[Feeler] Any Interest in Digital Tap Lists?

[63belair]

This is too cool, thanks for posting!

 

[AgentHubcap]

I started writing some code for the flow meters. I should have something basic done this weekend. Just have to figure out how to hook up the flow meter for testing. I'm not a hardware guy, so I don't know if I need anything other than to directly connect the pins to the board.

The plan is to make a daughterboard that they can plug into in the future, but I just need to test what I have so far.

 

[LandoLincoln]

'Fraid not. It does not update as your dispense (yet).

Problem is, the cheapest reliable food-safe flow meters with decent precision are $60 ea, plus import fees and shipping. That's more than the price of a corny keg for most of the US!

If you're interested in live keg updates, check out the Kegbot project. So far, they're limited to 2 kegs on a flow meters, and they require an Android tablet for display. Talk about expensive!

If I could find a source of reliable, cheap food-grade flow meters, I'd consider developing based around an Adafruit sheild add-on. Unfortunately, the market just isn't there yet. Sorry.

I have a cheaper solution.

Measure beer going into keg as you keg it. Use a steel sanitized dipstick to gauge.
Tell computer how much beer is in there.
Do the calculation on how much beer flows per second out of your taps at a given pressure. Tell computer this as well.
Install a sensor that lets the computer know when the tap handle isn't in the closed position. Perhaps something as simple as a piece of metal on the back of the tap handle that forms a connection between two wires.
When tap handle breaks the connection, the computer starts counting. Then it does the math and deducts that amount just poured from the total amount.

Would give you a pretty close estimation of what's left in the keg.

 

[Stovetop535]

I have a cheaper solution.

Measure beer going into keg as you keg it. Use a steel sanitized dipstick to gauge.
Tell computer how much beer is in there.
Do the calculation on how much beer flows per second out of your taps at a given pressure. Tell computer this as well.
Install a sensor that lets the computer know when the tap handle isn't in the closed position. Perhaps something as simple as a piece of metal on the back of the tap handle that forms a connection between two wires.
When tap handle breaks the connection, the computer starts counting. Then it does the math and deducts that amount just poured from the total amount.

Would give you a pretty close estimation of what's left in the keg.

Question for those who are much smarter than I in this thread, would this approach to measuring flow or the flow meter approach be effected by foam?

There are times I will force carb a keg and forget to turn the gas back down. There are also times I will purposely over carb a keg a little cause of the style and I will loose a little on every poor.

Would the foam effect the accuracy?

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[mcangeli]

Ok, so I grabbed a copy of this off of Github and it is installed and working on my debian server.

I haven't put it on the raspberry yet as I still have to get that up and configured.

I added two of my own beers and deactivated the three that were in. It is fairly straight forward.

I do have a couple of questions/suggestions....

First is the Calories. That information is not included with most of the kits I have bought, so really, I'm picking numbers out of thin air and putting that in. If its unneeded, the calories field could probably be done away with.

My other question is balance. What is it exactly and how do you decide what the number should be? Again, this is an arbitrary number I just picked out of thin air...

 

[skemp45]

Ok, so I grabbed a copy of this off of Github and it is installed and working on my debian server.

I haven't put it on the raspberry yet as I still have to get that up and configured.

I added two of my own beers and deactivated the three that were in. It is fairly straight forward.

I do have a couple of questions/suggestions....

First is the Calories. That information is not included with most of the kits I have bought, so really, I'm picking numbers out of thin air and putting that in. If its unneeded, the calories field could probably be done away with.

My other question is balance. What is it exactly and how do you decide what the number should be? Again, this is an arbitrary number I just picked out of thin air...

Here you go for calories, Might bring this up and try to automate this we will see what Thad wants to do.
http://zookeeperbrewing.com/calc/

 

[thadius856]

Ok, so I grabbed a copy of this off of Github and it is installed and working on my debian server.

I haven't put it on the raspberry yet as I still have to get that up and configured.

I added two of my own beers and deactivated the three that were in. It is fairly straight forward.

I do have a couple of questions/suggestions....

First is the Calories. That information is not included with most of the kits I have bought, so really, I'm picking numbers out of thin air and putting that in. If its unneeded, the calories field could probably be done away with.

My other question is balance. What is it exactly and how do you decide what the number should be? Again, this is an arbitrary number I just picked out of thin air...

Well, you're looking at the red-headed step child right now. Digging deep, not much polish yet.

That said.

Calories are based on two factors: amount of alcohol (known), amount of remaining sugars (also known). Each has a specific caloric density. The linked calculator above is useful.

I'd like the software to calculate automatically for you. You'll fill in an OG and an FG field, and it'll do the rest. There wouldn't be a Calories field to even fill in.

As for balance, that's a similar thing. Balance is BU:GU, or Bitterness Units : Gravity Units.

A 65 IBU beer with an OG of 1.080 would have a balance of 0.81.

Beers with < 1 BU:GU tend to be malty.
Beers around 1 BU:GU tend to be balanced.
Beers with > 1 BU:GU tend to be hoppy.

There's a ton of other variables (attenuation, residual sugars, flavors produced in fermentation, etc) that affect how balance a beer is perceived. In the end, BU:GU is an at-a-glance way to get a rough idea of what you're about to pour.

This, too, should be automatically calculating from IBU and OG in the future. You won't have to fill it in.

 

[Chia]

Very Cool

 

[de3isit]

Not to come across as a complete moron, but once this project is completed, would this be doable by someone with no experience?

 

[skemp45]

Not a Moron at all, the goal behind the User interface is to make it as simple as possible. We do that by automating alot of the settings and setup process. We are also going to be working on a howto guide that will cover everything. It is just as important to dump time into your how to just like you do the tool itself. Whats the use of wasting out time on making something you cant use?? Along the way we KEEP checking each other when we start thinking to complex and always find a way to make it easy to understand. BE EXCITED this is going to ROCK!!!!!

 

[thadius856]

Not to come across as a complete moron, but once this project is completed, would this be doable by someone with no experience?

Instructions will be written to setup this thing. It will be no harder and take no longer than your first extract batch.

If you want flow meters, it'll be doable by may require some soldering. Sounds daunting, but Ive seen 8 year olds master it no problem.

 

[thadius856]

Aiight contributors. We've seen the ugly site of Github. The fork/pull-request method is clearly not working. We've lost code several times now because Github freaks out when your fork is both steps behind AND steps ahead of the master at the same time. And then the command line fixes they provide eat your work, and you're left pissed off and confused.

From here out, edit the master directly. If you want to edit on Github itself, that's fine. If you want to edit on GitHub Desktop, that's fine. if you want to edit on Git Shell or git, that's fine. I don't really care what method you use.

Please test your edits before committing to the master. Most of that time that's no harder than hitting save on your text editor and refreshing the page to check for breakage. We all have rights to commit to master, and you should take advantage of that.

Please commit at minimum every hour you work on it, and check to make sure nobody else has committed since last time you grabbed the code so you don't overwrite their work. It's better to have thousands of tiny commits than to lose large swathes of work. We can always create a fresh repo later down the road if we don't like the commit number in the corner.

That is all.

 

[AgentHubcap]

aaahhh...the pains of version control. I should have probably mentioned that you need to do a pull from master before trying to push. That way you can work through any conflicts. Having a bunch of people touch the same file is an exercise in frustration.

 

[mcangeli]

I noticed that in the css you're calling the images from /img as opposed to img

This works if your digital tap list is in the top of your domain but not if it's in a folder.



Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[BeastMaster]

Ordered my flow meters yesterday, so stoked about this!

 

[ratsathome]

If you can't get hold of the "Swiss Flow Meters" are their any alternatives that can be used?

