Multi-Chamber Arduino Brewpi

[gezzanet]

I've been following the hbt site since it started and have wheezy running on an old laptop. Started with one uno then went to the$5 nanos with the ch340 chip. Now I have a mix of uno and nano all hooked up with Bluetooth so the Bluetooth board MAC address gives them unique id's. The ch340 chip is a cheaper option but you miss out on the unique serial address. I bought some esp boards for wireless but haven't hooked them up yet. Bluetooth doesn't have the range I need with fermentors and fridges in the shed. So the laptop sits in the shed with them and it talks to the network so I can access on the web Gui on other devices. I use them for fermentors, fridge control and mash temp monitoring. From scratch I go wifi and nanos because it's the cheapest and I could have he laptop inside. UNOs prob easier because they have a lot more shields available off the shelf. I'm between brews so I might have a crack at the wifi option. [emoji481][emoji481]

 

[dibbz]

I've posted a fair bit on the HBT tread so I wont repeat all that here, but after building 2 esp shields from parts I would recomend the sparkfun shield, about $10 more expensive than parts but all the work is done. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13287 ,it also has an external antenna connector if you need more range as well as the on board antenna tracks, where as I think you can only have external or on board with esp modules, eg. esp-07. Antennas from fleabay are a couple of bucks.

Also some thoughts about the instructible, you could also use docker and run multiple instances of a brewpi container as you can pass through USB devices into the containers, I've not tried it but it's documented. Docker is a bit if a leaning curve if you aren't familiar with it.

Happy to provide assistance with docker or esp's, just PM.

Also I wouldnt be a proud father to billions of yeasties without a photo