First I want to thank @BrunDog for the patience and the help he has provided while researching my options for a RIMS setup, and his help with an issue I had with RTD sensors, RTD platform board for use with the BruControl software, MAX31865 boards, connection to Arduino MEGA 2560, and the data received in BruControl. This is going to be a little long and detailed, but hopefully it might provide some help with others with troubleshooting and documentation.
A little background on myself, I have worked in the Information Technology field for 19 years. I have worked supporting servers from e-mail to authentication, a lot of scripting to perform automation, some programming, and currently lead a team of remote customer support associates. Strong troubleshooting skills are a must to do well in this field, and I have always been proud at how well I have performed with troubleshooting some very complex problems.
This is part of the reason that I am posting this, as I failed miserably at not only troubleshooting my issues, I failed miserably at providing the proper information needed for BrunDog to help me. Now he was very helpful and patient with helping me, even with the lack of good information. Hopefully this will help others not only troubleshoot their own issues, regardless of brewing; but also provide the information needed when asking for help!
So I am building a control panel for a RIMS setup, which is my first electrical build. I have been researching for many months and have done some minor electrical items around the house, by no means am I an electrician. I am known to research things for months and did not take this project lightly, by the time I had purchases everything, I was comfortable that I would not kill myself or burn the house down! Everything was finally put together, and I documented all the pin connections that either went into or was an output for the MEGA controller, as this is the workhorse for the BruControl sofware. There are wire maps to print out on brucontrol.com to help with this, with notes field and that was a huge help! I started to build and configure all the elements \ objects in BruControl software to make sure all components were working properly when I noticed that all my RTD temperature sensors were reading -247.
Now this was the one area that I was worried about the most, as to me it was the most complex. So to get the RTD sensors to work with BruControl, I purchased a 4 channel board from BrunDog. I also purchased 4 MAX 31865 boards to plug into the board from BrunDog. Now this is really not that complex or difficult, but it does require some Solder work to assemble and configure the MAX 31865 boards, which I have never done any Soder work previously. I was also worried about the configuration that had to be done on the boards, as it required to Solder two different sections together, and to remove a connection from another area. Now exactly what has to be done is well documented with pictures, but it still had me concerned. Also mind you, my eyesight is not as good as it used to be when I was younger, and up close is where it is not as good.
So here I am, all 4 boards are reading -247, even though only two RTD sensors were connected! I instantly became worried that I did something very wrong, obviously a temperature of -247 is not good! I really wanted to fix this, and quickly! To make things worse, I was about to go over to my neighbors house to help him with a project, and I knew it would be a while as we would have some beers afterwards; he is a very good neighbor! I did a quick a check on my wire maps and it looked like I had all connections proper. So before I left to my neighbors house, I did a quick message on this forum to BrunDog.
If you are still with me, then we will finally get into my failures to troubleshoot, but even worse are my failures as a user requesting support! My message was quick and basic. I mentioned that I was using RTD sensors, the board purchased from him, some MAX boards, and that I was getting -247 in BruControl. I also asked how to obtain the reference resistor value that is mentioned in the BruControl manual.
Now I knew that I probably should not send this message, as I had not done a full review of all the configuration items that I needed to complete. I was just hoping that BrunDog would be like, oh I know that one and it is easy. Let me tell you from experience, that almost never happens.
So our initial communication started on Sunday, and after several back and forths, pictures, and then finally me providing a full detailed summary; two issues were identified and resolved on Tuesday. Now some may think that is not bad and a pretty quick turnaround to have resolution. To that I say I wasted plenty of my own time, and that of BrunDog’s. As someone in the Customer Support field, wasting BrunDog’s time is what bothers me the most.
Here were my failures:
1: I failed to review all relevant documentation and verify that I did everything properly. The relevant documentation for this would have been the MAX board configuration, BruControl RTD schematic, and BruControl Wire maps that I documented my pin mapouts.
2. I failed to ask for help on the wire map and RTD schematic that confused me. The schematic said to use certain pins on the MEGA, the wire map had N/C. I just assumed that I could assign any digital PIN, and then configure that in the software. By the time it came to configure the software, I completely forgot that I made this change!
3. When requesting support, I should have provided all possible relevant information to help BrunDog troubleshoot the problem. It is always better to provide too much information! Since this is remote support and no visual support, pictures are very important. I failed miserably at this point to provide the needed information and provided no pictures.
Once I finally provided all relevant information on Tuesday that included pictures, and my where I had the PINS going from the RTD board to the MEGA board, BrunDog was finally able to help me. The pictures made it obvious that I completely failed at my Solder work on the MAX 31865 boards, and that I incorrectly changed the wire mapping between the RTD board and the MEGA board. I also finally verified the OHM reading on the 3 wire RTD sensors to make sure that I had the wiring correctly connected, which again is a very important part of the documentation for the MAX 31865 boards.
If you made it this far, hopefully some of this has helped you, or will help you. Remember, when it comes to troubleshooting, review all relevant documentation and ensure that everything is wired\configured\whatever properly. Break things down into small chunks or to the bare minimum. If you have multiple things involved, try to break it down into multiple items to verify if possible. Breaking things down into smaller chunks can help quickly eliminate items from the equation! When it does come time to ask for help, do not just give the bare minimum of your issue. Provide a lot of information, even if you are not sure if it is relevant. Again, it is much better to provide too much information than too little!
