Fuscus

Fuscus is the Latin name for the Brown Water-Python. It is also the name chosen for this native Python implementation of the BrewPi fermentation controller.

BrewPi (http://www.brewpi.com) is an Open Source temperature controller for brewing beer or wine, designed and developed by Elco Jacobs. It initially comprised of a Raspberry Pi and Arduino, but in 2015 the Arduino was retired and replaced with a Particle Photon. In both of these implementations the Raspberry Pi handles data logging and the web interface for the system. The Arduino or Photon handles the temperature sensing and PID control of a heater or cooler. A serial link joins the two parts of the system together.

There are very good reasons for allocating a microcontroller to the task of heating and cooling control. The primary one being that they are very reliable. If the Raspberry Pi should crash the microcontroller will continue to monitor and maintain the last set temperature. If the control is done by the Pi then it could crash and leave the heater or cooler stuck on, which will ruin the fermentation.

Despite the possible risks of failure this project re-implements the Arduino control code (v0.2.11) in Python so that it can run natively on the Pi. The other BrewPi components (brewpi-www and brewpi-script) will talk to this Python code as if it were an Arduino, so they can be be used unchanged. Hardware that was connected to the Arduino, such as 1-wire temperature sensors, an LCD, and relays for the heater and cooler are connected to the Pi GPIO pins.

There are brief installation notes here.