HOWTO - Make a BrewPi Fermentation Controller For Cheap

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So I followed all of your steps here and got it going I am not much of a web designer so was looking for so help on how to do like you did and make just the graph viewable to anyone and have the other stuff only viewable by me any help would be great.

Thank you in advance
 
webguru1974 said:
So I followed all of your steps here and got it going I am not much of a web designer so was looking for so help on how to do like you did and make just the graph viewable to anyone and have the other stuff only viewable by me any help would be great.

Thank you in advance
Click to expand...

Look at page 9 in this thread - some of its there. You also have to make the brewpi visible to the internet - which there are many ways.
 
OK fellas, all my parts finally arrived yesterday. I plugged in the Arduino and used these steps to try to program it (http://docs.brewpi.com/after-install/program-arduino.html) but cannot get it working for some reason. When I fire up the BrewPi web interface it says "Cannot receive LCD text from Python script" in the upper left and in the upper right, if first flashes "Checking Script" and then says "Script not running".

It's always said this since the day I got my Debian PC up and running, but I thought it was because I didn't have the Arduino plugged in and programmed yet. My board is an Uno and should be a Rev C, but I can't find anything on it that says Rev C. (The BrewPi website says that they only made 100 Rev A boards and that the newer ones are all Rev C)

When I try to load the Rev C hex file to the Arduino using the BrewPi maintenance panel...when I browse to the file and hit the "Program" button it doesn't seem to do anything. It says "Programming...keep an eye on the output below to see the progress" but the bottom of the screen just has the Sample Profile data there. Under Status is says "Not Loaded".

When I try to start the script manually it tells me that the script is already running...so the automatic CRON job is apparently working. When I do a ls /dev/ttyA* command it says /dev/ttyACMO which I believe means that the board is showing up and communicating with the PC properly.

Any ideas? What am I missing? When I go into the maintenance panel and press the "Settings" "Device Configuration" etc, nothing happens either...only the "Reprogram Arduino" button responds, but I assume this is normal until I get the Arduino working properly.

Thanks in advance! I think I'm close but am completely stumped right now.
 
Stuff should show up i believe in the black area after you start the programming with the Rev-C image...

I have personally got my Uno into a state that brewpi didnt like when i first tried setting it up, i wonder if somehow you did as well.

To fix it I basically just cleared the Uno by hooking it up to my windows PC with their compiler and uploading their default sketch, or any of the sketches they include will work...as long as this works you atleast know your Uno is still functioning.
 
If brewpi is running correctly you will see the red and green xmt/rec lights flashing. You might want to check and see which usb port the arduino is mounted too - open a terminal window and type in "cd /dev/" and then "ls ttyA*" and tell me what you see. It should be ttyACM0 but maybe it's not...
 
FuzzeWuzze said:
Stuff should show up i believe in the black area after you start the programming with the Rev-C image...

I have personally got my Uno into a state that brewpi didnt like when i first tried setting it up, i wonder if somehow you did as well.

To fix it I basically just cleared the Uno by hooking it up to my windows PC with their compiler and uploading their default sketch, or any of the sketches they include will work...as long as this works you atleast know your Uno is still functioning.
Click to expand...

Thanks Fuzze. I can see a little black box on that "Reprogram Audruino" page. It's only 1/4 of an inch by 1/4 of an inch though so I can't imagine any text showing up there.

Where would I obtain the software and how would I upload a "sketch" to the Uno via PC? After you did that you were then able to program the Audrino through BrewPi?
 
atoughram said:
If brewpi is running correctly you will see the red and green xmt/rec lights flashing. You might want to check and see which usb port the arduino is mounted too - open a terminal window and type in "cd /dev/" and then "ls ttyA*" and tell me what you see. It should be ttyACM0 but maybe it's not...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. When I open BrewPi I do not see a red or green light. It just says script not running. But when I try to launch the script manually it says that it is already running.

Should I see red and green lights and should I see that the script is running, even if the Arduino isn't connected?

When I type in the command you listed it shows ttyACMO. When I unplug the device and run the command it says it cannot access it, which it shouldn't be able to obviously so that is good. When I plug it into a different USB port is shows up again as ttyACMO.

Could it be a rights issue? That was the only part of the brewpi installation that didn't seem to go as planned. Well, a few other things didn't go as planned but I'm pretty sure I got them resolved. Just not sure if I have the appropriate rights assigned. Also I named my machine Debian, so I access BrewPi by going to http://debian/ and not an IP address or another name like BrewPi. (If that makes a difference)
 
You can just get the standard Arduino IDE here
http://arduino.cc/en/main/software

It comes with some basic sketches..one is literally just an empty main loop ...but any of them should work. Make sure that you setup the Arduino IDE properly, basically follow these instructions

http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/Windows

Once you have successfully flashed it should say its completed successfully and then you can hook it back up to your BrewPi and try flashing it again. When you hook everything back up to the BrewPi i would reboot the BrewPi..

Your text screen should also be much bigger in the reprogramming..not sure if its a browser thing though..what mine looks like in Chrome.
BrewPi-Programming.png
 
stewart194 said:
Thanks for the reply. When I open BrewPi I do not see a red or green light. It just says script not running. But when I try to launch the script manually it says that it is already running.

