Low Water Indicator For Coffee Maker Couldn’t Be Simpler

May 10, 2013 by Mike Szczys 31 Comments

low-water-indicator-for-coffee-maker

The coffee maker which [Donald Papp] uses every morning has a water reservoir on the back that can last for several days. This means he forgets to check it and from time to time will return to find that nothing has brewed. He decided to add a low-water indicator to the machine. His approach is about as simple as it gets and we admire that accomplishment.

If it were our project we’d probably try to complicate it in one way or another. The use of a microcontroller and ultrasonic rangefinder (like this tank level indicator from a February links post) would be overkill. No, [Donald] boiled down the electronics to a homemade switch, a blinking LED, and a battery. The switch is a flexible piece of metal attached to a plastic cap using some monofilament. The cap goes in the reservoir and floats until the water gets too low, it then pulls on that metal, completing a circuit between the battery and the LED. That’s it, problem solved.

Now he just needs to plumb the coffee maker into a water line and he’ll really be set.

Coffee Pot Aquarium Keeps Fish Warm Without Cooking Them (hopefully)

March 11, 2013 by Mike Szczys 36 Comments

coffee-pot-aquarium

Beta fish are one of the easiest pets to care for. So when [Derek] gave his girlfriend one for Valentine’s day he thought the job was done. Turns out these tropical pets want 75-80 F water and that’s not going to happen in a plain old bowl when you keep your home thermostat in the mid sixties during the winter. While looking for a simple heating solution he stumbled across the idea of using a cheap drip coffee maker as an aquarium.

The two main components are already in place: a clear glass vessel for the water and a way to heat it. The real trick is to use the heating element to gently warm the water to the appropriate temperature. Perhaps the key piece of the project is that the device already had a timer that shut off the heating element. This translates to easy control with his MSP430 microcontroller as it means there’s a relay present. He also patched into the two seven-segment displays to give him feedback on the temperature currently being read by the RL1003 thermistor which is submerged in the water. You’ll also note that he added a few LEDs to the lid to give the aquarium some inner glow.

Super Nincoffee Jr.

August 3, 2012 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

Your morning routine doesn’t include enough old-school gaming. Break the caffeine habit and get your Mario on at the same time with the help of the Super Nincoffee Jr.

[Luigifreakout123] shares the details of the build in the video clip after the break. He starts by revealing that this is the second version he’s made. The first wasn’t a Jr., but instead used a full-sized Mr. Coffee unit. Neither make coffee, but instead serve as an enclosure for the gaming hardware. The on/off switch and original power cable are used to control the electricity to the console. Openings have been cut in the tops and front for a game cartridge and the two controller ports. A composite video and stereo audio cable comes out the back of the machine next to the power cord.

Yeah, it’s super simple, but sometimes that all it takes for a project to be a delight like this one is.

Continue reading “Super Nincoffee Jr.” →

Adding An Auto-shutoff To The Simplest Of Drip Coffee Makers

July 8, 2012 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

[Jerry Pommer] and his wife have relied on a percolating coffee pot for years. We have fond memories of camping trips with these things; they make great coffee which tastes even better on a cold morning in the back woods. But a recent package from the stork means that they no longer have time to sit and watch the coffee perk. After several days of boil-overs [Jerry] switched to this very basic drip coffee maker he salvaged from the trash pile. It has one switch that turns it on and off and nothing else. In order to make sure he doesn’t forget to turn it off, he hacked together his own shut-off timer for the device.

His write-up is all back story, but the 34 minute video embedded after the break takes us through the hack itself. We like it that he starts by discussing the different options that he could have chosen. Of course it might have been a microcontroller, or a 555 timer keeping time. But in the end he went with a simple resistor-capacitor timer. The carefully calculated component pair drives a Darlington transistor which keeps a relay closed. When the slowly draining capacitor lets the voltage drop past a certain threshold it also kills the power to the hot plate. In this case it will only stay on for about a half hour.

Continue reading “Adding An Auto-shutoff To The Simplest Of Drip Coffee Makers” →

Aquarium Water Exchanger Built From Keurig Parts

March 21, 2012 by Mike Szczys 22 Comments

We keep seeing commercials for those Keurig coffee makers that use a plastic pod of grounds to brew just one cup of coffee. We’re pretty sure this is a fad, and absolutely sure that the extra packaging created by brewing with this method is a waste. But to each his own. [Danman1453] has two of the devices. One he bought, the other is a warranty replacement. He decided to scrap the malfunctioning unit and see if he could put it to good use. What he ended up with is the aquarium pumping system you see above.

It is conceived as tidier way to swap out the water in the fish tank. He had been using tubing to siphon the water, but found he almost always made a mess. This system uses an air pump to prime the water pump by pressurizing the tank which forces water into the lines. Once the water pump is primed he switches over to that for the rest of the work. He used an old metal tool box as an enclosure, using the cover to mount the push-buttons which route power to various components when pressed. Many of the parts were transplants from the coffee maker, but even if you sourced all of the components new this wouldn’t cost too much to put together.

Hackaday Links: December 16, 2011

December 16, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 8 Comments

Free-form Christmas ornament

Here’s [Rob]’s free form circuit that’s a Christmas ornament for geeks. It looks great, but sadly isn’t powered through a Christmas light strand. It’s just as cool as the skeletal Arduino we saw.

Prototyping with flowers

Well this is interesting: protoboard that’s specifically made to make SMD soldering easier. The guys at elecfreaks went through a lot of design iterations to make sure it works.

We’ll call it Buzz Beer

The days are getting longer and cabin fever will soon set in. Why not brew beer in your coffee maker? It’s an oldie but a goodie.

Christmas oscilloscope

With just an ATtiny and a little bit of futzing around changing the coefficients of a partial differential equation, you too can have your very own oscilloscope Christmas tree. Don’t worry though, there are instructions on how to implement it with an Arduino as well. HaD’s own [Kevin] might be the one to beat, though.

So what exactly does a grip do?

You know what your home movies need? A camera crane, of course. You’ll be able to get some neat panning action going on, and maybe some shots you couldn’t do otherwise. Want a demo? Ok, here’s a guy on a unicycle.