So after a a few weeks of research on various temperature controllers I decided to go with the Brew Pi Spark as the fully integrated option seemed the best to me as it is programmable. So I started with a a 4.5 cubic foot Haier mini fridge, this would fit my brew bucket nicely. I followed the fridge hacking guide but the only real difference I did is I went with a 25 watt stick on silicone heater and mounted it to the underside of an aluminum heatsink as I was concerned about the watt density on the heater melting the plastic wall. So far the first brew is going along and the stability of the chamber seems to be very good.
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Can you please post some screenshots graphs? I’d like to see what kind of performance you are getting if you don’t mind.
It is pretty stable, the beer temp blip is when the power went out for a few min.
Here is before the power outage
And after
Overall I am impressed with the stability of the beer. This wasn’t a very vigorus fermentation though.
@Aaron, Yeah those are very good results. I wonder what causes it to get weird after a power outage. If you don’t mind there is one more screen shot I would like to see. (Maintenance Panel > Control Algorithm) I’m looking to see if there is a bug with just my unit or all Photon based BrewPi.
Thanks!
I think the spike it is a filter initialization bug: the filter is initialized with an invalid temperature, possible caused by the first reading of the temperature sensor being incorrect.
@Blankly When I first turned the spark on it read very high temperatures then came down what you would expect.
@Aaron, do you think you could provide the model number for this fridge? It appears that it would hold a 6 gallon carboy as well without heavy modification.
@gromitdj here is a link to HAIER’s site for this model. I was able to pick it up brand new for $119.00. Also from the bottom of the evaporator to bottom of the fridge is 24".
http://www.haier.com/us/products/kitchen/refrigerators/compact-refrigerators/hnse045vs.shtml