Read The Friendly Manual for the RGB eParrot

[ShiFu]

Read The Friendly Manual for the RGB eParrot
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Read The Friendly Manual

Reprinted here is Edwin's original manual for the RGB eParrot.

Here's an make shift manual 

Remove the rtc battery wait some time and insert it again (this stops the rtc and clears the battery backed ram, settings are stored in the ram of the rtc)

Apply power.

After the splash it's in the time set mode.
Left and right moves the cursor around from digit to digit.
Up increases and down decreases the digit only.
Short press on select cancel the operation, long press saves the time, starts the clock and goes to the main screen.

Main screen:
Vapor temperature, ABV and choosen alarm (FS is fores alarm, fixed between  68  and 78 C)
Boiler temperature and ABV or temperature and remaining time to warmup temperature

Up to alarm screen (should read all zero now)
Down to barometer screen
Right to next alarm
Left to previous alarm
Short press on select switches alarm on (backlight goes to green when buzzer is audial, blue when buzzer is silent) or acknowledge alarm when active and triggered.
Long press on select toggles between silent and audial.

Barometer screen
Information only, barometric pressure, sensor temperature and boiling point of water
Up to main screen
Down to time screen

Time screen
Information only, displays the current time.
Up to barometer screen
Down to logging screen
Short press on select goes to the time set screen

Time set screen
Left and right moves the cursor around from digit to digit.
Up increases and down decreases the digit only.
Short press on select cancel the operation, long press saves the time and goes back to the time screen.

Logging screen
Up to time screen
Down to vapor offset screen
Short press on select start logging to the SD card, when logging stops logging.
When logging displays the file name, with no card will say No card. When there are 99 log files it says Card full.

Vapor offset screen
Up to logging screen
Down to boiler offset screen
Short press on select shows cursor
Left and right moves the cursor around from digit to digit.
Up increases and down decreases the value.
Short press on select cancel the operation, long press saves the vapor offset value.

Boiler offset screen
Up to vapor offset screen
Down to alarm screen
Short press on select shows cursor
Left and right moves the cursor around from digit to digit.
Up increases and down decreases the value.
Short press on select cancel the operation, long press saves the boiler offset value.

Alarm screen
Up to boiler offset screen
Down to main screen
Short press on select shows cursor
Left and right moves the cursor around from digit to digit.
Up increases and down decreases the digit only.
Short press on select cancel the operation, long press saves the alarm values.

Alarm values marked 1 to 4 are ABV, value marked BLR is the warmup temperature for the boiler used to calculate the remaining time until that value is reached.
When alarm is active and ABV droppes below alarm value alarm is triggered.

[ShiFu]

Let's start at the beginning and work our way through this one step at a time.


Conventions used for the 5 buttons are:

← left arrow
→ right arrow     
↑  up arrow
↓  down arrow
Ꚛ  set or select

And one other special character, the degree sign ° (in distilling everything is always in °C, never °F).

First, remove the battery. Wait a minute or two and reinsert the battery.
Read The Friendly Manual for the RGB eParrot
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After the splash screen you will probably get a confusing screen, like this:
Read The Friendly Manual for the RGB eParrot
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And that's OK. It is your signal that the battery was replaced or is dead.

Press the ↓ once and you'll see this:
Read The Friendly Manual for the RGB eParrot
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This is an information only screen.
It shows my current barometric pressure and calculates the boiling point of pure water at my location.

Press the ↓ again and we'll set the Real Time Clock.
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Press the Ꚛ to bring up the time set sub-menu. Note there is a curser that you'll use during the navigation.
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[ShiFu]

Use the arrow keys to enter the time.
This is a 24 hour clock so 2:06 PM is 14:06.
When done, PRESS AND HOLD DOWN the Ꚛ button.
A short press clears any changes and returns you to the previous screen.
A long press stores the values in memory and returns to the previous screen.

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Short press the ↓ again and the Data Logging screen appears. We'll come back to data logging later.

Press the ↓ again and the Vapor Offset sub-menu opens.
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Press the Ꚛ and adjust all the values on the top line to zeros.
Press and hold the Ꚛ button to store to memory.
Read The Friendly Manual for the RGB eParrot
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Press the ↓ to display the Boiler Offset sub-menu.
Repeat the same steps as the above Vapor Offset to zero out the top line of the Boiler Offset.

[ShiFu]

Now we have set the Time and we have removed any offsets to the thermometers.

So let's check our work so far. Press the reset button on the Arduino or cycle the power off and then back on.

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That's better. Sensors are reading close enough for now. We'll calibrate them later.
This is your normal RUN screen.
The  --.--%  will be replaced with ABV% readings when the still gets hot enough.
And, for now, FS is displayed in the corner in anticipation of Fore Shots.
The #1 sensor displays on the top row and shows the Parrot's ABV being produced.
The #2 sensor displays the boiler vapor temperature and its %AVB.

Use the ↓ button to navigate to where we left off - the Blr Offs (Boiler Offset) screen.
One more ↓ and we enter the wonderful world of alarms.

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All stills, either column or pot, operate by the same principle that the alcohol coming out of the still starts out very strong and gets weaker as the run progresses. A very tall, packed column will hold that high %ABV for a long time but production slows as the boiler's ABV gets depleted.

So the first thing out of the still, the very highest %ABV is the nasty foreshots - also known as FORES and displayed on the screen as FS.
And this is the first of our Alarm Settings.
I'll assume for a moment that I'm wanting to set up the still, and the alarms, for a neutral spirit.

The 1 alarm will be set very high, about 96%. This is the FORES.
Alarm 2 I'll set to 95% as that will be most of the run.
Alarm 3 at 94% will alert me that I'm very probably into the tails.
Alarm 4 I'll set to about 40% to collect some for recycling. Anything under 40% with a tall, packed column is hardly worth the effort to collect.

The last setting for this screen appears under the letters BLR. For now, until I learn better, I'll set that to about 80 to 85C.
I'll get an alarm that should remind me to turn the condenser water on.
The main screen will display the approximate time left to heat the boiler to the set point.

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[ShiFu]

Your new parrot is now set up.

So how do we use the alarms? Tap the Set key Ꚛ

The screen will change color from a very light blue to green. Press and hold Ꚛ again and you'll get the dark blue backlight.

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[ShiFu]

With the alarms active (green or dark blue backlight), you will get an alarm depending on the screen color you have chosen.

You can then deactivate the alarms by a short Ꚛ press.

Or better yet...! Use the → (right arrow) button to do all of the following with only one button press:

(1) deactivate that alarm and
(2) advance to the next preset alarm temperature and
(3) ready the next preset alarm to activate.

The "FS" (FORESHOT) alarm is the first to sound off.
Buy pressing the → button once you will be in the next alarm preset.
If 2 alarm is set to 95% then FS will be replaced by 95.
If 3 alarm is set to 94% then 95 will be replaced by 94.