Cisco Switches Converted to Drink Mixer
Cisco Ethernet switch converted into an Arduino and ESP32 controlled cocktail-bot.
Remember back in the old days when you used to whip up cocktails by hand? Sure, some still do this... but any good hacker knows that one should build a machine to take care of this task before partaking in a mixed adult beverage. While the form factor varies from machine to machine, this has to be the first one that’s constructed inside of two recycled Ethernet switches!
Although this kind of reuse may seem like a stretch at first glance, creator Sven Tantau needed to justify having the switches around, and after removing the “green thing,” AKA the main circuit board from the two switches used, he was left with quite a bit of real estate. The switches also produced 12V power supplies used to power the controls and peristaltic pumps used for liquid transport.
An Arduino Nano and a Wemos LOLIN32 are implemented in each former-switch for control, along with a relay board that directly handles each pump. In use, the Wemos board generates a crude webpage on which drinks are ordered.
While theoretically this setup could be used to pump 24 ingredients, each pump by itself is quite slow (though accurate), so several are used in parallel as needed in order to keep the drinks flowing. Cleverly, liquid tubing is used in place of Ethernet cables, with a 3D-printed fixture printed to better hold these cylindrical outputs.
Of course, this isn’t the only time we’ve seen electronics recycled for little more than their enclosures. I recently made a Raspberry Pi NAS case and heat sink out of an old desktop PC, and can attest to this being a really convenient technique when you don't want random components just strewn about the area!