Brew Bubbles: Web-Enabled Airlock

[LBussy]

No harm in doing it again, but you should be good.

 

[ZeSlammy]

Start

Sort of finished but with the incomplete tag

Restarted, entered Wifi Config, worked.

Anyway, the one I have in fermentation is updated as well as the 2 I built in advance.
I still got 5 to build, I'll flash them straight to 2.2.2

 

[LBussy]

That's not good - it should show 2.2.2. And that's the one with the version showing correctly on the "About" page? Have you tried a shift-refresh on that Update firmware page? Because it also looks like the old style.

 

[ZeSlammy]

Sorry, my screenshot is misleading.
That's what I had when I started.

It ended up being a righteous 2.2.2[master](3deb66b)ZeSlammyEdition (well this bit is missing )

 

[LBussy]

You might want to remove that log - it has a very ironic password in it.

15:09:13.466 -> 2021-02-14T22:09:12Z N: Started Brew Bubbles version 2.2.2 (master) [3deb66b].

Good! Must have been browser cacheing.

 

[ChrisThomas]

@LBussy Just noticed a strange occurance... My first Brewbubble is attached to a fermenter that's been running for a week and a bit. I upgraded OTA to V2.2.2 without any issues. I just checked and I noticed the time is 8 hours ahead, local time now is 23:00 and time on Brewbubbles is tomorrow 07:00 (GMT). When I first noticed this I tried a remote reset but that didn't make any diffference to the displayed time. When I got up and actually walked the 30 steps to the fermenter and hit the reset button, BrewBubbles seemed to panic and went into AP mode, and lost the configuration.

The reset could just be one of those things but the time seems odd, maybe it was there earlier I just hadn't noticed. Time reported by everything else spot on. I've just pulled another recently updated BrewBubbles and started it up, it's reporting the same time offset.


Chris

 

[LBussy]

Uh ........

BB keeps time in GMT (Z). The web page (javascript) is what does the conversion. Does that help you make sense of it? The place to look at the controller's time would be the Telnet (or serial) window.

The panic/AP mode is likely a result of the double-reset detector in combination with the pending (but unfulfilled) reset. I fixed that in Tiltbridge, I can see if the same fix will work here.

 

[ChrisThomas]

@LBussy The reset issue isn't an issue, just for information. The time reported in Telnet agrees with the webpage, all bar a few seconds.

To test I've just downgraded to 2.1.1 and the time is reported correctly both in webpage and Telnet, but when I upgrade to 2.2.2 the offfset is back. This is strange but nothing that's going to prevent me monitoring my fermenttion progress.

 

[LBussy]

That's .... weird. I'll have to dig in a bit later and see what I can find. I purposefully did not put any timezone handling in the controller. Maybe I got drunk and added it?

 

[ChrisThomas]

If you had a drink "when" you added it, maybe drinking the same amount again would put you in same frame of mind? You know, when you walk into a room and can't remember why, walk out and in again is supposed to help? Maybe it's the same for alcohol? Does that work do you think????

 

[LBussy]

I'm willing to do it - for science.

 

[ChrisThomas]

I'm willing to help with the experimentation, I've got no idea who to ask as a control though?

 

[LBussy]

Okay - I confirmed the time is off. VERY weird because I'm purposefully not setting it to anything other than Zulu. I am trying to move into a MacBook so things are going slow for me.

 

[LBussy]

Figured out why - now I just need to figure out the best way to fix it.

For anyone who cares: I am using lwIP v1.4 because of a bug in 2.x that causes the filesystem OTA upgrade to fail. Apparently, that handles timezones very differently. I could do some hackery, but until I find out why it's wrong, I hesitate to do that.

 

[ChrisThomas]

At least you found the issue and it's not me that's moved! Personally, it's not an issue. Yes, I check to make sure that my wine is still fermenting, I don't set my alarms/clock according to BrewBubbles time. Yes, I log bubble count to ThingSpeak (until Fermentrack will let me log) but that uses timestamp from when it receives the data (I think?).

I wouldn't bother with the "hackery", just sit and contemplate, I'm sure the solution will manifest itself in due course. As usual available for testing as required.

 

[LBussy]

Just in case I ever need to find this again, these were the major changes I made.

2.2.3 is released and available in BrewFlasher.

 

[ChrisThomas]

@LBussy OTA upgrade performed sucessfully and time is correct! You've done it again. No "strange" resets observed either

 

[LBussy]

I've had enough of strange to last me for a while.

