Hosehead Brewery

[hopjunkie26]

EDIT TO THE BELOW: Corey is absolutely awesome and provides great support. Was emailing him past 11pm last night working on the issues which eventually were resolved. It's just frustrating experiencing issues that just don't seem to be easily correctable. Hopefully going forward I am issue free.

Not sure I have regretted a decision I made for homebrewing more than I have regretted purchasing the Hosehead controller.

Have been through 3 brew days with it and each day there was something different. The unit would freeze up or I would constantly lose connection to the unit (via phone, iPad and laptop), one brew day I was trying to adjust the percent power on my boil kettle heating element and it was either 100% or off. Seriously, nothing but constant issues that did nothing but interrupt brew days.

The latest, I went to run some cleaner through my system yesterday. Got my kettles setup, water filled, temp sensors in place and fired up my Hosehead...nothing. No response via WiFi, no response directly connected to a monitor/mouse/keyboard. Reached out and was told I likely didn't shut the system down correctly, which would be incorrect. Unless the system completely froze on me, which as stated above has happened, I shut the system down using the Eisinore interface.

I reached out and was sent a download to re-image my SD card. Downloaded the new image to my SD card, put it back in the unit and turned the system on. Took me to a screen with a box full of color and a power symbol and nothing else. Reached back out and, I was sent the wrong image for my version of Rasberry Pi so a new image was sent.

New image was downloaded twice and attempted to install to the SD card and, you guessed it, doesn't work. Error message after error message. So here I am, without a brew system and everything ready for a brew day for Saturday without a working brewing controller. I work two jobs tomorrow so unless it miraculously works tonight, looks like I am $hit out of luck for brewing.

I should have never gotten rid of my High Gravity controller. It has been nothing but a headache since "upgrading" to the Hosehead unit.

 

[RobbieOByrne]

So don’t buy a hose head or buy a hosehead?

 

[akthor]

My hosehead has worked flawlessly.

 

[stillshinen]

I am very happy with mine. When I did have a small issue, you guessed it Corey was there to take care of me as a customer. I have about 50, 5 gallon brews under my belt and everytime I change something in my system (which I have often) I learn. My beers today are better because of it. Thanks for creating the inexpensive and trustworthy hosehead!

 

[Ajae]

So don’t buy a hose head or buy a hosehead?

I think it’s a great system, the couple of people who did have problem with their system where able to resolve them with Cory’s help. He’s wants to make sure people are hop with his product.

 

[tmendick]

100% worth it. I would however recommend buying a second SD card and saving the image to it so you have a backup if the card get corrupted. I've had this happen about 3 times across quite a few brew days, it really stinks when your brewday is delayed an hour or 2 due to reinstalling the OS.

 

[RobbieOByrne]

So since we are talking about it, in your opinion is CBPi or Strange brew better? What operating system would work best for a RIMs 2 kettle system?

 

[Jethro Choicebro]

Put me down as another happy customer. Had mine 18 months, 30 odd batches and no issues at all - works great and easy to use, and excellent value compared to the alternatives (unless building yourself).

I did have to replace the raspberry pi in mine - not sure what happened but it stopped powering. I dont have any reason to blame it on the hosehead though and put it down to bad luck or something.

I've only used CBPi - it works great for a 3 kettle herms.

 

[golfindia]

I used CBPi back before 3.0 for brewing and fermenting. It worked fine. While waiting for 3.0 to come out, I loaded strangebrew so I could have PWM boil control. I've now been using it (same install) for about 2 years. One day if I get some free time I'll try CBPi again, but since I don't need any of the fancy bells and whistles I can't justify switching.

 

[sfrisby]

As I understand it, CBPi is for those savvy enough to create custom software for themselves. Strangebrew works out of the box for simpletons like me. Do I have that right? Thanks.

 

[SaveloyDip]

I don't suppose anyone here has had to reinstall raspian? I'm getting the rainbow pixel when I try to boot, and Corey doesn't respond to emails anymore :-\

 

[golfindia]

Reflashing NOOBS image is pretty straight forward

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/

 

[SaveloyDip]

Reflashing NOOBS image is pretty straight forward

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/

Thanks. I actually got that far already on a separate SD card, my issues begin when it comes to installing/configuring either CBPi or Elsinore. My attempts at either have not gone too well. I can follow tutorials with linux, but when a step differs/fails, I'm useless. I'm currently hitting an issue getting it to recognize the one-wireseses.

