HOWTO - Make a BrewPi Fermentation Controller For Cheap

SilverZero said:

Teensy is an Arduino alternative, pretty cool from what I can see, and cheaper. I am, if anything, a cheapskate.

So, why couldn't I control boil/mash temps as I would with a traditional PID? My thinking is that if it can control temperature, it should be able to control the SSR driving my electric boil kettle. Set it to 170F and it will hold the kettle there for a hop stand. Set it to 152F and it will hold it there so I can recirculate a hot water coil through the mash, or even control a second electric element in a little RIMS tube.

Again, maybe I'm missing something obvious. I'm not familiar with automation or microcontrollers at all, really, so I'm just wondering why BrewPi can hold a ferm chamber at 65F but can't control a boil kettle element.

Thanks for the quick reply!

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FuzzeWuzze said:

Most of the config is assuming longer decision times since your not turning the fridge on and very frequently.

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SilverZero said:

Ahhh, that makes sense. Thanks again!

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wapitiscat said:

Rabeb25 .. are you running the install.sh script or following the "manual" instructions? When I hit errors like this I first tried an apt-get install of the package (as root) and then searching the web for solutions if that failed. You may want to search the brewpi forum as well.

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StressedPenguin said:

I installed R Pints first and just had brewpi install into /var/www/brewpi instead of the normal www directory. I have had no problems with the web side of the house as both brew pi and rpints display with the right address. I just ran the script and haven't looked behind the curtain yet to see if there are two different systems as I am working on wiring right now.

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rabeb25 said:

Did you get any errors? I am trying the exact same thing and get this error:

error unable to open files list file for package `php5-mysql' :input/output error

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wapitiscat said:

Would you post your brewpi/settings/config.cfg file? I'd like to get a look at your path settings for the various Arduino variables.

Todd

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scriptPath = /home/brewpi/
wwwPath = /var/www/
port = /dev/ttyACM0
altport = /dev/ttyACM1
boardType = leonardo
beerName = My First BrewPi Run
interval = 120.0
dataLogging = active

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beerName = CurrentBeer
dataLogging = active
profileName = Ruby

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1. Putty/SSH into your BrewPi system(or keyboard if its hooked up to a monitor).
2. Run the following commands to enable htaccess
   cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
   sudo nano default
3. look for <directory /var/www/> ... </directory>
   change allowOverride to All and save the file.
4. Now its time to restart apache:
   cd /usr/sbin
   sudo apache2ctl -k graceful
   
5. Go to /var/www directory
6. Create a file using vi editor called .htaccess and inside of it put the following, modify the first line where it is bold and replace it with what you plan to call your Private PHP file.
   

   <FilesMatch "index.php">
   Allow from all
   authuserFile /var/www/private/.htpasswd
   AuthName "YOUR LOGIN HERE"
   AuthType Basic
   <Limit GET POST>
   require valid-user
   </Limit>
   </FilesMatch>
   <FilesMatch "beer-panel.php|config.php|configuration.php|control-panel.php|maintenance-panel.php|previous_beers.php|program_arduino.php|s ave_beer_profile.php|start_script.php">
   Order deny,allow
   Deny from All
   Allow from 192.168.
   </FilesMatch>

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7. Edit the last allow line that says Allow from 192.168. to match up with whatever your local LAN IP address scheme is. You dont need wildcards or subnet masks or anything else.
8. Create a directory called private(to store the above .htpasswd file), and go into it.
9. Type htpasswd -c .htpasswd <UserName>, it will pop up asking you for a password, and make you repeat it.
10. Your done! If you try going to Http://brewpi/index.php it will now as you for a password and it wont let you in unless you enter in the right one from above. A side effect of this seems to be you cant just go to http://brewpi anymore as it will say you dont have authorization and not forward you to the proper page, not a big deal though. Also make sure obviously that if you want to access this from the external world that your RPI is port forwarding properly through your router.

1. Goto /var/www
2. Create a file with any name you want, with a php file extension, this will be your primary entry point...give it your brewery name, or something simple like public.php it doesnt matter. This is the contents that goes in the file

<?php
/* Copyright 2012 BrewPi/Elco Jacobs.
* This file is part of BrewPi.

* BrewPi is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
* the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
* (at your option) any later version.

* BrewPi is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU General Public License for more details.

* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
* along with BrewPi. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
*/
?>

<?php
// load default settings from file
$defaultSettings = file_get_contents('defaultSettings.json');
if($defaultSettings == false){
die("Cannot open default settings file: defaultSettings.json");
}
$settingsArray = json_decode(prepareJSON($defaultSettings), true);
if(is_null($settingsArray)){
die("Cannot decode defaultSettings.json");
}
// overwrite default settings with user settings
if(file_exists('userSettings.json')){
$userSettings = file_get_contents('userSettings.json');
if($userSettings == false){
die("Error opening settings file userSettings.json");
}
$userSettingsArray = json_decode(prepareJSON($userSettings), true);
if(is_null($settingsArray)){
die("Cannot decode userSettings.json");
}
foreach ($userSettingsArray as $key => $value) {
$settingsArray[$key] = $userSettingsArray[$key];
}
}


$beerName = $settingsArray["beerName"];
$tempFormat = $settingsArray["tempFormat"];
$profileName = $settingsArray["profileName"];
$dateTimeFormat = $settingsArray["dateTimeFormat"];
$dateTimeFormatDisplay = $settingsArray["dateTimeFormatDisplay"];
?>

<!DOCTYPE html >
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>BrewPi reporting for duty!</title>
<link type="text/css" href="css/redmond/jquery-ui-1.10.3.custom.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<link type="text/css" href="css/style.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
</head>
<body>
<div id="beer-panel" class="ui-widget ui-widget-content ui-corner-all">
<?php
include 'PublicBeerPanel.php';
?>
</div>

<!-- Load scripts after the body, so they don't block rendering of the page -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery-1.9.1.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery-ui-1.10.3.custom.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery-ui-timepicker-addon.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/spin.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/dygraph-combined.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
// pass parameters to JavaScript
window.tempFormat = <?php echo "'$tempFormat'" ?>;
window.beerName = <?php echo "\"$beerName\""?>;
window.profileName = <?php echo "\"$profileName\""?>;
window.dateTimeFormat = <?php echo "\"$dateTimeFormat\""?>;
window.dateTimeFormatDisplay = <?php echo "\"$dateTimeFormatDisplay\""?>;
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/main.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/device-config.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/control-panel.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/maintenance-panel.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/beer-chart.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/profile-table.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

<?php
function prepareJSON($input) {
//This will convert ASCII/ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8.
//Be careful with the third parameter (encoding detect list), because
//if set wrong, some input encodings will get garbled (including UTF-8!)
$input = mb_convert_encoding($input, 'UTF-8', 'ASCII,UTF-8,ISO-8859-1');

//Remove UTF-8 BOM if present, json_decode() does not like it.
if(substr($input, 0, 3) == pack("CCC", 0xEF, 0xBB, 0xBF)) $input = substr($input, 3);

return $input;
}
?>

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<?php
/* Copyright 2012 BrewPi/Elco Jacobs.
* This file is part of BrewPi.

* BrewPi is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
* the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
* (at your option) any later version.

* BrewPi is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU General Public License for more details.

* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
* along with BrewPi. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
*/
?>

<div id="top-bar" class="ui-widget ui-widget-header ui-corner-all">
<div id="lcd" class="lcddisplay"><span class="lcd-text">
<span class="lcd-line" id="lcd-line-0">Live LCD waiting</span>
<span class="lcd-line" id="lcd-line-1">for update from</span>
<span class="lcd-line" id="lcd-line-2">script...</span>
<span class="lcd-line" id="lcd-line-3"></span>
</div>
<div id="logo-container">
<img src="brewpi_logo.png">
<div id=beer-name-container>
<span>Fermenting: </span><?php echo $beerName;?></a>
<span class="data-logging-state"></span>
</div>
</div>


