CadiBrewer
Well-Known Member
This was a good post, wbarber.
For my builds, I'd rather have more cables inside of or on my ferm chamber or keezer and only one cable going to the enclosure for the brewpi. That being said, I could see the flexibility of adding another probe port that I would use for a room temp sensor. It would also allow flexibility for people to build things the way it suits them. But I'm not going to add the second temp probe port due to the small size of the board.
Before laying everything out, I considered going the same size as the LCD board. That would be very easy to design and you'd have room for multiple connections on the board, as well as having them stick out either side of a 3d printed enclosure. But as you said, the price was quite a bit higher for the larger board. I can't remember exactly, but it brought the board cost over $25 each, which is more than the cost of the entire build for many of us. But maybe I'll throw a version together sometime in the future for fun as an option for people to use. Perhaps someone would reciprocate and design an enclosure...
This was a complete oversight on my part due to my newbness of all of this stuff. I couldn't figure out how you'd connect power to your shield inside of your enclosure if you had the barrel jack on the outside with the temp probe port. Therefore, I purposely put it on the middle of the lcd so I could hook up to it inside of the enclosure. Now I realize that I could have just added a simple 2 pin header that ties into the barrel jack port on the board for hooking up power with dupont connectors instead of the barrel jack.
I've been completely slammed at work and on the home front and haven't had a chance to hook up temp probes or a relay to the new board for testing. I have to modify the layout for a mistake I made on the bluetooth header. I'll look at the barrel jack and see how difficult it would be to move it adjacent to the temp probe port. If I can do it quickly, I'll modify it before I throw the boards back up for people to use. If not, it will have to be a future mod. Hopefully I can get stuff tested this week and available for folks.
When I thought up the nano backpack the idea was for it to be small and sleek. I think the board cadi put out is pretty close to what I envisioned. 2 temp probe ports would be nice. but it's not a deal breaker.
For my builds, I'd rather have more cables inside of or on my ferm chamber or keezer and only one cable going to the enclosure for the brewpi. That being said, I could see the flexibility of adding another probe port that I would use for a room temp sensor. It would also allow flexibility for people to build things the way it suits them. But I'm not going to add the second temp probe port due to the small size of the board.
the boards look quite small and therefore affordable. personally I would have made the backpack roughly the same size as the lcd pcb so I could space out the components and make porting out the features a little easier. but small is the key thing here.
Before laying everything out, I considered going the same size as the LCD board. That would be very easy to design and you'd have room for multiple connections on the board, as well as having them stick out either side of a 3d printed enclosure. But as you said, the price was quite a bit higher for the larger board. I can't remember exactly, but it brought the board cost over $25 each, which is more than the cost of the entire build for many of us. But maybe I'll throw a version together sometime in the future for fun as an option for people to use. Perhaps someone would reciprocate and design an enclosure...
I would have put the barrel jack on the other side though. since its in the middle of the lcd like this. And not very accessible if you were to 3d print an enclosure for this setup.
This was a complete oversight on my part due to my newbness of all of this stuff. I couldn't figure out how you'd connect power to your shield inside of your enclosure if you had the barrel jack on the outside with the temp probe port. Therefore, I purposely put it on the middle of the lcd so I could hook up to it inside of the enclosure. Now I realize that I could have just added a simple 2 pin header that ties into the barrel jack port on the board for hooking up power with dupont connectors instead of the barrel jack.
the first time I envisioned a small footprint brewpi like this, I was thinking of building an all-in-one ferment jacket. something you could stick in just about any cold space and then use only a heat wrap for temp control. with a single relay board. but that was just an idea I had years ago. but I learned how versatile the tiny nano could be and I almost switched over completely to nanos over unos. who knows maybe one day I'll take to a pcb design app and try my hand at coming up with a design. in the mean time, good job on the version 2 boards. can't wait till they are finalized.
I've been completely slammed at work and on the home front and haven't had a chance to hook up temp probes or a relay to the new board for testing. I have to modify the layout for a mistake I made on the bluetooth header. I'll look at the barrel jack and see how difficult it would be to move it adjacent to the temp probe port. If I can do it quickly, I'll modify it before I throw the boards back up for people to use. If not, it will have to be a future mod. Hopefully I can get stuff tested this week and available for folks.