“Automatic water pump system for a coffee machine controlled by Raspberry Pi, HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor and Cloud4RPi Control Panel.
Story
In theory, every time you go to the coffee machine for your morning cup, there’s only a one-in-twenty chance you’ll have to fill the water tank. In practice, however, it seems that the machine somehow finds a way to always put this chore on you. The more you want coffee, the more likely you are to get the dreaded “fill the water tank” message. My colleagues feel the same way about this. Being the nerds that we are, we decided to implement the technology that would put an end to this.
Our Equipment
We have a SAECO Aulika Focus coffee machine. Up to this day, we used a hand pump to fill the machine’s water tank from a standard 5 Gallon (19L) water bottle.
Our Goals
Use an electric pump driven by some kind of a controller or a microcomputer through a relay.
Have a way to measure the water level in the coffee machine’s tank so our system knows when to refill it.
Have means to control the system, preferably in real-time from a mobile device.
Receive notifications (through Slack or a similar service) if anything goes wrong with the system.”