Stc-1000+

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Spellman said:
As far as I have seen what people say, if you have the 5 pin socket, you should be good to go. The others don't have a place to put the pins.

On another note, when setting the hour durations how exactly does that work? What I mean is the little number. Is that part of the hour or is it a fraction of the hour. For 24hrs does it need to be 240(little zero) or 24(little 4)? Might be another good tip for the manual!
Click to expand...

The little number is in hours, not fractions of an hour, i.e. 24 is 24 hrs, 240 is 240 hrs.
 
Well, I'm all flashed up and i've soldered some wires into the holes to make future flashes MUCH easier!! I was scared I was going to ruin my controller during the soldering, but I threw caution to the wind and did it anyways! Now I'm programming my standard ale profile to get ready for my Texas Brown Ale that I'm brewing Sunday! Thank you so much the great work on this project, and the great instructions! Very, very helpful and smooth assembly. Now to mount a port to my box so i don't have to open it up every time i want to flash... :) Ahh, the fun on this Controller never ends!
 
I've had mixed results programming a few of these. I had success soldering a set of header pins in one and using jumper wires, but soldering it was such a pain I decided to take a stab at just holding the pins against the board while flashing. Unfortunately I flinched during the flash and lost a connection and now have a paper weight I guess. I decided to give soldering a header in again and it went way smoother, but for some reason the arduino doesn't recognize it (it still works fine otherwise).
After that I decided there had to be a better way so I took a set of the dupont wire jumpers and one at a time held them against the holes in the board as I heated it from the back with the soldering iron. Once I had them all in, I flowed some more solder to them and cut off the excess. I was then able to plug into the arduino and flash with ease. This was by far the easiest method. My plan is to connect the wires to a 5 pin midi panel connector mounted to my controller housing and make a harness to connect the arduino to a male midi connector. Then I shouldn't have to disassemble my controller to reflash, just unplug from a/c and plug into the arduino. Just waiting on my connectors to come from China.
 
Here is the first increase in temperature - 10 degrees over 48 hours, and what the profile should look like.

FERMPROFILE.jpg


profile.jpg
 
RocketBrewer said:
I've had mixed results programming a few of these. I had success soldering a set of header pins in one and using jumper wires, but soldering it was such a pain I decided to take a stab at just holding the pins against the board while flashing. Unfortunately I flinched during the flash and lost a connection and now have a paper weight I guess.
Click to expand...

Even if programming failed due to connection being broken, you should not have bricked it. Try flashing it again.
 
atoughram said:
Here is the first increase in temperature - 10 degrees over 48 hours, and what the profile should look like.
Click to expand...

I'm having a difficult time understanding this. Is it showing that the actual temperature (top graph) is way off of what it should be (bottom graph), especially for the first couple days of fermentation?

Or am I completely lost?
 
alphaomega said:
Even if programming failed due to connection being broken, you should not have bricked it. Try flashing it again.
Click to expand...


I can second this one, I had several misfires while trying to flash via the "solderless" method and the controller stopped functioning completely after the first failed attempt. However, once I was able to maintain the connection and complete the reprogramming, it functioned normally, no problem. Don't give up on your "paperweight", it'll be just fine once you get through a full flash :)


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
alphaomega said:
Ok, so with a ramp over 8 days, setpoint will update every third hour (as there are 8*24=196 hours and with 64 substeps, 196/64=3 hours).
Now, if the ramp goes from 60 to 70F, then at you can calc the new setpoint bu calculating how far along in the step you are. For simplicitys sake say you are 64 hours in, 64/196 = 1/3. If you are one third in, then there is 1 - 1/3 = 2/3 left to go.
The setpoint will then be 60 * 2/3+ 70 * 1/3 = 63.3 F.
If before this calculation took place, you change the profile so the step ends in 75, then the calculation will be 60*2/3+75*1/3=65 F.
So, updating the profile during the step will work, but as in this case, it will result in a "jump" in the setpoint. This might be acceptable in this case, but you could get tricky and also lower the first setpoint to counter the the jump if needed.
Also note that you shouldnt change the setpoint, SP, directly when running a profile, as it will be overwritten within the hour. Setpoint is not a part of the calculation, it is only the result.
Hope this made some sense...
Click to expand...


