Kitchen Hacks: Improving an espresso machine

The heat sensor in [Cameron]‘s espresso machine doesn’t work very well. He sees some pretty crazy variations in temperature when pulling an espresso shot, and when the boiler is just sitting there the heater element will heat the water full-bore then shut off for a while. Since this is a pretty low bar from a control theory standpoint, [Cameron] decided … Read the rest

Silvia PIC controlled PID looped Espresso Machine


Last night I rebuilt my ECM Giotto with a new boiler. I’ve seen PID controlled machines before, but today I stumbled across this modded Rancillo Silvia. [Tim] replaced the internal brain with a PIC controller, added a NES control pad for input, a VFD display and a custom laser cut acrylic top. He used the PIC to provide PID control … Read the rest