Frosty Beverage Timer - No More Warm or Frozen Beers!

The Frosty Beverage Timer by Gadget Gangster is a timer to let you know when your drink is cooled.

Buy the kit! http://gadgetgangster.com/154

No more warm cans or exploded bottles, just tell your Frosty Beverage Timer how cold you like your brew and put it in the freezer. Like an angel's song, it tells you when your beverage is ready for maximum enjoyment.

See the video:
http://www.vimeo.com/5002358

How does it turn your warm beer into chilled perfection? A quick calibration by putting the Frosty Beverage Timer in your freezer lets the onboard digital thermometer measure your freezer's temperature with 12 bits of precision. When you're ready to chill your beer, it makes a second measurement of the room temperature. By knowing the temperature difference & what type of bottle or can you're using, it knows exactly when your Frosty Beverage will be ready.

Heavy drinker? With support of cans up to 440ml and bottles up to 750ml (1/5 Gallon), you're covered. Metric system make you mad? Don't worry, the Frosty Beverage Timer supports Celsius and Fahrenheit. Can't afford a freezer? Just let the Frosty Beverage Timer know and it will automatically compensate. Deaf or blind, everyone deserves a cool brew, so the Frosty Beverage Timer alerts you with it's rendition of '99 bottles of beer on the wall' as well as a message on the 8x2 LCD.

Magic has a new name: The Frosty Beverage Timer.

Parts list:
http://gadgetgangster.com/scripts/bom.php?projectnum=154

You'll first need to get the BOSS Board, and the voltage regulator. He's the square black one with three legs.

Bend the legs over at 90 degrees using pliers, and put it into the board in the location marked [Pc]. Flip the board over, solder the legs, and trim the legs. If you want to aid heat dissipation, you can add a small amount of solder to the tab of the chip and board.

Find the 100uF capacitor, and insert it into the holes marked [Pa]. Note that the longer leg goes into the hole with the + next to it. Solder it, and trim the legs.

Add the diode. Notice that there is a white strip on one side. This side MUST go into the square hole, or the circuit won't work! Solder it, and trim the legs.

Drop in the power connector. Being careful that it doesnt fall out, flip over the board and fill the holes with solder. You should use plenty, as this takes all the force when you plug in or remove power.

Three more components now. A 270 ohm resistor (Red-Violet-Brown) goes where it says Py.

An LED goes at PZ. Be sure to put the long leg in the square hole at the top, and the flat edge of the LED furthest away from the resistor (see the picture).

The other 100uF capacitor goes at Pe  and remember to put the long leg in the square hole (with the + next to it).

Solder these all, then trim the legs.

Right. Now for the main part  the chip socket. Put it with the notch closest to the edge of the board.

Notice that it is one hole in from the edge  make sure you get this right!

Flip the board over, and solder all the legs. To get the chip holder flat, I recommend soldering two diagonal corners first.

Now we start soldering the wires.

Solder one of the red wires between E23 and G23. Solder another between E24 and G24.

Solder the last between M11 and O11 (not shown in this step).

Add a 22K resistor (Red-Red-Orange) between E25 and J25. Solder, and trim the leads, but keep them - we'll need them later.

Still got those resistor lead you just cut off?

Find them, and bend them into little loops. These should then be inserted into the board. One will connect N2 and N3, and the other will connect M23 and N23.

Solder these, and trim excess lead.

Now you'll need 10 bits of wire.

They should be about 1.5 inches long, and stripped at both ends. These will attach the LCD display.

If you want to put the project in a box, they should be longer.

However, LCD displays dont like being really cold (who does?).

When you put your device in the freezer to calibrate it, the LCD cant be attached or youll damage it.

Therefore, it must be removable. To do this, break off two 8 pin strips of headers.

Carefully solder these to the LCD display.

The next step is to cut down the other part of the connectors. Note that this is quite hard, and you will end up destroying one part.

You can always cut more off - I recommend cutting the 10 way connector down to 9, then down to 8. Starting at 9 will give you an idea of how easily it cuts.

You will want to turn both 10 way connectors into 8 way connectors.

Now label one connector A, and the other B.

Solder on the wires as shown. It is important that yours look exactly like mine do, or you will have a problem when wiring up the LCD display.

Note that one pin is not used - if you broke part of the connector when cutting, make this the unused pin.

You may also want to insulate the connectors by wrapping them in insulation tape (or heatshrink if you have it).

Put those leads aside for a moment.

Time to add another chip now  this time the temperature sensor. It says DS18B20 on it, and it is in a little semicircular black package. With the writing facing you, call the pins 1, 2 and 3.

Pin 1 goes to F26
Pin 2 goes to G27
Pin 3 goes to G28

Youll also need to add a 4.7K resistor (Yellow-Violet-Red) between J27 and J28.

Next, solder up the light sensor. This is to tell if the fridge is shut during the calibration.

This goes between M27 and N27.

Solder a 10K resistor (Brown-Black-Orange) between K27 and N28.

Now it’s time to start wiring up the LCD display.

Starting at the left on connector A:
Wire 1: F18
Wire 2: E17
Wire 3: F20
Wire 4: M19
Wire 5: M21

You then need to wire up connector B.

Starting at the left on connector B:

Wire 1: E20
Wire 2: H20
Wire 3: H19
Wire 4: M20
Wire 5: M22

One more wire in the whole circuit - between J21 and the top/central pin between columns 9 and 10 see picture).

You then need to get the piezo sounder (block round thing with a hole in the middle), and solder it between J9 and E9. Polarity is unimportant.

Now two more resistors. They are both 10K (Brown-Black-Orange).

Solder one between O22 and M24, and the other between O26 and M25.

There are now two switches.

Each has four pins. They might need a bit of squeezing to fit them in, but they will go.

Switch 1: O13, R13, O15, R15

Switch 2: O17, R17, O19, R19

Now two bits of wire to connect the switches to the PIC.

One between S15 and K24, and the other between S19 and K25.

Put the chip in its socket. Watch the location of the notch and 'dot'.

Now attach the LCD connectors to the LCD. The A sticker on the connector should go next to the 1 on the underside of the LCD.

The B connector should go behind this.

The sticker saying B should be directly behind the sticker saying A.

You’re done!

Plug it in, and enjoy beverages at the perfect temperature!

Use:
The menus are designed to be very simple.
The left button is ‘left’, the right button is ‘right’, and pressing both together ‘selects’.
Press both buttons on startup to calibrate to your fridge or freezer, or change from metric to imperial units.

Here is the schematic.

The PIC is a PICAXE 18X.

The code is closed source - it took tens of hours to write and develop it.

For those of you who are interested, the formula for timings is also shown.