Brew Bubbles: Web-Enabled Airlock

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Certainly with the variability between the two brackets I have it's going to be a problem. I'll try a few experiments with "things" attached to the sensor.

Open to ideas and suggestions?
 
Other than trying the gels and see if a red/green combo works, no new ideas. The “pinhole camera” seems solid so far.
 
LBussy said:
Thinking through this, I wonder if one used something like electrical tape (black) and a pinhole if it would be easier?
Click to expand...
I've tried that and for me it did not work. I think that there need to be a small space between the optical and the whole in the coverage. Even when I shrinked the heat shrink tube that I've used it had less result.
In the meantime I've made a third one the same way as the others and it worked also directly.
(Something went wrong with the 3D print of the new bracket I've ordered and I couldn't wait.)
 
So, a quick bit of testing and tinkering this morning...

The insulation tape I have is not sticky enough to remain in place if handled too roughly, the cardboard and double sided tape seems a better option.

As @wd16261 has already tried heat shrink and I hadn't I gave that a go, I thought I'd try. I happen to have some heat shrink that is a perfect tight fit before shrinking. I had to mess about a bit to try and get the correct size and "clean" hole though. The heat shrink fits well enough that it doesn't move when handled and I'm counting bubbles consistently.

So for me I'm going with @wd16261's idea and using unshrunk heat shrink. Thanks to @wd16261! Also going to remove the collimator support on my second bracket!

Unless someone else has any improvements?
 
I've already have 3 brewbubbles that are working perfectly with my solution and I've added a pictures with the dimensions of the shrink tape and the hole.
To fix it I used a small bit of strong glue.

brewbubble with shrink tape.jpg


and I used this to make the hole:
1590395855912.png
 
@wd16261 I had real trouble making an actual hole. I tried a pin, but my hole started to close up, the burr created settled back partially covering the hole requiring the shrink to be moved a few times. In the end I used the smallest drill bit I could find, pushed it right through to the shank and then used my craft knife to cut against the shank to remove the burr.

Still haven't shrunk it yet and the heat shrink I've used is a very snug fit over the sensor and doesn't seem to move. I've been taking the BrewBubbles on and off a lock this morning with a bit of "rough" handling and hasn't needed any further adjustment.

@wd16261 I think you've solved it!
 
Whoa! Just read the thread on BrewBubbles from the BrewersFriend forum. Yikes! Can't say I understand what the beef was, but Lee, I personally am very glad for the efforts you have put into our hobby. Thank you!

Let's just stay and play in this sandbox. And they call it BrewersFriend... :confused:
 
I'm from there, sorry for the negatives, I'm not sure what got into people, everyone thinks there in charge lol, I don't get that myself but for the most part our forum is mostly geared to the software not brewing in general even though it does happen and a lot. I try to lighten things up when I can, I really don't see any issues with inventions on our site, I'm all for it
 
I checked in with the admin‘s there (which includes the admin‘s here in many cases) and everything was OK with them. When I posted, the immediate response was as if I was trying to sell something. They are protective of their community, I get it, I’m just not sure how I could have phrased it differently.

It was a sh*t show for sure, but it’s resolved, and I’m here. :)
 
I constructed 4 of the Brew Bubbles devices and 3 of them work perfectly. The fourth device flashes the LED each time the beam is broken, but the webpage always shows "NaN" as the bubble count, no matter how many times it refreshes or how many times the beam has been broken. Any ideas?
 
If you can attach a serial monitor to the USB port, that would probably give you an idea of which way to go.

You can try to erase the controller and re-flash. It sounds like maybe the SPIFFS is invalid.
 
Erasing flash works for pretty much 90% of the issues people have with any controller-based application. It's just too easy to do to not make that step number one in troubleshooting. Kinda like rebooting a Windows box. :)
 
wd16261 said:
I'm also using the iSpindle so I've already got the temp of my beer. Maybe someday there will be an option to change the labels in Brewfather?
Or in Brewbubbles so we can chose between room or fridge?
Click to expand...
In here doing some work and I forgot exactly what I was going to do here. Was it making Brew Bubbles' "Ambient Temp" report to Brewfather "Room Temp?"
 
LBussy said:
In here doing some work and I forgot exactly what I was going to do here. Was it making Brew Bubbles' "Ambient Temp" report to Brewfather "Room Temp?"
Click to expand...
sorry for the late reply. Yes I think that it would be better if the "Ambient Temp' report to Brewfather as "Room Temp" then it is also the same as marked on the shield.
 
If you are the adventurous type, I have pushed the following to the devel branch:
  • New bracket with collimator in the repo. Might work for some but the alignment is tricky.
  • Replaced SPIFFS with LittleFS since SPIFFS is now deprecated. Required updates upstream in ESPAsyncWebServer.
  • Switched Brewfather's ext_temp to aux_temp (reports as Room Temp).
You can snag the firmware in the firmware folder and use ESPTool to flash it (example in the README of that folder. I'll try to get it into Brewflasher later today.

