My Barbduino Project

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Re: My Barbduino Project

Postby Chris__M » 19 Jul 2011, 21:55

OK, what you appear to have there are a couple of PID controllers.

I haven't done anything myself with PIDs, although I have been following the activities of a couple of guys over in pelletheads who have had a good measure of success, as at one point, I didn't know if I was going to go down that route or the Arduino. I chose the Arduino, as it gave me the option of remote monitoring, but also because it looked fun.

However, plenty of people are using the kit you have - from what I understand, they take a reasonbly high degree of configuration, but once done, they are good controllers.

What kind of smoker/grill are you wanting to control with them, as it affects what other kind of kit you will need (i.e. pellet grills like my own, require relays; with stick/charcoal burners, it is more normal to use some kind of blower/fan control).

Also, if you can see any manufacturer's markings on the controllers (model number etc), let me know, and I will have a hunt around for more information on them.
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Re: My Barbduino Project

Postby Steve » 27 Jan 2012, 12:33

I've just ordered a cheap pid from eBay along with a suitable ssr, thermocouple, dc blower and a dog bowl to fit it to my WSM. Should only take a few hours to knock together a basic controller.

I've written a pid algorithm to run on an embedded controller as well, I'm thinking I'll drop the cash on a couple of raspberry pi's When they launch and run a pid app on one. The other is reserved for a new media centre at home :D
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Re: My Barbduino Project

Postby Chris__M » 27 Jan 2012, 18:09

Sounds like fun.

I know I have been a bit quiet about my little project lately. This is 'cos it got to a certain stage, and hasn't progressed further, although I still intend it to.

The idea was, of course, to control the pellet feed from a probe measuring the pit temp, with pid code or similar. The fact is, once I got the relay in place in my Traeger, with the arduino connected, it gave me completely variable (manual) control over the pellet feed, rather than the Smoke (1 min in 4), Medium (2 min in 4) and High (Always on) settings.

So even without connecting a probe to it, I found I could easily tweak the pellet delivery to hit the temperature range I wanted. This and the thermal blanket solved the problem I had with smoking in cold weather, so there has been less pushing me along.

The whole design has been running on a breadboard. But as I am crap at soldering, it is waiting for me to feel brave enough to put it all together properly.
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Re: My Barbduino Project

Postby Steve » 27 Jan 2012, 18:19

I know where you're coming from eith te soldering, I'm terrible at it. If my raspberry pi project works for my wsm's then I might do a version for running the Auger in my lil tex too. The reason I'm going with the pi is that I'd like to knit the ui into xbmc so a) I can have notifications on my tv at home and b) I have a spare screen I could take to comps so I can have a full readout in the dark :D complete overkill I know but us "IT guys" have to have our fun eh :lol:
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Re: My Barbduino Project

Postby Chris__M » 28 Jan 2012, 10:54

Yep - my project is now definitely driven more by fun than need. At one point, I considered passing my Traeger to a friend (who I know will really make good use of it), and getting an all-singing-and-dancing GMG, but where's the fun in that? :lol:

As it happens, my BBQ shack is against the rear wall of my garage, which I have wired into my home network, as I run a backup machine out there. So I ran a wire through the wall, and bought an arduino network shield, which will allow me to monitor/control the Traeger from my desktop in the house (where I spend most of my working day), or even from my Android phone. Even if I need to pop out while smoking, I'll be able to VPN in, and check on how things are going.

On my desk, I currently have a couple of old sound cards, salvaged from my parts box. I no longer have a machine they will fit into, so I am going to use them for soldering practice.
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Re: My Barbduino Project

Postby Toby » 28 Jan 2012, 12:12

Well just to clear my head from the techno talk, I know what a capacitor is and thats about it! Going to roast a clean pork butt on the BBQ for dinner!
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Re: My Barbduino Project

Postby Chris__M » 29 Jan 2012, 18:15

One of the interesting things I have encountered is that when I was planning my project, I was advised by a number of people on how I could improve the timing.

The original manual Traeger controller smokes on a pellet feed timing of 1 minute in 4. My device would allow me to vary that, to compensate for external temperature. The advice I received was to also shorten the period, so instead of 1 minute in 4, make it - for instance - 10 seconds in 40. With my new add-on controller, that was easy to do. What I found though was that although there was far less temperature swing, there was also considerably less smoke.

Currently, I have found that half a minute in 2 minutes is a good compromise, but I am continuing to experiment.
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