Valve controller stock

[Duncan_Ritchie]

Hi

I’ve been looking to buy a couple of BREWPI VALVE CONTROL EXPANSION BOARD’s for a while but they haven’t been in stock.

Any idea when you will have some?

Thanks

[Larsen]

Hi, I’ve signed the back-in-stock notification at least 6 month ago, and haven’t heard a word.

In march a friend og mine gave me a box with 20 motor valves, so i asked support if it was possible to use them with the controller. Not a word for 8 month.

So i dropped the idea of Brewpi/Brewblox as a reliable foundation for my automation, even though i find it very interesting.

I come back once in a while…

Cheers…

[Elco]

I have posted some info on upcoming hardware here:

Expansion board valves

The valve control boards for 2 motor valves that we used to sell had a few downsides: Power and communication over RJ12 and OneWire Sensitive to cable quality and cable length Many boards needed because it has only 2 valves per board Because of these limitations, I decided to stop selling this version of the board. The design of the new board triggered a broader redesign of our entire hardware line, with specifically larger breweries in mind. Connecting all these expansion boards to one big …

[Larsen]

Thanks for the reply. Looking forward to the new hardware… BTW: Maybe you should make a note on the valve board page in the shop.

[Duncan_Ritchie]

The new boards sound great.

At the moment I am driving my brewery off my own software running on raspberrypi and I’m connecting to the valves via 1-wire direct from the raspberrypi.

Hopefully I can use the new boards with my own software.

Cheers

[Christer]

Hi when do you think the new boards will be available, I’m ordering components for my herms system. and had planned to control it with Brewpi and brewblox /Christer

[Owi]

Hey Christer, Elco says in another topic “My goal is to have the first prototype next month and to start selling them in March. It’s a tight schedule, but we’re running out of the V3 quickly.”
Read more here: Expansion board valves

[Elco]

I have almost finished the design, will order proto boards next week. However, there’s still quite a bit of software work and lead times on some components are long. I think April is more likely.

[Vauli]

Any news here ?

[Elco]

Spark 4 will have valve support (12V/24V) built in.
Boards for what should be the final prototype will arrive Wednesday.

The production run is already scheduled for week 20 (around May 20th).
Sourcing parts was very difficult due to the global semiconductor shortage, but I have changed the design to avoid parts with a long lead time and sourced parts from many different places to be able to manufacture the Spark 4. We will share some photos and details when the final proto has been assembled.

[Vauli]

Cool! Thanks for the update! Looking forward for the new spark

[hackrsackr]

Any chance 5v can be supported?

[Elco]

My fault for not being clear. The board defaults to 5V. With a setting you can use an externally provided higher voltage up to 24V.

The board uses a DRV8908, so you get 8 half h-bridges which can be high side, low side switch or input.

[chris]

Thanks for the update. I am looking forward to the new components very much. Will there be different boards available regarding number of I/O or will there be “headless” expansion boards to have additional ports?
How will temperature measurement be handled (PT100, semiconductor or …)?

[Bob_Steers]

The controller consists of a core compute module and stackable expansion boards for various types of I/O.
The standard version of the controller is the compute module + screen + an expansion board with Valve I/O, OneWire, and the basic green connectors.

Order of implementation for other expansion boards is not yet finalized. Right now we’re focused on releasing the Spark 4 as drop-in replacement for the Spark 3 + valve control.