Fully Automated Brewing System Design

[randyrob]

Hey Bandito,

Just a FYI, I have an all electric system and I can easily crank out a 30L Batch and not exceed the standard 10Amps that comes out of the mains, my boil off rate is 8% per hour in the kettle.



P.S. I also have a combined HLT/Kettle, this could be a good idea for yourself to save on, valves, elements, temperature sensors, vessles etc.....

 

[Bandito]

Its really starting to come along now! Just added the CIP. Everything seem like it would work flow wise. The choice of cleaners is something I need to research a lot more, and the mash tun need some major design, I think I may have to design a custom vessel to aid the cleaning. Still a lot of checking and simplification to go as well.

Latest design attached

Just added up the number of valves - 45 (realised V-4 isnt required). Thats a lotta valves.

View attachment AUTOBREW_01_REV_C.pdf

 

[Pumpy]

The best beer I tasted came from Tonys brewery consisted of ,one kettle a few bricks a burner and an esky, keep it simple brew better beer

Pumpy

 

[T.D.]

The best beer I tasted came from Tonys brewery consisted of ,one kettle a few bricks a burner and an esky, keep it simple brew better beer

Pumpy

I agree Pumpy. Some of the best beers I have made have come from my little plastic bucket system, consisting of a few 25L pails and an immersion element...

But whatever floats your boat I guess. I don't think I would ever embark on a project like this, as a lot of the hobby's enjoyment for me comes from the brewday, and all the hands on stuff that goes along with it. My personal view is having a fully automated system is akin to just buying some decent microbrews from the bottlo. It becomes more about the engineering of a system than the actual brewing, which is fine, but I gues sthe hoppy kind of becomes fabrication then rather than homebrewing...? Just my personal thoughts, but I wish Bandito well in his mission all the same...

 

[OzMick]

That valve count seems excessive. If you place outlet valves from fermenters close to the CIP/beer out loop, you should minimise dead legs, and then just do the entire pipework loop with as few valves as possible flushing all of that section of pipework every time it is used. Will mean longer flush cycles to do all the pipework every time, but every valve just means more places for bugs to hide if getting cheap valves, or more $$$ if getting good ones. Either way, minimising valves should be an objective. I think I can identify at least 10 that are redundant.

If your pipes and valves can take it and you are comfortable handling it, consider having the caustic heated and using something like proxitane/peracetic acid as a sanitiser. I think you need to look at industrial grade sanitation, don't give the bugs a chance, a mystery infection will make you pull hair out. Occasionally tearing down 2 valves in a manual system is inconvenient, having to do 45 when the goal was to minimise labour would make me question why I bothered.

 

[rwmingis]

Hi Bandito,

With regards to your power limitations, another thing you can consider is timesharing of power by the different heating elements. I ran into this same issue with my RIMS system. Naturally I have a heating element in my RIMS system which happens to be 2400 W which is the max for a typical 240V house circuit. I also want to control my HLT element with the same unit, however, this two is 2400 W which means if both are running then I'm looking at 4800 W which is too much.

The way around this I think is to consider how you limit the power to these demands (thanks LethalCorpse for the theory). You don't control these elements via a potentiometer, you use burst fire control which is like PWM (pulse width modulation) for high power AC current. Effectively it means you turn full power on to the burner for a set amout of time, and off for a set amount of time to limit the average power to the element. So, knowing that you have 50 cycles per second of mains power, you have 100 half cycles per second as well (each half cycle being 1000ms/100 = 10ms, or 10 milliseconds). If I need to run my element at 24% then, during every second, I have the element at full power for 24 half cycles (240 ms), and off for 76 half cycles (760 ms), using a zero crossing solid state relay (SSR).

During the time that the RIMS element is off (760ms), then I can send 100% of the unused mains power run my HLT element, meaning that I never draw more than 10 amps.

Now the question becomes, "is there a time when I need both elements at more than 50% concurrently?", I don't know, but I don't really think so. I'll get the HLT up to temp before mashing, and then it's just maintaining the temp in the HLT somewhere around 77C, meaning I can do it to it with the RIMS element. Your system might have different requirements.

I'll be doing all this with and embedded PIC microcontroller, however, I'm sure it can be done many ways, ie PLC or computer.

