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duncan.brown

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So, I decided that I needed to upgrade my brewery dashboard.

I had some LED seven-segment displays that showed the temperature in my mash tun, and the highest and lowest temperatures of my six serving keezer probes. Some LEDs showed whether or not my flowmeters were sending a signal to the Arduino providing data to raspberry pints. My two fermenters were controlled through BrewPi Remix using the web interface. I took advantage of SS BrewTech cutting the price of the original 5 gal unitanks to add a third fermenter and then started thinking that I needed to upgrade what I display on the dashboard as well.

Maybe I can display fermenter temperatures, or keg levels, or better display of the temp probes, or my HLT temp, or BrewPi status, or the temperatures in my lagering keezer... and I can probably power everything, heaters, glycol pumps and dashboard from a single 30A 12VDC power supply, so I get rid of all the power blocks... and it has to look cool... and what's cooler than KITT...?

Tonight on "When Brewing Projects Spiral..."

IMG_1045.jpeg


MPH shows HLT temp as I aways forget to manage my HTL temps when sparging...

Lower multifunction display can show fermenter temperatures, status, and tilt SGs by querying BrewPi Remix which receives SG data from TiltBridge... Left switch pod buttons are used to switch display on the multi-function display (Silent Mode = Mash Tun temperature, etc.)

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RPM gauges show serving keezer status. Right switch pod buttons choose between min, max, median, and mean temperature on the RPM digits. The six 12 segment red/green LED bars below show the individual temperature probes. I've turned off my keezer fan, so you can see temperature stratification with some green and some in the red (too warm!)

The top three 24 segment LED displays on the right show the temperature of each of my three lagering kegs. One green is 30F, then 0.5F steps up.

Capacity status shows my total amount of beer on tap from RPints (E is empty, FULL = all four 5 gal kegs and my 2.5 gal cask are full). Next two are volume left in kegs 1 and 2...

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The red LEDs on the left are the beer remaining in my other three kegs. The red/green on the right are fermenter temperatures.

Power turns everything on and off, with disconnect relays which are activated when the two Pis come up and prevent you from powering off without doing sudo halt on both PIs.

Auto turns the dash off, except the text display which the cycles fermenter status. Norm is dash on, but dimmed. Pursuit is dash on, full brightness!

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Here's the back end running BrewPi Remix from @LBussy which gets data from @Thorrak's TiltBridge and drives three of the Arduinos. The other Pi runs Raspberry Pints from @RandR+ on the other Arduino. The two other Arduino's do ADC for the switch pods which use a resistive keypad.

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And here's the 30A 12VDC supply that powers everything. There's a 12VDC to 24VDC converter for the glycol pumps that run on 24VDC.

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I had grand plans of building my own KITT dash electronics, but then I caved in as it was going to take forever, so I picked them up from Paolo at ideegeniali

The Pi's run a Python script that sends commands over serial to the dash component's using Paolo's KITT protocol.

https://github.com/duncan-brown/brew-utils/blob/master/kitt/panp/panp.py
I think I successfully achieved my ridiculous and unecessary goals. Thanks to @LBussy @Thorrak @RandR+ and @day_trippr for support with the various components that actually to the work of running my brewery.

Here's the old set up for comparison:

IMG_6957.jpeg
 
Seriously question: do you need make-up air?

No, I open the 6" x 24" window you can see at the back of this picture and there is a good pull of air through that opening. The downside is that the incoming air not conditioned, so it can be cold in the winter and humid in the summer. However, the vent you see in the foreground is the closest vent to the HVAC plenum, so if I open that all the way, I get a good blast of hot or cold air from furnace or a/c.

IMG_1060.jpeg
 
No, I open the 6" x 24" window you can see at the back of this picture and there is a good pull of air through that opening. The downside is that the incoming air not conditioned, so it can be cold in the winter and humid in the summer. However, the vent you see in the foreground is the closest vent to the HVAC plenum, so if I open that all the way, I get a good blast of hot or cold air from furnace or a/c.
I would normally not suggest improvements to someone else's brewery - but I think you can handle it. :)

Two things come to mind for this:
  • A full-condensing rig (not my favorite unless the condensate is drained outside the vessel)
  • A heat-exchange duct
The heat exchanger takes a lot of different names, but it's like a "mated intercooler" that transfers energy one way or the other to vented air. These are commercially called an "enthalpy recovery ventilator" in the HVAC world, where they are pretty expensive. I would think a guy like you could come up with something suitable. You'd have to account for a lot of condensate in the system (potentially on both sides depending on your climate.)

Judging by the tin work there, you either know someone who can do it, or you can do it yourself.
 
I have a whole-house version of that heat exchanger and you're right about condensation. Ours has drip lines on both sides of the exchanger that I plumbed to a floor drain. I think it cost around $650 when it was installed in 1984, so it's probably double that now?

Cheers!
 
These are commercially called an "enthalpy recovery ventilator" in the HVAC world,

Thanks Lee, I had never heard of these! They look really cool. Or hot, depending on the flow of energy and enthalpy. It’s contraptions like these that make me question the second law of thermodynamics (absorption chillers being another).

I wonder if I can use the exhaust from the hood as the outgoing air. Certainly in the winter that would work, as it is hot and humid, but I’d have to run the number for the summer.
 
Well, I did screw one major thing up... we had a power outage in the neighborhood last night after we went to bed. I knew when the power came back on, as we have Hue lights and every light in the house came on at 100% in the middle of the night when they were powered back up. Hue lights fail on, much to my wife and child's chagrin.

However, I wired the dashboard to fail off, not fail on when there is a power outage so my Brew Pi Arduino lost power. Physical fix is to change the power relay connection to NC, not NO, so the power button opens the relay to power off, not closes the relay to power on. That way, if the power goes out, the system will reboot when powered back up.

Fortunately, the lager I was fermenting was almost at terminal. The profile doesn't normally include a d-rest. It does now...

Screen Shot 2023-07-25 at 6.02.53 PM.png
 
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