I am rather new to this and apologize if this doesnt make sense.
I am attempting to setup a kegbot with one kegboard pro mini and I would like to have two taps connect to it then feed it into the tablet. I was wondering if I was able to use a switch connect two taps and then connect the switch to the kegboard pro if that would work?I don’t think it will work, as I understand it the second Flow meter has to be wired to a different set of pins. The switch would just merge the the two meters to the same set of pins
Would anybody have a diagram on how you could work this?
On the keg the specs say it can utilize 2 taps.
https://kegbot.org/docs/kbpm-owners-manual/specs/
You’ve got it there. Each flow meter will have 3 pins coming out of it: power, signal, ground. Wire both power to the +5 pin on the CAT5, both GNDs to that respective pin, then one signal to the FLOW0 pin and the other to FLOW1.
Alternately (and possibly more robust), there should be information either in this forum or the old one about getting/building a coaster.
I appreciate the help. I come from a networking background so I am trying to wrap my head around this. So essentially you only need to splice the cable. Would they look something like this then?
I want to be clear that this is not my solution, and it was on the old forum:
http://old-forum.kegbot.org/discussions/diy-corner/17-second-meter-on-kbpm-my-solution
I appreciate the help. I am just having a hard time seeing the actual breakdown. I understand what the guy did. I just want some confirmation on the wiring breakdown.
One thing I see is the solid green wire goes to both but in the diagram the wiring diagram shows FLOW0, so wouldnt that create a fault?
I thought the first flow meter would need GP0,+5V,GP1, GND, and FLOW0
The second one would be GP2, GP3, 5+, GND, and FLOW 1.
Or would it be
Flow meter 1: GP0,5V, GP2, GND, and FLOW0
Flow meter 2: GP1, 5V, GND, GP3, and FLOW1
HI,
Follow the advice from johnpdowling “Wire both power to the +5 pin on the CAT5, both GNDs to that respective pin, then one signal to the FLOW0 pin and the other to FLOW1.”.
With “CAT5” I mean the RJ45 connector on the KGPM. You must cut the cables of the flow meters and connect the wires using a RJ45 terminal block.
5V is pin 2 (connect both flowmeters to this)
GND is pin 5 (connect both flowmeters to this)
FLOW0 is pin 6 (connect meter # 1 to this)
FLOW1 is pin 8 (connect meter # 2 to this)
/Bjorn
When you purchase a flow meter from the kegbot store it comes pre-terminated with a RJ45 male connector. The flow meter only has 3 wires 5V, GND, and FLOW which map to pins 2, 5, and 6 respectively.
If you plug a RJ45 into the KBMP jack and splice all of the wires and terminate them to 2 RJ45 jacks you will have the equivalent of 2 RJ45 jacks on the KBMP. This method would have you cut the RJ45 off the end of the flow meter and wire it with the following:
1 - Orange/White
2 - Orange
3 - Green/White
4 - Blue
5 - Blue/White
6 - Brown
7 - Brown/White
8 - Green
The other way you could do it is when you create the two RJ45 jacks swap the Brown and Green wire on one of the jacks, and then you will not have to re terminate the RJ45.
I was able to get a working set of 2 taps using only rj45 jacks and some creative soldering. I even decided to break out the temperature based on the thread from the old forum. In the top image, what you can’t see is that under the red tape there’s a bit of soldering. I made this entire solution using cat5e cable, jacks and plugs, so I needed to break out the GND and the 5v to run to the different sources, so I soldered in 3 extra separate wires for each.
You are looking at the image bottom up. Flow1 is the closest plug, under that (in the image) is Flow0, and the plug by itself is the temperature probe. Each plug has 5v and GND broken out to where it’s appropriate and the position of the wires in the jack is essentially the same for flow0 and 1, the difference is that it goes to a pigtail connection that uses the different wires, so I’ve got green coming in for 0 and brown coming in for 1 (as in the diagram above). I know it’s not 100% clear here, but with the right tools, it’s not hard to do.
Nice to see that you found a solution suitable for your setup.
/Bjorn
Sorry for the extended delay between posts work has been quite busy.
So I used 3 keystone jacks to connect the wires.
