[HN Gopher] Hacking my filter coffee machine ___________________________________________________________________ Hacking my filter coffee machine Author : edward Score : 29 points Date : 2023-11-28 20:10 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (diziet.dreamwidth.org) (TXT) w3m dump (diziet.dreamwidth.org) | sokoloff wrote: | As soon as I read "I originally used the Arduino IDE, writing my | program in C. I had a bad time with that and rewrote it in Rust," | I was pretty sure that I'd be reading the root cause as being | "Arduino C has 16-bit ints" (as I'd had the same experience in | some delay-based relay control code I wrote a decade ago). Sure | enough, that was the issue. | | As a long-time C programmer and Rust newbie, it seems like a | really long way 'round to switch languages just to avoid using | longs, but for a hobby/learning project (or a C novice and | experienced Rust dev), Rust makes more sense. | fanf2 wrote: | My reading of the root cause is that the Arduino IDE doesn't | provide the kind of debugging facilities that C programmers | expect, like decent compiler warnings and support for static | analysis and runtime sanitizers (at least for off-device test | builds). It also does not work well with proper development | tooling, in particular git. | | The 16 bitness would have been OK if the dev environment had | been tolerable. Tho, to be fair, although Ian is an experienced | C programmer (he wrote dpkg) he has very little patience for C | any more, so it would not have taken much adversity to make him | switch to Rust. [I know Ian personally.] | sokoloff wrote: | The Arduino IDE definitely sucks for experienced programmers. | I feel like they did a great job making the "zero to seven- | eighths" experience pretty good for non-developers, but many | of those same choices mean that the tooling drives SWEs | batty. | kubindurion wrote: | I wonder how many here remember the OG coffee HOWTO | | http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Coffee.html | m463 wrote: | _" If you only want a simple circuit, you can use Motorola's | triac driver MOC301[012], together with a general purpose TRIAC | like SC141D."_ | | lol | | (though I guess compared to MQTT + ATTiny85 + GPIO it is of its | time) | Kirby64 wrote: | As much as I admire DIY'ing issues to fix... this seems like a | lot of effort and cost that could be easily fixed by buying a | different coffee maker. The author even says the UI sucks, which | is not the case for many other options on the market. | | Buy one with a thermal carafe (so you don't have a hot plate at | all, and also your coffee will taste much better than sitting on | the hot plate all day...), and buy one that has a proper timer | that has AM/PM. | | The reason hot plates turn off is twofold: safety, and the longer | its on a hot plate the worse the coffee tastes. | dfxm12 wrote: | This is more of a hacking log and less of a discussion about | good coffee machines. | | The author was trying to see if they could. | mewse-hn wrote: | Yep hotplates burn the coffee and I cringe when people say they | need them on longer than 25m | jtriangle wrote: | By many measures, drip coffee comes out of the machine pre- | ruined, so I don't see the real problem with ruining it | further when you have to drown it in heavy cream and sugar to | make it palatable in the first place. | | But I'm probably a different person, I like the ritual of | making my morning hot beverage of choice. It takes some time, | sure, maybe even time that could be spent sleeping, but it | also makes my day better to kick my sleep addled mind into | gear doing a task it's done a thousand times instead of | something actually challenging or important. | cush wrote: | Conversely, use any $5 dripper with a physical on/off switch, | then plug it into a smart plug. Keep the dripper always turned | on, and use the plug to do all the smart stuff. I do this, and | it's so much easier to manage than whatever janky UI Breville | came up with. | nerdponx wrote: | Meanwhile the Technivorm Moccamaster has a simple on/off switch | that you could probably toggle with a relay, a motor, some gears, | and a chopstick. It also makes just about the best coffee you're | going to get with an automatic drip/filter machine. | | The bigger challenge of course is that, if you want actually good | coffee in the morning, you need to automate the weighing, | grinding, and depositing of fresh coffee into a rinsed filter. | That's going to look like Factorio in your kitchen. | linsomniac wrote: | I had a Oxo "Barrista Brain" that I really liked, partly | because it would remind me when it needed cleaning, and could | be scheduled to start brewing at a particular time. However, | those fancy electronics ended up being the primary failure | point 4 years down the line, the dial control failed. | | I ended up replacing it with a Moccamaster and a Zigbee "smart | outlet". Because the Moccamaster is so dead simple, I just | leave it switched on, and use the button on the outlet to turn | it off. To brew in the morning, I have a button on my headboard | that if I hold it for 2 seconds starts the brewing. The "start | brewing at X:YY" on the Oxo didn't end up working that great | for me, because I get up at varying times (half an hour before | my alarm this morning, for example). | | So, I'd recommend anything with a rocker "on" switch and a | smart plug, for sure. | m463 wrote: | I have a mocchamaster and when I switched to cold-brew, I | couldn't go back. | | After reading a friend's copy of "modernist cuisine" I was | intrigued and tried the toddy system. A little clunky but the | coffee was wonderfully mellow. | | Since then I caved a little to practicality and use a cold | brewer that is a 1/2 gallon mason jar with a perforated steel | filter. The only difference I've ever heard about steel vs | paper filters is that paper filters out the coffee oils (which | could mean lower cholesterol). | RockRobotRock wrote: | i did this when i was young and still kinda new to programming | and hardware. it was fun :) | | https://alexyancey.com/coffeemaker | roomey wrote: | I had one of them drip coffee makers that ground the beans into a | filter. | | You could set it with an alarm. | | Problem was the hot plate turned off after about 25 mins (and I | wanted the jug warm a good bit longer). | | I found if I switched the power off (at the wall) and back on | again quickly, the hot plate would stay hot indefinitely. | | I think this is a common way to bypass a certain type of timer, I | can't even remember why I tried it out, but it works! | snthd wrote: | Technology Connections has a great video on Drip Coffee | makers[0]. | | [0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sp9H0MO-qS8 | Night_Thastus wrote: | Always love to see TC mentioned. Very informative and | entertaining videos on a variety of technology. | duped wrote: | Seems like a lot of effort for bad coffee, why not just use an | insulated carafe? | rerdavies wrote: | > I hope Andy's ok. | | If his house did burn down, at least he died an Internet hero. | throwaway81523 wrote: | I think it's not good for the coffee machine to keep the coffee | warm. Coffee that has been kept warm for hours tastes awful. It's | better to let it cool down, then warm it in a microwave when you | want to drink it. If I've had enough coffee for the day and there | is some left in the pot, I save it in the fridge for the next | day, then re-heat it. Its flavor is not snob quality after that, | but it's better than keeping it hot for that long. | dtgriscom wrote: | Cheap coffee makers have a single heater that heats both the | water and the hot plate. Since the water needs to be brought to | a boil, the heater's thermostat needs to be above boiling, so | the hot plate will also eventually hit boiling, which is really | bad for the coffee. | quickthrower2 wrote: | You not a coffee enthusiast if you haven't hacked your machine | :-). I did the OPV mod to get that 9 bar pressure on my machine. | Yes I have steered the conversation to espresso. The downside is | it wastes water (pressure is reduced by diverting water to | waste). But not having it jam the puck with too much pressure is | worth it! | fullspectrumdev wrote: | I love this | | > My original feeling was "I can't be bothered dealing with the | coffee machine innards" so I thought I would make a mechanical | contraption to physically press the coffee machine's "on" button. | | Cba disassembling so maybe making a Rube Goldberg button pushing | machine is first thought is _exactly_ how my design process often | goes! | graphe wrote: | Low tech way: cold brew a strong beverage, have hot water in | vacuum flask/thermos. Mix. | gumby wrote: | > In my house the neutral is about 2-3V away from true earth. | | You seem quite blase about his. Where I live the city comes out | monthly to check the ground point for our section of the street. | I have seen them fiddle with it (salt it?) and at one point they | moved it a few feet (notifying all the houses, digging up the | steet slightly etc. | | They really don't want any, well, potential problems. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-11-28 23:00 UTC)