Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi guys

Stumbled across this and was wondering what your thoughts are on this for controlling your boilers

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/AC-220V-4000 ... SwmNlZZFSR

It does mention usable for an electric water furnace...
Not sure how long it would last.

I just this past weekend wired up (well, my sparky mate from work did!) one of these in a jiffy box with outlet plug etc:

and ran it with a 2500W urn in 3 lots of stripping runs of 2hrs. Checked it against an oscilloscope, pretty cool how it chopped the waveform off. Also used a Jaycar power monitor to dial in the wattage settings until I'm totally familiar with it based on sound and output stream.
The unit didn't overheat, but it does make a bit of harmonic distortion, e.g. a clock radio on the same circuit sitting next to the urn has a lot of static, but nothing else like the telly etc seemed off. I've been told that the interference from these can be widespread, and you may get a knock on the door from a cranky neighbour ;)
For about $5 you can get one without a fan, crazy cheap.
As for longevity..... I'll post as soon as it dies!
cheers

@oglennyboy I have the same unit I had my sparkey mate install a safety switch on mine so if anything goes bad inside the box and I touch my boiler I won't get shocked or be stuck there.
I've been using it for a stripping run every weekend for around 8 months and several spirit runs and its still going strong.

I bought one and have been using it for about 2 months now. No issues yet doesn't even get hot. Just not sure if it's full power at 100%. :think:

loveitfree wrote:I bought one and have been using it for about 2 months now. No issues yet doesn't even get hot. Just not sure if it's full power at 100%. :think:

Based on the oscilloscope & Jaycar monitor testing, full bore is full bore through the unit, the loss was insignificant, as in maybe a few watts out of the 2650 the urn ran at.

I'm sure mine runs full bore, same heat up time running element through controller and straight out of the wall socket.

oglennyboy wrote:I just this past weekend wired up (well, my sparky mate from work did!) one of these in a jiffy box with outlet plug etc:

Controller.PNG

and ran it with a 2500W urn in 3 lots of stripping

I just received two 4000 w controllers with fans (same as yours). Unfortunately the quality control is terrible.
The potentiometers are soldered in on an angle making it near impossible to box mount.
Hardly worth trying to return to China so I will look at mounting it internally and adjust the setting and leave.

Did you have this issue?

For that money, it is wired and ready to go... just go for it. No buying extra bits, getting sparkies... its the easiest fix out.

oglennyboy wrote:I just this past weekend wired up (well, my sparky mate from work did!) one of these in a jiffy box with outlet plug etc:

Controller.PNG

and ran it with a 2500W urn in 3 lots of stripping runs of 2hrs. Checked it against an oscilloscope, pretty cool how it chopped the waveform off. Also used a Jaycar power monitor to dial in the wattage settings until I'm totally familiar with it based on sound and output stream.
The unit didn't overheat, but it does make a bit of harmonic distortion, e.g. a clock radio on the same circuit sitting next to the urn has a lot of static, but nothing else like the telly etc seemed off. I've been told that the interference from these can be widespread, and you may get a knock on the door from a cranky neighbour ;)
For about $5 you can get one without a fan, crazy cheap.
As for longevity..... I'll post as soon as it dies!
cheers

Cheers for the info, Ill be grabbing one of these & the Jaycar monitor

I just clicked again on the ebay link at the top of this post and see that these units are now down to less than $20, including postage! That's more than 50% drop in the few months since I last looked at one, amazing!
cheers

oglennyboy wrote:I just clicked again on the ebay link at the top of this post and see that these units are now down to less than $20, including postage! That's more than 50% drop in the few months since I last looked at one, amazing!
cheers

Hi, read my note above about the quality.... Of the latest controllers being offered at $12 each. Waste of money.
I have now taken Kenstars advise and purchased the $25 version that is already boxed and ready to go.

P.s raised the issue with the Chinese and they are playing games.... I don't have the time.... So lesson learnt and money lost.

Cheers

Hi Winwleader
Don't suppose you can supply a link to the $25 one that's all boxed & ready to go

Isnt it the one davesims posted a link to at the top of this page?
http://m.ebay.com.au/itm/162562134755?_mwBanner=1

And the dodgy one is the one oglennyboy showed us, altho his were fine apparently.

That doesn't look like it will accept a standard aussie 240v 3 point plug, will it ?

pafc64 wrote:That doesn't look like it will accept a standard aussie 240v 3 point plug, will it ?

It will though I thought the connection was a but dodgy so I used a British to Australian adaptor that I had on hand. It's a lot more solid and works well though a little more cost if you need to buy the adaptor. At the moment it seems to be working well.

Cheers Ive got a few of those overseas adaptors so Ill try one of those if its loose :handgestures-thumbupleft: