Automated liquor dispenser

Projects General Guidance
1

Ok first off I am new to this all. I've always been good with electronics and am going to school for computer programming. I am trying to make a bar table that is automated. I have two 12v pumps that will be sucking out of vodka bottles. I want to be able to control the pumps via bluetooth or wifi. I also want it to where I have different options. As in one button turns pump on until I turn it off while another button controls the same pump but may only keep it on for the designated time it takes to fill a shot glass. I am not sure what all I need to make this happen and how hard the coding would be to have multiple switches for each relay.
Thanks

2

It should be easy enough.

It is unclear what you want to do exactly, wireless: do you want both physical buttons wired to the arduino and wireless so you can also control it from PC/Smartphone? Or what?

For now I suggest you put aside relays, pumps and wireless. Start with LEDs and buttons. When the code is working as it should, add relays instead of LEDs, then add pumps, tweak the code if needed. Finally add wireless. Do one step at a time :slight_smile:

I can recommend Bluetooth slave module "JY-MCU HC-07", I use it, it's cheap and it works great.

3

Thanks for the reply. I will probably take it one step at a time but I want to buy all at once. I already have pumps. I do not want any physical buttons. I want a user interface on iphone or android that has atleast two buttons for each pump. For example one button for pump ones just turns the pump on and off while another button for the same pump turns on for 2 seconds then shuts off. And the same setup for pump two.

4

Its easy enough to control the pumps, since you can just set commands to turn the pumps on and off. The User interface is going to be the harder part. One way is that you can host a webserver on the device and basically create a webpage that you can then access over wifi. As to how that is done, I am unsure.

5

So instead of a bluetooth shield I would have a wifi relay? And it would be accessible just like every other website. Just type in the ip? Do I need the arduino for a wifi relay

6

I will speak for Bluetooth because I have no experience with Wifi... But I agree that doing the UI on the smartphone will probably be the hardest part of your project.

For a start, using the module I suggested and the Android App named BlueTerm, you can easily send serial commands from your smartphone to the Arduino (and also send reply from arduino to smartphone if needed).

Also search on the Play Store for "arduino bluetooth", you will find tons of interesting things.

So basically all you need to buy is the Bluetooth module, and relays if you don't have them already.

BlueTerm source code: http://pymasde.es/blueterm/

7

Forget about pumps. Use gravity and optics: http://cep.keanmiles.net/products/bb-optic.jpg
An accurately measured amount every time.

8

If you search the forum you may find similar projects from the past.

https://www.google.com/search?as_q=bartender&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.arduino.cc%2Findex&as_occt=any&safe=images&tbs=&as_filetype=&as_rights=

9

And a sort of "de-bounce" - program it so that it will ignore a second request within 5 seconds or so and preferably provide a sensor to verify that a (new) shot glass has in fact been placed.

Makes sense?