[Version 2 Release] RaspberryPints - Digital Taplist Solution

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Yes got the fittings well I did not request any length did not know well I have to find a solution cause this is way to short and at 60 bucks each a total of four of them I'm a little disappointed :( not their fault.
 
chiefairwrench said:
Yes got the fittings well I did not request any length did not know well I have to find a solution cause this is way to short and at 60 bucks each a total of four of them I'm a little disappointed :( not their fault.
Click to expand...

My only advice is, depending on what kind of -erator you have, to mount them to the collar and have the wires all pass through to a project type box where you can then use something like old network cable (cat 5 or 6) as an extension cord for it.
 
I wouldn't have a problem lengthening leads, but if nothing else this should serve as a heads-up for anyone working out a group buy or a stocking scheme. Ask SwissFlow for the part number of the meter with a three pin in-line connector at the end of - what - 200cm of tri-lead?

Cheers!
 
I order four so I was looking at maybe a small board inside a box with the meters. I saw a gentleman put his meters in it look like a 4x4 electrical box.
 
I hope every one in the group has a wonderful Thanksgiving, sorry a USA thing. I am going to Conway Arkansas to celebrate Thanksgiving with family for the first time in 25 years and to look at some property for retirement, yes I am an old FART....
Anyway best wishes to everyone and tip a home brew with the family and friends! Blessings and best wishes to all during the holiday season!
Mike:mug:
 
Has anyone installed Raspberry Pints using XAMPP. I installed on my macbook air (and dowloaded Raspberry pints w/o flow meters) and am getting the following error messages:

Cannot write the configuration files. Please check the /includes/ folder permissions. See the RPints Installation page on www.raspberrypints.com.

Cannot write the configuration files. Please check the /admin/includes/ folder permissions. See the RPints Installation page on www.raspberrypints.com.

Please press the back button on your browser to fix these errors

Any ideas? I am not sure which files to check permissions
 
Pretty much everything under /var/www wants to be owned by the default user (on the RPi side that's typically 'pi') including all the subordinate folders and files. The R'Pints installation also has you set access rights to x777 (kinda wide open but there you are)...

Cheers!
 
Need some help with troubleshooting. I installed Rpints v2.01 w/flow last weekend and hooked up all the flow meters. After playing around with pins for a little while I was able to get the flowmeters to register pours on pins 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. I tested the flowmeters/pours by blowing air through meters so I could remain sober.

After every flow meter was registering pours I shut the system down, took the cables off, drilled some holes through the collar, installed the wires into freezer, and hooked everything back up the way it was when I tested it. After I fired the system back up I only get pours to register on pin 2, there were some phantom pours that showed up on two other pins after a day or two.

I double checked the sketch and it is showing the right number of pins as well as the correct pins. I kicked all the kegs, set keg to conditioning, then updated the taps with correct beer, keg, and pin info. I moved pin 2 (which is working) to pin 5 and it didn't register a pour. I re-compiled the sketch and rebooted, still the same. Pin 2 works great and the rest wont register, I am not sure where to go from here to troubleshoot any issues. Any thoughts?

Also, probably unrelated but I noticed that when I tap a new keg and choose a recipe it doesnt bring down the recipe data. I thought I saw there was an update that took of that. Thanks.

Tom
 
Obviously we're a looong way from being actually useful, but as you did the right thing and tested everything before the final installation, it seems to me you must have induced a wiring error somewhere in between. Yes, I see that moving your supposed pin 2 meter signal to pin 5 didn't have the pour data follow, but maybe that wasn't actually pin 2 or pin 5.

Stuff happens. I'll put it out there that in the 9-odd months of playing with RPis, AlaModes, Unos and relay boards, I've misplugged a hella lot of leads and miswired a dozen or so cable connectors. The latest was wiring up the clone of my BrewPints box, where I had all of the meter trileads wired wrong through a DB37 interface cable.

As for the kegs, my routine is to bond the recipe to the keg at filling and set it to "Conditioning" (which, indeed, it is).
When I tap the keg the recipe comes along for the ride automagically. I don't even know what happens if you try to tap a keg without a recipe "in it" first...

Cheers!
 
RaspberryPints is influencing my pours! :eek:

It has become The Great Keg Leveling Influence in my life.

I find that I'm pulling pints to keep the remaining keg volumes across our six faucet keezer within a pint or two of each other - something that definitely could not have been accomplished with any real accuracy prior to R'Pints arriving on the scene. Or, perhaps, even considered.