Thanks, that made sense!

So as you mention that the set point will be overwritten within the hour if changed, does that still mean that the set point is still only updated on an hourly basis?
So if you're ramping over one day, will it only change the set point 24 times, or will it change it 64 times during that period?
 
Actually, when ramping is enabled, setpoint will be overwritten every hour, even if the value does not change. It will only update setpoint on the hour. So if the step is 24 hours, you will have 24 unique substeps.
 
Gotcha, that's what I thought but wanted to be sure.

I'm now wondering about atoughram's graphs and if there's a problem with the latest release though. If there is, I want to warn my buddy who's about to use it tonight for a fermentation.
 
krazydave said:
Gotcha, that's what I thought but wanted to be sure.



I'm now wondering about atoughram's graphs and if there's a problem with the latest release though. If there is, I want to warn my buddy who's about to use it tonight for a fermentation.
Click to expand...


I don't think atoughram's graphs were showing a problem, I think he was just showing the first ramp of a series of two that are scheduled. I could be misunderstanding, but that's how I read it.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Yeah, I cant really see any problem with the graphs either. To me it looks pretty damn good :)
 
Sorry guys - the graphs dont match!!

The bottom graph is the programmed profile - the top graph is the actual measurement, but the profile was started in the afternoon of the 14th - just to the right of the line that say's 14. Everything to the left of the 14th was prior testing.

The ramp looks great!
 
StittsvilleJames said:
I'm having a difficult time understanding this. Is it showing that the actual temperature (top graph) is way off of what it should be (bottom graph), especially for the first couple days of fermentation?

Or am I completely lost?
Click to expand...

See my prior post - everything to the left of the 14th was prior testing. Everything to the right of the 14th is the fermentation profile that is programmed. It's working awesome.
 
Quick question does it matter which GND I use next to the 5V on the ardiuno board? There seems to be two right next to each other.
 
One feature that would be kind of cool is a "free rise" sometimes when fermenting a beer I want to have the temperature at maybe 65 degrees and then let it free rise from fermentation to 70 degrees and then hold at 70 degrees. I am not sure if this is possible or not.
 
MrMista said:
One feature that would be kind of cool is a "free rise" sometimes when fermenting a beer I want to have the temperature at maybe 65 degrees and then let it free rise from fermentation to 70 degrees and then hold at 70 degrees. I am not sure if this is possible or not.
Click to expand...

I'd just set it to 70 and not plug in the heater in that case.
 
wilconrad said:
Isn't "free rise" the same as "without a heater"?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
Click to expand...

Yea true. I guess I just mean that it would be cool if it were able to detect that the temperature is not rising or maybe is falling and for it to trigger the heating to prevent it from going too low. Though when thinking about it more than profile seems very difficult to create.
 
I would say again that with a low wattage heater thisis not an issue. It takes 4.2 kJ to raise the temperature of one litre of water one degree. 1 kJ is 1kWs. So with 25w and 25L batch it ideally takes 4200 sek or a little more than one hour to raise temp one degree (celsius). The heater should just make sure the desired temp is reachable IMHO.
If actively fermenting, the process will generate most heat, not the heater.
 
Is there a reason why when I send the d command that the program doesn't even register it? It doesn't appear to even look for the stc1000 as I don't get the can't find check wiring?
 
I'm beginning to think this ardiuno board is the problem. As soon as I make connections and attempt to send the d command. The application throws up Java io exception errors. When I go and look the board is no longer recognized and not seen on the Com port. I've tried swapping to additional USB ports and different USB cables and it's the same behavior each time? Can anyone offer any additional insight into what could be the problem?
 
