Native ESP8266 BrewPi Firmware - WiFi BrewPi, no Arduino needed!

[Thorrak]

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Hi - Anybody any idea why I can't see the one wire sensors in fermentrack. I ended making 5 boards and have them all connecting to the wifi and displaying the readings on a display. In fermentrack I can connect to the controller but only see pin setting and no one wire settings. I just bought a pack of small cat6 cables on amazon for the connections and did not do anything special with the pins. Any ideas. I've tried a few main boards and sensor boards and have seen any one wire sensors coming up yet ?

Thanks in advance

Neal

It's hard to tell from the photo, but what pins do you have bridged with OW_VSEL?

 

[nhannath]

That was it Thorrack. Thanks. I had bridged it as 5v left and middle on a board and then realized it was a board that I was waiting the 4.7V resistor on and forgot to move - Just put it on a board with a 4.7K resistor and it popped straight up in fermentrack. Thanks.

 

[Thorrak]

That was it Thorrack. Thanks. I had bridged it as 5v left and middle on a board and then realized it was a board that I was waiting the 4.7V resistor on and forgot to move - Just put it on a board with a 4.7K resistor and it popped straight up in fermentrack. Thanks.

Perfect! Glad it worked

 

[nhannath]

HI Guys - More questions Hopefully my questions are helping other users. I for the transformers suggested that converts the 110V down to 5V. What looks like the AC side has holes that are two wide apart for the screw terminals I have. What kind of connector would I use for this side of the device ?

Thanks in advance.

Neal

 

[Thorrak]

HI Guys - More questions Hopefully my questions are helping other users. I for the transformers suggested that converts the 110V down to 5V. What looks like the AC side has holes that are two wide apart for the screw terminals I have. What kind of connector would I use for this side of the device ?

Thanks in advance.

Neal

It looks like you need 5mm screw terminals, and have 2.54mm ones.

 

[nhannath]

It looks like you need 5mm screw terminals, and have 2.54mm ones.

Thanks again Thorrack. I looked on Amazon at that based on the description on the box I do have, but the images on there didn't make them look any different. - ordered today. I may have this working by the end of the weekend 80% there.

 

[diatonic]

Would be cool if the ESP32 firmware would support displays like these… maybe too many types in the wild.

 

[Thorrak]

Would be cool if the ESP32 firmware would support displays like these… maybe too many types in the wild.

Unfortunately I have far too much experience trying to support the multitude of display/board types from building TiltBridge to try to support anything but the bare minimum of screens!

I've got hardware currently being shipped from OSHPark (and, separately, China) which I think will ultimately become the "one board to rule them all" for the ESP32 port. @LBussy convinced me to support the LCD2004 screens with the ESP32 in order to provide a softer upgrade pathway, but aside from that it's TFT or bust:

While it looks like theres a lot going on here, this is simultaneously an all-TH board for those who prefer TH components, or an SMD board for those who prefer to go that route, with support for the LoLin D32 Pro or LoLin D32 (non-pro), and either the LoLin D32 Pro-compatible TFT display or most third party TFT displays that have similar specs with a PCB that breaks its pins out for the correct cable. It also supports the LCD2004 if you add the optional SMD level shifter, to provide an upgrade pathway for those who want it.

Assuming this works, it's going to be the one official PCB I plan to release for the ESP32.

Of course - you can always go the completely solder free route, and recycle the official TiltBridge hardware. That's what I tested with, after all.

 

[Caltuckian]

Hi @Thorrak,

I was running a pre-docker build of Fermentrak, and decided to upgrade to the docker version. Went ahead and flashed a fresh image to a SD card (Bullseye 64-bit on RPi 3B+), did all the typical pre install work (apt get update & upgrade), and then ran the install script. This first issue I ran into was that on docker & docker-compose install, the install couldn't find them right after the script installed them, so Iogged back out and in, and then relaunched from the install.sh. Then I started getting errors:

 /home/pi/fermentrack-tools/install.sh
::: Checking for Internet connection:
::: Internet connection Success!
::: Verifying free disk space...
::: Sufficient free disk space is available
::: Checking/installing Docker prerequisites using apt-get
::: Docker is already installed. Continuing.
::: Docker-compose is already installed. Continuing.
::: pi already belongs to the 'docker' group
::: Able to access docker - Proceeding.
::: Downloading required files from GitHub for setup
cp: cannot stat 'sample.docker-compose.yml': No such file or directory
::: The default port for Fermentrack to run on is port 80 (which is standard
::: for most websites). If you have another service currently running on port 80
::: then this install will likely fail unless another port is selected.