A little background on myself, I have worked in the Information Technology field for 19 years. I have worked supporting servers from e-mail to authentication, a lot of scripting to perform automation, some programming, and currently lead a team of remote customer support associates. Strong troubleshooting skills are a must to do well in this field, and I have always been proud at how well I have performed with troubleshooting some very complex problems.
This is part of the reason that I am posting this, as I failed miserably at not only troubleshooting my issues, I failed miserably at providing the proper information needed for BrunDog to help me. Now he was very helpful and patient with helping me, even with the lack of good information. Hopefully this will help others not only troubleshoot their own issues, regardless of brewing; but also provide the information needed when asking for help!
So I am building a control panel for a RIMS setup, which is my first electrical build. I have been researching for many months and have done some minor electrical items around the house, by no means am I an electrician. I am known to research things for months and did not take this project lightly, by the time I had purchases everything, I was comfortable that I would not kill myself or burn the house down! Everything was finally put together, and I documented all the pin connections that either went into or was an output for the MEGA controller, as this is the workhorse for the BruControl sofware. There are wire maps to print out on brucontrol.com to help with this, with notes field and that was a huge help! I started to build and configure all the elements \ objects in BruControl software to make sure all components were working properly when I noticed that all my RTD temperature sensors were reading -247.
Now this was the one area that I was worried about the most, as to me it was the most complex. So to get the RTD sensors to work with BruControl, I purchased a 4 channel board from BrunDog. I also purchased 4 MAX 31865 boards to plug into the board from BrunDog. Now this is really not that complex or difficult, but it does require some Solder work to assemble and configure the MAX 31865 boards, which I have never done any Soder work previously. I was also worried about the configuration that had to be done on the boards, as it required to Solder two different sections together, and to remove a connection from another area. Now exactly what has to be done is well documented with pictures, but it still had me concerned. Also mind you, my eyesight is not as good as it used to be when I was younger, and up close is where it is not as good.
So here I am, all 4 boards are reading -247, even though only two RTD sensors were connected! I instantly became worried that I did something very wrong, obviously a temperature of -247 is not good! I really wanted to fix this, and quickly! To make things worse, I was about to go over to my neighbors house to help him with a project, and I knew it would be a while as we would have some beers afterwards; he is a very good neighbor! I did a quick a check on my wire maps and it looked like I had all connections proper. So before I left to my neighbors house, I did a quick message on this forum to BrunDog.
If you are still with me, then we will finally get into my failures to troubleshoot, but even worse are my failures as a user requesting support! My message was quick and basic. I mentioned that I was using RTD sensors, the board purchased from him, some MAX boards, and that I was getting -247 in BruControl. I also asked how to obtain the reference resistor value that is mentioned in the BruControl manual.
Now I knew that I probably should not send this message, as I had not done a full review of all the configuration items that I needed to complete. I was just hoping that BrunDog would be like, oh I know that one and it is easy. Let me tell you from experience, that almost never happens.
So our initial communication started on Sunday, and after several back and forths, pictures, and then finally me providing a full detailed summary; two issues were identified and resolved on Tuesday. Now some may think that is not bad and a pretty quick turnaround to have resolution. To that I say I wasted plenty of my own time, and that of BrunDog’s. As someone in the Customer Support field, wasting BrunDog’s time is what bothers me the most.
Here were my failures:
1: I failed to review all relevant documentation and verify that I did everything properly. The relevant documentation for this would have been the MAX board configuration, BruControl RTD schematic, and BruControl Wire maps that I documented my pin mapouts.
2. I failed to ask for help on the wire map and RTD schematic that confused me. The schematic said to use certain pins on the MEGA, the wire map had N/C. I just assumed that I could assign any digital PIN, and then configure that in the software. By the time it came to configure the software, I completely forgot that I made this change!
3. When requesting support, I should have provided all possible relevant information to help BrunDog troubleshoot the problem. It is always better to provide too much information! Since this is remote support and no visual support, pictures are very important. I failed miserably at this point to provide the needed information and provided no pictures.
Once I finally provided all relevant information on Tuesday that included pictures, and my where I had the PINS going from the RTD board to the MEGA board, BrunDog was finally able to help me. The pictures made it obvious that I completely failed at my Solder work on the MAX 31865 boards, and that I incorrectly changed the wire mapping between the RTD board and the MEGA board. I also finally verified the OHM reading on the 3 wire RTD sensors to make sure that I had the wiring correctly connected, which again is a very important part of the documentation for the MAX 31865 boards.
If you made it this far, hopefully some of this has helped you, or will help you. Remember, when it comes to troubleshooting, review all relevant documentation and ensure that everything is wired\configured\whatever properly. Break things down into small chunks or to the bare minimum. If you have multiple things involved, try to break it down into multiple items to verify if possible. Breaking things down into smaller chunks can help quickly eliminate items from the equation! When it does come time to ask for help, do not just give the bare minimum of your issue. Provide a lot of information, even if you are not sure if it is relevant. Again, it is much better to provide too much information than too little!
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