Arduino Based Beer Monitor System

[Coastiebrewer]

Awesome thread. Just hooked up my board with three force resistive sensors to make a crude scale under a board cut to the size if Tue keg bottom. Hoping to measure the weight of the keg as it empties to give me a rough idea as to how empty it is. I need to make some adjustments to the kegerator itself to give me a little more room and a flat bottom. When its actually working properly I'll let you guys know what I find out.

 

[jfenton78]

Does anyone have the code yet to share?

Jeff

 

[kerber]

Just hooked up my board with three force resistive sensors to make a crude scale under a board cut to the size if Tue keg bottom.

I'm really interested to hear how this works. I've played with the idea of using those sensors to monitor my kegs, but they drift when kept under constant load. I'm curious to hear how much that effects your readings.

 

[joeinbend]

Hey guys, it's been quiet in this thread lately; how's your projects coming along? Any headway on the force sensors or flow sensors?

I see on the Seeduino link earlier in this thread (here it is again..) under the Q&A tab, page 6 of the questions... someone specifically asks if it is food grade, and the answer is no.

With that being said, "Food Grade" tends to be very conservatively used, and let's be perfectly honest, as home brewers we often weigh our options (example: we sometimes use brass fittings instead of nylon or stainless, although we all know beer can corrode brass. So what. we're not running production breweries and 10,000 Gal of FDA-approved beer thru that fitting. (trolls, please leave me alone on this)).

Can anyone confirm whether this unit has liquid contact with the ferrite, and if so, if the ferrite is held in with an ahesive, or if it is compressed in to the pinwheel? I just want to consider what all materials come in to contact with the beer.

Thanks guys! I am a long-time Arduino developer, so I will be sharing my project details soon!

 

[Abhitchc]

Can you share your code? I am working on a similar project, and your code, especially the LED control code would be INCREDIBLY USEFUL!

 

[plotto]

Does anyone have the code available for this cool project?

 

[plotto]

Does anyone have the code available for this cool project?

 

[tomroth]

I tried to do the exact same thing with the exact same Flexiforce Sensors and got on a first name basis with their tech department to no avail. Those sensors drift over time. And that is a HUGE problem when adding that they will be in a cold environment the entire month or so the keg will last. My conclusion was that they are the wrong sensor for the job. Not only that, without special load cells that can be in the cold AND have weight on them continuously (scales generally do their job and then the weight is removed), trying to do what you are is probably not going to work. Would be cool though! My solution was to weigh each glass empty and then again after it was filled with beer, subtract the two and now you have the weight that was drank. Keep track of that and you get a VERY accurate result. I know it is a bit of a pain, but my project was 4.18 oz of beer from being exactly right when the beer ran out. Check it out at http://www.instructables.com/id/Accurate-Beer-Scale/.

Tom

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Why bother with a scale, there are many projects out like Kegbot who just simply use a flow meter in line with the tap.
You know how much beer is in the keg, you know how much has been pulled out...therefore you know how much is left....

Im all for new DIY methods, but sometimes its not worth it trying to shove a square peg through a round hole when you can just go buy a round peg for $10

http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php/topic,8548.0.html

 

[BrewCityBaller]

Why bother with a scale, there are many projects out like Kegbot who just simply use a flow meter in line with the tap.
You know how much beer is in the keg, you know how much has been pulled out...therefore you know how much is left....

Im all for new DIY methods, but sometimes its not worth it trying to shove a square peg through a round hole when you can just go buy a round peg for $10

http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php/topic,8548.0.html

Is this food safe? I couldn't find that listed anywhere?

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Is this food safe? I couldn't find that listed anywhere?

Based on this

http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/index.php?title=G1/2_Water_Flow_sensor

From what i can tell that isnt stainless or rubber seals, the rest is PA66(Nylon plastic) or POM which is another plastic.

From what i can tell PA66 is food safe unless its treated with a fire retardant, and i cant think of any reason why they would make a liquid flow sensor out of something including fire retardant.

POM from the Wiki says its FDA approved for food.