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Loony bin and crazy ideas

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  • That kinda boils down to the choke washer idea @fnulnu that only a few folks have sounded out on.

  • Told you guys I'm moving to a bigger warehouse and your ideas are making me kinda crazy to try out. Give me a couple of weeks to make the move and I'll definitely try out the SPP hybrid sans reflux. Goes against what I know but I'm game to try it.

  • @Lloyd said: A place to put brain farts. Feel free to contribute a few of your own here!

    image

    The idea is to have a digital input for the ABV of the distilled product output.
    I know you can measure vapor temperature and calculate ABV and that is probably cheaper and easier.

    Anyway, the idea is the alco pushes up on a sensor and the sensor sends the electronic signal to the controller.
    The less ABV in the parrot the less pressure is exerted on the sensor.

    Am I bonkers?

    No your'e not bonkers. And it would work with an accurate strain gauge for the alco to push on and feed the result into a PLC.

  • Why not just do it with a bar code reader of a sorts... No contact required... :-O

  • @FullySilenced said: Why not just do it with a bar code reader of a sorts... No contact required... :-O

    Brilliant idea FS. A small laser to count the graduations. You may be able to use a stock hydrometer with a special SD insert.

  • edited March 2014

    :)

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  • Dang, CF, that is interesting. Above my pay grade as far as the electronics but color would be easy to add to the inside of the alcoholmeter.

  • Looks like a unicorn bread with a duck

    Uniduck or Ducorn.

  • edited March 2014

    Hey I don't pick shit out of your drawings. It clearly is a parrot with an alcohol meter sticking out of its head ;)

  • =)) thanks @cunnyfunt for the laugh and you are correct, that IS a parrot.

    Can you develop the electronics if I can get a color bar inside the alco?

  • Not really Lloyd. I am very interested in this stuff but these days I like to just stick with a few hobbies.

    I have seen a few projects using arduino and even lego colour sensors. One was a Rubik's cube solving robot made out of lego. Its just another idea really. I hope someone way smarter than me gets your loony idea up and running

  • I do understand. I have so many hobbies and commitments that I simply cannot get involved in learning to configure an RGB sensor to an arduino. That's a whole 'nuthor hobby and would need so so so many tiny parts that need to work together. With an intimate understanding of each part and how they relate to all the other tiny parts.
    And other stuff I know nothing about.

    It's mostly low voltage though. That helps heaps. Not as prone to stunning myself (somewhat like when you hear the doctor yell "Clear!" and puts the paddles on your chest).

  • edited March 2014

    The barcode reader might work and a lot easier to do than an RGB sensor. I will order a reader next week and see how it can be done. The scale on the alcohol meter is not linear. I will need to see how the barcode reader interprets different size lines. We will see what happens.

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  • DeBluesDoctor may have some ideas on this? Perhaps a reflective strip of some sort ?

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • edited March 2014

    So we have 2 problems with a bar code reader. No.1 is the field of view. They don't really have a good visual spread on them. In order for this to work we need to count how many black or white lines there are from the top of the alcohol meter. it doesn't matter which (100-(how many lines read X 2)=%ABV. As we go down the scale the reader needs to read more and more of the length of the glass tube. Taking into account the length of the glass tube then this won't work unless we buy a really expensive one like they use on the baggage handling equipment at the airport.

    Second thing is the lines. See attached for a code of 1010101010101. The guy at the bar code reader shop assured me the scanner wouldn't be able to do what we want of the shelf, unless I re-write the internal code of the reader. It interprets each size line differently and the spacing between the lines is important. But it does not over come the distance problem that at a reading of 20% alcohol the scanner would have to be a bit of a distance from code to be read. All in all a good idea but beyond the limitation of a cheap way to do it. An off the shelf reader also needs a start point and an end point and it reads everything in between those 2 points.

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  • edited March 2014

    How about this?

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  • edited March 2014

    Or this? This is much easier to do. A highly accurate strain gauge is about $12. @Lloyd your original idea was the best. I can to do this. No need to get new meters made up with barcodes or colours and stuff. Just use the meter you already have. What sort of output do you want? And what are you feeding the output into?

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  • I have a milligram scale at home. I can measure the pressure in grams a SD alcohol meter pushes at 95% abv?

  • @cunnyfunt Perfect. Try doing it with 95, 65, 40 and then water and see what you get. You will have to fix the scale in position so that it is at the same reference point for all fluids and doesn't move when you change fluids. Let me know what happens. I'm looking for a suitable strain gauge now but I will wait until I see your results.

  • Sure thing. I will get onto it tonight when I get home.

  • @cunnyfunt thanks mate. WIll be interesting to see the results.

    @Drunkas Unfortunately no good mate. They are a vapour sensor good for 1000ppm. Would make a great leak detector in combination with the arduino or PIC module though. 1000ppm is too small, we need 96% or 960,000ppm, 10,000ppm = 1%, 1000ppm - 0.1%.

  • edited March 2014

    OK amateur distiller here. I only had 90% ABV of feints on hand.

    31.5g @ 90%

    28.94g @ 65%

    28.33g @ 40 %

    Tap water was 26.88g @ 5%

    RO water was 26.85 g @ 0%

    I tried to divide the grams by ABV to find my 100% ABV point but it's not a sliding scale. It's all over the shop. 95% abv weight to come. But assume anywhere between 31.5-33g

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  • @Mickiboi said:

    Drunkas Unfortunately no good mate. They are a vapour sensor good for 1000ppm. Would make a great leak detector in combination with the arduino or PIC module though. 1000ppm is too small, we need 96% or 960,000ppm, 10,000ppm = 1%, 1000ppm - 0.1%.

    Would it not be just the as ezy as changing the code to read high or would we need to just change the sensor out in one

  • @Mickiboi There is only milligrams between 65% and 40% This maybe a problem. I have had alcometers vary by a few points over the years. Also when you are measuring in milligrams, scales need to be very accurate and generally they need to be able to be calibrated regularly.

  • edited March 2014

    There are sensors that can read distance via ultrasonic means including for example link below.

    As already mentioned, mounted above the parrot simply reading the top of the alc meter. Still need an interface to convert distance to correct abv as we know its not a straight calculation like each movement of mm = 1% abv, now that would make it simpler!

    Would also need simple calibration to match out temps/alc meters/altitudes etc

    New paths in distance measurement

    Performance

    Resolution:                       ≥ 0.1 mm    
    Working range, limiting range 1): 13 mm ... 100 mm, 150 mm    
    Repeatability 2):                 ± 0.15 %    
    Accuracy 3):                      0.17 % / K  
    Response time:                    30 ms   
    Output rate:                      8 ms    
    Switching frequency:              20 Hz   
    Ultrasonic frequency (typical):   380 kHz 
    Detection area (typical):         See diagrams    
    Temperature compensation:         -   
    Additional function:              Set switching mode: Distance to object (DtO) / Window (Wnd) / Object between sensor and background (ObSB)
    

    Price is unknown ????

    Also there are measuring devices that do like a barcode type of thing, but hard finding one for the narrow range we are looking for how-ever

    Linear measurement sensors DataSheet

    fadge

  • I got to question how well every one things a barcode scaner would work in a aplication like what you all are talking about. I dont know how many times you guys have wached the young chicks at the supermarket trying to scan the grocerys. It seems to me all you would need is a small drop of liquied on the glarss bar code and you would be up shit creek.

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