Trying to start a project just as you become a dad isn’t the best plan, but I’ve finally completed my fermentation chamber after about 6 months. \u00a0I’m already making a beer in it and so far it is working great. \u00a0The ironic thing is that the temperature is about 70 degrees right now and the fermentation chamber doesn’t really have to do anything, but at least I’ve staying at a constant temperature.<\/p>\n
First things first, here are pictures of the completed project\u00a0\u00a0(click an image for a larger view)<\/p>\n
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I bought my things from four main places. \u00a0The temperature controllers came from E-bay, the A\/C unit was from craigslist, the 110VAC lights, switches and relays are from Allelectronics.com, and the rest of the material was from Home Depot. \u00a0The box is made of 2x4s, 1\/4 plywood, and 2 inch foam. \u00a0I used foam glue to attach the plywood to the foam and 2″ screws to join all the 2x4s. \u00a0To join the foam pieces together and cover holes I used Great Stuff. \u00a0After I add up all the pieces I spent just a bit under $500. \u00a0I bought a few tools, but was able to borrow most of the big tools from family and friends. \u00a0The most surprising thing was how expensive outlets, outlet boxes, fuse holders, and \u00a0the controller box were.<\/p>\n
Overall the project came together pretty close to the plan<\/a>. \u00a0I can’t cut straight, follow my directions, or paint, but other than that I did pretty good. \u00a0The borrowed tools really helped cutting relatively straight lines, not straight, but straight enough. \u00a0When I built the controller box I had a few errors that needed correcting, but that was fine and not completely unexpected. \u00a0I also didn’t like how my doors were going to seal so I added another foam border to help with that.<\/p>\n The control box almost was a disaster. \u00a0I used a bremel to cut out the switches with no problem. \u00a0The wiring went to plan. \u00a0I did have a bit of difficult soldering the wires to the switch contact points, but eventually got it. \u00a0the I used a few contact boards to provide a secure attach point for the external wires to the internal wires. \u00a0At the very end I almost couldn’t get the lid to close. \u00a0I had to move and twist the wires around and apply some pressure to finally seal things up. \u00a0I had two mistakes during this build. \u00a0First, my initial wiring for the relay looked really good, but upon testing I discovered that I did about 50% of the connections wrong and had to redo it all. \u00a0Finally, once it was all sealed up I discovered that my compression did break a couple of contacts that I had to go in and fix. \u00a0But in the end the controller works great and looks pretty good.<\/p>\n As an extra thing that I worked on while I couldn’t get down to the garage is that I converted two old cell phones into IP webcams, one to watch the control panel and the other inside the chamber to watch the fermenting process and to double check temperatures. \u00a0To get my wifi signal to reach the garage I had to setup a wifi repeater<\/a>. \u00a0The two phones were android phones and I was able to use free apps to setup the webcams. \u00a0I installed IP Webcam<\/a>\u00a0for the webcams, droid VNC server<\/a> to get into the phone remotely along with Screen Widget<\/a> to turn the screen off (if needed). \u00a0Finally, I can watch the webcams with the built in webpages from IP Webcam and I also use IP CAM Controller<\/a>\u00a0to see things from my phone. \u00a0I had planned for this which is why I have an outlet not controlled by the STC-1000s so that the internal cell phone could remain on all the time.<\/p>\n Here are several photos during the build\u00a0\u00a0(click an image for a larger view)<\/p>\n Now that I’ve build my project I think I’d do it a bit different next time.<\/p>\n I haven’t made the dividing section so that I can have two temperature zones inside. \u00a0 I have the controller and the wiring all done and all is left is to figure how I would do this. \u00a0I’m thinking some type of relay to open and close a small opening and then a fan to circulate air. \u00a0I also have to figure out how to make the section so that it can be moved around and then “expanded” to give it a tighte fit. \u00a0I’ll have to think about this for a while, until then…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Looking Back<\/h2>\n
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\u00a0Next Steps<\/h2>\n