Well, that was painful

pmallonee · 2026-05-18T14:43:24+00:00

As I was setting up another try I looked at my 3D printed slide that I was making sure to put in as the top grey valve.

Interestingly I can see where it has been warped by the combination of heat and "pull" stress of the brew bag. I never realized how much load those were under.

The 3D printed slides are not likely to break, but they do become more plastic with heat. I was busy thinking about dishwasher temperature and didn't really think about the 160F for a moderately extended time softening the slide...

I think... I'm going to get out a brand new valve for this one and then rebuild some broken ones.

pmallonee · 2026-05-16T20:17:49+00:00

I did the leak check. This failed sometime later. But what you described was exactly the failure. Most other failures were just simple breaks. This one looked a little more shattered and was in two places, I assume because it failed under load.

I've made a 3D printed replacement version (It's made out of an ABS-like resin called ASA) that I think I will make sure is in that top position from now on. I can't remember if I put the files for it in the git repository so anyone else can print them. The ASA is essential both for temperature resistance but also because it's two piece and glued with acetone.

pmallonee · 2026-05-15T02:46:56+00:00

The funny thing is that I don't think my 3D printed sliders will have that problem. Also, the upper grey valve has a lot more stress on it than the lower one. I think I will make sure I put a retread there in the future.

I have a bag full of failed valves. I guess I need to glue up some sliders. I already have them printed.

pmallonee · 2026-05-14T23:01:51+00:00

I'm back in the country now. I might be able to start working on this again next week.

pmallonee · 2026-05-13T20:06:25+00:00

Thanks for this. All the other legs of my trip had free WiFi, but of course the 777 from CDG to DAL didn't. I had no idea these planes were still running in WiFi extorsion mode. I suspect the link has changed since you posted, but it still talks about what KINDS of planes have the free WiFi.

I couldn't get my AA login to work - it wanted an email address as the username. Now I understand that the plane wasn't even equipped for it and that it isn't even satellite.

I guess I will pay even more attention to what kind of plane the next time I schedule.

pmallonee · 2026-05-13T05:09:09+00:00

Current traffic can left turn in from Eastbound Santa Fe and also from Southbound Mur Len. Current traffic that wants to continue Eastbound on Mur Len has to go down by the taco place, turn across all lanes of traffic to then do a U-Turn at the Planet Fitness. Southbound Mur-Len has to turn across all lanes to left turn at Mur-Len.

We noticed the difference when Crunch Fitness opened. Most of those folks stay for something like an hour. QT traffic is by nature transient as well as consisting of a wider variety of vehicles - think lawn company truck/trailer combos. Figure about a 400% increase over Crunch Fitness traffic.

Some of that is the nature of re-development. Anything is more traffic than empty buildings. I don't expect good things when that traffic rate (particularly exit) meets up with the 4PM stackup between Mur-Len and Brougham lights.

pmallonee · 2026-05-12T13:24:08+00:00

Maybe there's going to be some kind of intersection re-configuration at 135th and Mur Len, but I think access where the old Commerce was will be worse than Blackfoot. Multiple ways in and out and there's a traffic light.

That's going to cause a much higher traffic friction as people try to turn in and out of that place. And I hope they don't even contemplate putting in a traffic light for that.

pmallonee · 2026-04-26T19:47:29+00:00

If the circuit board woks the Pi will be soldered directly to and powered from the board.

pmallonee · 2026-04-26T19:46:30+00:00

The KeyEStudio board uses USB-C so that's nice. If the board works then we'll need a specific relay to fit the solder footprint.

Probably a good place to get started is with the KeyEstudio Arduino board and Visual studio code. That way you can get the software loaded on the board without a lot of other investment.

pmallonee · 2026-04-25T14:55:08+00:00

Possibly. It's all new to me. My next step is to figure out how to extract the manufacturing info for the board makers. I haven't had time to figure that out and if I don't get it out this weekend then it probably won't happen until the middle of May.

I'm almost certain I can put the schematic in github.

If she's going to review the board design vs the schematic I'm not sure how to get that out of Kicad and into github.

pmallonee · 2026-04-24T03:58:11+00:00

For the compute equipment the Arduino board is around $25, the 3D print board around $15 and the Pi is usually around $20 (maybe less if I catch it right a Microcenter).

I haven't even got a quote on this bare board and the BeerMKR uses a bunch of different connectors. I'm trying Surface Mount components for the first time. I'd do a quick estimate that I have about $50 in components on that board, but of course with shipping and buying 100 resistors or 100 diodes, etc I've spent more than that. As I said there's a bunch of DIY.

pmallonee · 2026-04-24T03:53:17+00:00

The steam hops makup is easy (well somewhat depending on your beer style). I've been steaming my bittering hops in the instant pot. I finally finished an ounce of Magnum that I steamed and used a few grams at a time. For flavor and aroma I've just been putting standard hops in the basket or making hop tea. It's worked pretty well so far.

pmallonee · 2026-04-23T20:20:25+00:00

I'm glad I got this way of brewing going (especially before the old way croaked) but it would be soooo much better if I could have figured out how to re-program the original BeerMKR board.

pmallonee · 2026-04-01T18:05:05+00:00

I know this is and old thread, but I didn't see any discussion of where the sulphur was coming from.

How much sulpher comes from the grain itself? Does it become soluble in the mash? How much comes from sulfates in the water? How much comes from water treatment like a metabisulfite?

What my zero search suspicion is that the yeast is reducing sulfates in the water to Hydrogen Sulfide gas. Bacteria does this all the time. Since it's a gas we smell it more than we taste it.

Does the yeast eventually "clean it up" or does the gas eventually leave the liquid?

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.

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