Having said that, I agree with a few of these folks when it comes to brewing experience. Although I don't know your level of experience, and obviously you have a good bit of process experience, it's crucial that you have the brewing process down pact(sp) before you begin building the thing. It's fine to begin the design now, but as you gain more experience in brewing you'll want to change things as you become more familiar with the process, and wish you had incorporated a change before building it, ie before it's "too late". This is why it took me ages to design my RIMS system. As I found problems in the process, or pains, etc. i incorporated solutions into my RIMS system (ie sampling vavles, and bleed valves for priming) which sometimes meant almost starting back from scratch wasting heaps of time. In your case you might decide power timesharing is necessary and have to change the whole process, who knows.

We'll be watching this space with interest, good luck.

Rob

 

[Bandito]

That valve count seems excessive. If you place outlet valves from fermenters close to the CIP/beer out loop, you should minimise dead legs, and then just do the entire pipework loop with as few valves as possible flushing all of that section of pipework every time it is used. Will mean longer flush cycles to do all the pipework every time

I need a valve inbetween each fermenter so I can pump from any fermenter say F-2 into anyother fermenter F-1 (If I want to do that). If I only want to pump from the yeast tank YT-1, into the fermenters then I just need a valve upstream of the yeast tank.

Everything will have to be cleaned even to just clean the beer out line.

If your pipes and valves can take it and you are comfortable handling it, consider having the caustic heated and using something like proxitane/peracetic acid as a sanitiser. I think you need to look at industrial grade sanitation, don't give the bugs a chance, a mystery infection will make you pull hair out. Occasionally tearing down 2 valves in a manual system is inconvenient, having to do 45 when the goal was to minimise labour would make me question why I bothered.

Yea, I am planning on using the herms to heat the caustic. I have looked again at where three valves join, and in some places they can be replaced with just two.

On pumpy's suggestion to keep it simple I have removed the water tank that recycled the hot water from the chiller, that water is damn hot.

 

[OzMick]

I need a valve inbetween each fermenter so I can pump from any fermenter say F-2 into anyother fermenter F-1 (If I want to do that). If I only want to pump from the yeast tank YT-1, into the fermenters then I just need a valve upstream of the yeast tank.

Good point. On this small scale you might be able to get away with using air top pressure to transfer between fermenters rather than a pump, and still do away with a lot of valves by just isolating each end of the tank header then opening the two tanks transferring between. Either way, you'll need to think about how to control when to stop the pump or shut off valves to control oxygen pickup.

 

[Pumpy]

I agree Pumpy. Some of the best beers I have made have come from my little plastic bucket system, consisting of a few 25L pails and an immersion element...

But whatever floats your boat I guess. I don't think I would ever embark on a project like this, as a lot of the hobby's enjoyment for me comes from the brewday, and all the hands on stuff that goes along with it. My personal view is having a fully automated system is akin to just buying some decent microbrews from the bottlo. It becomes more about the engineering of a system than the actual brewing, which is fine, but I gues sthe hoppy kind of becomes fabrication then rather than homebrewing...? Just my personal thoughts, but I wish Bandito well in his mission all the same...

Yes i agree TD , you know me , I love change , its all part of the forum ,just a little bit of reality check dont hurt .


best of luck Bandito

pumpy

 

[Bandito]

Thanks Pumpy.

Good point. On this small scale you might be able to get away with using air top pressure to transfer between fermenters rather than a pump, and still do away with a lot of valves by just isolating each end of the tank header then opening the two tanks transferring between. Either way, you'll need to think about how to control when to stop the pump or shut off valves to control oxygen pickup.

What is air top pressure? Gravity? edit- yea it is.

Due to the position of the pump, it seems I cant pump from fermenter 1 into fermenter 3 without either reversing the pump direction or adding a few more valves. Reversing the peristatic should be fine.

Latest design attached. Removed some valves (now 37), numbered the valves and added them to the list, and started filling out the types so an approximate price can be worked out.

Done quite a few hours on this aver the past few days, probably 15 to 20 so far, I'm stuffed!

View attachment AUTOBREW_01_REV_D.pdf

 

[jagerbrau]

IM interested in limited control well its temp control only. still like turning taps and stuff. Even the bigger brewery that i have played with was lots of tap turning and pulling apart at the end of the work day. Im looking at the computer based solution mentioned earlier in thread, my question is can anyone recomend a ebay supplier of ssr, im not only needing couple for this project but couple for other projects.

If any one can point out one they have dealt with would be good. Cheers..

