Home Automation - Phased Pump Automation

I’m in the process of researching a project to build a home brewery. Very stripped down I’ll have three containers that I’ll heat and pump liquids into and out of. I’d like to start with pumps that I manually operate by simply flipping them on or off and use a ball value to control flow rate. Over time I’d like to programmatically control the flow rate using a SSR or PWM controller to control flow rate.

So I’m looking at the following pumps and want to know if people think I should go 12v DC, 24v DC or 115v AC?

?????? (http://www.marchpump.com/documents/809-HS.asp#809-BR-HS-C%20115V%2050/60Hz%20&%20230V%2050/60Hz%20Models)

?????? (http://www.marchpump.com/documents/809-HS.asp#809-BR-HS-C%2012V%20&%2024V%20DC%20Models)

To start with I was thinking I’d just wire the motor to a simple male plug and use a 12v or 24v wall adapter to supply them power if I went with 12 or 24v. I’m kind of out of my element here and would appreciate any help or advice people are willing to give me. Safety is really my main concern at this point.

Welcome to the forums.

The manual says to check with the factory if you plan to use the pump for liquids other than water. Shoot 'em an e-mail.

Low voltage is safer than 120VAC provided you get the right power supply. The low-voltage pump pulls 3.5amps at 12vdc and 1.8 amps at 24vdc. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a wall wart that provides that much power. Especially if you're using three pumps.

I would go with a 24-volt model with something like this power supply (http://www.powersupplydirect.com/assets/56/PSP240A.PDF) to power all three pumps plus any relays, indicator lamps, etc. (I've never bought from that website -- it's just an example.)

Thank you so much for your help. Forgive my lack of electrical knowledge, but I have one additional question. I’ll likely go with the 24v dc pumps, but down the road at some point I’ll also be wiring up some solenoid valves to control the path liquids take in my system. Many of these values run on 12v dc and I’m thinking I’ll get a multi-output power supply that provides both 12 and 24v. So this all seems understandable to me, but how do I take the power from the power supply and allocate it to several different components? Something tells me attaching 5 to 10 different wires to the power supply is the incorrect choice.

I apologies for the elementary question, but I’m still trying to wrap my brain around how this will all work and want to have a very clear idea of what I’m doing before I try anything myself.