CraftBeerPi - Raspberry Pi Software

[Gravitysucks]

The blue wire should go to the - side of the ssr output.

That was the first way I tried it, blue wire from the #3 pole of the right side switch block to com(-)gpio #13. Nothing happened when the switch was turned on and was then activated in the UI.
Then I tried it with the blue wire connected to the SSR + terminal (gpio #13) which when set to "relay board" in craftbeerpi reads 12v until you hit the activate button of the craftbeerpi UI at which point it drops to 0v. This didn't seem to work. I tried setting up gpio #13 as gpiosimple which puts 0v on the + terminal when off and 12v when activated but this didn't work either. Not being familiar with how the trigger circuitry of the relay board actually works there is obviously something I'm missing like perhaps the com(-) terminal of that SSR output needs to go to ground? I worked as a marine electrician prior to retiring so I have some familiarity with both high and low voltage systems but this Pi stuff is new ground for me. It's a wonder I haven't fried something yet.

 

[Gravitysucks]

I spent another hour or so this morning trying to figure out my 3 way switch issue but no luck. I went back to the configuration Lalo suggested and tried all the settings in the craftbeerpi UI thinking that maybe it was a setting issue rather than a wiring issue but it didn't change anything.

I bought the v2 board hoping to simplify the wiring and make it less of a mess than the breakout board and ULN2003a I was previously using but it's proving to be more of a hassle than it's worth.

The board arrived with no documentation at all and the manual that was later added to the sellers site contained pretty much nothing you couldn't figure out just by looking at the silkscreening on the board. The 2 relays that were added to the v2 board are actually labeled backwards (NC on the left, NO on the right) so if someone unfamiliar with these types of relays were to connect pumps or heating/cooling equipment the way it is indicated on the board they would find that these items were on for the 20-30 seconds it takes the Pi to fully boot up. I should add that if you are powering the Pi separately from the rest of your panel and boot up the Pi prior to powering the rest of the panel or if you connect to the terminal labeled NC on the board (which is actually NO) and set up the relays as "gpiosimple" rather than "relay board" this doesn't seem to be an issue but most of the builds I see using one of these craftbeerpi boards are powered with a 12v psu that is wired to be on when the rest of the panel is energized. The point is that none of these things are documented and you have a lot of people trying to put these controllers together that have little to no experience (judging by the questions I see on the craftbeerpi forum) with working with mains power. To me that's problematic. Of course there are disclaimers everywhere, do this at your own risk, etc and this is only my opinion so do with it what you wish.

I probably should make a note to myself to avoid posting before I've had my morning coffee...

 

[golfindia]

For folks that aren't well versed in electronics, those pi add on relay boards are not worth the trouble. SSRs and opto isolated relays can be controlled directly from a Pi board

 

[Btaz]

I spent another hour or so this morning trying to figure out my 3 way switch issue but no luck. I went back to the configuration Lalo suggested and tried all the settings in the craftbeerpi UI thinking that maybe it was a setting issue rather than a wiring issue but it didn't change anything.

I bought the v2 board hoping to simplify the wiring and make it less of a mess than the breakout board and ULN2003a I was previously using but it's proving to be more of a hassle than it's worth.

The board arrived with no documentation at all and the manual that was later added to the sellers site contained pretty much nothing you couldn't figure out just by looking at the silkscreening on the board. The 2 relays that were added to the v2 board are actually labeled backwards (NC on the left, NO on the right) so if someone unfamiliar with these types of relays were to connect pumps or heating/cooling equipment the way it is indicated on the board they would find that these items were on for the 20-30 seconds it takes the Pi to fully boot up. I should add that if you are powering the Pi separately from the rest of your panel and boot up the Pi prior to powering the rest of the panel or if you connect to the terminal labeled NC on the board (which is actually NO) and set up the relays as "gpiosimple" rather than "relay board" this doesn't seem to be an issue but most of the builds I see using one of these craftbeerpi boards are powered with a 12v psu that is wired to be on when the rest of the panel is energized. The point is that none of these things are documented and you have a lot of people trying to put these controllers together that have little to no experience (judging by the questions I see on the craftbeerpi forum) with working with mains power. To me that's problematic. Of course there are disclaimers everywhere, do this at your own risk, etc and this is only my opinion so do with it what you wish.

