Flite - Keg Level, Temperature, and Pressure Sensor

[LBussy]

Not that I have heard - but you could always just use the ToF by itself?

 

[Merkur]

Yeah I was originally thinking of doing that, but I'm a geek and I really like the assurance I get from monitoring Temperature & Pressure per keg . I have the one I bought to try the system out and it works well.

Damn Honeywell! I worked for them for 39 years and probably would have been able to get a good employee discounted price on these!

Paul

 

[LBussy]

@Merkur I just stumbled across this on Sparkfun's website. It's backordered, but a little cheaper if you can find it.

 

[Nathan Graen]

I have six new corny keg lids...

With six kegs, you might want to look into what @Schauby7 did and add a multiplexer to combine into one display.

 

[Merkur]

A project update (and plea for help!)

I have been working on this for close to a year and decided it’s time to finish it. I took the breadboard sensors that I had dangling in a keg above some hop water and packaged them in a lid as in the Flite DIY documentation. Prior to encapsulating it all in Food Grade Epoxy, I decided to check it out and (predictably) it didn’t work!

The setup seems good and I can connect to the controller. I can connect to the controller using the local IP address and get the ‘Flite Controller Configuration’ page. The ‘Test Cloud Update‘ reports back that it was successful and the countdown starts for the next update. I can see on the App that the data has been updated, but the temp is reading 302F and the pressure 153.7PSI. I can assure you that those values are incorrect here in Pennsylvania!

I have changed out the (overpriced) Honeywell sensor with the same result. What are my next steps for troubleshooting this?

TIA.

 

[LBussy]

I'd first try clearing the controller and EEPROM. You can do that with the various tools available and see how that works.

Next, I might see if the devices actually change values at all with input (change pressure, change temperature.)

My personal guess would be a connection that is open or shorted. That's not going to be real easy to figure out with the parts sealed in epoxy.

 

[Merkur]

Thanks Lee. My first thought was the sensor package in the lid as it had suffered quite a bit of physical handling and abuse during installation in the housing and lid. It is not epoxy sealed at the moment. However I tried the sensor package with a different 8266 Wemos mini and it works OK. I feel it is the controller.

Can I just re-flash the controller using Brewflasher?

Paul

 

[LBussy]

Can I just re-flash the controller using Brewflasher?

Sure, it's a cheap and easy test.

 

[Merkur]

UPDATED: I found that if I reset, or power cycled the controller between the Low and the high level calibration steps, I could calibrate the lids OK. I still never got the small yellow print on the bottom of the display indicating the calibration distance.​

This project is finally nearing completion, but I have a few issues regarding the calibration that someone may be able to help with. I have built four of the sensor lids and have a display header I have been using to calibrate the system.

The calibration instructions state that at the bottom of the display, there should be a small yellow message stating ‘sensors updated, distance: XXX’. I have never seen that. Instead there is a message stating ‘Updated current interval (sec): 10’. Is this a change in the firmware?

I did manage to get it calibrated using the web interface And the display. I found that calibting with 5 gallons of water in the keg, would not work. Maybe the distance between the water and the sensor was too close? I calibrated at 4.5 gallons in the keg and it worked ok. After calibrating however the keg is indicating that the level is between 4.3 and 4.8 gallons. Maybe I just need to give it time?

Thanks for all the work that has gone into this.

Paul

 

[Merkur]

My sensor corny lids:

 

[Merkur]

Question: On the Flite App, is there a way of changing the order in which the beers appear? I would like this to be in the same order as my taps, but it appears to be pre-sorted in order of when the controller was first registered/set up.

Paul

 

[Merkur]

Another question. I had a CO2 tank run out and was expecting to get a notification when the CO2 pressure dropped below the limit I had set on the sensor config page. This was set to 5psi. I did not receive a notification and it occurred to me I had not set up any notification methods - text message, email etc.

How/where is that set up?

Paul

 

[Merkur]

@LBussy @UncleD

And another question! I have one of my Flite sensors that was calibrated high and low and working for 2-3 weeks and all of a sudden I noticed that the keg went from full to empty. I looked into it and the header lost the 'low distance calibration number at 2:15am one morning. It was set up and calibrated for an empty corny keg at around 600mm and all of a sudden the controller lost that calibration number and now reads zero.

Why would that happen and is there a way of re-adding that calibration constant without actually re-calibrating? The keg is still full and I don't want to have to remove the lid.

Paul

 

[UncleD]

Hey @Merkur sorry for the delay. Life has been really busy with kids and moving, so I really haven't been able to commit the time to this project.

Regarding your question about the CO2 pressure low, you should be able to adjust the "Low Pressure Alarm" setpoint (and make sure it's enabled) from the mobile app.

That's strange that the calibration factor was just "lost". There is no way to manually re-enter that value. You can however re-perform the "high" calibration at your current known level. So if you know what the level was at, you can just re-calibrate the high to that level and the calibration will interpolate between the existing low cal point and the new high cal point. You wont need to open the lid or anything for this.

I hope this gets you going!

Also a shout out to @LBussy for helping out while i've not been around HBT.

 

[Merkur]

Hey @Merkur sorry for the delay. Life has been really busy with kids and moving, so I really haven't been able to commit the time to this project.

Regarding your question about the CO2 pressure low, you should be able to adjust the "Low Pressure Alarm" setpoint (and make sure it's enabled) from the mobile app.

