YABC-Yet a Brew Controller: BrewManiacEx

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Hi RollE2K

I have a question (or two) about the design. I have spent some time building out the schematic, in an attempt to understand what you have done. There are a couple of questions I have. More of an understanding the hardware side of it all...

The buttons have cap for three lines connected to P0-P2 of the PCF. Why does the fourth button not have a cap?
The diodes between the GND side of the actuators and the input power. I don't understand the reason for these. I assume it is to protect against feedback of any sort, but they are connected to the GND terminal. Reverse polarity would still be an issue here, as the current would flow through the diode.

Probably not exactly the correct forum. Sorry about that :(

Thanks

Rhys
 
I'm in the process of assembling a v1.11 board and I have a question.

On the board, R10 is shown as a 470k resistor and R14 is a 1k resistor. Except on the BOM R10 is shown as 1k and R14 is 470k resistor. Does anyone know which it is?
 
HarvInSTL said:
I'm in the process of assembling a v1.11 board and I have a question.

On the board, R10 is shown as a 470k resistor and R14 is a 1k resistor. Except on the BOM R10 is shown as 1k and R14 is 470k resistor. Does anyone know which it is?
Click to expand...
He explains it earlier in this thread- sorry I don't have a link to the post. The new eagle files he corrects the silkscreen.
I have double checked the files in eagle, and correct - i have moved the resistor markings the wrong way.. so just go after the value printed on the board - R14 is lower and should be 470K, R10 is the upper one and should be 1K.
Click to expand...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...oller-brewmaniacex.596907/page-7#post-8652914
 
Last edited:
Thx Bigdaddy.

Hopefully one last question. For C2 & C3 it calls for a 220u capacitor. Is that the same as a 220uF? Also is that capacitor 10v or 25v?
 
Ender2336 said:
Hi RollE2K

I have a question (or two) about the design. I have spent some time building out the schematic, in an attempt to understand what you have done. There are a couple of questions I have. More of an understanding the hardware side of it all...

The buttons have cap for three lines connected to P0-P2 of the PCF. Why does the fourth button not have a cap?
The diodes between the GND side of the actuators and the input power. I don't understand the reason for these. I assume it is to protect against feedback of any sort, but they are connected to the GND terminal. Reverse polarity would still be an issue here, as the current would flow through the diode.

Probably not exactly the correct forum. Sorry about that :(

Thanks

Rhys
Click to expand...

Sorry, i don't look at these forums much nowadays.. but here comes late anser.

The Button cap for last line is actually missed.. the circuit should work fine without, but they do no harm being there. Could add last cap if i make an update. I actually had four caps at first, but when i made some changes i may accidentaly remove them.
The diodes is actually between B+ line and emitter of the npn transistor, so not really ground.. Its mostly for protection of the transistor..
Check here for more info - https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/bipolar_transistor_cookbook_part_1

HarvInSTL said:
Thx Bigdaddy.

Hopefully one last question. For C2 & C3 it calls for a 220u capacitor. Is that the same as a 220uF? Also is that capacitor 10v or 25v?
Click to expand...

220u is same as 220uF yes... but even bigger value does not harm. and a bit smaller probably doesn't matter either. As long as it fits its fine. Voltage rating of capacitor C2 should be 6v or more. C3 should be more than your input voltage (so if using 5v input it is fine with 6v. If you are using 12v input, then go for 16v rating).
Both are for stabilizing voltage before and after the regulator.

If you are running 5v input voltage to the circuit just jumper reg-byp and D4 with a wire and skip the 7805 regulator, you can also skip caps then most probably. But they do no harm, rather helps voltage filtering.
If using 12v input you should not jumper REG-BYP, then you will fry the ESP..
 
In the home stretch, just a couple questions maybe someone could help with.

