Plastic HERMS Brewery - It LIVES!!!

[JabbA]

I've been messing about the last few months learning how to program in C with the Arduino microcontroller in an effort to upgrade my set-up to a PID controlled HERMS affair as well as knocking-up some other bits and pieces in copper and plastic. I've got Howard to thank for his inspirational thread here , it's where I first heard of the Arduino and how it can control a brewery and an almost infinite number of other applications. I'd have loved to have gone the whole hog and brought a load of shiny stainless pots but with a baby on the way brewing funds are limited, I can always buy some when funds allow- if indeed I feel the need.

I've been dragging my feet getting the bloody thing finished but tonight I got everything hooked up and had a wet-run before hopefully getting the first brew on the go on Sunday. And bloody hell, it only soddingbloodywellworks

Here's the basic set-up (minus the boiler):
HLT, Tesco kettle with 10mm coper coil heat exchanger and mash tun.


HERMS unit:


The brains of the whole operation:


The awesome little Solar Project 14w pump:


The PID needs a bit of tuning, it's a bit slow to react to changes to the temp exiting the HERMS coil so a bit of swotting up and trial and error required there. I also need to get a proper case sorted but I'm chuffed to bits it actually works!

Cheers,
Jamie

[weiht]

Very interesting setup. Does your electric kettle turn on too frequently?

[Jim]

Like.

[gnutz2]

Awesome, i love playing around with electronics but my experience is limited to a few 555 circuits.

Where did you get the lcd from, are they hard to program?

Whats does the PCB with the big IC do?

[JabbA]

Very interesting setup. Does your electric kettle turn on too frequently?

Yes, the element comes on to often, I need to have a look at the PID tuning parameters so as the cycle time is shorter and more responsive. I've not played with any microelectronics or PID devises before so it's a bit of a steep learning curve!

Cheers,
Jamie

[JabbA]

Like.

Cheers Jim! When I was first pointed in the direction of this site I never imagined I'd be building a computer controlled brewery

Cheers,
Jamie

[JabbA]

Where did you get the lcd from, are they hard to program?

Whats does the PCB with the big IC do?

The LCD is a HD44780 class display and came from Honk Kong via E-Bay for about £7. The Arduino platform has loads of freely availably libraries and one has been written for the HD44780. If I can get my head round it with my next be bugger all programming experience then I'd say they are easy to program!

The PCB is the Arduino board powered by a Atmel ATmega328 chip.


http://arduino.cc/en/ has a wealth on information about the board and programming and there's a large community built around it with a busy forum with lots of helpful contributors.

Cheers,
Jamie

[PureGuiness]

Wow! that looks like a cool setup. Good work.

[GARYSMIFF]

Top stuff

[JabbA]

Brewday post detailing a very successful first brew!!

Cheers,
Jamie

[alexe]

Nice one!

I've been doing something similar - hope to post some pics soon.

Might be interesting to exchange code, to see how each other programmed the Arduino...

[barneey]

Where did you get the lcd from, are they hard to program?

Whats does the PCB with the big IC do?

The LCD is a HD44780 class display and came from Honk Kong via E-Bay for about £7. The Arduino platform has loads of freely availably libraries and one has been written for the HD44780. If I can get my head round it with my next be bugger all programming experience then I'd say they are easy to program!

The PCB is the Arduino board powered by a Atmel ATmega328 chip.

http://arduino.cc/en/ has a wealth on information about the board and programming and there's a large community built around it with a busy forum with lots of helpful contributors.

Cheers,
Jamie

When you bought your board did you buy the kit version? or just the basic parts?

+ It might be worth opening am "Arduino" thread to discuss coding etc. BTW havnt programmed anything since a ZX48

Cheers

[JabbA]

Might be interesting to exchange code, to see how each other programmed the Arduino...

Cheers Alex, that's a good idea- I'll start a thread. Be prepared to 'LOL' at my very amateurish attempt at coding, I take the approach of 'copy a bit of code off of someone on t'internet and butcher it until it works!' not what one would call elegant.

Edit- I better get some comments sorted out on the code before posting it!

Cheers,
Jamie

[JabbA]

When you bought your board did you buy the kit version? or just the basic parts?

Hi Barneey,

I brought the finished board and starter pack of components from Earthshine. Buoyed the fact that it all works OK I'm planning to build my own circut and have the main board free to tinker with other projects.

Cheers,
Jamie

[JabbA]

As promised: Brewery Programming thread!

Cheers,
Jamie