BrewPi@ESP8266, no need of RPI and Arduino.

[pocketmon]

Thanks for that - what if I were to replace the two buttons with a PCF8754 and Rotary Encoder - would I have to amend the config.h file or is there a bin file that covers it.
So, my desired setup is ESP8266, ILI9341 LCD, and Rotary Encoder - I have downloaded BrewPiLess-master.zip and have Visual Studio.
Fermenter cooling is relay controlled.
Fermenter Heating is relay controlled.
Pressure is relay controlled.

I would suggest ESP32 instead. I don't have a setup with PCF8754 for now, so it might not work as expected.
I've switched to ESP32 for about one year. ESP32 used to be less stable than ESP8266, in my opinion. However, it seems to work better, at least as good as ESP8266, after upgrading to latest framework recently.

 

[DuncB]

@waynerob11
How do you intend to contol the pressure / autospund?

@pocketmon
Is there a binary for ESP 32 for fridge, heater, pressure / autospund .

My esp8266 died so needs replacement and it did seem to struggle with the above requirements. Seemed fine for just temp control.
In fact it was perfect for my requirements. Thank you.

 

[pocketmon]

@waynerob11
How do you intend to contol the pressure / autospund?

@pocketmon
Is there a binary for ESP 32 for fridge, heater, pressure / autospund .

My esp8266 died so needs replacement and it did seem to struggle with the above requirements. Seemed fine for just temp control.
In fact it was perfect for my requirements. Thank you.

Yes. Those are supported by default.

 

[waynerob11]

Yes. Those are supported by default.

Pressure is monitored by a pressure transducer on GPIO 3 which activates a solenoid valve with a small hole to release pressure slowly. I also want to replace the two buttons with a Rotary Encoder via a PCF8754 expander

 

[pocketmon]

Pressure is monitored by a pressure transducer on GPIO 3 which activates a solenoid valve with a small hole to release pressure slowly. I also want to replace the two buttons with a Rotary Encoder via a PCF8754 expander

On ESP32, it's pin 36.

 

[DuncB]

Pressure is monitored by a pressure transducer on GPIO 3 which activates a solenoid valve with a small hole to release pressure slowly. I also want to replace the two buttons with a Rotary Encoder via a PCF8754 expander

Monitoring pressure straightforward difficulties are the control process hardware limits.
Trouble I found was you either have a normally closed solenoid which you need to keep open all the time at the beginning of the ferment. Or normally open which you need to keep shut at the end of ferment and intermittently open.
The solenoid likely to overheat and fail unless you fit flyback diode and resistor to reduce the power to the solenoid.
I couldn't get this method to work efficiently enough to reduce the heat and load.
I have worked out a way that should work to avoid this issue but haven't been able to build and test it yet.
Interested to hear how you've done it or different components.

 

[waynerob11]

Monitoring pressure straightforward difficulties are the control process hardware limits.
Trouble I found was you either have a normally closed solenoid which you need to keep open all the time at the beginning of the ferment. Or normally open which you need to keep shut at the end of ferment and intermittently open.
The solenoid likely to overheat and fail unless you fit flyback diode and resistor to reduce the power to the solenoid.
I couldn't get this method to work efficiently enough to reduce the heat and load.
I have worked out a way that should work to avoid this issue but haven't been able to build and test it yet.
Interested to hear how you've done it or different components.

my system is to keep it closed until pressure hits desired level and then activate - I not sure why it would overheat - they are rated for continuous use, and it is electrically isolated from the ESP

 

[DuncB]

my system is to keep it closed until pressure hits desired level and then activate - I not sure why it would overheat - they are rated for continuous use, and it is electrically isolated from the ESP

Which solenoid is it please?

 

[rkhanso]

Is there a way to get BrewPiLess-32 to retain a wider time range of data on the temperature/control graph page? It seems to want to reset at random times. Or maybe it's not random and I just don't see the pattern. Maybe it rests after every page load or refresh?
I'm using version 4.2.

 

[DuncB]

Yes I think you set up logging in the logs menu.

I think it will do it remotely as well.
Certainly can send to brewfather as well.
The graph page keeps the data since you last refreshed that page or changed to another menu option. So each time you go back to graph it starts a new data display.
Let us know how it goes.

 

[DuncB]

@waynerob11
Still wondering which solenoid you have that's good for continuous?

 

[waynerob11]

This is the valve I use - draws no current when closed and is only opened briefly to reduce pressure - had no problems so far

 

[DuncB]

Thank you @waynerob11
So you aren't using this from the beginning of fermentation? Just using at the pressure build and overpressure prevention near the end of fermentation.
I'm planning to use mine from the start of ferment so it would need to be open and hence powered to release the gas. Then trigger it to close at a certain gravity from the ispindel and then intermittent open and close. Mine certainly gets warm during testing and quite a few mentions of this as an issue on the github correspondence.

 

[pocketmon]

I bought this on Aliexpresscapacitive touch), to run BrewPiLess on it.
https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005005138982767.html
It's a pity that only three free pins available, while one of it is input-only and good for pressure transducer.
Connected temperature sensors work, and the actuator control pin controls LED as expected.

