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Monitoring Freezers Ensures Ice Cream's Perfect Chill

Scott Baker shared his experience with a freezer malfunction that led to melted ice cream. In response, he developed a homemade freezer monitoring system.

Ice Cream Temperature Control: Ensuring Your Frozen Delight Stays Chilly
Ice Cream Temperature Control: Ensuring Your Frozen Delight Stays Chilly

Monitoring Freezers Ensures Ice Cream's Perfect Chill

In an effort to maintain the perfect temperature for his freezer and prevent another unfortunate incident where ice cream melted, Scott Baker embarked on a DIY project to build a freezer monitoring system.

Hardware Setup

To get started, Baker connected a DS18B20 temperature sensor to his Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. A 4.7kΩ pull-up resistor was required between the data pin and the 3.3V power line. Ensuring the Pi was powered and had network connectivity was essential for notifications.

Reading Temperature Data

Baker utilised the Raspberry Pi’s 1-Wire interface to read temperature data from the DS18B20 sensor. He enabled 1-Wire on the Pi via the config settings and read sensor values through the file system (e.g., in ).

Programming in GoLang

Baker wrote a Go program to periodically read the temperature data from the DS18B20 sensor. He parsed the raw data to extract temperature values and implemented logic to monitor temperature thresholds indicating freezer failure or door open conditions.

Monitoring and Alerting

Baker integrated alerting by sending notifications if temperature crossed predefined limits. He used APIs or services (like SMS via Twilio, email, or messaging platforms) to send real-time alerts. For instance, a project using Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and sending SMS alerts via a Flask server and Twilio API demonstrates this alert mechanism.

Data Visualization (Optional)

Baker opted to store log data locally and send it to a time-series database. He used a dashboard like Grafana for visualization to monitor freezer temperature trends over time.

Scott Baker’s Approach

Baker used a daemonizing library from Sergey Yarmonov for his monitoring service. He set up the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W as an HTTP endpoint for Prometheus to scrape. Baker processed the file system exported by the 1-wire drivers using Go. Instructions for enabling the 1-wire protocol in Raspbian can be found in .

Conclusion

Baker’s homemade freezer monitoring system provides a custom, flexible, and extendable solution tailored to his needs. While no exact step-by-step Go code was found in the search results, the described workflow and referenced projects offer a solid foundation to build upon. The system was developed due to a previous incident where ice cream melted because of a failed freezer. The sensor used for the system is the DS18B20, and the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W serves as the single-board computer of choice.

Scott Baker programmed a Go program on his Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W to read temperature data from a DS18B20 temperature sensor, monitor temperature thresholds, and send notifications through APIs like Twilio for alerting if temperature limits are crossed. This DIY project involved electronics, programming, technology, and was part of a solution to prevent another melted ice cream incident in his freezer.

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