What port would you like to access Fermentrack on? [80]:
/home/pi/fermentrack-tools/install.sh: line 190: nc: command not found
::: 80 is a valid port for installation. Continuing.
/home/pi/fermentrack-tools/install.sh: line 207: nc: command not found
/home/pi/fermentrack-tools/install.sh: line 212: nc: command not found
::: Creating Fermentrack environment configuration at ./envs/django
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘envs’: File exists
cp: cannot stat 'sample_envs/django': No such file or directory
sed: can't read envs/django: No such file or directory
sed: can't read envs/django: No such file or directory
::: Creating Fermentrack Postgres environment configuration at ./envs/postgres
cp: cannot stat 'sample_envs/postgres': No such file or directory
sed: can't read envs/postgres: No such file or directory
sed: can't read envs/postgres: No such file or directory
sed: can't read docker-compose.yml: No such file or directory
sed: can't read docker-compose.yml: No such file or directory
::: Downloading, building, and starting Fermentrack containers
sh: 1: ./docker-update.sh: not found
::: Waiting for Fermentrack install to initialize and become responsive.
::: Fermentrack may take up to 3 minutes to first boot as the database is being initialized.
..........................................................................................missing.
*** ERROR: Unable to find an initialized, responsive instance of Fermentrack

UPDATE1:
190, 207, and 212 are all due to nc not being available due to nmap not being installed, which seems to be the case in Bullseye light. Installing nmap cleared them. The rest Im not sure about, any ideas?

 

[day_trippr]

Go back to Buster?
Not sure @Thorrak has checked any of his apps against Bullseye yet...

Cheers!

 

[Caltuckian]

Normally I would agree, but the documentation on GitHub says Buster or later, and (I'll have to find this again), but there was something about it being targeted against Bullseye in the release notes. But who knows with software . At the very least, I'm going to submit an issue and maybe a pull request that nmap be added to the dependencies on install.

 

[Thorrak]

Normally I would agree, but the documentation on GitHub says Buster or later, and (I'll have to find this again), but there was something about it being targeted against Bullseye in the release notes. But who knows with software . At the very least, I'm going to submit an issue and maybe a pull request that nmap be added to the dependencies on install.

Always a good idea.

I have no idea what is going on with your installation of Raspberry Pi OS. I actually built a new RPi box last week using the latest OS, and can see nc as available:

Are you using RPi OS 64-bit?

Edit: Yes you are - you mentioned that - sorry for missing it! That's the issue. nmap (and maybe other packages?) aren't included by default in the 64-bit build when they are included in the 32-bit build.

I don't have a spare pi at the moment to do a 64 bit test build, but if apt-get install nmap solves the problem, let me know and I can get that added to the install script. Fermentrack (and it's required packages) are all built for aarch64, so there is no reason it shouldn't work.

 

[Caltuckian]

Always a good idea.

I have no idea what is going on with your installation of Raspberry Pi OS. I actually built a new RPi box last week using the latest OS, and can see nc as available:
View attachment 768584


Are you using RPi OS 64-bit?

Edit: Yes you are - you mentioned that - sorry for missing it! That's the issue. nmap (and maybe other packages?) aren't included by default in the 64-bit build when they are included in the 32-bit build.

I don't have a spare pi at the moment to do a 64 bit test build, but if apt-get install nmap solves the problem, let me know and I can get that added to the install script. Fermentrack (and it's required packages) are all built for aarch64, so there is no reason it shouldn't work.

Okay, so I just nuked the SD card and started from a fresh Bullseye 64 install, then:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install ncat
sudo apt install docker
sudo apt install docker-compose
sudo shutdown -r

Logged back in, and then the install script (curl -L install.fermentrack.com | bash) ran fine and installed with no errors. So I don't know what went sideways. But it definitely seems like ncat (I was a dummy earlier and said nmap ) helped clear the errors @Thorrak, so maybe that needs to make it into the install script. If you have any other questions, lemme know.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a blood orange gose that needs to go into the bright tank.

 

[Thorrak]

Okay, so I just nuked the SD card and started from a fresh Bullseye 64 install, then:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install ncat
sudo apt install docker
sudo apt install docker-compose
sudo shutdown -r

Logged back in, and then the install script (curl -L install.fermentrack.com | bash) ran fine and installed with no errors. So I don't know what went sideways. But it definitely seems like ncat (I was a dummy earlier and said nmap ) helped clear the errors @Thorrak, so maybe that needs to make it into the install script. If you have any other questions, lemme know.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a blood orange gose that needs to go into the bright tank.

Done!

 

[diatonic]

I see that the LCD data can be grabbed from /api/lcd/1/ as the string values that populate the LCD. Is there a way to get the raw data with more resolution? I'd like to be able to pull temperature with more significant digits and state/time in state without decoding strings if possible.

 

[chucknorris101]

Just ran into an issue connecting to tilt...when i wiped and fresh installed i feel like it had the connection? but now see this in troubleshooting.

