Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
Farhad Saberi <farhad saberi@yahoo.com>
1669 Balmoral ave.
Coquitlam, B.C.
Canada V3J5Y7
Intelligent Coffee grinder and weigher
I am seeking a patent for the following invention: This invention provides a
method for a
user to grind whole Coffee Beans according to the user's predefined coffee
ground weight.
Background Of The Invention
Serious Coffee drinkers like to use freshly grounded whole coffee beans to
brew their
coffee and not store aside ground coffee, as ground coffee exposed to air will
lose its
freshness and aroma.
There are all kinds of different coffee grinders out there. Manual ones that
turn slowly and
squeeze and crush the beans between two walls that are increasingly close to
each other
so that eventually ground coffee falls down from between the two walls. There
are also
electrical ones that turn a blade at a very high speed to chop the coffee
beans into powder,
similar to how a lawnmower spins its blade.
Brewing coffee, for drip coffee or pour over coffee, three factors determine
the consistency
and strength of the drink. One is the temperature of the water used for
brewing, two is the
amount of water used, and finally the amount of coffee ground used. We can
easily
measure the amount of water at hand and its temperature is easily obtained
using a
thermometer. But the amount of coffee ground being used is only accurate if it
is weighed.
Coffee houses preparing pour over brewing generally prepare their hot water at
eighty five
degrees centigrade, then grind the coffee beans if they don't already have a
container of
ground coffee available, then use an external scale to weigh their desired
amount of
ground coffee to use.
Same overhead is applied when brewing coffee with a drip coffee machine. For
example if
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brewing for ten cups of coffee, the barista has to use a scale to get the
right amount of
coffee ground to use. The amount of coffee used cannot be measured visually.
It is the
weight of the ground coffee that determines how strong or light (watery) the
brewed coffee
will be.
Summary Of The Invention
Many coffee store chains are provided with prepackaged ground coffee. The
barista uses
one pack per brew. But many specialized coffee shops and at home coffee
enthusiasts
use a grinding machine plus an external scale to get an exact water to ground
coffee ratio.
This has two down sides. One is that it is a slow process. Once a certain
amount of coffee
ground is produced, the barista has to transfer the ground coffee onto a scale
for weighing.
This is a slow and cumbersome process. And then any excess coffee ground has
to be
removed and stored for the next brew. It leads to waste and old coffee ground
being used
in the next brew, mixed with the newly fresh ground coffee. A better process
is needed.
My invention removes these two major drawbacks mentioned in the above
paragraph. No
amounts of ground coffee will ever be left over to be used for a later brew,
and no external
scale is needed. With this new Intelligent Coffee Grinder and Weigher, the
barista tells the
machine that he/she wants exactly, for example, twenty five grams of ground
coffee. The
machine then will precisely grind in its tray exactly twenty five grams amount
of ground
coffee. No more or less. Then the barista can directly transfer the ground
coffee from the
grinder tray to the brewing machine, whether it is a pour over brew or a drip
coffee
machine or a french press. This saves the barista lots of time and avoids any
need to store
previously left over ground coffee which is prone to loose flavor and aroma.
It also
provides the barista a much cleaner and tidier workspace by also eliminating
an external
scale.
I have already created a prototype of such an Intelligent Coffee Grinder and
Weigher and it
functions perfectly.
Detailed Description Of The Invention
Figure 1 shows a top-down drawing of the Intelligent Coffee Grinder and
Weigher
machine.
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Fig1-1: The box that contains all electronic components.
Fig1-2: OLED display or LCD display used to display Mode and weight of coffee.
Fig1-3: Select Mode Button. Mode can be Manual or Weight.
Fig1-4: Start/Stop Button used to start/stop grinding motor.
Fig1-5: If in Weight Mode, the Potentiometer selects how many grams of coffee
ground to
produce.
Fig1-6: Button to zero/tare the scale.
Fig1-7: speed reduction gear box
Fig1-8: Electric DC Motor
Fig1-9: Whole coffee Bean container.
Fig1-10: drawer where coffee ground gathers into.
Fig1-11: The scale measuring coffee ground produced. The drawer will sit on
top of this
scale.
I have taken a Manual Coffee grinder which is widely available in the consumer
market
and added to it a high torque speed reduced geared DC Electric motor (Fig1.
7,8). This
Motor spins the cone that grinds whole coffee beans at about sixty rounds per
minute. As
ground coffee is being collected in the tray shown in Fig1.10, a scale
measures, every two
hundred and fifty milliseconds (four time per second), the total weight of
ground coffee in
the tray.
If coffee is being grounded in Manual mode, the weight of the ground coffee is
ignored.
The motor will continue to spin and grind coffee beans until the user manually
presses the
Stop Button. If the grinding is in the Weight Mode, as soon as the desired
weight is
reached, the micro-controller will automatically stop the motor. Leaving in
the tray the
exact amount of ground coffee, by weight, the user requested.
Figure 2 shows details of the circuitry involved.
Fig2.1: A micro-controller, such as an Arduino, Teensy or Raspberry Pie.
Fig2.2: Step Down Buck Converter. 24 volts to 5 Volts to feed into the micro-
controller.
Fig2.3: A Potentiometer. Used to define its value as the requested amount of
coffee
ground in grams. A digital keypad can also be used to provide this input
value.
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Fig2.4: 0.96 inch OLED display or a 16x2 Crystal LCD display used to provide
User
Feedback.
Fig2.5: 3 push buttons are connected to the micro-controller providing user
inputs.
Fig2.6: DC Electric Motor. The rest of the circuit is protected from the
Motor's Magnetic
Electric Field using a 3Amp diode.
Fig2.7: MOSFET Module allows the motor to operate at 24Volts while the micro-
controller
and the sensors are operating at 5v.
Fig2.8: LoadCell Amplifier module HX711.
Fig2.9: LoadCell, used to measure the weight of ground coffee.
I have used the micro-controller Arduino Nano for my prototyping. Its program
is written in
C. The user feedback I use is an LCD or OLED display, both works with my code.
Finally there are two pictures of an actual prototype of this machine in
perfect working
condition.
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