HOWTO - Make a BrewPi Fermentation Controller For Cheap

Which brewpi page doesn't have a Start Script button?

Cheers!

 

No no no I know where to the start script button button on s but when I hit it nothing happens. Looking for a screen that will give me an Indication as to why it doesnt want to start

 

I'd restart the pi and the arduino. The scripts run on the arduino. As long as the script is running the pi can see it. If you attempted to try a script run manually from terminal then you would start the script with the wrong permissions and bam nothing will work. I'd start be restarting and then go from there.

 

So just looked and its running now. I didn't do anything. Says its been running for about 20minutes

 

Did it show after reloading the page? Some time after I make changes, I need to reload page before it shows. Though I will say is not usually and issue with toggling the script on and off.

 

Yeah I refreshed several times from different computers. Glad to know though resetting the arduino will start the script

 

Yes it will

 

Money and stuff has held up the finalization of my multi-ferment chamber. The new info about the future of brewpi has killed my initial project and I'll be reinventing the whole thing to support the new hardware coming from brewpi. I soo wanted to finish it, but there is no reason to build an obsolete ferment chamber when the rest of my brewery will sport then new hardware.

 

Jeeze, seems like you were nearly done with what you started

Wrt to controlling a fridge, what's the new version going to do that the old version didn't?

Cheers!

 

1 unit for every piece of equipment in the brewery. My initial design will stay the same, but it's going to omit the need for 4 arduinos. Or at least that's what I'm hoping. All my internals are one-wire devices (heaters, fans, cooling, lighting). And this version is supposed to be able to handle them all itself, and run a completely automated HERMS system. I haven't seen it in action. But if it performs anything like what's been discussed, then I'll be able to reduce the power needs and have a system can handle the whole workload off one chipset. And all I have to do is hook an rj-12 plug up to it.

 

Second time of asking to see if anyone can shed any light on this lcd problem, in so far as random characters occur when either my test fridge or test heater come on/off.

My wiring is exactly the same as Fuzzewuzze for the brewpi part, and the LCD as per time2brews second diagram

The Arduino is connected to both a Pi via USB and external power source rate at 12v (within the limits)

I'm using the 5v pin from the arduino to power the LCD, Sainsmart relay and temp probe, is it just a case that this is drawing to much power, or should it be able to cope?

If i plug anything other than the probe into the 3.3v pin nothing works as expected, i.e. the led lights up on the relay but the switch doesn't activate to power on the fridge or heater, and if the LCD is attached the screen is too dull.

if time2brews picture is anything to go by in terms of set up i don't think it can be interference either as my relay is is now far away from the LCD etc.

anyone got any thoughts? other than that it's working fine

 

I built a shield just like the one you are referencing. I got the lcd to run for a day or so, just like you. And I've experienced the same issues you have regarding the bad characters. I figured it was the cheap pro typing wires I was using. But it may be that it just isn't exactly done up the way the brewpi guys set it up.

 

A timely swerve in this thread as I'm considering adding LCDs to my wee satellite boxes.

Is there an actual schematic equivalent to the wiring diagram shown here?
And maybe a recommended part for that LCD?

Cheers!

 

There's this: http://shop.brewpi.com/image/data/brewpi-schield-revc-schematic.png

 

Thanks for that, very helpful!

Cheers!

 

Hey I had the same problem but less frequently than yourself it seems. I found the following thread that might be of some help: http://electronics.stackexchange.c...o-lcd-displays-weird-character-after-a-while . I can't speak to whether or not it works but it wouldn't hurt to try.

 

I actually don't have the capacitors on my board so I'll get those ordered over Christmas and feedback once I've plugged them in.

 

From another Arduino project, most screen scramble were either bad solder joint or EMI, so check soldering with magnifying glass then test with/without compressor on.

 

I thought interference might have been the original problem but I can't see what Would be doing that there isn't anythinf with a strong magnetic field around, so guessing it's power related, so I just need to stablise the power supply I guess

 

Like I said. Mine worked for like a day or 2 then I could never get it back working right. I couldn't figure it out so I gave up.

 

The start script button on the interface is not an instantaneous change. You press it to start and it takes a minute before it says script running. I got caught with this before where I thought it didn't start but in fact it had.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

Bad form to quote myself, but added the capacitors today and no improvement. It's definately a power problem, I'be got some of the SSRs Elco sells on order so ill swap these in for the relay and see if that makes any improvment.

 

Emi can come from anywhere. You could have a very powerful wifi router. Or an old tube tv somewhere in the house. You may live too close to the power lines. Or maybe you just have one of those refrigerators that produce its own gravitational fields. Hell there could be a hobby ham operator 2 streets down and the wires you used to hookup your lcd are the perfect resonance match for his channel. It's hard to tell. But it's probably as simple as one slightly too resistive wire in your setup. What I witnessed with mine was a degrading issue that got worse over time until I gave up on it with more important things to tackle.

