My Andreja Premium has been providing reliable service for the last 7 years – but just recently has been a little temperamental. Seems that the controller is overheating – and so for the past couple weeks, I’ve been running the machine without its stainless steel casing, and the controller sitting beside the machine.
The controller was actually replaced once before, and it’s a fairly expensive repair – it was around $400 to replace the controller and descale the boiler. Don’t really want to spend that again – just to have the controller get wonky a few years later again.
A couple things I’m considering:
1) Building a teak outer shell, with larger cutouts on the side to mount perforated stainless steel panels, as well as on the top. Would also extend the wiring to that the controller is mounted where the water reservoir used to be (added the plumbing kit shortly after buying the machine)
2) Building a teak outer shell as above, but instead of using the same controller, use a Raspeberry Pi, and do the iSpresso mod, adding the following features:
- Programmable PID Controller for precise boiler temperature control
- Programmable Pre-soak time, wait time, and brew time
- Controllable from web browser, iPad, iPhone (Android coming soon) on WiFi network
- Schedule allows programmable on / off timing for each day of the week
- LCD readout for system status, toggle buttons for operation
- Smart Connect for easy set-up to your WiFi network
Not sure if this mod would be easily ported to the Andreja or not, or if this would even increase the reliability – but it sure looks interesting!
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Sites for reference :
- Raspberry Pi
- PROJECT COFFEE: ES(PI)RESSO MACHINE
- iSPRESSO
- Makezine: Raspberry Pi for web initiated coffee
- Cloud texting enabled espresso machine
UPDATE: 2014-08-30 – Picked up some bubinga to construct a new shell frame – I liked the look of the wood more than the teak – it was also $20/bd ft. vs. $50/bd ft. 🙂 Still need to get some perforated stainless steel