iSpindle - DIY Electronic Hydrometer

[DJ_L3ThAL]

I have been using my iphone 8 mostly, tried with my Wife's iphone with same results of crashing and then my laptop would not even connect to the wifi before a crash/reboot.

It must be something with the hardware/soldering.

 

[LBussy]

The iPhone should be solid. That's what I use with my ESP8266 projects and it seems to get along best with the libraries. I'm afraid I am out of ideas. You might try and collect your data and report an issue on GitHub.

 

[BreeBrew]

This is kind of interesting.

Preface: Last wednesday I went to the Saint-Sixtus Abbey in West Vleteren Belgium to collect a case of beer that I ordered. It is kind of special because you only can order this beer online, maximum 2 cases at a time, and you have to collect it yourself with a car with a licenseplate that you have to register in your account on their website. Also they open their webshop once every two/three weeks for 2 and a half hours and you wait in a queue until it is your turn.
Now I have one refregarator in the kichen for household use. For beer I have a large one in the shed to cool and a small one for fermentation which is completely off of course when no brew is on the go. So when I got home I let the case in the living room until the next morning just out of layziness because I just drove 600km and was behind the wheel for 7 hours.
The next morning I thought it was a good idea to put the beer in my fermenting fridge, leave the fridge off, just to keep it naturally cool and protect it from freezing.

Now here it comes: I put my iSpindel in the fridge in between the bottles just to monitor the temperature so I can intervene whenever the temperature gets to low.

When I put the bottles in the reported temp was 14 degrees Celcius(57F), now two days later temp is like 6 degrees Celsius(43F) in the fridge and stabelizing around that temp. Now I know that temperature has an effect on gravity readings but what has struck me that it has such a big effect, it dropped 9 points while the iSpindel isn't moving at all, it is fixed in between the bottles. So maybe time to enter a temperature correction factor as well for my next brew.

And just for fun a pic of the beer

And a pic of the route to the abbey

 

[LBussy]

All I heard was "St Sixtus."

I am so jealous!

 

[LBussy]

I thought maybe you folks would be interested in knowing: I added support for iSpindel (including battery age) in the most recent release of BrewPi Remix.

 

[BreeBrew]

All I heard was "St Sixtus."

I am so jealous!

Lol

 

[bscuderi]

I took interest in the ispindel a while back but was too busy to take on the build. The other day I put in an order for some parts from areas I bookmarked featuring the build. I went back and forth on 3D printed sled and making my own shield vs one of the designed PCBs as I have a 3D printer. I opted the route of the PCB as I’ve never ordered a custom board before and I think it could be a neat way to simplify life and make a good looking product. I purchased the version 3.1 board I think and they are on the way. The stupid pcb way site I found kind of hard to use so I didn’t realize that This was an outdated version of the board until I decided to do some reading in here. Looks like the version 4.0 board is what everyone is using. Looking at the differences it seems to address my main concern when I was looking at the board version 3.1 uses the 4 pin chargers with no protection. I was weary but decided to give it a try. I’ve used the 6 pin ones in other diy projects and are comfortable with them and trust them. It appears the version 4.0 now uses the 6 pin chargers and I’m not sure any other differences. After seeing the battery explosion post above and seeing the pictures featuring the 4 pin charger I’m starting to think I should order the 4.0 board and just eat the cost of my accidental order of the 3.1 board. Thoughts?

 

[BrewingAroundtheRrealm]

I took interest in the ispindel a while back but was too busy to take on the build. The other day I put in an order for some parts from areas I bookmarked featuring the build. I went back and forth on 3D printed sled and making my own shield vs one of the designed PCBs as I have a 3D printer. I opted the route of the PCB as I’ve never ordered a custom board before and I think it could be a neat way to simplify life and make a good looking product. I purchased the version 3.1 board I think and they are on the way. The stupid pcb way site I found kind of hard to use so I didn’t realize that This was an outdated version of the board until I decided to do some reading in here. Looks like the version 4.0 board is what everyone is using. Looking at the differences it seems to address my main concern when I was looking at the board version 3.1 uses the 4 pin chargers with no protection. I was weary but decided to give it a try. I’ve used the 6 pin ones in other diy projects and are comfortable with them and trust them. It appears the version 4.0 now uses the 6 pin chargers and I’m not sure any other differences. After seeing the battery explosion post above and seeing the pictures featuring the 4 pin charger I’m starting to think I should order the 4.0 board and just eat the cost of my accidental order of the 3.1 board. Thoughts?