I probably should make a note to myself to avoid posting before I've had my morning coffee...

I didn't look into your boards but here is a simple drawing that I think may work for you

 

[Gravitysucks]

I didn't look into your boards but here is a simple drawing that I think may work for you
View attachment 615448

Thanks for your reply. At this point pretty much I've decided to go back to an improved version of the breakout board and ULN2003a I was using earlier which actually worked. As I said in another post, I bought the craftbeerpi v2 board because I wasn't happy with the nest of wires I had on the Pi side of things. Long story short...I had a stoke a while back which affected my fine motor skills on my right side so when I started this project a year ago I wasn't able to solder connections without making a mess. I basically used breadboard jumper wires to connect all the Pi related things which worked but I wasn't really happy with it. Since then I've gotten so I can solder fairly well left handed so I can hopefully do thing properly now.

 

[carrsgarage]

Has anybody gotten the CascadePID plugin to work? I spent several hours last night tuning the inner and outer loops (the way I thought I understood it) and ppuggepmy resultant numbers into the CascadePID assigned to the Mash Tun. When set to Auto, it gets it close to the set temperature, but then just shuts the element down to 0% and let's it cool. I can't figure it out.

 

[Gravitysucks]

I managed to solve my 3 way switch issue and get all the Pi related things working properly tonight. It only took removing the craftbeerpi v2 board and going back to my original set up. Live and learn. It's not pretty and I still need to make up some wires to replace a couple of breadboard jumper wires I used just to make sure everything was going to work. I even managed to solder on the IC socket and a few headers without messing up on the first try. Thanks to everyone that tried to help me on my misadventure.

 

[mmmooretx]

Is there a hw needed/source for needed components besides the RPI (will use 3B+). Will it also control valves?

 

[matbtz]

Has anybody gotten the CascadePID plugin to work? I spent several hours last night tuning the inner and outer loops (the way I thought I understood it) and ppuggepmy resultant numbers into the CascadePID assigned to the Mash Tun. When set to Auto, it gets it close to the set temperature, but then just shuts the element down to 0% and let's it cool. I can't figure it out.

After asking questions on Craftbeerpi FB group for the cascadepid setting
I have done today the auto-tune pid of the Inner loop (hlt) and outer loop (mash tun) with auto-tune pid.
One answer was, For auto-tune it's important to do it In Gpiosimple and after pass in pwm in cascadepid.
Ifcorse I recognize after done the two auto tune that I have stay In pwm and forget to go back I. Gpiosimple.
I will try this weekend

 

[jjkeegan86]

It's not the prettiest girl on the block, I'm really bad at vinyl lettering and drilling holes in metal.

Powering up the pi by itself I can get all the ssrs working, and the temp probe registers.

Now I just need to grow a pair and plug the whole thing in.

 

[Gravitysucks]

It's not the prettiest girl on the block, I'm really bad at vinyl lettering and drilling holes in metal.

Powering up the pi by itself I can get all the ssrs working, and the temp probe registers.

Now I just need to grow a pair and plug the whole thing in. View attachment 616307View attachment 616308View attachment 616309View attachment 616310View attachment 616312

I think the graphics came out great and I'm looking forward to seeing you getting it powered up.

 

[carrsgarage]

After asking questions on Craftbeerpi FB group for the cascadepid setting
I have done today the auto-tune pid of the Inner loop (hlt) and outer loop (mash tun) with auto-tune pid.
One answer was, For auto-tune it's important to do it In Gpiosimple and after pass in pwm in cascadepid.
Ifcorse I recognize after done the two auto tune that I have stay In pwm and forget to go back I. Gpiosimple.
I will try this weekend

Thank for mentioning the GPIOsimple; I had mine set to PWM. I ran autotune on both the inner and outer loops, but when I plugged the numbers into CascadePID, the elements never reacted. I saved a bunch of spent grain to use for another autotune - the first time around I just used water and I think the difference in thermal mass threw off the results.

