iSpindel Digital Hydrometer

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Hi All,

my iSpindel is nearing completion and I look forward to putting it into action next weekend.
I realised that the next brew is going to be a wheat beer. Has anyone used the ISpindel with top fermenting yeast? Is the yeast building up on top of the wort going to affect the iSpindel reading? In a big way?

Cheers, Peter
 
Engibeer said:
iSpindels seem to work fine in KegLand 58L SS kegmenter... placed in empty Kegmenter with lid and signal is all good.... Can't imagine that liquid will affect that too much?
Click to expand...

It may, I wouldn't think it'd affect things too much given the position of the unit. Let me know how it goes!
 
BierMate said:
Hi All,
I realised that the next brew is going to be a wheat beer. Has anyone used the ISpindel with top fermenting yeast? Is the yeast building up on top of the wort going to affect the iSpindel reading? In a big way?
Cheers, Peter
Click to expand...

I've had plenty of success. Recently did an Amber Ale with some pure Oxygen and English Ale yeast. Massive krausen and she was done in 24hrs which is sort of spooky. Temp controlled at 18c, I was planning on doing 1c rise at half way but the yeast beat me to it, finished at 20c before cold crashing.
 

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Engibeer said:
iSpindels seem to work fine in KegLand 58L SS kegmenter... placed in empty Kegmenter with lid and signal is all good.... Can't imagine that liquid will affect that too much?
Click to expand...
Is that with a normal Wemos or Wemos Pro?
 
Hey guys I’ve purchased a couple of iSpindles but they came in calibrated & not configured. I think I may have got the configuration (I’m using Brewfather) but the calibration and maybe the configuration has me thinking that I’m gunna bin these bloody things
Is there anyone that I can send these things to so they could calibrate them for me (naturally I’m prepared to pay for the service)
 
Ballaratguy said:
Hey guys I’ve purchased a couple of iSpindles but they came in calibrated & not configured.
Click to expand...

When you connect a battery to the units, you will be able to join a wifi network called iSpindel after about 10-15 seconds, maybe longer. Once you join the network, depending on your device, you will either be taken to the configuration page automatically. If not, you can go to http://192.168.4.1 and configure the device. The process is documented on the Github project page:
https://github.com/universam1/iSpindel/blob/master/docs/README_en.md#portal

You will need to trim the pins on the sleds to they fit snug without going crazy, inside the bottle. Only place the PCB in a small way, enough so that the lid can be secured correctly, then place in tap water. The aim is the get to 25 degrees tilt via the webui however +/- 4 degrees should be okay. The further the PCB is the lower the tilt, for example; you may start at 45 degrees however tapping it in slightly more will see you get closer to 25.

You can calibrate them easily enough by ensuring the tilt angle is known in water, then also known in your wort before fermentation. This will give you a good indication of the fermentation process. You can fine tune them with water with dissolved sugars to take additional points, this will give you a nicer curve and a more true reading during fermentation.

The full calibration procedure is provided via the GitHub project as well:
https://github.com/universam1/iSpindel/blob/master/docs/Calibration_en.md
 
bee2gee said:
When you connect a battery to the units, you will be able to join a wifi network called iSpindel after about 10-15 seconds, maybe longer. Once you join the network, depending on your device, you will either be taken to the configuration page automatically. If not, you can go to http://192.168.4.1 and configure the device. The process is documented on the Github project page:
https://github.com/universam1/iSpindel/blob/master/docs/README_en.md#portal

You will need to trim the pins on the sleds to they fit snug without going crazy, inside the bottle. Only place the PCB in a small way, enough so that the lid can be secured correctly, then place in tap water. The aim is the get to 25 degrees tilt via the webui however +/- 4 degrees should be okay. The further the PCB is the lower the tilt, for example; you may start at 45 degrees however tapping it in slightly more will see you get closer to 25.

You can calibrate them easily enough by ensuring the tilt angle is known in water, then also known in your wort before fermentation. This will give you a good indication of the fermentation process. You can fine tune them with water with dissolved sugars to take additional points, this will give you a nicer curve and a more true reading during fermentation.

The full calibration procedure is provided via the GitHub project as well:
https://github.com/universam1/iSpindel/blob/master/docs/Calibration_en.md
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info that does help however, every time I go to the ubidots link it opens up with a create new account page, I’ve put my info in but have never found the api or the token to use
Sorry if I seem to be dumb with this but I have found this to be quite a frustrating experience
 
Ballaratguy said:
every time I go to the ubidots link it opens up with a create new account page, I’ve put my info in but have never found the api or the token to use
Click to expand...

@angus_grant might have something to help.

Alternatively you should be using: https://ubidots.com/education/ - this is the free version which everyone seems to use. Under your profile icon, top right, you should be able to click on your avatar then go to API Credentials.
 
