Hi there.
I am sorry for the lack of reply, but I have not registered your second post until a few days ago. Maybe I didn’t sign up for notifications.
I will look in to your proposals, and maybe do a «version 2» of the controller during easter holidays.
As you might have guessed, I am a «weekend warrior» or perhaps a seasonal brewer is a more correct term.
I have now completed a few brews using BierBot, and I do believe this is « a keeper» for my Raspberry Pi controller. However, there are plenty of room for improvement, to suit my system, which is a 2018 Speidel Braumeister 50 Plus. It is not a simulated /mocked device.
I guess at this stage it would make sense for You to implement as many features as possible for as many users as possible in one single version of the software.
Maybe in the future it would make sense to have a basic core for everyone, and «plugins» or «additions» to suit the specific setups, like «brew in bag» or «Herms» or «Rims» or any other kind of equipment setup.
I really do miss a «pause» button during mashing in the case of a stuck mash. This might be specific for RIMS systems like the Speidel Braumeiser. This could deactivate the pump, while maintaining the temperature when the operator fixes issues with stuck mash for instance. Currently I have to edit the receipe, create a pause with manual next step, then relocate the pause, and eventually create a new mashing step to cover for the rest of the aborted step, relocate this step, save the receipe, and then go to pause.
My system calls for 55 liters of water for mashing, and has a 3,3 kW 230 V heating element to support that.
I have now, yet a number of times, tried to calibrate my system, to make it reach the given temperature in a shorter amount of time. The last few degrees takes forever if you are present at the kettle and waiting for it to reach for instance mash in at 65 deg. C.
Feb. 26th I tried a calibration once again.. During the calibration the Raspberry Pi somehow lost its connection to internet, which resulted in an uncontrolled temperature increase. My pumps are only rated at max 85 deg. C, but during the calibration the temperature reached almost 97 degrees C, very close to boiling temperature , before I arrived and unplugged the whole rig. There seem to be no backup system in the event of connection failure.
I would like to be able to set an absolute max value (85 deg C) for the pump to deactivate, to prevent my pumps from being ruined. (This must also work offline). This is also of great value in the case of whirl pooling. When the temperature has lovered to 85 deg. C after boiling, I would like to use the pump for whirlpooling as a part of the «automatic» brew. I can not see that as a possibility today.
Furtermore I have tried a number of times this weekend to calibrate the equipment once again. Yesterday (saturday march 25th) I tried at lest 7 times to start calibration without luck.
The 8th time the calibration started approximately 35-45 minutes after I hit the button. It never managed to get past 40 degrees even after several hours.
The same is the case today. The calibration started at the first attempt, however; but it did not go beyond 40 degrees C after 3,5 hours. 3,3 kW does not make a sufficient difference in temperature of 55 liters in such a small amount of time. To measure my equipment the relay needs to stay on for a longer time to be able to spot the difference in temperature.
Nevertheless, I have managed to brew a few batches successfully, and I am happy with the result.
I did however experience a situation, that qualifies for some questions.
During washing the kettle I used manual mode to heat up water and detergent to 40 degrees C and were using the pumps to circulate the detergent.
When the kettle was clean, the pumps were turned off, and target temperature were set to 0 deg C. The kettle were rinsed using tap water, and emptied. Tap water is 6-8 degrees C.
While I was cleaning brushes, lids and other small parts I start to feel a weird smell. The heating elements of the Kettle has been turned on, and they are not quite red in color, but very, very hot as there are no liquid in the kettle.
The target temperature for manual mode is still 0 degrees C, but the heating elements are almost red.
Air temperature is around 12 deg. C and tap water is 6-8 deg. C.
How come the heating elements can turn themselves on, given that target temperature is 0 deg C? Fortunately I was only 5-8 meters away from the kettle, but this could have resulted in another outcome eventually.
Please see picture. The heating elements has been turned on at 12 deg. C shortly after the kettle has been emptied.
- Bierbot error heating.PNG (8.34 KiB) Viewed 2823 times
My next issue is that I would like to use the pump to pump the wort from the kettle into two fermenting vessels. From my experience it can take up to 60 seconds from I push the button until the pump starts / stops in manual mode. This makes the system totally useless for this purpose, as the vessels would overflow, the pump would run dry and the impellers would be ruined.
Is it possible to have an «offline mode» that can govern the relays without the online lag / delay
Sorry for the somewhat extensive post.
I really do like the BierBot system, and I am not giving up.
). I'll tackle that bug in the upcoming release later today/this week by either reducing the 0.5°C to 0.3°C or turning off heating while system response is recorded.