Beaglebone Black Controller Project

cyberlord

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I've recently acquired a Beaglebone Black which is an Altoids Mint tin sized computer similar to the Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

My first project will be a brew chamber controller for a chest style freezer brew chamber.

It's an open source project and currently in design stage on http://mybbbprojects.blogspot.com/2014/07/introduction.html. You'll find links to the controller project on the intro page.

If you'd like to follow along you are most welcome to visit.

Thanks,

Tim
 
Awesome! I just got done doing a brew pi on the cheap and it is awesome for keeping temps right where you need. I will check yours out.
 
olywrestle said:
Awesome! I just got done doing a brew pi on the cheap and it is awesome for keeping temps right where you need. I will check yours out.
I'm just working on the 'brew pi on the cheap' (actually sitting here installing debian on a laptop now!). Hopefully the last of the parts turn up this week.
Good to hear a good comment on it from someone who's just done it.
 
what's the benefit of making a controller over buying one of the standard ones the brew shops carry?
 
Hogarthe said:
what's the benefit of making a controller over buying one of the standard ones the brew shops carry?
Price, and the fun/ satisfaction of making it myself. I currently run ST1000 controls on my fermentation chamber. Compare that to brewpi and see what you think! I am building a cut down brewpi system for less than the cost of a ST1000!.


http://www.brewpi.com
 
The microcontroller temp controllers like brewpi and the beaglebone project use ambient and beer temps and feed that data into a program with an algorithm to keep your beer within .5 degree of your set temp. The brewpi also allows you to create a ferment plan, I.e. start at 65 ramp to 70 over 4 days hold for 10 days then cold crash.

Also it is just fun to do and you learn about Linux, arduino, soldering, and more.
 
nzbrew said:
olywrestle said:
Awesome! I just got done doing a brew pi on the cheap and it is awesome for keeping temps right where you need. I will check yours out.
I'm just working on the 'brew pi on the cheap' (actually sitting here installing debian on a laptop now!). Hopefully the last of the parts turn up this week.
Good to hear a good comment on it from someone who's just done it.
I chose a laptop also since I use my Pi for other things. Benefit of a laptop is built in battery backup, so arduino never misses a beat!

I did Ubuntu as my OS. Took some figuring out, and I had to do the manual install since the install script failed.
 
It seems they have some benefits now that I've checked them out. I've heard of them, but didn't know they did other things than just control the fridge. The graphing and logging would be kind of neat, but not totally necessary, but that ferment plan feature sounds very useful, especially for some yeasts that need a warm up at the end to get to final gravity.
 
The beauty of home brewing, different people get immersed in different parts of the process.

I have brewing friends who live to cultivate yeast, and another who studies the pants off ph control and the chemistry of brewing. I choose to have a basic (but sufficient) knowledge on those, but love the process control side of it. Being able to run graphs and monitor temperature remotely may not be necessary, but pretty cool IMO.

This is my first foray into linux, and microprocessor controls so I'm finding it really interesting.

That's what great about this hobby of ours, even though we all come together to taste the finished product there are so many ways to arrive at it.
:D
 
olywrestle said:
NZBREW
The part of the install that hung me up forever was the arduino would not program. It was because I had not installed the arduino ide program. Once I finally figured that out it was smooth sailing. I posted some pics on our club forum.
http://o-townhopheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27
Looks good!
Thanks for the advice, just waiting for my arduino to arrive then I'll be attacking it.
 
cyberlord said:
I've recently acquired a Beaglebone Black which is an Altoids Mint tin sized computer similar to the Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

My first project will be a brew chamber controller for a chest style freezer brew chamber.

It's an open source project and currently in design stage on http://mybbbprojects.blogspot.com/2014/07/introduction.html. You'll find links to the controller project on the intro page.

If you'd like to follow along you are most welcome to visit.

Thanks,

Tim

I've been working feverishly in my spare time and have the project almost ready for a good public beta test to see if there are any bugs that I can't see.

I have the yeast profiles in where the desired temperatures are calculated from the yeast data, the next step is to code in the brew profile based on the style of beer.

I'm looking for any brewers who already have a BBB and freezer who would be willing to purchase a couple of PowerSwitch Tails II (or similar relay switches the BBB can control, 3.3V) to help out with beta testing.

You would also need to install the Adafruit BBBIO GPIO python library and a VNC server like TightVNC on the BBB and a VNC viewer and Putty SSH client on your laptop/computer. Instructions are here (at the bottom): http://mybbbprojects.blogspot.com/2014/07/introduction.html.

If you are interested sign up here: http://mybbbprojects.blogspot.com/2014/10/beta-testers-wanted.html

Looking forward to hearing from you.

bcc.py is open sourced and I'm not making any money from it. It is my contribution to pay it forward for all the information I have gleaned from the internet for free in the past.
 
looks great lets get some pictures so we can visualize whats involved, do you have any you tub videos?
 
Ozarks Mountian Brew said:
looks great lets get some pictures so we can visualize whats involved, do you have any you tub videos?

Great idea!

youtube video of an earlier version in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_0-PoQFZpM&list=UUnakiEujOCpSmh1jgl4whCQ. It just shows the software in action since I don't have a brew chamber setup yet. :roll:

I don't have a freezer myself yet, but plan to have one by Christmas as a present to myself. :p

I'll post another video showing my prototype board simulating the SSR switching with LEDs, but I need to record it first.

Stay tuned.

Tim
 

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