1.) There seem to be 6 pins on the board for the buttons, but the buttons are only 5 pins. Which orientation should I be installing the 5 pins for the buttons?
2.) I understand I should be putting a 3pin header in that middle red box, but then what? Do I jumper 2 of them? If so which 2 and why?
3.) Do I need to test (and how) that the trim resistor in the upper right box is outputting the correct voltage? What should that voltage be?

YABC-1.jpg
 
HarvInSTL said:
In the home stretch, just a couple questions maybe someone could help with.

1.) There seem to be 6 pins on the board for the buttons, but the buttons are only 5 pins. Which orientation should I be installing the 5 pins for the buttons?
2.) I understand I should be putting a 3pin header in that middle red box, but then what? Do I jumper 2 of them? If so which 2 and why?
3.) Do I need to test (and how) that the trim resistor in the upper right box is outputting the correct voltage? What should that voltage be?
Click to expand...

1. Depends on which pins is wich on the buttons.. the pinout of the headers is printed on the PCB: GND - A1 - A2 - A3 - A4 - GND
So if pinout is 1 = button1, 2 = button2, 3 = button3, 4 = button4, 5 = ground.. then you should move int most to the right, ie: skip the most left pin.
I don't have the pinout for these boards so i don't know. But, it's easy to measure.. because if you push button 1 you should get short between gnd and button1 pin output. push button2 = short between gnd and button2 pin. and so on.

2. These you should just solder a jumper or a wire between two holes... if the buzzer is 12v then you should wire upper most hole and center.. if its 5v buzzer the center and lower most hole. It's actually just what voltage is feed to the buzzer.. 12v = input voltage, 5v = voltage after 5v regulator.
Also i take it you are using a ~12v psu since you are using the 5v regulator in place, right?
3. The trimmer is just for adjusting contrast on the LCD... start the board and just turn the pot until you have good contrast/view of display... if its set wrong - then you will have either all black screen or nothing is showing on screen at all. so you have to set it up correct.
 
RollE2k said:
1. Depends on which pins is wich on the buttons.. the pinout of the headers is printed on the PCB: GND - A1 - A2 - A3 - A4 - GND
So if pinout is 1 = button1, 2 = button2, 3 = button3, 4 = button4, 5 = ground.. then you should move int most to the right, ie: skip the most left pin.
I don't have the pinout for these boards so i don't know. But, it's easy to measure.. because if you push button 1 you should get short between gnd and button1 pin output. push button2 = short between gnd and button2 pin. and so on.

2. These you should just solder a jumper or a wire between two holes... if the buzzer is 12v then you should wire upper most hole and center.. if its 5v buzzer the center and lower most hole. It's actually just what voltage is feed to the buzzer.. 12v = input voltage, 5v = voltage after 5v regulator.
Also i take it you are using a ~12v psu since you are using the 5v regulator in place, right?
3. The trimmer is just for adjusting contrast on the LCD... start the board and just turn the pot until you have good contrast/view of display... if its set wrong - then you will have either all black screen or nothing is showing on screen at all. so you have to set it up correct.
Click to expand...
First of all, thanks!!

I just tested and the pinout on the buttons is as follows (Left-Right, 1-5)
Gnd-2-1-4-3

I did notice the PCB is printed as GD A3 A2 A1 A0 GD, safe to assume that A0 goes to Button 1, A1 goes to Button 2, A2 goes to Button 3 and A3 goes to Button 4?

The buzzer part #KC-1206 shows to be a 5v buzzer so I'll jumper JP1 & 5v.

Then what would this trimmer be used for then?
YABC-2.jpg
 
Last edited:
HarvInSTL said:
First of all, thanks!!

I just tested and the pinout on the buttons is as follows (Left-Right, 1-5)
Gnd-2-1-4-3

I did notice the PCB is printed as GD A3 A2 A1 A0 GD, safe to assume that A0 goes to Button 1, A1 goes to Button 2, A2 goes to Button 3 and A3 goes to Button 4?

The buzzer part #KC-1206 shows to be a 5v buzzer so I'll jumper JP1 & 5v.

