Arduino, now what?

Got a really good deal on an Arduino board. Looking to do something brewing related with it. Not looking to go full on automation. Reason I didn't buy a brewtroller or anything. Just looking to fulfill my tinkering needs. Even a digital mash thermometer would make me happy. Any ideas or even proven code?

Brent

I'm in the process of building my fermentation temp controller. 3 one-wire sensors and a relay, with room to expand. The coding is not great, as it's my first attempt, but it works, You're welcome to it, though.

There's a lot you can do with those things. If you got the mega, you can do everything the brewtroller can, I believe.

I saw the HABS build some one did a while back. Looks easy enough to do. Got the Arduino for 9 dollars so building it would be cheaper than the brewtroller. Brewtroller > HABS though. If I feel ambitious I may try and tackle that. I do have a brutus 20e so I'm not far from the HABS System.

http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1241337653

I guess you already seen it but for other interested. I'm working on something similar similar but gravity, no pumps (yet) .

I also plan to use the arduino as a temp control for my fermentation chamber/keg fridge.

I use an arduino as a temperature controller in my kegerator. It accomplishes the same thing as a love controller, but allows me to set up my own control logic, so I can use the fridge side as a ~60 degree fermentation chamber.

Where did you get the Arduino for 9 dollars?

Ebay. It's the 2009 version but that's all I need to complete the project. The new one is the UNO but that runs about 65. Going to grab a 20x4 LCD. I already have 2 ssrs. I might need to get another or two for the pumps. Unless I can grab the relays from brewtroller for the pumps. Going to be a slow project. I have somewhat of an electronics background as well as programming. My buddy is going to help me out and he programs. Should be a good project. I'll write a step by step when I get it running the way I want it for people that want to do a Brewtroller knock off for possibly quite a bit under the cost.

Cool. I've been away from the forums a while, but come back and people are doing Arduino projects. I just prototyped an e-textile device that would detect tantrum-related behavior in autistic children using an Arduino, accelerometer, and microphone. These projects sound more fun.

It won't hold a candle to the Brewtroller. I'm not after that. I'm just looking to satisify my need to tinker. The code is already out there. I am just going to customize it for my setup. Probably eventually add some valves. I have most of the parts so I think I can do it for a fairly low price. Just going to take some time. I'm always up for learning so even if I can't get it to work correctly, I will still walk away with more knowledge than I came into the project with.

Sounds like you are well versed in the Arduino!

Get some DS1820 one wire sensors and familiarize yourself with the SPI library from the Arduino playground. Your project/code should be very simple after that.

How much harder are the DS1820's to program than the LM34s? I have heard that there is quite a bit more code associated with them. Do they resist noise better than the LM34s?

They are far more accurate than LM34s and do resist noise. If you use the SPI library from the Arduino website, the code that you're going to write is no more complicated than if you were using LM34 sensors. The sketch will be larger due to the inclusion of the library, but that is inconsequential for a project of your magnitude.

looks like the bulk of the code can be copied. Then just edited slightly for where the output will reside. It is going to take a bit for me to get used to coding again. It's been a few years. I have a buddy that is a programmer, plus I work IT so our department has a ton of programmers from C to Foxpro to java. All walks. The electronics portion is the easier part for me. Going to slowly work on it as I just put a PID controlled unit together. This is more to tinker and see what I can come up with.

I've got my Arduino reading temps from two DS1820s and displaying the temps on a wee 20x4 LCD with barely any coding from me. Just plenty of copy/paste from examples. My plan is to just start with temp monitoring and then build up from there.

I've had great success with Arduino and temp control.

Heres the start of mine http://402basementclub.com/?p=4

Working on some other projects as well, but there is so much that you can do with Arduino

Reading a bit more. I think I'm going to abandon the idea of control of the brewery. I think i'll keep it simple with my PID. Looking more into the kegbot. Would like to out put how much beer is left in both of my kegs as well as the internal temperature of the kegerator. Going to display it out to an LCD i'll mount on top of the fridge. Then I'm going to hook a wireless shield to it and see if I can get some PHP code to relay info to a website.