 

[Bandito]

IM interested in limited control well its temp control only. still like turning taps and stuff. Even the bigger brewery that i have played with was lots of tap turning and pulling apart at the end of the work day. Im looking at the computer based solution mentioned earlier in thread, my question is can anyone recomend a ebay supplier of ssr, im not only needing couple for this project but couple for other projects.

If any one can point out one they have dealt with would be good. Cheers..

Jaycar have a 240V 40A Solid State Relay CAT no. SY-4084 for $47.95 Doesnt say its a zero resistance one. Has control inputs that work from 4V to 30V dc. Have a look at Jaycar.com.au

Update: I have eliminated two pumps! So there is only one pump controlling it all!

A quick estimate suggests there is about $2000 of valves atm. I have an idea for a cheap design using a geared motor to compress a neoprene or teflon tube that is mounted on a board supported by a spring. I started making a prototype by dont have a strong spring So its off to bunnings tomorrow. The amount of pressure it can hold back will be determined by the strength of the spring. Even so. I wouldnt use it for critical valves, but it would be sanitry

Does anyone know where to get teflon tubing? I have been looking for about 14 years!

 

[komodo]

Thought that budget was a little slim...

as for gaycar SSRs... flee bay will get you the same item 3 times over for that price.

I've purchased 5 SSRs from seller virtualvillage on ebay

edit:

ebay example with heatsink
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Solid-State-Relay-S...=item5ad66c25e0

 

[jagerbrau]

cheers for that will troll evilbay for a some.....

 

[Bandito]

Thought that budget was a little slim...

Might not be so slim afterall... changed quite a few valves to my unproven theoretical design of a geared motor crushed tube valve and the estimated cost is looking better. I can get the geared motors from jaycar for $11 after a bulk discount and a trade discount which I have cos I spend heaps there. I havent added the cost of springs - and they do cost heaps. Spose I should do some ebay trolling myself. Planning on ordering from OS to get cheaper prices.

Latest design and a preliminary sketch of the valve design is attached - is this sort of design used anywhere? Is there a commercial example?

There will be a bolt or screw screwed from the underside of the bottom plate, and that will have a small spring threaded onto the top of it. By adjusting the height of this second small screw, the pressure exerted on the tube can be adjusted. This second screw will complete a circuit which will cut off power to the geared motor.

View attachment AUTOBREW_01_rev_E.pdf

View attachment GEARED_MOTOR_CRUSHED_VALVE_REV_A.pdf

 

[Zwickel]

Does anyone know where to get teflon tubing? I have been looking for about 14 years!

guess you wont find any, teflon is far too expensive for that. You may use silicon tubings instead. All the tubings around my little brewery are made of silicon.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[newguy]

Jaycar have a 240V 40A Solid State Relay CAT no. SY-4084 for $47.95 Doesnt say its a zero resistance one. Has control inputs that work from 4V to 30V dc. Have a look at Jaycar.com.au

What are you planning to drive with that!?! That can handle nearly 10kW!!!

 

[katzke]

You do sound like an ass, but you are forgiven. The first post details my specifications, not my last. Quote from OP: "Due to the space requirements and cost I am planning for the system to have about a 5 litre fermenter capacity".

Thanks for understanding the spirit of my last post.

If you are looking at a design that is the size of a stackable washer and dryer or a normal sized fridge and not one of the mini fridges I still think you can brew more then 5 liters at a time. It sounds like you are going to ferment in a second fridge next to the brew bot so you need to accommodate a boil kettle and mash tun. The hot liquid tank does not have to be that large as you only need enough to do a first infusion and can reheat the sparge water while mashing. Grain storage is minimal as you only have a few storage bins and will have to mix grain as some brews require more then three grain choices.

Just to let you know I did try and look at you pdf but it will not open on my old computer.

If the placement of the brew bot is next to plumbing then the size requirement is reduced by that convenience.

One thing to consider is instead of dumping the mash tun why not use a large valve and dump the grain? Or if you used flexible hose and a basket like the German brew system, which has been linked to in some of the BIAB threads, you could pull out the mash tun and pull the basket of grain. Then a rinse system could take care of the rest. The use of a kitchen garbage disposal in the drain line would deal with left over grain and the hops from the boil kettle.

Dont forget a way to vent the steam from the boil.

