Finally... Light at the end of the tunnel

[ScottSingleton]

Yesterday evening was my first brew where my controller handed the brewing process based on a recipe -- well everything except the plumbing; I still move hoses around. The Temps were kept within 1/10th of a degree and with the gas burners to subsidize ramping it took 12 minutes to achieve mash temps, 3 min to ramp to mash-out.

 

[ScottSingleton]

I have two more hardware additions -- an audible alarm for manual attention (mash temp achieved -- ready for dough/in, etc) and manual override switches for the pumps and burners just in case there is a software failure. The touch screen UI has manual overrides but I want a hardware override outside of the unit just in case.

Once those are done and I've made it through several more trial brews this will all go inside a case.

On a side note -- I'm giving up on using 4x20 LCD displays. I had them on the I2C channel and they just seem to be problematic. Every once in a while their I2C address resets to default and they're just plain hard to read outside. the BTPD displays are hard enough to read as it is (you can see in the pic). They're not adding any real information I can't see from the UI on the compact device anyway.

 

[Blauhung]

very nice looking! :rockin:

 

[carlisle_bob]

Hi

A basic red / yellow / green LED set for each major process can tell you a *lot* about what's going on. Not much to setup and not much to fail...

Bob

 

[ScottSingleton]

Bob -- The unit has a 4" touch screen LED. Each stage (HLT heat, Mash, etc) has a visual indicator similar to an LED. The only additional adds I want at this point are manual overrides for a complete software failure -- and if that happens there'd be nothing controlling the LEDs anyway. Any additional work and features will all be done through software now that the hardware seems to be working.

 

[carlisle_bob]

Hi

There are ways to do the light modules so that when the software goes away, the lights (and / or alarms) indicate that fact. Yes you do have a "something" running the lights, but it's a very simple gizmo. A sub $1 micro will do the job just fine....

Bob