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Replies: 10 comments 55 replies
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Hey nebhead, well done! Wow I don't often comment, but sometimes very rarely I do. Your PiFire is so polished and exceptional. I am testing the hardware and software right now and I think you have done an awesome job. Right now I have everything on my workbench, (Ok my dining table come workbench). The info and documentation on your git is very thorough, thank you for that, I really appreciate it. . Some things I have changed in my hardware are the use of SSR relay boards as they save space and use less current on the switching side, downside is they only switch AC and only have 1 switch position. This ok as I intend to replace the original controller. I will work on a 3d printed enclosure to place PiZero and SSR board and PSU, Resistor Divider and Screen in the original space. I have used a small 2.5A usb charger 40mmX40mm. I would need to add some push buttons to the Pi i/o pins and some menu items for basic push button operations will keep you posted. I was wondering what your thoughts were about PID vs standard cycle, some people say that standard non PID gives a better smoke flavour, PID by its very nature gives very little to no smokey flavour, I am not sure as I have yet to try PID on my grill. Do you think it would be useful to use cycles like the normal controller, I know it can cause massive swings in Temp, I haven't tried it myself (PID). Perhaps have a module that can be selected from the web interface to choose between PID and non PID ? Anyhow Thanks again for sharing everything with the community you have done an awesome job so far. |
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First and foremost, thank you so much @faisalhusain007! It really makes it all worth it when I hear people are able to use my projects. Because I also consider myself a novice at much of this stuff, I often hesitate sharing these things with the world - but it's comments like these that give me the most confidence and joy. I'm actually really curious about the SSR relay boards, what you might have used, and how it goes. I have been using the cheap relay boards from Amazon because they are, well, cheap. But really hadn't considered any thing else up until now. Might be nice to have a smaller footprint and lower current draw. Also, if you 3D print a case, that would be really neat to see. I also have a 3D printer and had considered printing something up, but never got around to it. Instead just decided to use the pre-made project box which was definitely weather-proof. It was pretty expensive though - so a 3D printed alternative would be nice. As for PID versus standard cycle, this a very good question that I hadn't been asked yet. To be honest, I don't have any good scientific way to measure the level of smokiness in any of my cooks, but what I do feel is that if there is a difference (at lower temperatures below 200F), that it's really hard to tell. With that said, in this project, I've made the "Smoke" mode be a standard cycle (non-PID), just like the Traeger controller, with a P-Setting to offset for ambient temperatures. I find this works quite well for smoking most everything - and I use this for smoking ribs (at least for the first stage. Then, when I want to get into the cooking temperature ranges, I generally want to maintain tighter temperature tolerances - and that's when the PID controller comes into play. The PID is borrowed from the SmokerPi project, and seems to do a very nice job of maintaining temperature - however I have seen some other PID projects on GitHub that add a few more bells and whistles, i.e. preventing excessive windup. I've seen that with Traeger's newer controllers, they have something called "Super Smoke", which I understand from some comments on the internet, is modulating the auger fan somehow. So there may be some combination of the standard cycle and fan modulation that could be achieved to generate more smoke. However, this would require much more experimentation, and some way to measure the smoke output. It would be cool to do, but thus far I've been happy with my results. Anyway, thank you again for your kind words, good luck with your build and please share your updates here! -Ben. |
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The SSR board was fairly cheap, around $5 here are the specs for it https://my.cytron.io/p-4-channels-solid-state-relay-module-low-trigger?search=ssr&description=1&src=search.list. I think it's difficult to vary the speed of the AC fan, however I was thinking that we could pulse the SSR therefore changing the speed. I am waiting for a spare fan to arrive and test it out. (The SSR on the AC load side uses a TRIAC) |
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Oh very nice! So, am I correct in seeing that it only has two terminals for each relay? That's one difference for me that might not work out so well, given that I'm using the normally open and normally closed connections to allow for my Traeger to still function when I'm not using the PiFire. (however, I haven't used the Traeger controller in months) So, if you are completely replacing the existing controller, these will work just fine. For the fan, I was actually thinking instead of doing a PWM type thing to vary the fan speed, more of a cycle of a few seconds on and a few seconds off to see if that modulates the smoke at all... and/or the temperature. I suspect that would lower the temperature a bit, so a longer pellet auger cycle might be needed. |
