) of the SSR should be touching the heat sink and this part is insulated from the rest of the SSR. There is no current leaking on the back of the SSR.
So, even if the heat sink touches the enclosure, which it does in my case, how can that cause the GFCI to trip?
Michael, on my Fotek SSRs, the metal on the back of the controller, on the two short sides of the controller, extends beyond the plastic of the SSR case and so both the SSR and the heatsink touch the case. I'm not an engineer so all I have to go on is the advice of the electrical engineer who looked at my panel and who designs circuits, panels and lighting controls every day. I don't know exactly what is going on with floating the DC ground, but I do know that everything is working perfectly now that neither the heat sink or the SSR is touching the panel case. That's really all that matters to me. She tested all of my grounding both at the control panel and at the main electrical box and all of that was working as it should.
Just finished autotuning the HLT controller and now it's holding temps to 0.3 degrees F. Pretty awesome....
All is working, that's the important thing! Please post pictures of your control panel if you like to....
