New BCS-462 / RPi Control Panel Build

[ryanryates]

I've not figured out a way to set up an automatic timer to say begin heating at X time. Typically I do all my water chemistry the night before and fill Mash and hlt. Then, set my alarm early and hit go on the bcs Web portal on my phone. By the time I've slept in, had coffee and breakfast the strike water is ready to go.

In terms of the location of the RPi, it's located on the upper din rail in the panel next to the ethernet switch. I'll repost a photo.

As far as volume goes, I regularly brew 16 gallon batches on the system. If it's super high gravity, I drop to 10-11. I did an Imperial Black IPA a couple weeks back with just over 40lbs of grain in the mash tun. No problem.

The Stout tanks have worked flawlessly. Very happy customer.

 

[ryanryates]

Here is the inside of the panel. The RPi is kind of hidden in the shot, but is right next to the white ethernet switch.

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[TrickyDick]

Cool!

I just revamped my brew system. Didn't have foresight that electric would be so appealing when I built my Brutus and decided to sell it to fund the new system which is an indoor HERMS based in three 20 gal kettles (not stout though I strongly considered them). I was almost tempted to use my old 15 gal kettles to do 10 gallon batches but moving indoors I didn't want to risk a boil over at any cost. This is why I asked about doing 1/2bbl in a 20gal kettle. I would occasionally get boil overs on my propane outdoors which wasn't a big deal really. Need to get comfortable with using my new system on ten gallon batches before I'd consider any larger.

My setup has ability to do remote auto fill with float switches. It takes a while to fill from the crappy filter on my RO tank, and the tank will only dispense about 13 gallons until it needs to regenerate slowly.. Hence the fill setup. I am realizing that I probably also need to fill the MLT or else my HERMS coil will be exposed as soon as I dough in using water from the HLT. That will require some manual intervention the day before in order to achieve the goal of walking into the brew area ready to go. It'll also permit more active control over the chemistry. Though, I am thinking about ditching the sparge to save some time.

Thanks for sharing! Love the DIY touchpad on the panel! Let's see a finished picture when it's all completed.

 

[JonW]

So, for Jon, and others, is there a way to setup a process to automatically begin heating the strike water on a countdown?

For instance, let's say I know my setup will heat the water 2° per minute, and I want to brew at 9am and it's going to take approx 50 minutes to raise to strike temp. Is there a way to begin a process before I go to bed at say 11 PM to being with a countdown for 9 hours than begin heating (at 8 AM) so it's basically ready by the time I am ready to brew? I have a lot to learn about programming the BCS.

Also is there a way to see a log of what the timstamps are? Such as, set boil kettle to bring to boil at full blast then when it's at 212°, go to next state for throttle the element to a duty cycle to maintain the boil. Can you look up how long it took from starting the bring to boil process to go to the next state?

Really nice build! Where are you mounting the Rpi in your panel? Great forethought on prewire for move to electric. You really think you'll be able to do 1/2bbl in 20 gallon kettles without boiling over without concentrated boil?

How do you like those stout kettles??

TD.

Pretty easy to do the countdown. Set state 0 of the process to do nothing except count down and then exit to state 1 when the timer = 0. In state 1, set your target temp and start heating.

Not really sure what you mean about seeing "timestamps". Each process/state is configured to do what you want and you can use the timers to exit states and trigger other processes to start/stop. There is no master list of "timestamps" for what you've programmed. The BCS does not use date/times, it merely counts up or down based on the timer intervals you specify.

I run some timers at the start of heating and cooling to see how long those steps take. If you want to see how long it took though, you need to specify a timer to track that.

 

[ryanryates]

Jon, that's so simple. Not sure why I never thought of adding a countdown state to the beginning of the process to delay start until time certain. Will add to next brew session. Thanks.

Tricky, can't believe I've never added any finished photos to this thread. Sorry. Will post a couple now.

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[BrunDog]

Cool!!

 

[JonW]

Nice job - looks great! Now you need to make a custom UI with BCS Desktop.

 

[ryanryates]

Yeah Jon, one of these days I'll get around to trying your standalone UI. You said you got it to work with the win10 on the RPi?

 

[JonW]

Yeah Jon, one of these days I'll get around to trying your standalone UI. You said you got it to work with the win10 on the RPi?

It doesn't need Win10 IoT. It will run straight on the Pi using Raspian with just the addition of the Mono package.

Download and discussion info here: http://forum.embeddedcc.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2755

 

[vince805]

How is the screen size working out for you? I just ordered my bcs today and trying to decide how I want to control it. I am interested in the new pi version with the screen you used. Only problem is the screen is out of stock on amazon right now.

 

[ryanryates]

How is the screen size working out for you? I just ordered my bcs today and trying to decide how I want to control it. I am interested in the new pi version with the screen you used. Only problem is the screen is out of stock on amazon right now.

The size works great for me. I definitely would not go smaller though. I have no issues with the size and resolution. Touch panel works well with my finger on the BCS web interface. When browsing the internet, I use a handheld keyboard / touchpad combo.

You could go bigger possibly, if you had room in your panel.

 

[vince805]

The size works great for me. I definitely would not go smaller though. I have no issues with the size and resolution. Touch panel works well with my finger on the BCS web interface. When browsing the internet, I use a handheld keyboard / touchpad combo.

You could go bigger possibly, if you had room in your panel.

