iSpindel - digital WiFi hydrometer

[tommos76]

ive just started to build one of these today, ive powered it up from the battery found the ssid but getting connection refused when logging in using a mac and an android phone any suggestions?

 

[pottsworth]

Does it come up as ispindel or something else?

Min didn't work until I reflashed the board.

 

[tommos76]

It's come up as esp-xxxxxx
I've only got a Mac and struggling to find a way to flash using it.

 

[pottsworth]

I had the same thing - the wemos doesn't come pre flashed with the ispindel firmware, you have to do it yourself, and it is a pain in the ass to do on a mac (I haven't tried doing it from PC, but most of the articles make it sound much easier, so if you can get access to a PC, or run windows on your Mac that may be easier) .

I tried and gave up with arduino (I've since got that to work with an arduino uno board, so not sure why it wasn't working with the wemos).

I googled wemos drivers mac, and installed whatever came up.

Then I worked through this article which pretty much got me there.
https://diyprojects.io/esptool-update-of-firmware-nodemcu-esp8266-on-macos/#.XCEk79Gnyf1

I have no programming experience, but can just about navigate around terminal with a bit of googling to remind myself.

The only thing that didn't work straight away from that article was that the first time I tried to run the esptool command to flash the Wemos I got an error saying "Pyserial is not installed for /usr/bin/python"
I found the installer on the pyserial website, unpacked it, then ran "sudo python setup.py install" from terminal which installed PySerial, and then the esptool command worked to flash the Wemos.

It all probably sounds a bit ominous if you haven't done it before, but I worked it out, so it's honestly that bad!

 

[tommos76]

That's great info thank you pottsworth I just need to prize the Mac off my wife so I can give it a go! I was hoping to get it working by today as I've been busy brewing an American Hbc on the grainfather and wanted to keep a close eye on fermentaion as I've never brewed a lager before.

 

[pottsworth]

That's great info thank you pottsworth I just need to prize the Mac off my wife so I can give it a go! I was hoping to get it working by today as I've been busy brewing an American Hbc on the grainfather and wanted to keep a close eye on fermentaion as I've never brewed a lager before.

It was very satisfying when it worked. As soon as I closed the terminal though I wished I’d saved the text so I had a record of what I’d done.

You’ll probably need to add some ballast if you bought the kit (I have a large bolt in mine), and you’ll also need to calibrate it before use.

 

[tommos76]

I was on the final hurdle with flashing the firmware and this came back. I copied and pasted the serial so can't understand whats wrong. I've now drawn a blank lol

 

[pottsworth]

Did you install pyserial?

I can’t read that very well, but ingot the pyserial error too until I installed it

 

[tommos76]

I'm having trouble trying to install it. I'm in the process of copying script but not sure if I'm doing it correctly

 

[tommos76]

I've downloaded pyserial 3.4 and unpacked it but it doesn't allow me to run it. My Mac is running python 2.7

 

[pottsworth]

I've downloaded pyserial 3.4 and unpacked it but it doesn't allow me to run it. My Mac is running python 2.7

I’ll have a look tonight and see if I can work out what I did, but pretty sure I used a sudo command to install it from terminal

 

[tommos76]

I appreciate it thank you.

 

[pottsworth]

OK, I think I've worked out what I did.

I downloaded the installer (as pyserial-3.4.tar.gz), then unpacked it into a new folder called pytho in my home directory

I then opened terminal, used ls to confirm I was in the home directory, then changed to this new directory and installed it with:

cd pytho
Sudo python setup.py install

 

[tommos76]

thank you for taking the time to find out the info for me. I've followed your instructions and managed to flash with ispindel firmware! My next challenge is configuration to ubidots lol

 

[pottsworth]

Awesome, glad you got there in the end. Just make sure you get some good ballast before you try and calibrate it.

In terms of Ubidots, the bit the instructions miss is that you need to sign up for the educational one to get it for free.

Try https://app.ubidots.com

 

[uDicko]

Watching this thread unfold is quite satisfying.

Just thought you should both know that

 

[tommos76]

Just signed up to it and entered the token into the wemos. Just got to work out how to find the device on there and display the data. I think a bit more reading is needed lol

 

[pottsworth]

I think that bit was reasonably as per the manual.

There may have been a URL to enter in the settings too, but otherwise it should just appear in ubidots when you log on (I believe this is what the api key does).

You could also use Brewer's Friend, which has instructions on the website on how to set up to upload to their website. That wasn't an option when I set mine up, and anything alcohol related is blocked at work, so I stuck with ubidots.

 

[pottsworth]

Meant to upload this earlier - this is what I ended up with as ballast, I think the bolt is m8, and the nut & washer are m12. There was some advice on the github for the amount of ballast - I think it was 30g but can’t quite remember.

I do now have some fine lead shot (from a crash test lab of all places), but this is working, so I haven’t got round to changing it and recalibrating.

 

[tommos76]

Looking good!

I submerged mine this morning and had water ingress

I'm going to try and design sled which can be taken out with ease and will not need recalibrating when put back in after cleaning. I'm also thinking about the positioning the gyro board near the bottom with the temp sensor which I've seen done on PCB way design.