Then what would this trimmer be used for then?
View attachment 679110
Click to expand...
The pot on the board is used if you connect the LCD directly to the 16 pin header- You are using the LCD I2C 4 pin header so you would use the pot on the display
 
Bigdaddyale said:
The pot on the board is used if you connect the LCD directly to the 16 pin header- You are using the LCD I2C 4 pin header so you would use the pot on the display
Click to expand...

Exactly.. You could even skip IC3, Q5 and TR1. all those are for "piggyback" LCD.. your lcd have the same function soldered on the small PCB at the back.
IF you remove the small board. Solder the pin-headers the other way around to the back of the PCB. Then you could mount the LCD over those pin headers, and you would see that the LCD mounting holes would align the holes in the brewmaniacex PCB.
In my own setup i mount the PCB to the case front, then mount the brewmaniac pcb behind.. so everything fits together.
It's made for simple mounting :)

edit: Should add that you should remove IC3 if you are using that external board - otherwise it maybe won't find the IC on your external board!
 
Hello!

I am looking for inspiration to plan the layout of the controller. I like the simplicity of having just a screen and a keypad, but maybe it would be useful to have a main switch, an emergency stop button and pilot LEDs for the element/pump. But then it wouldn't be that simple. What do you think? Are these things necessary or unnecessary?

I have another question. Is there any advantages/disadvantages of using a 12V power supply over a 5V one? I have to order either one, so which is the better choice?
 
Hello,
I wanted to thank RollE2k and pocketmon for their work and present my set-up :
Everything works, but I have to fine tune the PID.
I will maybe add a socket to heat sparge water when I brew and use the box with brewpiless by switching the wemos when I do not brew.
IMG_20200502_110357990.jpg
IMG_20200412_150544871.jpg
IMG_20200502_110357990.jpgIMG_20200412_150544871.jpg
 
Alex38 said:
Hello,
I wanted to thank RollE2k and pocketmon for their work and present my set-up :
Everything works, but I have to fine tune the PID.
I will maybe add a socket to heat sparge water when I brew and use the box with brewpiless by switching the wemos when I do not brew.
Click to expand...

Cool!
How is the wifi signal when you have it inside a steel box? (It looks like a steel box?)
I am planning to build a "control box", but I am going for something of some kind of plastic.
 
Alex38 said:
Hello,
I wanted to thank RollE2k and pocketmon for their work and present my set-up :
Everything works, but I have to fine tune the PID.
I will maybe add a socket to heat sparge water when I brew and use the box with brewpiless by switching the wemos when I do not brew.
Click to expand...

Nice one. Do you have a wiring diagram for this setup which you could share? I can see that you have built in a circuit breaker an a GFCI.
 
Ronny Rusten said:
Cool!
How is the wifi signal when you have it inside a steel box? (It looks like a steel box?)
I am planning to build a "control box", but I am going for something of some kind of plastic.
Click to expand...
The wifi signal is quite good, I didn't had to use external antenna for the wemos pro.

pazsit.jozsef said:
Nice one. Do you have a wiring diagram for this setup which you could share? I can see that you have built in a circuit breaker an a GFCI.
Click to expand...

The Cfgi is redundant in my home, but I had it in a box, so... For the emergency stop, It cut everything and use an Mx coil ( €4.68 |MCB avec disjoncteur Miniature Shunt Trip DZ47S 63 avec libération sans tension|Disjoncteurs| - AliExpress )
 
I seem to have "fried" my temperature sensors(?) I have some waterproof with 2 meter cable, and after my last test (I had them in my wort and sparge heaters while brewing two weeks ago), they have seemingly stopped working. I get a "CRC is not valid!" error in the monitor, which I believe means that no sensors are found. If I connect some new sensors, they are found...
How do you measure temperatures? Do you use thermowells, or something other, or do you just put the sensors directly in the water/wort?
 
