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RaspberryPints

 
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fseider




Joined: 10 May 2013
Posts: 156
Location: Two Naked Frogs Brewery; Reading, PA (USA); Interests: Beer, Frogs, Steampunk, Being Naked


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 5:35 pm    Post subject: RaspberryPints Reply with quote


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I have been experimenting with RaspberryPints over the last few days. (RaspberryPi was a Christmas present.) For anyone who has been trying to get RaspberryPints to work over the last few years, you know how much a challenge it can be to get it to work, if at all. This is mainly due to the newer versions of the Raspian OS software, the Apache web server, MySQl, PHP, and a few other items that no longer function together from the RaspberryPints perspective. This all really 'broke' significantly as of Aug 2017 with deprecated libraries. (Don't be too concerned with these details if you have no clue what I am referring to.) And the original RaspberryPints site has (apparently) essentially abandoned the project years ago, leaving it up to hackers.

I have been successful in getting RaspberryPints to work using the latest RaspberryPi (RPi3 B) and Raspian OS (Oct 2017 release). Note that this is the non flow meter version - I'll tackle getting the flow meters to work at a later date hopefully.

If anyone is interested, I'll be glad to share an image of the SD Card as I have not tackled getting the original installer to work. (To be honest, I'm not even sure if I care about the installer now as I have RPints working just fine at the moment.)

My image is from a 16 GB SD Card. In theory, you should be able to download the image, (a 3.8 GB Zip file,) copy onto a 16 GB SD Card, plug the card into your RaspberryPi (RPi3 B), and be up and running. (I have already tested and done this on my own RaspberryPi.)

Before I publish access to the image file, I'd like to have 2 or 3 people first test to make sure that it really does work fine outside of my own sandbox. Please message me if you're seriously interested in giving this a whirl.

(A final note - unfortunately I am not in a position to be able to help much with SD Cards, unzipping, and the usual PC activities. I am making a presumption that you are a bit versed in PCs. That being said, you may still ask me of course, and if I know the answer, or where to direct you, I'll be glad to try to assist.)

Thanks,
Fred

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Fred Seider
Two Naked Frogs Brewery, Winery, & Meadery
Reading, PA
"What's in your goblet?!"
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Model 30A; SN 0130
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kal
Forum Administrator



Joined: 12 Dec 2010
Posts: 11116
Location: Ottawa, Canada

Drinking: Pub Ale, Electric Creamsicle, Mild, Pliny the Younger, Belgian Dark Strong, Weizen, Russian Imperial Stout, Black Butte Porter


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 5:41 pm    Post subject: Re: RaspberryPints Reply with quote

Nice of you to offer to help out!

fseider wrote:
For anyone who has been trying to get RaspberryPints to work over the last few years, you know how much a challenge it can be to get it to work, if at all. This is mainly due to the newer versions of the Raspian OS software, the Apache web server, MySQl, PHP, and a few other items that no longer function together from the RaspberryPints perspective. This all really 'broke' significantly as of Aug 2017 with deprecated libraries.

Yep. I understand exactly what you mean. These are the exact reasons I didn't go with a PC/embedded controller type solution for my brewing setup (different from your serving display/setup using RaspberryPints of course, but similar issues).

I've dealt with incompatibilities/deprecation for 20+ years and didn't want to have to rebuilt or hack my control panel to get it to work every few years.

(Kinda off topic, but my 2 cents). Wink

Cheers!

Kal

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fseider




Joined: 10 May 2013
Posts: 156
Location: Two Naked Frogs Brewery; Reading, PA (USA); Interests: Beer, Frogs, Steampunk, Being Naked


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 6:02 pm    Post subject: Re: RaspberryPints Reply with quote

kal wrote:


I've dealt with incompatibilities/deprecation for 20+ years and didn't want to have to rebuilt or hack my control panel to get it to work every few years.

Kal


Yep, a very true statement. But what I do like about something that is software driven is that you can go in and make tweaks essentially for 'free' - headaches not withstanding! Every approach has it's place.

