As I begin this blog entry, HERMAN is up and working again and is in pre-heat mode, ready to brew.

I'm not in the laundry where we brew, but can see what is happening on the machine via Windows remote desktop. The mash liquor is currently 65.8 degrees C, and I'll be ready to dough-in when it reaches 72.

It has been so much easier to fine-tune things from my main PC compared to the laptop in the laundry. I've even enjoyed coding in VB.NET 2008 thanks to tutorials and code samples from Dr_Acula and Garrett.

I've figure the machine is currently in an alpha state because there are still features to implement. The LCD is not yet functional, so I'm relying on the VB program to tell me what is going on. The new control panel is a dream to use, especially when coupled with the X1 processor. The main control board is still built on an experimenter breadboard, but it seems to be very reliable so there is no rush to design a final PCB.

(The mash liquor is now 67.2 degrees C.)

I've posted the code for both the picaxe and the VB monitor here. At present the VB code is only a rough monitor of picaxe communications. It cannot control the picaxe yet, although that is probably the next feature I will implement. It doesn't log data but that too is high on the list for coding.

Anyway I'm very happy to have reached this point. From here the feature set just makes for more pleasurable brewing.

It has long been our goal to be able to control HERMAN remotely via the internet. There have been some unexpected twists and turns in the last week that have pushed us a little closer to realising the dream.

I've already mentioned how easy it was to set up a remote desktop on XP professional. This week I have been doing some VB Express 2008 coding, following Dr Acula's instructable on using FTP to connect two machines together.

I got there through an unexpected route though. The control panel had its finishing touches done on Monday. At the same time I wired in the backlight for the LCD, and the -12V line from the PC supply to provide a negative contrast voltage (around -1V). When all this was done, two things became apparent. Firstly, the old 40X control board from HERMAN5 was no longer working, and secondly, the LCD is blank and I still don't know why.

I considered spending the time to work out what was wrong with the 40X board. It has always been trouble, mainly because it was built double-sided with poor alignment, etched poorly and then drilled poorly. Board through vias have been hand soldered onto pads that only partially existed and did not match from one side to the other. I already had a 28X1 picaxe running on a breadboard, and considering it was a testing prototype for what will ultimately be the HERMAN 6 control, it seemed the perfect time to push it into service.

There are other good reasons to go this way. The X1s are far more powerful than the Xs. Using onewire protocols, the temperature probes can be read without implementing a 750ms delay. A five second delay with all the DS18B20s that I use means the old picaxe is incapable of anything else during those read times. So if we wanted a refresh on temperatures every 5 seconds, it would literally cripple the processor. The X1s can read a temperature while performing other tasks. There is also a timeout on serial input reads, which has been a problem to workaround on all other picaxes to date. Anyway, this is the path I've chosen, and so a good deal of time has been spent working on code to regain control over the machine ...

It is hard to control HERMAN without a display. For the moment I have chosen not to worry about sorting out the LCD, but rather work on a simple interface between the picaxe and my laptop, and use the laptop as the display. This was always part of the plan in any case, so like the 28X1 breadboard, it seemed like the right path to take.

I had been aware of Dr Acula's excellent instructables for some time, but had not made time to test the process for myself. It has been fun to work through the tutorials, and very exciting last night to get two PCs to remotely talk to each other via FTP. The matrix is coming together at last.

All I have to do now is finalise coding for the data sharing between picaxe and PC, and also the picaxe coding to switch SSR outputs. I imagine this will be completed by the end of next weekend, and I'm still waiting on the stainless fittings for the mash tun so I can't brew anyway.

It has been a satisfying couple of weeks. There is only so much creative energy that can go into planning and virtual testing. We have been building the circuit boards for the control panel and having a lot of fun making things.

The photo below shows our Dremel in the #220 drill press. Having tried to use a Dremel freehand, and tried with both battery drill and standard drill press, I'd say that this method produces the best results by far. It was definitely worth the investment, as it was getting the proper PCB drills.

The board above still has the toner on it, but below you can see the under side of the control panel and how things fit together. The switch to the bottom left is our 'missile launcher' and the green board is the LCD.

Below is one half of the control panel all assembled. It is not apparent on this photo, but the cream coloured connectors at the top of each strip are there to drive the LEDs inside the push buttons. There should be three on each strip, but because the black IDC connectors have a larger footprint than the outline on Diptrace, there is no room for the closest of these connectors.

The missing connector has been soldered to the copper side of the board which is where the connecting cable below disappears to. It was the only oversight with the board, so I'm pretty happy with the overall result. On the photo below you can see that one of the button LEDs is lit. The idea is that the microcontroller will determine which LEDs light up - and if they stay on or flash or whatever. This provides a lot of flexibility in the design.

Below there are eight panel strips, four on each board. To simplify board manufacture and flexibility, they were designed to connect to each other via a ribbon cable. This means that a switch ladder can be built to almost any size and dimension. The HERMAN panel will have 20 switches, four banks of three (at left) and four banks of two (at right). You can see the connecting cable best between the two boards. The driving voltage (on the resistive divider) comes via the cable that disappears at top left, and the output voltage gets fed back into an analog input on the picaxe via the same cable. The first switch has a header link in place, and the last switch has a footer link in place.

