It didn’t. @mmmooretx BrewBlox is our new platform that is a free upgrade for your existing BrewPi hardware.
It unlocks multiple chamber support. mashing support, custom dashboards and much more.
Regarding the staffing issues, Bob has been working for BrewPi for over a year now and that’s why BrewBlox now is nearly ready for official release. It is already available as public beta and I highly recommend using it instead of BrewPi. We’ll do an official release when the new website is ready.
It has indeed taken longer than I wanted. It really needed to be rebuilt from scratch.
Follow the guide at brewblox.netlify.com to upgrade and hopefully you can appreciate why it took as long as it did.
Chiming in from the end-user’s perspective: while I was also disappointed with how long it was taking, looking back now that I’m using the new software it was 100% worth the wait. Brewpi was a fun open source hobbyist project; conversely, even with it still in beta, Brewblox is probably at least 100 times better. Furthermore the level of active development and personal support from Bob and Elco is top notch. Hiring similar caliber developers to implement and debug my various idiosyncratic feature requests would probably cost me at least 10x if not 100x what I paid for the spark 3 and all the accessories (forgetting the value of the hardware itself).
Granted BrewBlox is still in beta. Although recently it is starting to look really polished, they are rapidly adding new features, so there will occasionally be bugs and the documentation isn’t always as up to date or as user friendly as it will be when they officially release it. However, their technical support is stellar–I don’t think I’ve had a single issue or bug that one of them hasn’t helped me with and/or fixed within 36 hours. Accordingly, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend anyone with the least bit of technical ability (only needed because the documentation isn’t 100% complete yet) to upgrade right away.
First my apologies to Bob_Steers and Elco. I did not say it well. The original I had one RPI supporting two chambers each with a brewpi, worked beautifully, including cold crashing. When the Spark2 Brewpi came out my automated for brewing processor died (manufacturer changed and the new owner had process issues) and Elco posted about the brewing system he was working on struck a cord with me. So I bought all of the hardware I needed to change over my system (3 vessel HERMS system with 7 two way valves and one three way valve) to what Elco was working on. So I think I have all the hardware, just needs wiring and configuration. So I currently have 2 Spark3’s and if you are in public beta I want to jump on. Can I run the brewing system on one Spark3 and my 2 fermenter chambers on the other Spark3? I disassemble and put away the brew components (pumps, valves, water filter, and plumbing is on a 3’ X 8’ (1 meter X 2.5 meter) board I hang on the wall).
Sorry, but please take a look at what I ordered and let me know if I missed anything. Plus if you point me in the direction I will gladly give it a good run.
Mike
Yes, running the fermentation on one spark and the Herms on the other is a good idea. Both will connect to the same pi and can have their own dashboard(s) in a shared UI.
Start by running the arrangement wizard twice for your fermentation spark after install to familiarise yourself with the new system.
Question: Started following the BrewBlox install process and on the first PI boot it stops at Daily apt upgrade and clean activation (last line with OK). Spark3 and PI 3B+ have lights , but the PI only has the red LED o , no flashing green LED. I loaded the latest RPI light load, Buster, and verified the wpa_supplicant.conf had the right info. However there was no root partition so I just put it in the base partition. Is this an issue with Buster and the install scripts? Also after shutdown of the PI/Spark the wpa_supplicant.conf was missing and the SSH file. The MicroSD name is boot.
Thanks,
Mike
Windows, before boot,. I reloaded the PI software, reformatted and double checked for extra partitions .I restarted the initial boot on the PI and did see very brief green flash or two. About how long should this initial boot take? I have not been able to SSH into unit while it is in initial boot.
Mike
Yes, SD Card Formatter, then BaelenaEtcher. The name of the SD card was boot after BalenaEtcher, no visible boot partition before boot in PI. It has been at the same stop point for the last 20 minutes with only an occasional green flash.
I was able to SSH into the the unit, still at the same stop point and ls -l answers total 0.
I just got another RPI 3B+ in the mail, so if needed I can try again with another RPI. Another possibility is that my ISP is really slow.
Update: just ran ifconfig again and it appears to be incrementing both RX & TX packet count, which tells me it is very slow.
It just appears incredibly slow today, so just sitting waiting to see install complete. Beyond that I will just continue following the documentation for install for my fermenters… So just to verify I have 4 temperature probes connected to my Spark 3 that is connected to my RPI (or should this not be connected yet?).
It is sitting on blank line, small flashing white underscore just under the above last posting, It still has not completed initial boot. But ifconfig, Putty SSH window says 2.7 mb downloaded.
Update: I am rural and I have seen my download speed as low as 450 kbs…
Okay, so you are still trying to get the pi set up. I haven’t set up a pi in a while, so I forgot that the ssh server would already be running even before the first boot script completes.
2mb per hour seems excessively slow. You would have a hard time accessing websites in your browser if your connection was actually that slow. I wonder if it is trying to connect to a bad repository for the apt upgrade.
How are you seeing the status of the first boot script? Do you have the pi hooked up to a monitor?
Yes using the HDMI port and a TV/monitor24", now at 2.9 mb…
Update: Sorry, on the second question I have no idea on the repository since it is all script driven. Also I was not sure if all worked well with the new Buster release.
That is very strange. Every time I’ve installed/reinstalled the OS on my pi the first boot script must have completed so fast that I didn’t even notice it. At first I thought you were talking about the raspi-config program.
If you have ssh access already, one way you could test whether it’s a network problem would be to wget some random file. Ie:
