Yes, you should definitely find a better power supply. Phone chargers are inadequate for the Pi. Your random reboots are probably caused by this. Find a decent 2A supply designed for the Pi.
Do not trust your current SD card. Do a full re-install. The random reboots could have caused SD card or file system corruption already.
Okay will do. Am I going to need to completely re-install everything each time I unplug the Pi and it has to restart? I’m doing the install in a different room than I will be using it in, so I will need to unplug it at least once to move it. Also, I’m moving this summer, will I need to re-install after that?
No, you need to do a sudo shutdown -h now before unplugging.
Same as a normal PC. Shutdown first, don’t just pull the power cord. The file system might still be writing stuff when you unplug, which can cause data corruption.
Alright guys I’m getting close!
I purchased a new power source and the Pi stays on, no issue. I’ve re-installed Raspbian on the SD card and went through all the install for Brewpi again. My Wifi is set up on the Pi so I am good there. I am able to access Brewpi from a separate computer and I can see all the algorithms running.
Last few issues I need to figure out:
I’m still not sure I have everything plugged in correctly to the spark itself. I inserted the 3 temp probes and installed them through the maintenance panel. They seem to be working fine. Their device slots are 0,1,2 respectively. I wired my SSRs to a standard electrical cord, just like the fridge hacking guide. Those are plugged into the 1 and 3 slots on the spark for the “green plugs.” I installed those via device slot 3 and 4 in the maintenance panel. My issue is, when the Brewpi is cooling, power is being sent to both the heating and cooling element.
I changed the mode from “test mode” so that I could change the profile. However, when I go to change the profile for a beer it doesn’t let me change the name or enter any temperatures, all I can do is change the day.
Up and running!
Thanks to both of you for all the help! I’m currently running my first test with water in my fermenter and everything seems to be tracking along just fine. I started with a simple profile with a few temp swings to see how it would respond and after about 36 hours it is looking good!
I’m sure there will be more questions as I proceed to ferment my first beer.
My next project will be setting up remote access for my phone or another device. I’m planning to use the Website “Weaved” to do the port forwarding for security. Does anyone have experience with this or recommend another way of doing it securely?
Thanks!
I haven’t used Weaved personally but it appears to create a VPN connection between your RaspberryPi and Weaved then a connection between Weaved and you. It’s actually not a bad way of doing it if you aren’t looking into the hassle of running your own VPN server which is doable with a RaspberryPi but is not a trivial task. I would highly recommend a VPN or SSH tunnel regardless of how you do it as the BrewPi’s web interface doesn’t appear to have any authentication or encryption (yet).
I’m also having the same issue, the installer created the directory Home/pi/brewpi. I’m getting a bunch of errors and not sure what to do next. I attached the terminal responses.
first attempt.docx (5.2 KB)
It looks like apt-get fails to install packages. You seem to get 404 errors on many repositories. I think there is something wrong with the internet connection on the Pi.