Fred

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Fred Seider
Two Naked Frogs Brewery, Winery, & Meadery
Reading, PA
"What's in your goblet?!"
---
Model 30A; SN 0130
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kal
Forum Administrator



Joined: 12 Dec 2010
Posts: 11116
Location: Ottawa, Canada

Drinking: Pub Ale, Electric Creamsicle, Mild, Pliny the Younger, Belgian Dark Strong, Weizen, Russian Imperial Stout, Black Butte Porter


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yup! Agreed!

Kal

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We ship worldwide and support our products and customers for life.
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pinbrew




Joined: 31 Oct 2014
Posts: 55
Location: Kemptville, ON

Drinking: Amber Ale

Working on: Electric Hop Candy Jr., Toy Soldier Stout, Crispy Pils


PostLink    Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 3:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Super surprised the last commit was 4 years ago. Time to fork, and a great Q1 project.
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bzellner




Joined: 19 Jun 2014
Posts: 3



PostLink    Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 12:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fred, I know this is an old thread but I just learned about Raspberry Pints and would love to use it. I have tried with very little success to get it work. I'm having a have a difficult time understanding the code changes, I do know how to turn a computer on, my code (screen) never looks like theirs.

If you are still messing around with it, I would appreciate any help, even test your Image file.

Thanks

Bob
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pinbrew




Joined: 31 Oct 2014
Posts: 55
Location: Kemptville, ON

Drinking: Amber Ale

Working on: Electric Hop Candy Jr., Toy Soldier Stout, Crispy Pils


PostLink    Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 2:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey Bob,

There is an epic (92-page and counting) thread on Raspberry Pints over on Homebrew Talk.

It covers updated (and forked) versions, installation instructions, and troubleshooting. Good place to start.

bzellner wrote:
Fred, I know this is an old thread but I just learned about Raspberry Pints and would love to use it. I have tried with very little success to get it work. I'm having a have a difficult time understanding the code changes, I do know how to turn a computer on, my code (screen) never looks like theirs.

If you are still messing around with it, I would appreciate any help, even test your Image file.

Thanks

Bob
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bzellner




Joined: 19 Jun 2014
Posts: 3



PostLink    Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 3:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the info...I've read a lot of them and most are over my head. A good many of them talks about using it with flowmeters which I don't have.
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Tungsten




Joined: 06 Dec 2014
Posts: 318
Location: Buffalo, NY


PostLink    Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Raspberry Pints seemed like a really cool project to me a couple years ago. But I'm not a coder and most of this stuff is over my head without any willing to learn.

On another note... since then, I've decided I want a netbook or cheap laptop or something in my brewery so I can have direct access to Beersmith while brewing. If I'm going to have that, then I think the plan will be to simply buy a Chromecast, figure out a website solution or something I can open in Chrome, and simply Chromecast my beer menu to the screen when needed. I haven't really looked into it but it just seems simpler for someone that doesn't want to tinker with it.

Don't @ me. Cross
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kal
Forum Administrator



Joined: 12 Dec 2010
Posts: 11116
Location: Ottawa, Canada

Drinking: Pub Ale, Electric Creamsicle, Mild, Pliny the Younger, Belgian Dark Strong, Weizen, Russian Imperial Stout, Black Butte Porter


PostLink    Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 4:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Neat idea, and all technology aspects aside, I never really liked the logistics around having a screen to display a tap menu, at least not the way we use our bar at home. I didn't want to have to boot it up / turn it on every time someone wanted to go get a beer or see what's on tap, and didn't like the idea of leaving a screen on 24/7 like a bar can or would as they're a business (for energy use reasons not to mention the brightness with my adjacent home theater which you need to keep dark).

Flowmeters (to show how much beer is left) is an interesting idea in concept but they're somewhat flaky/inaccurate, plus the ones that are affordable probably do not have parts that are meant to withstand a good acid line wash or similar, so it's something else you have to take apart when it's tap/line cleaning time.

(My 2 cents)

Kal

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Our new shop with over 150 new products: shop.TheElectricBrewery.com
We ship worldwide and support our products and customers for life.
Purchasing through our affiliate links helps support our site at no extra cost to you. We thank you!
My basement/bar/brewery build 2.0
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pinbrew




Joined: 31 Oct 2014
Posts: 55
Location: Kemptville, ON

Drinking: Amber Ale

Working on: Electric Hop Candy Jr., Toy Soldier Stout, Crispy Pils


PostLink    Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 6:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'll post an install cheat-sheet, it can be a PITA. The project has a lot of unofficial forks, as the mainline was abandoned some time ago. I'll do a write-up and post.

Kal - the swissflow meters are surprisingly accurate, but expensive. I scored a couple on eBay, but they're $60/pop USD. They clean well as part of regular line-cleaning. Some of the cheaper meters (like the adafruit) are less accurate, and I don't know how well they clean up. It's fun stuff to play with, and some of the smaller displays do well, but yeah, it's more for fun than anything practical.
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kal
Forum Administrator



Joined: 12 Dec 2010
Posts: 11116
Location: Ottawa, Canada

Drinking: Pub Ale, Electric Creamsicle, Mild, Pliny the Younger, Belgian Dark Strong, Weizen, Russian Imperial Stout, Black Butte Porter


PostLink    Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 6:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good to know about the swissflow meters. All this stuff is definitely interesting to play with!

Kal

_________________
Our new shop with over 150 new products: shop.TheElectricBrewery.com
We ship worldwide and support our products and customers for life.
Purchasing through our affiliate links helps support our site at no extra cost to you. We thank you!
My basement/bar/brewery build 2.0
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Ozarks Mountain Brew




Joined: 22 May 2013
Posts: 737
Location: The Ozark Mountains of Missouri


PostLink    Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 7:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

the last updates were 4 years ago, just tried to install it on my webserver, it uses NGINX with php7.2 and it fails in the install, several people report the same issue
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
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bzellner




Joined: 19 Jun 2014
Posts: 3



PostLink    Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 8:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Now I don't feel so bad and that I'm the only one having problems. It looks like it's not worth the effort but as you say a cool idea.

Bob
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Ozarks Mountain Brew




Joined: 22 May 2013
Posts: 737
Location: The Ozark Mountains of Missouri


PostLink    Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 12:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

so here's the issue, the script tries to get the root password to add permissions and users to the database of the server and that's not secure, nobody should give a web script complete control over its server and todays servers will not allow this especially Ubuntu, so it’s a simple fix just rewrite a couple of lines in the install and do the server work yourself and it works, now I’m not going to provide that but if someone what’s to step up and fix it that would be helpful
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wscottcross




Joined: 03 Jul 2015
Posts: 212
Location: CT

Drinking: Launch IPA, Double Sunshine clone, Maple Coffee breakfast stout

Working on: expanding my beer horizons (and my beltline)


PostLink    Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2018 9:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is also a way to use a motion sensor to at least put up a screen saver and wake it up when someone approaches. Still figuring out how to have it power off the screen and come back when triggered by the motion sensor.
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Kal clone controller, 30 gallon Spike Brewing kettles, 6 tap keezer
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Tennessee




Joined: 04 Apr 2015
Posts: 116
Location: Tennessee


PostLink    Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:40 pm    Post subject: Rpints w/flow meters Reply with quote

Circa 1990 Beverage-Air BM23 retrofitted with SwissFlow SF800's.
Unit was not cooling below 45.F but after I swapped out the condenser fan, it can now chill below freezing.
PIR used to wake up monitor when approached.
Cheers!
Paul




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KB




Joined: 06 Nov 2014
Posts: 334
Location: Virginia

Working on: Next brew


PostLink    Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2019 12:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I checked HBT and Raspberry Pints has been updated for the latest OS, php and DB. Currently being tested.
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