Tilt Pi Losing Connection

[Northshore]

I got myself a Tilt hydrometer and set up a Tilt Pi using a Raspbery Pi Zero W (wireless) device a year or so ago. I have to say that although a little pricey, it has been a great addition to my brewing process. The only problem I am finding though is that I keep losing my connection between the devices. I do not use the Google Sheet logger and instead have the device connected to my brew sessions in BF. As you can see from the screen shot, the area in the red boxes are where I lost connections. Once reestablished, the graphs connected the dots between the last data point and most current. As near as I can tell, the Raspberry Pi is the issue because I also cannot get a reading from the device via a URL address that interfaces with the Tilt directly. I have to assume that the Pi is losing it's connection to my wireless signal and then needs to be restarted to get it back.

I know a lot of folks dabble with these little Rasberry Pi devices but I am not one of them and it was no small feat that I was able to actually follow the directions well enough to set this up and get it running in the first place. Any wizards out here that can troubleshoot this?

 

[Donoroto]

The Pi interface reports a Bluetooth signal level, what is yours reading? Mine is often around -92 dBm. This might help troubleshoot.

Second thing is to see if your router is losing the connection to the Pi. Your routers administrative menu has a list of connected devices somewhere. You may have to refresh it to see that the pi has dropped off. If that's the case reorient the pi or/and the router to see if you can bring that signal level up a bit.

 

[Minbari]

in addition to what @Donoroto said. how far away is the RPi from the fermentor and is it stainless?

I have never had any issues with connection issues, but my RPi is literally sitting on top of the fermentor. but as Don said, check to make sure it is not lossing the wifi signal. I have a wifi radio that is dedicated the brewery, so it is only 5 feet away

I ussualy see about -60 to -70 signal levels on the RPi tilt page

 

[Northshore]

Thanks for the replies. Looking at my Tilt page, the signal is averaging about -64 Danny but every few seconds it drops down to -47 and then jumps back up.

The Pi is about 4 feet away from my fermenter which is a plastic Spiedel so that should not be an issue. What might be more a problem is that my router is in the living room and my brewing is in a back hall so maybe the signal is dropping off?

The next time I lose my signal I will need to check the router and see if it shows the Pi dropping off. I suspect that it will. On a Raspberry Pi forum I have seen some code that will tell this device to try to reconnect if a wifi signal is lost. I haven’t tried this yet as it feels over my head. Maybe after this batch is completed I will give it a shot.

 

[Minbari]

Thanks for the replies. Looking at my Tilt page, the signal is averaging about -64 Danny but every few seconds it drops down to -47 and then jumps back up.

The Pi is about 4 feet away from my fermenter which is a plastic Spiedel so that should not be an issue. What might be more a problem is that my router is in the living room and my brewing is in a back hall so maybe the signal is dropping off?

The next time I lose my signal I will need to check the router and see if it shows the Pi dropping off. I suspect that it will. On a Raspberry Pi forum I have seen some code that will tell this device to try to reconnect if a wifi signal is lost. I haven’t tried this yet as it feels over my head. Maybe after this batch is completed I will give it a shot.

I would guess you are losing wifi. The w zero has a biult in wifi ant that is not great. For $13, it still does alot lol

Try mounting the Rpi higher up, near the ceiling and see if that helps. I can connect to my tilt on my phone upstairs through the floor using a stainless fermenter. So the tilt should be able go a ways farther if you need. -47 to -64 is more than enough signal.

Not sure you will be able to alter the tilt pi firmware. Is it custom built by the tilt people, not sure you can access it.

 

[Donoroto]

Precisely. Move the pi away from the fermenter and towards the wifi until the readings are in the -80 to -90 range. You need only -108 as a minimum so -90 gives you almost 20 dB fade margin, which is plenty.
Or, of course, move wifi closer to the pi.

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

If you can't move the router you could add a WiFi extender. I had to do that because my house has 1/4 inch (6 mm) cement board sandwiched to a 1/4 inch drywall board. Great for fire safety but terrible for WiFi signals.

 

[Northshore]

IN the interest of trying to pinpoint the issue, I made some setting changes in my router based some information I culled from a RP forum. One user was having similar issues with their device losing its wifi connection and it was solved by disabling WWM (Wireless Multimedia Extensions) for the wifi connection and its related power-saving tools. In my case, the RP is the only device connected to the 2.4Ghz channel so it is plausible that it is scaling back the bandwidth to the point that I lose a signal.

I will monitor this for any changes in behavior for a while. If I get a lost connection again, moving the RP closer to the router is next.

 

[Northshore]

Just thought that I would share an update. After changing some of the settings in my router the signal held for several days before dropping off. An improvement perhaps?

I have since moved the RP relay as suggested and that boosted the signal to -95 and all has been well since. Fingers crossed that this is the sweet spot!