Pimped Silvia (PID + Timer + Water)

[bowds1122]

Thought I'd share a project I've been wanting to work on for a while.

I've had my Silvia for about a year, and PID'd externally for most of it.

I've finally got around to:
- Adding boiler insulation
- Mounting the PID internally
- Adding a shot timer
- Adding a water light controlled via a float switch

The PID is obviously easy to do, however it is only a single setpoint so I don't have steam control. I tried, but failed to set that up. I'll have to upgrade my PID I think.

There is a reset button for the timer next to the brew switch as I couldn't work out how to wire it up correctly to have it reset automatically. The LED timer remembers where it was at, which in this case is a bit of a pain. So I flick the brew switch, the timer starts, and hit the reset button straight away. Hooked up via a 240 to 12v transformer.

The green LED is run through a float switch in the tank. It goes out when there isn't much water left in the tank. I think I might reverse this, as the light is pretty bright. It's also hooked up via a 240 to 12v transformer.





Thanks for looking!

[artman]

Very cool and looking nice and pimped!

Do you have any further info on how you mounted the float switch?

Cheers

[bowds1122]

The float switch is mounted through the base if the tank. It's a pretty small shaft so the light turns off when there is less than 2 inches of water left in the tank.

So it's now a permanent fixture because there's a hole in the bottom of the tank!

Also made it so the wires can be detached for removal/cleaning.

[diode123]

Really professional job...Well done

[koshari]

Bowds, thanks for the post, all though its been a while I are just about to take the plunge myself with the same controller.

just a couple of observations/questions,

for your shot timer I think you would need to use a on-delay timer and then run the pump off the B contact from the common. this way switching the brew switch on would power the timers coil immediately energising the pump via the b contact in the rest position until the set time elapsed therefore activating the contact and breaking the B contact. turning the switch back off would therefore reset the timer.

Is the lower LED readout the timer value or a digital pressure/temp readout?

I intend to make my implementation 100% reversible so I will be mounting the controller in some ally rectangular hollow section in the popular position under the steam valve and may later on use a weightometer (spring and limit switch ) under the tank or a reed switch to detect water low. just haven't figured out where to mount indicator for that.

anyway you posted a couple of times about your PID settings and i was just wondering if you had experimented further with them.

cheers.