 

[AgentHubcap]

For anyone not sure about the flow meters, and not willing to jump on the ebay train, there's another company that sells refurbished meters for $25 each.

http://swissflowmeters.com/

 

[skemp45]

I noticed that in the css you're calling the images from /img as opposed to img

This works if your digital tap list is in the top of your domain but not if it's in a folder.



Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Home Brew mobile app

You are correct, this will be adjusted

 

[thadius856]

aaahhh...the pains of version control. I should have probably mentioned that you need to do a pull from master before trying to push. That way you can work through any conflicts. Having a bunch of people touch the same file is an exercise in frustration.

That's the thing. We were. We'd branch or fork, change, then create a pull request. BOOM, things would go haywire. If somebody else made a change between the time you branched/forked and created the pull request, the diff engine would freak out and refuse to let you commit via the web interface.

You'd have to hack a bit to get it to allow you to sync up. And that's when we'd start losing code.

I'm stepping thru gitref.org right now to try and learn old-school command line git. Hopefully it's worth it and will help.

If you can't get hold of the "Swiss Flow Meters" are their any alternatives that can be used?

Not at this time. There's the Adafruit flow meters, but they're not listed as food-safe and will remain untested for the foreseable future.

For anyone not sure about the flow meters, and not willing to jump on the ebay train, there's another company that sells refurbished meters for $25 each.

http://swissflowmeters.com/

Nice source.

 

[thadius856]

I plan on going balls-to-the-walls to try and get as much done with this as possible this weekend.

I have brewing scheduled for both days, ambitions to pre-cook my weeks' lunches, and an early Monday briefing, so we'll see how far I actually get.

 

[thadius856]

Success! Some basic success pushing an edit via git.

Would prefer to built my git right out of /www/var/, but hey, I guess I'll have to settle for /home/pi/.

 

[JayUnt]

My last couple of com's have been using svn and the tortoisesvn Windows client and it's been a breeze. Granted I already knew how to use it, but it's a lot easier.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[thadius856]

Aaaaand here's a prime example of when GH won't let us merge back to the master.

Can't merge the yellow fork back into the master using the website.

 

[DustyTheBrewer]

I haven't forgotten about this. Been watching every day. RPi is in the mail, flow meters on their way. Hell, I even have an arduino now to practice this developing tomfoolery you all are so clearly amazing at. This thread has inspired me to get poking around in this realm of yours and think its really awesome!

That said, I am a baby and cant contribute to the extent of your collaborators. But I'll be here cheering from the bench holding my temperature controlled PWM LED, haha.

Dusty

 

[BurntOrngeLonghorn84]

I saw this monitor on Newegg and thought it would be a good addition to the project while on sale. $129 free shipping on a new 23" 1920 x 1080 monitor.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...009534&cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-24-009-534-_-Product

 

[thadius856]

If you're going to go out and buy a new monitor, I wouldn't buy that one. I spent a couple weeks searching for the ideal monitor and this is what I found.

The top 3 features you want from a monitor for wall mounting as a kiosk are:

1. VESA mount holes
2. IPS, e-IPS, s-IPS, or etc panel inside (the part that actually displays images)
3. Built-in USB hub

Now lets go through why.

1) The VESA mount holes allow you to use a wall mount. Not all monitors have them. Without the holes, you can't easily wall-mount. Sure, you could rig up some sort of cradle tom foolery, but why? Some Dell monitors are popular enough that Chinese sellers on eBay have rigged up an adapter that replaces the base and presents VESA mount holes instead, but they're ~$25 and the only Dell monitors lacking VESA mounts tend to be the ultra-low-end models and the ultra-thin models.

2) VA and TN panels offer better prices because they're cheaper to manufacture. When viewed at even 20º off-center to either side, color distortion is apparent. You're probably seen this at work or a friend's house when they're trying to show you something on a computer. You have to almost view it over their shoulder or in their cubicle to be able to see what they're trying to show you.

