Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a great week. I know a lot of you have been anxiously waiting for my next post/design, so wait no more. My design for this week is an electronic circuit that I have developed which I will be incorporating in my new design, which is named “The Chai Shai”. It is essentially a tea making machine.
Yes there are many tea makers in the market but all of them use tea bags (teabags are the worst). In Pakistan, we drink chai like people drink alcohol in the US. It is like a daily of 2-3 cups and we make it from open tea leaves, not the tea bags. My wife makes chai every morning (I make it too for her) but the most important thing when it comes to using open tea leaves is that you need to get the right proportion of tea leaves with the water and it needs to be cooked to the right temperature.
The problem she faces is a lot of times it is perfect but many times the ratio is off when she is making more cups or it is under or overcooked and then it gets frustrating especially when you are craving for a good cup of chai. SO I decided to make a Chai maker which will have two sensors, as shown below. The first sensor will indicate you the water level by led lights and will guide you how many tea spoon of tea leaves you need to put, guiding you to a perfect ratio. Red light indicates 2 cups pf chai meaning two exact tea spoon of chai and so on in multiples of two. The second sensor is a temperature sensor. When it is neutral i.e. green, it means it is being cooked and when it reaches the cooked level, it turns red indicating the chai is ready.
The challenges I faced was in understanding how to sensors should be connected in the circuit, especially the temperature sensor and then the most challenging part was to change the coding according to how I wanted it to work. It took me a while but I eventually got it close to how I wanted it. This could be a great anniversary present for my wife (Or me).
Please leave your feedback!
Saad, WE CAN COMBINED OUR DESIGN!! Great idea. My design is also related to brewing/making tea, but I did not think about the water level. That’s a very great point. Love it 🙂
Yesss we definitely can! Thank you Tiff!
I cannot fully see how the LEDs are wired because of the small pictures. I am glad you made progress with the temperature sensor and code. Would you press the button each time you add a teaspoon of tea? You could use an ultrasonic sensor so that you know the height of the water which would then change the amount of tea to be added and communicated via the lights. If you want to move forward with this design I can help you with the code and sensors.
Hi Brain! Thank you for the feedback. I had a limit switch in mind that would trigger the water sensor level and lit up the led as an indicator. I could definitely use your insights going forward as I have a few things in mind. I will get in touch with you
So once you create this, will you finally make me chai?!!
I don’t know, it depends on if you are getting the food 😀
Based on your description, I really really want to have a cup of chai tea. As Will said, the ultrasonic distance sensor and a temperature sensor can work together to take the input, and one thought, maybe a LCD can server as a display to show the info in one place to make it easier to read.
Yes that is a great input. An LCD indicator would be really helpful. Thank you!
Combining LCD with a temp sensor is a good step. For a super complex system, think about automatic coffee makers and look up Arduino versions. This is ONLY for inspiration because most of the work involved is outside our scope but it might give you some cool insights on how you might improve this.
Thank you professor for the input. I tried to study the coffee machines but tea is kind of brewed differently. But definitely would help me get an idea of how sensors work Appreciate the feedback.
Wow, this is a neat way of solving imperfect tea syndrome (what happens when you’re being caffeinated with sub-optimal tea)! I agree with the above suggestions that having a sensor to measure water height and some sort of display for temperature and time brewing would kick it up a notch.
Yes agreed! An LCD would definitely be better for the person making it. Thanks Brian!
Would the level change as you add tea, or does enough dissolve that it wouldn’t affect the sensors? I think the LCD is a good option, especially if you want to incorporate temperature readings. It can be tougher to code, but there are a few samples on stackexchange that might be able to help.
The level would not change. It is an indicator to help you gauge how much you need to put. So first water level would give you an indication to put 2 teaspoon leaves, the second level would indicate 4 teaspoons and so on. Yes LCD would definitely hep the person making it.
As an avid tea drinker, I would totally be interested in this product. Do you make a spice mix or just straight up tea?
I usually prefer mine with some cardamom and cloves in it 😀
Reading about your design is making my mouth water imagining chai, or just “Cha” as we Punjabis say it. Love the circuitry and sensors and I would agree with the Professor and see whether current Coffee-making machines do this and maybe develop a more effective/efficient method. Also the name “The Chai Shai” sounds very hip and catchy – perfect name for a modern Chai Cafe in Manhattan (Greenwich Village or Lower East Side). I’d definitely swing by.