Background
If you're not familiar with the RAPT Pill, it's a wireless and Bluetooth capable hydrometer and thermometer that is used to measure the specific gravity and temperature of wort to help brewers track and log their fermentations. You can read more about it from our full RAPT Pill Review article.
The Pill contains a battery, so of course needs to be charged, however the only way to do this (previously) was to unscrew the pill and connect a USB-C cable to the port on the circuit board. Given the Pill is designed to be put into the fermenter and float in the fermenting wort, having an externally accessible charging port just wouldn't have been a design option - it would potentially upset the balance of the unit, be a point of source of leakage (and therefore damage), as well as providing a place that could harbor the build up of bacteria and other micro organisms that could lead to an infection occurring within the fermenter.
Why Go Wireless?
Unscrewing the Pill to charge it may not seem like such a big deal, but given the sensitive nature of how it works (gravity is measured by lean angle when the Pill is floating), each time it's taken apart it is recommended to be re-calibrated, unless you're able to screw it up to exactly the same tightness as it was when the last calibration was done. Any difference here will make the unit slightly longer or shorter, will will impact the lean angle and result in the Pill providing inaccurate data.
We could probably count on one hand the number of times we've pulled our Pill apart to charge it (and perform a firmware update) - and we'll admit that we've only ever calibrated it a couple of times (which were early on in it's life, certainly nothing in the past year or two), and we'll also admit that the readings aren't particularly accurate for us at the moment.
So we figured it was time to make our lives a little easier and get the wireless upgrade kit to enable our Pill to charge wirelessly. Charging the Pill also enables the captive web portal that can be used to perform firmware upgrades, calibrations and access other diagnostic information for the Pill, so being able to place it on a wireless charging pad to enable this without needing to take it apart is a logical and well justified decision.
The catch is - you need to install the wireless upgrade kit yourself.
The Kit
The kit contains;
- Wireless charging pad
- USB-C cable
- Replacement weights for the Pill
- Adhesive foam pads
- Wireless charging coil
There's also a link to some instructions accessible via the QR Code on the packaging, which are fairly minimal but give you a general idea of what you need to do.
Installation
The first step is to unscrew the Pill and remove the circuit board from the housing. Some people recommend removing the battery before doing this upgrade, but we'll admit we were lazy and didn't bother, but if you're working on a metal surface it's probably a good idea to avoid any kind of short circuiting from happening.
Next, we need to remove the installed weights from each end of the Pill. The instructions say to only replace the weight at the bottom of the Pill, but ours has two and the kit includes two weights, so we replaced both. They're installed with a basic adhesive and can be pulled directly off without too much difficulty.
The replacement ones have an adhesive on the back so just stick straight into place. Try and get them as close to the centre as possible.
Next is where it gets a little bit tricky. The kit includes a slice of 3M foam with two pre-cut pieces. One is a full semi circle and the other is a partial semi circle (like a rainbow shape?). These two pieces are used to stick the wireless charging coil to the base of the Pill.
To be clear, this part is installed on the end of the Pill that doesn't have the USB port. First, stick on the full semi circle foam piece. Centre it on the pill and have it so the straight edge sits flush with the Pill circuit board.
Next, you need to stick the "rainbow" or hollow adhesive semi circle onto the first piece you just installed. The hollow part here is where the raised circle in the Pill housing slots into to hold everything in place.
Lastly, the charging coil is stuck to the hollow adhesive semi circle. We tried to orient it so it's the same as the pictures in the instructions so the attached cable protrudes out the side. It should look a little like this.
Now, insert the circuit board back into the housing (so the charging coil is at the bottom of the clear housing) and check if it lines up correctly. It's important the plastic circle in the housing aligns correctly and sits in the middle of the charging coil, so the coil can sit flush against the bottom of the Pill housing and operate correctly.
It did take us a couple of attempts to get it lined up correctly. The charging coil and be unstuck and adjusted fairly easily, just be careful and gentle as the two wires that connect the cable to the coil are tiny and it wouldn't take much to break or damage them.
Not mandatory, but highly recommended is to apply some lubricant to the O-rings to help reduce wear and tear on them. We won't be pulling this thing apart again for some time (or perhaps ever), so it's as good a time as any.
Connect the USB-C cable from the charging coil into the port on the Pill circuit board, then you can finally screw your Pill back together. Once done, double check that the charging coil is still sitting where it needs to at the base.
Now, the moment of truth. Plug in your charging pad to a USB port or AC adapter, place the Pill on the centre (with the charging coil facing down towards the pad) and see if it lights up. If it does, then you've successfully installed the kit!
It's strongly recommended to perform a 2 point calibration after performing the upgrade - and the easiest way to do this is just before throwing it into the fermenter on your next brew day. The first calibration point can be made with the Pill floating in Star San (to calibrate 1.000), and the second point can be the known starting gravity of your wort (which you'll obviously need to measure with another (floating) hydrometer first.
Final Thoughts
On reflection, we were a bit hesitant to get this kit for two reasons. Firstly, we were concerned about the DIY installation aspect, and secondly, we rarely pulled our Pill apart to charge it - the battery life is pretty good after all and we'd get a handful of brews out of each charge without any problems.
We knew our Pill was reading a few points off, but we were OK with this as we used it more to track changes in our gravity - ie. when fermentation was underway, when it was slowing down and when it had stopped, rather than the actual gravity reading. We almost always checked our starting and final gravity readings with a floating hydrometer, so accuracy (or lack thereof) wasn't a particularly big deal for us.
After performing the installation ourselves, we'd say it is fairly easy to do, but if you have your reservations we'd recommend watching some YouTube videos for some more detailed instructions. The KegLand instructions are lacking some detail in our opinion. A bit of patience and care, particularly with the small wires that connect the USB cable to the charging coil are certainly in order, as that's the only thing that could really go majorly wrong (if those wires were broken or damaged the kit wouldn't work).
It can be a little fiddly getting the charging coil aligned correctly, but it's good to know that once it's done it's unlikely you'll ever need to open up your Pill again. But if you are particularly worried about it, you can buy a new Pill with the wireless charging pre-installed for $119.95 from KegLand - which is exactly the same cost as it currently is for a stand alone Pill ($69.96) and the charging upgrade kit ($49.95).
If you've already got a wireless charging pad, you can get a barebones charging kit for a slightly reduced price of $39.95 which contains everything except the charging pad - ideal for those who own multiple Pills.
We're happy with our decision to do this upgrade, and glad we were able to get it installed without too much difficulty. We're looking forward to some more consistent and accurate readings after recalibration, as well as the ease of charging and accessing the captive web portal by simply placing it on the charging pad briefly to activate it. We're more likely to charge it and calibrate it when it's easier to do, and this is certainly a more convenient option than having to take the Pill apart.
If you have a Pill it's certainly a worthwhile upgrade in our opinion.
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