Any Sparkies in HackerSpace?

[James McLean]

Folks,

I'm building a semi-automated home-brewery at the moment, the hot liquor tank and RIMS tube will both have 2400w 240v elements controlled with SSR's, pumps are all 240v, and the input will need to be 32 amp single phase as both elements will be running at the same time. 

Naturally, this will all need to be certified and/or checked by a sparky as it's not exactly the kind of thing that can be DIY'd without risk (or even legally). I could try pot-luck and call some local sparkies from the paper, but i'd rather find someone who 'gets' it and understands 'hacking' (for lack of a better term in this case).

Is anyone here a qualified sparky and can perform the installation of the 32amp point into the house (new house, has 3 phase) and certify the work done on the 240v side of the control systems? Payment by regular means, or beer ;)

For geek interest, the home brewery will be controlled with a BeagleBone SBC using software i've written in C++, and the software will be Open Source (GPL). BeagleBone will be running Debian or Ubuntu, to keep as much OSS in the system as possible. The beer recipes are all, effectively, open source, too ;)

I've been blogging a little of it on www.vortex.id.au (shameless plug) along with some of my other homebrewing adventures if anyone is interested.

Cheers

[Tamsyn Michael]

You should probably ask on the brewadelaide forums - I don't think (???) we have any sparkies, I know they do (no guarantee they're looking for work like this though).  32 amp is pretty wow, what the hell will you running, RIMS.

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[James McLean]

Hi Tamsyn,

Yep, there are sparkies on there, but the guys are all out north and don't like going down south where I am if they don't have to. I'll have to ask again.

32 amp is required because the elements use 10 amps each, to have both running at once will use close to 20 amps, plus there will be at least one 240v March pump running at the same time because of the RIMS tube, plus of course the power supply for the 12v gear (displays and the SBC).

Cheers

[Tamsyn Michael]

Oh, Vortex, Hi, It's Tanga.  Ummmm - no sparkies, and to be honest that seems like a pretty big job.  You might be better off getting it done by a normal subbie (yellow pages).

[Alex Sims]

On 8/11/2012 6:41 PM, James McLean wrote:
> I'm building a semi-automated home-brewery at the moment, the hot
> liquor tank and RIMS tube will both have 2400w 240v elements
> controlled with SSR's, pumps are all 240v, and the input will need to
> be 32 amp single phase as both elements will be running at the same time.
>
> Naturally, this will all need to be certified and/or checked by a
> sparky as it's not exactly the kind of thing that can be DIY'd without
> risk (or even legally). I could try pot-luck and call some local
> sparkies from the paper, but i'd rather find someone who 'gets' it and
> understands 'hacking' (for lack of a better term in this case).
>

A dumb question maybe but wouldn't it be a bit more "normal" if you had
a 32 amp circuit installed with normal GPO's for each device on the
circuit rather than an unusual 32A socket? Or even two 15A circuits? or
three "normal" power points each on a separate phase as three phase is
available at your switchboard. Or thinking in a hurry wire up your brew
kit to run off a single 3 phase plug?

Alex

[Sam Silvester]

> On 8/11/2012 6:41 PM, James McLean wrote:
>>
>> I'm building a semi-automated home-brewery at the moment, the hot liquor
>> tank and RIMS tube will both have 2400w 240v elements controlled with SSR's,
>> pumps are all 240v, and the input will need to be 32 amp single phase as
>> both elements will be running at the same time.

Hi James,

A mate of mine has recently gone out on his own. His mob is called JPM
Electrical and Security and you can get him on 0401 966 529.

Previously he's worked on a few things with me, he's pretty good at
taking my insane requests and not getting too "old school sparky"
about things that are unconventional.

Having said that, he'd be expecting cash money rather than beer money,
being a professional and all that.