Welcome to my personal website for BBQ smokin’ adventure!! Q-Control DIY BBQ Temperature Controller….

A little background.  This site is a hobby of mine that I’ll keep updated with different projects/idea in tech that I’m playing with currently.  BBQ smokin’ technology brings all the things I crave in one thing.   FOOD….Tech…. and Food 🙂

All Source Code will be open source/free!!!  I may be on the ‘older’ side of 40 but still like learning and programming new things around the house.  (btw: I’ve been programming for over 25 years so I don’t know when it’s finally time to un-plug?)

I know there’s plenty of commercial and other open-source type tech projects for controlling BBQ smokers…but there’s about to be another one!  I’m currently calling it Q-Control….I’ll see if the name sticks!

Some of my rules for this project are:

• It’s a DIY project, Remember that I’m not interested in selling/supporting any hardware parts….you’ll have to source the stuffs yourself, but I’ll share some parts/links that I got my stuff from.
• Low-Cost…..  and I mean Low-Cost!!  I’m think with some of the stuff you can get on the ‘slow-boat’ online that you can build your own DIY Q-Control unit for under $50…maybe $30!!  That’s including 1 pitprobe-and 2 food probes, servo and/or fan control, wi-fi/dashboard control over your smoker!!  (probes/fans/dampers would be extra, but if you’re like me you have a few extra parts laying around).
• IOT (buzz word I know)… but I believe in simple internet of things that are dumb and easy to setup and using the cloud to control/analyse data.  Internet connection is probably best,  although a simple off-grid mode will work.
• SmartPhone world….meaning to make Q-Control small and low-cost, “we don’t need no stinkin’ buttons”/touch…etc,  use the great smartphone in your hand to control….
• not tied to any specific processor….I’ve built a protype Q-Control entirely on a esp8266, atmega 2560 and Uno ‘clone’ type box….also trying out the stm32 (blue-pill) and waiting for the esp32!
• FUN….hopefully others will share in their ‘builds’…help troubleshoot and  improve product.

 

I’ve been playing with different ideas/hardware to control my smokers(both Kamados)….I’ve participated in the ‘popular’ heater-meter project,  but I wanted to add my own features/functions into the project, and so decided to roll-my-own and start this project from scratch!…..

Where I’m at….I’m pretty far along,  I’ve got a few cooks under my simple Q-Control (Ramps version)….I’m using just a simple blower (no servo, damper) but Q-Control does support full Servo control.  Here’s an album of my version 0.01 🙂

Here’s the dashboard that works for desktop or mobile phones….

 

I’ll keep you posted on progress….

 

bye for now

David
(Toronto, Canada)

My Github link