Best posts made by Tango2

I'm in the process of building a BBQ temp controller, and was trying to figure out the best way to remotely monitor/control it. After coming across this website a month or so ago, I'm now running OpenHAB on a RPi2 and have a couple temp sensors deployed around my house.

This project is a little more involved, and I'm sure I'm going to run into roadblocks along the way. My goal is to have a sitemap in OpenHAB that will allow me to set and monitor my desired grill temp, which will control a small fan on my BBQ using a PID algorithm, as well as display the temps of the meat probes so I can know how things are going.

I currently have the sitemap setup in OpenHAB, and have had the code working for the thermocouple temp probes that I will be using for the grill and meat temps. Today I will start trying to get the two to work together, based on the MySensors Serial API. I'll be using the NRF24L01+ radio modules for this. I'll post my code periodically, and hopefully will have some chime in on how to make it work or improve it.

Re: BBQ Temp Controller Build

Although my time is very limited, I'd really like to get some more interest in this project and get some working code up for others to contribute to.

Background: I enjoy smoking different types of meat on my smoker, however it is always a challenge as some cooks can go as long as 12+ hours. When you expect to have guests over mid-afternoon, it means a really long night of monitoring and making minor adjustments to ensure temperatures stay where they should on both the smoker and the meat being cooked.

Goal: To build a temperature control system for charcoal/wood burning smokers that allows monitoring of the grill temperature as well as 1-2 probes for the internal temperature of the item(s) being cooked. It should be able to be integrated into a controller such as OpenHAB easily using the mysensors API. It should also have the capability to control a small fan which blows into the firebox of the smoker to increase the cooking temperature to a specified value. There are commercial versions of these, but if we are building home automation sensors and switches with arduinos, why stop there? Commercial versions can be found here or here.

Any takers to help develop this for others to use? I'm far from the best coder, but would love to get some help putting a working package together for others to use. My time is scarce these days, which is the main reason I keep putting off this project. If you're willing to contribute in some way, let me know and I'll post up my progress on the code and we can divide and conquer.

If there's no interest, I'll keep it on my project list and eventually try to work it out myself.