Alright, let’s talk about this “central beverage” thing I messed around with recently. It’s kinda cool, actually.
So, it all started because I was tired of making, like, five different drinks for my family every night. You know how it is – someone wants soda, someone else wants juice, I want iced tea, and the kid wants water with lemon. Total chaos.
I figured, why not try to build something where everyone can get what they want from one spot? Hence, “central beverage” was born, at least in my head.
First thing I did was grab an old Raspberry Pi I had lying around. I thought, “Okay, this could be the brains of the operation.”
The Plan:
- Figure out a way to hook up some valves to the Pi.
- Get a little touchscreen so people can pick their drink.
- Write some code to control everything.
Yeah, easy, right? Wrong!
The valves were a pain. I ended up buying some cheap solenoid valves from Amazon. Spent a whole afternoon figuring out how to wire them up to the Pi’s GPIO pins. Turns out, you need some resistors and transistors to avoid frying everything. I almost gave up, but YouTube tutorials saved my bacon.
Next up was the touchscreen. I got a little 3.5-inch one that just plugs into the Pi. Getting it to work was surprisingly straightforward – just had to install some drivers. Score!
Then came the coding. I’m not a pro coder, but I can hack my way through Python. I basically wrote a little program that displays a menu on the touchscreen: “Soda,” “Juice,” “Iced Tea,” “Water,” and a custom option so I can set up some specials, like lemonade. When you tap a drink, the Pi opens the correct valve for a few seconds, and boom – your drink is dispensed.
It took me a few days to get the timing right for how long the valves needed to be open to fill a cup. There was a lot of trial and error, and definitely some spills.
The Setup: I ended up mounting everything on a piece of plywood. Got some tubing and ran it from the valves to containers of each beverage. It looks kinda Frankenstein-ish, but it works! I call it a prototype, they call it a monstrosity. Same difference.
The biggest challenge? Getting the juice to not clog the valves. I had to strain it like crazy before putting it in the container. Still, I have to clean the valves every couple of days to keep things flowing smoothly.
The Result? Total win! My family loves it. No more making a million different drinks. They just walk up to the machine, tap what they want, and they’re good to go.
It’s not perfect, of course. It’s bulky, it’s kinda messy, and it probably violates a dozen health codes. But hey, it’s my “central beverage,” and it makes life a little easier.
If I were to do it again, I’d probably look into better valves that are easier to clean. And maybe a nicer enclosure to make it look less like a science experiment gone wrong. But for now, I’m pretty happy with it. Maybe this will inspire you to build your own ridiculous contraption!
