HairyJamie
Member
I did think of this first but I would always know they were there, in the enclosure, out of sight ....
Hmmm
Hmmm
Gender BenderHeathen!
Phew, what a thread! Just read through the whole thing in one sitting!
@Thorrak - a few posts back you mentioned a simpler PCB layout, I'd like a controller PCB without any RJ connections, just dupont or screw terminals. I don't need to have a breakout for the sensors as my controller sits on top of the fridge.
Did this ever come through?
Pshfft! A sidegrade at best!
None of the models I know of are without that. The easiest thing would be to put the breakout in the same box with a short CAT5 cable. Or, there's the "drink beer till Eagle makes sense" approach.
I like your style!
Putting the breakout in the same box, why didn't I think of that?
I suppose I could dispense with the network cable and just solder short cable runs.
Of course I could just do that to the main board and throw a bit of stripboard in there but I have some pride ...
No, but I’ll happily pull one together now if you want one. It’s an easy change. Do you want TH or SMD ?
wow, that is above and beyond, thanks very much!
Through hole, my eyesight isnt good enough for surface mount!
You're all good. Order from wherever is most convenient to you.Thorrak - Actually - i just realised that this may seem incredibly ungrateful of me if you receive any commission from the US PCB manufacturers?
Happy to order from them so you get something back.
Does this meet your needs?I'd like a controller PCB without any RJ connections, just dupont or screw terminals. I don't need to have a breakout for the sensors as my controller sits on top of the fridge.
Does this meet your needs?
https://PCBs.io/share/4QvpO
You can leave off the circuitry for the LCD if you don't need it (10k resistors and mosfets)
Not that I am aware of. The firmware is pretty packed right now - I've said this before but I had to go through and remove a few characters from strings here and there to get the I2C to where it would not crash while running. I would be surprised if it would fit since some of the newer libs are not really optimized for size. That said if you want to open an issue on the GitHub, I'll try it when I get a little time.has anyone modified the legacy firmware to allow for the use of one of those mini OLED displays
If you are looking for ESP8266 support for the OLED, that's a different thing. When you say "Legacy", most people use that to refer to the Arduino Uno.when I say legacy I do mean the ESP WiFi firmware for Fermentrack use that Thorrak has in his repo.
I went out of town for the weekend and came home to find that both LCD's were showing no temps read for either controller. Both controllers show connected to my router and can be pinged on the network with the IP address shown and the same IP shows up when the controller is power-cycled. Both are set up with static IP addresses from the router.
Sorry about that, the physical LCD screens on both controllers. Interestingly, if I set one controller to "Beer Constant" the physical LCD screen updates to display the Mode and temperature setpoints but still no current temperature readings. That leads me to figure it's a hardware issue with the controller or the sensor breakout board but the fact that the issue arose with both controllers simultaneously makes me think it's a software issue. Additionally, the fermentation controller in particular has been up and running for a year or more without issue.When you say "Both LCD's" - Do you mean the actual LCD on the controller itself, or the "LCD panel" in the web interface? If the web interface, do the LCD screens on the controllers read temps?
Sorry about that, the physical LCD screens on both controllers. Interestingly, if I set one controller to "Beer Constant" the physical LCD screen updates to display the Mode and temperature setpoints but still no current temperature readings. That leads me to figure it's a hardware issue with the controller or the sensor breakout board but the fact that the issue arose with both controllers simultaneously makes me think it's a software issue. Additionally, the fermentation controller in particular has been up and running for a year or more without issue.
Have you recently changed any of the hardware driving/connected to each controller? (New D1, new temp sensors, new cable, etc.)
Did you swap the temperature breakout boards between the controllers?
Have you recently upgraded the controller's firmware?
In Fermentrack, when you go to the page to assign your controller's sensors, do all of the sensors show up? Are they all still properly assigned?
- Both controllers were flashed with the latest firmware last week (0.11?) but no software changes have been made since then.