Good luck to you, I look forward to your results.

 

[delium55]

Bigtbrewer say: post #993
I recently added a I2C LCD 4X20 SCREEN ...why not its like $12.00 and got Alexa app "somewhat working" pretty cool! bought a $30 dot on Black Fri just for the brewery.

What's the model do you use? This is similar to this https://www.banggood.com/IIC-I2C-20...Blue-p-908616.html?rmmds=buy&cur_warehouse=CN

Do you have a shematic diagram to connect this.

In manual mode, can we display the temperature of 2 probes with this or we may use someting like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-DC...-12VDC-Celcius-/221391706893?oid=251451275293 to display the temperatre in the boil kettle or in the rim tube.

How do you will process if the software breaking or stopping to work at mid brew day, to know the boil temperatre.

Thank in advance.

 

[bigtbrewer]

Bigtbrewer say: post #993
I recently added a I2C LCD 4X20 SCREEN ...why not its like $12.00 and got Alexa app "somewhat working" pretty cool! bought a $30 dot on Black Fri just for the brewery.

What's the model do you use? This is similar to this https://www.banggood.com/IIC-I2C-20...Blue-p-908616.html?rmmds=buy&cur_warehouse=CN

Do you have a shematic diagram to connect this.

In manual mode, can we display the temperature of 2 probes with this or we may use someting like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-DC...-12VDC-Celcius-/221391706893?oid=251451275293 to display the temperatre in the boil kettle or in the rim tube.

How do you will process if the software breaking or stopping to work at mid brew day, to know the boil temperatre.

Thank in advance.

For me I installed the I2C LCD not so much to use as a brewing tool but a way I can see the PI is up and running and for a quick temp/time glance.Mostly because it was cheap addition ;-)

I use one wire sensors to display the temps in the browser when Craftbeer Pi running. I have not updated the PI or crafbeer pi in a while its been rock solid...Why trouble, trouble kind of thinking.

I dont recall the model of the LCD screen but yes it is similar to the link you posted.
To enable it try this.... https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-4-gpio-setup/configuring-i2c

Also I added a bi directional level converter because I was concerned about the 3.3 v PI output something like this..https://www.ebay.com/p/5-Pack-4-Cha...tional-5v-to-3-3v/2177297205?iid=142365594300

I soldered the level converter right on the back of the I2C LCD...for me one last thing not to wire to and out

 

[delium55]

Thank you Bigtbrewer,

I will go this way.

 

[asdfasf]

Hi! I made my first ever all-grain wort Friday. Everything went off without a hitch, except the display did not notify me when to add hops. I created my own recipe based on the instructions from an all-grain kit. Just wondering if anyone has a fix for this or advice on what I may have done incorrectly. I created my brewery for a school project and it would be nice when I demonstrate the full functionality of this program... Thanks in advance!

 

[carrsgarage]

Hi! I made my first ever all-grain wort Friday. Everything went off without a hitch, except the display did not notify me when to add hops. I created my own recipe based on the instructions from an all-grain kit. Just wondering if anyone has a fix for this or advice on what I may have done incorrectly. I created my brewery for a school project and it would be nice when I demonstrate the full functionality of this program... Thanks in advance!

When I first set my brewery up a couple of months ago, the timer was working fine and the buzzer went off every time I had to add hops. Something has changed within the last few months to cause the hop timer to stop working. It's very frustrating.

Is your Pi connected to the internet?

 

[asdfasf]

Yup.. The pi is connected to the internet.

 

[carrsgarage]

Yup.. The pi is connected to the internet.

Okay, I saw a note from a while back that the timer wouldn't work right if the Pi wasn't connected to the internet to get the correct time from a time server. That doesn't seem to be the case here. I think somebody broke it in one of the latest updates.

