HOWTO - Make a BrewPi Fermentation Controller For Cheap

Yakima 728
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I'm about to screw this up tomorrow using an old laptop... wish me luck. I'll try to chronicle the process for troubleshooting.
 
narcolepticsniper said:
I'm about to screw this up tomorrow using an old laptop... wish me luck. I'll try to chronicle the process for troubleshooting.
Click to expand...

So I just clicked on to this thread and I had to sacroll down 185 pages to get to the end!
What is wrong with this board? Why is the first thread posted first! like back in 2014 ?
 
Probably some "Next Unseen" thing. If you mark the threads in this forum Read it's unlikely to ever happen again.

btw, you can jump to the very end of any thread by clicking on the last Page number shown at the bottom of the page...

Cheers!
 
[Original Question Redacted]

[New Question]

Has anyone setup the BrewPi to use an LCD (20x4)? I've seen the mega thread that utilized the LCD connected to the Arduino Uno however, for practical reasons, I'd prefer to run it off of the RaspberryPi. Connecting it seems easy enough based on the tutorials I've studied but I don't know how to get the info onto the screen (the same info that is shown on the LCDs that are connected to the Arduino Uno in the above-referenced example).

Any ideas? Thank you!
 
Last edited:
I think I understand why one would want to do this, but I expect it would require some significant user-generated code on the host (RPi) side as there's no native support for it...

Cheers!
 
day_trippr said:
I think I understand why one would want to do this, but I expect it would require some significant user-generated code on the host (RPi) side as there's no native support for it...

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Thank you, I suspected as much and, honestly, I just want to put this project to bed. I have LED indicators for the 2x Relay, on/off switch for the Arduino, and a suspend button for the RPi. I think that is enough customization for this project. I know it will be worth it but this has been one of the most frustrating - albeit informative and beneficial - project I've ever tried.

Thank you all for all your selfless assistance!
 
Well, I think I have finally done it. First and foremost, thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for a) FuzzeWuzze's DIY, and b) everybody's help. I literally could not have started or finished this otherwise. I went barebones except for the following additions:

1. Power is from the original fridge cord. I spliced everything into the + / - / Earth.
2. Added LED lights for:
a. Arduino ON
b. Compressor ON
c. Heater ON
d. Raspberry Pi ON​
3. Added Power switches for:
a. Arduino Uno
b. Raspberry Pi (Program for on/off currently broken)
​
Left to do:
1. Support for the shelving in the fermenter
2. Fix Shutdown program for Raspberry Pi (every time heater or compressor kicks on, RPi shutdowns haha)
​
Started with this:

vwrfridgealarm01.png

Finished with this (old license plate to cover hole in door):

MVIMG_20180905_114456.jpg MVIMG_20180905_104710.jpg

Screenshot:

Screen Shot 2018-09-05 at 11.46.43.png

Heat on:

MVIMG_20180905_113307.jpg

Cool on:

MVIMG_20180905_112240.jpg

Heating element:

MVIMG_20180905_105150.jpg

Inside the door:

MVIMG_20180905_094443.jpg

The hardworking bits, below:

IMG_20180905_104846.jpg
 
Lord_BeerMeStrength said:
[Original Question Redacted]

[New Question]

Has anyone setup the BrewPi to use an LCD (20x4)? I've seen the mega thread that utilized the LCD connected to the Arduino Uno however, for practical reasons, I'd prefer to run it off of the RaspberryPi. Connecting it seems easy enough based on the tutorials I've studied but I don't know how to get the info onto the screen (the same info that is shown on the LCDs that are connected to the Arduino Uno in the above-referenced example).

Any ideas? Thank you!
Click to expand...

I have added an LCD touch screen direct to the RPI and used Kiosk to Permanently display the temperature LCD that you have on the web interface. It’s a bit bigger that the 20x4 but it did plug and play pretty easily.

It’s worth looking at. If you want that.
 
So, is this likely to be stable enough to tuck away the Raspberry Pi away in an enclosure and do everything through a webserver? I'm sort of dreading the idea of occasionally dragging out a monitor and keyboard to reboot/relaunch software/etc.
 
Hypnolobster said:
So, is this likely to be stable enough to tuck away the Raspberry Pi away in an enclosure and do everything through a webserver? I'm sort of dreading the idea of occasionally dragging out a monitor and keyboard to reboot/relaunch software/etc.
Click to expand...
Yep, I run my pi with no monitor for much of the time. You can access everything remotely through your computer of choice on your network or even over the internet if you set your router up correctly. You can even do all of the setup via ssh.
 
I have a bunch of RPi systems from Zero-W up through 3+ models serving various functions including my RaspberryPints keezer tap list, and BrewPi management of the keezer and three chambers. I can manage them anywhere I can grab an internet connection. The only systems with local consoles are the keezer system and its backup clone that runs on my desk.

