Old Coffee Pot Becomes New Ramen Maker

When you’re hard at work on a project, who really has time to cook meals? Sure, you could call for pizza, but if you don’t want the expense of having it delivered, or the ~30 minute wait, why not just “order” automatic ramen noodles from your IoT ramen preparer thing? If you don’t happen to have a “ramen preparer thing,” then you’re in luck, as Clem Mayer shows us how to make such a device in the video below.

Mayer used a 35-year-old coffee maker as the guts of his system, employing it to both heat and dispense water into a formerly coffee — now ramen — pot. A stepper-driven hopper dispenses flavor powder, while a servo-actuated syringe adds more seasoning to his food-bricks. Another servo is also implemented to stir the noodles.

Everything is controlled by an Arduino MKR WiFi 1010 along with TMC2208 stepper drivers. A solid-state relay (SSR) is used to control the actual coffee pot, though as Mayer notes, one should be especially careful when dealing with mains power.

With all this in place, the MKR WIFI 1010 generates a very simple webpage, allowing him to start the coffee maker from his phone, and even mix in hot sauce. The results of using a vintage coffee maker with 39 cent ramen are, according to Clem, “edible, kind of.” While that’s not exactly high praise, if you want to build your own, additional info and needed files can be found here.