BrewPi Remix – What’s Old is New Again

[shtank]

What's up dudes!?

So grateful to see you guys still helping people make better beer! Cheers to that

So I built an OG unit Like a decade ago then stopped brewing for awhile got back in, stopped again, got back in... And you guys Lee, Day, Fuzzy and crew have helped me out SO many times. So thank you for all, for all you do!

I went to start the Ole brewpi up this time and ended up with a fresh start and a brand new image. Everything installed and loaded up great, I set the brewpi to 45* and it worked beautiful for a helles I brewed the next day.

But when I woke up the next day I couldn't reach the brewpi by its IP or @brewpi.local. I hooked up the crash cart and can see it is switching very quickly from associated to disconnected from our wifi. So I believe the issue lies somewhere in the wifi.

What is the best way to troubleshoot this and regain control of my lager that needs to come up in temp very so?

 

[LBussy]

One of the first things I would check is the signal strength:

iwconfig wlan0

You should see something like:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:"nixcraft5g"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.18 GHz  Access Point: 74:44:44:44:57:FC
          Bit Rate=6 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=41/70  Signal level=-69 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:28   Missed beacon:0

The "signal level" (here, -69dBm) is the important number. The higher it is (less negative) the better. If you see it's in the -70's, you may need to reposition.

 

[shtank]

One of the first things I would check is the signal strength:

iwconfig wlan0

You should see something like:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:"nixcraft5g"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.18 GHz  Access Point: 74:44:44:44:57:FC
          Bit Rate=6 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=41/70  Signal level=-69 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:28   Missed beacon:0

The "signal level" (here, -69dBm) is the important number. The higher it is (less negative) the better. If you see it's in the -70's, you may need to reposition.

What exactly do you mean by "reposition"? Like physically move the device close to the router?

 

[LBussy]

What exactly do you mean by "reposition"? Like physically move the device close to the router?

That, or sometimes you can just move it a foot or two, or even swap ends.

 

[shtank]

That, or sometimes you can just move it a foot or two, or even swap ends.

I had a solid red LED on the pi and couldn't get it to reboot, so starting fresh again. I ordered a new power supply just in case it is a power issue.

My Rpi is an old one that I have had since Fuzzy started the OG thread. Is my Rpi out if date?

 

[day_trippr]

I had a couple of original Rpi Model B 512M boards go to Digital Heaven a few years ago. Bought in 2013?
Both expired due to 3.3v regulator failure. I could have fixed them, but they were dogs compared to the Model 2B's I was moving to anyway.
If you have a dodgy board, check the 3.3v...

Cheers!

 

[LBussy]

Raspberry Pi boot problems are discussed in great detail over on their forum in this sticky post:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=58151

 

[duncan.brown]

@LBussy quick update on glycol code now that I'm four batches into the new system (two ales and two lagers). Everything is working great. I'll hack at a UI patch to add a checkbox to enable glycol in the maintenance panel. My plan is to have this switch the UI to just show beer temperature and setting and set parameters that seem to work for my setup: PID off and a reasonable hysteresis control band. People might need to tweak the hysteresis control high and low based on their glycol temperature, so I'll add a note to the instructions to do this.

Let me know if this sounds reasonable to you and I'll put a pull request in some time over the weekend or early next week.

 

[LBussy]

Sounds good, sir!

 

[duncan.brown]

Forgot to attach some graphs from my tilt logging showing that the beer is seeing reasonable temperatures with glycol.

Here's a fermentation profile from the BrewPi for a lager that follows a Narziss-like schedule:

For comparison, here is the same beer with me manually changing the temperature on the SS Brewtech FTS controller to achieve this temperature profile:

BrewPi is much nicer! Now that I have everything set up, I'll switch to logging the gravity in BrewPi.

 

[kc.rkitek]

@LBussy

I'm trying to get back into brewing after a little hiatus. I have a couple tilts and a fermentation chamber fashioned from a mini-fridge that is controlled by an Inkbird ITC-308. There's also a couple seedling mats on the side walls that generate heat when called for, and my stainless buckets have thermowells for the sensor. Previously, I tried using both an old phone and a RPi zero, but both seemed a little inconsistent for connectivity/logging. I believe that was bluetooth signal strength related, but not certain. Fighting the Tilts/receivers was frustrating got to be more trouble than it was worth.

Well, in the interest of salvaging some of the investment while upgrading a little, I decided to put together a Tiltbridge to see if that would alleviate the signal issues. I had first planned on just keeping my current controller and sending the tilt data to Brewer's Friend. But now after digging in to the latest automation projects, I really like the idea of being able to log data and manage/schedule fermentation control with a Brewpi Remix.

I have no formal computing education, but I've messed with a RPi Zero and D1 Mini for another project. I know a little about mech engineering/modeling have a 3d printer to make my enclosures. That's just enough to put one these together, I think! I just have a few questions before I start ordering parts:

1. Does Brewpi Remix work on RPi 4 already?
2. Can the Brewpi Remix manage multiple ferm chambers concurrently?
3. If I did eventually run multiple chambers, would it make any sense to have the RPi in it's own enclosure separate from the controller eqpt in their own enclosures that were fixed to each chamber? If RPi4 works, I was thinking about plugging the ethernet port right into my switch.
4. Can I write fermentation schedules that advance to the next step after a certain gravity is reached?
5. Can the data from the Tiltbridge go to both Brewer's Friend and Brewpi Remix independently, or is there a better way to do this?
6. Is the main difference between Brewpi Remix and Fermentrack just the web interface design? I'm having a hard time distinguishing the unique features of each project...