 

[George Schuster]

Question for those using Tilt. Setup and testing CBPi 3.0 controlling glycol pump and heater for my conical. All good. Added the Tilt plug-in and connected the Tilt. Reads it no problem.

How can I get gravity graph or chart of the Tilt readings in CBPi?

 

[Lalo_uy]

i use iSpindle, but must be similar.
Each value ( angle, temp , gravity ) is defined as a sensor, so you must look into that sensor chart

 

[tranber28]

Hello

Sorry to disturb you

I am looking to buy a v2 card but I can not find and on the official Facebook page I have no answer! Do you have a link ?

Thank you Good day

 

[bitterroots]

I got the last CBPi3 Master running again. I had to clear the database during the install using ./install.sh.

I have 2 oustanding issues:

- I cannot get rid of the extended menu that I installed to see what it would look like.
- sometimes the AddOn page doesn't display any plugins.

I think these two issues are related.

I was wondering if you found out anything on this? I am having similar problems.
a) Installed 3.0 and no plugins.
b) Reinstalled 3.0. Plugin directory, but only about half of the parameters were there. I always got the "watch video" landing page.
c) Reinstalled 3.0. Plugin directory, all of the parameters were there again but I always got the "watch video" landing page.
d) Reinstalled 3.0. No Plugin directory again. All of the parameters were there. Landing page is the "Brewing" page.

 

[bitterroots]

Duplicate post

 

[jangevaa]

For those using CascadePID, there is a development fork of the plugin you may be interested in. There's some features in there for hysteresis and a PID-hysteresis cascade which is what you'd use if you had like a gas powered HLT and were running a HERMS. This will continue to be a development only branch until I can update the documentation to the features which have been implemented.

Many seem to like to use the autotune plugin with my plugin. I've never tried it, but I'm gonna take a look at that plugin and what code I can pull into my own to hopefully make that process more simple/consistent (e.g. the autotune plugin requires GPIO simple whereas mine requires GPIOPWM).

Note I'm not actually using CBPi anymore - my brewery runs on Node-RED, nonetheless I am passionate about python and process control and brewing, so I do try to maintain my plugins

I have no idea what the status of CBPi 4.0 is, has anybody experimented with that?

Cheers.

 

[carrsgarage]

I spent a few hours using auto tune for the CascadePID and thought that I had it all set (I used plain water). The next weekend I tried using it for my brew day and it was a mess - temperature fluctuations like crazy. I brewed last weekend using just s tuned PID on the HLT set 5 degrees higher than my target mash temperature and it was perfect.

I must have tuned the CascadePID wrong. I'd love to get it working properly.

As far as CraftbeerPi 4.0, I haven't heard anything. It almost seems like things have gone silent.

 

[jangevaa]

It's okay to give up on the tuning! Especially if you're not doing stepped mashes, regular single PID is good enough for pretty much everyone. I'll let you know if I incorporate autotune.

I added some new documentation and renamed my plugin Cascade Control on account of the new hysteresis features. The name change is pending in the plugins list, so anybody trying to install it right now through CBPi will fail. I have a bit more I plan to add to the documentation still.

 

[golfindia]

Put the PID parameters from the stand alone tuned unit into CBP manually.

 

[carrsgarage]

I was wondering if you found out anything on this? I am having similar problems.
a) Installed 3.0 and no plugins.
b) Reinstalled 3.0. Plugin directory, but only about half of the parameters were there. I always got the "watch video" landing page.
c) Reinstalled 3.0. Plugin directory, all of the parameters were there again but I always got the "watch video" landing page.
d) Reinstalled 3.0. No Plugin directory again. All of the parameters were there. Landing page is the "Brewing" page.

I brewed last weekend and the plug in list was there. I just got everything set up to brew tomorrow morning and noticed that the plug in list is now gone. It stinks, because I just made myself a bit thermowell to add a sensor to my boil kettle, but I cantcget the plug in to use it!

