Coffee Machine Update

Coffee Machine Update

The coffee machine works. It's good for single cups of coffee, as you don't have to stand there too long pouring water. The old coffee machine is definitely dying, it now takes about an hour to run a pot of water through it.

To investigate how easy it would be to automate the new machine, I set this up:

There's a peristaltic pump:

which pumps water from the kettle to the filter. The power supply is adjustable, which is important to ensure the water flow isn't too fast as it will overflow the filter. For the pump I have the suitable voltage seems to be around 4V, which is pretty low. Usefully the power supply seems to remember its setting when it's off so you don't have to set it up every time you turn it on. A simple voltage regulator circuit and a knob would be equally and probably more suitable.

This arrangement also means you can replace the peristaltic pump pipe if it is dirty or damaged. You can also clean the pipe. We've never cleaned the insides of the old machine.

Coffee "Machine"

The old coffee machine that we use is probably going to fail soon, it's second hand and pretty old. I saw a simple Japanese design a while back and decided to have a go at something similar. My version uses cheap Chinese components sourced from Ebay and some recycled  bits and bobs.

There's a filter in a funnel that direct coffee into a jug below. The funnel, filter and jug are ebay items. The stand is made from part of an old chair frame and some wood from a tree we had taken down in the garden.

It makes pretty good coffee, but has the downside that you have to pour the water through the coffee over a few minutes, it's not very automatic. It does have the advantage that you can quickly make a single cup of coffee, probably quicker than the automatic machine can manage.

The filter is metal, I had to cut a handle off it so it had a circular outline and would fit in the funnel.