I am trying to receive bluetooth signal from a TILT Hydrometer and having trouble as its in a Stainless Steel fermenter
Can I use a Bluetooth dongle attached to a USB extension cord that is plugged into the power out socket on the PI.
This would be placed on top of the fermenter.
If so would it need to be any special USB Bluetooth dongle.
Tks
Hi John,
The steel fermenter is a faraday cage so your bluetooth signal will pretty much not get out of the fermenter…
You’re solution is to get a bluetooth dongle inside the fermenter… not on top. it has to get inside.
There is a chance it’d also still have issues inside there.
A simpler solution may be to bring the brew out into a little side tank made of polypropylene, through a drain port or other connection that the TILT lives in. This side tank will let the signal pass to your phone. I’m thinking of a bottle or something with its own air lock on top.
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Thanks all good. I tried bluetooth dongle that was supposed to be suitable for the Raspberry PI (CSR 4.) but I could not get it to work. The Raspberry PI does receive the Tilt Hydrometer through the fridge and the SS fermenter, but it need to be very close to the fridge. As I am using two fridges and two Tilts I could only get a good signal from one. I was trying to get a ESP32 and a LM2596 to work as a repeater. (Placed in the fridge). I have no luck so I purchased the CSR 4.0 no luck either. Someone else got the ESP32 to work and I could not understand why I could not. Eventually I had a light bulb moment. The ESP32 needs 5 volts on the usb connector to work properly (would show a light but would not transmit)
I had only put 3.95 volts as suggested, so I bumped it up to 5 Volts and fantastic it worked fantasticly
Thanks everybody for their imput
I went down the same thought process Mart - it’s surprising that it’s now working!
Glad to hear you are back on track @John55443, good luck with the project and let us know how the build goes.
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