Reddit mentions: The best compression fittings

If you have only a very small number of motorized blinds (I'd say four or less), then Hunter Douglas provides good options to wire them up. You can either install battery packs that need to be serviced every few months, or you can plug in a small power supply. Each of the power supplies can drive up to two blinds. But the extension wires that come with it cannot be longer than about 15ft, and they are not rated for in-wall installation. So, you'll have to deal with them probably being visible.

If you have lots of blinds, the wires look ugly, and you really don't want to take up a gazillion outlets. We have dual stacked blinds (mesh & black-out) in a few places. There clearly aren't enough power outlets to handle that.

Hunter Douglas for better or for worse runs their blinds on 18V -- and their tech support claims that the blinds are pretty sensitive to voltage fluctuations. This has a couple of awkward consequences. 18V power supplies are really unusual. Laptop power supplies would be perfect, but they are all 19V, which according to Hunter Douglas is not acceptable. And other common voltages are 12V or 15V, which are both noticeably too little.

Furthermore, the blinds have relatively high peak currents. Hunter Douglas told me to roughly assume that each blind can require up to about 10W. Took me forever to find a place that sells an 18V/180W power supply, as Hunter Douglas doesn't offer any solution themselves.

Of course, that's the raw circuit board only. You still need an enclosure. I went with a 12V enclosure and modded it. The enclosure is a great size, and you can even reuse the metal shield for the power supply, if you are careful. It also conveniently already comes with all the fuses that you'll need anyway. So, that saves you quite some work. But you do need some tinkering experience to swap out the circuit boards. You probably also need to order a couple of Molex connectors and you'll need to do some crimping and some soldering.

The next problem that you'll run into is that the enclosure needs a cooling fan, but as far as I can tell it is impossible to find 18V fans. I ended up using an ATTiny85 and a MOSFET to PWM the 18V so that I could safely drive the existing fan (make sure to configure the micro-controller for FastPWM, or you'll have to deal with an ugly humming noise!). And while at it, I also added a temperature sensor, so the fan only turns on, when needed. You also need a small DC-DC converter to power the microcontroller. And if you don't already have a way to program Atmel chips, you'll need to buy a programmer. EBay has lots of cheap options, too. All of this definitely takes some amount of tinkering skills that not everybody will have, though.

Overall, building a proper power supply and distribution box cost me just over $200 in parts. Not too bad. But the amount of time spent getting it to work was ridiculous. Especially if you add up all the time researching which parts I needed to buy in the first place. I really don't understand why Hunter Douglas couldn't sell ready-made power supplies for installing multiple PowerView blinds. Even if they charged $500 for the ready-made box, that wouldn't be entirely unreasonable -- and that would be a huge mark up and make them quite some profits. In bulk, each supply should cost less than $100 to manufacture.

The next problem is finding appropriate cables. At those low voltages, currents are going to be high, and if you have anything more than trivially short runs, you'll encounter significant voltage drops. Since Hunter Douglas said that sticking as close as possible to 18V is crucial, you'll inevitably have to install beefier wires. Hunter Douglas recommends 14AWG for powering up to two blinds, or 16AWG when powering a single blind. I had good luck with buying Monoprice in-wall speaker cable for this purpose. Get the four-conductor version to minimize the number of cables that you need to string.

Ideally, you want to avoid splicing the cables. And in many cases, if you plan carefully, you'll be able to do that just fine. But sometimes, splices are simply unavoidable (for instance, when joining 16AWG cables to an 14AWG cable). I find WAGO connectors work really well for this purpose; unlike wirenuts, they can be used both with and without ferrules. And they work well for stranded wires, where wirenuts sometimes fail.

The blinds have barrel connectors, and Hunter Douglas suggests buying plugs with screw connectors. That is a good suggestion in principle, but I find it is impossible to securely fasten the speaker cables in the screw connectors, unless you use ferrules. And that means, you'll also need to buy a crimping tool. And for good measure, you should probably shrink wrap the entire contraption afterwards. High currents means you want secure connections.

Ideally, you should run all the cables inside the walls. But that's not always possible. If you can't, then you'll need to staple them instead. Make sure to use the right staples. I asked my electrician to help in order to meet my schedule; in hindsight, that didn't work out so well. He sent me his apprentice, who promptly proceeded to run each and every staple straight through the cable. Ouch. We had to redo all the wiring.

Now, my next project is thinking of a solution to hide the Hunter Douglas remote inside of a Decora wall switch. The remote is OK, but it looks a little cheesy when wall-mounted. As I said before, PowerView blinds are fine in principle and they are probably better than most competing products, but they do feel a little unfinished at this time. When they do work though, they are really convenient.

Hey friend. you're on the right track with your idea to drill a hole and plumb it to a larger tank. Be careful when you choose the spot to drill. You don't want to drill in to a very round side, as that will be harder to make watertight. i would recommend trying to find a nice flat spot, just below the max fill of that unit's tank, and then drilling a hole for a bulkhead fitting(so that its watertight) and then just attach a hose to the drain end of the fitting and you can just set the other end of the hose in to a 5 gallon bucket below the unit or something.


a 1/2 bulkhead fitting is less than 5$ on amazon(also might not hurt to look around for a smaller sized one of these, as a 1 1/2" hole may be kind of big for this small tank) i only looked around for a second.
https://www.amazon.com/Lifegard-Aquatics-Standard-Threaded-Bulkhead/dp/B0002Z7U1K/ref=sr_1_15?keywords=bulkhead+drain+with+gasket&qid=1565284477&s=gateway&sr=8-15


If you go with this route, i would get a step bit (drill bit for drilling a precise hole by gradually widening it)
https://www.amazon.com/Knoweasy-Sizes-Titanium-Drill-Drilling/dp/B07NKXLTCB/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=step+bit&qid=1565284634&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyMEU0WExMM0Y1NUNZJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMDQzOTM5RjNOQkZRRFgzUVFXJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAwODExNDgyUEtUR1lBS1NJNzM4JndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==


then you would just need a female 1/2 thread to 1/4" barbed fitting and some 1/4 tubing to run to the bucket. I have similar setups to this for top-off tanks in my hydro systems. If you need any help figuring it out and sourcing parts, just shoot me a message!


