Is the Spark currently suitable for RIMS?

General
1

I am currently designing a RIMS system, and have everything ready except for temperature control. I like the idea of the brewpi spark; however, can it be used for a RIMS system? Can the Spark currently do everything a basic PID Controller can? I am trying to choose between the spark and a PID from auber instruments…

Thanks!

2

For some reason I cannot post links, but I think the short answer is “almost”.

I asked the same question one week ago. See my thread How far is BrewPI Spark from beeing “rims-able”?

/Brian

3

I will be using my Spark for a full automated RIM’s system. I will try and document it along the way.

4

Much appreciated.

As far as I understand, we need to wait for a software update or start coding ourselves, before being able to control our mash and boil with it.

But who knows, there may be some undocumented branch on github, containing the software for mashing?

5

Hi, Nickhegge, have you made any progress on your RIMS system? Do you have a blog or documentation you can share?

Thanks!

6

Hi Everyone,

I have made a ton of progress with the RIMS system .You can see it running in the link below thanks to the latest release from @Elco. I am still working on cleaning up the wiring with some proper water tight grommets but I wanted to get it running first.

I am going to brew my first batch this weekend with the system and see how it goes. Still trying to figure out how to tune my Kp and Ki to get the best performance. If you have any recommendations please share as the software side of things is the challenging part over the wiring for me.

RIMS running on BrewPi Spark Core : https://youtu.be/xzO6UM55LkE

2 Likes
7

To those who are currently heating water (or maybe even wort?):

What mode are you in? I understand @elco said to use fridge constant for the pwm release, but if you’re on the normal version, couldn’t one use beer constant? Tape the fridge probe to your kettle and put the beer one in your thermowell? This would allow a single pot of water to be temp controlled using PiD right?

Maybe this is exactl what you guysa re doing?.. Would love to know. Thanks!

8

Is the PWM release that is currently available also stable to use for fermentation or should we not update if still using the system for fermentation control? Want to try it with my herms, but not if it’s going to cause problems when fermenting.