I wouldn't suspect hardware (arduino board) first. I'd check the install, maybe try another computer if you have that possibility.
 
Djxtc said:
I'm beginning to think this ardiuno board is the problem. As soon as I make connections and attempt to send the d command. The application throws up Java io exception errors. When I go and look the board is no longer recognized and not seen on the Com port. I've tried swapping to additional USB ports and different USB cables and it's the same behavior each time? Can anyone offer any additional insight into what could be the problem?
Click to expand...

I had this very issue early on and just "got used" to it. Sometimes my Win7/64 machine would simply stop seeing COM4 where the USB was talking with the Arduino. Unplug USB, replug, it would reappear. It usually happened when sitting idle but not for the amount of time necessary to sleep the system (10m). I never figured it out and simply worked around it, knowing that if I flashed or whatever to Arduino, then played with wires or whatever, I would need to unplug/replug the USB to reconnect on COM4 for the serial terminal to show what the Arduino sketch was putting out.
 
Selecting the uno seems right to me. Java i/o exception would indicate something is not working properly.
I did a bit of googling on this. It seems the error has appeared for others when they have had servomotors connected at the same time.
I would suggest you recheck the wiring. Measure to make sure you dont have any shorts. And if all is ok and the error still appears, maybe look into adding external power to the arduino.
 
The only time I lose the connectivity with the ardiuno board is when I make the connection to the stc1000. I will try another board if I can find one locally this process seems pretty straightforward doesn't appear im missing anything unless I'm selecting the wrong board within the ardiuno ide application. I'm currently selecting the ardiuno uno
 
Alpha I read a similar article where the guy was trying to power a servo motor through the ardiuno and he would lose connectivity. They suggested he use external power for the servo motor and it worked for him. I'm using the solder less method at this point the stc1000 powers up when I make the connections and that is pretty much when I lose the board within the ardiuno ide application
 
Ok, so you can upload the code to the arduino ok I presume (that is when the stc is not connected)? So, when you fire up the serial monitor you are greeted with the inital text, but when connecting the stc it throws the exception?
I'd still recommend double and triple verify all the connections. I mean make SURE all the connections are correct and no shorts. Then you could try supplying power to the arduino via the power connector.
 
That is correct I'm able to upload the sketch I run the serial port monitor if I hit d without it connected it tells me it cant find the stc1000. I put the pin header on the 5 pins that need to be connected the stc1000 front panels displays like 21 . something Celsius by this point the Com port has disappeared hitting d and send at this point doesn't work because the Com port is no longer detected the main program shows the Java io exception. I'll have to borrow a multimeter and see if there are any opens/shorts anywhere. Guess I could try some different dupont pins and maybe a different pin header
 
Yes, do that.
Serial works, as otherwise you would not be able to upload and connect via serial monitor. The fact that it drops the connection when you connect the stc smells like something is wrong with the wiring. Check the connections, be certain everything is connected correctly. Then check for shorts.
 
Djxtc said:
That is correct I'm able to upload the sketch I run the serial port monitor if I hit d without it connected it tells me it cant find the stc1000. I put the pin header on the 5 pins that need to be connected the stc1000 front panels displays like 21 . something Celsius by this point the Com port has disappeared hitting d and send at this point doesn't work because the Com port is no longer detected the main program shows the Java io exception. I'll have to borrow a multimeter and see if there are any opens/shorts anywhere. Guess I could try some different dupont pins and maybe a different pin header
Click to expand...

I had the same issue when I tried my solder less connection. I went for it and soldered in 5 wires. Connected them all to the Arduino and it worked flawlessly from there. I was relieved, for sure! How I soldered the wires in was by heating up the bottom, then pushing through a wire from the top. I added a tiny bit of solder to each hole to ensure connectivity and a firm hold (this was the nerve wracking part for me). Once I was done I had 5 wires all firmly seated in the holes. I connected them to the board and had 0 issues from there. Hope this helps a little!
 

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