Inexpensive, very full featured controller.

[WhiskeyFeller]

I've built an inexpensive but very full featured electric still controller. I'm opening the software to the home distilling community including instructions and plans for building your own hardware. I hope that people will build their own and enjoy it. It's an ongoing project and will continue to be developed. If any of you are JavaScript/Node.JS developers and wish to get involved let me know.

[fizzix]

Quite impressive, WhiskeyFeller.
Those Raspberry Pi's can do just about anything.

[Samyguy]

got some POWER going there

[shadylane]

Great looking build, thanks for sharing
Is the cooling water to the dephleg plumbed right

[WhiskeyFeller]

The dephleg is not plumbed correctly. Good eye. This was a fitting setup. Wasn't running.

[Manc]

That looks amazing whiskeyfeller didn't understand most of it I can see how it could help great build I've subscribed.

Lee

[MtRainier]

What kind of tee fittings did you use to get the 6mm temperature probes to seal watertight? I had to rig something up to get mine to seal in a tee.

And it looks like you have at least one in the vapor path above the dephleg. How'd you mount that one in there on that stub of tri-clamp pipe?

Also, what do you think of some flow meters in there? http://a.co/d/aBiUdUA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[WhiskeyFeller]

Tee's: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N0 ... UTF8&psc=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

The brass insert works well, but they cost money and the only place I can find them is Aliexpress. Another way you can do it is with silicone hose like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N5 ... UTF8&psc=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow. It fits both the sensor and the tee very well. I haven't tested it live yet so I can't say how well it seals. The down side is that the sensor does not come out as easy during breakdown which is why I haven't tested it live yet (if it ain't broke...).

I had my local brewing supply shop (http://www.brewhardware.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow) fab it for me. Bobby at Brew Hardware is great. He took a short 4" spool and and soldered in a thermowell. If I wanted to monitor vapor temperature at each bubble plate I could just keep adding these.

[MtRainier]

Cool.

Reason I asked about the thermometers going into the tees is because I solved it like this:

viewtopic.php?f=85&t=71740

and wondered if you had a better solution.

I've done about 15 runs now with mine and they're still holding up. No leaks. They're not on the pressure side, though, but so far they're good.

[WhiskeyFeller]

How's that put together?

Did you get those tees at Home Depot? They look like the ones they sell. I had trouble with those not sealing on the hose well and being quite finicky. The sizing is in inches and the hoses mm so I assumed that was why but not sure.

I didn't answer the flow meter question. That's certainly possible. It's not a parameter that interests me personally, but if you're interested in adding that, the project's open source.

[WhiskeyFeller]

Mt. Rainier, here's a Node.JS package for that flow meter: https://www.npmjs.com/package/water-flow-sensor" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Shoulld be straight forward to implement. The thing to watch is resource impact. I had to disable a temperature sensor I installed int eh master controller because it killed performance.

[MtRainier]

How's that put together?

Did you get those tees at Home Depot? They look like the ones they sell. I had trouble with those not sealing on the hose well and being quite finicky. The sizing is in inches and the hoses mm so I assumed that was why but not sure.

I didn't answer the flow meter question. That's certainly possible. It's not a parameter that interests me personally, but if you're interested in adding that, the project's open source.

I bought tubing sized in inches instead of the metric stuff that stilldragon and some of the Chinese folks on aliexpress sell.

Got 3/8 tubing in colors from here https://www.freshwatersystems.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[WhiskeyFeller]

That's a great source for all of these pneumatic components. Thanks for posting.

[Getsmokin]

Where is this project located? I see no links or pictures.

[WhiskeyFeller]

I cleaned up the Wiki. Here's the link to the repository: https://github.com/dillonbob/StillPi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Getsmokin]

It looks like the power form is duty cycle? How well does this perform under a pi? I ask cause an old brewing controller I have, pulses irregularly under duty cycle and it would not make a very smooth boil control.

[WhiskeyFeller]

It is duty cycle. I use a 1 second period so power is the application of power to the heater or a fraction of the 1 second period.

It's very smooth. The Raspberry Pi itself is a powerful computer, certainly relevant to the task of duty cycle power control. I think that the software environment is the more important factor. My software is written to run on Node.JS. The Node core is written in C and C++ so it's lean and fast. Where I did find a limit on the Pi is when I implemented a polling temperature sensor on the same Pi that runs the power control loop. The polling rate dragged the Pi to the point that it impacted the power loop. I disabled this feature and everything was smooth. The default poling rate is buried in the code but the API allows you to control the polling in your own app. The need for the temperature sensor on the master controller to monitor the temperature of the SSRs has past so I haven't spent the time to optimized that part but I may in the future.