As to the suggestion of using air to push the wort in the fermentors. Low pressure CO2 is a much better choice, as you have no worries about oxidizing the wort. A simple pressure switch could be used to detect when the fermentor is empty as the resistance of the wort will be gone and the gas will flow faster and thus will reduce the pressure in an open system like fermentors should be. A timer could be used as a backup so you do not blow an entire tank when transferring.

Not sure if any of these suggestion will fit into your design.

 

[Bandito]

guess you wont find any, teflon is far too expensive for that. You may use silicon tubings instead. All the tubings around my little brewery are made of silicon.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

I used to use it on peristatic pumps on chemical analysis instruments when I was studying to be a chemical laboratory technician. Atomic adsorption spectrometers and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometers both use it. It is more hardy than neoprene. It does go opaque after months of pumping strong acids, but is clear and lasts longer than neoprene. Not sure if silicon is used in peristatic pumps? so not sure if it can handle repeated squashing?

What are you planning to drive with that!?! That can handle nearly 10kW!!!

The next smallest one in the jaycar catalogue is a 3A version.

f you are looking at a design that is the size of a stackable washer and dryer or a normal sized fridge and not one of the mini fridges I still think you can brew more then 5 liters at a time. It sounds like you are going to ferment in a second fridge next to the 'brew bot' so you need to accommodate a boil kettle and mash tun. The hot liquid tank does not have to be that large as you only need enough to do a first infusion and can reheat the sparge water while mashing. Grain storage is minimal as you only have a few storage bins and will have to mix grain as some brews require more then three grain choices.

Just to let you know I did try and look at you pdf but it will not open on my old computer.

Size of a fridge is my aim. There is also the cleanng chemical tanks which need to be larger than the largest vessel to be cleaned (2 x 30L)- this beefs the overall size up. And was hoping to use a 500W herms (just as an initial guess). But will see what the overall size comes out at in a few weeks.

I'll try to save the pdf's to an earlier version.

 

[newguy]

The next smallest one in the jaycar catalogue is a 3A version.

Shop around. Digikey, Mouser, Jameco, Newark just off the top of my head. Digikey is my preferred supplier - I think my SSR in my HERMS was ~$25 and it's rated at 20A, 240V. .......Just checked and digikey.ca has it in stock for $24.01. Link.

 

[technocat]

Jaycar have a 240V 40A Solid State Relay CAT no. SY-4084 for $47.95 Doesnt say its a zero resistance one. Has control inputs that work from 4V to 30V dc. Have a look at Jaycar.com.au
quote]

Virtual Village on ebay have them for $16.00 + $7.00 P&P, I use two on my system and they work fine. Twist their arm and you will get it cheaper. Jaycar are licensed to print money.

 

[yardy]

why not a decent sized dump valve in the base of the Tun to assist with cleaning ?

for this to work you should be underletting your strike water also (water from HLT flows in under the false bottom)

to CIP after the spent grain has been dumped your rinse/spray water would first flow from the top and then from the underlet, everything goes out the dump valve.

One thing to consider is instead of dumping the mash tun why not use a large valve and dump the grain?

good idea


another thing to consider is the steam from the kettle and the placement of the pipe from the hop distributor, ( i refuse to say hop hopper ) steam and residue from the hops will get messy in that pipe.

cheers

 

[lonte]

... you could potentially do the whole brew in one vessel, so no issues with pumping etc, would keep the whole pumping part of things to a minimum.

I could kill for one of these http://www.speidels-braumeister.de/shop_co...The-Braumeister - they even have a 200L version too! I'd add a HLT and sparge the grain once lifted from the vessel I think. Neat package all up though.

 

[katzke]

Size of a fridge is my aim. There is also the cleanng chemical tanks which need to be larger than the largest vessel to be cleaned (2 x 30L)- this beefs the overall size up. And was hoping to use a 500W herms (just as an initial guess). But will see what the overall size comes out at in a few weeks.

Well if you change from storing pre mixed chemicals to mixing them in the HLT then you remove that part of the problem. An automated system intended to brew multiple batches should only need a quick rinse after each operation. Even the ring of gunk in the boil kettle should respond well enough to a hot water rinse. If in doubt brew light to dark in color and flavor to keep the brews in style. You could even use a metered system of mixing to mix on the fly. Either of these would remove the need for a single or set of large tanks.

With what you will have tied up in this project flushing cleaners and sanitizers after one use is not unreasonable. Again you can use the HLT for temporary storage when doing a complete system clean. If you do it like a dish washer, then you can reduce the amount of cleaner used by an extended spray of the cleaner.

