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

[stbernts]

@MacDee, it might as well have been some soldering issues. I have different Wemos D1 mini`s from ebay/ali, they all works just fine - BUT, I did manage to make a poor solder on one of those, never got it to work after this user error.

Good thing you solved all your issues, this project has been one of the moust perfect ones I have ever put my fingers on. As long as one read and do things right - it just works. Other than ****** S-cards, my system has worked flawless for a long long time. Now using USB sticks, no problems at all.

 

[LBussy]

We buy a lot from China, it’s sometimes a wonder that we have any success.

 

[MacDee]

I thought you were having more than your share of troubles than most people that used the standard BOM. Glad you got it all working.

Yeah I'm a stubborn old guy. And it turns out my soldering wasn't at the root of my problem but I'll tell you I'm getting practice!

 

[garzlok]

We buy a lot from China, it’s sometimes a wonder that we have any success.

Speaking of...building the Fermentrack has led me to dealing with AliExpress for the first time. I am getting close with the ‘Awaiting Shipment’/‘Processing Time’ hitting Zero’s on my countdown....trying to decide if I should Extend Processing Time or Cancel and look for a different vendor. Any words of advice?

 

[LBussy]

AliExpress is a group of different vendors from what I can tell. If one does not answer, use a different one. I'll bet there are five that have the same thing.

I actually gave up on AliExpress. I could not get it to take any password I tried so I went to Banggood.

 

[Lalo_uy]

Speaking of...building the Fermentrack has led me to dealing with AliExpress for the first time. I am getting close with the ‘Awaiting Shipment’/‘Processing Time’ hitting Zero’s on my countdown....trying to decide if I should Extend Processing Time or Cancel and look for a different vendor. Any words of advice?

Do not hesitate to extend the warranty 30 days.
It is free

 

[Thorrak]

Do not hesitate to extend the warranty 30 days.
It is free

This isn’t the warranty post shipping - this is the vendor not processing the order, though. I would cancel and order from another vendor.

 

[Thorrak]

It’s not much, but Espressif just merged this pull request which - once it makes its way into the next release of the Arduino framework for ESP8266 - adds the missing option necessary for eliminating the virtual requirement that all new ESP8266-based BrewPi builds have a manual EEPROM reset on first use. Fingers crossed it works!

 

[adman]

Hopefully this isn't too far offtopic for this thread, but I wanted to share my success hacking my fermentation fridge to run on Fermentrack. This Haier beverage cooler has a simple (read easily bypassed) thermostat in a conveniently-sized plastic enclosure right inside the fridge. With some minor modifications, I was able to put my 5v PSU, RJ45 Fermentrack board, and relay all in the ceiling mounted enclosure. No running any cables through the door (or drilling holes through the fridge). I did have to cut some wires, so I still very much voided the warranty.

Thanks for your work on such an awesome project Thorrak!

 

[adman]

Slightly more on topic, am I safe to presume that periodic apt updates for the raspbian server are ok? I just realized that mine has been sitting there for the last 10 months or so and I haven't bothered updating it once (or turning on automatic updates).

 

[Thorrak]

Slightly more on topic, am I safe to presume that periodic apt updates for the raspbian server are ok? I just realized that mine has been sitting there for the last 10 months or so and I haven't bothered updating it once (or turning on automatic updates).

Yep. Shouldn’t be an issue at all.

 

[day_trippr]

Otoh, why even bother with random, periodic updates?
You have a purpose-built appliance that isn't going to perform any better via random updates, but could surely be taken off the air by an update gone bad...

Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

OT, but cool!
Geekcreit® ESP32-CAM WiFi + Bluetooth Camera Module Development Board ESP32 With Camera Module OV2640

So uh... I got this delivered on Friday, and apparently missed the fact that it doesn’t have a built in USB-to-serial chip. I guess that’s why this specific model is sub-$10.

On an unrelated note, apparently “30M pixel” on AliExpress means 0.3 megapixels for some sellers. Love it.

 

[day_trippr]

FTDI to the rescue!
And what's a couple of orders of magnitude?

Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

FTDI to the rescue!
And what's a couple of orders of magnitude?

Cheers!

It’s a typo! They were typing so fast they transposed the digits. And forgot the decimal. Small details.

I bought an FTDI cable for the STC1000p project a long time ago, but haven’t needed to use it since. I’m solidly on the fence here! As much as I’d love a cheap WiFi webcam for watching things like my 3D printer, Octoprint has webcam support built in and 0.3MP may just be enough...

 

[LBussy]

I used Octoprint with the Pi camera when I had a printer. That and a couple LED bars were the best upgrade I made.

 

[carrsgarage]

I installed Fermentrack on a fresh SD card over the weekend and it worked perfectly.

I want to run RaspberryPints on the same Pi, so I tried to install that last night and it didn't work. Something went wrong with Apache2 - it either didn't get installed or it's being kept from running, so RaspberryPints can't run. I installed the legacy support before trying to install RPints, but it doesn't seem to matter.

Should I start with a fresh SD card, install RaspberryPints first, then install Fermentrack with legacy support?

 

[ian802]

I've read through all the posts and cannot find the one I need to answer this question. I've been reading this thread with an expert appetite, but with an idiot's skill. If I use Thorrak's board and a D1 mini, how do I hook-up lighted buttons to navigate the display menu (and hopefully have the buttons illuminate appropriately when heating/cooling)?

 

[Thorrak]

I've read through all the posts and cannot find the one I need to answer this question. I've been reading this thread with an expert appetite, but with an idiot's skill. If I use Thorrak's board and a D1 mini, how do I hook-up lighted buttons to navigate the display menu (and hopefully have the buttons illuminate appropriately when heating/cooling)?

Buttons don't work with the menu, unfortunately. The menu is the one thing that was lost in the ESP8266 port (primarily because the ESP8266 didn't have enough GPIO pins)

I installed Fermentrack on a fresh SD card over the weekend and it worked perfectly.

I want to run RaspberryPints on the same Pi, so I tried to install that last night and it didn't work. Something went wrong with Apache2 - it either didn't get installed or it's being kept from running, so RaspberryPints can't run. I installed the legacy support before trying to install RPints, but it doesn't seem to matter.

Should I start with a fresh SD card, install RaspberryPints first, then install Fermentrack with legacy support?

Apache shouldn't get installed. The "PHP support" that Fermentrack suggests adds PHP support into nginx, but it requires some configuration. I think I have docs on this somewhere - let me see if I can find them...

 

[perolavsen]

Hi,

are there any settings in the brewpi-esp8266 code to enable compressor protection?
I could not find it in the settings, and is seems like a good idea to have a minimum on/minimum off time to keep the compressor from stopping/starting to often.

 

[Thorrak]

Hi,

are there any settings in the brewpi-esp8266 code to enable compressor protection?
I could not find it in the settings, and is seems like a good idea to have a minimum on/minimum off time to keep the compressor from stopping/starting to often.

It should be enabled by default. To test, just set a coolfridge constant on your controller and reset the power. It should immediately go to a “waiting to cool” state which is the compressor protection kicking in.

 

[alexlark]

I believe the default delay is 10 min.

 

[LBussy]

I can't seem to quote a post this morning, HBT is having issues.

Apache is not technically required for RPints, but all of the instructions I have seen for that implementation assume Apache. You'd have to uninstall Apache and install nginx in order to make them co-exist.

 

[Thorrak]

I installed Fermentrack on a fresh SD card over the weekend and it worked perfectly.

I want to run RaspberryPints on the same Pi, so I tried to install that last night and it didn't work. Something went wrong with Apache2 - it either didn't get installed or it's being kept from running, so RaspberryPints can't run. I installed the legacy support before trying to install RPints, but it doesn't seem to matter.

Should I start with a fresh SD card, install RaspberryPints first, then install Fermentrack with legacy support?

Here’s the docs: if this doesn’t work let me know and I can take a look.

http://docs.fermentrack.com/en/master/getting started/Apache and PHP Support.html

 

[LBussy]

You spammer!

 

[Thorrak]

You spammer!
View attachment 617250

If it makes you feel any better:

At least mine claims it’s because it’s not whitelisted as opposed to blacklisted!

 

[carrsgarage]

Here’s the docs: if this doesn’t work let me know and I can take a look.

http://docs.fermentrack.com/en/master/getting started/Apache and PHP Support.html

So, it looks like the newest iteration of RaspberryPints is using PHP7. Should I just go through the the same steps but replace PHP5 with PHP7?

I tried the autoinstallwe script and it returned errors and didn't complete the install. I tried doing it manually, but PHP5 can't be found/installed.

I started with a blank SD card and got RPints working, but now I can't install Fermentrack - one or the other, it seems. I don't know enough about programming to figure this out, buy it seems like it should work with a little tweaking.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, that's actually a fork of the original (and still unchanged) RaspberryPints, done by HBT member @RandR+...

Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

So, it looks like the newest iteration of RaspberryPints is using PHP7. Should I just go through the the same steps but replace PHP5 with PHP7?

I tried the autoinstallwe script and it returned errors and didn't complete the install. I tried doing it manually, but PHP5 can't be found/installed.

I started with a blank SD card and got RPints working, but now I can't install Fermentrack - one or the other, it seems. I don't know enough about programming to figure this out, buy it seems like it should work with a little tweaking.

I hadn't heard of that switch - that's interesting. Yes - I think that if you were to replace all the references to PHP5 with PHP7, then that branch should work. The nginx configuration that I have available should be version agnostic, though references to various modules and the like may need to be updated.

