HOWTO - Make a BrewPi Fermentation Controller For Cheap

[SHvanBommel]

When you change to the legacy branch it will ask you at one point which firmware you want to use on the arduino... select accordingly, I believe it's 2.10, 2.8, and 2.4 and the numbers maybe different. Also, the hex file is available in the github albeit it's a little confusing to find. Lastly if you REALLY can't find it, i can send it to you.

 

[ahawk]

When you change to the legacy branch it will ask you at one point which firmware you want to use on the arduino... select accordingly, I believe it's 2.10, 2.8, and 2.4 and the numbers maybe different. Also, the hex file is available in the github albeit it's a little confusing to find. Lastly if you REALLY can't find it, i can send it to you.

Its 0.2.10, 0.2.9 and 0.2.8. Just ran the updater with the --ask parameter.

 

[SHvanBommel]

Can send 2.4 if you want. Do none of the other firmware have the option you're seeking?

 

[LBussy]

Can send 2.4 if you want.

0.2.4 would be VERY old (there is no 2.4), it seems odd that this would have a feature that is not in the 0.2.10 (latest Arduino version).

The script, the web page, and the firmware must all be on the same version in order to avoid these incompatibilities.

I don't see a setting for the cooling delay in this version so you may have to dig into the source code and find it.

 

[reinis]

Can someone please explain how to connect brewpi to 2 ssr and not relay module?

 

[ahawk]

0.2.4 would be VERY old (there is no 2.4), it seems odd that this would have a feature that is not in the 0.2.10 (latest Arduino version).

The script, the web page, and the firmware must all be on the same version in order to avoid these incompatibilities.

I don't see a setting for the cooling delay in this version so you may have to dig into the source code and find it.

I agree. Anyway, I solved my problem by modifying the source code of the 0.2.10 version to ignore min cooling time.

 

[wbarber69]

Can someone please explain how to connect brewpi to 2 ssr and not relay module?

Bring 5v to ssr+ and ssr- to corresponding arduino pins for heating and cooling

 

[LBussy]

I agree. Anyway, I solved my problem by modifying the source code of the 0.2.10 version to ignore min cooling time.

Glad you got it figured ... where did you find that by the way? I looked (albeit briefly) and could not find it.

 

[reinis]

Bring 5v to ssr+ and ssr- to corresponding arduino pins for heating and cooling

Thanks

 

[ahawk]

Glad you got it figured ... where did you find that by the way? I looked (albeit briefly) and could not find it.

It is in the top of the \app\controller\TempControl.h file, from line 33 and onwards. As you can see, I have modified my cooling constants and set the switch time between heating to 0 seconds. I have not changed my heating constants, because they do not matter to me, as I don't have a heating solution for my conical (I rely on my rooms temperature to do the magic).

// Set minimum off time to prevent short cycling the compressor in seconds
const uint16_t MIN_COOL_OFF_TIME = 5;
// Use a minimum off time for the heater as well, so it heats in cycles, not lots of short bursts
const uint16_t MIN_HEAT_OFF_TIME = 300;
// Minimum on time for the cooler.
const uint16_t MIN_COOL_ON_TIME = 5;
// Minimum on time for the heater.
const uint16_t MIN_HEAT_ON_TIME = 180;
// Use a large minimum off time in fridge constant mode. No need for very fast cycling.
const uint16_t MIN_COOL_OFF_TIME_FRIDGE_CONSTANT = 5;
// Set a minimum off time between switching between heating and cooling
const uint16_t MIN_SWITCH_TIME = 0;
// Time allowed for peak detection
const uint16_t COOL_PEAK_DETECT_TIME = 1800;
const uint16_t HEAT_PEAK_DETECT_TIME = 900;

I also modified the source code to allow running beer profile mode without the typical beer in carboy in fridge setup. I am currently running beer profile mode with my conical and it seems to be working very well, significantly better than fridge constant mode with long minimum on and off times.

 

[LBussy]

My BrewPi freaked out a little last night:

 

[day_trippr]

Haha - I'm seeing DST on all my charts this morning

Cheers!

 

[wbarber69]

Brace yourself…
"Somethings wrong in my logs" posts are coming…

 

[day_trippr]

Hopefully folks will notice the time stamps and figure it out for themselves.



Otherwise, I'm going to leave the helping out to you on this one...

Cheers!

 

[plowboy25127]

Strange thing to me is mine did the exact same thing and the exact same timeView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1478478126.188268.jpgnow I get it the time change! Lol

 

[TripleHopped]

It was Obama's fault.

 

[LBussy]

I work for a "large software company" and we were staffing the time change. Being somewhat bored I was playing around with my BrewPi during this time. Contextually it should not have surprised me but I have to admit it took me a second to figure out what was up.

For the benefit of a person reading this who may not know: This would/should be considered a display issue since the Arduino controls the temp and the Pi is mostly just displaying the results. If a person was doing a temp profile with steps that fell between 01:01-01:59 it could lead to interesting results because that part would actually be controlled by the Pi, but I can't think of any other potential issues.

 

[wbarber69]

In the grand scheme of things it won't really matter. if you're cold crashing at 2 in the morning then you have bigger problems to deal with….