So I believe my alternate fix would be to replace the kernel img on the original SD card to see if it boots.

Anyway, I've got a handful of things to try yet, but after that, I'm lost. Would just be nice if Corey responded to emails. I'm sure he's imaged the whole setup as well, so if he just dumped an image somewhere, I could download it to the sd card and everything would be rosey...

 

[golfindia]

I've never had any trouble with the github link that's here:

https://dougedey.github.io/SB_Elsinore_Server/

You need to put some lines in the modules or boot file for 1 wire.

 

[Paladen]

Anyone interested, I have a Hosehead Controller for sale

 

[carpathia]

Anyone have any idea where to find an image (or have one they can share) to re-format an SD card for one of these?

 

[golfindia]

Reformat the card in file explorer

Download Noobs image here : https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/noobs/

Then use the SBE github link in post #194

 

[carpathia]

Reformat the card in file explorer

Download Noobs image here : https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/noobs/

Then use the SBE github link in post #194

I'm aware of the general process (though admitedly, I'm not sure how to pull the SD card out); I was hoping for a clean image pre-configured for hosehead. That's all.

 

[carpathia]

Thanks to tmendick for helping me image an SD card with a current hosehead image; seems to be working fine.

If anyone reads this down the road and has a similar issue, message me and I'll share details.

 

[jobuzo]

Anyone interested, I have a Hosehead Controller for sale

do you still have the Hosehead for sale?

 

[Paladen]

do you still have the Hosehead for sale?

Sold it

 

[Ajae]

Has anyone had an issue with their hose head not opening up chromium? I've had my controller for a while now but i've just opened fired it up for the 1st time today (moved to new house) and i can't get anything to open. I can't even open terminal to lunch it manually. Any suggestions?

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

In the Raspberry Pints thread I posted the following instructions on how to backup the SD card.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...taplist-solution.487694/page-126#post-8695249

Do hope others find this useful.

 

[Ajae]

Noobs didn't work for me in Windows 10 64 bit.

In the Raspberry Pints thread I posted the following instructions on how to backup the SD card.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...taplist-solution.487694/page-126#post-8695249

Do hope others find this useful.

Will this work if my system is already jacked up? If nothing is opening now wouldn't that copy over the clone?

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

Will this work if my system is already jacked up? If nothing is opening now wouldn't that copy over the clone?

If system is already corrupt I doubt the copy will work. If it does work, you are simply copying the corrupt OS and settings. What's the point.

Or, am I missing something? Is the OS "jacked up" or the SD card "jacked up". Sorry, but "jacked up" has lots of different meanings.

 

[golfindia]

Don't clone the SD card.

Just format the disk, flash a new OS image and github the SBE install in the terminal window.

The web browser in NOOBS OS has nothing to do with SBE. And windows 10 has nothing to do with NOOBS.

 

[Ajae]

If system is already corrupt I doubt the copy will work. If it does work, you are simply copying the corrupt OS and settings. What's the point.

Or, am I missing something? Is the OS "jacked up" or the SD card "jacked up". Sorry, but "jacked up" has lots of different meanings.

the system starts up fine and comes to the startup screen. I just can't get the internet and terminal to open up

 

[Ajae]

Don't clone the SD card.

Just format the disk, flash a new OS image and github the SBE install in the terminal window.

The web browser in NOOBS OS has nothing to do with SBE. And windows 10 has nothing to do with NOOBS.

would i do that using the hose head? if so that won't work, i cannot open anything internet related.

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

You are correct. Unfortunately, trying to do too many things at once. NOOBs is for Raspberry Pi.

I mistakenly typed NOOBS when I mean to type the name of the Windows utility to copy a Linux SD card.

 

[golfindia]

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/noobs.md

There is no reason to be browsing the web on the hosehead machine. Remove the SD card and start over.

If you can see the machine on the network, you can SSH into it.