When i ran this as is, it said no such file. my 3.9 was in /usr/bin not local...but the current flags seem right? But still no signal/readouts

Python is missing required capability flags!​

Current flags: /usr/local/bin/python3.9 cap_net_admin,cap_net_raw=eip

As these flags are required for Python to properly interact with networking devices (including Bluetooth controllers) this can prevent the Tilt functionality from working as intended.

To fix this, simply ssh into your Pi and run the following command:

sudo setcap cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin+eip /usr/local/bin/python3.9

 

[Thorrak]

Just ran into an issue connecting to tilt...when i wiped and fresh installed i feel like it had the connection? but now see this in troubleshooting.

When i ran this as is, it said no such file. my 3.9 was in /usr/bin not local...but the current flags seem right? But still no signal/readouts

Python is missing required capability flags!​

Current flags: /usr/local/bin/python3.9 cap_net_admin,cap_net_raw=eip

As these flags are required for Python to properly interact with networking devices (including Bluetooth controllers) this can prevent the Tilt functionality from working as intended.

To fix this, simply ssh into your Pi and run the following command:

Apologies if I should know this - are you on the docker or non-docker version?

 

[chucknorris101]

Apologies if I should know this - are you on the docker or non-docker version?

docker, or whatever the latest script gets you to, just did the fresh install/wipe a few pages back, no worries

one thing to note, it seems the usr/local/bin folder is completely empty, but usr/bin is full or stuff

Edit: i found it. the right path is just /bin not usr/local/bin. now its working after running that command line!

 

[Thorrak]

docker, or whatever the latest script gets you to, just did the fresh install/wipe a few pages back, no worries

one thing to note, it seems the usr/local/bin folder is completely empty, but usr/bin is full or stuff

Edit: i found it. the right path is just /bin not usr/local/bin. now its working after running that command line!

Yeah - the error message is invalid for docker installs. I have a fix for that pending, but it completely kills non-docker installs so I haven’t pulled it to master yet.

What are the issues you are experiencing? Just that Tilts don’t show up?

 

[chucknorris101]

Yeah - the error message is invalid for docker installs. I have a fix for that pending, but it completely kills non-docker installs so I haven’t pulled it to master yet.

What are the issues you are experiencing? Just that Tilts don’t show up?

Yea that was all! Everything else was fine.

 

[Bago-0]

Is 16 guage wire for the 120v portions of the controller build ok or should I go 12-14?

 

[Thorrak]

Is 16 guage wire for the 120v portions of the controller build ok or should I go 12-14?

I am not an electrician, and my advice should not be trusted, but I have used 16 gauge wire in previous builds where I wasn’t running anything with high power draw. Your house wiring is most likely 14 gauge if you have a 15A circuit.

 

[Bago-0]

Having a problem with my ESP8266 controller (Lolin D1 mini V4.0) everything seems to be working fine except I can't set the control mode. It says temperature control settings updated but nothing happens. Sometimes the controller reboots but it still will not accept the change. It shows 68 for beer and 50 for fridge as a default or sometimes its just blank. It will log fine and show the graph and probes show the correct temp. I I built 2 controllers and same thing with both. th eonlt difference in builds is one uses the board in the picture and the other I bought from Thorrack site and is same except does not have the adjustable probe voltage pins. I flashed with V14 beta wifi currently but tried all other versions as well and same thing. Any ideas. My wired Arduino controller works great.

 

[Thorrak]

Having a problem with my ESP8266 controller (Lolin D1 mini V4.0) everything seems to be working fine except I can't set the control mode. It says temperature control settings updated but nothing happens. Sometimes the controller reboots but it still will not accept the change. It shows 68 for beer and 50 for fridge as a default or sometimes its just blank. It will log fine and show the graph and probes show the correct temp. I I built 2 controllers and same thing with both. th eonlt difference in builds is one uses the board in the picture and the other I bought from Thorrack site and is same except does not have the adjustable probe voltage pins. I flashed with V14 beta wifi currently but tried all other versions as well and same thing. Any ideas. My wired Arduino controller works great.

Try flashing with the v14 (No Spiffs Init) firmware. Reboot the chip twice after flashing (make sure to give it about 90 seconds between reboots) before you try changing any settings you want to be saved.

There's a bug with the v4.0.0 LoLin boards that prevents flashing the SPIFFS/LittleFS partition which means the firmware has to initialize the SPIFFS partition itself. I've messaged LoLin about it, and they ignored the question. Very frustrating.

 

[Bago-0]

No luck I tried both boards. Probably easier to just buy new D1. Which version do you recommend since 4.0 has problems?
Thanks

 

[Thorrak]

No luck I tried both boards. Probably easier to just buy new D1. Which version do you recommend since 4.0 has problems?
Thanks

What do the device logs show immediately after trying to set a mode (unsuccessfully)?

 

[Bago-0]

I tried to set beer temp to 60 and the controller reset. Then tried set to 65 and nothing happened. Is this the correct log?

