Keg King element wiring etc.

[philistine]

Hey Dudes,
I picked up a 2200w keg king heat stick element today.
It's going to be installed along with a HERM-IT coil inside a vessel to become an external HEX for a 4v HERMS build.

I bought a pre wired one (stupidly) with the intention of just removing the cable etc. so as to install the base of it into an enclosure with a fuse protected power inlet.
When I got it I discovered that the plug/cable set up in actually moulded on to the thing....

So, two things-

When I went to cut it off, i discovered that the cavity is packed with something (sand/glass powder/asbestos/some ****). What is this stuff? Is the whole thing ****** now because I tipped it out? Is it some kind of heat shielding for the plastic?
View attachment 97571

I havent yet cut the cable, just the sheath, but I've exposed the wires and they're red, green & yellow..... Obviously Im not electronically minded because Im asking this question - which colour means what?
My guess is red - neutral, yellow - live, green - earth. Does that sound right?


Thanks in advance!

 

[philistine]

Pic didnt work....

 

[blotto]

which colour means what?
My guess is red - neutral, yellow - live, green - earth. Does that sound right?

You will need a multi meter to test which is the earth then the other 2 shouldn't matter all that much which goes to active and neutral. It would be slightly good practice using the red for active if it's not the earth I suppose. I don't think you should have let out the stuff that was in there it might have been insulating the terminals from each other or could be there to try reduce an arc should they short. Not sure if I'd use it. Good luck.

 

[Benn]

Hahaha Pisser
..Sorry dude I don't mean to offend but those are the best posts I've read in a long time. Pissing myself laughing.
(Sorry I can't offer any constructive advice)

 

[barls]

mate if you have no idea on wiring please leave it to the professionals.
this stuff can kill.

 

[philistine]

You will need a multi meter to test which is the earth then the other 2 shouldn't matter all that much which goes to active and neutral. It would be slightly good practice using the red for active if it's not the earth I suppose. I don't think you should have let out the stuff that was in there it might have been insulating the terminals from each other or could be there to try reduce an arc should they short. Not sure if I'd use it. Good luck.

baaaaahhhh... FFS..........
WHY did I do that....!??!

I cant find it now, but one of the online brew supplies websites sells them un-wired and wired, so when a mate said he was heading to Grain and Grape (who only sell wired ones) I thought I could save a few bucks on postage and just get a wired one and re-jig it.

 

[Maheel]

i think the white stuff also stops the heat F#$%ing up the wires from the heat.... they are a POS thing

personally i think you should bin it and by a proper element....

 

[philistine]

i think the white stuff also stops the heat F#$%ing up the wires from the heat.... they are a POS thing

personally i think you should bin it and by a proper element....

• Like This

Yeah, I f***ing have a proper element but the wattage is too high to use with my f***ing house wiring.
grumblegrumblegrumblegrumblegrumblegrumblefuckinggrumble

also, the KK element was the only one Ive found that has the thread and backnut below the element (as in - it's tightened from outside) - this solved another issue I had with my HEX being a bit tricky to put together......

wanna link me a proper straight element 2200w or less?

 

[philistine]

PS. I dont know how to quote people's comments properly

 

[barls]

http://www.thermalproducts.com.au/hot-water/#post-510

 

[Camo6]

5 star elements. On phone, can't link.

 

[huez]

I'm confused as to why you didn't either just cut the plug off the end or buy and appropriate extension lead and wire to that? Throw it in the bin and buy one from 5star, email them if something isn't in stock. No affiliation, just a happy customer.
http://www.5stardistilling.net/boiler-accessories/

 

[pcmfisher]

Those elements are dodgy enough without modding them.

 

[rude]

Five star have no supplier at present

I went for Romar but it cost me

Mate it was all wired for you why did you hack into it ???

