Raspberry Pi Brewhouse controller?

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SGFBeerBuzz

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Has anyone seen this?

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

It's apparently a $35 Linux/GNU computer in a very small package. According to their site:

What’s a Raspberry Pi?
The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming.

It seems like this would be in interesting way to build a low-cost brewhouse controller system. Between this card and an Arduino (or netduino), you could build some pretty cool functionality into a single, small, box.

Thoughts?

Edit: Adding FAQ link from their site: http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs
 
I ordered one a month or two ago... It was supposed to be here already, still hasn't shipped. Now its looking like august? Oh well:) I'd like to find a touchscreen to work with it. Should be a fun little project
 
Sounds cool. I think I'll wait until their supply chain catches up before I start trying anything with it. It would be pretty cool to run a whole brewhouse from it.
 
it is an I/O interface... of course you can get an external expansion board which lets you add more functionality to it, like the "gertboard".

raspberrypi isnt nearly as mature as arduino, so there isnt as many programs for it yet, but im sure this will make an even better brewhouse controller once people build one. its got quite a bit more features for only another $10 (over an arduino). a LOT more IO ports and native HDMI sound/video and networking.
 
This has lots of potential. I am very interested in seeing someone do a touchscreen on this.
 
I ordered one a month or two ago... It was supposed to be here already, still hasn't shipped. Now its looking like august? Oh well:) I'd like to find a touchscreen to work with it. Should be a fun little project

I read an article on this about a month ago (my memory is shot so don't quote me on the facts...just the jist of the story) on why they have not shipped. It had something to do with the manufacturer installing the the wrong usb drive or something to that effect and they had already built like a couple hundred thousand or so. SO they were on back order.
 
...
raspberrypi isnt nearly as mature as arduino, so there isnt as many programs for it yet...

I'm not sure I follow - doesn't RPi run Linux? Linux has a ton of programs :).

Until the supply chain is sorted out I'm using PIDs and horsing around with an Arduino... but I think you can control the Arduino from a PC using Ruby (or python or shell scripts or...)

So, I figured once I could get my hands on an RPi I'd just use it as a linux PC and drive the brew system via the Arduino.

In the mean time I could do the same with a spare netbook probably.

I thought it seems like a fairly useful setup because the RPi would let you easily do all the logging that you might be interested in. It also has a lot more horse power than the arduino.

On the other hand I thought the RPi was pretty limited in terms of i/o pins so coupling the two seems to make a certain amount of sense (since gertboard will be immature - which is maybe what you meant?).
 
I wonder if any decent brew control applications exist for any of the platforms, to build a decent one takes quite a bit of time, effort, and process control knowledge. It is easy to do on/off control, but that is mostly the limitations of the current hardware used, no one has done much with analog out yet.
 
I figured a touchscreen would be really cool or you could simply hook a USB hub up to it and you'd have plenty of room to use an arduino for your sensors and add a keyboard, mouse, and monitor if you want.

The touchscreen is way cooler, though.
 
I wonder if any decent brew control applications exist for any of the platforms, to build a decent one takes quite a bit of time, effort, and process control knowledge. It is easy to do on/off control, but that is mostly the limitations of the current hardware used, no one has done much with analog out yet.

I'm not really aware of any (although I think I've read that some existing products are based off Arduino).

I think one of the issues might be that the software side of things can't be completely independent from the hardware side of things.

That's probably why things like brewtroller and BCS exist instead of just software packages.

If someone just wrote a linux program to do brew control they'd probably need to basically provide header files and say "use these headers to fill in the details of libSSR.so, libTemperatureProbe.so, ..." then the user would need to build those libs & make sure they were in the right places to find them at run time (or something roughly equivalent).

I mean that wouldn't be horrible but it would kind of limit the audience that could use the software to people who can write some code or people who can get someone to write some code for them.

What do you mean about analog out? Like fire the element at 40% vs. SSR-style on/off?
 
At this point, I'd just love to use a spare PC I have, throw LINUX on it, and set up some temp probe inputs and some SSR or pump outputs to control temps during brewing. It would also be cool to be able to extend this to control temps for a fermentation chamber or a kegerator, but I'm not there yet. It would also be extra cool to be able to access it via the web to monitor it, as well.

My dream project would be to set up a single PC which controlled the brew process from start to finish and logged the temp data for me to analyze later with my nerdy self.

So, what LINUX software do you know that might help me achieve this setup?
 
At this point, I'd just love to use a spare PC I have, throw LINUX on it, and set up some temp probe inputs and some SSR or pump outputs to control temps during brewing. It would also be cool to be able to extend this to control temps for a fermentation chamber or a kegerator, but I'm not there yet. It would also be extra cool to be able to access it via the web to monitor it, as well.

My dream project would be to set up a single PC which controlled the brew process from start to finish and logged the temp data for me to analyze later with my nerdy self.

So, what LINUX software do you know that might help me achieve this setup?

I have wondered at not seeing something like this. I have not written any code since a college class decades ago, so I'm speaking from ignorance. When programs like BrewTarget are written to predict initial gravity, IBUs, etc, why aren't some being be written to allow inputs and outputs for mash temp? Why do I need a little computer when I have spare PCs laying around? I suppose I'm just displaying my ignorance, so can someone explain that to me, speaking slowly and using only small words?
 
You don't need a mini computer. You could use an old PC running Linux & owfs with one-wire components.

Check out this thread: Monitoring/controlling with Linux on the cheap

Sometimes it's just fun to have another computer though :p. Also if you're going to leave the thing running 24-7 you may find that a small embedded device pays for itself in a reasonable amount of time because it draws so much less power & generates less heat output (in the case that you use a/c to keep cool).
 
Wow! That thread makes my head hurt! I want to make my brew days easier with automation. I don't really want to learn to write code. I realize that hoping to simplify something through automation may be a pipe dream. I haven't finished that thread yet, and what I'm hoping for may be there yet. I'll have to come back to it with no beer in me.
 
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