Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting)

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blacktip
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Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting)

Post by blacktip » Wed Jan 22, 2014 5:40 pm

So, when I was digging around the Everwood site, I came across this: https://www.everwoodavebrewshop.com/pro ... hermowell/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; This is perfect for what I wanted to do with the large mouth carboy that is on order, except I can use a standard carboy and start right now!

Technical interlude:
I've re-flashed my Beaglebone Black with Debain Wheezy, because I find Ubuntu/Angstrom irritating. I also added and EDIMax USB wireless adapter to the platform, which installed without a hitch. I had a static discharge on the USB port when removing the keyboard to plug in the wireless card, which hung the entire bus, but we'll call that user error. I mashed together a device tree compiler file to run a DS18B20+ one-wire temperature sensor, which was a bit more of a hassle, but eventually it compiled and ran.

With the sensor wired up to a breadboard, I decided to do the obvious, publish the probe results to twitter. The first automaton of Automata Brew Works is now online: https://twitter.com/automata_bw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Plan on wiring the relay for the heating belt tonight.
Automata Brew Works - https://twitter.com/automata_bw

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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by LiverDance » Wed Jan 22, 2014 7:17 pm

Anyone know what he just said :crazy: :lol:
"Twenty years ago — a time, by the way, that hops such as Simcoe and Citra were already being developed, but weren’t about to find immediate popularity — there wasn’t a brewer on earth who would have gone to the annual Hop Growers of American convention and said, “I’m going to have a beer that we make 4,000 barrels of, one time a year. It flies off the shelf at damn near $20 a six-pack, and you know what it smells like? It smells like your cat ate your weed and then pissed in the Christmas tree.” - Bell’s Brewery Director of Operations John Mallet on the scent of their popular Hopslam.

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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by LeafMan66_67 » Wed Jan 22, 2014 7:23 pm

LiverDance wrote:Anyone know what he just said :crazy: :lol:
Sounded impressive!
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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by bluenose » Wed Jan 22, 2014 7:51 pm

this needs a pie chart
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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by adams81 » Wed Jan 22, 2014 8:06 pm

Well done. Is this monitoring only or can you make remote temp changes?

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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by LeafMan66_67 » Wed Jan 22, 2014 8:14 pm

adams81 wrote:Well done. Is this monitoring only or can you make remote temp changes?

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
That was going to be my question - what do you do if you notice a problem while at work? Nice job!
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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by blacktip » Thu Jan 23, 2014 12:25 am

Well, I work from home, so it's easy to intervene. Now that you've brought it up though, it shouldn't be too hard to add some sort of remote interface for making changes on the fly. The other thing that I thought might be useful is to set a schedule of changing temperatures to maximize yeast performance.

I've also pulled together a quick and dirty notification service that makes use of popover.net. Right now it only does the temperature probe, but that could be modified to do daily summaries(power cycles, average temp), and send them right to my phone.
Automata Brew Works - https://twitter.com/automata_bw

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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by blacktip » Thu Jan 23, 2014 12:27 am

Screenshot of the phone app.
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Automata Brew Works - https://twitter.com/automata_bw

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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by blacktip » Mon Jan 27, 2014 5:52 pm

All wired up. Currently controlling a lamp.
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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by blacktip » Mon Jan 27, 2014 7:03 pm

Trial underway, 9.125 degrees.
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Automata Brew Works - https://twitter.com/automata_bw

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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by chalmers » Mon Jan 27, 2014 7:47 pm

Neat! Does it respond to tweets? If I ping it, will it send the current status?

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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by blacktip » Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:39 am

It currently does not listen for requests, mainly because my friends would flood the controller, just to be jerks. The controller uses a Python library called Tweepy to post; I'm sure with some modifications it could behave in a half-decent manner to respond to requests. Further testing last night caused it bomb. Hard. I've improved the code, and now it should post reliably at the 47th minute of each hour.

I went out for the evening, and tested it coming up to 12 degrees, and then it turned off. The basement isn't that cold, so it just sped up the temperature increase.
Automata Brew Works - https://twitter.com/automata_bw

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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by RubberToe » Tue Jan 28, 2014 12:00 pm

I'm finally getting around to checking this out. Great job!

This stuff is right up my alley. I have a server rack and all my gear only a few feet form my ferm chambers. I also have an old Beagleboard collecting dust and a usb triggered relay somewhere. I see a lot of value in graphing the fermentation temp via munin / RRD / whatever.

I've seen some USB temp probes online somewhere too, might be useful.
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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by blacktip » Tue Jan 28, 2014 1:07 pm

I'm planning on using d3.js and generate the graph on the fly from a SQLite DB. Munin can be a bit abusive to underpowered boxes when generating graphs. Munin-node is fine, but the daemon can be a bit of a beast.

Major caveats with the BB: the BB and the BBB are very different: pinouts, header locations, etc. Not all of the pins are active by default, some are reserved for "capes". So you have to dig around to find what is what. A USB sensor would be a whole lot less hassle, but means that you need to add a hub into the mix.
Automata Brew Works - https://twitter.com/automata_bw

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Re: Wireless temperature controller now running(and tweeting

Post by RubberToe » Tue Jan 28, 2014 1:18 pm

Yeah, got a couple of hubs, I'd have to stuck with USB for the gear I have.

Minun daemon on another machine, yes. Munin-node plugins are dead simple to write as well.
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