BBQ Grill project

[Inor]

How are your soldering skills?

HAHAHA!!! I'll let you know once I start.

It has been MANY years since I soldered electronics. But I did do some leaded glass for a woodworking project a few years back and did okay.

[Inor]

I ordered the kit for my BBQ controller about 3-4 weeks ago. Of course the kit came immediately, but the solder, soldering iron, tip cleaner and other stuff I ordered from Amazon all went to our old address. To make matters worse, they all came from different vendors. So it did not all converge on our new address until early last week and of course, I was out of town.

Anyway, I finally started the build today. With me being gone for the last 2 weeks, we had a bunch of busy-work crap to get done this morning, so I did not get to start on it until about 3 this afternoon. But given it was a gorgeous day in Arizona, high in the 80's with a perfect Crayola blue sky, I thought I would setup outside under our patio table with an umbrella. No sooner had I gotten everything setup perfectly, than the 4 PM winds kicked up (like they do every single day) and blew my parts all over the back yard. But between Mrs Inor and me I think we were able to scavenge everything and I moved indoors to our spare bedroom for the build.

(To be accurate, I am not really building anything. I am assembling a build that was created by a guy named Bryan Mayland, who is a great guy BTW, for his home based business called Heater Meter. But I have spent the intervening weeks studying his documentation in detail and I am pretty sure I understand both his hardware and software designs. Both are open source and available for free, but I strongly suggest if you want to do this build, buy his kit.)

Anyway, I only spent about an hour this afternoon working on it, but am thoroughly enjoying the process. Hopefully it will turn out and actuall work. Here is what it looks like thus far:



Here are a few of my initial impressions thus far:

1 - Electronics, even for hobbyist kits like this, are REALLY REALLY small. For a sense of how small, here is the same image with a dollar bill as a background:



2 - Resisters and capacitors, working in the 3.3V and 5V range are even smaller.

3 - My old eyes really suck! When I got my last glasses, about a year ago, they told me I needed bifocals (which I have had for about 10 years) AND a separate set of "computer glasses". The "computer glasses" suck for computer work, but they were just the trick for this.

4 - The lighting in our spare bedroom sucks! The only way I could see the colors of the bands on the resistors was to employ a big ol' Mag Light flashlight.

5 - It is not a good plan to try and solder very small connections after you have drunk 3 pots of coffee and had a couple Cokes.

6 - Soldering electronics is easier than soldering leaded glass, because it does not need to look pretty.

This is a fun as hell project and I will keep ya'll informed on how/if it works out. I did also start some modifications on the software/firmware while I was in Boston last week. So at least I am getting to exercise some creative license.

[Arklatex]

Pretty cool project, reminds of Legos, but for adults. What is it gonna do besides text your when your temp gets right?

[Inor]

It's primary job is to maintain the temp of pit for doing low and slow burns. It has a temperature probe that goes in the grill. If the grill temp is too low it will turn on a fan to give more air to the coals. If the temp is too high, it will restrict the air to bring the temp back down. It is also going to have 3 additional temperature probes to track the temp of the food. Since it will also be connected to my wireless network, I can basically make it do anything else I want.

[RubberDuck]

This is a perfect build.
far beyond my capabilities I have been eyeballing the bbq guru for sometime cost is holding me back

[Inor]

The main board is done except for two female jacks that go on the top. (All of the components are actually mounted on the bottom of the board.) Next I have to build the controller board with the LCD screen and the controller buttons. I am going to wait to install the jacks on the main board until I get the pins installed on the controller. Then we can mate the whole thing with a Raspberry Pi and boot it up and see what happens.



And for TJC44 (and any of the rest of you that care to comment) who wanted to inspect my solder job:



I think I did okay for a rookie, but we'll find out when I plug it in.

[juskom95]

Looks neat, I am waiting to hear how it works 'in the field'

[Inor]

Looks neat, I am waiting to hear how it works 'in the field'

At this stage of the game, I am more concerned with "if" it works in the field. I'll post more updates as I start on the next steps.

[Inor]

Here is the completed unit:



And with its case:



All that is left is to build an operating system for it that will work with the Raspberry Pi version 3. (The OS provided only works with the Pi version B and Pi Zero.) But that shouldn't be too bad though once I get the build environment set up.

[Inor]

The Operating System is built as is the firmware for the Arduino chip. Everything installed without issue. I brought it up on my network in hardwired mode and setup the wireless so now I can see it from my laptop. I am still waiting on the K-style probe from Amazon so I can set it up and test it with a real fire. But so far, everything is working perfectly!