building an (semi) automated brewcontroller

[Wez]

Hmm, my neighbour has a motorised garage door :whistle:

 

[Zwickel]

hmmm... I guess, mine was operating a bigger one, not such a little one that drives a single door at a private garage.

oh sorry, I don´t know what area you live, may be your neighbour has a 20m wide driveway with a huge steel gate

just kidding.....

anyway, such a stirrer makes life much easier......and boosts the efficiency of your brew.....and later it cleans the pots by itself.... :

 

[Wez]

Some of them are quite big, would the ones from this do?

 

[jamesb]

Hmm, my neighbour has a motorised garage door :whistle:

I think you mean "did".

 

[Zwickel]

you may call me a smart ass, but that tiny little door my motor would take as a stir paddle

 

[Wez]

:lol: :lol: :thumb:

 

[Vossy1]

:rofl:

 

[EskiBrew]

Great idea using the chop sticks :clap:
Did you find them on eBay?

 

[Zwickel]

Great idea using the chop sticks :clap:
Did you find them on eBay?

nope, I found them somewhere in a shopping mall, dunno exactly where it was, guess it was a Woolworth somewhere in Australia.

You know, when a real homebrewer strolls through shopping malls or other sites, he´s always considering wheter things he´s looking at are useful for the brewery or not.
That way I found already many useful things.

 

[corby_brewer]

You know, when a real homebrewer strolls through shopping malls or other sites, he´s always considering wheter things he´s looking at are useful for the brewery or not.
That way I found already many useful things.

I agree with that, i used to walk around ASDA and think of food, now when i walk round i think THAT WOULD MAKE A INTERESTING WINE or THAT WOULD COME IN HANDY FOR SOMETHING. Mrs Siv hates me for it.

 

[EskiBrew]

nope, I found them somewhere in a shopping mall, dunno exactly where it was, guess it was a Woolworth somewhere in Australia.

Thanks - fortunately they also appear to be on eBay:
here and here :thumb:

 

[Zwickel]

the chopsticks have been a provisional arrangement at first, I didn´t had another choice, although they worked fine; later on I found some SS tubes they were more customizable, but I´m still using these chopstick temp probes for some reasons.

Meanwhile I have a large collection of selfmade temp probes; where ever I need to know the temp of something, for example in- and outlet of the plate heat exchanger and the fermenters, I have mounted on a temp probe.

okay, I´m going to introduce the software tonight. :

 

[Vossy1]

Meanwhile I have a large collection of selfmade temp probes; where ever I need to know the temp of something, for example in- and outlet of the plate heat exchanger and the fermenters, I have mounted on a temp probe.

You're as bad as me

 

[Zwickel]

just another pic of the temp probes:

on left is the wort outlet and right the water in.

Now I´d like to show you how the software is working. You should know, the software gives you most advantages if you do step mashing. For single infusion it would be working as a PID only.

First you have to determine how many steps you´d need. That for you have to open a parameter window, for example:

here you may create a recipe, name the beer, set the necessary parameters and save it.
That way you can have a database for recipes.

The main window shows you how to operate the brewery:

very left you can see the loaded parameter and some utilities.

then you have a block with 7 buttons. The green ones are controlled by the software, you cannot operate manually as long as the brewing process is active.
The orange ones are buttons you can (have to) operate manually.

Each button switches on and off a relais on the relais card that is connected to the parallel port.

you may start the brewing process with any step you´d like. That means it is not necessarily the first step to begin with, you may also start straight by step 4 or 5 or whatever. Any time settings that you have set in the parameter section (recipe) you may shorten or extend without interrupting the brewing process.

here you can get the software, just play around with it and try it out.

unzip the soft into a directory of its own, not in a subdirectory, for example: C:\Brewingsoft, not like that C:\XXXX\Brewingsoft

will be continued soon
have fun :

 

[Zwickel]

follow up......just to complete this thread.

the software is switching 8 relais on a relais card. The relais are wired up like in the drawing:

That´s all about my automated system.

If someone likes to adopt some parts of it or the whole system, I´d offer any help that´s needed so far.

Cheers mates :

 

[commsbiff]

excellent thread Zwickel - thanks for showing us all how it can be done :thumb:

 

[Wez]

Very good Zwickel :clap: I'm pleased that you've shared it with us :thumb:

 

[ano]

Huge thanks for the resource :thumb: