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If You Had A Touchscreen Interface...

 
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Kevin59




Joined: 03 Aug 2012
Posts: 1047
Location: Fort Collins, CO

Drinking: Imperial Brown Ale

Working on: Oatmeal Stout, IPA


PostLink    Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2014 9:38 pm    Post subject: If You Had A Touchscreen Interface... Reply with quote


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So now that I've been playing with the Arduino microcontroller my mind's been wandering as to the numerous things one might be able to do in the electric homebrewing world. My Kal clone is working perfectly, so these are just random ideas. So far.

Anyway one of the first things I was thinking about was having a control panel that has nothing more than a power switch, an alarm buzzer/flasher, and an LCD touchscreen to control the brewing setup. (And perhaps a couple of element indicators that light up when the element is on). That's led me to this first rough layout of what I might do if I were building such a panel.

The yellow circles would be touch switches for the heating elements. They'd be grayed out when they're off, yellow when they're enabled. The green circles would be touch switches for the pumps, same idea as to colors.

Touching the temperature displays for HLT or BK and holding for a couple seconds would enter a mode to set the desired temperatures, with a popup "menu" that reverts back to display mode after a few seconds of no activity.

Touching the timer display and holding for a couple of seconds would enter a programming mode for the timer. This would allow entering total boil time along with multiple hop addition times. It reverts back after no activity as well. Pressing the word "TIMER" could start and stop the timer, and pressing and holding could reset, etc. During operation when a hop addition point is hit the "ADD YOUR HOPS !" text would start flashing and the alarm would sound. This would continue until the text is touched, silencing the hop addition alarm and making the text go away.

Like I said, it's just a far fetched idea for now. But I'd like to see if anyone has any suggestions as to how they might do things differently, comments on what I've missed, etc. For example as I'm typing this it occurs to me that it'd be handy to have increment/decrement capability for the PID SV entries. That could be done by having PV be an increment and SV be a decrement.

NOTE: This is laid out on an 8" diagonal screen. The "buttons" are 3/4" diameter. It'd be a resistive touch screen.



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huaco




Joined: 05 Apr 2012
Posts: 1506
Location: Burleson Texas


PostLink    Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2014 10:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you could make it interface with BeerSmith and the like, you could have it actually tell you WHICH hop to add and when. Upload your BS file to it and have it automate the schedule.
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wubears71




Joined: 14 Mar 2012
Posts: 278
Location: Webster Groves, MO

Drinking: Keg 1- Hefenweizen, Keg 2- Vanilla Scotch Porter, Keg 3-Munich Helles

Working on: Stinky IPA


PostLink    Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2014 1:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm working on something very similar to what you are discussing - no touchscreen but an HMI. Long story short, I do a ton of Rockwell (Allen-Bradley) PlantPAx solutions and I was talking to Rockwell a few months ago over beer and long story short, the brewery is being upgraded to a live demo system that utilizes PlantPAx technology. Once I get things going, I'll start a thread.
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Kevin59




Joined: 03 Aug 2012
Posts: 1047
Location: Fort Collins, CO

Drinking: Imperial Brown Ale

Working on: Oatmeal Stout, IPA


PostLink    Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2014 6:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

huaco wrote:
If you could make it interface with BeerSmith and the like, you could have it actually tell you WHICH hop to add and when. Upload your BS file to it and have it automate the schedule.


Cool idea! I'll put that on my list of possibilities, thanks!


wubears71 wrote:
I'm working on something very similar to what you are discussing - no touchscreen but an HMI. Long story short, I do a ton of Rockwell (Allen-Bradley) PlantPAx solutions and I was talking to Rockwell a few months ago over beer and long story short, the brewery is being upgraded to a live demo system that utilizes PlantPAx technology. Once I get things going, I'll start a thread.


I just did a quick look at the Rockwell PlantPAx page... Wow!

HMI = Human Machine Interface right? If not touchscreen then will it be mouse driven?

Looking forward to your thread!!!
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James Edmonton




Joined: 29 Jan 2014
Posts: 124
Location: Edmonton, AB

Drinking: West Coast Dry Hopped IPA

Working on: Session Ale


PostLink    Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2014 8:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice project idea.

I would be interested in knowing if a system could be added to my current panel. I know the PID's have some interface options but I don't know enough about that part of them to know if it would work. I wouldn't want to redo or replace the panel, but if it could be added to control the PID's, and interface with a computer then I would be curious about looking at data logging (and analysis), control of the system and possibly even an interface to a brewing program. Allowing the system to be semiautomated (with respect to temperature monitor and control anyway) would be nice.

Not sure if this is at all practical or even possible, but I would appreciate some more information.
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wubears71




Joined: 14 Mar 2012
Posts: 278
Location: Webster Groves, MO

Drinking: Keg 1- Hefenweizen, Keg 2- Vanilla Scotch Porter, Keg 3-Munich Helles

Working on: Stinky IPA


PostLink    Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2014 10:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kevin59 wrote:


I just did a quick look at the Rockwell PlantPAx page... Wow!

HMI = Human Machine Interface right? If not touchscreen then will it be mouse driven?

Looking forward to your thread!!!


Correct. It's mouse driven.

This is actually a system I put together in 2013

ftp://12.192.249.152/Info/RSTechED%202014/AP%20-%20Application%20and%20Case%20Studies/AP07_-_Calumet_Specialty_Products_Partners,_L.P._Virtualized_PlantPAx_Improves_Consistency_and_Throughput_RSTechED2014.pdf

We are currently going through a major expansion of the system and presenting it again at the Automation Fair in Anaheim next month.

My brother put this system together for Oskar Blues a couple of years ago --
http://www.malisko.com/casestudy/brewery-automation/

That system is all touchscreen and I wish I there were pictures of it in the public domain because it is really cool!

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Kevin59




Joined: 03 Aug 2012
Posts: 1047
Location: Fort Collins, CO

Drinking: Imperial Brown Ale

Working on: Oatmeal Stout, IPA


PostLink    Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2014 9:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So as I went through my back-to-back brewing session last week I realized it would have been nice to have 2 separate timers, one for mashing and one for boiling. So now if I had a touchscreen it might be laid out like this...


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Kevin59




Joined: 03 Aug 2012
Posts: 1047
Location: Fort Collins, CO

Drinking: Imperial Brown Ale

Working on: Oatmeal Stout, IPA


PostLink    Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2014 9:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And so yeah, my 8" LCD from buydisplay.com showed up today. Now to find some time to start working on it...


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dp Brewing Company




Joined: 08 Jul 2013
Posts: 664
Location: Midwest

Drinking: Chocolate Taco, Raspberry Mango Cider, American X, Sandy Dunes

Working on: Nothing


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2018 2:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Old thread, any chance you completed the project?
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Ozarks Mountain Brew




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


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2018 11:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have one I use. brewbench, uses an arduino yun, I can control everything if set up right

https://www.ozarksmountainbrew.com/lets-brew/

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