Floaty digital hydrometer

[James_42]

Has anyone here tried building a "Floaty" digital hydrometer? I have searched and haven't found anything. It seemed simpler than the iSpindel, but when it didn't work I've had trouble finding help. It is based in Spain and although they do reply to help requests, the time difference makes this very slow and I haven't been able to get anywhere.

https://floatyhydrometer.com/
https://www.diyhomebrewers.com/2020/09/floaty-wifi-hydrometer-montaje-y-como.html

 

[James_42]

After many many many messages exchanged with the developer we finally discovered the problem. The improved second version (V2 not the one in the video above) of the 3D printed sled is designed so that it scrapes some of the surface soldered components off the circuit board when it is inserted. They very helpfully warned me about this "feature" after the components were removed. I'm posting this in case somebody else would benefit from knowing this ahead of time.

 

[Bigdaddyale]

After many many many messages exchanged with the developer we finally discovered the problem. The improved second version (V2 not the one in the video above) of the 3D printed sled is designed so that it scrapes some of the surface soldered components off the circuit board when it is inserted. They very helpfully warned me about this "feature" after the components were removed. I'm posting this in case somebody else would benefit from knowing this ahead of time.

what parts get scraped off?

 

[DuncB]

If you can make one of these you can make an ispindel. This is bluetooth so not sure how it works away from your phone,
Ispindel is wifi so you can use apps on your phone or a pc from anywhere it has good connections to fermentrack, brewpi, brewspy and others and it's a mature project now.
I've built several and had no soldering experience and found them very useful, good thread running on here for the ispindel which can answer most questions. I don't see the benefits over the ispindel and no bits get scraped off the ispindel when it's put in the tube.

 

[James_42]

The floaty people mentioned resistors, but I would have to find a schematic because the parts are gone. They are some almost microscopic surface soldered parts up just below the antenna. In the V2 3D printed sled the board is held by antenna end sliding into a slot, which seems to have a secondary function of scraping off components. Seems like a design flaw to me.

The advantage was that it was supposed to be very simple, and it was except for the above mentioned issue.

I have a lot of the parts on hand for an iSpindel and I'm considering it, but there are so many variations and mods it makes my head spin. The thread here is 40 pages long. I have had a few goes at it, but have never managed to get far.

 

[Birrofilo]

...

 

[DuncB]

James agreed a lot to sift through on the forum.

Try this site has lots of videos and design is fairly simple. I had good communication with Joey joe as well when I had a query.
https://www.opensourcedistilling.com/category/equipment/ispindel/