BruControl: Brewery control & automation software

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asparknz said:
How have you incorporated two rims elements? So they come off a tee and both fire up at once?

Also what is a TD5 pump?
Click to expand...
I have two 28" long 2200w cartridge heaters mounted in compression fittings in TC adapters. The TD5 pump is a 24v stainless headed 5gpm pump that comes with a pwm speed control board with a pwm input that can be controlled directly by brucontrol or by a knob on the board.

The wort comes in from the bottom where the tee is and out the tee at the sight glass end where the rtd is mounted.
Its not complete yet and there will be another electrical box mounted for the lower element too.

mine will both be controlled off the same ssr but are individually breakered after that.
 

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augiedoggy said:
I have two 28" long 2200w cartridge heaters mounted in compression fittings in TC adapters. The TD5 pump is a 24v stainless headed 5gpm pump that comes with a pwm speed control board with a pwm input that can be controlled directly by brucontrol or by a knob on the board.

The wort comes in from the bottom where the tee is and out the tee at the sight glass end where the rtd is mounted.
Its not complete yet and there will be another electrical box mounted for the lower element too.

mine will both be controlled off the same ssr but are individually breakered after that.
Click to expand...

Great thanks. I never even considered those pumps for anything larger than 10 or 15 gal. They must be powerful to work efficiently with 3Bbls or you wouldn’t be using them!

What sort of flow do you guys need to use a rims tube with say, a quadzilla installed? I’m concerned mostly with direct heating of strike water. Does it need to be a slow flow? I guess it wouldn’t be hard yo put two in series like you have. Any reason you did that over putting them in parallel together?

I’m considering a rethink of my classic 3 vessel setup for a 3Bbl brewlength
 
asparknz said:
...What sort of flow do you guys need to use a rims tube with say, a quadzilla installed? I’m concerned mostly with direct heating of strike water. Does it need to be a slow flow?
Click to expand...

Depends on the temp of the incoming water and the temp you want out. 5500W can heat 68 degree F to 170 degree F at ~1.4 quart/min.
 
asparknz said:
I


Great thanks. I never even considered those pumps for anything larger than 10 or 15 gal. They must be powerful to work efficiently with 3Bbls or you wouldn’t be using them!

What sort of flow do you guys need to use a rims tube with say, a quadzilla installed? I’m concerned mostly with direct heating of strike water. Does it need to be a slow flow? I guess it wouldn’t be hard yo put two in series like you have. Any reason you did that over putting them in parallel together?

I’m considering a rethink of my classic 3 vessel setup for a 3Bbl brewlength
Click to expand...
yes I beleive the max flow of these pumps is like 7gpm and the rims and sparge flow will be much less than that.
The inputs are all on the top of the tanks so pump size does not need to be that substantial even the larger stout systems use peristaltic or vfd pumps for speed control in this application.

I recirculate at about 1.8gpm no on my homebrew rig with much smaller 3gpm dc pumps and manage 90% efficiency on average so well see if these pumps will be strong enough for rims use on the 3bbl setup in the way I intend on using them. I bought the special TC ends from brewhardware which can be soldered on to make the head more sanitary.
I will be using a different type of sanitary pump for the post boil and cip applications.
 
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Anyone know a supplier for the 5500 ethernet shield. I purchased a 5100 and I can't get it to work. I remembered reading something in the past about a resistor issue with the 5100, but can't remember what.
 
Kmo4040 said:
Anyone know a supplier for the 5500 ethernet shield. I purchased a 5100 and I can't get it to work. I remembered reading something in the past about a resistor issue with the 5100, but can't remember what.
Click to expand...

Hi. Can you describe what’s not working? It should work ok. What interface? Are you running the ‘E’ variant of the firmware? Have you put the interface in debug mode to see what IP etc. it is reporting?
 
BrunDog said:
Hi. Can you describe what’s not working? It should work ok. What interface? Are you running the ‘E’ variant of the firmware? Have you put the interface in debug mode to see what IP etc. it is reporting?
Click to expand...
I've tried E and ER. I have checked my router and it doesn't appear in the table. So it has no ip address. I have tried both dhcp and giving it a ip address, same result. I have not put the device into debug mode. How would I go about that? I have ordered a second shield from a different vendor and I will try that this evening.
 