- In checking the sensor assignment, the sensors all display, but none are assigned. Interestingly neither are the heating and cooling pins. I'll assign those and give it a try but any idea what would cause two physically separate controllers to all drop pin assignment simultaneously? What about the Controller Response Test failure?
Anyway, let me reassign pins and I'll keep you posted.
I power cycled the controller for the fermentation chamber and after about ten minutes without power the pin assignment is still holding. It's curious to me that something hardware-related like memory would fail on two discrete chips at the same time given that one has about ten thousand hours of use and the other is relatively new. Is there something on the RPi side that might trigger an EEPROM reset for all connected controllers?
If you've performed a power cycle and everything has loaded, you should be fine going forward. I'd keep an eye on it - but I don't anticipate any issues.
Sure, I’ll take a look.@Thorrak - I've been playing with Fermentrack and really want to get some PCBs ordered up - is there any chance you could upload a gerber zip file to PCBway.com?
I've had good results with fast turnaround from them to the UK - I think they have economies of scale where they always have space on a panel so it can be astonishingly cheap ($5 for 5+) and fast (2 to 3 days from order) to get boards manufactured.
Shipping is not really that much different from there to the UK than it is from the US
What do you think?
@Thorrak - I've been playing with Fermentrack and really want to get some PCBs ordered up - is there any chance you could upload a gerber zip file to PCBway.com?
I've had good results with fast turnaround from them to the UK - I think they have economies of scale where they always have space on a panel so it can be astonishingly cheap ($5 for 5+) and fast (2 to 3 days from order) to get boards manufactured.
Shipping is not really that much different from there to the UK than it is from the US
What do you think?
Which boards specifically were you interested in?
I wound up with the same issue as before, both ESP8266 controllers dropped their pin assignment simultaneously. For now I'm just using Inkbirds for fermentation and draft control and tracking my Tilt with Fermentrack. Would moving to an ESP32 help? Or if I can live without WiFi just fall back to an Arduino-based controller?Good enough, thank you for the quick responses!
I'm brewing this weekend but will be around to supervise so there shouldn't be any problems.
You need to convert the .brd files to Gerber. PCBWAY used to have a file converter on their websiteI spent several bleary minutes crafting that post in the middle of the night and the only vital bit of information didn't survive my edits. Must stop interneting in my sleep!
The 'D1 - LCD TH Dupont NoRJ' - I zipped the SCH and BRD files up for PCBway.com but they complained they couldn't read the BRD file and my Eagle 9.4 complained about the newer file format when I tried to investigate.
Thank you
That seems ... odd. I mean there are a lot of users here who don't have this issue. And you have two different controllers dropping both temp probes and they independently do it at the same time?I wound up with the same issue as before, both ESP8266 controllers dropped their pin assignment simultaneously.
Correct. And that's been the thing that's making me crazy about this. Two different ESP8266-based controllers both up and running with no problem for some random period of time then losing pin assignment. Interestingly the last time the draft system controller was connected via WiFi (I confirmed the IP address was correct, static and could be pinged on my network) and the fermentation controller was connected to the RPi via USB. Granted they both dropped during the day when I was at work so I can guarantee it was exactly the same time but both worked in the morning and didn't in the afternoon. The common failure on two distinct devices really makes me want to assume it's something pushed from the RPi but Thorrak indicates there's no function that would do that so I'm stumped.That seems ... odd. I mean there are a lot of users here who don't have this issue. And you have two different controllers dropping both temp probes and they independently do it at the same time?
Do you love near Chernobyl by any chance?
The controller defaults back to "Off" with no set point but I know you can't establish a setpoint without temperature values so it's a bit of a "chicken and egg" argument in my mind about whether the pin assignment fails first. Temperature mode remains in Fahrenheit. The ESP retains all of the other settings except pin assignment from what I can tell.Does the controller change modes and/or lose its setpoint? Revert to C from F mode? I vaguely remember something with Arduinos that caused the USB to transmit an "E" which erases all settings.
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