The one with the faulty NodeMCUs

Hello, all lahmas-loving wine enthusiastic people of the internet.

Today have been a day filled with one step in the right directions quickly followed by two steps in the wrong. This is also why it has been so difficult to document what has been happening today in a blog post. The whole team has been working in different directions on different tracks; NodeRED, WHISK prototyping, hardware- and software assembly and testing of the filtrations system.

Regarding the whisk, we've found that the whisk needed an attachment to stir the sugar from the bottom. This attachment is an ongoing process. Put initial testing makes us comfortable that we are on the right track.

In NodeRed, we've set up the basic layout of the UI-Interface and added some of the core functionality to the UI. The project for tomorrow will be to build the infrastructure to get the esp-8266 and NodeRed communicating.

With the ESP-8266, we were today still struggling with connecting all the items to one board. Today's main problem was getting the ESP to activate the relays, which are needed to toggle the motor for the whisk and the pump. After an entire day of troubleshooting, we discovered that all six ESP's available to our group (they came from the same batch) had trouble supplying a high enough voltage on the digital pins to activate the relays. After switching the ESP with an ESP "borrowed" from another group, everything worked perfectly. So after working hours, we bought three new ones, and everything should be fine and dandy for tomorrow.

On a lighter note, the tube filter and peristaltic pump finally arrived today. We got to do some initial testing and 3d-print some fittings for the filter. The mesh on the filter was not fine enough (as expected), so we will need to make a finer filter. Otherwise, the filtration and pump worked great.

Lastly, we also started 3d-printing a base for the carboy after yesterdays extensive testing on how the platform should look. The print should be ready for testing first thing tomorrow morning.

Hakuna Ma'lahmas