[narvin]

I have a friend who got the Z about 6 months ago.  Bad timing, but it seemed like it would work for a bit longer.  He only had a few batches under his belt and I'd really like to help him improve some of the standard homebrew flaws that have simple answers. He seems to think that he needs to set up a local proxy and do some annoying crap to get it working now though.  Anyone here have any advice, or should he sell it for parts on craigslist?

[BrewBama]

All is not lost: A bunch of smart folks have hacked the system and have reportedly been using them. There’s a big Facebook group with all the information on how to do it as well as a group over on HBT. I know Tommy got his up and running this way. I imagine he’ll be along soon to give you all the information.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[tommymorris]

I have a Raspberry Pi 3 running an open source server to operate my Z. It’s very easy. The server seems very stable. The only real difference is recipe entry. Right now the recipes are entered as machine steps rather than a true beer recipe with weights and additions.

There are two open source servers out there.

1. https://github.com/chiefwigms/picobrew_pico/releases
I have used this one the most. The instructions at the above link work great. The only thing I will add is plug an Ethernet cable from RPI3 directly to the Ethernet port on the Z. That minimizes network configuration issues.  The developers seem to like RPI 0W. I have tried RPI3 and 0W. RPI3 is a much faster RPI and I like the wired Ethernet. This one also runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

This one is supported via the FB Picobrewers group.

and

2. https://github.com/duffyco/planbeer
I have run this one on an RPI3 also but I have since moved to #1. That said this one was just updated and it looks good. The developer of this one is pushing using AWS instead of RPI.

[narvin]

Great, thanks for those projects.  Looks like they've come a long way since the early hacking.  He should be able to set this up with relatively little effort.