HOWTO - Make a BrewPi Fermentation Controller For Cheap

[KLucky_13]

yeah, I'm a bit pissed that I did not make a backup when I got everything working.. It took me 2 days to get everything running with the tilt hydrometer etc... Lucky for me, I copied the brewpi directory to a USB stick when I was setting everything up, so at least I still have the config files.

Lesson learned, I ordered 2 SD cards of the same type, I will set one up, export it to a .raw file and write that to the second SD card.

I'm bummed that I lost the logfile of my current brew.. I did not write down how I fermented it exactly (I had set a beer profile), since I was hoping to just print out the log file when the brew was ready

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Thats so damn weird, ive been using the same Samsung SD card since i started this thread, reinstalled a few times but its never died and i treat the thing like **** lol.

 

[Thorrak]

I've had an SD card die in a Raspberry Pi zero twice now. Admittedly - same SD card, same Pi Zero, but yeah - in comparison, both the RasPi 2 and RasPi 3 have been rock solid for far longer.

 

[day_trippr]

All SD cards are apparently not equal.
I had dreadful problems with my first R'Pints/BrewPi machine with Sony SD cards. Every couple of weeks it would yack up a corruption.

With 5 RPi's here now I can't be chasing dead cards, so over the last year I've been fitting 16GB Samsung EVO Class 10 uSD cards, and I've yet to have one of those croak after almost a year in use so far. That last failure was the last of the Sony cards for me.

But I still keep a clone for each machine.

btw, the best live cloning program I've found for Wheezy is RPI-Clone at
https://github.com/billw2/rpi-clone
For Jessie the built-in SD Card Copier utility works great...

Cheers!

 

[ame]

I've had two cards die in my BrewPi Python installation. They were old cards, but I blame the power supply. Now I have a more durable PSU the current card has been fine. Very hard to know for sure, but word on the street is that it's always the power supply.

 

[day_trippr]

Never bet the farm based on "word on the street"

While dirty or low voltage power can certainly cause problems with flash memory, I haven't changed any of the power supplies on my 'Pi fleet, just the SD cards...

Cheers!

 

[ame]

Never bet the farm based on "word on the street"

While dirty or low voltage power can certainly cause problems with flash memory, I haven't changed any of the power supplies on my 'Pi fleet, just the SD cards...

Cheers!

You're right, of course. But the popping sound and burning smell clued me in.

 

[Radboud]

They are also very susceptible to bending damage, I kept one in my wallet for safekeeping for a short amount of time and while it looked perfectly fine and undamaged when I took it out and used it it almost set my laptop on fire,; it melted the SD to micro SD adapter card. Needless to say it couldn't be read anymore. I'm now super careful when handling these things!

 

[edecambra]

So I have a quick question for everyone. Has anyone ever used Romex for the relay module to the outlets? It seems like it may be a good idea but I don't know if it is over kill or if it can screw into the terminals well.

 

[day_trippr]

Large-ish gauge solid copper can be a bit of a pita to use inside enclosures.
But it'll certainly work - perhaps better than stranded inside the screw terminals.
And if you don't have stranded wire of suitable gauge, proper gauge solid is definitely preferable vs going under-size stranded.

Cheers!

 

[SHvanBommel]

All SD cards are apparently not equal.

I had dreadful problems with my first R'Pints/BrewPi machine with Sony SD cards. Every couple of weeks it would yack up a corruption.



With 5 RPi's here now I can't be chasing dead cards, so over the last year I've been fitting 16GB Samsung EVO Class 10 uSD cards, and I've yet to have one of those croak after almost a year in use so far. That last failure was the last of the Sony cards for me.



But I still keep a clone for each machine.



btw, the best live cloning program I've found for Wheezy is RPI-Clone at

https://github.com/billw2/rpi-clone

For Jessie the built-in SD Card Copier utility works great...



Cheers!

This is where I'm headed next for my installations.

 

[OH-Brew]

Hello,

Hoping someone can provide some assistance.

