STC1000 Hacking

[barneey]

Thought I would have a go at the STC1000 hacking with the Arduino, must say its not as difficult as I thought.














So this now enables 5 different setups each one having upto 9 different temperature steps

[AnthonyUK]

Great to see you managed it OK.

[barneey]

Cheers Mate for the nudge in the right direction,

The most difficult thing was getting those dammed pins soldered in, I think if I ever did any more a vac de-solder thing might be a good investment. I now will start reading up more on the Arduino for more brewing related experiments.

EDIT, I think the easiest way forward would be just to rig up a temp 5 pin probe and physically hold it against the STC whilst programming the thing = no soldering needed

[Andy]

High level summary of what's going on here would be great

[AnthonyUK]

Andy,
A clever guy has reverse engineered the STC-1000 V1.0 firmware and rewritten it adding extra features such as ramping, temperature profiles and for some bizarre reason Fahrenheit

[barneey]

http://hackaday.com/2014/03/15/temperat ... e-upgrade/

https://github.com/matsstaff/stc1000p
As mentioned above new firmware written for the STC

So say you wanted to control your fermentation temps, at the moment with the STC you need to manually change the desired temperature, with the new firmware you can program it.

Example

3 days at 20c
3 days at 24c
7 days at 2c

There are 5 programs each with nine different steps (time / temp)

[alphaomega]

Hi!
Thanks for posting!
Now go help some friends getting their STC-1000+ on
//mats

[barneey]

Just used the hold the pins against the board method on the other 2 STC`s , easier than soldering.

[Belter]

I got my Mrs nimble fingers to hold wires on. It's possible even without the pin header. If you have small fingers.

[Andy]

Ordered an Arduino Uno last night so will have a play with it (for this STC mod + in general)

[Kev888]

Just in case people miss it in the links, I believe the STC has to be a version 1 to be compatible with the hacked code (unless I'm out of date already!).

Cheers
Kev

[AnthonyUK]

Just in case people miss it in the links, I believe the STC has to be a version 1 to be compatible with the hacked code (unless I'm out of date already!).

Cheers
Kev

Specifically v1.0 A400_P (which is the microcontroller type I believe)
Someone on an Aussie forum mentioned they had a v1.0 which wasn't compatible but it hasn't been confirmed.

[Andy]

Hmmm, difficult to determine what versions are being sold on ebay/amazon etc I would imagine. I don't currently own a STC so would need to buy one.

[ajclarkson]

It is very difficult to tell, something like hook a duck!

I just got one from amazon and it is a new version so can't be flashed

There's suggestions of ways to tell without opening the case however. I can't vouch for this as I have only seen mine in the flesh, but various forums seem to suggest (can't take credit for these just pooling information):

- Where "Note" is displayed on the instruction label, if it is a black exclamation mark on a light triangle its v1, reversed its v1.1 (not flash able)
- If the connectors for the power in & sensor on the back of the unit are almost touching then its v1, with a 5mm(ish) gap its 1.1

I can confirm that on my non flash able unit, both of these are true (white exclamation mark on a black triangle, connectors separated slightly)

If these turn out to be repeatably true, then I guess people could always return the units without having to crack them open to find out?

[Andy]

Interesting! Can anyone with a v1.0 version confirm that the exclamation mark to the left of the word "Note" (on the sticker on top of the unit) is a black exclamation mark in a white triangle ?