Thanks for the response. I would like to go 14.1, it would cost more but the piecing everything together and hoping it works is what is holding me back. I don't want to have to wait extra long

I found this kit on ebay with everything (screen, controller board and touchscreen panel) that I might go with. It's 10.1" and $111 for the whole kit.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-1inch-12...DMI-AV-VGA-USB-Controller-board-/371231650137

 

[JonW]

I use an HP 21" touchscreen monitor that I picked up on buy.com years ago for cheap. You can use any point of sale or other touchscreen monitor as long as you can hook up the video and USB for the touchscreen. I used a HDMI to DVI cable to connect video and then just plugged in the USB for mouse/touch control. The style that Ryan links to here with his build is great for building into a control panel, but if you have flexibility of just mounting it to the wall or something else, then you can get a plug & play monitor.

 

[vince805]

What are the "Input" and "Alarm" buttons for on your control panel?

 

[ryanryates]

The input button allows the user to communicate with the BCS. For example I can program the BCS to require user input before moving from one state or process to another. The alarm is just a light/buzzer that goes off when the BCS needs to communicate to the user. For example, I can program it to alarm when the mash reaches a certain temp, or sparge time, or hop addition, etc.

 

[BrunDog]

I honestly do not understand the value of a button over the touchscreen interface. I push the next state buttons when starting and ending doughing in and when ready to transfer into the fermenter. Seems like this is a legacy option but the BCS interface obviates it. Anyway, my opinion... Certainly willing to be convinced otherwise.

 

[vince805]

The input button allows the user to communicate with the BCS. For example I can program the BCS to require user input before moving from one state or process to another. The alarm is just a light/buzzer that goes off when the BCS needs to communicate to the user. For example, I can program it to alarm when the mash reaches a certain temp, or sparge time, or hop addition, etc.

Thanks for the response.Do you find yourself using the input button with the touchscreen in place?

I like the idea of the alarm buzzer. How else can the BCS give audible alerts? Can you use a speaker connected to the pi?

I honestly do not understand the value of a button over the touchscreen interface. I push the next state buttons when starting and ending doughing in and when ready to transfer into the fermenter. Seems like this is a legacy option but the BCS interface obviates it. Anyway, my opinion... Certainly willing to be convinced otherwise.

This is what I was thinking also. I dont know if I will need the input button since I am planning on having the touchscreen.

 

[ryanryates]

The push button is nice to have, especially when you have dirty, or sticky hands. Having both options provides more flexibility fir me. You may have other needs and preferences so go with what makes you happy.

 

[BrunDog]

Dirty sticky hands?!? Oh the humanity! Hence the switch to electric valves I say!

Got it on the button. I imagine if it were there, I would use it to advance states.

 

[ryanryates]

Nice job - looks great! Now you need to make a custom UI with BCS Desktop.

OK Jon -

I finally got around to installing the BCS desktop on the raspberry pi. Everything seems to work great in testing. Tomorrow I plan to brew a batch of my house amber ale using the BCS desktop software. I do like the level of customization that can be incorporated into the UI - very nice work. At some point I'll plan to come up with some images and graphics to "make it pretty."

Again, great work - much thanks.

 

[JonW]

Nice to hear it. Post a screenshot of your layout when you get a chance.

 

[ryanryates]

Nice to hear it. Post a screenshot of your layout when you get a chance.

Jon -

Here you go:

 

[JonW]

Very cool! LOL - I have a temp sensor inside my control panel too.

 

[vince805]

It worked natively out of the box. As far as the pi goes, I use it with Ubuntu mate Linux. Calibration took a little work as one of the axises was switched. A quick Google search provided instructions on editing a configuration file and using touchscreen calibration program. Let me know if you have any issues and I'll try to help.

Thanks for the tip on the swapped axis, my touchscreen had that and I was able to get it fixed.

What did you use to calibrate the screen?

Also, did you have any issues getting the pi to recognize the lvds converter or did it just work once all setup?

 

[ryanryates]

Use xinput-calibrator in the command prompt. Had no issues with the Pi, plug and play. On occasion, the screen resolution is incorrect - not sure why. A restart fixes the problem.

 

[vince805]

Use xinput-calibrator in the command prompt. Had no issues with the Pi, plug and play. On occasion, the screen resolution is incorrect - not sure why. A restart fixes the problem.

Thanks! I'll try out the xinput-calibrator once I get my lvds/hdmi connection working properly.

 

[BrunDog]

Man... I just spent a good bit of time trying to get this to work. I bought an LCD from Amazon and a generic touchscreen off eBay from China a while ago, but hadn't got around to putting it all together yet.

First the LCD power supply crapped out after about 10 minutes. Fortunately I had another which worked OK. Then I had to figure out how to get the video to fill the screen. That took editing more configuration files than one would expect.

Then I got the touchscreen plugged in and it was totally out of whack. Had to put lots of google-fu to use and finally came up with a solution. The real trick was figuring out what the touchscreen module was. Also needed to swap the X and Y axes and invert the X axis. As any Unix guy (I am not one) knows, its lots and lots of terminal work. Anyway, several different ways to do it but ultimately I think I came up with a solid solution. I need to mount it all up now.

 

[ryanryates]

Excellent, let me know how it goes. I'm now having an issue with my y axis getting flipped every time I restart. Haven't had the time to debug.

 

[BrunDog]

I can't seem to get xinput-calibrator to work properly. Each time I run it and calibrate sequentially, it gets worse. I need to fake it. Do you know how the calibration numbers work?

 

[vince805]

Just wanted to say thanks for your help. I have made some progress on my control box and now have my 14" lcd and touchescreen panel mounted and working with the pi. Next up is some final tweaking on the pi and I still have to wire up all the control panel buttons, relays, everything.