I'm using a Raspberry pi 2 and and Arduino Uno. I have Raspbian Jessie and the Brewpi software installed and it runs (script runs etc..) However, I can not get a temperature sensor to be recognized no matter what I try. I bought a pack of 10 sensors on ebay here

If I connect the legs of the temperature sensor exactly how they are shown in the diagrams, my Pi gets the little lightning bolt symbol saying it has too much power draw and my mouse/keyboard stop working. I have an external 9V power supply for the Uno (which it seems is the standard voltage for an external Uno supply but I'm not sure that is usable in this application) but if I use that, the sensor will burn up.

I have used a new sensor for each test and have now hooked up the legs in every configuration possible. Other configurations do not result in the Pi showing too much current draw but the sensors still do not show up when I search for them.

Do I somehow have the wrong sensor (they have the same marking as the picture in the above ebay link). Have I damaged my Uno when I made the sensor smoke using the external power supply?

As far as my Pi power supply, I have tried several from various Android phones. A couple were rated at 2.1 amps which is the highest rated I have. Does anyone have any clue what I am doing wrong?

Thanks

 

[day_trippr]

A 9VDC wall wart is perfect for the Uno.
As for the sensors, this is the only way to wire them and have them work with BrewPi...

...with the DATA connected to Uno A4.

No idea if you may have broken your Arduino. There are sketches available for testing one-wire devices using the Arduino IDE.
Also, I don't understand why the RPi knows anything about how you are connecting the sensors to the Uno, at least with respect to power draw...

Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

Also, I don't understand why the RPi knows anything about how you are connecting the sensors to the Uno, at least with respect to power draw...

I'm guessing that the pi is powering the arduino via USB, and the DS18b20s are increasing the current draw juuuust enough to kick it over the power limit.

 

[day_trippr]

But he said he's using a wall-wart on the Uno, which cuts the power draw from the USB receptacle.
I guess he must've been trying with/without the wall-wart then...

Cheers!

 

[OH-Brew]

But he said he's using a wall-wart on the Uno, which cuts the power draw from the USB receptacle.
I guess he must've been trying with/without the wall-wart then...

Cheers!

Correct, have tried with and without the wall-wart. With the wall-wart I fry the sensor and without it I'm drawing too much current from the Pi (Pi shows the lightning bolt).

I found what appears to be a similar experience here and I'm starting to think I have fake sensors.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Large-ish gauge solid copper can be a bit of a pita to use inside enclosures.
But it'll certainly work - perhaps better than stranded inside the screw terminals.
And if you don't have stranded wire of suitable gauge, proper gauge solid is definitely preferable vs going under-size stranded.

Cheers!

Im no expert, but i thought solid core wire in screw down terminals in general is bad practice? You dont really get much surface area of contact, easier for the wires to fall out without the compression you'd get squeezing stranded wires down.

 

[day_trippr]

If that was an issue you'd definitely want to disconnect every switch, outlet and circuit breaker in your home, because I guarantee every one of them has screwed down solid copper conductors.

Otoh...copper is incredibly malleable and it doesn't take much torque on the screw for it to get a solid bite - and keep it forever...

Cheers!

 

[waverz]

After about a year hiatus I brewed up my first batch and fired up my DIY BrewPi fermentation chamber. That batch fermented as expected and the fermentation chamber ran as expected.



I brewed again over the weekend and was surprised to find my beer temp 10 degrees cooler than it was set for. I thought perhaps I forgot to put the probe in the thermowell, when I got home that night I checked and the probe was in the thermowell. I then decided to stop that batch in brewpi and start a new beer. The temps went back to normal but last night it looks like things went crazy and my beer temps hit almost 80 degrees F.

View attachment 1479828183917.jpg

 

[stlbeer]

After about a year hiatus I brewed up my first batch and fired up my DIY BrewPi fermentation chamber. That batch fermented as expected and the fermentation chamber ran as expected.



I brewed again over the weekend and was surprised to find my beer temp 10 degrees cooler than it was set for. I thought perhaps I forgot to put the probe in the thermowell, when I got home that night I checked and the probe was in the thermowell. I then decided to stop that batch in brewpi and start a new beer. The temps went back to normal but last night it looks like things went crazy and my beer temps hit almost 80 degrees F.

