Home of the BrewNosers

I'm sourcing some parts for a fermentation temperature controller(BeagleBoneBlack, relay, temp probe, heating belt, wireless connection for graphing) and was wondering if anyone had bought SS probe tubes locally?

http://www.brewershardware.com/8-Stainl ... -3161.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; is what I've found online, and should work just fine, but I'd support someone local if they had the equivalent.

blacktip wrote:I'm sourcing some parts for a fermentation temperature controller(BeagleBoneBlack, relay, temp probe, heating belt, wireless connection for graphing) and was wondering if anyone had bought SS probe tubes locally?

http://www.brewershardware.com/8-Stainl ... -3161.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; is what I've found online, and should work just fine, but I'd support someone local if they had the equivalent.

Not sure about parts locally but if you do an order from the states usually you can turn it into a group buy and save on shipping. I'd be interested from a couple of things there.

blacktip wrote:I'm sourcing some parts for a fermentation temperature controller(BeagleBoneBlack, relay, temp probe, heating belt, wireless connection for graphing)...

I would be very interested in more details about how you're doing this.

Are you planning on just doing just one probe/belt combo? I can't think of any reason you couldn't multiplex to cover a couple fermenters.

Wickednifty idea. I love this forum.

mumblecrunch wrote:
I would be very interested in more details about how you're doing this.

Are you planning on just doing just one probe/belt combo? I can't think of any reason you couldn't multiplex to cover a couple fermenters.

Wickednifty idea. I love this forum.

The current plan is just to do one as a proof of concept and see how it works.

There's no reason that this can't fan out to cover multiple fermentations, and there's not reason that you couldn't do a lagering chamber at the same time. It becomes a matter of how many pins your devices will use, and the addressing of the bus that you're using(this is before moving to something more exotic like an relay board). I'm looking at using DS18B20 sensors, which I haven't used before, but seem to be very common for this application(http://www.dx.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for some sensors that don't have the probe ends I want). I've done work with the TI TMP102 sensors before, which allow up to 8 sensors using the same data channels via some clever addressing/design.

blacktip wrote: The current plan is just to do one as a proof of concept and see how it works.

There's no reason that this can't fan out to cover multiple fermentations, and there's not reason that you couldn't do a lagering chamber at the same time. It becomes a matter of how many pins your devices will use, and the addressing of the bus that you're using(this is before moving to something more exotic like an relay board). I'm looking at using DS18B20 sensors, which I haven't used before, but seem to be very common for this application(http://www.dx.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for some sensors that don't have the probe ends I want). I've done work with the TI TMP102 sensors before, which allow up to 8 sensors using the same data channels via some clever addressing/design.

I figured you went with the BeagleBoard (over the cheaper RaspberryPI) for pinout capacity but I also wondered whether some of the techniques used on I2C buses might mitigate the need for extra pins, at least within reason.

I'll cop to having exactly zero experience any embedded platform, but I've wanted an excuse to play and this seems like an interesting (and useful!) angle to take.

I've done exactly this for my brewery. I took 1/4" .020 wall SS tubing, had the ends tig'd shut and polished to create a probe tip. Used heatsink compound and inserted a DS18B20, these are great little sensors i've used them for alot of different things over the years. I got the tubing from TTL Supply in Burnside (have to buy 20ft, I'd split some with you if you go this road).

If you want to buy them, I'd go with BrewersHardware.com I've ordered lots of stuff from them and they are great to deal with. Can be slow to ship at times (seem very busy), but they really stand behind their products.

Couple pics I had on my phone. This one is kind of sloppy (my GAF level was pretty low at that point), the resistor/capacitor is an RC filter to help with noise issues (painful to do and probably not necessary). This probe still needed to be polished some more.