Ispindel Battery Life

[RoomWithABrew]

It’s the Nautilus firmware available somewhere? I’m pretty sure I’ve got all the hardware. Just looking to make a one-off.

I'd look at this thread

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/ispindle-concentrators-repeaters-bridges-hubs.693125/

 

[Agentgonzo]

@gingerneil , is this LED supposed to be on all the time? It is for me, which may explain why the battery drains faster than others

 

[gingerneil]

Some builders remove the led, but I find it useful to see the device is, powered on. The current drain is proper tiny, and it'll have negligible impact on battery.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Whilst we're taking about ispindels, I've just checked my signal strength now it's out of the fermenter. Fairly close to the router and through a stud wall, it's at -62db. In the fermenter it was -80 to -90db, which is unsurprising as it's a stainless steel fermenter.

That got me thinking. How does it even transmit out of a Faraday cage?
Is it possible to directly attach the WiFi antenna of a repeater to the stainless steel fermenter, essentially turning the whole fermenter into a WiFi antenna? I know very little about the physics of radios (as may be apparent)

 

[Agentgonzo]

Some builders remove the led, but I find it useful to see the device is, powered on. The current drain is proper tiny, and it'll have negligible impact on battery.

Thanks. I'm going to leave it running for a few weeks out of the fermenter and next to the router to see what battery life is like without being inside a steel cage.

 

[gingerneil]

Whilst we're taking about ispindels, I've just checked my signal strength now it's out of the fermenter. Fairly close to the router and through a stud wall, it's at -62db. In the fermenter it was -80 to -90db, which is unsurprising as it's a stainless steel fermenter.

That got me thinking. How does it even transmit out of a Faraday cage?
Is it possible to directly attach the WiFi antenna of a repeater to the stainless steel fermenter, essentially turning the whole fermenter into a WiFi antenna? I know very little about the physics of radios (as may be apparent)

There will be small gaps between the lid etc to allow some of the signal to escape. The antenna needs to be designed for the correct wavelength, so unlikely attaching to the antenna will help.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Whilst we're taking about ispindels, I've just checked my signal strength now it's out of the fermenter. Fairly close to the router and through a stud wall, it's at -62db. In the fermenter it was -80 to -90db, which is unsurprising as it's a stainless steel fermenter.

That got me thinking. How does it even transmit out of a Faraday cage?
Is it possible to directly attach the WiFi antenna of a repeater to the stainless steel fermenter, essentially turning the whole fermenter into a WiFi antenna? I know very little about the physics of radios (as may be apparent)

No that won't work.
Build a repeater.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Just to close out my battery issues I had above. It looks like it was a faulty device. Thank you to @gingerneil for swapping it out for a new one. The new one's battery is depleting a lot slower than the old one

 

[gingerneil]

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I have one of my ispindels (open source distilling board self built ispindel software) in a wine reporting twice an hour since 6th November 2022. Battery is currently 3.74V.
This seems exceptional especially as the battery was from a previous device.

As an update the above ispindel still going, battery now down to 3.62V.

Remarkable.

Any indication for us as to the issue with the faulty ispindel @gingerneil please?
As I mentioned in another thread my short battery life due to a faulty gyro.

 

[gingerneil]

There's only so far you can go to check what's causing the issue. I swapped out the main control board, but that didnt solve it. I've never had a battery issue caused by the gyro, so that's interesting.. it becomes cheaper (time and effort wise anyway) to just replace the whole thing!

 

[RoomWithABrew]

@gingerneil
Have a look at this post and the few following.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/ispindle-diy-electronic-hydrometer.598187/post-9270293
If it is the gyro it was palpably hot as you'd expect with the temp readings.

 

[gingerneil]

@gingerneil
Have a look at this post and the few following.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/ispindle-diy-electronic-hydrometer.598187/post-9270293
If it is the gyro it was palpably hot as you'd expect with the temp readings.

Good shout.. Thanks for the pointer.