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Yes they only have 2 terminals, and since they are using TRIAC's only good for switching AC loads. You can get SSR's with same outputs as analogue with 3 outputs no-com-nc, so you could use with your existing setup. My idea is to use PWM on the fan SSR, since the SSR is effectively an isolated TRIAC we can switch it using PWM to hopefully adjust the speed of the fan. Waiting on the spare fan to test it out. |
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Excellent! I am eager to hear how it goes. Might be very intriguing to see if we can actually PWM an AC fan and see how that might effect the smoke output. Let me know once you get your spare fan in hand. |
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Preliminary design for the front panel
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This is amazing! I might have to print this up myself and start just using this instead of the Traeger controller. Really nice work! |
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What software are you using to model this? Just curious as I'm just starting to make the leap from Tinkercad to bigger better software. |
Still waiting for mono jacks and tactile button switches to finalize dims |
Using fusion360, by no means am I an expert but there are plenty of tutorials and resources available. Tinkercad is pretty good for quick design but I tend to use fusion now for most things I 3d print. Let me get everything finalized, I will share the files here once finished. |
Once I get everything finalized will share the files and design here |
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Quick test to see if the ssr are up to the job quick.test.1.mp4 |
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Its using the same omron SSR, if you send me an address where you can receive mail, I will courrier from here in Malaysia should take less than a week, do let me know. |
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Oh that's very generous of you, but I'll probably just wait - sometimes they ship a little faster. Frankly speaking, as my day job starts up again next week I won't have as much time to work on this right now anyway. What part of Malaysia? I've been to Penang once and it was lovely (despite the fact that it was for work). |
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I used to live in Penang in Batu Ferengi near miami beach. Now I live in Kuala Lumpur |
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Very nice! I've been to Batu Ferengi, to the night market and to the Hard Rock there. Good memories and a good trip. |
Yep famous night market by the sea front. Havent been back in almost 10 years, I think its probably changed a lot. Where did you work? Was it around byanlepas? |
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I have been playing about a bit with the code to include a PWM FAN button in manual.html and adding a few lines of code in grillplat_traeger.py, I have only succeeded in breaking the entire control when adding pwm code for the fan in grillplat_traeger.py . I was wondering if it's possible to add a slide scale similar to the 'Hold temperature' for Duty cycle 0 to 100% and an input for frequency. I have noted that the higher the frequency the hotter the motor gets, so need to do some work on good combinations of duty cycle, frequency and speed achieved. On my tachometer i measured just over 2500rpm on standard non pwm. |
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Yep, I think pulsing the fan at certain cycles is the way to go. Was thinking that there is probably a reason why they restrict to 165-225F ranges for this mode. Thus, I think my plan will be to implement an on-off cycle (adjustable for now) between these temp ranges for smoke mode. Do you happen to know if you can do PWM frequencies less than 1 Hertz? Like 0.15Hertz, such that if we have a 50% duty cycle it is 3 seconds on and 3 seconds off? I suppose I could give it a try on the Pi that I have on hand, but if you have one setup already that would be cool to know. |
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Let me check it out and get back to you. In terms of SW PWM can set as duty freq on pi to 0.1 in theory. The other issue I have is I need to use a step down transformer to 120VAC but the electricity here is rated at 50Hz not 60Hz so I instantly lose about ~20% speed on the fan. Checking the speck of the fan on the grill should be about 3000 RPM, but I only measured ~2500 RPM. Anyways let me test the freq and duty cycle and get back to you. |
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seems to work ok but havent hooked my scope up pulse.test.1.mp4 |
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FYI... just implemented a very straight-forward on-off cycle for the fan which is adjustable from the settings. Called it Smoke-Plus (a little marketing flair). The commit is now in the development branch, but I haven't tested this on my real hardware - only in prototype mode. When in smoke mode, you can just click the smoke button (in the WebUI) again to enabled Smoke-Plus (and a little plus icon shows up in button the WebUI). This should pulse the fan at a 50% duty cycle over 10 second cycles when the temperature is between 160F-220F. I'll try it when I get a chance. But I wanted to get something basic implemented and up to test. |
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I will try and test it out soon. I have updated the case design from the previous but I have not printed the new design, will do it soon. |
