Its not shown too well but what happens is this.
The lever will be sprung loaded so it will lift away from the plunger,
this will allow the barrel to be rotated between brew stations.
On each station Id probably have a sprung loaded ball bearing that clicks into a dimple, this
would align each station in the right place, ready for the lever to be pushed downward and
force the plunger back against the spring.

Sorry I had better also add that the selector barrel will be prevented from rotating more than
one turn so that the tubes dont become twisted and tangled.

What i`ve drawn is bsically a pinch valve, Yeah it is a bit overkill.
There`s no cleaning neccesary, the tube ends are kept in in alcohol.
none of the mechanics will need cleaning. there are no connections apart
from where the tubing connects to your pressure barrel/ cornie.

I think I may have an easier solution and probably more closer to the cam
that hashie mentioned.
I`ll draw that up (Solidworks) and post it later.

Mark II
Well this is so much easier.
The reason I never went this route originally was that fact that the tubes and main
body remain fixed and the rotating barrel opens/closes a tube at a time.
But this means that the exit point while dispensing the brew will move.

I have drawn this to keep all fixed tube ends within the diameter of a pint glass,
so you have to get used to aligning your pint glass to suit.

see animated gif here http://www.zen104121.zen.co.uk/Cam-Pinch-Valve.gif

Actually I remember now why I went for the single lever type design, the locking ring (mark II) type sucks.
Well actually it squirts
If you want to go from say brew 1 to brew 4 you turn the ring and get a wasted squirt on stations 2 + 3.


hi hashie, I not quite getting what you mean, but it seems you might have a similar result to the squirts?
Plz knock up a simple sketch in Paint or something so we can look at your idea.

>> in a whisper<<

psst.... hey hashie, could I just go back to your post #31
Quote - "On the dispensing side, these 10 lines can go from the pinch to a collecter and single dispensing tap/outlet."

If we go down this route `patch` is gonna tear our balls mate. And thats gotta hurt like hell in the morning.
reason being, when I first did that drawing of a barrel that only opened one line at a time and the flow then went thru to the tap, it all became (justified) a bad contamination zone. And although other guys liked it - I just put hands in pocket and carried on down the road. ( I think thats a Bob Dylan line)
Anyway buddy lets just keep that between ourselves ok, cos if patch catches wind, all hell`s gonna break loose. We gotta make something that keeps out nasties, keeps beer cold, doesn`t leak, is cheap to make, doesn`t rely on double sided tape to hold it in place and any Joe could put it together. ok? get on it mate.

Hey hi guys. have`nt seen you around in a while
Looks like some real good ideas and discussion going on.

If I had the cash it would be single soleniod pinch valves all the way.
But dont forget that because of the flow we want ( around 5 mm id tubing) the silicone pipe needs a lot of crushing to completely seal it - every time - without fail. So be careful when choosing pinch valves. Make the seller tells you it is up to the job. then he has to take it back if it dont deliver.

Anyway for the rest of us mostly usually broke peasants who still need to have beer on (selectable) tap, and why not too ? dont know about you but I pay the government over 1/2 of what I earn for the right to exist and drink beer.
Beleive me, I`m racking my brains for the ultimate solution. A manual rotating thingy sounds ok to me. It`s doable. An electric version. hmm.. - If we had a single, nice strong solenoid switch I could probably design something that could activate seperate lines. on the push of a button. For example, Pressing a pump logo extends an arm of some sort that is forced by the now energised solenoid to release the clamped tube of the chosen outlet.
This scenario gives you a seperate beer outlet for each brew.
Before we go further we need to find the solenoid that will do what we want.
In my meanderings I have liberated all sorts of motors and pumps and gearboxes , and all manner of junk that still has it uses, from their original shackles to be used in my projects. And one I remember now is the solenoid from a car`s starter motor. These are pretty powerful. Also the geared boxes that drive a cars central locking. All low voltage but this is useful shit.
So what I`m getting at is perhaps one workhorse motor/gearbox or solenoid can do so much.

ok dont put it together just yet. I am busy drawing a mechanical pinch valve setup now.
I think your gonna like this one patch.

So there I was designing away, I was going the whole hog including modeling the fridge etc,

Then I came across the ready made solution for a hand operated mechanical device.
I have emailed the company and asked for a price for 10 off. So we`ll see.
Snap Action Pinch Valve
Have a look at their Demo

Here`s thier reply.

Cost for PVR-1/4 is $8.50 USD each plus shipping.
Cost for PVR-1/4-FC is $10.00 USD each plus shipping.


2 lines thats it, no indication of shipping costs. as we all know from ebay some carrier charges
from the US are outrageous. Perhaps one of our US friends here at Biab could do a bulk buy
and ship to Aus for you guys.


@ yeasty, sorry mate I never intentionally overlooked your question of a mounting for an electric switch box,
probably quite simple to do, I`m not that hot on electrical but I`d probably use limit switches to open/close the solenoids. Personally I`d like to have each brew point have its own clear perspex pocket that could hold an interchangeable pump clip image or logo. we could hinge the holder to press the switch. Or do you prefer a rotary looking gadget ?