</div>
<div class="chart-container">
<div id="curr-beer-chart-label" class="beer-chart-label"></div>
<div id="curr-beer-chart" class="beer-chart" style="width:815px; height:390px"></div>
<div id="curr-beer-chart-controls" class="beer-chart-controls" style="display: none">
<div id="curr-beer-chart-buttons" class="beer-chart-buttons">
<div class="beer-chart-legend-row">
<button class="refresh-curr-beer-chart" title="Refresh"></button>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-label">Refresh Chart</div>
<br class="crystal" />
</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-row last">
<button class="chart-help" title="Help"></button>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-label">Help</div>
<br class="crystal" />
</div>
</div>
<div id="curr-beer-chart-legend" class="beer-chart-legend">
<div class="beer-chart-legend-row time">
<div class="beer-chart-legend-time">Date/Time</div>
</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-row beerTemp">
<div class="toggle beerTemp" onClick="toggleLine(this)"></div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-label" onClick="toggleLine(this)">Beer Temp</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-value">--</div>
<br class="crystal" />
</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-row beerSet">
<div class="toggle beerSet" onClick="toggleLine(this)"></div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-label" onClick="toggleLine(this)">Beer Setting</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-value">--</div>
<br class="crystal" />
</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-row fridgeTemp">
<div class="toggle fridgeTemp" onClick="toggleLine(this)"></div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-label" onClick="toggleLine(this)">Fridge Temp</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-value">--</div>
<br class="crystal" />
</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-row fridgeSet">
<div class="toggle fridgeSet" onClick="toggleLine(this)"></div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-label" onClick="toggleLine(this)">Fridge Setting</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-value">--</div>
<br class="crystal" />
</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-row roomTemp">
<div class="toggle roomTemp" onClick="toggleLine(this)"></div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-label" onClick="toggleLine(this)">Room Temp</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-value">--</div>
<br class="crystal" />
</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-row state">
<div class="state-indicator"></div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-label"></div>
<br class="crystal" />
</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-row annotation last">
<div class="toggleAnnotations dygraphDefaultAnnotation" onClick="toggleAnnotations(this)">A</div>
<div class="beer-chart-legend-label" onClick="toggleAnnotations(this)">Annotations</div>
<br class="crystal" />
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="chart-help-popup" title="Beer graph help" style="display: none">
<p>This chart displays all temperatures and state information logged by BrewPi.
Not all temperatures are shown by default, but you can toggle them with the colored dots.</p>
<p>Click and drag left or right to zoom horizontally, click and drag up or down to zoom vertically. Double click to zoom out.
When zoomed in, you can hold shift to pan around. On your phone or tablet you can just pinch to zoom.</p>
<p>The state information is shown as colored bars at the bottom of the graph, explanation below.</p>
<div class="state-info"><span class="state-color state-idle"></span><span class="state-name">Idle</span>
<span class="state-explanation">
No actuator is active.
</span>
</div>
<div class="state-info">
<span class="state-color state-cooling"></span><span class="state-name">Cooling</span>
<span class="state-explanation">
The fridge is cooling!
</span>
</div>
<div class="state-info"><span class="state-color state-heating"></span><span class="state-name">Heating</span>
<span class="state-explanation">
The heater is heating!
</span>
</div>
<div class="state-info"><span class="state-color state-waiting-to-cool"></span><span class="state-name">Waiting to cool</span>
<span class="state-explanation">
The fridge is waiting to start cooling. It has to wait because BrewPi has just cooled or heated. There is a a minimum time for between cool cycles and a minimum time for switching from heating to cooling.
</span>
</div>
<div class="state-info"><span class="state-color state-waiting-to-heat"></span><span class="state-name">Waiting to heat</span>
<span class="state-explanation">
Idem for heating. There is a a minimum time for between heat cycles and a minimum time for switching from cooling to heating.
</span>
</div>
<div class="state-info"><span class="state-color state-cooling-min-time"></span><span class="state-name">Cooling minimum time</span>
<span class="state-explanation">
There is a minimum on time for each cool cycle. When the fridge hits target but has not cooled the minimum time, it will continue cooling until the minimum time has passed.
</span>
</div>
<div class="state-info"><span class="state-color state-heating-min-time"></span><span class="state-name">Heating minimum time</span>
<span class="state-explanation">
There is a minimum on time for each heat cycle too. When the fridge hits target but has not heated the minimum time, it will continue heating until the minimum time has passed.
</span>
</div>
<div class="state-info"><span class="state-color state-waiting-peak"></span><span class="state-name">Waiting for peak detect</span>
<span class="state-explanation">
BrewPi estimates fridge temperature overshoot to be able to turn off the actuators early. To adjust the estimators, it has to detect the peaks in fridge temperature.
When BrewPi would be allowed to heat/cool by the time limits but no peak has been detected yet for previous cycle, it waits in this state for a peak.
</span>
</div>
</div>

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