Need help with tweaking Kp, Td, Ti

Oh yes. BrewPi is the old branch which is no longer actively supported. BrewBlox is much more flexible, has support and is ready for the future.

Thanks, I will. But Iā€™ll need a second pi to run the server? Iā€™m a bit confused since I donā€™t have a spark.

Btw, how about that with Ki updated? Seems way better for beer temp, I donā€™t know if I should worry about this short cooling time for my fridge compressor.

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As mentioned, BrewPi is no longer supported, and Brewblox has lots of shiny new features.

One important distinction: Brewblox does not (and will not) have an official Arduino edition.
Typical hardware for a Brewblox setup is to have a Pi as server, one or more Sparks, and any of the supported third-party devices (Tilt, iSpindel, Plaato airlock).

Someone correct me if Iā€™m wrong, but I think what really strains a compressor is switching it on frequently without giving it sufficient time to equalize itā€™s pressure. So you want a break between cooling cycles, which you seem to have. Also it doesnā€™t make sense to cool right after you heat or vicaversa, but that looks ok right now.

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A bit off-topic now, but it links to the original question: @Elco or @Bob_Steers I would love a how-to guide explaining how to tweak the PID elements within Brewblox. For example: Your beer temp rises and falls quickly, look at lowering (or increasing) your Ti because of X.

Even as a software developer I have a hard time really understanding PID mechanics and am not able to change PID configuration in brewblox, knowing the outcome beforehand (or the direction it will go)

The good news is that we did not invent the PID - there are multiple guides out there, of varying quality and complexity.

The desired endstate is to introduce auto-tuning, but thatā€™s too big a feature to skip intermediate solutions.

Writing a Brewblox-specific guide is one of the many things on Elcoā€™s backlog, as I donā€™t understand it very well either.

Current scheduled features are (roughly):

  1. Official website / stable release
  2. Automation service
  3. Fixing controller Wifi issues (may require replacing wifi stack in firmware)
  4. Documentation
    4.1 Comprehensive BrewPi -> Brewblox migration guide
    4.2 PID tuning
    4.3 Developer docs for the UI, and more advanced examples for services/plugins
    4.4 Help pages integrated in the UI.
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Thanks for sharing a bit of the roadmap. It made me curious: What is the automation service?

Control logic on the Spark is limited by sensor, control, and output all having to be on the Spark itself.

The automation service is for the implementation of more complex processes that may involve things like:

  • User tasks (notify user to hose swap or insert grain, continue when user marks as done).
  • Adding / removing / editing block settings.
  • Cross-controller management (start next step when tilt SG reading > X).
  • Integration with recipe formats.

Screenshot from a very early version of the editor:

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That looks very nice! Very excited about that