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Every year between Christmas and New Year, there is a geek gathering in Germany organized by the Chaos Communications Club. Talks are available on their website and I've taken the opportunity to trawl through the archive. One of the more accessible projects is an ongoing attempt to make a cooking machine which combines weighing scales, slicer, rice cooker, pressure cooker and sous-vide cooker. That's a sensible idea. However, the implementation is barking mad. Version 1 and version 2 are described in a 54 minute talk from 2012. Version 3 and version 4 are described in a 39 minute talk from 2014. I prefer version 2, especially given that a potential investor requested the second prototype then said something akin to "I wished you hadn't shown me this."
I have extreme misgivings about the placement of a Raspberry Pi - a credit card computer with no ECC RAM or other safeguards - in the proximity of heat and magnetic fields. This isn't just a means of bootstrapping. The entire design philosophy is about dangerous kludging and shows neither expertise in hardware or software. Another blown 1.2kV transistor? That was an impressive noise. Control software written in PHP. XML configuration deprecated in favour of MySQL Server. Thankfully, they're not completely mad and strongly discourage (intentional) remote control of the machine. Also, there is consideration for an emergency stop button, as defined in ISO 13850. However, if they want to rank recipes by use then the control systems (running systemd) will be communicating on the public Internet. And I don't have any faith that it'll be achieved securely and competently.
"A watched pot never boils"? Perhaps that'll become "A watched IoT pot never explodes."
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 13 2017, @01:32PM
Where's your dangerously modded pressure cooker? (inb4 with the other b*mbZ)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13 2017, @02:05PM
Sounds like an awesome project. I'll try to find time for the talks.
Is it actual sous vide (pulling a decent vacuum) or do you mean precision/low temp cooking?
Does the cooker vent steam to control pressure or only as a safety when over 15psi (hopefully it goes to 15psi unlike most electric pressure cookers)?
http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=2561.html [cookingissues.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday January 13 2017, @03:24PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13 2017, @08:08PM
I wouldn't worry too much. Pressure cookers have been around for a while and there are easy safety mechanisms to implement.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Friday January 13 2017, @09:43PM
I wouldn't worry too much. Pressure cookers have been around for a while and there are easy safety mechanisms to circumvent.
FTFY
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 13 2017, @10:30PM
I don't know about easy, but there are some benefits to circumvent pressure controls or venting:
http://www.cookingissues.com/2011/08/12/voiding-your-warranty-hacking-electric-pressure-cookers/ [cookingissues.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday January 15 2017, @12:49PM
I've pressure canned and operating remotely would seem to fix a lot of fatal failure modes. Although people are almost certain not to operate this robot gadget remotely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @12:22AM
Whenever I encounter this notion, I'm reminded of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and the mechanized breakfast preparation scene. [pinimg.com]
Video [youtube.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 14 2017, @06:04PM
Huh. I always thought Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was the title of a German Scheisse video.
Who knew?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @06:18PM
The book was written by Ian Fleming, the same guy who wrote the James Bond (007) books.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]