I have an electronic brewing machine for beer. Mechanically, it's great. Electronically, it's very primitive, and the manufacturer is not excited about user-friendliness or customer support.

It runs on 240V single phase. It has a 23-watt impeller pump that moves water around inside it. It has a 2000-watt heating element to heat the contents. It has a temperature probe to guide the heating. All of this goes to a controller. A total of 4 cables go from the controller to the heater, probe, and pump, so it's not complicated. They could just as easily go to a different device.

The controller has the capacity to store a few schedules or "recipes." Example: heat to 155 (F), hold for 60 minutes while pumping water through grain (shutting pump down for 1 minute out of every 15), heat to 170, hold for 15 minutes while pumping water through grain, shut off heat, alert user, boil contents for 60 minutes with alerts at 30 and 15 minutes, shut down and alert user.

The pump and heater are either on or off. No high or low settings.

The controller only allows a user to store a few recipes, which is ridiculous. It requires using up/down buttons to scroll through a billion characters. It limits the temperatures arbitrarily. There is no way to connect it to a PC for the purpose of moving recipes in and out. It is possible to connect it to the maker's website using a $400 wifi adaptor, and you can store recipes in their cloud. You can't use an adaptor from Amazon, and even if you could, the controller only accepts a weird German plug, not regular USB. No one has figured out the pinouts yet, but obviously, the lines going to the probe, motor, and heater are simpler.

Seems to me a person should be able to create either a programmable controller or a controller which can be controlled using a simple program on a laptop connected via Bluetooth or a USB cable.

Or I could spend $3000 on a new machine, which is not backwards-compatible, and hope they got it right this time.

I guess the first question is this: what's the best way to get juice to the heater? The OEM controller has a big heat sink on it. I'm not sure what that's all about. I would think raw AC would go into the element, so the only thing to worry about would be a way of switching it on and off without destructive arcs. I don't see why a heat sink would be needed. Maybe it's just to protect the digital stuff from the heat of the brewing process?

The pump only sucks 23 watts, so it seems like less of a concern.

An external controller would have to turn the heater and pump on and off. The heater would have to go on and off based on a timer and also based on reaching and maintaining temperatures indicated by the probe. The pump would sometimes run at the same time, but at other times, it would have to run separately. It would also be necessary to run the pump and heater manually, independently of each other.

Finally, the whole thing would need a text display and a way to communicate with a PC.

Any ideas about running the heater? Obviously, I am not very sophisticated when it comes to this stuff.

 

. A total of 4 cables go from the controller to the heater, probe, and pump, so it's not complicated. They could just as easily go to a different device.

.It sounds as though you have all the basic 'ingredients' temp sensor, element, pump etc It would seem that you need to replace the controller, which could be done with a suitable PLC
It would however be quite the project.

 

A new controller is exactly what I want.

 

I have used the likes of maple Systems HMI units in conjunction with a PLC to achieve similar results, but it would be quite a project.

 

It has to manage two outputs and one input, and I would need to write a program allowing me to input values and save different versions. I have read that relays will handle the heater, but I don't know if the AC has to be rectified yet. I have never designed a stove.

So far, my most advanced Arduino project involved making three different kinds of LED's blink on and off.

 

What is the capacity of the brew vat etc?

 

When it's jammed full, it's around 25L of water and grain.

 

So this is just a DIY home unit, I would not have thought you need that much sophistication,
Check out Automation Direct for solutions like I previously mentioned, There would be a bit of a learning curve however, if this is not your usual area of expertise.

 

This is a German-made hobby machine that produces 5 gallons of beer. The mechanicals are great. It's just the digital stuff that's 30 years behind the curve.

You put water in it. You choose a recipe. You turn the machine on. When the temperature is right, the machine tells you to add grain. You add the grain and inform the machine. Then it heats the grain for a while to convert the starch to sugar. Then you remove the grain and tell the machine. The machine then boils the liquid, telling you to add hops at timed intervals defined in your recipe. Eventually, it tells you to drain the unfermented beer into a fermenter.

There are a zillion possible schedules, but the machine only lets you save a handful, and it refuses to do certain things.

 

Consider what it is that you are looking for, big picture. Ability to incorporate expanded recipes is different than controlling a heating element.
I was asked to upgrade a coffee roaster. The end result was a Labview based HMI, with a usb’d local controller.
A good place to start is logging the important variables, to see how the current controller is performing, against desired.

 

The problem isn't that the controller doesn't work. It does a limited number of things fine.

I can't make it do certain schedules, I can't store many schedules, and the only way to move schedules into and out of the controller is by poking three little buttons a thousand times. There is no USB, wifi, or Bluetooth access to the inside of the machine.