As for "tucked away" enclosures, the RPi that runs the tap list and multiple BrewPi instances has lived under my keezer for the last four years. So I'm pretty confident about it at this point :D

Between the temperature channels, flow meter channels, fan power, gas lines, etc, it's pretty darned busy back there...

brewery_controller_04.jpg



Brewery controller slid out, lid removed...

brewery_controller_01.jpg



Cheers!
 
Always great to see your pics day_trippr. Ive had an old pi running headless on a LAN cable to the wifi router that runs a couple of arduino wifi. I did have to use a screen for first setup till I learned how to se Putty to be able to log into the raspi from any other computer. Been ticking over for years now without an issue. Sorry I lie I had to replace a beer probe I drowned in some 1084 Irish ale yeast that escaped the airlock and flooded the thermowell
 
Thanks for the kind words, they're appreciated.
My Pi fleet depends on Putty and WinSCP. Invaluable duo for remote maintenance. That and port forwarding.
I'm down in northern NJ for a week but can see all of my wee machines and could tweak any of them if needed...

Cheers!
 
After years of running 2 BrewPi's, I am now getting a strange ip address (inet addr)
ifconfig or sudo ip addr show, comes back with 20.10.10.100 under wlan0, where it always was a string like 192.168.1.##
This strange address gets me no where, and just times out....
I do not know the programming of all this, or the abbreviations you all may know, so if someone may know what happened here in simple "Old Man" lingo, please do so!
thanks
 
I see that in windows when DHCP gets confuzzled -- try reboot for networking to get itself righted.
 
I rebooted everything....still getting 20.10.10.100
Running 2 Rpi's with BrewPi active on both fermenter's. Never had this problem before.
sudo rebooted Pi's, Router, Modem, to no good.
Also did a sudo shutdown now, and tried to fire back up to see if I could get an IP address so I could remote view my RPi's from my office Windows desktop.....nope go
Thanks balrog
fortunately the scripts keep on chugging along nice and the young beers along !
 
Anybody have the 0.2.11 hex for arduino? Need to calibrate my sensors and that doesn't work in 0.2.10.
 
MegaTrond said:
Anybody have the 0.2.11 hex for arduino? Need to calibrate my sensors and that doesn't work in 0.2.10.
Click to expand...
To my knowledge, 0.2.11 was only available for the Spark and not for Arduino. I think Elko stopped updating the Arduino branch once the Spark came out.

You can get the temp probe calibration feature by migrating to Fermentrack, though. @Thorrak built that functionality into the software.

I think there is also a way to do it outside of the hex, but I'm at work and don't have my notes available on that.
 
MegaTrond said:
Anybody have the 0.2.11 hex for arduino? Need to calibrate my sensors and that doesn't work in 0.2.10.
Click to expand...
0.2.10 is the last version that supports arduino as the pulled a lot of the arduino code out in 0.2.11 as part of the decision to only support spark moving forward.

I did "roll my own" hex file that merged in the two bug fixes that never made it to the arduino builds, but I customised the LCD text to suit my non standard setup, so probably won't suit yours (Fridge -> Glycol, Door open -> WARNING: Pump off!).

I can roll you one with standard text if it's just the bug fixes you are after?

Cheers,

Kal

screen_20181121-082833.png
 
Last edited:
CadiBrewer said:
To my knowledge, 0.2.11 was only available for the Spark and not for Arduino. I think Elko stopped updating the Arduino branch once the Spark came out.

You can get the temp probe calibration feature by migrating to Fermentrack, though. @Thorrak built that functionality into the software.

I think there is also a way to do it outside of the hex, but I'm at work and don't have my notes available on that.
Click to expand...

Thanks [emoji4]
I'll have a look at fermtrack. Is it just as good as brewpi?
Too bad they stopped supporting Arduino since it works fine and I don't want to spend a bunch of money on the new brewpi yet. Bought three new sensors from brewpi and one is off by about 1 °C so would be nice to calibrate it.
 
kaljade said:
0.2.10 is the last version that supports arduino as the pulled a lot of the arduino code out in 0.2.11 as part of the decision to only support spark moving forward.

I did "roll my own" hex file that merged in the two bug fixes that never made it to the arduino builds, but I customised the LCD text to suit my non standard setup, so probably won't suit yours (Fridge -> Glycol, Door open -> Pump off).

I can roll you one with standard text if it's just the bug fixes you are after?

Cheers,

Kal

View attachment 598675
Click to expand...