On a VA or TN panel with the monitor is in a horizontal orientation, dimming (or sometimes fading) is apparent when viewed from the left and the right. So if you were to walk past it, it would look like it was brightening until you were perpendicular to the screen, then it would look like it was dimming again. Very distracting. I return 5 VA/TN monitors before I gave up and forked out for IPS because of this issue.

If you mount a VA/TN panel monitor vertically, it gets even worse. Viewing from the left shows a huge yellow tint, while viewing from the right shows a huge purple tint. I do mean huge. If you TV showed this much tint, you'd swear it was broken.

IPS panels do not suffer from the tinting problem at all. Dimming when viewed off center is very minor in comparison, though still present if you're really looking for it. Here's an example. The center display is what the image looks like normally. The left display is how an IPS panel would look at that viewing angle, and the right is how a VA panel would look at that viewing angle.

And here's how a TN panel looks at different angles:

It gets way worse the further off-center you go. So how do they get away with selling these VA/TN panels? If you're sitting in the same spot at a desk day after day, viewing angle isn't terribly important. If you keezer is in a closet, and there's only one place you could ever possibly approach from and stand in front of the keezer at, a VA/TN panel is fine. Otherwise, go IPS.

3) If the monitor has a built-in USB hub, you can power the Pi with it. One less cord to string up the wall and one less AC adapter to need. If you want, you can can then utilize the USB hub to expand the number of USB ports available to you.

Also, it helps with power requirements. In a nutshell, the monitor's USB hub will be able to provide USB devices with more power than they could draw from the Pi.

The Pi can accept a 700mA power input. When working full-blast (rarely for this project), it needs ~500mA. That leaves 100mA for each of your USB ports on the Pi. The Favi keyboard and Edimax WiFi adapter I linked earlier don't use more than 100mA each, but some items can. Generally, the bigger the dongle, the larger the antenna, the more power it consumes. They do this because they're designed for use on a PC, where the USB spec ensures they'll be able to get 500mA per port (on the oldest USB specs) or more (on newer USB specs).

Details on how to power a Pi with a monitor's USB hub here. Details on the Pi's power limitations here.

 

[thadius856]

The monitor you linked DOES have VESA mounts, but is not an IPS panel and does not have a USB hub. For $130, I find that unacceptable. Similar displays regularly go on sale below $100.

Here's what I'd do (and did) if you want to get a monitor with the VESA mounts, IPS panel and USB hub. When people buy a monitor and return it with a broken tape seal on the product box (even if it was never unpacked), manufacturers can no longer sell it as new legally. They ship them to a refurbishment center where they're tested, relabeled as refurbished, and sent back out. I've been buying refurbished monitors exclusively for about 10 years now. I have 12 in my home (1 Samsung, 2 LG, 9 Dells) and 3 more on a FedEx truck right now . I've never had a single failure or weirdness on any of them. All of them have come beautifully packaged, dust-free, and with zero stuck/deal pixels or scratches.

(With one exception, the 2 LGs. I bough them as an off-lease refurb. In other words, an office used them on a lease, LG took them back at the end of the lease, cleaned them up, and sold them clearly labeled as IMPERFECT. I got a killer deal on them because of the IMPERFECT label on the site -- Overstock.com. One arrived with scratch approx 1/4" long, way out in the bottom right corner, and it's only visible when the monitor is turned off.)

Point is, refurb is the way to go for monitors. And power tools, especially miter saws. And lawn mowers. Moving on...

Dell Outlet lists only their refurbs. The prices are "meh", until they get too much inventory, then they blow it all out on a 30% off sale at retardedly low prices. Shipping is free. This happens about once per month. You can find the 30% coupons on Slickdeals.net by searching "Dell Outlet" or "Dell sale". Register an account and set up a deal alert to be notified by email when one pops up.

Other brands do this too, but not with the regularity and predictability that Dell does.

There happens to be a sale right meow.

Go here: http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnline..._DESC=ALL&s=dfh&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

On the left, click "1920x1080" to hide all the others.