Thanks for your effort on this project and time to read my post!

 

[duncan.brown]

Lee is the authority but the following might be helpful from my experience:

Does Brewpi Remix work on RPi 4 already?

I had no problems running on a 4. The Pi is running the web interface and management software. The Arduino is doing the work of running the real-time software that controls the temperature.

Can the Brewpi Remix manage multiple ferm chambers concurrently?

One Pi can manage multiple fermentation chambers (I have two) but each chamber needs it's own Arduino. So you'll need two Arduinos plugged into a single Pi. I do this with two USB cables. Lee has notes in the installation instructions that make it easy to figure out which Arduino is on which serial line.

If I did eventually run multiple chambers, would it make any sense to have the RPi in it's own enclosure separate from the controller eqpt in their own enclosures that were fixed to each chamber? If RPi4 works, I was thinking about plugging the ethernet port right into my switch.

My Pi, Arduinos, and the control relays are all remote from the chambers themselves as they are mounted on the back of my brewing desk. You'll have a longer cable run, but otherwise it's fine.

Can I write fermentation schedules that advance to the next step after a certain gravity is reached?

As far as I can tell, no. You can only set temperature as a function of time. This is something that I'd like to code up, though. I'd also like the ability to say "free rise from the current temperature to temperature X and then hold at temperature X." These are on my list of brewing things to code, unless @LBussy has already done it.

 

[kc.rkitek]

Thanks for the response; that's great info! I've missed brewing a lot, but lately finding time has been very difficult. The more automated I can get things right now, the better. With that in mind, being able to program a quick lager routine based on attenuation and/or time would be so cool. Dang, if I manage to get this Tiltbridge working, I may build this next!

 

[LBussy]

Can the data from the Tiltbridge go to both Brewer's Friend and Brewpi Remix independently, or is there a better way to do this?

Yes, it will happily send to every type of endpoint it supports simultaneously.

Can I write fermentation schedules that advance to the next step after a certain gravity is reached?

No, and it's a feature I would use so there's no good reason I've not gotten around to supporting it. Other than the time it takes of course.

Is the main difference between Brewpi Remix and Fermentrack just the web interface design? I'm having a hard time distinguishing the unique features of each project...

I was trying to find some other way to describe it, but for the end user: yes.

 

[kc.rkitek]

Thanks, Lee! Well, I'm sold....time to start shopping for some parts.

 

[LBussy]

I do recommend the Uno, and using the I2C branch. It's by far the easiest and most fool-proof approach. Unless you need wireless connectivity, this is the safest.

 

[Quigongentoo]

Hello everyone,

Ive successfully gotten BPR installed and running in a test environment. I do have a quick question. Is there a way to calibrate the temp probes? Ive put both the chamber probe and beer probe in the same test water to see if they were “close” but I see about a 1 to 1.5 degree (F) difference. I looked around in the software but I don’t see any calibration settings. I apologize if this has been asked before, I searched this thread with no results. Also, I didn’t see anyway of using the tilt as the beer temp?

Thanks in advance for any time spent answering these questions.

 

[LBussy]

Is there a way to calibrate the temp probes?

https://docs.brewpiremix.com/en/master/calibration/index.html

 

[balrog]

Just dropping by to say how great this continues to be.
<BrewPi Remix running on Debian on laptop, we have entered exotherm of a Lite pale ale with OLY-071 Lutra at 70F>

 

[LBussy]

I'm happy there's some folks out there using straight Debian sucessfully. I have made some effort to "de-Pi" some of the scripts, but they are not published yet.

 

[Quigongentoo]

https://docs.brewpiremix.com/en/master/calibration/index.html

Thank you!

 

[day_trippr]

Bullseye or Bookworm are dead ahead...

 

[balrog]

Trying to keep up is exhausting. I need to ditch the Dell anyway. Battery long dead, run from brick all the time and when the power cuts out, BIOS complains about setting date/time which if lazily not done, leads to fun like this:

 

[day_trippr]

Stick a cheap UPS in front of it for another couple of years...

 

[DuncB]

Rebuild the battery pack, it's very easy and will give you a lot more juice plus much cheaper than a replacement pack.

 

[day_trippr]

The battery reference may be to a motherboard "CMOS battery" that may be embedded inside a chip package.
When those go bad the small static memory the battery powered and that is used to hold all the "bios settings" is 100% volatile...

Cheers!

 

[DuncB]

Right I see, in the past I just changed that button battery over but I suppose they have integrated those now.

 

[day_trippr]

Right, the coin cell cmos battery days are waaay behind us. Too bad...

 

[DuncB]

Note to self must stop taking old laptops apart and upgrading them and putting linux on them so they keep going for ever.

 

[LBussy]

You guys are having a love fest here. I replace laptops like you replace batteries.