That would be awesome if you could do that [emoji3]
 
MegaTrond said:
Thanks [emoji4]
I'll have a look at fermtrack. Is it just as good as brewpi?
Too bad they stopped supporting Arduino since it works fine and I don't want to spend a bunch of money on the new brewpi yet. Bought three new sensors from brewpi and one is off by about 1 °C so would be nice to calibrate it.
Click to expand...
Fermentrack is an updated web interface that uses the Brewpi hardware and scripts to run. When you are between brews, give it a try.
 
Still not able to calibrate the sensors. Maybe I'm missing something. Im running

sudo screen /dev/ttyACM0 57600
h{v:1}
U{i:0,j:-1.0}

ctrl a, then k and y
sensors reading the same......
 
Those steps look correct. Does your log file show the calibration steps?
It's been so long since I did BrewPi probe calibration I can't remember if the log file shows anything happening with each input.

kaljade said:
As requested, here's a patched version of the 0.2.10 hex (containing the two bug fixes for 0.2.11 that never made it to the arduino build)
brewpi-uno-revC-patched.hex (MD5 Checksum: ac1bd3b7ea2beff2363cf06068e65e93)
Click to expand...

What were the two bugs that were fixed, please?

Also, does your firmware include the automatic LCD refresh code that someone here came up with years ago?

Cheers!
 
day_trippr said:
Those steps look correct. Does your log file show the calibration steps?
It's been so long since I did BrewPi probe calibration I can't remember if the log file shows anything happening with each input.



What were the two bugs that were fixed, please?

Also, does your firmware include the automatic LCD refresh code that someone here came up with years ago?

Cheers!
Click to expand...

As with most "bugs" it was a couple of typos:

Fix for bug in setting calibration offset

PHP: 
-  def->calibrationAdjust = fixed4_4(parsedVal)>>(TEMP_FIXED_POINT_BITS - CALIBRATION_OFFSET_PRECISION);
+  def->calibrationAdjust = fixed4_4(parsedVal>>(TEMP_FIXED_POINT_BITS - CALIBRATION_OFFSET_PRECISION));

Fixed ncorrect capitalization (BrewPi.h instead of Brewpi.h) in OneWire.h

PHP: 
-  #include "BrewPi.h"
+  #include "Brewpi.h"

I just manually corrected both of those in the 0.2.10 firmware, I didn't incorporate any other features but could if anyone wanted to supply them (I'm a bit time poor at the moment and not actually a Software Engineer just know enough to be dangerous).

Cheers,

Kal
 
day_trippr said:
Thanks! And wow, even with both pairs of lines right there it took awhile to see the actual errors.
Not surprised those snuck by :D

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's amazing the trouble a closing bracket and capital h can get up to if left to their own devices...
 
I want to build a sous vide for my wife who is a trained chef. I can't follow the original post because so many links and photos are missing. I will likely go about it by researching all I can find and design my own method. I will likely do it similar to the cooler based MLTs I have made, using a PID for control.

What I don't get is why is there a need for a arduino or Raspberry Pi?

I don't need internet control or to graph my temps. I just want to be able to control my water temps within a few degrees, would a PID controlled immersion water heater be able to do that?
 
I would hope a PID controlled immersion water heater would do something so simple.

The Raspberry Pi provides web access for display, configuration and high-level control, while the Arduino runs the code that actually controls cool and heat "actors". If you don't need web access for display, configuration or control, there's no real need for any computer. And if you're going to buy an off-the-shelf PID, there's no need for an Arduino...

Cheers!
 
Photopilot said:
I want to build a sous vide for my wife who is a trained chef. I can't follow the original post because so many links and photos are missing. I will likely go about it by researching all I can find and design my own method. I will likely do it similar to the cooler based MLTs I have made, using a PID for control.

What I don't get is why is there a need for a arduino or Raspberry Pi?

I don't need internet control or to graph my temps. I just want to be able to control my water temps within a few degrees, would a PID controlled immersion water heater be able to do that?
Click to expand...
I use my stc1000+ to control a crock pot. You can use an aquarium air pump to help move the water around. Not my setup https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/stc-1000.464348/https://cookingcircuits.com/home/2014/1/22/25-sous-vide-controller
PB080030.jpg
 
FuzzeWuzze said:
Still going i see, good! Been super busy with Baby 2.0 and havent had any time to brew lately, soon i hope!
Click to expand...
Hello there, Let me first start by offering a big "Thank you" for starting this thread. I've studied your post on creating a DIY brewpi. Working largley off your instructions I've had some success. I've been able to connect my "BrewPi" build and see my temperature probes and read temperatures correctly. I'm having some difficulty seeing and confirming that my relays are working. I've checked the connections and I think they are correct and solid. However, when I set the brewpi to constant beer and set a beer temperature above or below the probe temperature I don't hear the relay kick in nor do I see any LED light on the relay board. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance to anyone that can provide feedback.
 
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