There's 10 models listed. Ignore any model ending in "T" for now (S2340T, S2140T, etc), as they're overpriced touchscreens with no VESA mounts and their ports integrated into the base of the monitor. Here's the features on each of the rest:

Dell S2340M 23" $167.00 ($117.90 sale)
VESA: No
IPS: Yes
USB hub: No

Dell E2213H 21.5" $141.00 ($98.70 sale)
VESA: Yes
IPS: No
USB hub: No

Dell P2214H 22" $169.00 ($118.30 sale)
VESA: Yes
IPS: Yes
USB hub: Yes (2.0, 4 ports)

Dell P2412H 24" $199.00 ($139.30 sale)
VESA: Yes
IPS: No
USB hub: Yes (2.0, 4 ports)

Dell S2440L 24" $187.00 ($130.90 sale)
VESA: No
IPS: No
USB hub: No

Dell E2214H 21.5" $139 ($97.30 sale)
VESA: Yes
IPS: No
USB Hhub: No

Also not currently in stock, but the model I bought:

Dell P2314H 23" $169 ($118.30 sale)
VESA: Yes
IPS: Yes
USB hub: Yes (2.0, 4 ports)

And also not in stock, but worth consideration:

Dell P2414H 24" $199 ($139.30 sale)
VESA: Yes
IPS: Yes
USB hub: Yes (2.0, 4 ports)

Feel free to consider 27" models, but keep to the less-common 1920x1080 models. They'll be in the ~$200 range. Don't bother with a 27" 2560x1440 model. You'll only be throwing your cash away, as you won't be standing close enough to benefit from the increased pixel density.

 

[Stovetop535]

Great info on the monitors. Would this work with a flat screen instead?

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[thadius856]

A... what? All screens are flat these days. We haven't had bulbous screens since CRTs went the way of the dinosaur.

 

[thadius856]

I have a cheaper solution.

Measure beer going into keg as you keg it. Use a steel sanitized dipstick to gauge.
Tell computer how much beer is in there.
Do the calculation on how much beer flows per second out of your taps at a given pressure. Tell computer this as well.
Install a sensor that lets the computer know when the tap handle isn't in the closed position. Perhaps something as simple as a piece of metal on the back of the tap handle that forms a connection between two wires.
When tap handle breaks the connection, the computer starts counting. Then it does the math and deducts that amount just poured from the total amount.

Would give you a pretty close estimation of what's left in the keg.

Novel, but I serve my 10 kegs all at different pressures and I have 4 different lengths of beer line that I swap in/out depending on the desired pour speed.

Building tap handle contactors, wiring them, and programming them into a micro computer isn't something the average HBTer could accomplish, even with help.

For this project, the method for determining how much beer is in the keg will likely be by weight, since most of us have a grain scale that can weigh a full keg already.

 

[thadius856]

Updates for today.

Spent several hours figuring out how to set up a method of pushing/pulling the project from Github faster. Very satisfied with TortoiseGit, now that I've taught myself how to use it. Publishing to my website in near-real-time as well, without human intervention.

www.thadius856.servebeer.com

Table formatting has been fixed. Everything looks normal again.

Project has taken on a new name: RaspberryPints. You can see the new logo in the top-right.

Github repo has been moved to somewhere more obvious. If you're adventurous and you have a working knowledge of Debian, HTML, PHP, CSS, and SQL, feel free to download and play. Feedback is appreciated. If you don't know what these acronyms are, you're way out of your league. Wait for a picture tutorial.

Major SQL overhaul today. Lots of backend work. Plenty of style sheet noodling.

Notably, you will now need to provide an FG for each brew. As a tradeoff, I was able to get balance (BU:GU), caloric content (kCal) and alcoholic content (ABV) to auto-calculate based on OG/FG.

 

[Stovetop535]

A... what? All screens are flat these days. We haven't had bulbous screens since CRTs went the way of the dinosaur.

