Constant woes with this system

[Stephen_Holt]

Got to say I’m totally fed up with this system & im ready to give up on it, I can’t believe that adding an extra vessel with an element to Herms is so difficult?

I think that it’s probably me that wants something simple to use & the programming side of it is just too difficult when you step outside of the wizard.

Has anyone else successfully got their system working with an extra vessel?

I have a HLT with elements no Herms coil.

A MT that circulates through a 2L vessel with an element in it.

A BK with an element.

All I want is to input a temp into the MT set point & the element in the small 2L vessel heats the liquid & maintains it at that temp.

HLT keeps a constant temp

Bk keeps a constant temp

Am I asking too much?

[Bob_Steers]

I’m sorry to hear you’re still having problems with configuration.

Your setup is perfectly doable, and can even be created using two of the wizards: HERMS, and Brew Kettle.

First go through the HERMS wizard. You want to use your 2L vessel as the “HLT” generated by this wizard. This only requires some minor changes:

In the naming step, rename “HLT” to “Vessel” (or name of your preference)

In the settings step, set “HLT” size to 2L

Complete the wizard, and you now have your setup minus your actual HLT.

Now, to add your HLT, start the “Brew kettle” wizard. When asked, choose to keep blocks.

In the naming step, set the prefix to “HLT” to let the wizard generate the correct names.

Complete the wizard, and you now have:

• BK (with heating element)
• HLT (with heating element)
• MT (no heating element, connected to the HERMS coil)
• Vessel (with heating element and HERMS coil)

You’ll need to manually update the HERMS builder layout to include your HLT.

For example, it could be made to look like this:

In this diagram, the pipes connected to the left kettle generated by the HERMS wizard (now labeled vessel) were moved to the left, and a new kettle (HLT) was added.
Setpoint, PID, and heater parts were added to the diagram, and linked to the HLT Setpoint, PID, and PWM.

If you want your HLT to be mutually exclusive with your vessel and BK:

• Go to the Spark service page
• Open the “HLT Actuator” block settings
• Click the “no constraints configured” button -> add constraint -> mutually exclusive -> set mutex to “HERMS mutex”
• Close the “HLT Actuator” block settings
• Open the “HLT PWM” block settings
• Click “no constraints configured” -> add constraint -> Balanced -> set balancer to “HERMS Balancer”

Now all heating elements are mutually exclusive and governed by the balancer.