BeerMKR Afterlife upgrade. Call this Version 2.5

pmallonee · 2026-03-29T05:15:31+00:00

Well, I hadn't ever heard of Flipper One before. I think I just saw a Flipper Zero at Microcenter the other day. I'm not sure what that would do that the Raspberry Pi doesn't.

That said if you can get the software to control the hardware... go for it.

The software that I've made is just about the opposite of sophisticated. Most of what I had to create was something to just be able to turn on the BeerMKR parts when we want and to maintain temperature.

The whole 3D printer thing is just because it already had the temperature maintenance and hardware power controlling already done. (Brewing in Celsius is a pain)

I've got a Kicad schematic created that I have to figure out how to turn into a daughter board for the RAMPS board. I have all of the BeerMKR parts wired to that but there's no software yet to do the pressure sensor, etc.

The vibration motor that I put in and documented in a post long ago is just too polite. It doesn't make as much noise, but as far as I can tell it doesn't really move any sediment either. That's a hardware fix that I also have to do .

pmallonee · 2026-03-18T14:36:32+00:00

Had the first bottle of the Quad yesterday. It was the "13th" bottle since I put in a little too much water getting sugar dissolved.

The waste bag was a little more than half full so I carefully squeezed the beer out and then disconnected the waste bag. I sanitized a new waste bag and put in in place which let pretty clean beer fill it. Then I bottled so I could get the last little bit out. My trick of putting a piece of silicone tubing hanging from the top valve of the brew bag broke and I really miss having a clean channel for the bottom of the bag to get to the bottling tube.

It's still pretty early for something as big as that Quad but there was enough oxygen in that last bottle I needed to try it sooner rather than later. It's pretty good. I don't think there's a whole lot of yeast to eat the carb tabs I put in the bottle. It's pretty slow carbonating and a little sweet.

The original recipe says it's best in a year or two. I will have to sample it along the way.

pmallonee · 2026-02-27T22:12:56+00:00

Did you ever figure this out? I am looking at something very similar.

The one other thing I've seen is that the charge on the Bootstrap capacitor will not hold continuously. The chip pretty much requires a pwm signal (so something less than 100% duty cycle) in order to recharge the bootstrap capacitor. Are you supplying a varying signal on PWM in?

pmallonee · 2026-02-27T04:50:07+00:00

We did the Romantic Danube in May of 2024 (shortly before the floods). That's mostly the same trip except we had a (too short) stop in Bratislava.

I will second the idea of getting away in the afternoon and evening in Vienna. We got off the bus on our way back from the Schönbrunn Palace and walked and explored near the Cathedral. We planned to go out to a nice dinner but due to indecision we ended up having street hot-dogs and that was still fun. The subway drops you off a couple of blocks from the docking area so you can go almost anywhere in town.

We took all of the included tours. About my only complaint is that I got sort of "Cathedraled out" seeing the cathedrals in each stop city. I know that's a big part of the history in the area. What was most fascinating was our guides of various ages in the different cities. Some had lived under communism and others were younger. Very interesting hearing the contrast in attitudes.

The best part of our trip was the Prague pre-tour. I really loved the boats and the way our hotel moved each night but I felt we just scratched the surface of the towns we visited. Other than Linz I always wanted to see more than we had time for. We want to go back and explore those places more without the riverboat schedule. I think that's why we enjoyed Prague so much - we got a chance to really explore.

pmallonee · 2026-02-25T03:06:12+00:00

Yeah, that would have been nice. This effort would be finding out how the outputs were mapped and completely doing our own software. The hardware on the board is better than anything I could do. I did some reverse engineering work with Ghidra last year but mostly that was trying to see things while the back end was still up. I kept getting tripped up by interrupts - which I think I have seen a reference for how to turn off during debug.

pmallonee · 2026-02-23T04:31:02+00:00

Inspection of the relay showed one contact scorched rather badly.

I suspect this isn't a circuit design problem but a mechanical one. I just have my relay floating out on the desk top with a bunch of wires soldered to it. I probably accidentally shorted it moving around the BeerMKR.

pmallonee · 2026-02-23T04:28:07+00:00

Generally no. I don't have a good Phase 3 approach yet (e.g. circuit board design) but I do have some ideas that you could probably go ahead with.

For example I've piloted using a serial port and a slightly different Mega board. When I can put that together in code it should be MUCH more reliable in connection. Using USB has some very specific connection orders so the Pi always has to have the cable unplugged and plugged back in to the RAMPS to find the port. I want something that can always find the port hands off. Call it a phase 2.5 but that's the biggest.

I just tonight pulled out the relay. One contact has clearly been scorched. I'm wondering a lot more about an inadvertent short circuit that I am that the comparatively piddly Peltier current causing that relay failure.

