iSpindel Contents
1. Overview
1. Preface
2. Cherry Philip Board Layout
2. Build Considerations
1. Batteries
2. Charging
3. First Contact
1. WiFi connection
4. Setup
1. Ballasting
2. Sensor Calibration
3. Gravity Polynomial Generation (Rapid Version)
4. Gravity Polynomial Generation (Long Version)
5. BrewFather Connection
6. Reprogramming
1. Wemos Flashing
2. Wemos Re Flashing
1 Overview - Preface
The iSpindel uses the same theory as the Tilt. The angle of
an unbalanced floating body can be plotted against the
gravity and hence gravity derived from that angle.
First up the full documentation is pretty good and it’s here:
http://www.ispindel.de/docs/README_en.html
1 Overview Cherry Philip v4.0 Board
Layout
1. Battery
2. Resistors and
Diode
3. Lipo Charger
4. Reset Contacts
5. Temp Sensor
6. Gyro Board
7. Wemos Board
8. Charge Port
9. On/Off switch
10. Programming Port
1
2
3
5
6
7
8
4
9
4
10
2 Build Considerations - Batteries
There are a lot of fake batteries out there so stay away from
eBay and use Amazon with great care
They can be dangerous but usually are just very low capacity
Batteries are any of the 18650 types and should weigh over 42g.
If the seller doesn’t advertise battery weight don’t buy from
them
If the capacity is much over 3000 mAh it’s fake, like the one
opposite
I’d suggest only buying from sites with a real address and phone
number who only really sell batteries
The battery
above is fake
no one makes
a 9800 mAh
battery
2 Build Considerations - Charging
There is no need to remove the PCB from the tube to
charge the iSpindel, simply plug a USB cable into the
charging port noted on slide 3, label 8
Red LED means charging
Blue/Green LED means charged
If the battery is not making contact you will notice
that one of the LEDs on the charge board (Slide 3,
label 3) lights and the other dimly flickers.
3 First Contact WiFi connection
First flash the iSpindel as per slide 12
Make sure the battery has a good charge in it, see slide 5 for
charging
Turn on the iSpindel and the blue LED (near the top) should blink
repeatedly. (If the LED does not blink short the reset contacts,
see slide 3, label 4).
On a mobile device go to your WiFi and join the iSpindel network
It should prompt you to Sign-In, when you do it will take you to
its portal
Left long enough this portal will time out (not while you are
connected though) to save battery. The device will go to sleep,
wake up to send a reading and go back to sleep. To make it
serve its portal again you need to short the reset contacts twice.
4 Setup - Ballasting
Due to differences in battery weights and the plastic tube
weights some ballasting might be needed.
Once you’re connected you can read the tilt reading on the
iSpindel Info’ page
With a good battery (42g or more) the device should sit in
tap water at about 25° (between 18° and 27° is okay)
If it reads a greater angle, you’ll need to add a little
ballast, gluing a coin to the board works well, keep it
centre aligned and as far from the tube opening as possible
Once done, glue everything in place, including the circuit
board. If things move around this will affect the reading.
4 Setup Sensor Calibration
Switch the device on close the tube and get a
connection to the portal
Lie the device such that the centre line is
horizontal, you may need to prop up the rounded
end up a little
Go to the calibration page and push the
‘calibrate’ button. Wait briefly.
4 Setup - Gravity Polynomial Generation
(Rapid Version)
Pop your iSpindel in room temperature tap water
Connect to the portal to read the iSpindel tilt reading
The following spreadsheet can be used to estimate the
polynomial needed based on readings from other Cherry Philip
based iSpindels:
https://github.com/universam1/iSpindel/blob/master/docs/iSpindelPolyEstimator.xlsx
Follow the instructions to generate the polynomial and copy
into the Polynomial box in the iSpindel setup page.
4 Setup - Gravity Polynomial Generation
(Long Version)
See: http://www.ispindel.de/docs/Calibration_en.html
Grab a bag of sugar and a bucket of water
Connect to the portal to read the iSpindel tilt reading
Take readings of the tilt value and hydrometer Gravity/Plato
reading from tap water up to the highest Gravity/Plato you’ll
brew to
Plot the reading pairs in Excel and have it regress a line to give
the tilt to Gravity/Plato calculation
Enter that calculation into the portal page ‘Configuration’ under
‘Polynomial’
Alternatively for a Cherry Philip v4.0 board that hangs at 25°, try
a polynomial of:
(1.0000E-6*(tilt^3))-(1.3137E-4*(tilt^2))+(6.9680E-3*tilt)+(8.9493E-1)
BrewFather Connection
See the Brewfather instructions they are pretty good:
https://docs.brewfather.app/integrations/ispindel
Note if your iSpindel reports in SG end the name of your
device with “[SG]”. I.e. MyiSpindel[SG]”
6 Reprogramming Wemos Flashing
This is easily done using BrewFlasher
https://github.com/thorrak/brewflas
her/releases
Use the Programming port shown on
slide 3, label 10
6 Reprogramming WiFi Re Flashing
Once the Wemos has been Flashed it can be re flashed via its web portal
Grab the latest firmware: https://github.com/universam1/iSpindel/releases
Push the blue ‘firmware.bin link
Get a connection see slide 6
Go to the Maintenance screen in the portal
Under ‘Firmware Update’ hit ‘Browse…’
Locate your firmware file (As of 16/06/2030 6.3.1 is the latest), select it and
hit ‘Open’
Press the blue Update button and wait for the Success screen
Done!