@ hashie, hi bud, I was modeling the fridge and all the while wondering if it would be best to mount a single hand lever as part of the door or house the mechanism and handle in the top section of the fridge with the handle coming thru the side, I like the idea of using a proper looking pump handle, I`ve seen nice ceramic handles on ebay pretty cheap. like 4 or 5 bucks.
I think there is enough room in the door cavity to mount all the gubbins and it would be real nice to swing the mechanism out of the way whilst loading/changing/piping cornies inside the fridge. I cant help thinking that a pump handle mounted to the door would look a bit cheesy. whereas mounted on the side (slot machine style) might be better. watcha think ?
We could aslo mount some of these snap action pinch valves and make a sliding selector bar that works on a cam action from the handle, so only one brew can be released at a time.

Could I just go Off Topic for a bit, just to say I have had some experience at butchering a small freezer.
I invented this 3 axis CNC machine that used a solenoid valve to open close a pressurised filtered water supply. A Reverse Osmosis system that filters 99.9 % of crap out of the water.
The plan was to build 3 dimensional moulds made from ice in a series of 2D layers, and then inject cold cure plastic into the Icemould to create Rapid Prototypes of any object. As you`ve seen I can model the shapes and stuff ok , then I used some software that created 2D slices thru my model and generated a series of 2D toolpaths for my CNC machine to follow.

Hey man I got real close to making this work but I cannot get a fine enough flow thru the nozzle to create a `freeze on contact` , sucessful `layer upon layer` build. If the flow/spray is thicker than a hair from your head it`s like, way too thick .
Still I had many hrs of pleasure building and learning about CNC stuff. If anyone wants to try an idea I really recommend using Mach3 cnc software to control stepper/servo motors relays, switches and a whole bunch more. In fact I was designing a fully automated beer brewing idea but realised there are so many factors involved in producing quality beer that I shelved the idea. Although I must say I do believe BIAB would benifit from a ridgid (call it automated) approach to repeatable brews. I`d like nothing more that to be able to easily reproduce an intense mouthfeel, bitter/sweet strong ale. so here I am at my new quest. Man I sure hope you guys help me when I start building my machine. I need loads of advice.

This might be getting long in the tooth (on the original subject), but why not stick with the original single manifold idea with 4 to 8 ball valves and machine up a large block of (insert you favorite metal here, Copper, Brass, SS, whatever) materiel to accept those ball valves. Then cool the unit with a glycol mixture (that is kept inside the fridge for a cheap method or a separate cooler for those that can afford it) running through the block. That way it can be mounted outside of the fridge, it could be polished up to look nice, depending on the temp, it could reduce or almost eliminate cleaning. Insert a pin into the ball valve handle that will only allow one valve handle to be opened up one at a time by a simple sliding bar that has a notch in it with pointer aiming to the label of each individual beer, so you could visually see the beer selected. After that send it to a single tap point in the center of the block when you would put your tab handle. Stag has some nice ideas, not knocking them, but most involve more machining than this simple idea. Just a newbe uninformed comment/question....

OK, so this thread was eating at me after I posted my last post. Even what I suggested above is still a difficult task. So how about this as an idea. I did not actually select the "actual" parts and model everything up in SolidWorks because were all in very different parts of the world and you guys/gals know where to get your hands on your own style of parts. But the basic concept will work.
The pair of blue lines represents your fridge door or wall you are coming through.
The purple is the common manifold. You can put a Tap on it or just a dispensing pipe.
The yellow parts are linear travel solenoids with about .5 to 1 inch of travel
The grey parts are standard "picnic" keg dispensers
The green is a bulk head to mount the solenoids on and attaches to the dispensing manifold

There is a top view and an end view, looking at it from the inside of fridge.

So if you get your hands on a set of solenoids, AC/DC/Air (even locking door actuators for cars should work) it really makes no different. Lets say we go with 12V DC ones. Get a transformer, and bank of matching switches. You can get as fancy with the switches as you like. Big dome ones with a back light and put you beer label in them would be a good way to go. Mount the fancy buttons where your friends can reach them, and press whichever one you like. If you just have a dispensing pipe, then that is it. Or you could get bush buttons that toggle on/off if you want a tap handle. Push the button, and when it lights up, pull the tap handle. You could add some simple logic to make sure only one is on at a time, but if you use buttons that light up, I think that would be just as good.

The Picnic keg dispenser are designed to be taken apart and cleaned, they are easy to get and cheap. Attaching the to the dispensing manifold is easy enough, but I think you would want to come up with a sheet metal mount to hold them solid against the pull of the solenoids.

I think that addresses everyones concerns. Easy to make, can stay inside the fridge, easy to clean, cheap to make.

Heck, you could skip the electronics and use simple bicycle brake cables and have pull knobs. Just spring load the levers back at the picnic keg dispensers. And you have compressed CO2, you can also drive small pneumatic cylinders to actuate the picnic levers too. Lots-O-Ways to skin that cat....