Corny Scales

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Ordered some cheap load cells from Amazon, to make a simple WiFi-connected weighing pad to keep track of how full my Corny's are (or aren't...)

Anyone played with these before?

 

[Alastair70]

No. Had a look a doing similar a few months ago and realised I didn’t know anywhere near enough to pull it off. Ill keep an eye on this build as it progresses.
Good luck

 

[crowcrow]

Love it! Keep me informed. I got a luggage scales to weigh mine in situ - but I don't really use it, I just guess and get it wrong

 

[IainM]

I've thought about this before but never really looked into it. I look forward to hearing how you get on.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I’ll keep you posted - got a couple of other projects to finish first (story of my life, but I love it)

 

[Joust]

I started down that road. But swapped to a flow meter on my tube that connects to a Pi

 

[Graz]

Interesting, at the moment I just keep a tally of what I've drunk on the front of the fridge with a whiteboard marker but as an embedded software engineer with a hardware background I keep thinking I should be putting my skills to things other than work Would be cool to have some sort of real-time indication via a display on the fridge and would get round the "oh that keg's run out early" moment as I've failed to chalk up a few when I've had a few.

 

[AnimatedGIF]

I've thought about this before but never really looked into it. I look forward to hearing how you get on.

Likewise. I'll keep watching with interest. I'm certainly not going to spend £100 on a plato keg, and I like to learn thorugh this sort of project.
Looking forward to seeing how it goes

 

[marshbrewer]

What are you thinking you will interface these with in order to get wifi connectivity, etc ~ raspberryPI?

 

[fgoulding]

I just use a cheap postage weighing scales from France Electronic scale 25kg to 2gr ultraship - 55 black weighs food parcel letter | eBay

I know the weight of the empty keg, then I measure it when it's full and deduct the current weight to see how empty it is. But I've got a bit lazy and hardly every bother these days.

But the amatuer-engineer in me would love a geeky WiFi solution

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

What are you thinking you will interface these with in order to get wifi connectivity, etc ~ raspberryPI?

I'll be using an ESP32, same as for my heating controllers.
It's a nice cheap platform, good library support and very well suited to IoT stuff :-)

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

But the amatuer-engineer in me would love a geeky WiFi solution

You hit the nail on the head there my friend ;-)

 

[foxbat]

I suspect these cheap load cells will creep under constant load. You'll think someone's drinking your beer (or putting it back in) while you're out!

 

[gavp1979]

I have thought about it in the past but sounds like a lot of us have had the same idea but then done nothing about it . Will be interested to hear how it goes

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I suspect these cheap load cells will creep under constant load. You'll think someone's drinking your beer (or putting it back in) while you're out!

Very interesting thought there @foxbat - if that’s the case then I might try force sensing resistors instead :-)

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Interesting paper on getting more accurate/repeatable measurements from cheap FSRs: A Novel and Inexpensive Approach for Force Sensing Based on FSR Piezocapacitance Aimed at Hysteresis Error Reduction

 

[user 18729]

Would a thermal imaging camera work do you think?

 

[foxbat]

"Keg ball" has to be the simplest low tech solution.

 

[Joust]

Interesting, at the moment I just keep a tally of what I've drunk on the front of the fridge with a whiteboard marker but as an embedded software engineer with a hardware background I keep thinking I should be putting my skills to things other than work Would be cool to have some sort of real-time indication via a display on the fridge and would get round the "oh that keg's run out early" moment as I've failed to chalk up a few when I've had a few.

Pi connected to flow meter, temperature probes, bar lighting, relay for the fridge and two small screens that show each kegs details.

Python running the fridge based on temperature probes and recording data to the database.

Web server with PHP pages pulling from a database of the sensors data.

I'm thinking about setting up a web cam that snaps a photo every time I pull a pint

 

[ChilledGecko]

I've coded up for something similar. They were a bit more 'industrial' and I ditched them as they were not reliable and changed with temperature fluctuations.
I guess in a steady temperature environment such as a keezer they would fit the bill though