can't belive it's not braumiester

[christhebrewer]

The Braumiester is insanely expensive! I know we can produce something as good (poss better) for half the price or less.
I hope we don't upset the establishment again.

[Padraic]

70l insulated pot.............€100
50l stockpot for grain tube...€34
delivery from the Germans.....€28
solarprojects pump............€35(delivered)
Burco 2.5kw element...........€30 approx
a few fittings etc............€30
custom temp control/time setup..€100 approx
labour to put it together.......?


€357 + labour

This would be a great project, one pot rims brewery. It'd be very interested as a semi-commercial project like the electric brewing company guy (http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/) His site is a great example of open source hardware with an unobtrusive commercial element to it.. IMHO

[christhebrewer]

Once the numbers get a bit clearer I will see about offering a fixed price for the complete item. Maybe if a few guys are interested we can do a deal.
The insulated version I have in mind will be better than the braumiester at least in that it will come up to termperature quicker and use a lot less power in any one cycle. The option to pump out rather than just flow out from a tap will be very usefull. In my own system the primary fermenter is up quite high and pumping up to it makes it very easy. It's all gravity feed from there, to secondaty etc.

[JimmyM]

I havent had a chance to look at those links in detail yet, but I would strongly advise using the arduino over the PIC.
The arduino is actually just a (cheap) dev board for what is actually an Atmel AVR chip.
These are more open source friendly in terms of compilers and generally have less of a barrier to using them.
there's a geaks forum www.avrfreaks.com
You can get source code there etc for various applications/uses.

Im assuming whatever you've linked to above has source code, but the advantage of using the avr (arduino) over the PIC is that we could easily customise the software if needed.

PS: HBW will be rightly pissed off at you Will - you've gone from trying to generate sales to taking them away - and boy they were mighty big sales

[JimmyM]

What link are you talking about for the schematics - is it the one eddieken posted over in that other place we talk.

[christhebrewer]

Thinking more about hardware design, what are the pros and cons of having the control system(brain) in a seperate box rather than trying to make space for it in or under the tank itself.  We have to allow space for a pump so a small plinth, maybe 40 or 50mm will be needed. How big would the brain be?
Do we have a USB connection to control it from a laptop?
It's also quite a good option to use an stc1000 and control the mash manualy, that would be a bit of a cop out though.

[JimmyM]

Yeah I just loaded them.
Once I know how it all works and exactly what your man's thing controls i will be able to comment better.
The circuitry doesnt look too bad though for the arduino version.
Its just a few transistory type switches, an LCD and a temp probe.
from looking at the code he posted, the temp probes are those 1 wire ds chips you used in your fermentation chamber.

[JimmyM]

Just had a quick read through the PDF there and saw the arduino code in the post..
The schematic shouldnt change too much for the arduino version - the fact he has made the boards mudular means that the only board that would be different is the main board with the microcontroller on it.

The microcontroller stuff looks like it should be easy enough.

The only thing im not clear on is the heating controls, SSRs and triacs and optocouplers make my mind go a little bit mad. Ill have to do some googling later though

[christhebrewer]

Can the arduino not switch an SSR directly?

[JimmyM]

Yeah it can drive it alright.
Bloody expensive little yolks though! SSRs that is.
I'd say thats why your man went with the little circuit with the optocoupler instead.

[christhebrewer]

I have some 25A SSRs I got on ebay from Hong Kong. 99c each!
They delivered them seperately so they cost me a fiver each in the end. Still good value.
The solar projects pump only pulls 1.5A at 12v. A cheap mechanical relay should do fine. Or a simple power transistor switch.
The heater will need an SSR though.

[christhebrewer]

This guy has taken it a bit far!
http://hobbybrauer.de/modules.php?name=eBoard&file=viewthread&tid=4639

[JimmyM]

When you say "the arduino version" - do you mean the arduino version of your man with the braumeister clone's controller?

Just had a quick read there, it seems the bonjuino board is compatible with the arduino software - which basically means you can use the fancy arduino IDE, and the arduino proprietary language.

That bonjuino also uses the AVR (atmegaxxx is a series of AVR chips) chips I was talking about.
But reading up on the Arduino stuff, they seem to have their own programming language, and special bootloaders come on the AVR chip.
Ive used the same chips, but simply just compiled c code and loaded the binary onto the chip. And built my own hardware around them.
With the likes of these arduinos and bonjuinos, you end up needing a better chip to do what you want, because there is a certain amount of arduino stuff on the chip already which is needed to support there proprietary language etc.

Anyway, I digress.
The point im trying to make is you end up with something which is more expensive than it should be - but of course its a lot simpler to use - e.g. with arduino you get the low level stuff to control those 1wire temperature probes for free. with like 2 func calls you can get the temp. Theyre only meant for hobbyists.
The way i did it (programming straight to the chip with c code), i wrote all the low level stuff myself and its often difficult to debug. Same for the LCD.

Since we're probably only going to build one or 2 of these, the difference in cost is minimal.

Getting back to the bonjuino and the braumeister, I reckon He was able to replace the "main board" in that PDF with the bonjuino board and just interface from that to the other boards/circuitry.

[JimmyM]

Yeah and of course if your man has the source code available, you save a chunk of time there too.

[wallacebiy]

Lads
Not sure if this is of any benefit , but I've been looking at the Raspberry Pi ( I'm in the queue for one ) and a crowd called Adafruit are doing a prototyping board
https://www.adafruit.com/products/801


I was thinking that , with a small display you could have a pc based controller that also ran brewing software for recipes / calculations etc . adding a wireless ethernet adapter and you can control from the main computer in the house ....




Dunno know , maybe it's a bit mad and overkill , but ..still