Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Afternoon everyone,

I have a DIY power controller I purchased online that I assembled and has been running fine except for 1 issue. Whenever I turn the pot down passed 40% it stops sending power to the element. Which has not been an issue until today when I tried running a pot spirit run and was unable to fine tune my power input any lower than 40%. I was running it on an 1800W element.

Its a 40A SSR with a 500k pot attached to it. In built 240v fan that works once power is to the box as well as a 240v light to let me know the box is powered. Works fine except for that one little issue.

I'm wondering if anyone has any idea whats going on here?

I've attached pics to help see how it's wired.

Will have access to a multi-meter later this evening.

Check the potentiometer hook up, either 2 outside or the 3 pins are used, the one off to the side is usually a locator/earth?
That is a non linear A type, the output would be more consistent with a B type linear one
Have a qualified person check it out?

Crap, it's the middle and either outer, yours is wired ok, may just be the A type thing or a crappy pot to start with
Been too long since I rewired my guitar

You probably need a wire wound potentiometer as some SSRs require a decent current on the signal side. A carbon track pot can burn out.

Brought a cheap chinesium out the box 4000W power controller. Set it up with an amps and volt meter in line. Element ran fine. Was able to get a 2400W element down to 300W before powering off.

Tried the original power controller, was getting much higher volts and amps than what should have been expected for the turned position on the pot (when pot was turned approx half way down with a 2400w element, was reading 1700-1800W).

Bit the bullet and stripped the pot down and found a burn mark on the carbon track where it was powering off. Time for a new bigger rated pot I think.

Could a dodgy carbon track be the reason the controller was returning a higher voltage than expected? Or did I have a logarithmic pot installed instead of a linear?

The "A" on the second line of the pot meant logarithmic
either of these will fix it
http://www.radioparts.com.au/product/32 ... kb-500k-(b)-linear-pot-potentiometer#.WppA5x1uaUk
https://au.rs-online.com/web/p/potentiometers/8318801/

RC Al wrote:The "A" on the second line of the pot meant logarithmic
either of these will fix it
http://www.radioparts.com.au/product/32 ... kb-500k-(b)-linear-pot-potentiometer#.WppA5x1uaUk
https://au.rs-online.com/web/p/potentiometers/8318801/

Cheers RC Al,

The chinesium import ended up frying itself 20 mins into the run and stuck wipe open. So I gutted it and pulled the potentiometer out, which luckily happened to be a 2W 500K A type. It got a new home in the original power controller. Ran fine for the rest of the run.