I asked the Spousal Unit if she'd caught herself doing the same and she confirmed - she said she feels bad if she pulls from the lowest keg (gotta love her for even looking :D)

'Course, this is actually counterproductive, because the recipes we used to run through the quickest and that I'd brew most frequently are comparatively languishing now - as we hit on the recipes I usually brew half as often.

It's all very confusing...

Cheers! ;)
 
So I've got a new gremlin in the system - everything was running fine, then I went away for a week vacation and came back and pours are only registering on one of my three taps. I have the flow meters each running via XLR plug in a little box inside the kegerator and via cat-5 to the alamode, so I swapped the one working meter between all the XLR ports and each showed a successful pour, but when plugging the other meters back in - nothing.

I can't imagine that BOTH meters decided to die at the same time, but I'm positive it has to be a hardware issue somewhere between the meter and the XLR plugs I installed.

Short of blasting some warm water through in the hopes that they're just gunked up - any suggestions on a fix for the meters? Has anyone successfully disassembled one?

-Kevin
 
Looking at an SF800 meter with magnifiers, the two piece shell appears to be cemented together in the plane where the wire enters. It sure doesn't look like there's a non-destructive disassembly possible.

Tried back-flushing them yet?

Cheers!
 
I've been keeping my meters clean by running BLC cleaner through them while cleaning out my beer lines. Any problem with cleaning the meters this way?
 
Other than the John Guest fittings the flow meters were not designed to be taken apart. I contacted Swissflow about a faulty lead and their support group stated that they cannot be taken apart to fix a broken lead.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Anyone using a cheaper food grade flow meter? $60 per meter is a bit much IMO.
 
Have you found a cheaper food grade flow meter?

If someone can find one I'm willing to do an extensive/extended test drive on my own dime...

Cheers!
 
The Ada fruit one should work. It's what they used on their keg project
 
Yes. Those were some of the issues when we originally looked at the swissflow.

The fact they are food grade and had a high rate of accuracy.

Plus kegbot was using them.
 
What quantity do you expect to be able to process over a
period of 2 years? Can you be flexible with regards to
the requirements of the sensor, such as cable-length?


Thoughts?
 
I went back a few pages and can't discern whether ^that^ was directed towards anyone in particular :confused:

Anyway, about that SF800 meter accuracy: it's awesome!

Today I kicked the first keg that spent its entire life in the keezer under Raspberry Pints v2.01's watch.
It was getting near empty so I've been focusing on kicking it over the last couple of days.
I had started it at 5 gallons in R'Pints, but I almost always target the finished batch size for 5.25 gallons just so I get the maximum out of a corny keg.

Yesterday evening's last pour brought the indicated volume 3 ounces past "Empty", and today the third pull coughed foam almost immediately.
That's literally within a couple of ounces of 5.25 gallons!
Effin' amazing to me (I work with 1s and 0s, not hydrodynamics ;))

While the retail price on these things is pretty damned dear (and let's face it, inexplicably so, aside from business requirements and the revenue needed therefore to maintain a going concern) I could totally see why one would not want to give up that accuracy...

Cheers!
 
I'm ready to buy the last piece I need before starting assembly. As I only have 3 taps, I have my heart set on a 13" screen in landscape mode. I think I found the perfect screen, but it's native resolution is listed as 1366x768. I see that the RPiconfig has a setting for hdmi_mode=39 1360x768. Is this close enough? Or am I going to have problems with this setup?

Any other 13"-15" screens out there that someone can recommend instead ($100 or lower range)?

http://www.amazon.com/Supersonic-SC-1311-13-Inch-60Hz-LED-Lit/dp/B005GM6H8G/ref=cm_cd_ql_qh_dp_t
 
Last edited by a moderator:
day_trippr said:
I went back a few pages and can't discern whether ^that^ was directed towards anyone in particular :confused:

Anyway, about that SF800 meter accuracy: it's awesome!

Today I kicked the first keg that spent its entire life in the keezer under Raspberry Pints v2.01's watch.
It was getting near empty so I've been focusing on kicking it over the last couple of days.
I had started it at 5 gallons in R'Pints, but I almost always target the finished batch size for 5.25 gallons just so I get the maximum out of a corny keg.

Yesterday evening's last pour brought the indicated volume 3 ounces past "Empty", and today the third pull coughed foam almost immediately.
That's literally within a couple of ounces of 5.25 gallons!
Effin' amazing to me (I work with 1s and 0s, not hydrodynamics ;))

While the retail price on these things is pretty damned dear (and let's face it, inexplicably so, aside from business requirements and the revenue needed therefore to maintain a going concern) I could totally see why one would not want to give up that accuracy...

Cheers!
Click to expand...

