And already losing. Life has been too good lately. So I decided to tackle a new project: Hardware scales. For the normie crowd: I want to integrate scales directly into the drip tray of my machine. This way it can sense when and how much coffee drips into the cup. It can use this information to transition from one shot phase to another or to stop the shot once the target output is reached.

Why don’t I just buy Bluetooth scales and live happily ever after? Because I need pain in my life and because the blog needs stories.

China

This time we’ll go beyond simple kits. We’ll source our parts directly from China. AliExpress gained a new customer. Damn stuff there is cheap. Consumer utopia. But the problems already started there. I needed some magnets. And while the ones I’ve found are cheap af, they still didn’t arrive one month after ordering them. I’ve already ordered from another seller and they arrived before the original ones. What a mess.

Soldering

I solder like cows fly. Cows shouldn’t fly and neither should I solder. I did it anyway and that’s where the shitshow started.

Of course I needed to make sure I’ll have a bad time. My obvious lack of skill wasn’t cutting it. So I got myself a brand new soldering iron from AliExpress. 4 euros. The quality is what you’d expect from a 4 euro Chinese electronics component.

I wrote my testament before I branched it for the first time. You have to know that a soldering iron is basically a metal rod that gets very hot. So even when functioning properly it’s a fire hazard. Usually they are sturdy and have several layers of electronic safety guards. Mine doesn’t even have a grounding connection. It gets super hot, but not only the metal parts, EVERYTHING. And it heats permanently, no matter how you set the temperature.

So this soldering iron distributes heat evenly between the metal needle and the grip. While being uncomfortable it’s also impractical, because the heat that’s burning your hand is missing in the tip, rendering your already lousy solder connections, in the lack of a better word, horrible.

To my defense (or to emphasize how stubborn I am): I soldered the whole damn thing under these conditions. The result was so bad. And then I realized that I’ve made a mistake. I’ve inversed two connections. And the damn iron doesn’t get hot enough to desolder it. I was ready to throw the whole thing down the drain when I realized that there was a second pin with the same internal connection. Lucky me. So I could finish my ugly work at last.

Crimping

Have you ever crimped XH or PH connectors? It’s like typing on a miniature typewriter, but with normal sized hands. Every piece involved is an order of magnitude smaller than your fingers. I’ve never used more swearwords during a hobby project. But even that doesn’t stop me.

Other BS

I’m glueing the magnets with superglue. Of course half of it lands on my fingers. Of course I didn’t use gloves. I had to remove it with the skin it was attached to. No glory without sacrifice.

Showtime

Finally, everything is ready. I open the machine. This time without it being connected to the freaking power grid. I’m a smart monkey. I plug it in. All good so far. Machine is closed again. Let’s power it up.

I’m activating hardware scales in the web interface of the machine. The screen on the machine itself goes dark, but I get a reading. Let’s see. It’s jumping between -300 and +600 grams. That’s not good. One of the two load plates doesn’t even react to me applying pressure. Well.

Existence is pain

I’m deactivating the scales in the web interface (the embedded screen is still black). It’s frustrating. I reboot the machine to get my display back. It stays black. Try again. Same result. I start sweating.

I open the machine. Remove the cursed HW scales cable. Check all connections. Reboot. I stare into a black void. I try to flush. It works. I dare to try to make a coffee. The pump doesn’t work. I see my own reflection in the dark screen. A tear slowly makes it’s way down to my lips. I’m defeated.

Crying for help

I go on Discord and ask the pros for help. This one is too big for me. The beacon is lit, now we wait. I try to suffocate my frustration with a pizza and some beer. Works better than expected.

Finally, a response. The guy asks me if my screen brightness is set to 0. I check in the web UI. It is. I turn it up. And BOOOOOM we’re back. First good message of the day. I didn’t break the whole thing.

What happened?

I can only speculate. It seems like all core settings of the machine got reset. This includes brightness, but also most calibration parameters like pump zero etc. This explains why I couldn’t pull a shot. Nothing was properly configured.

But why was it reset? I don’t know. There might have been a short circuit in my crappy solder mess that caused the data loss. It wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t dare to re-branch it without further inspection. But that’s for another day.