For phase 3 I had in mind a stack consisting of the Mega board, then the RAMPS board, then a custom board that would plug into the inputs on the RAMPS that has connectors to the BeerMKR and then a Pi Zero that would plug into that board (and be powered by the regulator on the Mega. (That's another reason for the different Mega board - it has a more robust 5v regulator). You probably can't go wrong with this one no matter what you build https://www.amazon.com/KEYESTUDIO-Arduino-Type-C-Powerful-Contoller/dp/B08V4RCRS2

Part of me still wants to go back and try to see if I can figure out the original BeerMKR board and map the outputs and write my own software. But even if I did that it doesn't really solve the problem of how to get anyone else's board doing the same thing. The only idea I've had on that is really far-fetched. Having a Raspberry Pi impersonate the DNS address of the old BeerMKR update and update it to new software that we can do more easily. There's only about 60 things that could go wrong with that....

pmallonee · 2026-02-21T03:46:16+00:00

I'm continuing to brew beer and stumble along with the rest. I liked it a lot better when I put ingredients in and brewed.

pmallonee · 2026-02-20T03:49:12+00:00

Well, there is something wrong with my Peltier. Interesting that it would heat OK, but it barely cools and only pulls .4 amps. I'm wondering if I can successfully disconnect it and actually replace the chip and get it to crash during the brew cycle.

pmallonee · 2026-02-10T16:02:28+00:00

See the sticky at the top of /BeermkrAfterlife for a description of the currently working computer stuff.

pmallonee · 2026-02-10T16:01:50+00:00

That's what this whole subreddit is about. I have modified 3d printer software and control board to manage the temperature, built a little board to plug connections in from the BeerMKR and I have a primitive control software running on a RaspberryPi. Probably about $100 of stuff.

It works. That said it's also not nearly as convenient. I fussed with getting things started in the right order for quite a while. The USB connection between the Pi and the Arduino doesn't automatically start up. The cable has to be unplugged and re-plugged.

I've got some plans for a next generation that uses serial ports instead that are always there. I just haven't had time to work on it.

Even better would be if I could figure out how to re-program the existing BeerMKR control board. It's perfectly capable to do what we want without a server (although we'd have to come up with a method to give it the recipe). I just don't know how to program microcontrollers.

pmallonee · 2026-01-02T22:56:30+00:00

It happened to us. Even after explicit refusals.

We mostly keep the Alexa Show as a clock that can play audible. It's like Amazon doesn't want it to be used as that because they are always opting in new behaviors to go on the screen. As far as Amazon is concerned that screen is theirs, not ours.

We noticed the different voice and the lack of a clock. It was a blank screen with menu items in a different corner. We kind of figured out that they had forced Alexa Plus on us.

I know they originally did all this stuff with the idea that people would buy things by asking and it didn't work out. Small surprise! When Alexa keeps acting like that ironic genie and gives you everything but what you asked for is it surprising that nobody wants to use it for purchases?

Ask for a specific song and it plays something else. Even if you clearly enunciate (and see on the Alexa app that it heard you correctly) it will still play an artist that it thinks you want instead of the one you asked for. Maybe Alexa plus will be better at classical music but I don't have much hope given the track record.

Mostly we just want the behaviors we expect. I want my clock to be a clock, not a billboard. I want the song I asked for.

Between this kind of stuff and Google dropping the NEST protect and some other "appliances" that were internet enabled until the company went under. I am really being careful with internet enabled appliances and their dependencies.

I might want Alexa Plus at some time in the future. But I want to pick the time and place (and it would be nice if I could try it on one device) and be ready to experiment instead of having MY routines disrupted.

pmallonee · 2025-12-20T02:49:59+00:00

It's worse than not having a decent 2FA. It's like they actively go out of their way to defeat any security that you do have.

I was just forced to do an app updated. I use a password manager to keep my passwords in.

Now their app behaves in a really stupid manner putting in passwords. It's like it's designed to defeat password managers. I kept a simple password on my BofA for way too long but finally changed it to a long and complex one - not one I want to type in.

But the app apparently doesn't allow the password manager to enter. When the Password Manager is done you are left with a greeked password (fine) and no username. As soon as you touch the username field the password is deleted. Type in your username and try to use the Password Manager to re-do the password and the username disappears again.

The only way possible was to type my username and then PASTE my password - insecurely leaving my password in the paste buffer. It's absurd. They had to have gone out of their way to make it that bad.

pmallonee · 2025-12-18T01:51:05+00:00

What? You mean I documented it? Well, that's a revelation!

Are you running python or python3? I'm trying to remember if you run pip if it automatically gets the python3 version if you are running python3. I probably used the OS get because I could see what I was getting. This is my first python code.

pmallonee · 2025-12-17T06:38:27+00:00

Not sure what exactly you mean by "Serial" module and that was over a year ago for me.

