ESP 32 for controller

[TheRealMrMessy]

Hi Toto.
I use ESP32s with hose pressure sensors to monitor for cooling water failing, like hoses popping off outside. They alert me on drop (via home assistant) calibrated so a toilet flush doesnt bother me, and immediately cut the power if it drops to near zero.

What controller do you have in mind?

[RuddyCrazy]

I want to use it to monitor my still.

You don't need a a ESP32 to monitor your still mate as your eyes will do a much better job and remember when the still is running a presence at the still should always be there no buts no doubt :violence-smack:

go and have a read of the stuffups members have done when the still was left unattended and I'm sure a ESP32 won't let you know when that happens :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

[The Stig]

I’m with Bryan :law-policered:
Never leave a running still unattended , it can turn to shit real quick

[TheRealMrMessy]

I like the added safety devices (plus I'm a geek and that was a fun little project). It's done the job a couple times when hoses have failed, quicker than I could respond to. Probably don't need to respond that quickly given the cooling capacity of the condensers can take a few min until steamy ethanol hell breaks loose, but what the hey.

Right now I'm fanboying over the new RAPT corny level sensors, knowing 4 will be added to my menagerie of crap, using them to have a nice dashboard showing keg levels for my fridge :handgestures-thumbupleft: .

[Wellsy]

Not just your safety Toto others may read the comments and think it is a way to automate and leave the still unattended.

All of us longer term members are paranoid about leaving the still unattended as we have all had it go wrong while we are there. There are many sales pitches based on, this is easy and just set it up and walk away , come back 8 hours later and you have top quality drinkable product.

We just want to make sure everyone who reads these threads know what needs to be done. So pleased you are not one of those fool hardy souls that walks away from a running still.

[Amature_Hour_247]

This is a great thread! I used to use the Arduino gear for home brew control of my fermentation fridges and had often wondered how I could integrate that side of things into this hobby.

If you were to build something, what would you ideally have it monitoring? I came up with a shortlist below and figured if I end up building something I'll draw up some plans and share the code / build parts so we can tweak it.

Based on the monitoring below you could build in alarms to either just yell at you or trip a relay (12v only, of course). ESP32 seems to be beefy enough to run a web server and drive a captive touch screen too, so potentially you could build a small HMI (human machine interface) style controller if you wanted too.

Temp monitoring shortlist:
- Head temp
- Boiler temp
- Offtake temp
- Condenser out temp

Flow monitoring:
- Condenser out pressure
- Defleg out

Edit: I found you can also buy some 'dumb' monitoring things like water flow meters off evilBay but they don't have any way to read the data into a controller so you're stuck just looking at them for things like how many liters per hour your water flow is...

Edit 2: I currently have a PID controller (Inkbird) from my beer days which is linked to an alarm trigger on a switch. When it hits a setpoint temp (e.g. boiler reaches 50c) it'll yell at me, but I can only have it monitor the single probe hence why this ESP talk is getting me excited.

[TheRealMrMessy]

I don't have any automated control except the power cut off from pressure drop, but I do also have digital temp on the boiler and tower. Run through ESP32, logging via home assistant. Smarts for the power cut vs pressure is through HA too. This learns approx temp patterns and its pretty repeatable. I used a couple RAPT pills in fermenters but they are entirely pointless so gave them away.

I have some e-paper displays that im going to build into some kegerator taps, which can display current brews as well as keg levels (with the new sensors coming soon). Gotta get a new 3D printer as mine literally finally died last week - waiting for black friday, no rush. That'll all run through HA as well.

[Amature_Hour_247]

What are you using for the pressure monitoring mate?

Ohh and yes the laser level keg sensors do look awesome don't they :-D

[TheRealMrMessy]

Generic 35psi pressure transducer off ali mate. Or 100psi - either'd work.
ESPhome on the 32. Google finds heaps of suggested setups for wiring and config, even AI chimed in with something that looks alright at a glance.

Wasn't any kind of difficult to make work. Calibration mildly frustrating. Alcohol helped.
:obscene-drinkingdrunk:

edit: fixed the 5SD rebranding of ali - sorry Stig haha.

[bluc]

Im planning an arduino/esp32 for an eparrot..

[RuddyCrazy]

If I was EVER going to go down this path a Raspberry Pi 2 and 3 would be used running micro-python as with my club.py project stuff just works :laughing-rolling: Well as my 1996 C200 merc decided to breakdown I'm now on hacking the merc protocol so I can see the codes. :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

[Amature_Hour_247]

OK so this is very much V0.1 draft... and I'm not settled on anything yet so happy to take advice.

Plan is to use PT100 sensors and a 4 channel board over RS485.
The board I want to use only had a single GPIO header so I've scaled it back to a single pressure sensor / flow meter.

Draft_ESP32_Monitor.jpg

Here's the mock dashboard, it's not perfect but just to give an idea:

esp32_redesign_dashboard.jpg

[TheRealMrMessy]

Rpi's are entire computers - I've got 4 haha. Pi 2 or 3... cmon Bryan they are up to #5 now haha.

ESP is a microcontroller, and damn good one at that. Got a Jetson Nano I keep neglecting to turn into my own local voice assistant/LLM with the ESP32s running the mic and speakers around the place. Meant to work great, haven't got to it yet.

E-parrot... I used to want one before I learned how to predict and readily taste cuts as I roll them off the still. Temperature, and frankly simply looking at offtake volume tells me around when to expect it now haha. Fun project though, will watch with tech interest.

[RuddyCrazy]

Messy the platform I'm using is a pico 3 'the board to rule them all' now the idea came off the backshed forum, it has a HID 4 port USB hub, 8MB of ram, wifi, SDCard which is also the HD, power is from a C-USB which is also COMS.

I'm running micro-python where once the code is done and all sync'd together it just works, I'm on building a SQL database for a car club recording idea but honestly as the code is that stable it could serve as a database for any task as when when several boards are in service all of them link via network with a static IP and transferring data between is a one button push.

The next thing to add in is a 2meg camera that can be setup as 'on change' take a picture and save it also the OBD-11 connector as it will be setup as a ECU reader for pre OBD-11 historic vehicles.

Cheers Bryan