That's strange that the calibration factor was just "lost". There is no way to manually re-enter that value. You can however re-perform the "high" calibration at your current known level. So if you know what the level was at, you can just re-calibrate the high to that level and the calibration will interpolate between the existing low cal point and the new high cal point. You wont need to open the lid or anything for this.

I hope this gets you going!

Also a shout out to @LBussy for helping out while i've not been around HBT.

Thanks @UncleD ! Regarding the low pressure alarm (and indeed all alarms), I have set the values but they are not coming through to my iPhone. I suspect that I need to go into Notiction settings on the phone and enable notifications from the Flite app.

All the best. Congrats on the new house - and kids!

 

[pers]

One of my headless setups appears to not be working anymore. I can access the config with no issues but the volume isn't tracking anymore. When I try to recalibrate, the values just show as 0. I'm guessing something with the TOF sensor? Is there any hope a reflash will fix things? Not looking forward to trying to remove the epoxy from the lid and starting over.

 

[pers]

Tried to reflash but still same issue. Just assumed something went bad with the sensor. Decided to take the lid apart and start over.

Wasn't as bad as I thought. Soaked lid in white vinegar for a few days. That didn't appear to do anything to the epoxy.

Then used a MAP torch for about 5-10 seconds over the epoxy till it started turning brown. Top layer of epoxy cracked really easily with a small flathead screwdriver. Was able to get the screwdriver under the sides and the whole piece split in two. Came out in two big chunks.

I've seen videos of epoxy just getting soft when heat applied so maybe the vinegar did something to cause it to become brittle when the heat was applied.

Just waiting on the parts to come so I can rebuild the lid.

 

[LBussy]

I'm not sure I would ever have tried to open it up. Epoxy = throw it away to me.

 

[Jim Reidy]

I upgraded to a new Iphone 14, iOS 16.5.1, recently and my Flite app was not working. When I tried reinstalling the app I couldn't find it in the App store any longer. I hope all is well and the app is just being updated. Does anyone know if that's the case?

 

[Merkur]

I am running IOS 16.5.1 (c) and the Flite app is working OK. My Flite sensors however have become unreliable and started failing.

 

[day_trippr]

This is all easily done under Android, but I know nothing about the Apple/iOS/iPhone universe.

Can an iPhone user create an install kit from an already installed app, mail the kit to another iPhone user, so that person could install the same app?
Under Android one can easily create an .apk from an installed app and send it to someone to install ("side load") totally avoiding Play...

Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

This is all easily done under Android, but I know nothing about the Apple/iOS/iPhone universe.

Can an iPhone user create an install kit from an already installed app, mail the kit to another iPhone user, so that person could install the same app?
Under Android one can easily create an .apk from an installed app and send it to someone to install ("side load") totally avoiding Play...

Cheers!

Let me reach out to @UncleD. I actually have a Mac app store account thanks to BrewFlasher and may be able to help here.

 

[UncleD]

Hey guys, sorry again for delays in response. Unfortunately the MacOS I used to dev the iOS app is now too old for required development version for Apple app store. I couldn't justify buying a newer Mac just to support this. Ultimately, I would like to re-write the application as a web app (much like I did with Tiltbridge) to future-proof the support.

Like I mentioned before, having kids, new house, and increased workload at my job, I just can't commit the time to this project that I used to. If anyone would like the iOS or Android source code, and wants to take over managing the apps I would be happy to provide. This would get you 90% of the way there, but ultimately web app is probably the best way to go moving forward.

Here are some additional support links for the project:

3D Prints:
https://www.thingiverse.com/jedventures/designs
YouTube Support Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVszo2CUjzT2KD8-8S6sNKQ
Arduino Support:
https://github.com/DJMarlow/Flite_Arduino
Python/RPi Support:
https://github.com/DJMarlow/Flite_Python
REST API Support:


TapListIO Support:


BruControl Support:

 

[UncleD]

Here's the full DIY:

 

[LBussy]

@Thorrak you should totally take this over.

 

[Thorrak]

@UncleD - You mind if I take a stab at it?

 

[LBussy]

@UncleD - You mind if I take a stab at it?

ALLLLLL the way up top at the beginning of the world's longest post, he said:

If anyone would like the iOS or Android source code, and wants to take over managing the apps I would be happy to provide.

I do like the idea of a web app, too. It would eliminate the issue of working with the Apple store people. Pretty sure he has a cloud data store, though - it's that lib I updated.

 

[Thorrak]

ALLLLLL the way up top at the beginning of the world's longest post, he said:


I do like the idea of a web app, too. It would eliminate the issue of working with the Apple store people. Pretty sure he has a cloud data store, though - it's that lib I updated.

I saw, but I also think I still have some non-public stuff from when @UncleD was helping me out with TiltBridge, so I’d rather ask then assume. I also happen to have iOS App Store access and Google Play Store access (and ended up taking @UncleD ‘s advice to make my app in Java) so I could potentially help maintain those, but that would require transferring the apps in the stores if we want them to auto-update on users’ devices.

Replacing the cloud is the easy part (I think). As you know, my latest experiment is all REST, and I think could be adapted to replace the functionality provided by Parse. Famous last words, of course.

 

[atem55]

Posted in error

 

[atem55]

Posted in error