Hey folks... I'm finally dusting off and unboxing my RaspberryPi 3 that I bought in 2017 with intentions of building a BrewPi.
The strength of the BrewPi is that nothing has changed in what makes a PID a PID, and the BrewPi has always done that well. As such, the controller itself has not changed much. You can still do it with an Arduino Uno (clone.). While these cost a few bucks more than the Espressif line, their advantage lies in the person who appreciates a "large print" approach. The board is physically large, so easier to work with, it has a pin header that comes already attached, making connections simple, and is (almost) the only way a guy who does not want to or know how to solder can put a system together (with the recommended Wago-style connectors.)
With the I2C variant of the Arduino firmware, a person can create a controller with an LCD and maybe even a knob without any soldering if you source the parts well.
The downside to the Arduino is that the controller is physically attached to the Pi. This may or may not be a downside for most folks because, at some point, you have wires in and out of your fridge for something.
@Thorrak has ESP8266 and (maybe not looked) ESP32-based firmwares that work with BrewPi. These almost always require you to at least solder the pin headers on, but the main advantage is the controller will work on WiFI, letting you physically separate the controller and the Pi.
Then you get to the actual interface you use, where the choices are still mainly BrewPi Remix or Fermentrack. They behave differently but ultimately serve as the way for you to see and adjust your controller. Once set, the controllers themselves will work without the Pi and whatever software you choose.
The documentation I made is still correct. The only caveats I would give you is that you should stick with the slightly older Buster or Bullseye, as some minor changes cause errors in the install scripts. Also, stay with 32-bit variants (armhf vs arm64.) If you decide to use Fermentrack, you would want to follow John's instructions.
If you choose BPR and want to go "all in" with all of the possible features of the controller, you want an Uno because (I think this is still true) the ESP variants do not support the rotary encoder (knob), door switch and all that. While you can do this with the I2C variant of the firmware without any soldering, the cleanest way would be to
use the shield (you will have to source a board from one of the hobby manufacturers.) Basically, this just makes it easier to connect all the wires and gives you a place to put the resistors and optional capacitors. There are very few for this variant, and there are mostly just a lot of pin connectors.
I do not have a BOM for this variant, but you can open the design in (free) Eagle, and export the BOM. There is also an RJ-45 on this board. You can use it without that, but what it does allow is using a regular Ethernet cable to connect all of the sensors and the door switch to
a breakout board inside the fridge as a slightly cleaner option for some folks.
That's it - all the docs are still good and with the exception of "don't use the current Bookworm and stick with 32-bit," all the information is still valid.
I need to update the scripts to use Bookwork or whatever else is next, but honestly, I have more ideas than time.
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