The main display can be customized so that only values you need will show in the sizes you like.
There are still works to be done, but it's promising.

I would like to gather options before making it public.

 

[DuncB]

@pocketmon
That looks very good already.

 

[waynerob11]

looks very promising - hopefully one for each fermenter - Fermwatch was very good but it only does one fermenter

 

[DuncB]

Would be ideal if it could cycle ispindel temp displays from multiple Ispindels even if only controlling via ispindel / temp sensor for one brew. Lovely big display though.

 

[korev]

looks very promising - hopefully one for each fermenter - Fermwatch was very good but it only does one fermenter

Now that I have made the Tappo, I think there are possibilities to display more than one fermenting batch... which could mean multiple iSpindels

 

[DuncB]

Now that I have made the Tappo, I think there are possibilities to display more than one fermenting batch... which could mean multiple iSpindels

What's the Tappo?

 

[day_trippr]

What's the Tappo?

Why, it's "a Tap List using the Brewfather API and a cyd", of course!

Cheers!

 

[DuncB]

Why, it's "a Tap List using the Brewfather API and a cyd", of course!

Cheers!

Thank you.
But I'm not going there, still fiddling around with Raspberry pints and autospunding using the ESP8266.

 

[Thorrak]

Huh, neat!

 

[pocketmon]

Would be ideal if it could cycle ispindel temp displays from multiple Ispindels even if only controlling via ispindel / temp sensor for one brew. Lovely big display though.

I would rather keep BrewPiLess a simple temperature controller for one chamber/beer fermentation.

The porting is almost finished. It would take ages for me to build one working controller, so I might make a beta release some time later.

Due to memory limitation, BLE for TILT support is not enabled by default. I don't know if anyone uses TILT with BPL, but I am interested in KegLand RAPT Pill, which seems to support BLE broadcast like TILT. I'll see how it works when I get my Pill.

 

[DuncB]

I would rather keep BrewPiLess a simple temperature controller for one chamber/beer fermentation.

The porting is almost finished. It would take ages for me to build one working controller, so I might make a beta release some time later.

Due to memory limitation, BLE for TILT support is not enabled by default. I don't know if anyone uses TILT with BPL, but I am interested in KegLand RAPT Pill, which seems to support BLE broadcast like TILT. I'll see how it works when I get my Pill.

Thank you, I think brewpiless is great controlling one fermenter, my query was could it display other Ispindel readouts that weren't related to temp control ie my beer fridges which have Ispindel running tempmon, as it's such a lovely big display.

But I look forward to this new porting.

 

[pocketmon]

BrewPiLess now supports Rapt Pill in Bluetooth mode.

Long story short, my iSpindel was broken because of beer going into it. I found Pill is cheaper than a iSpindel for someone like me. Rapt Pill can be setup to broadcast information over Bluetooth. A BrewPiLess running on ESP32 can get the information broadcasted. Pill also broadcasts tilt angle information, which makes it possible to run calibration on the fly like iSpindel.

Please consider it a beta version, so you might get the source from Github and build it by our own. I will build the binaries after verification, which would take a few weeks or months.

 

[time2brew]

I am experiencing an issue with BrewPiLess and Beer Profiles when running in Fahrenheit mode (v4.3.1 running on ESP32-WROOM-32D).

After setting BrewPiLess to Fahrenheit mode (via SYSTEM --> ADVANCED), I create a Beer Profile on the CONTROL page and set a start date of "Now".

If I then navigate to any of the other pages (GRAPH, LOGS, DEVICE, etc) and then return to the CONTROL page the Profile column heading indicates degrees "F" yet the temperature values as well as the Y-axis are reported in degrees "C".

The only way to get the Profile to reflect Fahrenheit values again has been dozens of page-refreshes or randomly browsing the other tabs (GRAPH, LOGS, DEVICE, SYSTEM, GRAVITY, PRESSURE).

Is this a bug or have I done/not-done something?

Thanks for your time,

time2brew

 

[DuncB]

You don't mention saving it, but I think you must have done that otherwise the profile wouldn't be there when you returned to the page.

 

[time2brew]

You don't mention saving it, but I think you must have done that otherwise the profile wouldn't be there when you returned to the page.

Yep, the profile had been saved. This same issue exists in 4.3.

In this example it took 18 page refreshes before it switched back to "F"

 

[pocketmon]

Yep, the profile had been saved. This same issue exists in 4.3.
View attachment 841002
In this example it took 18 page refreshes before it switched back to "F"
View attachment 841003

Yes. There are issues about Fahrenheit setting.
I've done some modification. You might try compile the least code on GitHub, but please remember that this version is still under testing/verification.

 

[akgal12]

I have tried several display screens and have not had a single one work for me. My latest effort is the 20x4 lcd and I can get it to power on but it does not show text. I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong. I had a 0.96 one working for a brief moment, but now that won't even work. Help! I'm working with the PCB board from stefschin.

EDIT: I was able to get two other esp32s to display text, but neither are attached to the PCB. Not sure what that means.