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

[Thorrak]

@Thorrak , all of your hard work for us Brewers, is really appreciated, even if you do not hear this every day.
Your Fermentrack have been working in my Brewery, along with Tiltbridge, for years now, with great success!
Thanks a Million Toasts!

Thanks! This is a really fun project to work on - especially as I find new things to try to integrate it with. I’m looking forward to getting v16 finished up so I can focus on finishing FT2 gravity support so I can come back and work on building official glycol support now that I (as of last week) finally have a (working, leak-free) glycol chiller. Lots of fun stuff to come!

@Thorrak
With all of your "free time", is it easy for us non-programmers, to edit our Dashboard from saying "Beer Profile" to Wine or Meade, Profile ? Also applies to Wine Constant.... etc.
No biggy, just mentally strange using Fermentrack on a Wine, that says "Beer ......"
Edit.....
Sorry, wrong Forum here. Can not figure out how to "Edit" and delete this post here.

Do you mean for Fermentrack, or the on-device dashboard?

If Fermentrack, maybe - but you would need to be at least slightly familiar with Docker (and would absolutely want to back up everything first).

I’m on my phone so I can’t confirm, but I think this is the file you would want to edit.

To edit it, however, you would need to download the source from GitHub, edit the file, and then build the docker image yourself. Once done, if you edit the docker compose file in your fermentrack tools directory to point to the image you built you should be golden.

One thing to note - It has been a year since I last built Fermentrack, so you also need to be aware that things may have broken in the interim that would need to be rebuilt to get it to build properly. Hopefully not, but that pandora’s box is part of why I switched to using docker in the first place. (that said, if you get to this point, I’m happy to help with this part.)


If what you want to change is the dashboard on the device, that is a very different process/set of tools, but I’m guessing that is not what you meant. If that is what you meant, wait until I have the v16 beta out and the change will be much more straightforward.

 

[bloombrews]

Thanks! This is a really fun project to work on - especially as I find new things to try to integrate it with. I’m looking forward to getting v16 finished up so I can focus on finishing FT2 gravity support so I can come back and work on building official glycol support now that I (as of last week) finally have a (working, leak-free) glycol chiller. Lots of fun stuff to come!



Do you mean for Fermentrack, or the on-device dashboard?

If Fermentrack, maybe - but you would need to be at least slightly familiar with Docker (and would absolutely want to back up everything first).

I’m on my phone so I can’t confirm, but I think this is the file you would want to edit.

To edit it, however, you would need to download the source from GitHub, edit the file, and then build the docker image yourself. Once done, if you edit the docker compose file in your fermentrack tools directory to point to the image you built you should be golden.

One thing to note - It has been a year since I last built Fermentrack, so you also need to be aware that things may have broken in the interim that would need to be rebuilt to get it to build properly. Hopefully not, but that pandora’s box is part of why I switched to using docker in the first place. (that said, if you get to this point, I’m happy to help with this part.)


If what you want to change is the dashboard on the device, that is a very different process/set of tools, but I’m guessing that is not what you meant. If that is what you meant, wait until I have the v16 beta out and the change will be much more straightforward.

I just wanted to change a few Fields, from saying "Beer Profile....." to read Wine Profile or Meade Profile.
I am not touching the Script. The last programming I did, was back in 1976-1982, with COBOL, RPG, FORTRAN, and BASIC +
I don't want to blow up the Compiler and smoke my beer with 100 degree heat stuck ON.....
I can live with the wrong nomenclature!
THANKS!

 

[DuncB]

Make a tiny sticker for the display!!

 

[Thorrak]

Make a tiny sticker for the display!!

Sharpie!

 

[bloombrews]

Make a tiny sticker for the display!!

LOL
I would, but its on my TV screen up on the wall in the brewery and that would look strange....
What do I want for FREE?

 

[Thorrak]

LOL
I would, but its on my TV screen up on the wall in the brewery and that would look strange....
What do I want for FREE?

Oh no. Oh no no no.

Please don’t tell me what you need is a customizable fermentation status dashboard on your TV. That sounds like something I would build, and I have enough projects at the moment.