There are advantages to one time use of cleaners and sanitizers. No need to monitor them for effectiveness.

I find that Powdered Brew Wash is effective enough that a prolonged spray should do the trick. StarSan is a very effective contact sanitizer. You may want to get the new low foam product for this application or the foam may be a problem for you. In either case you would only need enough to fill the longest line plus some so the pump does not cavitate.

 

[komodo]

Ok im gunna sound like a jerk here but personally I think you should just **** off the grain hoppers unless your going to keep them with recipe grain bills. I think if you want the hoppers to actually opperate as I think your intending them (ie to weigh out the ingredients to each grain bill) your going to have countless issues with such small grain bills - especially if you are after repeatability. Not to mention that many recipes have more than 3 grains.

I would piss them off all together you could easily do two brews a day by doing some manual labour and prepering your recipe grain bills yourself. Do one in the morning before work and one when you get home. The rest of the system should take car of cleaning and running itself so all you'd have to do would be to chuck the grains in the tun and hit the go button.

Likewise for the fermenters - piss off the automated distribution system and change over the fermenters when you prepare your grain bill. You'd save a tonne of effort in building something thats going to give you headaches trying to resolve small niggles. 2 batches ever 24 hours is 70L per week. If your drinking 10L of beer per day you have a serious health issue. if you upsized to 12L batches as your being encouraged to thats near on 170L. Lets discount that by 20% due to losses to trub etc and you still looking at 56L and 135L respectively or 2900L to 7000L per year or 320 slabs to 780 slabs per year... Even if your throwing a pissup every weekend 14slabs a week is a lot of beer.

 

[OzMick]

What is air top pressure? Gravity? edit- yea it is.

Due to the position of the pump, it seems I cant pump from fermenter 1 into fermenter 3 without either reversing the pump direction or adding a few more valves. Reversing the peristatic should be fine.

Sorry, I didn't realise the air you had connected was for wort aeration, just used to the way things are done at the big breweries. If you only have a wimpy fish tank pump it won't be powerful enough for what I was trying to describe, and would be connected at the bottom of the tank anyway. That being the case, you might want to think about having air injected inline at the outlet of the wort chiller. Will be easier to clean and only requires a single valve to be controlled regardless of tank number. The problem with having each tank individually aerated is that while not in operation, the tube running to the bottom of each tank will fill with beer and you'll have one helluva time making sure that tube is sanitised. You'll need to macgyver some section of pipe with an airstone inside of it, but would be my preference if I were building something.

What I was trying to describe was that pressurising a tank will hydraulically push a fluid in the same way as a pump, so while it is sort of like gravity, you can effectively push uphill with the pressure difference from one tank to another. 10kpa of pressure is roughly the equivalent of 1m of water head on a pump. You would need the ability to close off all CO2 airlocks and fermenters that can take a small amount of pressure, but gas valves should be cheaper considering you've got overflows on each fermenter to prevent any beer contacting them. Possibly not worth doing though if you can instead simplify the aeration system to just have an inline injection setup, but if gas valves are significantly cheaper than sanitary liquid ones and you have an air compressor that can deliver enough pressure, might still be an option to save a bit of coin.

 

[Zwickel]

..... Not sure if silicon is used in peristatic pumps? so not sure if it can handle repeated squashing?

yes you can. Silicon is an inert material, relatively soft and preferred for usage in peristaltic pumps. All the labaratory analyzers Im working with, are equipped with silicon tubes.

:icon_cheers:

 

[LethalCorpse]

Norprene is also used in peristaltic pumps

 

[rwmingis]

Bandito,

2 things, ocean controls is another option for sourcing supplies like SSR's, they've gotten me out of a few binds, and they're Aussie which is nice. Don't know how their price relates to others however.

With regards to your crush valve, have you considered using a cam or an eccentric wheel (much easier) to crush the hose. You would probably need to put a bit of thin metal plate between the cam and the silicone tube to prevent wear on the tube from rubbing. A cam or an eccentric can help develop heaps more force with less torque. You could make the cam out of wood, or an eccentric wheel with something like 20mm round bar sliced into wafers with an eccentricly located hole for the shaft.

Cheers,

Rob

 

[Bandito]

I could kill for one of these http://www.speidels-braumeister.de/shop_co...The-Braumeister - they even have a 200L version too! I'd add a HLT and sparge the grain once lifted from the vessel I think. Neat package all up though.

