**** I just realized I had a post on weldless fittings already, so I am cutting this post down to just my March pump switch****

The next challenge was to figure out a good way to wire my March 809 pump to some sort of switch or button. I went with a cool lighted blue button. Push the button, pump comes on, light comes on. Push button again and both go off. This very easily could have been a simple light switch from home depot instead, but hey, that's just not cool enough. Plus, this way I learned more stuff.

Wait a sec broham, what is that other mystery button?

Worry not old chum, we will cover that later.

I had bear of a time getting the button configured, and had to resort to asking for help on the dreaded interweb. It could have been my lack of electrical knowledge, or it could have been the plethora of pints I drank in the process of trying to figure it all out. In the end, I did get it all working properly, and I am quite pleased with the results.

So here is the progress so far. It is starting to look more like a Brutus 10, and less like a pile of random parts, every day.

It is funny how some projects start off as really kick ass, and then eventually they sort of get annoying. I wouldn't necessarily label the Brutus 10 clone build as annoying per se, but I do wish that it was completed already. I am WAY behind schedule, and it is right around 100 degrees in the garage during the day now, which makes working on it a real scorcher. I had a few personal setbacks which threw the schedule off, but I am back on track now, and hopefully I will be cranking out sweet golden nectar within a month.

Hooray beer!

I need the ocean! So I am going there. I have not been in a while since I got stuck on going to Las Vegas for vacations. Strangely, Las Vegas seems to be the absolute cheapest vacation you can take. If you go there once or twice, they start giving you free rooms, even if you don't gamble much. So I started going there over and over again instead of making some sort of annual pilgrimage to the ocean. For me, there is just something about being by the sea and seeing how vast and powerful it is. The smell of it and the sound it just takes me to a place that makes me wonder and dream, and it also makes me realize how small and meaningless life can really be. In 10,000 years, that ocean will still be there making that same sound and same smell. So in the grand scheme of things, the small things that stress people out on a day to day basis are really just stupid things to worry about. Sure, that guy that cuts you off in traffic is a real dick, but do you really care?

Anyway, so next week I am going to Vegas for vacation 8-), and then when it warms up a little more, like in a month, I am going to go to the ocean for a few days, and I am going to just sit there and stare at it for hours on end, and see what happens.

Ok, back to the Brutus 10 clone build. So, I decided to climb on the structure and jump around to see what happened. What happened? I think nothing, but at the time I think I sort of imagined that it was a little bendy, so I added more supports. The model has a single vertical support, so as usual I went above and beyond that. Overkill? Probably. Not much to say here, I will let the pictures speak for themselves. At this point, I am getting pretty good at welding. I still lay a stinker every once in a while, but they are few and far between.






So now it was time to add some wheels to the rig. I went with casters that can handle 240 pounds each. So 4 would handle 960 pounds. Again, overkill. The kegs weigh about 30 pounds each when empty. So that's 90 pounds. Under worst case scenario conditions, say I have all 3 filled to the brim with water, that's another 15 (gals) x 8 (pounds/per) x 3 (kegs) = 360 pounds. So now we are up to 450. Factor in the steel structure, and that's another probably 100 pounds. So 550, plus add hoses, connectors, pumps, buttons, lids, plumbing, etc... I could see it being 700 pounds. So 960 pounds of support from the casters should be ample. Also, I went with locking casters so the damn thing wouldn't roll away with my beer in it. So the next challenge was to mount them. I had this idea swimming around in my head as to how to do it, and when I read a a post on homebrewtalk.com about someone doing it the same way, I figured it would work well. The plan, Take some steel, drill a hole in it, and weld a nut on top of the hole, so the threaded stem from the caster can screw into that.





Is this amount of welding overkill? You decide. Do I know any better? nope. I don't recall getting a memo, or seeing any instructions anywhere on how to weld a nut to a piece of steel. Better safe then sorry I suppose.



So then I moved in to plumbing. Some people build these things where their propane or natural gas travels through one of the structural beams. I have little faith in my welding skills, so trying to weld something that can withstand internal pressure of the gas seemed like a bad plan, so from the start, I planned on having external plumbing, and standard black steel pipe seems to be the most widely accepted solution. So a trip to the hardware store later I had all these pieces.

So when assembled it looks like this.



Next, I had to mount the plumbing system to the structure. I located some relatively thick pipe hangers and welded them in place.


By the way, here is what happens when you try to weld really thin stuff, it essentially just burns away.

All in place, nice! It is really starting to shape up. Still a lot of work to do though.