Jun 11 2022 18:04:06 BrewPi version received was 0.2.4 which this script supports in 'legacy' branch mode.
Jun 11 2022 18:04:06 Bound to TCP socket on port 2508, interface localhost
Jun 11 2022 18:04:08 Installed devices received: [{"c": 1, "b": 1, "f": 9, "h": 2, "p": 12, "x": false, "d": false, "a": "28BCF476E0013C62", "j": " 0.000", "i": 0}, {"c": 1, "b": 0, "f": 5, "h": 2, "p": 12, "x": false, "d": false, "a": "289DEE76E0013C22", "j": " 0.000", "i": 1}, {"c": 1, "b": 0, "f": 2, "h": 1, "p": 16, "x": true, "d": false, "i": 2}, {"c": 1, "b": 0, "f": 3, "h": 1, "p": 14, "x": true, "d": false, "i": 3}]
Jun 11 2022 18:04:08 Available devices received: [{"c": 1, "b": 0, "f": 0, "h": 1, "p": 13, "x": true, "d": false, "i": -1}]
Jun 11 2022 18:04:17 Refreshing dbConfig
Jun 11 2022 18:04:17 Notification: Beer temperature set to 60.0 degrees in web interface
Jun 11 2022 18:04:27 Lost connection to controller on read. Attempting to reconnect.
Jun 11 2022 18:04:30 Unable to connect to BrewPi 192.168.1.131 on port 23. Exiting.
Jun 11 2022 18:04:33 Lost connection to controller on write. Attempting to reconnect.
Jun 11 2022 18:04:33 Serial Error: [Errno 9] Bad file descriptor)
Jun 11 2022 18:04:51 Refreshing dbConfig
Jun 11 2022 18:04:51 Notification: Beer temperature set to 65.0 degrees in web interface
Jun 11 2022 18:05:38 Error: controller is not responding to new data requests. Exiting.
Jun 11 2022 18:05:48 Refreshing dbConfig
Jun 11 2022 18:05:48 Connection type WiFi selected. Trying TCP serial (WiFi)
Jun 11 2022 18:05:48 Connecting to BrewPi esp14530008.local (via 192.168.1.131) on port 23
Jun 11 2022 18:05:51 Successfully connected to controller.
Jun 11 2022 18:05:51 Notification: Script started, with no active beer being logged
Jun 11 2022 18:06:01 Checking software version on controller...
Jun 11 2022 18:06:02 Found BrewPi v0.2.4, running commit 29e08ea build 29e08ea, running on an ESP8266 ESP8266 with a DIY shield on port 192.168.1.131:23

Jun 11 2022 18:06:02 BrewPi version received was 0.2.4 which this script supports in 'legacy' branch mode.
Jun 11 2022 18:06:02 Bound to TCP socket on port 2508, interface localhost
Jun 11 2022 18:06:03 Installed devices received: [{"c": 1, "b": 1, "f": 9, "h": 2, "p": 12, "x": false, "d": false, "a": "28BCF476E0013C62", "j": " 0.000", "i": 0}, {"c": 1, "b": 0, "f": 5, "h": 2, "p": 12, "x": false, "d": false, "a": "289DEE76E0013C22", "j": " 0.000", "i": 1}, {"c": 1, "b": 0, "f": 2, "h": 1, "p": 16, "x": true, "d": false, "i": 2}, {"c": 1, "b": 0, "f": 3, "h": 1, "p": 14, "x": true, "d": false, "i": 3}]
Jun 11 2022 18:06:04 Available devices received: [{"c": 1, "b": 0, "f": 0, "h": 1, "p": 13, "x": true, "d": false, "i": -1}]

 

[nhannath]

Amazon.com: MAKERELE Plastic Strain Relief Cord Connector Adjustable 3-6.5mm Cable Gland(1/4 NPT, 12pcs) : Tools & Home Improvement

Not sure if this is any use to the group but I've used the 3d printed cases for the sensor boxes and used the above item to secure the sensor to the box. The screw end tightens the cables alleviating a concern I had with the sensor wire getting pulled out.

 

[IDMaynard]

I am trying to flash my ESP8266 via the Fermentrack portal, I am using the BrewPi-ESP8266 - WiFi LowDensity version since I have a glycol chiller and pump to cool my conical. It appears to download everything but then it gets a timeout error when attempting to verify (at least that is how I read the output). Any suggestions on what I need to do to resolve this issue?

 

[Thorrak]

I am trying to flash my ESP8266 via the Fermentrack portal, I am using the BrewPi-ESP8266 - WiFi LowDensity version since I have a glycol chiller and pump to cool my conical. It appears to download everything but then it gets a timeout error when attempting to verify (at least that is how I read the output). Any suggestions on what I need to do to resolve this issue?

Which chip are you using?