[HN Gopher] Hacking my filter coffee machine
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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.
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(page generated 2023-11-28 23:00 UTC)