Wiring A Flow Controller

[Acasta]

Why not use a ebay led dimmer? They come in 12 and 24v versions.

I had the remote one lying around so I used that, but found I couldn't really get a feel for the settings I was using and it was too hard to control.

So I got one of the dimmer switches and wired it up. But it doesn't really seem to be throttling the pump very much. At full turn on, it fills 1L in about 13.5sec and turned fully the other way it fills 1L in about 14.5sec. Doesn't seem slow enough.

I think I may just go get a ball valve and set it up at a wort return in my system and throttle from there.

 

[Golani51]

I had the remote one lying around so I used that, but found I couldn't really get a feel for the settings I was using and it was too hard to control.

So I got one of the dimmer switches and wired it up. But it doesn't really seem to be throttling the pump very much. At full turn on, it fills 1L in about 13.5sec and turned fully the other way it fills 1L in about 14.5sec. Doesn't seem slow enough.

I think I may just go get a ball valve and set it up at a wort return in my system and throttle from there.

I would be interested to hear other's ideas on this. Assuming I bought a 5 pack (I have plans!), how could the dimmer- controlled flow be reduced without using a ball valve?

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

I would be interested to hear other's ideas on this. Assuming I bought a 5 pack (I have plans!), how could the dimmer- controlled flow be reduced without using a ball valve?

Sounds like you need to add more resistors or get a multi volt AC/DC adapter, not my field of expertise (DC) but I am sure other have the knowledge (PM Dent).
Good luck , report on progress.
Nev

 

[Acasta]

Looking into this a bit more and hoping to get some advice as I don't know a whole lot about this area.

I orginally bought those 12V dimmers from ebay (see above post) which didn't seem to really work...

Then I came across this post, that claims pretty good results using a PWM controller (Pulse Width Modulation) which is what I believe the OP has

Any idea if the two products are different? If I get a PWM controller Will it be any different to the dimmer I already tried?

Thanks

 

[mgill]

Looking into this a bit more and hoping to get some advice as I don't know a whole lot about this area.

I orginally bought those 12V dimmers from ebay (see above post) which didn't seem to really work...

Then I came across this post, that claims pretty good results using a PWM controller (Pulse Width Modulation) which is what I believe the OP has

Any idea if the two products are different? If I get a PWM controller Will it be any different to the dimmer I already tried?

Thanks

At a glance, they are both PWM controllers, however PWM stands for Pulse width modulated, which means it switches on and off (sort of like an oven when it is trying to reach a specific temperature). The amount of time it is on versus the amount of time it is off determines the speed (so if it is on 100% of the time it would be full speed, conversely if it was on for 0.75s and off for 0.25 it would be approximately 3/4 speed).

So the on time versus the off time determines the power sent to the device, but there is also another factor which is the switching freqency.

The switching frequency is the on time plus the off time. In a household light dimmer this would be about 100 times per second, in motor speed controllers it is much higher, 20+ thousand times per second. (They do this to overcome some characteristics of motors).

At a guess i would say that the switching freqency of the two circuits is different, the LED dimmer only needs to be around 100Hz whereas the jaycar one is designed for motor control so would be a much higher switching freqency.

Hope this helps, my suggestion would be to use one which others have tried and proved to work (plus the jaycar one has a much higher power handling capability which may come in useful if you upgrade the pump further down the track.