A new controller will have to allow me to move recipes (schedules) into and out of the machine from my laptop or phone. It isn't necessary for me to store the recipes in the machine, but it would make sense. I can't separate running the machine from handling recipes. I can't fix it so I can keep the existing controller. There is no way to operate the controller remotely, so I have to have a way to get the recipes into the machine.

I want to be able to create dozens of schedules, name them, store them on a laptop or in the new controller, and run them without going through the miserable OEM interface.

The new version of the machine runs $3K, which is insane for a hobby, and the only way to have a lot of recipes is to use wifi and rely on the manufacturer's cloud. A problem if they shut it down, and they probably exercise control over the content of the recipes. It would be just like them.

 

The HMI and controllers on Automation direct should fit the bill, a little cheaper than Maple systems etc, but still no mean feat.

 

I would think that any simple microcontroller should be able to handle controlling the machine. A couple members have suggested a PLC. I’m familiar with the Arduino environment, but there are others which would work.

Besides an Arduino, you’d need a shield to support a micro SD card (in which you could store your recipes) and an LCD display to provide instructions. Plus a pushbutton to tell the machine to proceed to the next step.

Then, you could control the mixing and pump motors with a small circuit to interface to the Arduino and control the pump and heater (probably with a triac and heat sink).

I imagine a recipe would consist of steps, turning the motors on and off for a specific amount of time, displaying instructions on the screen and waiting for the brewmaster to confirm the instructions have been completed. These steps could be written in a text file on a PC or laptop with an SD drive and moved to the machine.

Of course, this level of programming while not overly complex is harder than turning a few LEDs on and off. Do you have a friend who can code?

 

Reminds me of an early camera project. An AVR port parasitized the membrane switches. The AVR was commanded over RS232 to simulate keystrokes, originating from a text file on the PC. If the controller had a manual, or test mode, you could possibly run profiles through that mode, using the controller as simple I/O interface
Carrying it further, a micro controller of your choice could replace the existing, with some strategic board work.

 

I would think that any simple microcontroller should be able to handle controlling the machine. A couple members have suggested a PLC. I’m familiar with the Arduino environment, but there are others which would work.

Besides an Arduino, you’d need a shield to support a micro SD card (in which you could store your recipes) and an LCD display to provide instructions. Plus a pushbutton to tell the machine to proceed to the next step.

Now I think it should be a USB drive. Harder to lose.

On the controller itself, I think I would need buttons similar to the old controller's. Up/down. Abort. Yes. Back. I would want the schedules to run the machine, though. I would just be confirming things and giving permission to move forward and so on. "Is the kettle full of water?" "Yes."

Then, you could control the mixing and pump motors with a small circuit to interface to the Arduino and control the pump and heater (probably with a triac and heat sink).

There is only one motor; the pump. It's pretty simple.

I imagine a recipe would consist of steps, turning the motors on and off for a specific amount of time, displaying instructions on the screen and waiting for the brewmaster to confirm the instructions have been completed. These steps could be written in a text file on a PC or laptop with an SD drive and moved to the machine.

Of course, this level of programming while not overly complex is harder than turning a few LEDs on and off. Do you have a friend who can code?

This is exactly how it works.

No coding friends, sadly. There are other people doing similar things on the web. I am looking around to see what they've written.

I found a project called OpenArdBir, but it looks like they deleted the files. I guess they're afraid of being sued over accidents.

https://www.open-electronics.org/the-perfect-beer-with-arduino-openardbir-project/

 

Now I think it should be a USB drive. Harder to lose.

Unfortunately, I don’t know of any Arduino that can read from a USB drive. Adafruit has the Metro line of microcontrollers that can be programmed with the Arduino IDE (integrated development environment) is compatible with Arduino shields and can read an USB flash drive. Or you could look at the Raspberry Pi, but I haven’t used either of them.

You’d probably need an SD card adapter anyway. They are a little larger than a micro SD card and you could use them for storage as well. Plus, you could probably store many recipes on one micro SD card.

There is only one motor; the pump. It's pretty simple.

Sorry, I meant pump and heater.

On the controller itself, I think I would need buttons similar to the old controller's. Up/down. Abort. Yes. Back.

Not a problem at all. Each button would need a pin or some LCD displays have input buttons on them.

But all this might be an issue if you’re not an intermediate coder. As I said, this problem may be beyond your capabilities at the current time.

 

There is also the Smart Relay option, these are the younger brother of the PLC and a few different makes out there, they also have a built in 24h clock.

 

Thanks. I guess an SD card is the way to go.

In case anyone else is interested in this kind of thing, I just found a site for people who use Raspberry Pi boards to run brewing machines. The hardware looks very simple, and it appears they already have software written. I am looking into it to see if it can work for me.

http://web.craftbeerpi.com/hardware/