http://www.thebeerbug.com/
Can't wait to get one of those :o
Sounds a bit "too good to be true"
April 1 is next week! Hope its not one of those!
Are you going top register Jacob?
If its for real then it would be "Uber Kool!
I'm following that project for a while, so don't think that it's a joke.
Very elaborate if it is a hoax!!
No, looks like the real deal alright!
At first i thought it magically sat outside the beer and reported temp and gravity - but there's a sensor that goes down into the beer - so totally conceivable!
See here for more info.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/parasitx/the-beerbugtm-digital-hydrometer
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Z0P-t0I_8[/media]
wish they'd just sell the sensor on its own.
Quotewish they'd just sell the sensor on its own.
The Torpedo is just a suspend weight in a float (that doesn't float) connected to a strain gauge to act as a weighing scale. As the density of the wort drops the weight weighs more!
It just needs to be calibrated and there you go.
Simples really
Tell me when one of you buys tests one of these so I can get it if it works :P
Looks good!
QuoteQuotewish they'd just sell the sensor on its own.
The Torpedo is just a suspend weight in a float (that doesn't float) connected to a strain gauge to act as a weighing scale. As the density of the wort drops the weight weighs more!
It just needs to be calibrated and there you go.
Simples really
OKayy build it and I will buy. Seriously lads,price this right and you have a new very sellable product. :)
Yep very simple when you say it like that Will - I assume you will knock up the hardware over the weekend?
this would have to be a very delicate strain gauge - they're expensive.
So as I understand this, the weight is held up by the density of the sugars in the wort thus calculating the s/g. As the sugars diminish through the yeast converting it to alcohol the weight sinks lower,all the while the I.T. bit is recording the changes and sending it wirelessly to a computer thingy. Also a temp gauge is recording the temp changes and sending them wirelessly as well :). DRAGONS DEN ;). I don't have the I.T. knowhow but I do see a good piece of homebrew kit with a world wide market for it.
When the airlock bubbles would it not cause slight vibration in the bucket enough to skew the gauge output?
As would you walking past it or touching it.
All you do is add a digital filter to the data stream (its just a subroutine in the s/w)
Its all in Signal Processing 101 !!
I'm not saying that this is cheap or easy but we have been discussing digital hydrometers for some time ( on another group!! ) and the idea of weighing the partially floating Torpedo is the key to making this work.
Again brilliantly simple metering concept - the devil is in the detail!!
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I'm not saying that this is cheap or easy
Yes you did :)
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It just needs to be calibrated and there you go.
Simples really
Seriously though lets discuss this again.
Strain gauge is plausible - it would be very expensive though and finicky to get it right.
Lets go back to basics for a sec. what about a tube sticking down into the wort area from the bung - as they have there.
Then a traditional hydrometer sticking up into the tube - the tube stops it from going all over the place. But the hydrometer is free to bob up and down inside the tube.
Traditionally you measure how far the hydrometer is dropped into the water - but what if we could measure the distance between the top of the hydrometer and the bung - that changes the measuring device from being a strain gauge to being a distance measurer.
These are cheaper, and can be extremely accurate.
Couple of problems - the distance between the beer and the bung will be different based on the volume - so an initial known SG will have to be supplied to calibrate the device.
You would have to account for evaporation if any.
Just brainstorming :)
Traditional hydrometer in the beer at all times
Then simply install a webcam inside the bucket to monitor it which you can view online at any time
The BeerCam™ 8-)
Yeah but then you need to prick about with imaging software to actually read the value and graph it over time.
Just get boffins to do that bit
Could you use a scales or load sensor under the FV to measure the gravity?
If you know that your FV weighs 23.5kg with 23l of water, and it weighs 24.6kg with 23l of wort, am I right in saying that the SG would be 1.047 (24.6/23.5)?
Using a scales would mean you don't need to have anything inside the FV.
like the people, me included, that buy cctv monitors for their first borne.
like my beer my last one was brought up by wolves
co2 bubbles and yeast might interrupt the readings but I think your hydrometer might be a good plan!
Rising co2 bubbles might cling to the hydrometer and so cause a wrong reading.
I'd love one of these!!
I wonder could something be made using the internals of a high precision scales like these http://bit.ly/YMhQt6 and say a 5gram weight that's slightly more dense than the lightest wort or with the density of water. If the weight remains steady for 48 hours(ish) you're at FG. To eliminate disturbance from rising co2 an average could be read. Any ex coke dealers on the forum that would have a precision scales they don't use anymore so I could dismantle it?
Looked at some of the video's and they appear to have a unit that you drop into the wort and read the information wirelessly,now thats a clever one :). I want one 8-)
Thank me after the first million Euros.
A wireless device that floats in the fermenting wort, with a conductive strip up the side, which measures the depth to which the floating device has sunk, which would be higher initially, lower later, and can be compensated for temperature. The strip would act like a variable resistor.
You can have that. Put some proper punctuation points in before you take it to the den though.
Would krausen cause a problem with the conductive strip? How else could a self contained unit like that measure its own depth?
QuoteAny ex coke dealers on the forum that would have a precision scales they don't use anymore so I could dismantle it?
They are about €20 on the bay for a scale that read to 10 mili-grams
I paid about the same in a locksmith shop in Manchester. They had a huge range on offer!! Hmm at the time I wondered why?
Also google Arduino and weighing scales! A lot of good info there
I don't believe that a weighing chip would be any more expensive than say a solid state 3 axis accelerometer that can be bought for about $5
Didn't someone in NHC offer to get free samples of some devices from a company he used to work for??
Some devices are analogue ie voltage is proportional to weight others are digital and output an ascii string with the weight and other information.
Both easy peasy for an Arduino!
The Bluetooth/Wifi data i/fs are just pure Arduino plugins
BeerBug REVIEW (http://mynerdlyendeavours.com/2013/beerbug-review/) posted on 14.04.2013
Looks like it may take a while to deliver fully working/useful device :/
If it was possible to stream wort over the surface of a refractometer during a fermentation one could write a machine vision program which would convert the image in the sight to a usable number.
Wort would probably need to be filtered before streaming or it would block immediately with trub...
Fermentation converts sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide. If you know your starting sugar concentration and you measure the CO2 formation you would be able to track the process.
Does anybody know how to reliably measure the gas given off? :-/
QuoteFermentation converts sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide. If you know your starting sugar concentration and you measure the CO2 formation you would be able to track the process.
Does anybody know how to reliably measure the gas given off? :-/
Interesting idea. All you need is a gas flow meter for that which could be easily hooked up to an arduino or pc.
Only issue is getting some sort of reference in terms of volume of CO
2 produced per point drop in gravity.
I had considered doing something along these lines last year.
My solution was to calculate the density of the liquid using 2 pressure sensors.
The sensors would be mounted in a probe in the wort at set depths (the actual depths aren't important, the difference between them is).
From this you can work out the density:
Density = (P1 - P2)/(9.81d)
Where:
P1 = the pressure at the lower sensor
P2 = the pressure at the higher sensor
d = the distance between the 2 sensors
From this you can work out the specific gravity
SG = Densitywort/DensityH2O
(At a certain temp - so use a temperature sensor mounted in the probe to get this)
I don't know though if the sensors will be accurate enough, and the last time I went looking for pressure sensors, they were madly expensive.
Here (http://www.yorku.ca/plants/LAB_HANDOUTS/2013_Fermentation_Calculations.pdf) is a way to do the calculation from gas production.
Only 1 sensor required.
Id love to be able to understand all that :P
Maybe if i read it a few more times.
pesky moles!
(http://i.imgur.com/KSkZthJ.gif)