 

[bloombrews]

Its as simple as picking - A, B, or C, what you want to ferment! And Viola, it is on the screen!
Just like McDonalds ordering kiosks.. LMAO

KEG SCREEN ! TO THE RESCUE!!!! LMFAO, again!!!
Your the BEST

 

[Thorrak]

Its as simple as picking - A, B, or C, what you want to ferment! And Viola, it is on the screen!
Just like McDonalds ordering kiosks.. LMAO

KEG SCREEN ! TO THE RESCUE!!!! LMFAO, again!!!
Your the BEST

Ehhhhh.... I don't know that KegScreen will solve it or ever be released but KegScreen TV + Fermentrack could be an interesting combination.

 

[Thorrak]

I've got a bunch of new things today to play with! First off, some new hardware that I'm really excited about:

This is a true all-in-one "main" PCB design which combines the DC power supply and 2-channel relay board with the breakouts necessary to build a BrewPi-ESP. This design dramatically reduces the wiring required and helps ensure a stable source of power.

I've got a full write-up with assembly instructions in this blog post.


In addition to this all-in-one board, a few other releases which are a bit more niche, but could be interesting:

• New case design to match the all-in-one board
• New "benchtop test" PCBs for D32 Pro-based and D1/S2 Mini-based BrewPi-ESP builds
• Other tweaks/cleanup to my hardware repo

This hardware design has been in the works for the past two years -- I'm glad to finally get this finished up, and out there into the world!

 

[bloombrews]

I've got a bunch of new things today to play with! First off, some new hardware that I'm really excited about:

When do you have time to actually brew a beer?

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Just thought i'd poke my head back in this thread, good to see BrewPi still lives on so many years after making that initial thread.
I found an extra ESP8266 not too long ago i think i may jump back in and replace my Inkbird because, why not....

I can go searching but figured i'd ask here first, are there good 3d printable enclosures for a Pi/ESP8266 setup now adays? Figure i can get the best of both hobbies ...

 

[day_trippr]

FuzzeWuzze is in the house!
Been awhile, hope all is well with you and yours!

Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

Just thought i'd poke my head back in this thread, good to see BrewPi still lives on so many years after making that initial thread.
I found an extra ESP8266 not too long ago i think i may jump back in and replace my Inkbird because, why not....

I can go searching but figured i'd ask here first, are there good 3d printable enclosures for a Pi/ESP8266 setup now adays? Figure i can get the best of both hobbies ...

My designs are all over here, but they're targeted towards my PCBs' screw hole footprint. That said, if you're interested in a PCB, I've got a stack available for free at the moment...

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

FuzzeWuzze is in the house!
Been awhile, hope all is well with you and yours!

Cheers!

Thanks yea doing well, I'm hoping to get into more DIY brewing things again in 2025, what that means i'm not sure yet.

Unrelated question to this thread necessarily but i figured it would be a good place to start, what is the current situation with DIY hydrometers?
Is everyone still just building those DIY Ispindels based in the PET tubes? I've looked all over for mine and cant find it, so if i cant find it in the next few days i may have to remake something to put GravityMon on, as i think it seems to be the best to integrate with Fermentrack now?

I'm worried in one of my garage cleaning frenzies i may have thrown my old one out, hopefully not.

 

[bloombrews]

@FuzzeWuzze
Look in the fermenter for your hydrometer, floating on top of that well aged brew! It's always the last place you put it!

 

[kpietro22]

Quick disclaimer.... I am not an electrician, don't take this as advice, just explaining what I did. If you're not familiar with electrical wiring, I recommend enlisting someone who is! Also assuming that you are in the USA with 120v single phase AC power.


Sorry, I don't have a diagram, but wiring the AC controlled SSR was fairly simple. Instead of wiring the AC "hot" lead directly from the cooling relay to the fridge, It becomes the "trigger" for the SSR and got connected to terminal 3 on the SSR. Terminal 4 got an AC "neutral" (white) connection. Terminal 2 got a AC "hot" supply connection. And terminal 1 is now the switched AC "hot" going to the fridge.


