BierBot Bricks Forum

Hi there.

First of all: Thank you so much for what seems to be a very nice piece of software.

I have put together my first brick, a Raspberry Pi 4, and a 4 way (5v) 10Amp relay board, https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003786451417.html , and have tried some initial testing this weekend.

I have a kettle with two heating elements, and two 230 V pumps. The relay is connected to GPIO physical pins 31, 33, 35, 37, and since this is an optocoupler relay, the JD-VCC is supplied with 5v, while vcc is supplied with 3,3 v. The relays are connected as Normally Open to avoid current flowing while the Brick is powered off.

After installing the Brick software, I found this is probably what is called an "inverted" relay, as it would provide current to heaters and pumps as the RPi started up. Setting the relay as "inverted" solved this somewhat.

What happens now, is that as the RPi is booting, the relays starts to supply power for a period of approx. 10 seconds, before the relays are switched off again as the desktop appears. This is if the RPi successfully connects to the internet.
If no network connection is established during boot up, the relays just keep on supplying power to heaters and pumps. Neither of these scenarios are ideal, as with no water in the kettle, both the heating elements and the impeller in the pumps will be ruined.

Furthermore, I have tried to do a calibration of my device yesterday and today, with no luck. The test is supposed to take 90 minutes, but after 6 hours, the test is still at 40 degrees C. See attached image.

Do you have any ideas on how to solve this?

Hey Ivarole,

first of all: Thanks for the kind words and thanks-a-lot for trying out the software! Sorry for the suboptimal experience.

Unfortunately the link to the relay board is dead, so I'm lacking a full picture. But: If you have to set the BierBot Bricks software to inverted it means that a GPIO=0 turns your relay ON. To solve your "all relais on for 10 seconds" issue two suggestions:
1. Software: Set the the GPIOs HIGH / pullup during boot, more info is in the Raspberry Pi forum.
2. Hardware: Pullup all GPIO connections to your relay board. Meaning: get a high Ohm resistor (i.e. 1k) and connect the GPIO-RelayBoard through the pullup to 3V3.

Regarding your calibartion issue: You've encountered a bug.
The calibration aims to measure overshoots. Currently, for an overshoot measurement (step is called "Recording systems response..." in the UI) to be measured, the temperature has to drop by 0.5°C. Which I think was not the case in your plot (however, I do not have pixel perfect vision ). 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.

Cheers,
Bernhard.

Hey Ivarole,

just checked the server logs: you had an overshoot of only 0.31°C. I can lower the value from 0.5°C to 0.3°C globally but please allow the question: Is your system really only overshooting 0.31°C or is the screenshot you've posted based on a simulated / mocked device?

Cheers,
Bernhard.

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. 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.

ivarole wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:05 pm 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.

ivarole wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:05 pm 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.

Would it help you to be able to manually override the pump state (ON/OFF), i.e. by clicking on status indicator up top? Pausing the mashing and progress counters is IMHO misleading, as enzymes continue to work. This might decrease reproductivity.

ivarole wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:05 pm There seem to be no backup system in the event of connection failure.

Unfortunately correct. Feel free to submit a PR to do a simple hystersis based fallback control upon connection loss. Source code is open source. Happy to guide you!

ivarole wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:05 pm 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.

I'm currently working on a concept where you can drag and drop relays / SSRs onto a "generic dropzone" which will then be displayed in the automatic mode as a card. More often than not, people want to switch on and off there pumps manually. This would also partly cover the above mentioned issue. I'll share the mocks here once they are ready!

ivarole wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:05 pm Furtermore I have tried a number of times this weekend to calibrate the equipment once again

Sorry to hear that. We are currently experiencing issues with brews starting slower than expected. I'm trying to resolve it ASAP.

ivarole wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:05 pm 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.

Can you send me an E-Mail with your API-key and exact date and time (best case precise to the minute) - happy to take a look. Only explanation for the Screenshot: There was no request from your RPi (the heating batch reflects the last state)

ivarole wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:05 pm From my experience it can take up to 60 seconds [...]. Is it possible to have an «offline mode» that can govern the relays without the online lag / delay

Currently not my focus, but again: Happy to assist a PR. You can also consider booking PRO to get faster response times.

ivarole wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:05 pm I really do like the BierBot system, and I am not giving up.

♥ Thanks! Really appreciate your feedback!

Hi.
Thank you for your reply.

Would it help you to be able to manually override the pump state (ON/OFF), i.e. by clicking on status indicator up top? Pausing the mashing and progress counters is IMHO misleading, as enzymes continue to work. This might decrease reproductivity.

Yes. The point was to be able to pause / deactivate the pump while fixing stuck mash.

During automatic mode there is a button to skip forward to the next step. It would be really nice to also have a "previous" button, to go back to the previous step.
During my last brew I created 27 mashing steps, due to the need for stirring in the mash at the very start, and pause the pump to loosen the malt during the rest of the mashing. This is a RIMS system, which is circulating the wort from below the grain bed. I guess there are a limited number of brewers using this particular system. Here are the first few steps...