Should I see red and green lights and should I see that the script is running, even if the Arduino isn't connected?

When I type in the command you listed it shows ttyACMO. When I unplug the device and run the command it says it cannot access it, which it shouldn't be able to obviously so that is good. When I plug it into a different USB port is shows up again as ttyACMO.

Could it be a rights issue? That was the only part of the brewpi installation that didn't seem to go as planned. Well, a few other things didn't go as planned but I'm pretty sure I got them resolved. Just not sure if I have the appropriate rights assigned. Also I named my machine Debian, so I access BrewPi by going to http://debian/ and not an IP address or another name like BrewPi. (If that makes a difference)
Click to expand...

He means if your arduino is programmed properly and you have it plugged in to the BrewPi via USB there are red and green lights on the Arduino for TX/RX that should be flashing as its trying to communicate. If the TX/RX lights arent flashing your Arduino isnt programmed properly and that's what you need to focus on getting working :)

The machine name doesnt matter. In the brewpi tools directory there is a fix-permissions.sh file or something like that, run that after you have a brewpi and pi user to make sure they have everything they need.
 
Fwiw, the tx/rx leds on Arduinos aren't always green/red. The ones on my two Unos are both yellow.
Nevertheless if the BrewPi script is running those indicators will blink at a fairly steady ~1hz...

Cheers!
 
stewart194 said:
Could it be a rights issue? That was the only part of the brewpi installation that didn't seem to go as planned.
Click to expand...

ttyACM0 is correct...

Hmm... Rights as in access (CHMOD) rights?

Tell me more about that part of the installation..

Also - your host name is debian? Are you using a Raspberry Pi?
 
day_trippr said:
Fwiw, the tx/rx leds on Arduinos aren't always green/red. The ones on my two Unos are both yellow.
Nevertheless if the BrewPi script is running those indicators will blink at a fairly steady ~1hz...

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Yea, I made an assumption... All of mine are are red/green.
 
OK, here is the latest. I am using a PC with Debian Wheezy installed. The hostname is debian. The lights on my Arduino are yellow and green. They are lit, flashing, etc.

After reading Fuzze's post I installed Chrome and now all of the buttons work, and the black screen that shows you the progress of the Arduino installation is now visible. (I was using Konqueror)

Now that I can actually see what's going on in Chrome, here is the error I'm getting....

OSError : [Errno 13] Permission denied: ' /var/www/data/My First BrewPi Run/'
Warning : Cannot receive version number from Arduino. Your Arduino is either not programmed or running a very old bersion of BrewPi. Plueas upload a new version of BrewPi to your Arduino.

I'm logged in as the user I created during the initial Debian Wheezy installation. It doesn't have "admin" rights, which I understand that Linux doesn't grant users admin rights for security reasons...but after logging in as this user I do SU command then type in the root password. So shouldn't it have the rights to program the arduino or anything else it needs to do?
 
atoughram said:
Have you tried running the script??
Code: 
/home/brewpi/utils/fixPermissions.sh

Take a look at this page.
http://docs.brewpi.com/manual-brewpi-install/setup-users-permissions.html
Click to expand...

Thanks man! I ran this script and all of these steps before I plugged in the Aurdrino but hadn't tried that after! It's working!

THANKS to everyone for helping me fumble through this!

Quick question...

I don't have a heater for my fridge yet. Since it's summer time and really warm in my garage...can I run my fermentation chamber without the heater?

THANKS AGAIN!
 
Hard to say whether you'd need a heater, predicting the weather is best left to the profes...oh never mind.

It's probably fine. Here in MA it might still get cool at night but a typically insulated ferm chamber with 5G thermal mass of liquid isn't going to fluctuate too wildly.
 
Yes it can function with just heating or cooling, whether your areas weather allows that obviously is a different story. Here in Oregon it still gets down to the upper 40's at night.
 
Right now I have a Belgian Tripel in there and I set the fermentation schedule to ramp up to 80 degrees over 24 hours. I wanted the beer to do this naturally so I just switched off the heater and let it do its own thing.
 
Thanks guys. I think I'll buy that heater on amazon right now and just be done with it. It's the last piece of this project. We still have some nights in the low 60's right now...and Kansas weather can be crazy any time of year.
 
Yea the Lasko Ceramic Personal Heater is a really good heater perfect for a chamber. Not crazy hot like a light bulb in a can, but not dreadfully slow like a heating pad...and the built in fan is a plus.
 
So I created a folder to password protect my configs and it is working. the public side is good graph is refreshing but to private side shows the live LCD but the graph is only showing the constants any ideas ?
 
You'll need to clarify a bit...basically everything works fine on the public side but the private one's graph isnt updating but the LCD panel in the top left is?
 
From a couple of weeks of playing around with BrewPi, I'd say you can chalk about 90% of operational issues to file ownership problems.

I just ran into one of those. I did a double-manual installation to get two Arduinos working with BrewPi on an actual 'Pi, and aside from not having enough probes to keep everyone happy things seemed to be working fine.

