looking forward to seeing how it works. I have an Amazon cart full of parts right now. Just trying to decide if I want to do the boards or not. Plus I like the one that puts it all on one board.
PiFire Controller PWM 1.2 - EasyEDA open source hardware lab (oshwlab.com)
That one includes a PWM output for the fan. You’ll need to replace the AC fan with a 12v fan for the PWM to work. Not sure if the PWM output can be disabled and a normal relay used.
This guy just announced on discord he’s setting up a shop for selling parts
Interesting that the guy selling the boards isn’t the one that designed it. Not sure how I feel about that.
True. There is another board on that site that is a development that allows selection between 12v and 120v fans. I like that all the components are on one board and the fact that the PI is put in from the top.
Combo PiFire PWM or 120V fan - EasyEDA open source hardware lab (oshwlab.com)
Funny thing is I just realized there is no need for me to use a Zero. I have a few Pi 3B+ units I have pulled from printers as I have replaced with Manta boards.
The 3b+ boards would probably boot faster.
Haha that is very true
So many cool projects on the go.
Looks very clean man nice work.
“You want it done when “
It’s only clean because it’s still missing half the wires. Spaghetti wiring will be added shortly 
I’m so close to having this done. The igniter isn’t lighting and the enter button doesn’t work.
I ran out of day to finish it.
I’m troubleshooting the relay board which is why it’s not bolted down.
The igniter was lighting. I had just pulled it out of the tube while messing with the wires. Now I just need to fix the enter key and calibrate the probes.
Did you integrate with the existing Pitboss Temperature sensor? Or add a new one?
I added a new one. I’m using the same temperature sensor that came with my FireBoard.
Looks amazing dude nice work.
Tried out the pifire and smoked a chicken. Used the fireboard meat thermometer to track the pit and chicken temps to compare.
The two devices ran pretty much in lockstep with one another. The fireboard lagged the pifire on the pit temp, but ran a bit ahead of the meat temperature. I’m assuming because it was in a different part of the chicken.
Has anyone scrolled back and read any of the older portions of this thread? Man… there’s some memories back there.
BTW, my sisters and I chipped in and bought my dad a pellet smoker year before last for Christmas. He’s been using it like crazy. He recently tried out a smoke tube in his and said it does a really good job of adding a smokey flavor to his meat. I need to get one and try it out.
Here’s some pretty graphs from the smoke yesterday. The first one is the fireboard graph. I used this to track/verify/test the pifire data.
This is the pifire graph. Ignore all the ‘hold’ temp changes at the end of the cook. I was playing with the PID.
The pifire controller ramps up the temperature slower than the stock Pitboss controller, but I can adjust the PIDs to speed this up. I also discovered that the PitBoss uses an ‘on’ time of 18 seconds for the Smoke ‘P’ setting. The pifire uses an ‘on’ time of 15 seconds. Which is why I think the smoke setting kept dropping instead of holding.
Nice data logs !!