For me, it would depend on which version of the charging board I had ordered. If I had the 4 pin board and the 3.1 PCB I would probably go for it and assemble at least one of them to test with. At least this way you could work out any bugs in your process. The first one I assembled had a bad gyro. Not sure if it was bad or I screwed something up.

Then I would order the 4.0 board and the correct 6 pin chargers. It would bug me that I ordered the wrong ones. But I would feel much better knowing I had the charging protection.

 

[kmarkstevens]

Apologies as I haven't read all 29 pages. Is there a DIY kit that can be ordered somewhere? I want to do my first IoT edge device whilst contributing to my homebrewing, but I'm a NOOB and hoping there is a "easy" way to do this. Thanks in advance.

 

[BrewingAroundtheRrealm]

Apologies as I haven't read all 29 pages. Is there a DIY kit that can be ordered somewhere? I want to do my first IoT edge device whilst contributing to my homebrewing, but I'm a NOOB and hoping there is a "easy" way to do this. Thanks in advance.

Not as far as I know. I looked for several days off and on for a kit before I gave in and purchased all of the parts. My understanding is that Tilt owns the patent(s) for these types of devices. Any commercial use or reference would violate those patents.

 

[BreeBrew]

Apologies as I haven't read all 29 pages. Is there a DIY kit that can be ordered somewhere? I want to do my first IoT edge device whilst contributing to my homebrewing, but I'm a NOOB and hoping there is a "easy" way to do this. Thanks in advance.

Not as far as I know. I looked for several days off and on for a kit before I gave in and purchased all of the parts. My understanding is that Tilt owns the patent(s) for these types of devices. Any commercial use or reference would violate those patents.

Partially assembled: https://3d-mechatronics.de/de/ispindel-teilmontiert/-partially-assembled_962.html

 

[kdw2pd]

Hi folks. I'm interested in putting together some iSpindels for myself and homebrew club members. Based on the iSpindel 4.0 assembly links from Open Source Distilling (https://www.opensourcedistilling.com/ispindel-assembly), I put together a public AliExpress shopping list for all of the parts except for the iSpindel circuit board and the bottle pre-forms.

https://my.aliexpress.com/wishlist/shared.htm?groupId=100000018336352

It works out to ~$20 per iSpindel, when ordering 5 of each piece of hardware when ordering through AliExpress. It'll take quite a while for the parts to get here, up to 2 months. I matched the pictures and descriptions from AliExpress up with the Amazon links from the Open Source assembly list.

 

[BrewingAroundtheRrealm]

(https://my.aliexpress.com/wishlist/wish_list_product_list.htm?m=a2g0s.8937460.0.0.816c2e0eBvCqal&currentGroupId=100000018336352).

That link just takes me to an empty wish list. Any one else having an issue with that?

 

[kdw2pd]

That link just takes me to an empty wish list. An one having an issue with that?

Edited the link in the post above, it appears to be working now. If you tried it and got a blank website, please try it again.

 

[Positronic_Matrix]

Partially assembled: https://3d-mechatronics.de/de/ispindel-teilmontiert/-partially-assembled_962.html

I just tried to order from this site, however it’s impossible to create an account with a US address, as they do not include the United States as a country (only US outlying islands). I’m also unable to select a state outside of Germany. Although I have shared this link myself in the past, I’m wondering if anyone has successfully ordered from this site.

 

[Lalo_uy]

err

 

[BrewingAroundtheRrealm]

Edited the link in the post above, it appears to be working now. If you tried it and got a blank website, please try it again.

The updated link works.

 

[perole.gabrielsen]

Hi folks. I'm interested in putting together some iSpindels for myself and homebrew club members. Based on the iSpindel 4.0 assembly links from Open Source Distilling (https://www.opensourcedistilling.com/ispindel-assembly), I put together a public AliExpress shopping list for all of the parts except for the iSpindel circuit board and the bottle pre-forms.

https://my.aliexpress.com/wishlist/shared.htm?groupId=100000018336352

It works out to ~$20 per iSpindel, when ordering 5 of each piece of hardware when ordering through AliExpress. It'll take quite a while for the parts to get here, up to 2 months. I matched the pictures and descriptions from AliExpress up with the Amazon links from the Open Source assembly list.

Hi!
Be aware that this build is calculated on "the gram!" to be correct! I ordered a "wrong" WIFI module (heavier!) and a battery (also heavier!) and it turned out to work completely wrong. Battery to be used must be 44 gram (printed on the PCB!), not 49 gram as mine was. It´s easy to add weight not so easy to cut some...as in life! Someone should sell complete set with everything correct, just assemble, work done! Good luck with your build!

