So I got the fridge transformed, installed all components, hooked them up the brewspark v3, and away they went…
Well, not exactly, the temperature inside the fridge didn’t budge. The tube heater did not heat up.
Eventually I increased the period for the ‘Ferment Heat PWM’ from 10s to 40s.
This seemed to do the trick. When confirmed everything worked as I expected, I reset the period to 10s.
During the night the temperature dropped to 17C (from the configured 20C).
The next morning I changed the period back to 40s, but the temperature has budged.
What else need I to be looking at?
Everything else is default, per new installation.
//JP
If you check the graph for the Ferment Heat Actuator, does its actual state match desired state? (spark service page → click on block → open graph in dialog toolbar).
If it does, then it’s more likely to be a hardware issue. If desired state is never > 0, or actual state is significantly below desired state, then a software or configuration issue is more likely.
Hi Bob,
The actual state and desired state are both 1.00.
Would that mean, I burned through something? An SSR, the tube heater itself, a molten wire somewhere!?
It means that the problem can be found somewhere outside the Spark itself. There are multiple possible reasons.
- Is the spark toggling the SSR (is the status LED on the SSR on)?
- if not: are the control wires connected and plugged into the correct port?
- Is the heater side of the SSR connected, with the live wire interrupted by the SSR, and the other two wires connected as usual?
- (if possible), if you connect the heater directly, does it turn on?
- Does the heater have its own set of controls that prevent it from turning on?
It’s also possible that the voltage/amps of the tube don’t match the input, but I’m not qualified to provide expert analysis of electrical problems beyond “did you plug it in?”
Fair enough.
Thing is: it did work.
I’ll try the heater directly and work my way up.
Thx