Ok, I have been working for 2 months on/off on setting up the BrewPI software, Hacking an Air Conditioner and building a project box to house the wiring for everything. I am having a real hard time understanding what to do in the BrewPI Maintenance Panel to complete my setup. Could you help give me some specifics on this?
I have the following configuration of hardware:
I am trying to control the on/off glycol pump for a 5 gal Corny keg of water ran through a Cool Jacket. Also, trying to control a Fermwrap under that on the Corny.
Cooler (full of water for testing)
Two aquarium pumps (1 for glycol to fermenter, 1 for recirculation within cooler only when A/C is on)
1 Inkbird controller fixed temperature of Cooler bath (currently set at 42 due to only water - still test for leaks prior to adding glycol.)
2 Temperature OneWire probes from BrewPI
1 BrewPI Spark installed with latest software in May '16
1 Raspberry 3 configured WIFI and latest software in May '16
2 SSR’s (1 for switching cooling outlet - aquarium pump, 1 for switching heating outlet - fermwrap)
1 A/C - 5,000 BTU plugged into InkBird
Wiring:
I have the +'s on the SSR’s in the 1st & 3rd spots on the Spark. The -'s are in the 0 and 2nd spots on the Spark.
I have each temperature Onewire probe plugged into the the first two spots on the Sparks other side.
BrewPi 0.4.3 can work without a fridge sensor. Normally, it uses the fridge sensor as heater/cooler input. But if it is not found, it falls back onto the beer sensor.
If you set it up without a fridge sensor, but with a beer sensor, you can also use the beer modes.
I see that your temp sensors do not return a value.
Can you try:
Uninstalling them (function None, apply) and seeing if you can find them and re-install them.
Switching back to test mode (in advanced settings) and checking whether your sensors are shown when you plug them in.
If I understand your setup correctly, brewpi only needs to manage 1 pump and 1 heater, based on 1 beer sensor. It will also log the room temp for reference.
Ok - thanks. I reloaded defaults and added the beer temp, and two SSR’s to control. BTW - I do not have the heater plugged in although per the SPark it registers as on when needed.
I am getting closer to my 65 degree set point. Although it overshoots a little…
My bath is still just water (also just water in the Corny.) I have the bath set to 42 degrees and maintain within 3 degrees. I will be able to push that down to around 30 degrees when I add the glycol.
So any suggestions on tuning in the advanced settings based on the graph? REALLY APPRECIATE ALL YOUR HELP!
Below are my current settings based off reading way too many forum posts:).
In Beer Constant mode. Is this correct for my setup? I thought you mentioned that I would be able to do Beer Profiles too with the 0.4.3 update.
Set point is 65 degrees.
Beer-to-Fridge proportional gain (Kp) = 0
Beer-to-Fridge integral time constant (Ti) = 0
Beer-to-Fridge derivative time constant (Td) = 0
Maximum difference between fridge and beer set point (= output of PID) = 18
Beer-to-Fridge Input filter delay time = 18 seconds
Beer-to-Fridge Derivative filter delay time = 159 seconds
Cooler proportional gain (Kp) = 90
Cooler integral time constant (Ti) = 10800
Cooler derivative time constant (Td) = 200
Cooler PWM period (seconds) = 120
Cooler minimum OFF time = 180
Cooler minimum ON time = 60
Cooler Input filter delay time = 18 seconds
Cooler Derivative filter delay time = 159 seconds
Heater 1 proportional gain (Kp) = 10
Heater 1 integral time constant (Ti) = 600
Heater 1 derivative time constant (Td) = 60
Heater 1 PWM period (seconds) = 4
Heater 1 Input filter delay time = 18 seconds
Heater 1 Derivative filter delay time = 159 seconds
Dead time when switching between actuators = 300
Heater 2 are all same settings as 1. Don’t think I will ever need a 2nd Heater anyway. May not need the first but JIC it is a Fermwrap. (Again, not plugged in for this demo.)
So “unassigned” the heater SSR so it doesn’t affect the algorithms anymore - I believe.
I also adjusted some the variables (BOLD below) in Advanced Settings again:
Beer-to-Fridge proportional gain (Kp) = 0
Beer-to-Fridge integral time constant (Ti) = 0
Beer-to-Fridge derivative time constant (Td) = 0
Maximum difference between fridge and beer set point (= output of PID) = 18
Beer-to-Fridge Input filter delay time = 18 seconds
Beer-to-Fridge Derivative filter delay time = 159 seconds
Cooler proportional gain (Kp) = 90
Cooler integral time constant (Ti) = 10800
Cooler derivative time constant (Td) = 200 Cooler PWM period (seconds) = 60
Cooler minimum OFF time = 180 Cooler minimum ON time = 30
Cooler Input filter delay time = 18 seconds
Cooler Derivative filter delay time = 159 seconds
Looks like I am able to use Profiles…I setup this one and below are the shots of it so far:
To me (complete noob) this looks pretty good. Is there anything that someone would tweak in the settings?
Another question, as I add glycol to the cooler bath and lower my setting to 30 degrees, what settings would I mostly be changing to maintain a good calibration? (I am thinking PWM time down to 60 but am not sure.)
Next up, Brewometer integration. Appreciate any thoughts!
That looks a lot better.
For the heater overshooting, I think you should increase Kp for the heater, by a lot. I think you can even increase it to 50.
That means that with a 1 degree difference, the heater is 50% ON. That would make sense for a low power heater.
Then your integrator would not have to compensate so much, which causes the overshoot.
