
Dad and the Egg Controller - evan_
https://www.pentadact.com/2018-12-18-dad-and-the-egg-controller/
======
wiredfool
""" I didn’t know much about it, but I was fairly sure you don’t bring an
oscilloscope to a barbecue. """

I think I'd enjoy the sort of company that would require an oscilloscope at a
barbecue.

~~~
gumby
Indeed there's an oscilloscope on my kitchen table right now; at the other end
are placemats. This doesn't seem absurd.

~~~
ruok0101
My 3D printer lives on the kitchen counter. Right next to the toaster and
stand mixer.

~~~
double0jimb0
If you print ABS or PC, look into proper ventillation. Known carcinogens
present in the fumes.

Proper ventillation for my home-residing 3D printer is the bathroom. Close the
door and hit the fan.

You can guess when the idea hit me... :D

~~~
aidenn0
> You can guess when the idea hit me... :D

While cooking?

------
pavel_lishin
> _So, technically, I made a game. It’s a game where the only level is a giant
> room that looks like my business card, the menu system writes a giant code
> across it, then it takes a screenshot. Thirty times a second. You win the
> game by waiting for 7 seconds. Then when you quit, you have a folder full of
> 200 images, each with a different code on them, which you can send straight
> to the printers._

This is an amazing approach.

~~~
donquichotte
It certainly is an amazing approach.

One of my former co-workers was a physicist who knew LabView and he used it
for everything from parsing log files to sending automated emails.

~~~
jki275
I've seen just about everything written in LabView -- used to work with a
bunch of EEs.

------
beefsack
If anyone likes his storytelling and is into PC gaming, he is a founding
member and regular on what I feel is the best gaming podcast around: The Crate
and Crowbar[1].

It's run largely by a bunch of ex-PC gamer magazine journalists so their
analysis of games and the issues around them are really interesting, and a
number of them have moved into game development (such as Tom) which gives them
an extra perspective.

Tom also does a lot of storytelling of his game experiences which is a lot of
fun.

[1]: [http://crateandcrowbar.com/](http://crateandcrowbar.com/)

~~~
kiddico
I've nearly worked my way through the Idle Thumbs archive, and was starting to
think I'd run out of driving entertainment soon :P

I'll add this to my podcast rotation.

------
jakobegger
That's the ultimate test for a project: can someone else use it?

I managed to somehow add a Wifi-controlled cruise control to an RC car that I
borrowed from my kids, but somehow it ended up such a complicated mess that
noone except myself can use it...

~~~
retSava
I often start off a little less ambitious - if I let it rest for a month, can
I pick it up and use it myself again? :)

~~~
3chelon
I thought that was only true of code.

~~~
retSava
Ohno, very much so with hardware too. With the added dimension of "will it
start smoking when I turn power on?" :). Key is to clearly mark what's
expected of the user, eg "IN 3-5V", not just "3-5V" since it may not be
obvious.

------
hamiltont
Loved the story, really captures the magic of curiously poking the universe
that most folks call inventing stuff

Complete side note....I has wanted something _just like_ the Egg Controller,
and got the "fireboard" as a gift. It works fantastically well, and I've
wholeheartedly recommended the product since then. The technology stack is
well done - changes are instantly reflected on the mobile/desktop/controller -
and I've gotten 10x better at smoker cooking using the data collected. Some
examples in case anyone is curious:

Here's a test of how well my oven PID works -
[https://share.fireboard.io/F65461](https://share.fireboard.io/F65461)

Here's me showing my grill controller board going bad (got a free replacement
board using the data!):
[https://share.fireboard.io/C95FDA](https://share.fireboard.io/C95FDA)

Here's is a fun one - I wanted to track how much ambient temp changes the
internal meat temp (per advice to open/baste as quickly as possible). TUrns
out, it's good advice, there is a significant effect!
[https://share.fireboard.io/792FDC](https://share.fireboard.io/792FDC)

etc...not affiliated with this company in any way

------
pards
This is such a heart-warming tale. As one who's struggled to cook on my
father-in-law's Big Green Egg, I fully understand the need for such a
controller. Cooking on the Egg always fills me with performance anxiety.