BrunDog said:
Also make sure the cable etc. works downstream. You can plug it into a laptop or other computer to make sure it works (verify Wi-Fi is turned off on it.)
Click to expand...
I already checked cabling issues ect. But I will check debugger when I get home. I will post update. The new 5100 also came in today. I will check it as well.
 
What interface? Sounds like you were you able to install the firmware and set up the network parameters without issue. Once it is on the network you should be able to ping it. The activity lights should respond to network traffic as well. I suggest all debug be done with no hardware attached to ensure you can isolate the problem. Make sure the shield was appropriately plugged in - all pins must be fully seated, especially the 2x3 header. If you are using a screw shield, you may need to remove it in order to isolate any connection issues.

Ultimately you can email us for more specific help if needed.
 
BrunDog said:
What interface? Sounds like you were you able to install the firmware and set up the network parameters without issue. Once it is on the network you should be able to ping it. The activity lights should respond to network traffic as well. I suggest all debug be done with no hardware attached to ensure you can isolate the problem. Make sure the shield was appropriately plugged in - all pins must be fully seated, especially the 2x3 header. If you are using a screw shield, you may need to remove it in order to isolate any connection issues.

Ultimately you can email us for more specific help if needed.
Click to expand...
Update: I've tried everything I can think of. I removed the screwshield, and tried a second W5100. The lights respond to network traffic. I'm not having any issues flashing the firmware or configuring the network settings. I truly believe it is an issue with the W5100 transmit pin. My network will not recognize it. I can not ping it. I will order the W5500 and let you know how it goes.
 
I forgot to switch from Serial Port to Network TCP (in Brucontrol) after installing the firmware, could this possibly be the problem?
PM'd you a few other things I tried with my W5100, I have Bruncontrol running on 2 of them with no issues.
 
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Is this on a MEGA? Just for a test, I just flashed a MEGA with the FW off the website ('BruControl.43.101.E'), and had no issue. Note here how I entered '%1&14;' to initiate some debug reporting, then entered network setup. I am able to ping it after. I am powering just via the USB port for this test.

Capture.PNG


Feel free to email info [at] brucontrol [dot] com for more direct help.
 
I'll give it another shot. But I think my boards have the 511 bug. This is a bug where they put the wrong resistors on next to the Ethernet port. If your resistors say 510 you are okay. If they say 511 it's the wrong resistance. They are 510 ohms intstead of 51 ohms. Mine are 511 boards.
 
If they say 511 it's the wrong resistance

Mine say 511 where the pic above shows 510 and the board works
 
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Hi All... For those who are building fermenter controllers, there is a consideration to keep in mind... When BruControl is connected to the interface, and the power drops on the interface (e.g. power flash, temporary brown out, etc.), BruControl will re-configure the interface and things will continue without issue. However, if BruControl is shut down, and the option to Exit without disabling devices is selected, device elements like PID, Duty, Hysteresis, etc. will continue on the interface on their own. However, should the power flash then, since BruControl will not be there to re-configure, the interface will power up without the configured devices running (microcontroller interfaces do not have non-volatile memory which can be written to freely... yet). Obviously, for fermenter controllers, this is not acceptable.

Some interfaces, like the Adafruit Feathers, which I recommend for fermenter controllers, have native LiPo charger ports attached. You can simply plug in a battery and have the interface run seemlessly through power flashes. However, for those that do not, there are several options:

1. Standard UPS which powers the whole fermenter panel. This can be easy to plug and play, but keep in mind that most UPS's will not have the oomph to run a compressor based refrigeration system. You could plug in the panel power to the backup receptacles and the compressor power to the pass-through/full time power as an option.
2. Use a battery based local power backup such as the Adafruit Powerboost series: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2465. These series of modules allow you to keep a LiPo or Li-Ion battery charged, then immediately switch to battery power if the power drops.
3. You could also use a standard battery pack which normally charges cell phones, etc. These often have a port for charging and a port for devices. Just plug the device power USB cable into the interface power (e.g. USB port). When the normal power (say, via the Vin pin) drops, the USB power will kick in. One caveat... most of these types of chargers do not immediately switch from charging to power, so make sure the one you are using does.