 

[kdw2pd]

Hi!
Be aware that this build is calculated on "the gram!" to be correct! I ordered a "wrong" WIFI module (heavier!) and a battery (also heavier!) and it turned out to work completely wrong. Battery to be used must be 44 gram (printed on the PCB!), not 49 gram as mine was. It´s easy to add weight not so easy to cut some...as in life! Someone should sell complete set with everything correct, just assemble, work done! Good luck with your build!

That's good to know, thanks! The AliExpress list I put together is based on what the dude from Open Source Distilling bought, and from his videos the build appears to work. If you see something wrong on the list, please let me know and I'll fix it.

For posterity, do you have links to the "wrong" WiFi modules and batteries you purchased, so we can avoid doing the same?

 

[perole.gabrielsen]

That's good to know, thanks! The AliExpress list I put together is based on what the dude from Open Source Distilling bought, and from his videos the build appears to work. If you see something wrong on the list, please let me know and I'll fix it.

For posterity, do you have links to the "wrong" WiFi modules and batteries you purchased, so we can avoid doing the same?

Hi!
I talked/wrote to Open Source Distilling-guy, he also struggle with the angle of iSpindel, probably cause of weight-issues. My iSpindel I used this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/WeMos-D1-E...var=671570060459&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
I see that its not the same as in shopping list, but did not think it would matter that much. I learnt it does!
But I will get it to work...somehow!

 

[gromitdj]

While I haven't built the CherryPhilip version, I'm sure that the amount of weight is not important. It's a combination of the amount and it's location that determines the ideal tilt in a 1.000 solution. (Which should be as close to 20° as possible) If you are having a problem, adding weight closer to the lid of the petling will change the tilt in the other direction.

Pictures of your current setup might help diagnose. If you haven't added any weight yet, try temporarily adding some on the top half of the pcb and see how it affects the tilt angle.

 

[private4587]

The Gyros can be spotty. I resorted to testing them before soldering in place.

Gromitdj could you tell me how to test these and the other components before sobering as i am not quite up to speed with electronics more mechanically minded. I do have a test meter.

 

[gromitdj]

Sure. Give me a day or so and I will dig up a couple of the resources I used to test them.

 

[gromitdj]

Gromitdj could you tell me how to test these and the other components before sobering as i am not quite up to speed with electronics more mechanically minded. I do have a test meter.

I used this Instructable to wire up a test circuit on a breadboard. If you use one of the pin headers, you can place the gyro on them and get contact on the necessary pins to test without soldering. I hope that makes sense. If not, I can try to set up a test rig to take some pictures. Just let me know.

I believe you should be able to use a Wemos instead of the Arduino Uno, if that is all you have.

 

[Kevwaller]

Anybody had issues with battery life? I find mine runs out pretty fast logging every 15 mins

 

[gromitdj]

Anybody had issues with battery life? I find mine runs out pretty fast logging every 15 mins

Which battery did you use for the build? I've got mine set up for logging in 5 minute intervals and would venture to bet that it would last 2 months.

I purchased this Panasonic battery. Which I believe is the battery listed in the iSpindel GitHub.

 

[private4587]

I used this Instructable to wire up a test circuit on a breadboard. If you use one of the pin headers, you can place the gyro on them and get contact on the necessary pins to test without soldering. I hope that makes sense. If not, I can try to set up a test rig to take some pictures. Just let me know.

I believe you should be able to use a Wemos instead of the Arduino Uno, if that is all you have.

Thanks gromitdj I will have a go at it after watching video and will get back to you but it would be much appreciated if you could send some pics

 

[Kevwaller]

Which battery did you use for the build? I've got mine set up for logging in 5 minute intervals and would venture to bet that it would last 2 months.

I purchased this Panasonic battery. Which I believe is the battery listed in the iSpindel GitHub.

I bought it pre assembled do have no idea

 

[gromitdj]

Thanks gromitdj I will have a go at it after watching video and will get back to you but it would be much appreciated if you could send some pics

What do you have available for testing? Do you have a breadboard? or just the Wemos D1 Mini and the Gyro? If I know more about what you have for testing, I can see what I can put together.

Can you sacrifice a D1 Mini for testing?

 

[private4587]

What do you have available for testing? Do you have a breadboard? or just the Wemos D1 Mini and the Gyro? If I know more about what you have for testing, I can see what I can put together.

Can you sacrifice a D1 Mini for testing?

I have a breadboard but to be honest have never used it before also have an ardino