Jeez I thought I was reasonably tech savvy but this process is about the most frustrating thing that I have done
I have followed your advice bee1gee (thanks for that). I have the token as per gif instructions to write it down but now can’t find anywhere to stick it
My concern is I have configured both tilts but have nowhere for thi info from them to go to. This u idiots thing is the most frustrating experience yet devised
Is there a phone app or web app like Brewfather (which I use) that will recognise the iSpindle and then just run with it (similar to they way that the tilt works with google sheets)
 
Hey @Ballaratguy,

I am finalising documentation on my brewing website this weekend for integrating iSpindels and attaching readings to ferment logs. The website is all set up to integrate the devices and accept readings, I just have to finish off the documentation.

I don't have a commercial/sponsor account on this forum so probably can't say much more.

Cheers,
Angus.
 
Angus that sounds awesome
I think I may have it worked out but it’s been an awkward road
I feel it would be a lot less hassle if the instructions were dumbed down and links were actually links to where we needed to go to and not just the home page where you need to try every button to get to where you need to go
I also have the query that I’ll chase up once I get these things usable, is how the wifi charging works and some of the other bits and pieces that the iSpindle has over the over priced tilt
Also a big thanks to bee2gee for his assistance with this
 
While the Tilt may seem over-priced, it's environment is so much easier to use than the iSpindel. It worked from the moment I pulled it out of the packet.

Install app on phone
Tilt the "Tilt" device to turn it on (no internal switch to turn it on and off - you just sit it upright and it turns off)
Automatically displays in phone app (no Bluetooth pairing required)
I changed settings in app to use my website
All done within 5 minutes

I can view the app at any point to make sure the Tilt device is still sync'd.
I can force a manual reading transmission from the app.

So for my money and ease of install/use, I'd choose the Tilt.

If the iSpindel had the app where you could see what was happening, then it would be a much better product. Or some way to see what was happening when it is in run-mode it would be much better. I understand it's to improve battery life, but you should be able to switch it into "diagnose mode" so you can access it and diagnose problems knowing you're burning through battery. When everything is working, you switch it into "low-battery" mode.

You can hook a cable up to the micro-USB plug, and access it using a serial reader. It then displays all the information you need to diagnose problems
But what can you do when it is in your fermentor? And how does a non-technical person hook up a serial reader?
 
@angus_grant totally agree there, the Tilt is awesome but $199 + shipping versus the iSpindel which is much cheaper ~$55. I went the iSpindel route because I needed 4 and my pockets would rather nice things like an O2 bottle, reg etc for happier yeast... so I can measure them haha. The trade-off comes in the form of time spent learning and calibrating. I must admit, there was a decent learning curve however my pocket and production is happier I went the iSpindel route. If you are more time poor or have little desire to learn because you've got enough to learn constantly already, fix the problem with money -> Tilt.

I definitely don't judge people either way, horses for courses for sure. It's one of the main reasons I started offering kits / builds, it certainly wasn't about money, just to give people accessible and easy to build kits or pre-built units if cost / equipment was a hurdle.

In regards to the software on the iSpindels, there's plenty of room for improvement. I think it would take someone to redo the whole web server package in a Github PR and see if the creator would be happy with it. One of the biggest things is battery and no LP bluetooth, wifi is a hungry beast and 15min polls are a good thing haha. You could try a branch for your site for pre-configuration if you had the time? I would give it a shot but I'm not much of a software guy.
 
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If I wasn't intergrating the tilt into my website, I would have just bought ispindles. Once the software environment around the Ispindle is improved, then the tilt will just seem like an expensive alternative.

The one big limitation for the tilt is that it only has 8 different devices. There is no way I've found to identify different devices with the same colour. Each orange device has the same identifier so you can't have 2 orange tilts connecting to the same Bluetooth receiver.

It all would have been so much easier if I'd known about the serial logging from the start.

I might have a crack at a pull request including an option choice for my website. Would be harder to ignore if all the work is already done.
 
Hey all,
Hoping you could help you troubleshoot some software issues with the iSpindel
Hardwares working fine but can’t for the life of me get the flashing right
I’ve re-flashed countless times now and all I ever get is ‘ESP_04F825’ after in the wifi connections.
When I try to connect it connects momentarily, disconnects and connects again. It just repeats this cycle.
Constant blue blinking
I’m using the latest firmware release and Nodemcu flasher to no avail.
Have my flash size as both 16 and 4mb’s in different tests and same result.
Have my bin file in the first line with 0x00000
It successfully flashes the device and after have a blue blink every second. Clicking 3 times does nothing.

Please help a brutha out here! Have one other that works as expected but nada here.

Cheers
 

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