The biggest problem that I’ve had with using the GDM-10 is these fridges cool so fast, it can cause wild overshooting and cycling between heating and cooling, especially the closer the setting is to the room temperature. Through a lot of trial and error, I’ve managed to reduce that quite a bit with the controller settings. If you have issues, just PM me and I can try to help identify the changes I’ve made

Thanks for your input! I am pretty familiar with electrical wiring and my father is also a licensed electrician...So will definitely make sure all wiring/terimal inputs and outputs are correct. I will look at some of the SSR options available and make a choice. Seems like a lot of the reviews of the most popular ones on Amazon have photos of melted/burned units. Obviously from different applications, but this is certainly something I want to avoid.

I can second your point on the GDM cooling capabilities. Usually my IPA fermentations look like a see-saw between the fridge cooling to temp, and the heater pad bringing the temp back up a half a degree or so to match the set temperature. Once I purchase the SSR and wire things up, I may PM you to see what kinds of steps you took to remedy your issues. Thanks!

 

[RocketBrewer]

I will look at some of the SSR options available and make a choice. Seems like a lot of the reviews of the most popular ones on Amazon have photos of melted/burned units. Obviously from different applications, but this is certainly something I want to avoid.

From what I've gathered, the biggest problem with these Chinese knock-off SSR's is that the internal components aren't rated for the amperage that they are putting on the SSR and when people use them near their "rated" capacity, they melt down. These fridges don't draw anywhere near 40A and they're not rapidly switching like some applications, so I figure it's not a huge chance of melt down

 

[Thorrak]

New hardware day! Got my test boards in, as well as the test batch of the “all-in-one” design based around the IRM-10-5.



The “AIO” design is interesting and all, but honestly I’m just glad to finally have an easy way to test BrewPi-ESP firmware on actual hardware. The checklist for a new release is getting long.

 

[kpietro22]

Hi all, apologies for another build question, but I cannot seem to locate the previous thread post I had seen about screen scrambling issues. Occasionally, and randomly, my Lolin TFT will go completely white when the cooling chamber kicks on. The controller is a D32 pro and it connects to the TFT using Lolin's cable. This only happens when cooling. I am wondering if it is a problem with the capacitance of my 5V power supply? Any thoughts or directions to where this may have been previously solved are much appreciated. Thanks!

Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

Hi all, apologies for another build question, but I cannot seem to locate the previous thread post I had seen about screen scrambling issues. Occasionally, and randomly, my Lolin TFT will go completely white when the cooling chamber kicks on. The controller is a D32 pro and it connects to the TFT using Lolin's cable. This only happens when cooling. I am wondering if it is a problem with the capacitance of my 5V power supply? Any thoughts or directions to where this may have been previously solved are much appreciated. Thanks!

Cheers!

Apologies for not having an answer to this before now! This wasn't an issue I had personally experienced, and thus haven't had the ability to test any fixes, but I decided to swap my hardware up a bit with the beer I brewed this past weekend, dropping the TP Link relays and using pin-based ones instead, and have managed to replicate it on my side. I think you're right: this bug is caused by noise in the power affecting the screen as the relays toggle.

I've added code that executes when the temperature control toggles which should reset the display, and have it downstairs testing now. Code changes can be seen here - if it seems to solve the issue then I'll push a new beta firmware out in the next few days.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, long ago someone added a screen rewrite routine to BrewPi to recover from scrambling associated with relays being fired. I believe it was timer based but there may also have been a refresh inspired by rotary encoder movement...

Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

fwiw, long ago someone added a screen rewrite routine to BrewPi to recover from scrambling associated with relays being fired. I believe it was timer based but there may also have been a refresh inspired by rotary encoder movement...

Cheers!

I, for one, am not about to accept the wisdom of those who have already learned their lesson from issues experienced in the past.

 

[kpietro22]

Apologies for not having an answer to this before now! This wasn't an issue I had personally experienced, and thus haven't had the ability to test any fixes, but I decided to swap my hardware up a bit with the beer I brewed this past weekend, dropping the TP Link relays and using pin-based ones instead, and have managed to replicate it on my side. I think you're right: this bug is caused by noise in the power affecting the screen as the relays toggle.

