Help with PID Expobar E61 "Brewtus 2"

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OzarkTroutBum
Posts: 52
Joined: 10 years ago

#1: Post by OzarkTroutBum »

I just got one of the older Expobar E61's with a single power switch and a red lighted PID. The original owner never changed any PID settings as it was beyond his scope.
I want to change the readout from C to F. I found an operation manual at the Google Group and followed these steps.

Enter programming mode
Navigate to P7
Enter P7 and change integer from 0 (C) to 2 (F)
Press Set to return to Programming mode
Navigate to EP (exit programming)
Press set.

Readout is STILL Celsius. Navigate back to P7 and value is set at 2 so it retained the setting, it just didn't change the readout.

Pic of the PID if that helps any.

OzarkTroutBum (original poster)
Posts: 52
Joined: 10 years ago

#2: Post by OzarkTroutBum (original poster) »

In case anyone is looking for Expobar manual and info here is a link to what I found through the google group and appears to be hosted at RoasterThing which appears to be roaster related software.


http://www.roasterthing.com/downloads/brewtus.zip

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ira
Team HB
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#3: Post by ira »

That's me. If you have any questions I can answer most of them. FWIW, that's not a PID, just a temperature controller. The PID is oval, has a blue display and an external solid state relay. There is a Brewtus group at:

http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus

Ira

ira
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#4: Post by ira »

If I recall changing the display to F is a mistake because the display only goes to 199.

Ira

OzarkTroutBum (original poster)
Posts: 52
Joined: 10 years ago

#5: Post by OzarkTroutBum (original poster) replying to ira »

I found the link to RoasterThing at the group. I don't roast or I would really be interested in your software. Looks like you have really put a lot of effort and thought into it.

Whatever these electronics are they are confusing. I'm just going to get used to using it in Celsius for the time being and dig through the group for more info. I wrongly assumed that if I had the manual I could figure it out.

I left the setting in Fahrenheit yesterday but didn't adjust it up and this morning my timer kicked in an hour before I got here and the machine was on but the boiler and group were cold. Steam was normal though.
I swapped to C and within 10 minutes the machine was hot and ready.

The confusing part is that if the device is in F why isn't it reading triple digits once I heat it to 93C. I'm not sure that the device reads in triple digits although there appears to be another LED for a third digit.

OzarkTroutBum (original poster)
Posts: 52
Joined: 10 years ago

#6: Post by OzarkTroutBum (original poster) »

I was looking at my own pic and went and verified with a light that there are only 2 digits on the device. If I enter over 99 it applies a hash mark to the left of the display apparently indicating a third digit.

Cheesy!! No wonder they went to a Gicar on the later models.

DaveC
Posts: 1743
Joined: 17 years ago

#7: Post by DaveC replying to OzarkTroutBum »


The controller is actually an AKO fridge controller, which is why they have a F value, because no fridge would ever get as hot as an espresso machine and the display limits what you can show.

http://www.ako.com/w4fs/mobject/nombre/351301201__1.pdf

This is the link to the AKO tech sheet .PDF if you don't already have it. They went to Gicar simply because the AKO unit kept failing, it was rare for one to work for more than a year before failure. It was in the wrong place and subjected to thermal stresses beyond it's design limits. As dealers dropped them, they realised they needed to sort the problem out.

When yours fails, best see if you can wire in a Gicar or your own PID controller, as someone else said this controller is not a PID, although to be fair, it does a reasonable job.

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OzarkTroutBum (original poster)
Posts: 52
Joined: 10 years ago

#8: Post by OzarkTroutBum (original poster) »

DaveC wrote:The controller is actually an AKO fridge controller, which is why they have a F value, because no fridge would ever get as hot as an espresso machine and the display limits what you can show.

When yours fails, best see if you can wire in a Gicar or your own PID controller, as someone else said this controller is not a PID, although to be fair, it does a reasonable job.
That makes sense as looking over the data sheet there are many settings included like "defrost" that had me doing some head scratching.

This must be one of the good ones. I acquired this machine used and I know its been in service a good number of years but don't know to what extent. I've installed it at my office and will leave it on a timer for about 50 hours a week including warmup time before I get here. If its going to fail it will be in the next few weeks.

ira
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#9: Post by ira »

DaveC wrote:They went to Gicar simply because the AKO unit kept failing, it was rare for one to work for more than a year before failure. It was in the wrong place and subjected to thermal stresses beyond it's design limits. As dealers dropped them, they realised they needed to sort the problem out.
That doesn't seem right. On the Brewtus list the number of those controllers that have died is quite small. Only one that I can think of in the last 4 years. Not to try and argue that it's a great controller but it gets the job done well enough.

Ira

DaveC
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Joined: 17 years ago

#10: Post by DaveC replying to ira »

it could be that they were more reliable at the 110V rating than the 230V (because it was almost certainly the transformers within them failing). I can absolutely assure you that for retailers I know, most machines sold had controllers that rarely lasted 1 year...it was so bad they had to drop the range until the controllers were replaced with Gicar. Other 230V spec machines also had the problems.

I have no idea, why it was not clearly reflected on the owners forums, unless they were predominantly 110V controllers and perhaps those were inherently more reliable due to the lower voltage. I know for a fact that Expobar stopped using those controllers because of complaints about reliability from European retailers..

P.S. The working ambient temperature for these controllers was only rated at 40C and where they are placed, they get a lot hotter than that, especially as the steam boilers could not be switched off. Presumably the higher voltage allowed the insulation to breakl down quite easily on European models. It really wasn't a correct choice of controller in the first place.

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