I had the same thing happen. I kicked a keg within a few ounces. Its a wonderful thing to know rather than have the miraculous keg that seems to pour forever.
 
My pours per ounce are accurate but my initial keg volume setting is still a bit off. I'm always over. For example, if I make a 5 gallon batch my pours are always close. If I pour a pint it always registers as 15 ounces. I chalk that last ounce up to foam so that's close enough for me. But when the keg kicks I always have some remainder. Say 30 or 40 oz. on the other hand, I've had kegs registered as "empty" when there is still some remaining. I guess I need to start using that equation you provided me with earlier and see if that makes a significant difference. My actual brewing process and volume isn't the most scientific so that probably had everything to do with it.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Noidios said:
I'm ready to buy the last piece I need before starting assembly. As I only have 3 taps, I have my heart set on a 13" screen in landscape mode. I think I found the perfect screen, but it's native resolution is listed as 1366x768. I see that the RPiconfig has a setting for hdmi_mode=39 1360x768. Is this close enough? Or am I going to have problems with this setup?

Any other 13"-15" screens out there that someone can recommend instead ($100 or lower range)?

http://www.amazon.com/Supersonic-SC-1311-13-Inch-60Hz-LED-Lit/dp/B005GM6H8G/ref=cm_cd_ql_qh_dp_t
Click to expand...
Not sure how RPi handles it, but knowing how most systems handle it, it will either stretch it or put the proper resolution. Given the width is spot on, and the height is only 6 pixel different, you wouldn't likely notice either way. I'm guessing anything less than 20-30 pixels you probably couldn't tell/wouldn't care.
 
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I saw a pic of a white bread board with four swiss flow meters attachated I could follow the pic very well except for the red wire I beleive it is the 5volt wire and if so do the wire jumper to each meter? This looks like the simplest install so far.
 
Note to self, and others: do not trouble shoot Rpints pours with only an 11% belgian strong kegged. Think I solved my problem, though only sobriety will tell. Drunk.
 
Harrowing? I 'Test" mine often and they appear to be working perfectly. Its just good to make sure. Quality Assurance and all that.
 
FYI...

My plan once the holidays are over and life is a little less hectic and I have a chance to work on the projects around the house *I* deem necesary are to sit down and look at the Rpints code again (I haven't really done that since we pushed out V2) and see where things can be cleaned up a bit and simplified and then start working on finalizing some of the things I've been working on like the untappd integration and RFID stuff as well as the stuff to get the centipede board working (and I'd like to find a way to work in temp monitoring).

I also need to sit down and work out some of the other items on the list and figure out where to go from here....
 
So forgive me, as I'm sure it's answered somewhere in this 80 page thread.. but what flow meters are people using? I am about to build my kegerator and I love the idea of RaspberryPints, but my initial impression was that I'd go broke doing meters for the 4-5 kegs I'll have.

Until I saw this for under $10: http://www.adafruit.com/product/828

Will that work? Is there a write up/tutorial on how to wire these up? I am handy enough to make things like this, but I'm not really in the mood to ask my electrical engineer father in law to come over and touch my stuff. ;)

edit: nevermind.. just found this: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-keg-bot/install-flow-meter ..

Am I correct in assume this will do exactly what I need it to do?
 
sboyajian said:
So forgive me, as I'm sure it's answered somewhere in this 80 page thread.. but what flow meters are people using? I am about to build my kegerator and I love the idea of RaspberryPints, but my initial impression was that I'd go broke doing meters for the 4-5 kegs I'll have.

Until I saw this for under $10: http://www.adafruit.com/product/828

Will that work? Is there a write up/tutorial on how to wire these up? I am handy enough to make things like this, but I'm not really in the mood to ask my electrical engineer father in law to come over and touch my stuff. ;)

edit: nevermind.. just found this: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-keg-bot/install-flow-meter ..

Am I correct in assume this will do exactly what I need it to do?
Click to expand...

The short answer is yes it will do it, but you'll have to make some changes to the code (what those are I cannot say).

The swissflow meters were used for several reasons, one, they're the most accurate ones available. Two, they're food grade. Three, there's already another system (kegbot) thats using them.

The meters on adafruit's site are an unknown.

We do not know if they are food grade (one could "almost" say that at the price they are selling them for its questionable), the pulse per liter on them is ~450 pulses per liter where the swiss flow is set to somewhere around 5600 pulses per liter (if my memory is correct, I did the math 6 months ago). Also the accuracy of the swissflow is a lot greater than the adafruit.

We do not support the adafruit meter (we'll help out, but we're far more knowledgeable about the swissflow ones).

This topic has come up with in the last several posts as well and I *think* someone was going to try it....
 

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