 

[jangevaa]

I brewed last weekend and the plug in list was there. I just got everything set up to brew tomorrow morning and noticed that the plug in list is now gone. It stinks, because I just made myself a bit thermowell to add a sensor to my boil kettle, but I cantcget the plug in to use it!

It looks like the description I added to the plugins list made it invalid (use of colon), but that has been fixed...

 

[Hulk]

@jangevaa

It looks like the description I added to the plugins list made it invalid (use of colon), but that has been fixed...

No.it is not fixed. Some Minutes ago i Made fresh Install and the list is empty.

 

[BrewMeABrew]

@jangevaa


No.it's Not fixed. Some Minutes ago i Made fresh Install and the list is empty.

My system was plugged in yesterday and I could see a full list, including the Cascade add in.

 

[Hulk]

Which OS are You Using? I have raspbian Stretch in latest Version.
Additional this issue is still Open in GitHub

 

[Hulk]

Strange. Now i See it.
I activated some addins like overshoot by norn and the pid topics.
after this addon list was empty again.

But basicly i have following function questions:
1) What means the overshoot by norns logic? I tested with several values and logic is not clear
2) I read in the past was a standard overshoot. Where is it now?
3) Hysterese is clear.

For PID (PIDArduino) i need autotunePID?

 

[joeybeer]

Hi all, just got my craftbeerpi up and running and first batch brewed today !

I've looked all over the web and can't find any info about alarms/buzzers/notifications of any sort for Craftbeerpi (especially hop additions or steps ending)

I'm ok with any notification at all - I grabbed the IFTTT plugin but can't seem to get that to work.

Thanks for your help !

 

[Ajes]

Hey guys.
I'm trying to set up CBPi 3 on my nanopi neo plus 2.
So far I've got it installed, and has the temperature sensors working with the GPIO4 pin.
However, I'm having trouble with the relays.
I can turn the GPIO pins on/off with the "wiringpi" utility (f.ex: gpio write 2 1) to turn gpio2 on.
But somehow I cant get CBPi to do the same.
Isn't it using the wiringpi utility?

 

[jangevaa]

Hey guys.
I'm trying to set up CBPi 3 on my nanopi neo plus 2.
So far I've got it installed, and has the temperature sensors working with the GPIO4 pin.
However, I'm having trouble with the relays.
I can turn the GPIO pins on/off with the "wiringpi" utility (f.ex: gpio write 2 1) to turn gpio2 on.
But somehow I cant get CBPi to do the same.
Isn't it using the wiringpi utility?

It looks like the actors included with CBPi3 actually use RPi.GPIO. You can easily write a plugin that provides actors using wiringpi though or uses the nanopi port of RPi.GPIO

 

[Ajes]

I managed to get it to work with the app that uses system commands instead.
But thanks for your reply

 

[tzacher]

Hoping someone here can help me out. I do BIAB using CBPi 3 and have been having problems with my mash & boil processes. My mash is bad at maintaining temps and my boil is always way too strong. I did the PID Autotune process with my heater set on PID Simple and used those settings for PID Boil. However, running these on my actual brew day is not working the way it should. Once I get to the actual boil step, my boil is way overpowered (5500W element) and my boil is either overpowered or I have to manually sit there and switch it on and off. I tried changing the boil threshold but it stays at 100% regardless. Does anyone have ideas on settings to use or different plug-ins to try?

 

[jjkeegan86]

Hoping someone here can help me out. I do BIAB using CBPi 3 and have been having problems with my mash & boil processes. My mash is bad at maintaining temps and my boil is always way too strong. I did the PID Autotune process with my heater set on PID Simple and used those settings for PID Boil. However, running these on my actual brew day is not working the way it should. Once I get to the actual boil step, my boil is way overpowered (5500W element) and my boil is either overpowered or I have to manually sit there and switch it on and off. I tried changing the boil threshold but it stays at 100% regardless. Does anyone have ideas on settings to use or different plug-ins to try?

I brewed for the first time last night and had the exact same problem, also biab, the mash temp kept overshooting by 2-3 degrees, and I boiled off 2 gallons instead of a typical 1 gallon.