My Franken-fridge build

Hello fellow BrewPi users!

This forum has been a massive source of inspiration to me. I finally finished my fridge build and wanted to share my design and build pictures.

A big cheers to Elco for such as awesome bit of kit too. Can’t wait for the next phase to build my HERMS!


Fridge designed in Solidworks 2016. Barrel type fermenter shown in original design


Design of rear reticulation and additional fridge compressor cooling


240VAC electrical enclosure housing fuse holders, solid state relays for switching heater and fridge compressor, and a switch mode power supply with 12VDC & 5VDC outputs


12VDC controls enclosure. Houses a Brewpi temp controller, Raspberry Pi, LEDs, switch and tacho (totally unnecessary!) for the chamber fan. Also has panel mounted HDMI, RJ45 and dual USB ports for hardwired connections to the Raspberry Pi


Electrical circuit diagram. I’m not an electrician, so the symbols are probably out of date/wrong, but it makes sense to me


Chamber junction box for temp sensors and 12VDC chamber fan power supply


Wiring the chamber junction box plugs


Chamber junction box in place on the ceiling of the fridge


Brewpi temp controller mounted to custom made base plate


Brewpi and base plate


Milling the square holes in the controls enclosure at work


Bespoke 60Watt heater. Made from aluminium fins and a reptile terrarium heater cable. If I’d made another fridge I make this simpler


Underside of fermenter shelf with 12VDC computer fan mounted to it to circulate air and keep the temperature uniform within the chamber


Top of the fermenter shelf with beefy fan guard to take the weight of the fermenter leg


Wiring the 240VAC electrical enclosure. The cable labels came in very handy!


Electrical enclosure


Brewpi temp controller display


Build pretty much completed


Reticulation. Left side for 240VAC power and right side for 5VDC temp probes


Additional cooling for fridge compressor running off a bathroom fan run on timer

3 Likes

Damn, that’s some high quality engineering!

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Nice! Are you in NZ? You’ve got the same fermenter as me.

Sure am. They’re great fermenters, not sure if they still in business now

They are. Not sure either

@BBB Do you have a higher res file of the Electrical circuit diagram. you could provide by chance?

How about this:
003100 Electrical Circuit - C.pdf (57.2 KB)

What do you need to know?

Most excellent! thank you

If you direct your atttention to these posts:


I’m wondering if I can just power the flow meter of the Brewpi - based on your chart and the voltage I would guess so. And you can see what I am working with a little bit equipment wise.

curious on your thoughts. cause currently the flow meter is based off the RPI it self and instead of dealing with resistors and other things i believe the Spark v3 can power it - but not sure which pins or wiring for it which is why i wanted to look closer at your diagram.

Wow, just wow! Especially the 60W heater is gorgeous!