The KegPi is my effor to accomplish 2 things:
- Learn to code
- Add some features to my garden-variety kegerator that will make it that much better
What are those features, you may ask?
- Temperature monitoring
- Door monitoring
- Beer monitoring
Right, those all seem well and good, but what exactly do they boil down to? For me, I wanted to know what the temperature inside the kegerator is, whether or not I've left the door open, and how much beer do I have left.
The following is a list of all the components that are present in the KegPi right now:
- Whirlpool 4.3 cu ft mini fridge
- Chrome plated dual faucet tower
- Draft Brewer Flex Keg System
- Aluminum CO2 Tank - 5 lb
- Surface Mount Drip Tray
- Raspberry Pi 3
- Smarticase for Raspberry Pi 3
- Smarticase Back Cover (large)
- Touchscreen for Raspberry Pi
- Liquid Flow Meters (2x)
- Magnetic Contact Sensor
- Waterproof DS18B20 Digital temperature sensor
This part of the project is a bit more of a WIP. While the underlying scripts are more or less written, there are some key features that will be implemented in the coming weeks/months:
- Dashboard displaying current statistics about the kegerator/kegs (e.g., temperature, door status, volume left in kegs)
- SMS alerting for temperature and door status
- Slack integration to allow for alerts in Slack channel
Again, the goal here is for this to be a learning experience for me in writing code (Ruby, in this case) and also for me to share the project and enable other folks to create the same thing.
As they currently stand, the Ruby bits are just some starting scripts. As the project evolves, they're going to get folded into something a bit more complex. But, you're welcome to run them as they are to see how they work. Simply do:
ruby name_of_script.rb
That will get you the values of the door, as well as the temperature for the time being. Flow values are still being toyed with until I can get stuff addressed there.
The rpi_gpio gem is a Ruby implementation of the Python RPi.GPIO module. ClockVapor has great examples on the rpo for the Ruby gem, and you can find any additional info you may need over on the Python module site.