The world needs The Egg Controller. Take it to market!

~~~
gorkish
You will be happy to know that they do already exist; there are the Stoker,
BBQ Guru, Fragger, Cyberq, Digiq, Egg Genius, Auber controller, and more!
Modern pellet smokers have a PID controller right in there. There's also my
homebuilt monstrosity, but it's not for sale, and you wouldn't want to buy it
anyway.

As someone who's been through a thought process that was likely similar to
OP's dad, I can say it usually goes something like this for me:

"I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay one hundred dollars for two thermocouples, a
fan and an 8 bit micro running some PID library I don't even have to write. I
have all of that crap in my junk drawer."

For the record you can bring an oscilloscope to a BBQ. And a DMM. And grab
those bench supplies and the logic analyzer while you're down there. And of
course you didn't grab the spectrum analyzer, but you ended up needing it
after all.

Things get a little crazy; the better part of a case of beer gets consumed,
and the next day you're watching your brisket come up to temp on your phone
while you pop into the hardware store for a piece of sheet metal. Your BBQ
looks like you are building a nuke with all of the smoke and colored wires
snaking out of the big ceramic bomb casing to breadboards and test gear and
antennas. A rainstorm would easily cost you five thousand dollars right about
now.

Over the next week or two the purple PCBs show up along with some red ones and
blue ones and a big box from Digikey. You have to wait a little longer for the
OLED display to show up from that ebay seller in China because damned if you
are gonna pay Digikey's stupid price.

So naturally it takes you until the next summer to solder it together and
thank god it works perfect the first and only time you will ever use it
because you really don't want to have to try to get your code to compile
again.

This is where the "You should sell it" guy comes in. And so you say thanks,
but you think to yourself "Damned if anyone's gonna pay six hundred bucks for
something they can buy for a hundred."

~~~
ska
Ah, the old money/time pit called "saving $100".

------
scandox
> “Quite neat, actually” – his strongest possible praise for a gadget.

I wish understatement would make a bit of a comeback.

~~~
rkangel
It's alive and well in the engineering community in Cambridge, UK.

E.g.: A "couple of nice little tricks involved" in making something work
probably means you should ring up some patent lawyers.

------
jacobush
Brought a tear to the corner of my eye. Anyone with this kind of legacy has
lead a good life.

~~~
setquk
My grandfather was the opposite unfortunately. We found a radio power supply
he made, I carefully but not carefully enough reverse engineered it, brought
it up slowly on a variac and after three minutes it exploded violently spewing
capacitor guts everywhere.

We came to the conclusion that this wasn’t operator error either. He’d
finished it but was too scared to power it up himself so locked it in the
cellar.

~~~
verytrivial
Anyone who's not ducked capacitor shrapnel isn't really an
electrical/electronic engineer. Perhaps he was leaving you with an initiation
ritual.

~~~
marcosdumay
Normal (not utility scale) capacitors do not blow up anymore. You can plug
them on the wrong way directly on the rectified mains, they bubble, expand,
get hot, and smell; they don't blow.

~~~
setquk
They do explode quite violently still. I’ve blown up tens of new ones.

Try an average Chinese or even rubicon 10uF 63v ish cap which is in just about
every bit of crap from SMPS to cheap toys. They go with quite a Big Bang.

~~~
marcosdumay
Well, looks like I got lucky on my choice of suppliers :)

------
3chelon
This article made me slightly sad that my kids might one day find my various
gadgets among all the junk in the garage and not be able to figure them out,
but equally not want to throw them out for sentimental reasons.

I need to either put printed instructions on everything, or else dispose of
them before I die!

~~~
ams6110
> dispose of them before I die

That is my plan. My parents had so much stuff they had saved and I hated to
throw any of it away after they died because most of it triggered specific
fond memories. Yet the stuff they did get rid of, I never missed.

------
c22
> This was a programming problem, and the only programming language I knew was
> the one I made the game in: it’s called Game Maker.

This reminds me of a kid I used to play MUDs with. He started getting into
programming by writing scripts for the MUDs, but he refused to learn any other
scripting or programming languages. Over the years I saw him implement a chess
engine, a web server, and even a whole MUD all using his MUD client's
integrated scripting language.

------
quickthrower2
Relevant xkcd

[https://xkcd.com/974/](https://xkcd.com/974/)

------
ams6110
"Proportional-Integral-Derivative Controller" never knew what that was called.
Guessing that would just be a Raspberry Pi these days.

~~~
wyldfire
PID [1] is the feedback-driven algorithm to control the error in a process.
You could deploy the implementation of the PID on a Raspberry pi or an arduino
or probably even a PIC.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller)

------
honestoHeminway
Its a neat thing, the software left behind as monument to a men.

~~~
defterGoose
I think in this instance I get more of his dad's 'flavor' from the hardware
though.

