Hi Warren,
I've had the last week off, so some good progress on HERMAN (next generation) and HERMLET (son of HERMAN).
Most of the physical infrastructure is now complete, along with the design principles pretty much sorted. Because we have a working HERMAN (actually brewing his second beer for the day as I type), this project is coming along slow and steady, making sure we work out the fine details before we commit ourselves too much.
So we are just beginning to do some power wiring, install circuit breakers etc. We seem to spend more time in shops buying bits n pieces than we do putting things together ...
The control electronics is the bit we have not yet sorted. It is a significant upgrade on the current system, so it will take a while. We are just working out control panel layouts, but have not put together any acutal circuits yet.
So how far away .... Depends on how much beer we need to taste in between to make sure we don't lose motivation!!!
I reckon about mid-year before the big unveiling. And then HERMAN will become two machines! :chug:
I'll post some updated pics when I download them off the camera, but our Belgian Wit is now calling out for us to load the automatic hop dropper :super:
cheers, Arnie