Hope that helps!
 
In the BrewPi space the actors (Arduinos) just keep doing what they were told to do, even through unplanned power cycles.
Having BruControl do periodic sanity checks and fix whatever is amiss would be a great feature...

Cheers!
 
I think that's because BrewPi's spark has non-volatile memory. Arduino EEPROM and/or flash has a limit to the number of write-cycles, so it's not ideal. We could provide the option in a script for a particular device to be stored so it automatically loads on power-up - that would ensure some write cycle limitations... will contemplate this.

However, this is not normally a problem, as we intend BC to be an automation server that runs full time rather then intermittently. Scripts and data logging are done there (v1.1 will graph data for 30 days if you want it), so its generally better to have it running full time, though I understand some don't have a computer that is always on.
 
I just set up an old laptop to act as my server, vice my current machine that I tote back and forth to work. I learned a little tip that I'd like to pass along:

You have to rein in Windows' compulsion to phone home every few nights to see if Bill has an update for it. I thought I was going to get a solid nights' data, but a restart-level update overnight shut BruControl down.
 
You can allow it to phone home, but don't allow it to restart. This is dependent on the version of Windows.

Here is the best I have found, https://tunecomp.net/disable-automatic-reboot-after-updates-installation-in-windows-10/, following the sections for either "Task Scheduler" or "Registry Editor" methods. I use the Task Scheduler method and it works like a champ.

Another consideration is how to automatically start BruControl upon booting, which I believe is discussed above.
 
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BrunDog said:
I think that's because BrewPi's spark has non-volatile memory. Arduino EEPROM and/or flash has a limit to the number of write-cycles, so it's not ideal. We could provide the option in a script for a particular device to be stored so it automatically loads on power-up - that would ensure some write cycle limitations... will contemplate this.

However, this is not normally a problem, as we intend BC to be an automation server that runs full time rather then intermittently. Scripts and data logging are done there (v1.1 will graph data for 30 days if you want it), so its generally better to have it running full time, though I understand some don't have a computer that is always on.
Click to expand...

Gave it some thought... if it is important enough, we could leverage the existing SD card on the Ethernet and Wi-Fi shields. It would mean one less port available to use but we could use a control code to allow a user to store the current configuration on the SD card, then automatically load it upon interface start-up. The SD card has more intelligent burn management and would not be part of the core interface memory, so the risk of causing permanent damage from too many write cycles is mitigated. SD cards are cheap and replaceable too. Will add to the list!
 
Hi @Kmo4040... Unfortunately that particular sensor (and its whole family), to the best of my knowledge, outputs a current which is proportional to the real-time current... which for DC applications is therefore DC and for AC applications is AC --> which does us no good because we cannot guarantee measuring voltage at a particular point in time. Now if you used an RC filter, and/or Op-Amp circuit, you could probably successfully convert the AC voltage to DC voltage for proper reading by the interface.

That said, if you are cool with a current transformer, you can use this bad-boy, and save yourself a few bucks! See: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...tomation-software.624198/page-11#post-8227186
 
BrunDog said:
Hi @Kmo4040... Unfortunately that particular sensor (and its whole family), to the best of my knowledge, outputs a current which is proportional to the real-time current... which for DC applications is therefore DC and for AC applications is AC --> which does us no good because we cannot guarantee measuring voltage at a particular point in time. Now if you used an RC filter, and/or Op-Amp circuit, you could probably successfully convert the AC voltage to DC voltage for proper reading by the interface.

That said, if you are cool with a current transformer, you can use this bad-boy, and save yourself a few bucks! See: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...tomation-software.624198/page-11#post-8227186
Click to expand...
The one you recommend seems only to go 50A. Do you know of any that goes to 60A?
 

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