Just have to figure out the code for the flow sensors. Looked into force resisters but they are expensive for what I would need. The flow sensors I can do some calculations to show how many Pints are left.

Dear Mr. Cracker, Been working on 2 kegbot for the past few months. I am assuming you are going to measure the remaining volume with a flow sensor vs. building a platform and weighing the kegs. If this is the case looks at the swiss flow 800's. I need to get about 7 sensors so if you want go in on a group buy let me know.

-Bean

Mr. Bean, I would only need two. We can definitely do a buy. Not quite ready yet but the swissflows are what I will be using. Reading into the building a platform will prove to be more expensive than one corny. Speaking of Cornies, anyword on getting me two for cheap?

-Mr. Cracker

Edit: http://www.mykegerator.net/pete/

Check that out. Cool PHP interface.

I will pick two up for you. We need to setup a big brew one of these days. I have been trying to brew for the past two days it is just too damn cold. But, on a plus I finished one of two pump boxes and wired that into the system.

Here is the kegbot system that I am modeling after: http://kegbot.org

The entire system is there and has lots of options. Also, sparkfun did a system with an iPad that was interesting, it only did one keg so for me was a little pointless.

YEa I saw the sparkfun one. I don't have the funds for that. I have been looking at kegbot.org and feel like the site is very unorganized. I'm having a hardtime following it. Seems like they are trying to fab up a board of their own and don't really have anything for the arduino production board.

Trevor and I are doing a 10 gallon brew of a DFH 60minute sometime after the holidays. You wanna come up? I can keep you updated. We'll coordinate a weekend. Got a new false bottom and new thermocouple. Also going to do some other small and relatively cheap upgrades over the holidays. Should be complete by the brewday. Let me know.

CoalCracker said:

Just have to figure out the code for the flow sensors. Looked into force resisters but they are expensive for what I would need. The flow sensors I can do some calculations to show how many Pints are left.

Click to expand...

Have you read anything definitive on how accurate the flow sensors are and if they disturb the beer line much?

jasper9 said:

Have you read anything definitive on how accurate the flow sensors are and if they disturb the beer line much?

Click to expand...

All the information that I have come across states so long there is liquid in the line it doesn't really matter if you disturb it. What will throw the readings off is if there is a lot of foam in the line.

I haven't really found anything on restricting the flow or anything like that so I don't see why the sensor itself would disturb the liquid. I know they use infrared to read flow rate so I don't see how that would disturb anything

They also make a flow sensor that is cheaper and more readily available that uses hall sensors to read flow. They don't disturb the flow either.

Here is a flow sensor that might work http://www.koolance.com/water-cooling/product_info.php?product_id=288. To interface with the Arduino you would need an RTC board like this http://store.gravitech.us/mii2creticlr.html and connect the flow sensor to the external pulse point. This will let you count the flow meter pulses so you can scale that into a flow amount.

You could always start out small... i just finished using some DS18B20's to monitor ferm temps (outside, inside chamber, and one taped to the carboy). I bought the ethernet shield so I could use Cacti/MRTG to monitor it remotely. Used that project to get to know the whole Arduino system.

Attached you can see where I just dropped a 5 gal keg into the chamber for testing (attached to green prob).

Working on the LCD print outs now... From there you could grab some SSR's and try to make a tmp controller.

Also... if anyone has any ideas on how to measure fermentation progress. I saw someone use a light gate to measure bubble rates, which I may try and copy. I would like a better way to measure co2 exhaust if possible.

Or perhaps drop a hydrometer in the carboy and somehow measure it's height from the outside relative to the beer level.

Yuri_Rage said:

They are far more accurate than LM34s and do resist noise. If you use the SPI library from the Arduino website, the code that you're going to write is no more complicated than if you were using LM34 sensors. The sketch will be larger due to the inclusion of the library, but that is inconsequential for a project of your magnitude.

Click to expand...

I found this to be very true. I tried using LM35 temp sensors, the readings were fine on the bread board but once i put them on the end of a 7' cable they picked up so much noise that the readings were +/- 30 degrees F. I would go straight to the one wire sensors. You can get them off of taydaelectronics for $1.75 each.