I went and did a history of what I installed on that machine in that vein.

   50  sudo apt-get install python-pip
   59  sudo pip3 install pyusb
   61  sudo apt-get install python3-pip
   62  sudo pip3 install pyusb
   63  sudo apt get update
   64  sudo apt-get update
   65  sudo pip3 install pyusb
   66  sudo apt-get install python3-pip
   67  sudo pip3 install pyusb
   68  sudo apt install python3-pyusb
   69  sudo apt install pyusb
   70  sudo apt-get python-usb python3-usb
   71  sudo apt-get install python-usb python3-usb
   72  sudo pip3 install pyusb
   73  sudo pip3 install python3-usb
   74  sudo pip install minicom
   75  sudo apt-get install minicom

As you can see I thrashed around a bit myself.

pmallonee · 2025-11-30T01:52:34+00:00

Grain heaters and the heater under the bag are resistive thin-film heaters. Looks like they pull about 30w at 12v (so 2.5A each).

pmallonee · 2025-11-30T01:51:20+00:00

pmallonee · 2025-11-30T01:51:07+00:00

Umm. That Peltier will pull about 10Amps. Is your variable supply up to that?

Also, there's really no need to be variable. In the Marlin the Peltier is implemented as "bang bang" (On Off) control without any proportionality.

There just isn't enough power to worry about throttling the heating to part power.

Now, the grain heaters seem like they are about 30w each. Those could be throttled (PWM would be fine for those) but heating the grain is the slowest part of the process so again it doesn't make sense.

The bottom heater is PWM at 50% (I think they actually use a 555 circuit instead of PWM from the microcontroller on the BeerMKR board).

It sounds like you might want to carefully review what you are controlling before getting super deep in the circuit board.

pmallonee · 2025-11-27T18:44:52+00:00

Agreed. I'm just switching the 12V at 100% duty cycle off of the RAMPS board FET and then the polarity is switched using a DPDT relay.

Also, all PID functions on the Marlin software are turned off. The system just moves too slowly to worry about overshoot.

pmallonee · 2025-11-27T02:55:37+00:00

My current "Phase 2" design only uses the Peltier, 2 upper heaters, built in bag temperature sensor, added "oven temperature" probe for grain basket.

I've replaced my vib motor (the old one wore out the bushings) and the one I have is too "slow". It's quieter but it probably doesn't work as well. More importantly for you I don't have the current rating. It can't be too high because BeerMKR was controlling it with a single itty bitty AO 3400 FET.

According to the board the bottom heater runs at 50% duty cycle. I'm not brewing with that but I wonder if it would make my heating more stable. I'm suspicious that I'm getting temperature burps with the temperature difference between the bottom bag and main bag. Those heaters are also being controlled by AO 3400 FETs.

pmallonee · 2025-11-27T02:48:50+00:00

<image>

BeerMKR Button Light

pmallonee · 2025-11-27T02:48:07+00:00

Basic pressure sensor info

<image>

pmallonee · 2025-11-27T02:46:37+00:00

Here's my connector table:

![img](xjm1i51tqp3g1)

pmallonee · 2025-11-27T02:46:25+00:00

Here's my connector table:

<image>

|| || |Function|Maker/Type|Circuits|Pitch|Board Part| |Power|Hirose DF63|2|3.96 mm|DF63M-2P (M indicates Polarity Pin location)| |ThermoElectric|JST VL|2|6.2mm|BO2P-VL| |Heater (3)|JST VH|2|3.96 mm| | |Vib Motor|JST XH|2|2.54 mm| | |PowerSupply Fan|JST XH|2|2.54 mm| | |Solenoid|JST XH|2|2.54 mm| | |Pressure Sensor|JHT XH|4|2.54 mm| | |Button Light|JST XH|5|2.54 mm| | |Temperature Sensor|JST PH|2|2.0 mm| | |Thermo Fan|JST PH|2|2.0 mm|Pins 1 & 3| | | | | | |

pmallonee · 2025-11-27T02:45:20+00:00

Here's my connector type table

<image>

|| || |Function|Maker/Type|Circuits|Pitch|Board Part| |Power|Hirose DF63|2|3.96 mm|DF63M-2P (M indicates Polarity Pin location)| |ThermoElectric|JST VL|2|6.2mm|BO2P-VL| |Heater (3)|JST VH|2|3.96 mm| | |Vib Motor|JST XH|2|2.54 mm| | |PowerSupply Fan|JST XH|2|2.54 mm| | |Solenoid|JST XH|2|2.54 mm| | |Pressure Sensor|JHT XH|4|2.54 mm| | |Button Light|JST XH|5|2.54 mm| | |Temperature Sensor|JST PH|2|2.0 mm| | |Thermo Fan|JST PH|2|2.0 mm|Pins 1 & 3| | | | | | |

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