 

[ZeSlammy]

Just a heads up, LittleBock (a Frebch BrewFather like website) is now accepting BrewBubbles

 

[LBussy]

I've hit the big time now!

I can't read it of course, so I am assuming it doesn't say "this dumb American made this thing that sort of works."

 

[ZeSlammy]

I've hit the big time now!

I can't read it of course, so I am assuming it doesn't say "this dumb American made this thing that sort of works."

Nah, I'm evangelizing people to get a better knowledge of their yeast through BrewBubbles (lag, link between activity and bubbles, bubbles triggered by dry hopping etc). Well I also have built 10 and I am not using them all so I sell some of them

 

[gshadel]

Just flashed the latest 2.2.3 version using an HP Chromebook in Linux mode, using the esptool...
For a chromebook... "sudo apt-get install esptool" does the tool installation... You'll need to allow access by linux to the serial port once you plug in the 8266.

I used aluminized HVAC duct tape to cover the photo transitor. Hole was made with a sewing style pin before peeling the backing off the tape, at 10 mm. This is working great but positioning was critial.. at 9.45 mm, I was getting double counts.

Logging to Brewer's Friend isn't working for me just yet. I notice that the code uses http, but Brewer's Friend is now showing https for their sample stream logging url.. I put in a github bug, but perhaps that's premature as I haven't examined the logs yet. I think https availability on the 8266 is pretty recent, so not sure how mature the libraries are.

I really appreciate all the work that's gone into this device!!! Boards!! 3D printed holder!! The code; really nice code!! None of my own projects are nearly this complete or polished.

 

[gshadel]

Ha... Brewer's Friend logging is working now. I think the problem was that Brewer's Friend limits logging to once every 15 minutes. I had mine set to 15 minutes, but maybe my clock runs a few seconds faster than theirs...

In any case I have logging set to 20 minutes now and have a first value logged... Yes!!!! Soon I'll have a graph of bubbling rates!!! This is absolutely the next best thing to actually drinking the beer.

 

[LBussy]

This is absolutely the next best thing to actually drinking the beer.

Glad you are enjoying it!

I used aluminized HVAC duct tape to cover the photo transitor.

That's a great idea, I'll add it to the docs.

at 10 mm. This is working great but positioning was critial.. at 9.45 mm, I was getting double counts.

I'm not following that. The entire gap is 10mm. You sure you don't mean 0.1mm?

 

[gshadel]

I used a measurement of 10mm up on the metalized tape to punch the hole. That is the distance from the bottom of the "U" of the bubble sensor up to where the hole is over the photo transistor.. Here's a picture that might help. The edge of the foil went into the bottom of the U of the photo sensor. It might be that 10.5 mm works even better...

 

[LBussy]

Aha! Gotcha.

 

[ChrisThomas]

Sooo, what happens if you go away for a few days and forget to check your fermentation lock before you go?

Well if it dries out (dries out enough for no bubbles to be detected) you might get a curve that looks a bit like this! I'm posting it so that if somebody else sees their bubble curve doing strange things I've done the experiement for you

There was a bit of liquid left in the bottom of the bend, no insects in it, nothing spotted floating in my ferment so I hope I've got away with it. I spotted the up slope and was confused, when the slope went down again, all I could think off to explain it remotely was a dried out ffermentation lock and when I got home I was right, you can see the up slope of me filling the lock.

Another valuable lesson learned

 

[LBussy]

Whoops!

Hell, my locks dry out all the time. I use Everclear in them, and alcohol + fan = quick evaporation.

I'd considered experimenting with glycerin actually, not gotten to where I remember to use it but I'd think it would evaporate lore slowly, perhaps give more consistent bubbles, and would be food-safe.

 

[ChrisThomas]

My Brewubbles has stopped reporting to ThingSpeak! I can't see what has changed to ause this, I don't think it's BrewBubbles, but posting here in case somebody else has any info while I investigate....

The error is reported on BrewBubbles as;
"V: Triggered Thingspeak push.
E: Problem updating Thingspeak channel xxxxx. HTTP error code -301"

No data received by ThingSpeak and I'm under my free allowance. I can only see in Thingspeak that it stopped in September, but while I've still be using BrewBubbles I've not checked Thingspeak until today. I've created another channel to see if that helps, but no change.

Any ideas anyone?


Chris

 

[LBussy]

Hm, 301 is "Moved Permanently." Did Thingspeak make any recent changes?