Wow. It sure looks like even though the relay for turning on your cooling device was being called, that it wasn't actually cooling for the first several days. Is the beer being cooled a larger volume than you've done before (larger mass to cool) or could it be that your cooling device wasn't working when being called? What are you cooling with? Do you have a build thread here?

Looking at the graph again, it looks like your fridge temp fluxuates 10 degrees. That seems to me to be a pretty big swing. Are your probes in anything (like a cup of water) or hanging in the air?

I also see that for most of the time from 20:00 to the next day 07:00 that the BrewPi is in "waiting to cool" mode instead of "Cooling".

Maybe there's a bug in the PID algorithm? Have you kept the software up to date? For the DIY BrewPi I think the latest version is 2.10.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

After about a year hiatus I brewed up my first batch and fired up my DIY BrewPi fermentation chamber. That batch fermented as expected and the fermentation chamber ran as expected.



I brewed again over the weekend and was surprised to find my beer temp 10 degrees cooler than it was set for. I thought perhaps I forgot to put the probe in the thermowell, when I got home that night I checked and the probe was in the thermowell. I then decided to stop that batch in brewpi and start a new beer. The temps went back to normal but last night it looks like things went crazy and my beer temps hit almost 80 degrees F.

Interesting, can you get a zoomed in shot of the "broken" timeframe? Its hard to see what the fridge/heater along the bottom are doing at such a zoomed out timescale its just a mash of blue and red.

Also where is your fridge probe? You can see during the bad time that the fridge setting is set low where it should be(so i dont think its a software problem), but your fridge is not getting the fridge temp anywhere near where it wants it so it just keeps cycling trying to get it down.

Cant tell why though without a zoomed in shot. Is it possible that you actually wired both outlets together(didnt break the tab)? So both your heating and cooling are running at the same time keeping the fridge from doing its thing?

 

[E-Monster]

Hey guys,

I've had my first batch going with the BrewPi in beer constant mode for two weeks. Everything has been great until last night, it appears my heat side did not turn off. Looking at the UI, it appears that the BrewPi thinks it turned it off, then kicked on the cooling side, which is just a computer fan to circulate the cold air in my basement.

I rebooted everything, and the power to the heat side seems to be stuck on. I can manually toggle the cool side through the UI, but if I manually toggle the heat side, I hear the 'click' but the power stays on.

Is my relay already fried after only two weeks of use? I'm using the SainSmart 2-Channel listed in the wiki.

Screen shot of the UI below.

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

 

[Bigdaddyale]

Hey guys,

I've had my first batch going with the BrewPi in beer constant mode for two weeks. Everything has been great until last night, it appears my heat side did not turn off. Looking at the UI, it appears that the BrewPi thinks it turned it off, then kicked on the cooling side, which is just a computer fan to circulate the cold air in my basement.

I rebooted everything, and the power to the heat side seems to be stuck on. I can manually toggle the cool side through the UI, but if I manually toggle the heat side, I hear the 'click' but the power stays on.

Is my relay already fried after only two weeks of use? I'm using the SainSmart 2-Channel listed in the wiki.

Screen shot of the UI below.

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

Can you post a picture of your set up? How do you plug in the cooling and heat source? did you break the tab between the hot and cold sides on the outlet?

 

[day_trippr]

Hey guys,

I've had my first batch going with the BrewPi in beer constant mode for two weeks. Everything has been great until last night, it appears my heat side did not turn off. Looking at the UI, it appears that the BrewPi thinks it turned it off, then kicked on the cooling side, which is just a computer fan to circulate the cold air in my basement.

I rebooted everything, and the power to the heat side seems to be stuck on. I can manually toggle the cool side through the UI, but if I manually toggle the heat side, I hear the 'click' but the power stays on.

Is my relay already fried after only two weeks of use? I'm using the SainSmart 2-Channel listed in the wiki.

Screen shot of the UI below.

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

That graph would be easier to understand if the Fridge Setting was visible and the Room Temperature probe wasn't inside the same cabinet with the other two probes.

