Arduino Based Beer Monitor System

[brewn00b4]

Reading through the DIY forum has gotten me thinking about a project I'd like to undertake, an arduino based solution for monitoring things like temperature, power usage, and keg volumes. Here's what I have so far:



If anyone has any ideas, comments, questions etc let me know I'll be sharing the code and schematics when I am finished.

 

[darin_e]

Reading through the DIY forum has gotten me thinking about a project I'd like to undertake, an arduino based solution for monitoring things like temperature, power usage, and keg volumes. Here's what I have so far:

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9_grn9jom4

If anyone has any ideas, comments, questions etc let me know I'll be sharing the code and schematics when I am finished.

Very cool! Thanks for sharing. Just got my first Arduino last week, and didn't even think about using it for brewing.

How will you clean the flow meter?

Cheers and happy coding.

 

[tjferris]

Subscribed!!

 

[LabRatBrewer]

subscribed, very nice!

 

[brewn00b4]

Since the sensor is separate from the fluild, I figured I would sanitize the sensors by flowing star san through the lines.

Parts from Grainger came in today.

I have had quite a hard time finding an 1/2" female screw to 3/16" barb adapter. I compromised with a 1/2" female screw to 1/4" barb, then a 1/4" barb to a 3/16" barb, as pictured below:

1/2" -> 1/4" barb: http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/THOGUS-Female-Adapter-3XVT2
1/4" barb -> 3/16" barb: http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/THOGUS-Reducing-Coupling-1VRW4

(they come in packs of 10).

I'll be going out to get some tubing tonight and to test out the flow meter performance.

 

[mrstevenund]

What flow meters did you choose?

 

[brewn00b4]

RGB LCD Shield: https://www.adafruit.com/products/714
Flow Sensor: https://www.adafruit.com/products/828
Temp Sensor: https://www.adafruit.com/products/381
Proto Shield: https://www.adafruit.com/products/196

The proto shield sits in between the LCD and the arduino, allowing me access to all of the pins (the lcd only uses i2c so all the others are game). It's still in the mail. I'm going to the hardware store tomorrow to get some tubing etc and get the flow meter tested.

 

[cjang]

Is the flow sensor food safe? Couldn't find info on the website.

 

[brewn00b4]

I found some specific details about it here http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/index.php?title=G1/2_Water_Flow_sensor

Everything looks fine except the ferrite.

 

[EarthBound]

Sweeeeeeet.

 

[SimplyBeginning]

This looks pretty sweet. I've been looking for something that will monitor several different fermentation zones, as well as keg volume all in one.

I've seen the kegbot (kegbot.org) which is a super fancy one that is for measuring how much beer is in the keg, and the temps of the kegs, and let's you see who is drinking what.

I've also seen the FermTroller to control fermentation temps of different zones.

But this looks to be a pretty sweet way to combine it all into one nice and simple interface. I'm definitely interested to see how it turns out!

 

[lonepalm]

Scribed

 

[SMc0724]

Subscribed. Bought Arduino, received last week. Did some beginning programming. Ready
To move on.

 

[brian2can]

Subscribed.

 

[Wake-Forest-Azeotropes]

could you use two seperate flow meters, one going into the keg from the carboy when its siphoned to count how much is going in, then use a second flow meter on the outlet side/dispensing side to deduct the amount poured from the total to show the current amount/level?

I just bought a few arduino-clones for learning on some small projects before i jump into something big. but this looks like something i really want to do. I've seen This on hackaday using FSR's that originally got me into thinking about learning about using arduinos.

Definitely interested!

 

[Neilyboy]

This is too damn cool!! Will be keeping my eye on this project! I have been thinking about doing something like this for some time now. I am currently using a sensatronics e4 temp sensor to give me my temps and a couple of cheap 4$ webcams to keep an eye on my fermentation chamber. I was thinking about looking into either a raspberry pi or gooseberry board and going from there via some usb sensors and such but the arduino may just be the way to go.

Neil

 

[bayoujeeper]

This is where I ordered my fittings from - here
and your right, they are hard to find. I just finished a similar arduino project with my kegerator.

 

[brewn00b4]

could you use two seperate flow meters, one going into the keg from the carboy when its siphoned to count how much is going in, then use a second flow meter on the outlet side/dispensing side to deduct the amount poured from the total to show the current amount/level?

That's what I'm trying to do, you can see me "filling" up the keg on the first video.

