Step by step for dummies?


 
R

Rob(PePa)

New member
Hey everybody
I am really intrigued by the heater meter. I'd like to have a wireless 4 probe (1 for temp control,3 for meat probes) and it goes well I'd like to have two possibly three of them eventually.

But herein lies the rub, I have no idea how to even start to build one, what to do, where to get a case, etc. I tried to look at the site but I don't know how to program a Raspberry pie, or how to read schematics. I do have a very basic rudimentary ability to solder but I need detailed step by step instructions for someone who loves to smoke food but is not only electronic iterate but an electronic idiotic.

Any help would be appreciated - thanks
 
Welcome to the forum Rob!
You will get all the help you need from other Fellows.
For me it was much easyer to order bbq guru product.
 
Yeah, I thought that might be the case but thought it would be neat to have something different. Still have a fear of attempting it and putting money into it and it not working.
 
What you need to do is read the first post in the HeaterMeter Hardware sticky thread. There you will see the general overview of the latest heater meter release, and links to various reference you may need. If you click the HeaterMeter v4.2 Assembly link on that page there is actually a step by step guide to building the Heater Meter board iteself.

There is also a link on the Heatermeter Hardware page where you can buy a complete HM Parts Kit from Byran, or you can click the "Hardware" link and there are BOM links to buy all the parts yourself from the individual suppliers.

If you are unfamiliar with soldering I hear there are some pretty good beginners toutorials on youtube..

As for the programming... You connect a SD memory card to a computer through a card reader and write an image of the Linkmeter system to it. You pretty much just have to connect the card, load the disk imager software, select the HM image file and click go... Now you put that SD card into the rPi memory slot and connect the rPi to the HM board and you should be good. When the rPi boots it will program the arduino chip on the HM and it should come to life and report NO PIT PROBE if all is well...

Unless things go dreadfully wrong you shouldn't have to read schematics. If you do stumble in the process people in the forum will try to help you.

As for wireless probes. The HM does support ONE wireless probe via add-on rf board, not sure how many are using it. You certainly wont have 4 wireless probes. You can make the HM send 3 probes through the CAT5 cable with the blower and a servo, and that CAT5 cable can be quite long if you do things right. It's not wireless but its three probes with the HM running far away from the pit....
 
Ralph as always has provided a great overview, but I will add that you can have up to 63 wireless probes theoretically, but only display a total of 4 probes in the HeaterMeter UI at any time. I'm sure there is some other limitation somewhere in the pipeline where it can only list a smaller number of wireless probe IDs in the UI, but if you know the ID then you can just enter it.

However, I will say that wireless probes are way way advanced and only like 2 people out of 1000 use them so I'd stick with regular wired probes if you're concerned about your skill level.

That said, it isn't complicated. Look at the sticky threads. You need to build a device (follow the assembly guide), the ability to copy files to an SD card, buy a case from someone in the sticky threads, and you're done. If you're worried about the building parts, someone can assemble a heatermeter for you as well (also a sticky thread).
 
Yeah, I don't mind wired probes at all. I'm just wanting the meter to be able transfer info back to my computer either wirelessly or via Bluetooth. Told ya I was illiterate about these things, lol
 
Bryan, I thought there was only one header for the RF device? Can the one RF device connect to more than one wireless probe? And what about the sender, aren't you using like a weather station temp unit to send, rather than a probe connected to a wireless sender? Do we even have a device that is able to send an actual probe signal wirelessly.
 
Rob(PePa) said:
Yeah, I don't mind wired probes at all. I'm just wanting the meter to be able transfer info back to my computer either wirelessly or via Bluetooth. Told ya I was illiterate about these things, lol
Click to expand...

Ah, well in that case then YES, it's all wireless. The probes connect to the HM, the HM connects to the rPi, the rPi connects to the wifi via wifi dongle. Now the HM/rPi is on the network and can be accessed from any computer that is on the network, and with a little more work on your network config can be accessed from anywhere in the world via the internet, from your smart phone, tablet etc.
 
RalphTrimble said:
Bryan, I thought there was only one header for the RF device? Can the one RF device connect to more than one wireless probe? And what about the sender, aren't you using like a weather station temp unit to send, rather than a probe connected to a wireless sender? Do we even have a device that is able to send an actual probe signal wirelessly.
Click to expand...
Yeah there's just one header for the RX/TX module but it can receive from any number of devices. There is a "device id" in the packet that limits it to 63 unique transmitters though. I do use a weather station as the "ambient" sensor, but I also have a lmremote unit that I've used before that can support up to 4 probes (although I have no idea where it is now that I think about it).
 
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