My bad, I meant a flat screen tv instead of computer monitor. Thats what I get for posting at work...

 

[Seven]

Updates for today.

www.thadius856.servebeer.com

Table formatting has been fixed. Everything looks normal again.

Project has taken on a new name: RaspberryPints. You can see the new logo in the top-right.

The link doesn't work for me.

What displays in the far right "poured/remaining" column if we don't intend to use the flow meter feature?

Are we able to disable/replace the RaspberryPints logo and branding text?

Thanks for all of your hard work.

 

[jpalarchio]

The link doesn't work for me.

Remove the www. from the front of the link.

 

[mtnagel]

For this project, the method for determining how much beer is in the keg will likely be by weight, since most of us have a grain scale that can weigh a full keg already.

I'm confused. Do you mean initially?

I thought you said you couldn't use weight because your kegs are touching each other so that would mess up the weights?

And I thought the flow meters were what was going to determine the volume remaining?

 

[mcangeli]

I'm confused. Do you mean initially?

I thought you said you couldn't use weight because your kegs are touching each other so that would mess up the weights?

And I thought the flow meters were what was going to determine the volume remaining?

I think he means the initial amount in the keg.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[thadius856]

My bad, I meant a flat screen tv instead of computer monitor. Thats what I get for posting at work...

Oh. TV. Yes. You may need to fiddle with overscan settings to get the picture to fit correctly (Google "overscan TV" if you want details the why of it all), but it's pretty doable. Super easy if the TV has HDMI or DVI ports.

If not, you can use a composite cable (red/white/yellow cable, but it only uses the yellow). I have no idea how to do it, but I'm sure it's floating all over the web.

The link doesn't work for me.

Accidentally added a 'www'. Sorry, happens after a couple pints.

What displays in the far right "poured/remaining" column if we don't intend to use the flow meter feature?

Nothing. The column disappears, the ABV column slides over in its place, and the center Name // Style // Tasting Notes volumn stretches to fill.

Are we able to disable/replace the RaspberryPints logo and branding text?

The brewery logo will have a place that it can be changed easily. You'll also be able to change the "Beers on Tap" text.

As for the RaspberryPints logo, I'd ask that it's kept in place. A 264x100 image and link back to our project doesn't seem like a big intrusion in return for a whole free software suite.

That said, once you download the code, I literally have no way of stopping you from changing it.

Remove the www. from the front of the link.

Yeah, this. No-IP free domains don't get www. :\

I'm confused. Do you mean initially?

I thought you said you couldn't use weight because your kegs are touching each other so that would mess up the weights?

And I thought the flow meters were what was going to determine the volume remaining?

I do mean initially, for determining the starting amount. Putting a new keg in the keezer? Toss it on the grain scale. I'll probably also include a place where you can enter a gallon figure, in case you just want to eyeball it.

The flow meters will have a calibration method and should be accurate to within 1-2%, so the "fl oz poured" will always be right. But without knowing the starting amount in the keg, the image will always be off.

I think he means the initial amount in the keg.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Home Brew mobile app

Yerp.

 

[mtnagel]

I do mean initially, for determining the starting amount. Putting a new keg in the keezer? Toss it on the grain scale. I'll probably also include a place where you can enter a gallon figure, in case you just want to eyeball it.

The flow meters will have a calibration method and should be accurate to within 1-2%, so the "fl oz poured" will always be right. But without knowing the starting amount in the keg, the image will always be off.

Got it. I don't have a grain scale, but I have a bathroom scale that would work. Anyway, that sounds great. Thanks.

 

[ratsathome]

Question for us "foreigners"
Will it be customizable to do metric?

 

[thadius856]

Not for immediate release, but that's certainly a potential feature. I do have a plan to make it show "pints" instead of "fl oz", if that helps any. :\

Wouldn't be super difficult, though you may have to calibration the flow meters in US units, depending on how I code it.