[Solved] Cannot get spark to heat or cool

I’ve been using my spark to monitor a couple brews now just to see how well my current controller does with temps. I’ve had the beer probe taped to the side and the chamber probe hanging in the freezer while my STC-1000 controller probe is in the thermowell. I’ve been doing this until I feel like I can trust the software with a brew and actually start using the Spark to ferment a beer.

I must be missing something though. My graph does not ever display any sign of heating or cooling (the little bars at the bottom). Nor do the outlets ever turn on when the graph says it should be cooling. I have run it in test mode to make sure the outlets work properly, so I know the hardware side is good to go. I am also running version 2.10 on the spark. I just updated this morning hoping to solve the problem…the update went perfect but the controller still makes no attempt to heat or cool.

I start a new beer, then set up a profile and hit apply, the graphs show everything properly but I can’t get beer profile or beer constant mode to try to control temp. It does a great job of monitoring what’s going on, but the outlets don’t get any power and the graph shows no bars saying what the controller is trying to do.

I’m positive I’m just forgetting to turn some option on, just not sure which one. Any help would be great. Thanks!

You have to have 2 things configured for it to go into heating or cooling:

  • A heater/cooler installed in device manager
  • A fridge sensor

The heater and cooler are tied to fridge temperature. The fridge setpoint is automatically adjusted to what the beer needs. This indirect heating/cooling by managing chamber temperature gives a smoother control of the beer temperature.

Wow! Guess I totally missed the part where I had to install the heater and cooler as devices. Working now.

THANKS!