Custom Thermometer build

[earthquake5683]

Alright, I know this has been done before but I wanted some input from the group.  I'm thinking about building my own thermometer setup.  Please let me know if you think this is an overkill or just overall concept or comments so I can fine-tune my thinking.

9 Channels (Thermometers).  yes, this is a lot but I often cook 8 pork butts for work and one would be for pit temp.

Pit temp would be a stoker setup.

-- Able to set "profiles" to raise chamber temp at a given time or meat temp (good for bacon/sausages)

All controlled from a remote unit or smart phone/webpage

Alarms for low/high temps

Now, I have thought of a few way to implement.

(1) - Arduino 

(2) - Raspberry pi

(3) - one of the above with only 8 channels and add a PID controller.  Down fall to this is the PID (stoker) wouldn't have remote control.

Arduino would probably be the smallest form factor but is limited by the analog inputs for temperature probes and the hardest to program.  I have limited to no programming experience since programming BASIC in the 80s.  But, I have found some good starting points that I can build off of.

Raspberry Pi is easier to program but doesnt have analog inputs so I would use an ADC (analog-digital converter chip) so the number of inputs is endless (kinda).  

Is it an overkill to want to monitor 8 pieces of meat at the same time.  I've been doing perfectly fine without this high-tech thing using my Maverick, but also want to challenge myself a little and teach myself some programming.

Inputs?  Additional things others would like to see?  

Joe 

 

[daveomak]

Build it, they will come...   I don't know squat about electronics soooooooo.....   "You is alone"...  so to speak...

 

[bfilipowski]

I wanted most of what you did. However I'm lazy, so I took my fantasy football winnings and bought this and a few other bbq toys.

20160119_232652.jpg

• bfilipowski
• Jan 19, 2016

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Like Dave said, no electro brains here. Post up your work so we can all learn. Sounds like an interesting project! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

 

[SmokinAl]

Like the others, don't really know what your talking about. But I would certainly like to see what you come up with.

Al

 

[holyfeld]

Where did you land on this? 

I have both the iGrill and iDevice. I have used as many as 4 probes of the 6. The iGrill allows me to plot time / temp and save the data as a csv and pdf file. 

A probe in each pork butt is overkill. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. [emoji]128540[/emoji] I'm thinking about 4+ probes in my MES-40 so I can do a temperature profile. So who am I to talk? I also want to ditch my Auber PID controller.

I'm at the front end of my project, so I'm scanning the forums and Raspberry PI users looking for information.

Don

 

[earthquake5683]

My build is still in progress.  I have the Pi and my ADC converter, breakout board, leads, resistors, and one probe right now.  I work a lot of hours so it's slow.  I've been able to read the temp of the probe and just need to sit down and write the program.  Not sure how I am going to remotely monitor it yet, but I will figure it out.