This post is to announce the release of BCS firmware 4.0 Public Beta 1.
This version of the firmware is a complete rewrite from the 3.x series firmware. The major differences are:
- Totally redesigned responsive UI
- REST / JSON based API to make developing for the BCS much easier
- Some functionality has been moved out of the firmware to utility application suite
- Data Logging re-imagined to make it easier for 3rd party logging applications to log data, but on-device logging is more minimal
- No Manual Mode or HMI. HMI is planned for a future release, at this time there is no plan for Manual Mode to return.
While people have been running 4.0 in their breweries for some time, this is PRE-RELEASE software and should not be used in production environments where downtime is not an option. There is currently no documentation for the 4.0 firmware. We will be building the documentation during the public beta period. If you are not comfortable using undocumented, potentially unstable firmware DO NOT INSTALL THIS RELEASE.
The utility applications provide tools for migrating from 3.x configurations, backup/restore, and a simple recipe tool to make it easy to change variables between batches. A PID Tuning tool is in the works, and a very cool temperature probe calibration tool has been developed by forum user bbrally.
A good starting point for the utilities is the config migrator: https://embeddedcc.github.io/bcs-config-migrator/
bbrally's temperature probe coefficient calculator utility is available here: http://bbrally.from-ca.com/
If you are interested in developing software to extend the BCS functionality, please check out our GIthub page: https://github.com/embeddedcc/
The initial 4.x API docs are available here: http://www.embeddedcc.com/api-docs/ There will be some changes to the API as version 4.x is finalized.