Anyway...the SainSmart dual-relay module has an LED for each channel.
If the LED for the Heat channel is out but your heater is still running, either the relay has gone to Heaven or your heater circuit is miswired.
If the latter, it's usually the hot-side bridge on the duplex receptacle is still intact, as already noted.
If the former, it's possible the relay points are welded together, though that's a symptom associated with too high a load, and unless you're using something like a 2KW heater it seems unlikely that's the root cause problem...

Cheers!

 

[Brewski_59]

Hey guys,

I've had my first batch going with the BrewPi in beer constant mode for two weeks. Everything has been great until last night, it appears my heat side did not turn off. Looking at the UI, it appears that the BrewPi thinks it turned it off, then kicked on the cooling side, which is just a computer fan to circulate the cold air in my basement.

I rebooted everything, and the power to the heat side seems to be stuck on. I can manually toggle the cool side through the UI, but if I manually toggle the heat side, I hear the 'click' but the power stays on.

Is my relay already fried after only two weeks of use? I'm using the SainSmart 2-Channel listed in the wiki.

Screen shot of the UI below.

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

Sounds like your heat relay is stuck closed. Time to replace it with an SSR.

 

[Brewski_59]

Hey guys,

I've had my first batch going with the BrewPi in beer constant mode for two weeks. Everything has been great until last night, it appears my heat side did not turn off. Looking at the UI, it appears that the BrewPi thinks it turned it off, then kicked on the cooling side, which is just a computer fan to circulate the cold air in my basement.

I rebooted everything, and the power to the heat side seems to be stuck on. I can manually toggle the cool side through the UI, but if I manually toggle the heat side, I hear the 'click' but the power stays on.

Is my relay already fried after only two weeks of use? I'm using the SainSmart 2-Channel listed in the wiki.

Screen shot of the UI below.

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

Your heat relay is stuck closed. Tap it with a screwdriver handle. Then start shopping for a replacement.

 

[waverz]

Interesting, can you get a zoomed in shot of the "broken" timeframe? Its hard to see what the fridge/heater along the bottom are doing at such a zoomed out timescale its just a mash of blue and red.

Also where is your fridge probe? You can see during the bad time that the fridge setting is set low where it should be(so i dont think its a software problem), but your fridge is not getting the fridge temp anywhere near where it wants it so it just keeps cycling trying to get it down.

Cant tell why though without a zoomed in shot. Is it possible that you actually wired both outlets together(didnt break the tab)? So both your heating and cooling are running at the same time keeping the fridge from doing its thing?

Here is a zoomed in shot of when the problem started. I really don't understand what is going on. The display will say something like "waiting to cool for x minutes" then instead of actually cooling, a few seconds later say "idling for x seconds" or "waiting to cool" again.



I've also noticed I get "null" values quite often when in the "device configuration" tab and hitting "refresh devices" with the "read values" box selected. I'll click refresh it and it'll show temps, click it again and one or both will show "null". Click refresh again it they both read a temperature.

Also, is it normal for the display to show "--.-" for temps every 10 to 20 seconds?

I'm starting to think my temp probe wiring has a bad connection. It's too late to look at it tonight but it may be worth looking at.

View attachment 1479873236485.jpg

 

[waverz]

Another reason I think it maybe an issue with the probe wiring is the fact when I zoom in on the graph I'm seeing breaks in the lines. They should be solid right?

 

[day_trippr]

The plot lines should be solid - I've never seen them hashed like that even when zoomed all the way out or all the way in.
And you should never get Null readings from the Device manager.

Check the logs, I bet you'll find probe related error messages.
Do you have a 4.7K pull-up resistor to 5V on the one-wire data line?

Cheers!

 

[gromitdj]

The "Null" value is likely a wiring issue with the probes, and the breaks in the graphs are probably a result of the probe dropping out. I had this happen when one of my homemade probes had been exposed to their limit of condensation inside the thermowell. I've replaced the beer probe with a waterproof version, and have had no problems since.

And my guess is that is also why you see the "--.-", which is not normal by the way.

If you take a look at the logs as day_trippr suggests, I'll bet you'll see a bunch of "sensor disconnected" / "sensor connected" messages.