Best of luck!!

I just bought these and they're threaded on both sides so that what you linked to (or these which I also bought) should fit. I put them on some 5gal buckets and the seal is working great. Pretty happy with the setup so far :)

Yes the pump is for wort into the chiller. You could probably gravity feed it if the kettle was above the chiller. You also have to run santizer through the chiller before chilling, so the pump makes that easier.

I bought some cheap 14 gauge wire to wrap around the tube, it's just to maximize water-copper contact which helps a lot with cooler.

For the fittings I bought the following, for each end:
1/4 female tee
1/2" barb x 1/4 NPT x2
1/4 x 1/4 compression fitting

Easiest thing to do it just go to a local hardware store, start with a 1/4" x 10ft copper tube in your hand then start looking at the brass fittings and piece it together in front of you. How you attach it to your sink will depend on your faucet, I had to mcgyver a stupid reducer and hose clamp setup. Most hardware store reps could help you piece it all together if you have a photo and know your faucet size.

I use something like this (https://www.amazon.com/Hayward-Bulkhead-Fitting-Gasket-Threaded/dp/B009D7OA1Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484850120&sr=8-1&keywords=bulkhead+cpvc) with a gate valve and the necessary adapters to connect the gate valve to the threaded interior. My manifold is 1/2" CPVC and slides right into the bulkhead with no need to permanently attach it (it is a tight enough fit to prevent grain from getting through. Is that not an option for you? I think that, even continuing to step up the size of your bulkhead until it fills the hole is a better option than spending $550 on a whole new mash tun.

I hope that helps - maybe posting a picture of the problem areas in your cooler would help you get some more accurate advice if it does not.

It looks like you're trying to bubba a weldless bulkhead.


http://www.amazon.com/Midwest-Homebrewing-and-Winemaking-Supplies/dp/B0064OFGLO

It also looks like you're trying to use a hex nut as the connector that structurally supports two threaded pipe sections. This would work, provided you brazed the pipe sections to the hex nut, but Gluing them together probably won't work. You could epoxy them together, but I wouldn't expose epoxy to hot solvent vapors that are intended for consumption.

If I were you, I'd take the male side (which also has a female port on the opposite side, which you can see in the picture of the link, below) of a lead-free brass pipe union
http://www.amazon.com/Brass-Fitting-Union-Class-Female/dp/B004XEKWSY/ref=sr_1_2?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1463615762&sr=1-2&keywords=pipe+union+copper
and stick it in the hole you drilled for the "threaded nipple bolts" in your drawing. Braze it to the lid with silver solder using a TON of flux and a map gas torch, and then get a NPT threaded sanitary flange to connect to your vapor pathway. make sure you ptfe tape the NPT connection

What you want is a Bulkhead Fitting. It makes a hole on a flat surface and allows you to attach PVC parts to it. I would say you add this right under the lip of the top pond and put ~1' length of PVC pipe on it. The water will fill to the pipe then drain out into the pond below. The only real consideration is the strength of the plastic and the length of the pipe. You wouldn't want to crack the pond.

Get a temp probe for your kettle. This one is pretty cheap, and another $10 for the bulkhead adapter.

Then why aren't you just using a bulkhead fitting? Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Lifegard-Aquatics-Standard-Threaded-Bulkhead/dp/B0002Z7U1K/ref=lp_700755011_1_6?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1565222743&sr=1-6

with a threaded plug should be reasonably waterproof.

What I think you're looking for is a bulkhead fitting like this, usually installed so the threaded part is facing the inside but you could mount it the other way and get a cap that screws onto it.

You could also use something like this a cable gland but grab a closed end sealing nut to make it into a cap.

I think you're looking for bulkheads (like this https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0002DKANM). Usually they are set up for either glued or threaded PVC pipe. If you go with threaded bulkheads, you can get barbed adapters (https://www.homedepot.ca/product/1000117559) so you can use flexible tubing with them. Make sure to use teflon thread tape on all threaded joints or they will leak.


Keep in mind that bulkheads only work on flat surfaces, not curved. If you want to pass pipe through a curved surface, you can use a uniseal.

I use the same totes. These "bulkhead" seals work too. 2'' UNISEAL Flexible Tank Adapter... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FAF3NLS?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Buklhead fitting?

https://www.amazon.com/Banjo-Polypropylene-Bulkhead-Fitting-Female/dp/B0079JTVRI


That gets you NPT 3/4 on both size, and once you have NPT to start with you can get an adapter to go to PEX (or whatever else you want).


https://www.homedepot.com/p/SharkBite-3-4-in-Plastic-PEX-Barb-x-Male-Pipe-Thread-Adapter-5-Pack-UP134A5/206133157

Uni-seal, made for putting pipes thru glass

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00BD6SXL8/ref=pd_aw_sims_4?pi=SL500_SS115

Had you thought about cutting it, shortening it, and re-connecting it with a brass union:

https://www.amazon.com/Anderson-Metals-750062-12-Compression-Union/dp/B00D8OEP1U