 

[adhd-brouwerke]

i made the brew pi according to this thread and it works fine, but i bought new sensor from the brewpi shop and installed them on the arduino but when i power them they read 85°c instead of 15 (basement temp) anyone got some idea's about this.
i posted the question on the brewpi community but havent got a decent reply so i hope there some smart people here who can help out a computer and software moron. i cant get my head around computer code so i'm looking for a copy-past solution.

thanks guy's

 

[KLucky_13]

I'm fermenting my beer for the first time in my new setup (large fridge with 50l CCT, heated with 2x50watt resistors). If you look at my graph, does it seem that the heating elements might be a bit overpowered? (zoomed in on 2 parts)

It's been running for almost a week now, so the PID's are normally already perfectly set by now..

You can also look at the live curve: www.kglprinting.com/brew

 

[waverz]

Worth reviewing your steps. I've gone through this a few times and this has worked consistently.


cd /etc/apache2/sites-available

sudo nano default

look for <directory /var/www/> ... </directory>
change allowOverride to All

restart apache:
cd /usr/sbin
sudo apache2ctl -k graceful

cd /var/www

sudo nano .htaccess
Add all this including the punctuation:

<Files "index.php">
AuthUserFile /var/www/private/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "Put Your Brewery Name Here"
AuthType Basic

<Limit GET POST>
require valid-user
</Limit>
</Files>

Write the file out and exit.

mkdir private
cd private

htpasswd -c .htpasswd username (where username is whatever actual username you'll use to access the web page. I use brewpi, fwiw)...

Cheers!

I am attempting to ad a login page to my brewpi webpage folloing these instructions. When i do sudo nano default it seems to open a blank file.

I have tried sudo nano 000-default.conf but am not seeing the

"<directory /var/www/> ... </directory>" so I am not sure if this is even the correct file.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

I'm fermenting my beer for the first time in my new setup (large fridge with 50l CCT, heated with 2x50watt resistors). If you look at my graph, does it seem that the heating elements might be a bit overpowered? (zoomed in on 2 parts)

It's been running for almost a week now, so the PID's are normally already perfectly set by now..

You can also look at the live curve: www.kglprinting.com/brew

Maybe a bit? But not really, the fridge temperature more or less follows the fridge setting(which is where BrewPi wants to be), maybe overshooting by 1 degree or so but that doesnt really matter because your temps are staying pretty stable.

 

[day_trippr]

I am attempting to ad a login page to my brewpi webpage folloing these instructions. When i do sudo nano default it seems to open a blank file.

I have tried sudo nano 000-default.conf but am not seeing the

"<directory /var/www/> ... </directory>" so I am not sure if this is even the correct file.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Which version Raspbian are you using - Wheezy (older) or Jessie (current)?

Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

i made the brew pi according to this thread and it works fine, but i bought new sensor from the brewpi shop and installed them on the arduino but when i power them they read 85°c instead of 15 (basement temp) anyone got some idea's about this.
i posted the question on the brewpi community but havent got a decent reply so i hope there some smart people here who can help out a computer and software moron. i cant get my head around computer code so i'm looking for a copy-past solution.

thanks guy's

85 deg is the temperature you get from the sensor when there is some kind of error. Chase the BrewPi guys - it sounds like there may be a power issue.

 

[day_trippr]

i made the brew pi according to this thread and it works fine, but i bought new sensor from the brewpi shop and installed them on the arduino but when i power them they read 85°c instead of 15 (basement temp) anyone got some idea's about this.
i posted the question on the brewpi community but havent got a decent reply so i hope there some smart people here who can help out a computer and software moron. i cant get my head around computer code so i'm looking for a copy-past solution.

thanks guy's

Clarification, please: how many sensors are you now running, and how many of the sensors are the new ones?
And which ones are reporting 85°C?

Cheers!

 

[plowboy25127]

I am attempting to ad a login page to my brewpi webpage folloing these instructions. When i do sudo nano default it seems to open a blank file.

I have tried sudo nano 000-default.conf but am not seeing the

"<directory /var/www/> ... </directory>" so I am not sure if this is even the correct file.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

did you do the cd/bla bla bla before you tried the sudo? plan on working on this over this upcoming weekend and trying to fumble my way to get it to work. but i tried it with out the cd/ first and got what you did then i added the cd/ and got it to come up. so its worth a shot if you didnt add that first

 

[waverz]

Which version Raspbian are you using - Wheezy (older) or Jessie (current)?

Cheers!

Jessie Lite

 

[day_trippr]

Ugh. Haven't done this on my Jessie test bed yet, and first glance the Apache2 installation config files are different and/or moved.
I had changed the config to use /var/www as the document root successfully, (the current Apache2 defaults to /var/www/html) so some of it behaves the same.

I'll put this on my todo list but hopefully someone else has gone down this road on Jessie already...

Cheers!

 

[waverz]

Ugh. Haven't done this on my Jessie test bed yet, and first glance the Apache2 installation config files are different and/or moved.
I had changed the config to use /var/www as the document root successfully, (the current Apache2 defaults to /var/www/html) so some of it behaves the same.

I'll put this on my todo list but hopefully someone else has gone down this road on Jessie already...

Cheers!

Thank you sir.

 

[Steelcube]

Is there a trick to getting the temperature probes calibrated? I hooked mine up and they both were reading 185 Fehrenheit initially, then the fridge one started changing a bit, but I can't figure out how to calibrate them at all. I was hoping to get it setup and currently have a kolsch sitting in an ice bath til this thing is running.