HarvInSTL said:
Any ideas on how to connect a relay? The pump headers on the v1.11 board are + & GND. But the relay has 3. GND, In1, VCC
I'm assuming the + would go to the VCC and GND to GND. Just not sure where the In1 gets connected.

It has 2 relays but currently only planing to use 1 of them for the pump.

https://www.sainsmart.com/products/2-channel-5v-relay-module
Click to expand...

How can I delete a reply on this forum? My reply was incorrect, should be deleted... HELP! :)
 
Ok, doing some digging i believe that I've got it.

Looking at pins.h, NODEMCU_PIN_D5 is for the pump.

Tracing D5 on the schematic above shows that it ends at PMP/ACT2 GND.

I connected IN1 & GND on the relay to PMP/ACT2 GND and VCC on the relay to PMP/ACT2 +.
 
You have to connect :
GND on the relay <-> PMP/ACT2 GND,
IN1on the relay<-> PMP/ACT2
Vss on the relay <-> 5 v somewhere on the card (5v of lcd or buzzer for example)
1588974656563.png
1588974656563.png
 
Bigdaddyale said:
I have a few RollE2k v1.1 PCB available if anybody is interested. send me a message for details
Click to expand...
Hello Bigdaddyale! Have you ever sent any of these PCB internationally? I also would like to use some WeMos D1 R2 laying around here, can you share the schematics and/or PCB Eagle files? I´m from Brazil. Thanks!
 
Last edited:
hi

at the beginning I would like to thank you all guys as I finished soldering my board ....:rock:

now I am trying to upload the software and I have problem, I have no idea how and what I need to modify in the Brewmaniac software :oops: , when I press verify, I get - BrewManiac:4469:45: error: 'ButtonLabel' was not declared in this scope ( 'A4' was not declared in this scope )

is there any instruction on how to modify the software?
 
Kris7777 said:
hi

at the beginning I would like to thank you all guys as I finished soldering my board ....:rock:

now I am trying to upload the software and I have problem, I have no idea how and what I need to modify in the Brewmaniac software :oops: , when I press verify, I get - BrewManiac:4469:45: error: 'ButtonLabel' was not declared in this scope ( 'A4' was not declared in this scope )

is there any instruction on how to modify the software?
Click to expand...
problem solved
 
Is it documented somewhere how to configure the platformio.ini file prior to compiling and uploading? I used a binary file last time from memory. I am trying the latest update and platform io is confusing to me. I tried compiling without changing anything and it took about 30 minutes and uploaded files many times in seperate batches which doesn't seem right.

I tried flashing the same settings to a new esp8266 and now I can't configure the network settings as it is all blank.
 
Last edited:
pbezza said:
Is it documented somewhere how to configure the platformio.ini file prior to compiling and uploading? I used a binary file last time from memory. I am trying the latest update and platform io is confusing to me. I tried compiling without changing anything and it took about 30 minutes and uploaded files many times in seperate batches which doesn't seem right.

I tried flashing the same settings to a new esp8266 and now I can't configure the network settings as it is all blank.
Click to expand...
Hi.
I am no expert at all with VS Code or PIO, but I have been poking around a bit, and have found out a few things.
Depending on which version you want to run, you run Upload in the section in PIO.
I use the sparge heater version, so I run this:
1597692930297.png

PIO will then build and upload the image to the controller (I suppose you have connected the mcu to you computer with an USB cable).
You don't have to run the build first, unless you want to check that it actually builds. It should not take 30 minutes, it might take a few minutes the first time, I think it may download some files the first time (can't remember), but mine builds in 10-15 seconds, and the upload is about 30 seconds.
Settings for the env:spargeheater is found in platformio.ini in the spargeheater section
Here you can set various parameters, like if you have inverted pump logic and some other things (tip: Comment out lines you don't want with semi colon, never delete anything, and look in the other sections for other options...) (Oh, I see now that I should comment out the debug output option :), I don't need it any longer)
1597693104710.png

The upload process is shown as multiple uploads, like this:
1597692855737.png

I hope this will get you on your way.
 

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