If a couple of you can test this (assuming you use Brewfather) and confirm how it works, I'll merge to Master.
 
Ok I've installed the new firmware and the first thing that I've noticed is that the version is now set to v1.0.1!
For the rest everything looks ok.
I will check if the reporting to brewfather has changed later and keep you posted.
1595795037495.png
 
Last edited:
I must have messed up the tags. No worries though, it should be fine other than that display. Have you had a chance to upload to Brewfather yet?
 
yes it is changed.
In the screenshot the Airbubble2 is the one with the test firmware.

1595849431050.png
 
For me its OK this way Now I've got the temp of my Vessel (Temp) and the temp of the Fridge (Fridge Temp)
 
Okay great.

Now that my other project is more or less ready to release, I might look at giving this a little more love. Adding in a config point to allow the user to specify it won't be that horrible.
 
LBussy said:
Adding in a config point to allow the user to specify it won't be that horrible.
Click to expand...
I lied. I opted for a common object to do the cloud provider uploads and that means this is not as easy as I thought it might be. Unless there's a public uproar in the future I won't be adding a configurable choice for Brewfather.
 
Feature Release 2.1.0

I've gone ahead and done a feature release because the filesystem I (and a million other people) have been using is being deprecated on the ESP8266. It's significant enough to warrant the minor version update.

There are some performance improvements, but end-users should see no changes as a result of this other than the file system binary being named littlefs.bin (from spiffs.bin.)

Significant items in this release:
  • a0cf8b8 Bracket with collimator added
  • e5525ac Add LittleFS support
  • 7ec4ae1 Switch Brewfather ext_temp to aux_temp (room)
End-users may upgrade via the web portal. New users will be able to select 2.1.0 via Brewflasher.
 
That's funny. I was stationed in (West) Germany. Apparently, a "bussy" is like a little kiss. That used to amuse the girls.

Then there are the porn references. Be careful where you click if you are Googling for me. :)
 
I'm having trouble updating? I've tried two different bits of hardware and get the same behaviour. Here's some brief info...

Trying the update from the menu, LED flashes a few times and then goes ON/OFF depending on state of sensor. When I attach to serial port I get a memory dump;
.....
2020-08-04T08:20:09Z V: Processing /clearupdate/.
2020-08-04T08:20:09Z V: Clearing any update flags.
2020-08-04T08:20:09Z V: Processing /otastart/.
2020-08-04T08:20:09Z N: Starting the Firmware OTA pull, will reboot without notice.

User exception (panic/abort/assert)
Panic core_esp8266_main.cpp:121 __yield

>>>stack>>>

ctx: sys
sp: 3fffec40 end: 3fffffb0 offset: 0000
3fffec40: 402234a8 3fff0290 3ffe9bfd 4020add0
3fffec50: 000000fe 00000000 00000000 00000000
3fffec60: 00000000 00000000 00000000 3fff041c
......



If I use BrewFlasher and install 2.1.0. and after a reset, when I connect I get;
404: File not found.
From the serial output I think this is the error;
2020-08-04T08:08:25Z V: Serving 404.
reported when I try and connect.

The LED flashes when beam broken and bubble count reported on serial output looks correct, not seeing the little bubble character anymore :oops: when the beam is broken. Serial port is also still reporting version as 2.0.0.

If I downgrade from 2.1.0. to 2.0.0. everything works as before.

What other info can I provide?
 
Well that’s not good. Let me have a look a little later today and see. Sounds like the LittleFS partition did not lay down properly.

What version were you on before upgrading?
 
Two bugs! It's your lucky day!

First, a regression bug in 2.0 that caused OTA to break. That was gotcha #1. Then when you tried troubleshooting step #1 for controllers, the LittleFS did not apply. I think that's a bug with Brewflasher. I'll talk to John about #2 here in a few.

In the meantime, if you want to get it going you can follow the alternate flashing instructions in the docs. Use "LittleFS" where it says SPIFFS and all will be well. I think. :)
 
Wish it was good news, but I'm afraid not.

I downloaded master file from github and extracted. Still the same behaviour. I went back and did an erase and flashed again but no difference.


In the documentation, I think a typo in the link to the bin files for littleFS.bin.
 
Okay, you can stop finding bugs now. :)

The link in the docs is bad, I fixed that. You can always use the main link and then download it from there.

I did not have an issue with flashing just now, but to be sure I uploaded new binaries to that link. I've also bumped the version to 2.1.1 just to be triple sure people know they are on the current version.

I'm just waiting for Cloudflare to update the cache so I can test.
 
Attached is extract from serial port output, after initial configuration via AP, the last line is when I try and open web browser.
 

Attachments

  • BrewBubblesLog.txt
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