Will have to have a good look at that, thanks.

Well if you change from storing pre mixed chemicals to mixing them in the HLT then you remove that part of the problem. An automated system intended to brew multiple batches should only need a quick rinse after each operation. Even the ring of gunk in the boil kettle should respond well enough to a hot water rinse. If in doubt brew light to dark in color and flavor to keep the brews in style. You could even use a metered system of mixing to mix on the fly. Either of these would remove the need for a single or set of large tanks.

With what you will have tied up in this project flushing cleaners and sanitizers after one use is not unreasonable. Again you can use the HLT for temporary storage when doing a complete system clean.

Yea, I agree, concentrate it is me thinks! Dont want to require a doseing pump though, mabee my new grain hopper design will also work for powder, dumped into a pipe and washed out by water.

Ok im gunna sound like a jerk here but personally I think you should just **** off the grain hoppers unless your going to keep them with recipe grain bills.
SNIP..
Likewise for the fermenters - piss off the automated distribution system and change over the fermenters when you prepare your grain bill. You'd save a tonne of effort in building something thats going to give you headaches trying to resolve small niggles.

Hmmm, nah, its a fully automated system it is and a fully automated system it will be. Your post did give me the motivation to think about the grain hopper design and have decided that a gum ball machine type design will work. It is basically a large ball valve but with only one end open - when the open end is facing up, it fills with grain, when it is turned so it is facing down the grain falls out. The weight should be able to be accurately measured initially and all grain additions from that hopper will be in multiples of that amount. Currently making a prototype from a tin of tomatoes that I opened on the side.

Sorry, I didn't realise the air you had connected was for wort aeration, just used to the way things are done at the big breweries. If you only have a wimpy fish tank pump it won't be powerful enough for what I was trying to describe, and would be connected at the bottom of the tank anyway. That being the case, you might want to think about having air injected inline at the outlet of the wort chiller. Will be easier to clean and only requires a single valve to be controlled regardless of tank number. The problem with having each tank individually aerated is that while not in operation, the tube running to the bottom of each tank will fill with beer and you'll have one helluva time making sure that tube is sanitised. You'll need to macgyver some section of pipe with an airstone inside of it, but would be my preference if I were building something.

The air pump that is mounted inside my fridge isnt strong enough to make bubbles if the tube is any more then 10cm below the surface! It wouldnt even pass as a wimpy fish tank pump . Interesting concept. The wort will still be warm when it comes out of the tap water chiller so not sure if I should be airating warm wort. Originally I did have a glycol chiller after the tap water chiller but deleted it for simplicity, space and cost. I have reciently learned that pitching yeast into warm wort is acceptable as it takes a while to use up the oxygen, by which time the wort would be cold - not sure if I subscribe to this as it might shock the yeast. You are right about needing to sanitise the air lines, was hoping to avoid this but nah, it would be needed I think. Lately I have just been airating wort by putting the tube 7cm or so into the wort from the top.

yes you can. Silicon is an inert material, relatively soft and preferred for usage in peristaltic pumps. All the labaratory analyzers Im working with, are equipped with silicon tubes.

:icon_cheers:

Not as good as teflon, but Silicon it is! Thanks.

Neoprene is not clear, I would really really prefer clear tubing all round - had a bad dream last night where there was mould in my brew lines and I was cleaning them out with a pressurised hose - freaky!

Bandito,
With regards to your crush valve, have you considered using a cam or an eccentric wheel (much easier) to crush the hose. You would probably need to put a bit of thin metal plate between the cam and the silicone tube to prevent wear on the tube from rubbing. A cam or an eccentric can help develop heaps more force with less torque. You could make the cam out of wood, or an eccentric wheel with something like 20mm round bar sliced into wafers with an eccentricly located hole for the shaft.

Cheers,

Rob

I did Bob, even the geared motor I am using has a shaft which is flat on one side. The thin piece of metal is what I am looking for but aside from a bearing - holy ****, that it, just mount a bearing on the exxentric cam! Your a geneous Bob! Thats the design!

Well, extremely happy with todays work. We got the grain dosing concept underway, which will also be used for the cleaning powders and hopfully for the hop dispenser too (he he). The tubing for the crushed valves and probably the entire system was decided. The design for the crushed valves was improved and will probably be the final design. and the system was reduced to just one pump! Frekin mad! Thanks for the help!