Bought some nice new plywood and I'll make another project box.
In the meantime, spent today moving a little on from the proof of concept stage to a more permanent footing.
The live leads which once attached to the pressurestat I've placed onto a terminal strip which in turn is housed neatly and safely in a little black project box screwed to the machine's robust frame.

All the wiring will be made neater, and to length, once the new project box is finished, maybe midweek.
As foreshadowed, I soldered a steel nut to a copper nut. Together they make a little tunnel into which the thermocouple screws into.
Then I syphoned out the water from the boiler via a small plastic tubing into the vacuum break valve port. The water conducts heat away during soldering.

To hold the two nuts in place during the soldering I screwed a bolt onto them and held that against the boiler with a steel rule pressing on a couple of water pipes.

Some heat transfer paste and I screwed the thermocouple into the nuts. Not too tightly as I suspect there's going to be a bit of contraction and expansion.

Fired her up, and this time the 93°c setting for 1 bar was way too cold...It's working nicely on 110° at the moment,
In the meantime, spent today moving a little on from the proof of concept stage to a more permanent footing.
The live leads which once attached to the pressurestat I've placed onto a terminal strip which in turn is housed neatly and safely in a little black project box screwed to the machine's robust frame.
All the wiring will be made neater, and to length, once the new project box is finished, maybe midweek.
As foreshadowed, I soldered a steel nut to a copper nut. Together they make a little tunnel into which the thermocouple screws into.
Then I syphoned out the water from the boiler via a small plastic tubing into the vacuum break valve port. The water conducts heat away during soldering.
To hold the two nuts in place during the soldering I screwed a bolt onto them and held that against the boiler with a steel rule pressing on a couple of water pipes.
Some heat transfer paste and I screwed the thermocouple into the nuts. Not too tightly as I suspect there's going to be a bit of contraction and expansion.
Fired her up, and this time the 93°c setting for 1 bar was way too cold...It's working nicely on 110° at the moment,

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