 

Has anyone had any luck with this 60w Infrared Ceramic Heat Emitter? I was using a 60w incandescent bulb but wanted something without light and didn't want to do the paint can thing. So I got the 100watt version and it makes the temperature oscillate because it has a slow time to warm up and when it switches off, it keeps heating up. Brewpi hasn't figured out the shutoff time after 3 on's and off's.

I even modified the brewpi code to have a minimum heat on time for 30 seconds and recompiled the hex.

Does that Lasko heater really work? I feel like 200watts would be too much for this.

 

My ferm chamber is 4'X4'X5', fully insulated with fiberglass bats on all sides but the door, the door has two inches of foam plastic insulation.

at an ambient temperature of 50f in my garage, the Lasko 200W struggles to keep it's temperature (Fridge Constant) at 75 degrees.

It's not too much for me - maybe its not enough.

Here is the current fermentation and it seems to be handling it - The heater was running at 20% duty cycle or so to keep the fermenting beer at temp.

 

How does your Uno receive its power?

I've found lots of ways to end up with something well below 5V at the Uno.
Send that to the relay board, LCD and shift register, then throw in some inductive relay coil noise and/or some dynamics from the LCD, and the shift register could get cranky if it's sitting in the midst of all that - power/gnd distribution-wise.

I should have the parts to cobble a display together by the middle of next week. Looking forward to seeing what's up with these things.
They're so ubiquitous in office and industrial equipment you'd think they'd be pretty robust...

Cheers!

[edit] wtf is it with blue leds that they're all so friggin' bright they'll toast your retinas?
Everything is "super bright" - and they ain't kidding, even with a 500 ohm current limiting resistor.
Jeeze, all I want is a nice soft diffuse/watery blue LED.
I took one of those blue toasters and scrubbed it with steel wool, now at least it won't fry the paint in my office.
Tomorrow I'm gonna see if a diode drop or two will calm the friggin' thing down...

 

I've been wanting to build one of these for the longest time, and thanks to an amazing wife all of the parts showed up under the christmas tree this year. Perfect timing for my brewday yesterday. Only problem is now I find myself checking the status and temperatures every 5 minutes now that I don't have to venture out to the garage to check.

 

Air is hitting your beer probe, it shouldn't flucuate like that... it should be like this:

 

The beer probe is in a thermowell in the center of the fermenter. The beer has only been in the fermenter since last night, so the graph doesn't encompass a very long period. I just did some checking and the way I also set up the profile had the temp climbing from 62F to 63F over 3 days, so that could be some of the reason behind the graph difference.

 

Your beer temp probe looks to be pretty stable to me. The graphs for Fridge Temp and Setting look similar to mine as well. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

Someone having trouble following the green line?
That beer temperature plot is barely wiggling...

Cheers!

 

Agreed. His beer temp actually looks much better than the reference posted as the "good" example.

 

:rockin:

Thanks guys!

 

So I am about to give up on Debian and installing the wireless driver. I have heard on another forum that Linux Mint is more user friendly, both the interface and installing the wireless driver. My question is how difficult would it be to install the software needed to run a brewpi setup?

 

Why not use ubuntu

 

Mint is based on Ubuntu (Debian). I'v actually moved my computers over to Mint from Ubuntu as I thought Ubuntu had become too bloated in recent years. Mint, to me, still retains that user friendliness that Ubuntu was known for.

(edit) Though I've never tried to put mint on the rpi, not sure how straightforward that would be.

 

I am just looking for a good way to get the wifi drivers working......or,,,,,,,,,looking for a step my step guide way to get it done. Debian wiki does not help much because I am having problems understanding some of the terminology. English is my first language and I am feeling really stupid now.....

Anyway someone on another forum made the recommended using Mint as a bridge to linux, and I am hoping that it will be easier for find/install the wifi drivers.

Things like, add a "contrib" component to /etc/apt/sources.list, for example: # Debian 7 "Wheezy"deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free. What the hell is a contrib and how do I execute a /etc/apt/sources.list command. Its from https://wiki.debian.org/bcm43xx

If I cant get the wifi drivers working, it defeats the purpose of this build for me.

 

AHHHGGGGGGGGGG!!! Gets me back to my original problem, with the drivers.

 

Just copy and past the commands shown into your terminal. In the example you quoted you would type this into the terminal "deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free"

(edit)
You may just want to get a wifi adapter that already has drivers installed out of the box: http://elinux.org/RPi_USB_Wi-Fi_Adapters
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003MTTJOY/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

this is the result i get, and i tried twice thinking it maybe a typo.


[email protected]:/home/john# deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
bash: deb: command not found
[email protected]:/home/john# deb http://http.debian.net/debian/wheezy main contrib non-free
bash: deb: command not found
[email protected]:/home/john#

I am getting dejected. Maybe I will have to find another way out. Maybe getting this adapter is a temporary solution till i figure this wireless thing out.