I've added code that executes when the temperature control toggles which should reset the display, and have it downstairs testing now. Code changes can be seen here - if it seems to solve the issue then I'll push a new beta firmware out in the next few days.

Thank you for investigating this! FWIW, I am able to 'temporarily' fix the issue by going into the controller settings and selecting "Restart Controller" within Fermentrack. This refreshes the screen, but I am not sure if it affects logging or anything else. Thanks again for amending some code and I will await the beta firmware!

Anyone else who has advice, I would appreciate it! I am wondering if using larger capacitors on @Thorrak's through-hole PCB could help solve this? Or perhaps wrapping a small layer of aluminum foil around the TFT cable and power supply cables to separate them from touching and eliminate electromagnetic noise could help? This helped when I was doing EEG research and cleaned up some 60 Hz noise in our signal. Anyways, thanks for your input!


Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

The fix I have for these screens seems to work, minus one small oversight:



Labels and the like certainly help!

I’ll have to defer to @day_trippr on what hardware fixes might apply here. Joking about past fixes aside, I recall that hardware fixes didn’t really help solve the issues with the old LCD2004 modules, but am not sure what all was tried back then. Although the code is very different for the old modules and these (hence why the code fix he noted wasn’t ported) I’m pretty sure the (physical) root cause is the same.

 

[Thorrak]

Thank you for investigating this! FWIW, I am able to 'temporarily' fix the issue by going into the controller settings and selecting "Restart Controller" within Fermentrack. This refreshes the screen, but I am not sure if it affects logging or anything else. Thanks again for amending some code and I will await the beta firmware!

I just pushed out v16-alpha4 which incorporates this fix, along with a few other things:

• Adds code to reinitialize displays when a relay pin toggles
• Adjusts displays to prevent Inkbird bluetooth sensors from dropping out unexpectedly
• Adjusts some items on the filesystem

It is available now on BrewFlasher and GitHub.

 

[Thorrak]

One thing I didn’t mention — This version is _not great_ for ESP8266. Long story - webserver library sucks - need to change to a different one - it’s coming next alpha.

I meant to block both the S2 and ESP8266 versions, but missed the 8266 one.

Temperature control on an ESP8266 should be fine, the problems are entirely in the on-device webserver.

 

[wd16261]

I just tested the latest version and it seems to work fine, but because I never experienced the problem with the display, I find it annoying that the display turns completely white every time the COOL/HEAT relay switches. Is there perhaps no possibility to make this adjustable so that those who never had problems with the display can switch it off?

 

[Thorrak]

I just tested the latest version and it seems to work fine, but because I never experienced the problem with the display, I find it annoying that the display turns completely white every time the COOL/HEAT relay switches. Is there perhaps no possibility to make this adjustable so that those who never had problems with the display can switch it off?

It’s worth looking at. I’ve added an issue here: https://github.com/thorrak/brewpi-esp8266/issues/123

 

[kpietro22]

One thing I didn’t mention — This version is _not great_ for ESP8266. Long story - webserver library sucks - need to change to a different one - it’s coming next alpha.

I meant to block both the S2 and ESP8266 versions, but missed the 8266 one.

Temperature control on an ESP8266 should be fine, the problems are entirely in the on-device webserver.

Thanks so much! This shouldn't be a problem at all! Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

One thing I didn’t mention — This version is _not great_ for ESP8266. Long story - webserver library sucks - need to change to a different one - it’s coming next alpha.

I meant to block both the S2 and ESP8266 versions, but missed the 8266 one.

Temperature control on an ESP8266 should be fine, the problems are entirely in the on-device webserver.

I've just released v16-alpha5 which includes a rebuild of the web server functionality to use an asynchronous library and upgrades the ESP32-S2 to use the same filesystem time as the ESP32 and ESP8266. This should solve the issues with the ESP8266 web server hanging, and also means that I can release alphas for the ESP32-S2 again.

Although all platforms should see performance improvements from this release (relative to earlier alphas) there is no need to upgrade if you are running alpha4 on an ESP32 and are happy with the performance.

As always, the firmware is available on GitHub and in Brewflasher.