Volume Sensors?

[Rob]

I can't seem to find any imformation on this....Is it possible to add volume sensors??

Thanks.

[missing_link]

I haven't gotten this far with my system but I am assuming you are asking about fluid level. If that is the case McMaster car has many float switches that would work.

Linc

[Rob]

Yes, thats what I mean but float switches are not what I am looking for. I want to be able to tell the volume at any point. So pressure sensors to measure the head of water would do the trick. But I'm not sure if this would work with the BCS system.

[np0x]

Interesting, I at one point thought about volume sensors but got turned off when I went to mcmaster carr and realized that it was going to cost me about $1000 for the load sensors I needed to measure the mass of my mash tun. What are you attempting to do with the volume sensors?

I also don't know what the BCS would do with the information. I know you don't want a float switch, but for bcs integration the float switch is clear to me how you would use it: fly sparging as it could open/close a valve or turn on/off a pump for the sparge water.

Frankly I eventually gave up on volume(load) sensors and just said close enough with my site glass(on my kettle), on my mash tun, I just eyeball the water and sparge til volumes(measured by my site glass)/gravities are right, not ideal I will admit, but got me away from the cost center associated with the load sensors which give you the weight of the vessel and indirectly the volume of water inside.

Thoughts?

[ECC]

Currently there is no offering to attach volume sensors to the BCS-460, or 'digital sight gauge' as some people call it.

I have gotten other requests for this. I'm assuming that you'd like to have a program that controlled a solenoid to the water supply, so you could fill the kettle to a specific volume, and then stop? A sensor like this could also be used to fly sparge instead of a float switch. Its a very useful feature that would further automate the process.

There are some pressure transducers manufactured by Freescale that would be up to the task, and they are affordable. I think that this could be the best candidate for the first use of the expansion port.

The expansion port is basically just an I2C bus. So it would be very easy to wire an i2c enabled ADC to a pressure sensor. I'm willing to update the user interface to support generic expansion port based exit conditions. Support for the expansion port has been something that I've been meaning to add anyway.. But I really don't want to build/sell volume sensors. If someone is electronically inclined and interested in working on this, please send me an email/PM.

[Rob]

I'm assuming that you'd like to have a program that controlled a solenoid to the water supply, so you could fill the kettle to a specific volume, and then stop? A sensor like this could also be used to fly sparge instead of a float switch. Its a very useful feature that would further automate the process.

Exactly. I am looking to eventually automate the entire process. Starting with temp. sensors and gradually converting the entire system.

[np0x]

I love the "sickness" of automating and tweaking my brewery. And it helps my marriage that there are other MORE intense people out there. Although I fear I am running out of people to use as examples of how my insanity is "normal" the further I go. :-/

Rock on!

[Yorg]

Hi,
Have there been any developments regarding this?
I have been looking at brewtroller.com, which is an open source Arduino based forum for automating the brew day.
Then came across this.
I too would like to be able to activate solenoids, incorporate pressure sensors for volume calculations, or alternatively use an RS232 connectable set of scales to sit my HLT on for the sam purpose. So temp sensing is only part of the story.
The other thing I'm looking at is Picaxe.

This interface looks very good though, so most interested in possibilities of the 460.
Cheers.

[ECC]

No new developments on the pressure sensors. I have been working on the expansion port interface however, so the door is opening slowly for possible future additions.

[caberle]

First let me say I don't own a BCS-460 and I see there is a possible I/O expansion Card that might help with this down the road. But in my head I was thinking that if temperature sensors are Resistance based, why wouldn't a sensor similar to oil pressure sensor for car engines work? Aren't they Ohm based? Maybe they are the wrong Ohm range (I think they are usually around 0 - 100 Ohms, but haven't researched it that much)? I suppose you would also want to know the construction materials.

Just thought I'd ask if this would even be possible...