The photo here did not show up so well, but here I am testing that all the switches are doing what they are meant to. So far, so good ...

A couple of minor circuit modifications were needed to make the control panel work as designed. The header resistor RO1 was halved in value, and an extra ladder resistor was put in before the first switch. In reality, this simply meant the first resistor (R1) was doubled in value.

A couple of things have just come together and the dream of controlling HERMAN remotely via internet has become reality in a much simpler way than I'd ever imagined. While probably a bit 'ho hum' to those savvy with Windows XP, I've just discovered that XP professional has an inbuilt remote desktop. Thanks Rod for your sagely advice when I was looking at a new machine and recommending professional over the home edition.

Anyway, apart from taking the time to learn what remote desktop was all about, I've just become the proud owner of a new Belkin 'pre-N' wireless PCMCIA card.

We've had wireless internet in our house for about 5 years, but a modem upgrade about 6 months ago made a world of difference in terms of coverage. Still, the place that HERMAN makes beer was a bit of a wireless dead-zone ... until now. The new Belkin card simply rocks. What registered before as a 'weak' signal is now rated at 97%. This means that remote desktop has become a reality, which means that controlling HERMAN from other places has as well!

Anyway, we can test out the theory probably the weekend after next. We are still waiting on our cam lock fittings for the mash tun and I don't think they will make it before the weekend now. This is probably good because the work on the control panel continues but it's not quite ready to press into service. It is close, but the fine details of testing, mounting hardware, and wiring up the negative contrast voltage on the new LCD are all taking time.

At the same time as getting all the circuitry together, the control panel is finally coming together as planned over a year ago. Because we ran out of time, we been using this crude/hybrid/taped together ugly thing that has worked as a test panel, but only just.

So with the circuit boards happening, and the planning all sketched out in 3D, it was time to make it happen ... (with a deep breath that it would all come together in time for our next brew).

So this:

Is slowly being transformed into a real panel.

The panel is the old back panel that was ripped off to give access to the wiring cavities.

The version 5 interface board (shown above at left) is based on a picaxe 40X. The circuit board was our only attempt (so far) at a double-sided board. It was not well made, with etching and alignment issues. As far as design goes, it put too many eggs in one basket and was not easy to expand on. The 40X was the best available at the time, but the functionality of the X1 series almost makes them look prehistoric. Even though a 40X1 could be plugged straight into this board, it is near the end of its unreliable run. (The smaller board at right is a driver for the solid state relays).

The missile switch at top left is designed to work in reverse to the usual missile launch concept. We will use it as a quick shut-down of mains power in case it is ever needed. The LCD is a 40x2 Seiko unit. I had some trouble with initial testing because the datasheet is not overly clear but it needs a contrast voltage below zero to make it readable. It is an annoying bit of extra work - but I will source the minus voltage from the -12V supply on the PC supply that is powering the machine.

The paper with print is a drilling template for the pushbuttons, drawn in CorelDraw.

The pushbutton holes were drilled out with a forstner bit which gives a neat and accurate cut, especially compared to normal metal drill bits.

So all that is needed now is a bit of mounting hardware and the control panel strip PCBs to be finished and we will celebrate the result by making brew 2 of our double Dortmunder batch. I'm still waiting on some nice stainless fittings for the mash tun, but hopefully they won't be too far away.

It has been a good day. After what seems a painfully long time planning, we have finally been able to build some things. About a year ago we upgraded most of the hardware on HERMAN, an interim step towards version 6. This included a new brewing stand and new plumbing layout. We were very happy with the result - except that holiday leave is too short and the job was only half done.

We had big plans for upgraded control gear - to bring HERMAN into the 21st century ...

I've blogged before about HERMAN's control history. This time around we wanted a stand-alone micro processor controlled machine that could also be remotely controlled. Up until version 5 the machine could only be controlled via a laptop. This was disastrous whenever the machine crashed - which has probably happened a dozen times. We want this version to work without the laptop - and with the laptop - and with the internet as well.

Today we began to build the printed circuit boards for the control panel. We were using new techniques so there has been a lot of learning involved - both software and hardware.

Rather than hacksaw or bandsaw the board to size, this time we used a cutter to score the board and break it along the scored line. It seemed to work very well, especially by minimising high edges on the copper to be etched. It also made board clean-up a bit easier.

We also used cheap advertising paper rather than the blue 'press n peel' sheets. Apart from the difference in price, the most notable advantage is that dog hair is not attracted to the paper like it is to the blue sheets. It was hard keeping our earlier boards hair free!

We also used a laminator rather than a clothes iron. Apart from simplicity, it is much more predictable and therefore repeatable. We did ten passes through our particular machine and got consistent results. The whole process produced a much better board than we have been able to before - so I'm guessing it is because of a lot of small adjustments rather than one big thing.