Useful Utility: DialupRouteMaster
If you've ever tried to setup static routing on Windows, you may know that the 'interface index' can change on you breaking your route. This utility will detect a broken route, remove the defunct persistent route, then recreate it with the correct interface parameter.
Note: I haven't had a chance to test it on a live network (I will 12-22-09), but it may prove interesting for the rare need to route using Windows.
UPDATE: Tested, debugged, and 100% working. This is now managing the static routes for a dialup connection between two power plants in Alaska!
*Released under the MIT license.
Initial Brew Rig Planning
Arighty, I said I would post this, but life got in the way. Heres the run down of my current plans.
Containers:
I'm going to have three 10 gallon stainless steel containers fabricated. These will serve as the sparg tank, the mash tun, and the boil kettle. I could really get away with two, but then I couldn't run two batches at once.
Fermenters will be 10 gallon glass carboys, or stainless tanks. I'm hoping I will be able to get some air tight stainless tanks, but as far as cost and speed I can buy the glass carboys locally minus the cost of materials, fabrication, and design time.
Chiller will be a stainless tank holding approximately 12 gallons capacity to compensate for copper cooling plumbing and a pelter cooler.
All inter-container plumbing will use copper pipe.
Heating:
I will heating the sparg tank, mash tun, and boil kettle using propane heat. I'm planning on using a 21 or 32 tip propane heating element beneath each unit. Propane makes things simple as I won't need to run a natural gas line because I can reuse propane canisters from the grill.
Controls:
Right now I'm planning on using an Allen-Bradley SLC-500 PLC for all the grunt work. The SLC-500 is an industrial grade programmable logic controller. Allen-Bradley says they had 1.6 million of these little dandies installed worldwide, but they are now considered obsolete. Obsolete is relative. You can pick these units up for a song on ebay and they have more than enough capability to control my approximately 40 I/O points.
For controlling my SLC-500 I'm going to write some nifty code for an Arduino. The Arduino is going to provide a 'supervisor' mode to the SLC-500. Basically I want to abstract an web-based interface on top of the SLC-500 that can be used to program recipes and monitor the rig.