I got the rest of the adapters to test out the flow meter today, had to take the breadboard because the breakout shield isn't here yet.

I got some mixed readings when trying to siphon 1 and 2 gallons of water. I think this is due to the air moving through the line while the siphoned is being started. I had to go from 3/8" hose through a barb adapter to 1/2", into the sensor, then back to a 3/8" through an adapter. I'm not sure if that could be at play here also. On the 2 gallon trials a few came out at 1.82, 1.75, and 1.93.. Not sure how I feel about that yet.

 

[jimmayhugh]

I got some mixed readings when trying to siphon 1 and 2 gallons of water. I think this is due to the air moving through the line while the siphoned is being started. I had to go from 3/8" hose through a barb adapter to 1/2", into the sensor, then back to a 3/8" through an adapter. I'm not sure if that could be at play here also. On the 2 gallon trials a few came out at 1.82, 1.75, and 1.93.. Not sure how I feel about that yet.

From the "Description" section of the Adafruit site:

Note this isn't a precision sensor, and the pulse rate does vary a bit depending on the flow rate, fluid pressure and sensor orientation. It will need careful calibration if better than 10% precision is required. However, its great for basic measurement tasks!

Looks like your test readings are about what you'd expect. My only other concern would be foaming problems from the pinwheel when dispensing from the keg.

I was originally looking at something like that for my RIMS on Barney but was concerned about possible clogs, plus I couldn't determine if it was food-grade. Most in-line food grade non-pinwheel flowmeters are EXPENSIVE

 

[jhorgan1]

I'm definitely interested in your findings. I'm a Computer Science major and my roommate is Computer Engineer so once my kegerator is built we are trying this out for sure.

 

[brewn00b4]

I was originally looking at something like that for my RIMS on Barney but was concerned about possible clogs, plus I couldn't determine if it was food-grade. Most in-line food grade non-pinwheel flowmeters are EXPENSIVE

Yep I read the accuracy concerns as well. After reading through the materials list, I found all the materials to be food grade except for the magnet. Based on the drawing I wasn't certain if the magnet comes in contact with the fluid or not, but I'm guessing it does.

The kegbot project uses this sensor: http://www.swissflow.com/sf800.html

It still uses an impeller, but it uses infrared light instead of a magnet to detect pulses. The accuracy on it is +/- 1.0%, so much better than 10%. They ship from outside of America, and are quite expensive (compared to Adafruit). We could get together as a group to save some cash if there was enough interest.

All the computer science guys in here (including myself): Adafruit states this device can be made more accurate with tuning. I am using the example code provided by their page to do my measuring. Can someone take a look to see if any improvements could be made there? I found from the wiki on another page (http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/index.php?title=G1/2_Water_Flow_sensor) they could get the accuracy down to 3%.

I'll be giving the sensor a whirl (pun intended) this weekend with some beer side by side with a regular line to look for foaming issues. While I do agree that an impeller would cause disturbance, I also have a feeling that the impeller will be moving at the same speed as the liquid, thus causes less disturbance than we might be thinking.

 

[jblizz]

Subscribed!!

 

[SMc0724]

Is a real-time clock needed on the Arduino system to brew?

 

[Goldenfoon]

Very cool! Subscribed!

 

[bruin_ale]

Cool project.. just got my arduino and have been thinking of what beer related tasks I'd like it to do.

 

[Squino]

Subscribed! I'm Comp Sci and just ordered an Arduino kit myself. Awesome thread!

Have you considered maybe using weight to calculate how much was moved/pumped? I'm not sure what Arduino friendly options are available, but that might be something to look into. I'd imagine it could be incredibly accurate, and you wouldn't have to worry about "food safe" and cleaning and all that.

Would you need to adjust for the various densities of the beer? Gotta go review my physics 101, hehe

EDIT: Just checked the hackaday link, haha.

 

[bruin_ale]

Have you considered maybe using weight to calculate how much was moved/pumped?

Not sure if you caught it, but in the video he mentions that using weight is another option but that sensors that can handle constant loading are hard to find and expensive.

 

[jblizz]

Making any headway with this? I have been checking out the kegbot but this would be a nice interim solution until I can get that all setup....

 

[kerber]

Looking good! We're getting quite the group of people working on smart kegerators!

 

[ipatch]

Looking good! We're getting quite the group of people working on smart kegerators!

cheers for smart kegerators