My second handful of probes finally arrived so now the 'Pi and the two Unos each sport two ds18b20 sensors. And after configuring everything and letting it simmer for awhile running the out-of-the-box "My First BrewPi Run" I decided to create new "brews" for the two BrewPi instances.

Aaaand that's when things got weird. Neither instance would update the graphs, though they'd totally control the Unos correctly and would update the "LCD" screen contents.

What happened was during the course of the installations I had to manually edit the /home/brewpi/.../config.cfg files for both BrewPi instances to specify the unique interface paths through my USB hub - and did so as superuser - so they ended up owned by root. When BrewPi tried to open those files for writing it failed, which apparently doesn't stop the actual temperature control, but does break data logging.

Simply changing ownership of the config.cfg file to brewpi fixed that right up.

So I would say check file ownership. I use WinSCP and Putty to talk to my two Pi machines and it was easy to spot the rogue root file ownership when drilling down through the brewpi folders...

Cheers!
 
FuzzeWuzze said:
You'll need to clarify a bit...basically everything works fine on the public side but the private one's graph isnt updating but the LCD panel in the top left is?
Click to expand...


That is correct


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
Sorry A little new to piecing together electrical devices. I have two questions:

1. I plan on hooking up my Raspberry Pi/ Arduino Brewpi temp controller to a chest freezer. I'm building a version of The Mother of All Fermentation Chillers. I need the freezer to be at serving temps and the ferm chamber to be at ferm temps, controlled by a fan. Can the temps be set separately for the two outlets?

2. Can I use SSR Relays instead like these:
SainSmart 5V 2-Channel Solid State Relay Board for Arduino Uno Duemilanove MEGA2560 MEGA1280 ARM DSP PIC
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You will need two arduino setups to control two seperate chambers. So one RPI/Debian machine, two arduino Unos, two 2 relay boards, and two sensors.

Im guessing the MOFC is getting its chilled air from the freezer? If thats the case your ferm chamber's cold plug will just be powering a fan that blows air in.

No the SSR relays wont work because they are only rated for 2 Amps which is not enough to power the freezer. It would probably work to power your small fan in the MOFC though if you already have one of those layng around. Their more expensive anyways though so why bother unless like i said you already have one...mechanical relays are good for hundreds of thousands of switching cycles...

The min rating for the relays is 100k per their spec sheet...Even if your chamber cycled lets say 50 times a day, which is quite high(mines usually 25-30) your looking at nearly 6 years of operation non stop operation for $10...more likely you'll get 10-15 years with standard use as your chamber likely wont be active 24/7 every day...
 
Thank you for the quick reply. Mechanical relays it is!

Correct the MOFC design uses fans to bring cold air up to the ferm chamber from the freezer. I have a Ranco laying around I could use for the freezer/kegerator chamber. The temp would be set at a constant for serving. Once I'm more comfortable with the BrewPi set-up I could add the second controller.
 
Ah well if your using the Ranco to just keep the keezer set, you'd only need one arduino/relay/2x probes like a standard build..just your fan will pull air to keep it cold and you probably wont ever use a heater im guessing? Or else the hot air will go into your keezer...
 
I could imagine using a second Arduino to control heat and open and close vents if possible. I don't want to get ahead of myself.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
flippedcracker said:
I finally got a chance to wire this all up last night, but I'm having trouble with the relay. I believe it's all wired up accurately according to the schematic on the first page of this thread. I'm measuring 4.75 volts at the VCC on the relay, so I'm wondering if that has to do with it. Does it need to be the full 5 volts? My power supply to the pi is only a 5 volt, do I need to up it?

If it's not that, I did notice that brewpi always says "idling" even if I set the temp super cold. Like it's not trying to switch the cooling on. I have 1 temp probe working, but the other wasn't reporting temp (but was recognized). So I have the working one as Beer1, and then profile is set to Beer Constant. And the "switching actuators" are under installed devices. Maybe there's more of a problem than I think?
Click to expand...

I finally got new sensors in and they both work, so all is fixed. Now the fun can begin.
 
webguru1974 said:
That is correct


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
Click to expand...

As has been said its likely a file permission issue, what user were you when you did this?

In the future everyone should do all of their file editing as the BrewPi user.
 
Sorry if this has already been answered but has anyone incorporated a touch screen with this setup? I am getting all my equipment ready to start brewing within the next couple months and want to also have this setup for my fermentation chamber. I know you can access via the web but think it would be kinda slick to have the touch screen to make changes and show the temps as well
 
How big are we talking? I mean any touch screen will automatically work with it because its web based...you can do it on your phone for example.

If you just want a cheap touch interface thats always available at your fermenter i'd think just buying some cheap $1 old Android or iPhone that no one wants off Craigslist that has Wifi...or a tablet if you want bigger.
 
Thanks for the build info FuzzeWuzze!! I got this up and running just fine!

I'm interested in adding one of these LCD shields. I already have it lying around....
RGB LCD Shield
Any ideas on how to get that going? I can't install Atmel Studio as I don't own a Windows machine. I'm all Linux with one Mac laptop here.
Although, I suppose I could dual boot..... (I hate Windows. hehe.)
Thanks for any thoughts!
 
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