After bragging about just how reliable and accurate my iSpindle is and in the midst (2nd day) of making my third batch since building it, yesterday lunch it stopped reporting from inside my FV. It is configured to report every 15minutes, to Ubidots, from my batch of red wine.
I opened up the FV, took it out, rinsed it, switched it off and back on, tried pressing reset, went into the configuration and checked that, off and back on again, lots of waiting to see if it was reporting and nothing. 15 minutes is a long time to wait for it to flash and a long time to wait for an update to Ubidots, so then I thought best change the report interval to 60 seconds. At that it sprang back into life, so I changed the reporting back to 15 minutes (900 sec), waited and watched to make sure it carried on reporting then yesterday evening put it back in the FV. It has worked fine overnight.
There was nothing wrong with its config, that I could see, all I changed was the 900 to 60, then back to 900 and away it went (see the graph linked to below). It stopped reporting at 13:33 on the 20th, I finally got it working on the bench at 21:48, then put back into the FV soon after that. It seems either the iSpindle or Ubidots averages the reported values, because it took it several reports to get back to the correct SG value.
Ubidots | Dashboards
What you might notice in the graph, is that the SG rises gradually from the 18th at 20:02 when the batch was started, that is an effect I have noticed on my previous two batches, before the fermentation gets going, then a fall once it begns. I also notice a rise in temperature, once the fermentation becomes more vigorous.
Problem - 15 minute reporting interval is absolutely fine in normal operation, but it is a very long time to wait to see if the iSpindel is reporting properly/ a long time to watch for the blue flash of its LED. It doesn't show up in my list of attached devices in my router, because it only comes on to log in for a fraction of a second, then back off. I am not even seeing it in my router's log.
Question - Has anyone found any way to confirm the iSpindel is reporting properly, before sealing it up in the FV?