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I did a print of the design above and installed it. Definitely a beta, some changes for the final to make life easier for maintenance. |
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Wow, that looks great! Very clean indeed. Nice job! So are the two holes in the front for the probe inputs? What are the other holes for? |
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Yes the 2 large holes are for the probes, the smaller for tactile buttons, but I will change this as it is difficult to mount the buttons there. Last night I mounted the 2.5mm jacks . I will revise the design and refine it after more testing |
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I have redesigned the case for better and easier fit for buttons and temp probes, bellow is a render
I have not printed out and tested it yet. This is a render for front plate that sits flush, I would not use this design as it delt flimsy to me when I tried it before. Here are renders of the various parts
Finally a short animation Traeger.Pellet.Grill.controller.v1.mp4Bellow is a link to the various parts as STL`s still not final and I have not printed and tested the final designs so consider it WIP. I have linked to thingerverse https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4713318 |
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Actually I need to update the buttons and the logo will do it tomorrow and upload just to make it easier to install. |
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Buttons and logo have been updated uploaded to thingiverse |
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I have printed out everything and made some minor mods after fitting etc. All new files have been updated on thingiverse and are ready to go.
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That's starting to look really nice! I suppose I should work more on the button interface so we can get those buttons working. :) I really like what you've done with those. So, how did you get the surface to be textured like that? |
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I used a Magnetic Double Sided Textured + Smooth PEI Spring Steel Sheet http://3dgadgets.my/print-bed/1098-magnetic-double-sided-textured-smooth-pei-spring-steel-sheet.html |
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I am having some issues the grill never gets above 130f, it smolders and smokes like anything. I checked the P setting tried factory 2 then 3 made it worse. right now I have it on 0, when looking at how many pellets drop in the firepot doesnt look like many. not sure if I should tweak the 15s on auger setting. I should hook the original controller back on it and check. But last I used it was ok. |
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Tuned the probe and upped the ontime to 20 seconds much better
Thank you for the help |
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Outstanding! I am planning to test out the Smoke Plus mode this weekend. Unfortunately, I'm dangerously low on pellets, so I'm going to pick some up today, so I can do some cooking tomorrow. I'm hopefully that this new mode will work out. BTW... in settings you can lower the minimum temperature that Smoke Plus will start cycling the fan, to something around 140F just to see if it does anything for smoke output. Also working on another new feature that I'm excited to share - but it's far from ready yet. :) |
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Sorry forgot to tell you I tested the smoke + feature yesterday and it works really well, I set it to kick on 140 so I could test it. Creates large clouds of smoke. I like the that you can configure the fan cycle time. |
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What's the new feature? |
That's great news!! I'm excited to try it out myself this weekend. Was thinking I might add an option to change the duty cycle as well, so it's not just set at 50% all the time.
I'm probably over-selling it, but I will keep it under wraps for now until I can unveil it. :) |
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Moved this to the correct discussion thread I believe. |
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Welcome to the project @Mendingthings! You're definitely welcome to help by providing your own designs, changes, ideas to this project. And if you decide to build your own using the ESP32, then I'm happy to help with any questions or advice you may have along the way. I'm also a bit of a novice, many of these topics, and have been using projects like this to help me learn along the way and am always eager to help those of us in the community with similar interests. Looking forward to good discussion! |
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Hey @Mendingthings I was also looking to do the same thing on an ESP32 and found this project @nebhead. Since he had such a polished project I opted for using his project. I have done many projects in the past on ESP's but this is my first using python, I haven't played much with micro python or python, but if you need my help I will try. |
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Thanks, I plan to soak in a little more before I offer much. I need to get up to speed on all the great things this project has already done. The more I look the more I think "why re-invent the wheel" but I do like a challenge. |
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