Wow, looks like a trainwreck went on here. Why is HBT not sending me email alerts? Ugh.
Allow me to attempt to quench the flames.
The Slice if Pi/O was simple a guesstimate on Thadius's part.
Yes, yes it was. And I made absolutely no attempt to hide that fact.
Plus, some of us who don't know code (well, at least me), went out in the infancy stages of this project and bought flow meters before the guy sold out of them because they were only $18 ea. With shipping, it was over $80 to me (not a lot to some, but to me, it is).
If someone says, "Hey...buy these flow meters and they will work," we don't jump up and say, "Wait a minute...did you test these things out? Are you SURE they work?" Why? Because we don't want to insult anyone taking his/her spare time to create something to make our brewing/serving beer cooler and perhaps better.
You were not instructed to buy them and specifically warned that they may not work.
I made it very clear in a [post=5783010]post on Jan 1st, 2014[/post] -- as soon as the very first person said they bought some flow meters on eBay -- that I wasn't even sure I could get the flow meters working at all.
Anybody who went out and purchased flow meters on their own in the last 39 days knew that they were venturing into uncharted waters with absolutely no guarantee they even would work to begin with.
In fact, I think this entire project probably got written because the Thadius wanted something a little different than Kegbot and he could write it himself and save the dollars on Kegbot.
Simply incorrect. I decided to try to write my own because I liked the idea behind the Kegerface project. I spent several days cleaning up the code and wanted to release my work back to the public, with instructions, to simplify things.
KegBot was removed from my own consideration over 6 months prior because it had a hard limit of 2 flow meters. Had that not been the case, I probably would have built a KegBot, washed my hands, called it a day, and never started this project.
Ironically, KegBot
just funded a Kickstarter that appears to remove the limit on flow meters, up to as far as you can daisy-chain USB hubs (127 ports, IIRC).
The only reason this project still exists is pure and simple altruism.
I'm also planning on donating to the project, so $30 here and $45 there (already bought the flow meters so I definitely want to incorporate them) adds up to no money for the project, and I, as well as many others, think you all deserve something for the effort.
We cannot accept donations of any kind per HBT forum rules.
We discussed removing our presence from HBT to allow us to accept donations. The overwhelming consensus among the development team was that we wanted to stay so we could give our code away to as many people as possible, so we're completely out-of-pocket for all hardware.
Thanks again to everyone. And BTW, option C really isn't an option for those of us who bought a bunch of flow meters already. It's like that new carburetor you bought for the muscle car. You are dead set on having that thing...so much so that you have to by a new intake manifold, etc., just to get the damned thing to work! Hahaha.
Luckily, I didn't spend the $30 plus shipping from UK for the Slice of Pi.
The Slice of PI/O is £5.99 and the shipping was £2.99. AFAIK,
I'm the only person that actually bought one. Thus,
I'm the only one eating the cost of it and
I'm the only one that wasted my weekend building/testing it.
Yes...you mentioned that just yesterday or the day before. The Slice of Pi request (for us to go buy) was made weeks ago.
You seem genuinely upset about the hardware you purchased when you were specifically recommended not to buy it yet.
If you don't want your meters, I suggest you sell them back on eBay. The going rate has risen on them by 50%, so I'm sure you'll be able to get your money back and then some.
If you bought a Slice of PI/O, PM me your PayPal account name and mailing address. I'll buy the thing off you and put it to use elsewhere.
My only advice is to not really mention stuff unless it is tested.
You're probably right here. I was simply trying to keep the community informed on behind-the-scenes progress. That appears to have backfired.
Going forward, we will not be providing sneak peeks of features or hardware. I will officially announce hardware or software changes, via release notes on our website -- and only once they have been 100% coded, tested, and committed to a public release version.
I write this with a heavy heart. I have no idea how the other team members feel, but personally I can only get kicked in the teeth so many times while volunteering my time, energy, and money before a little backlash is merited.
Edit: Please forgive my tone. I tend to get a little snarky when I'm awake at 4 am on a Satuday morning, hunting software bugs. I'm all piss and vinegar right now.