 

[philistine]

I'm confused as to why you didn't either just cut the plug off the end or buy and appropriate extension lead and wire to that? Throw it in the bin and buy one from 5star, email them if something isn't in stock. No affiliation, just a happy customer.
http://www.5stardistilling.net/boiler-accessories/

In hindsight, yeah - that would have been a better option to try first, but because I'm mounting the element to an enclosure, the moulded silicone lead/connection fiasco barely fits. It adds about 50mm of rigid stuff that I need to fit inside the enclosure.
Also, I've seen these for sale without any leads of plugs wired to them, so I thought that it'd be a really simple matter of just removing the lead and hard wiring it to a power socket inside the enclosure.
​

Five star have no supplier at present

I went for Romar but it cost me

Mate it was all wired for you why did you hack into it ???

A ) because im a ********
and
b ) As mentioned above, I wanted to hard-wire it to a socket inside an enclosure. There's no room in the enclosure for all the moulded silicon junk

 

[philistine]

the 5-star stuff looks good, but they only go as low as 2400w.
I need something a little lower, like 2200w. Im limited by my household wiring, so the total max load of my rig had to be 20amps or less. I've already got a 2400w element running in an urn, so I need to keep the other elemtn at 2200w or lower so Ive got enough wiggle room to include pumps and controllers and maybe a lightbulb in case its night time....

 

[Bridges]

Have you had your voltage measured. The voltage changes the how many amps a a heating element will use. The supply authority gives you 230V plus or minus 10% so 207volts to 253volts is deemed aceptable. (You don't nomally see these extremes though) Point is 2200w/220v = 10A 2200w/240v = 9.1A This difference could help a lot in your calcs for running pumps and lights etc.
As for the keg king element bin it and start again.
Try talking to someone like thermal products in Thomastown vic they may be able to sort you with what you are after.
Also get an electrician to wire up anything that needs to be wired. That way it works and its safe.

 

[Camo6]

What's the rating of your main switch? Do you only have one power circuit?

 

[philistine]

Have you had your voltage measured. The voltage changes the how many amps a a heating element will use. The supply authority gives you 230V plus or minus 10% so 207volts to 253volts is deemed aceptable. (You don't nomally see these extremes though) Point is 2200w/220v = 10A 2200w/240v = 9.1A This difference could help a lot in your calcs for running pumps and lights etc.
As for the keg king element bin it and start again.
Try talking to someone like thermal products in Thomastown vic they may be able to sort you with what you are after.
Also get an electrician to wire up anything that needs to be wired. That way it works and its safe.

cheers dude, appreciate the input.
Haven't had the voltage measured.... I just assumed it was 240v , although recently after sussing out my switchboard with a sparky (in an effort to figure out if I could install a 32amp circuit) we discovered that the whole thing is friggin ancient and made from asbestos with 250v ceramic fuses of various amp ratings. Whether or not that means our supply in the house is 250v I dont know....

The whole reason for wanting to do it this way goes back to my rig design - in short, its a 4v HERMS using an electric urn as an HLT and a seperate Heat exchanger to re-circulate the mash through, so I want to be able to run two elements simultaneously.
Initially, once I realised I couldnt do it, I changed my control panel design to have a 3 position selector switch hooked up to the elements which meant that I could only use one at a time, but this would have been a pain in the *** as I'd have to switch of the element in my HEX to raise the sparge water temp to mash out and sparge.
The option 2/work-around was to reduce the wattage of one element and change the control panel to include 2 separate 10A power inlets, but they would run from/be supplied by the same household circuit.
The option 3/work around is that same, except I'd plug the individual power inputs to separate circuits within the house.
In any case, 20A would have to be the limit regardless.

but, it looks as though the only way to do this successfully would be to just use one element at a time and keep the selector switch design....

 

[philistine]

What's the rating of your main switch? Do you only have one power circuit?

its hard to tell due to the ancient-ness of the set up.
My sparky informs me that I have 32A max for the entire house.
We have several circuits, but they're all fused at 15-16A. We were considering swapping out one of those fuses for a 20A

As Im only renting, I cant afford any major work to our electrics and due to the fact that the entire switch board is made from asbestos, Im looking at a much much higher price than a standard switchboard/wiring upgrade - or at least thats what Ive been told