I'll try to take a look this weekend and get everything updated (or at least get a version updated)

fwiw, that's actually a fork of the original (and still unchanged) RaspberryPints, done by HBT member @RandR+...

Cheers!

Thaaaat would do it. Good to hear that someone is maintaining it though.

Jessie should still work with Fermentrack (I think?) though Stretch obviously wouldn't work with (stock) RPints.

 

[LBussy]

That “new” RPints installer needs some love. But, I think it works reasonably well on Jessie.

 

[kerth]

Hey, I just did everything as needed (I hope), but I have a huge problem with oled display - I am able to use addresses 0x78 and 0x7a. Now my oled is blank. I have no idea how to recompile and reinstall firmware for ESP8266. Can I ask You please to help me with that situation?

 

[Thorrak]

Hey, I just did everything as needed (I hope), but I have a huge problem with oled display - I am able to use addresses 0x78 and 0x7a. Now my oled is blank. I have no idea how to recompile and reinstall firmware for ESP8266. Can I ask You please to help me with that situation?

OLED or one of the LCD2004a displays? Are you using one of my PCBs? Can you post photos of your build?

 

[kerth]

If that helps to solve the situation, it's these one
https://allegro.pl/oferta/wyswietlacz-oled-0-96-i2c-niebieski-7842776680
I am not using pcb, it's short connected and soldered via short cables (ca 5cm) VDD connected to 3.3v (but also checked on 5v as panel can have 3-5v) gnd to gnd, D1 - I2C SCL, D2 - I2C SDA
I have double checked connections of course. The only issue i am able to find is addres (As i found in these topic - it should have 0x27)

 

[Thorrak]

If that helps to solve the situation, it's these one
https://allegro.pl/oferta/wyswietlacz-oled-0-96-i2c-niebieski-7842776680
I am not using pcb, it's short connected and soldered via short cables (ca 5cm) VDD connected to 3.3v (but also checked on 5v as panel can have 3-5v) gnd to gnd, D1 - I2C SCL, D2 - I2C SDA
I have double checked connections of course. The only issue i am able to find is addres (As i found in these topic - it should have 0x27)

Ahhhh - That LCD isn’t compatible with this firmware unfortunately. It requires a different driver. This firmware only works with the LCD2004 type screens.

 

[kerth]

Okay, clear. Thank You I will get one.

 

[carrsgarage]

I hadn't heard of that switch - that's interesting. Yes - I think that if you were to replace all the references to PHP5 with PHP7, then that branch should work. The nginx configuration that I have available should be version agnostic, though references to various modules and the like may need to be updated.

I'll try to take a look this weekend and get everything updated (or at least get a version updated)



Thaaaat would do it. Good to hear that someone is maintaining it though.

Jessie should still work with Fermentrack (I think?) though Stretch obviously wouldn't work with (stock) RPints.

Yeah, that's the issue I've been running into. I'm running Stretch and would like to keep it that way....

I changed all of the PHP5 to PHP7.0 and now ngix has taken over from Apache2. However, when I try to access RPints at http://<my-ip>:81/ I get an error 502 Bad Gateway.

Any thoughts?

 

[Carlosprite]

Gentlemen,

Majority of my parts have turned up from AliExpress and the board manufacturer

Just waiting on the probes, rj-11 socket and the relays.

I had a picture of the wiring diagram when using the boards, but I can’t find it anymore! Does anyone have one, or better yet an actual picture of how they wired it? The info is spread over this thread, github, readthefiles.io, hackaday and all I do is get a headache trying to find what I once saw! I had hoped I could find a step by step etc with all the info on one page

If anyone does have a pic, it would be mighty helpful!

Cheers!

 

[Thorrak]

Gentlemen,

Majority of my parts have turned up from AliExpress and the board manufacturer

Just waiting on the probes, rj-11 socket and the relays.

I had a picture of the wiring diagram when using the boards, but I can’t find it anymore! Does anyone have one, or better yet an actual picture of how they wired it? The info is spread over this thread, github, readthefiles.io, hackaday and all I do is get a headache trying to find what I once saw! I had hoped I could find a step by step etc with all the info on one page

If anyone does have a pic, it would be mighty helpful!

Cheers!

http://tinybat.ch/

I’ve also got an updated version in the woks I took all the photos for this Tuesday - should hopefully have it out this weekend.

 

[Thorrak]

As a side note, I’m trying to clean out some of my unused equipment - if anyone needs a populated PCB or printed case, let me know. I’ve got two taking up shelf space. Just shoot me a PM.

 

[garzlok]

As a side note, I’m trying to clean out some of my unused equipment - if anyone needs a populated PCB or printed case, let me know. I’ve got two taking up shelf space. Just shoot me a PM.

So conflicted! Take the easy way out, send a PM....or follow through with the Y in DIY? Uhg, I just need to get this soldering monkey off my back!