Please help someone that knows nothing about this stuff.
The Goal:
As inexpensively and as simply as possible, monitor temperature during roasting (RK Drum), perhaps at multiple locations, and record that information so that it can be used in Microsoft Excel or Open Office Calc on the laptop, which has no serial ports.
Presently I use a digital thermometer and K type thermocouple (see photo below), but I need a way to log the information in an automated fashion. I was going to buy another Digital Multimeter that had this functionality and had some software. I downloaded the software to check it out and before it would even open, it asked for the COM port; my laptop does not have one.
Can humidity be monitored on the same meter as well?
Anyway, please help develop a solution, and use small words. :(
Edited by EddieDove on 01/03/2009 11:33
Respectfully,
Eddie Dove
The South Coast Coffee Roaster
vita non est vivere sed valere vita est
Home Coffee Roasting Blog and Reference http://southcoast...gspot.com/
USB "com port" or "serial port" or "rs232" adapters can be found for around $20, sometimes less. Plug one of those into your laptop, and you will have a COM port then.
The Jaycar unit is popular Down-Under, and is fairly cheap, but I haven't purchased one yet.
I'm real curious about how and where you will place your probes?
I've often wanted to build a drum roaster but always get stuck with how and where to place probes, given a rotating drum...
The Open Sky roaster has a stationary center, but I don't quite understand it.
Dan or Alchemist has roaster that seems to be tilted and supported by rollers and so it has one end open that could allow for probes to enter from the open end of the drum.
Also, what humidity do you want to measure? What accuracy?
I'm real curious about how and where you will place your probes?
[...]
thanks!
-bill
Sorry, Bill, the photo is attached now. I used to have two temperature probes, but something happened to the one that I had directly behind the drum. Since I started roasting with the RK Drum, I have always used the one shown in the picture above.
Chad,
Your Google must work better than mine. I spent a good portion of the day yesterday researching this stuff and never came across that one. The writes-ups on these things are awful because very few ever indicate whether or not the data can be exported in a format for things like spreadsheets.
I appreciate the information.
Respectfully,
Eddie Dove
The South Coast Coffee Roaster
vita non est vivere sed valere vita est
Home Coffee Roasting Blog and Reference http://southcoast...gspot.com/
One great thing about this homeroasters.org community is that we have such a great combination and diversity of expertise.
If you can turn things into a software problem-- I'm ready, along with several others here, to help with the rest of the solution.
Thankfully, others of you are more mechanically inclined than me, and can help me with things like materials, construction, motors, couplers, mechanical issues.
So, if you can get your data into the computer, I'm pretty sure we can get it into a format suitable for your spreadsheet.
And yet others of you can help with coffee, roasting, brewing, etc.
My sample roaster (and by definition all Jabez Burns type sample roasters) have the same basic feature. One end of the drum is funnel shaped with a short funnel tube or snout. The snout rests in a bearing and that supports that end of the drum (not rollers). This open snout is were the beans go in and out, and used for a trier, too. I sometimes toss a TC into the snout to measure bean mass temperatures. I see no reason why a grill type unit can't use a sample roaster type drum. The big advantage is that it is quick and easy to dump.
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