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KegDroid: Combining Arduino, Android, and NFC to Dispense Beer
mikejuk writes, quoting I Programmer: "If you are looking for an exciting hardware project, KegDroid deserves a look. It is a sophisticated system that involves Android, Arduino, NFC, plumbing and — beer. Perhaps the final stroke of genius is to package the whole thing in a Droid body. Some how the little green fella looks at home on the bar. You have heard of desktop and laptop apps now we have bartop apps to add to the list"
Details are fuzzy currently, but from all appearances this is a repackaged KegBot in a very fancy shell. (Video for those without Flash.)
Better be a sex Droid. George Lucas stole my R2D2 keg.
No where near as cool as this, but I did do a similar project several years ago. Holds a party keg of Guinness.
http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a331/arsonsmith/R2-K3G/
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
There was also an iPad version, but Apple banned it because they don't support third party intoxications. Apple users are only permitted to be intoxicated by their devotion to Apple.
"Drinking beer has gotten to be very boring for me"
Clearly you're doing it wrong.
R2-O-MyAchingHead and Droid Goggles!!!
The app that had the beer pouring continuously out of the phone. That would be a great one. Impossible, yes, but great. This would be more useful if I could program a bot to pick one up from a designated location and then deliver it to a certain point with several delivery locations. That way your droid bot could serve out ice cold brewskies and you don't have to miss any of the game. No pre-existing hardware needed. As long as there is a path of no resistance, bingo, fresh beer.
When they get kegdroid to pour a beer without foam, then I'll consider it.
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
So no internet, no beer?
Good-bye
it had to be said
It doesnt even work!
What they added:
- a touch interface which downloads your facebook photo
- solenoids to control the beer taps (useless)
- thats it
And to answer the authors question, the reason they are probably getting too much head is any one of the following:
1) incorrect temperature
2) wrong diameter / length of beer hose
3) wrong PSI on c02 injection
4) its overcarbinated because of point #3 and needs to bleed
5) contamination
6) air leaks in tap / fittings
7) unlcean equipment
Im all for novelty, but this is crap. If you want to see a better project, here are 358 pages of them: "Show us your keggerator" thread.
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I could see this being kind of cool for "self service" at a bar. However, at home it seems rather lame. Too many steps between me and my beer.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
Let's just count the buzz-circles:
We got a 10!
That's like scrap-booking while sitting on a Martha Stewart chair cushion and sipping pink Zinfandel.
That's like wearing a beer hat with a chewing tabacco dispenser while noodling for catfish.
http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/520078286-MQ-3-Alcohol-Ethanol-Sensor-Module-Breathalyser-Gas-Checker-Breath-Detector-090346-wholesalers.html
If you are thinking of driving home, it would be a helluva lot cheaper if this device told you about it before the Highway Patrol does.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Good lord, 30 seconds into that video my brain shut down in self defense. How did he manage to make beer boring?
Will it become passive-aggressively irritated if it perceives my tip to be insufficient, like real american bartenders?
...not just app coding. Trying to dispense a measured solid volume of beer in the form of an expanding compressible foam is challenging, but that's how a tap works. That's why making a perfect pour is a skill for a bartender to learn. The most obvious failure here is trying to measure the beer quantity with a volumetric flow sensor. That's absolutely useless - and anyone who's ever worked on beer dispensing equipment would know that if they had a hint of engineering sense! A mass flow sensor would be good, but extremely expensive. A volumetric sensor located ahead of a restrictor plate could work, if the dispensing pressure were elevated above the carbonation pressure briefly. A better solution would probably be to use ultrasonic or laser distance measurement to make it FILL THE GLASS. That's what you really want - a full glass of beer. It should pour in stages to allow the head to settle, like a bartender. Then the beer plumbing can be optimized to reduce agitation (as in any good tap setup) and an automated pour shouldn't be too difficult. Need one sensor (or array thereof) to measure the height of the glass, and another to measure the beer level.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
For those of us who won't drink CO2 enhanced and artifically cooled brews.
Guiness is generally served at cellar temperature, or around 10C (50F). I don't know if it's still around, but when I was in a pub in England a while back it was available as "cold" and "extra cold".