Flash Based BCS Control

Well I finally got the motivation together and finished the first phase of my flash based brewery control software. I have put together some libraries, which I plan to release, that make communicating with the BCS-460 device really simple and easy to use. I wrote the android compatible screen in about two hours using them. Any other Adobe Flex writers out there that might be interested in them?

All of these programs run in flash, so will run on any platform supporting them

Well here are the shots anyways. This screen runs on an 800x600 industrial touch screen computer. My brew system is an electrically heated HERMS system. I boil using a separate pot heated by gas.

Too bad the screen shot isn't animated as the pipes actual 'flow' when the pump is on. The heater element inside the coil lights up as well when the heater is on. The buttons also turn green when the associated output is on.



This is the application that runs on flash on my android phone:



And here is a generic BCS 'main page like' program that is kind of my test bed:



They are still a work in progress, but I brewed my first batch with the control software yesterday and it worked well.

My next step is to make the program actually take a mash profile and program the BCS to run it. Right now I have to manually change the temps through the BCS interface. I should have that done in short order. I still have to clean up a few things on the screens as well, but figure I will 'polish' it when most of the functionality is there.

Here is someone else modifying the html pages of the BCS:

Hacking the BCS

Just thought I would share,

Jim Olsen

Looks good. It's nice to see you guys that have programing ability do stuff like this.

Cool.

Jim,

I think it would be cool if you editied your original post and included a link to JonW's similar thread. If does the same, it would be easy for folks to check the progress of both methods.

Ed

I have updated the GUI to add the timer, and better make use of the space, given my touch screen is only 800x600. The controls are all designed around using a touch screen without a mouse nor keyboard.

I also added the functionality to program the BCS to a given Mash Temp, Mash Out Temp, and Mash Time. My next step is to make it so I can choose to do a step mash as well. This should simplify dealing with the BCS quite a bit.

Here is the updated GUI:



And the new mash control:

Bump for an update. Have you been able to make any additional updates?

I'm very interested in this technology.

Thanks!