Job - Dough press project

First of all hello guys, I'm new on the forums just signed up and hoping i could find some one or even a bunch of people that are willing to help.

Of course we will discuss the payment processus once some one is up for the task.

What I actually need:

a simple Press (dough press), with 1 button just to make the press go down and up with some force.
Made of stainless steel or some thing easy to wash (because it will be working with dough and flour) and the plate has to be around 12-13 inch

I know some people are thinking there are already dough presses on sale evrywhere etc, but they cost around 4500$ which i cannot really afford since i will need several of those for my business plans i'm on a budget :confused:

i will add a picture of an actual dough press in here (have removed the brand just in case)

But this is just for the general idea (it can be alot smaller of course but the press has to do the job)

if you are interested or think you could do this please contact me (in here and i will send you my email or some thing)

And if we make this possible i got a couple of several other projects for which i'm ready to pay

Thanks again for your patience and your hard work guys

~love from Belgium

Not likely to get a one-off (or 10-off, for that matter) cheaper than an off the shelf product.

Especially not if you want:

  • warranty
  • readily available spare parts
  • readily available servicing
  • certified food safe
  • operationally safe (you probably don't want pieces of compressed thumb in your dough, bone fragments can really ruin a good cookie and the blood may give it some unwanted colours)
  • guaranteed quality and long lasting
    All those things tend to be quite important for running a business.

By the way, this is not an Arduino project. It may not even need a microcontroller.

My suggested solutions for you: find a less expensive dough press (e.g. a smaller one, which you say will do the job just fine), change your business plan to not require that many of them, or find ways to increase your budget.

well warranty ain't really a problem because if you send me the design i'll be building it myself which means i'll have some spare parts and i will know how it works so the servicing will be me, myself and I, as for the safety i guess you can add the same safety mechanism instead of the button which would work like this "safety down ==0" and "safety up ==1" it would be a safety mechanism and when it goes down it actually pushes the button

and the micro controller would be for the press to know when to stop because it doesn't have to go all the way down but let like 0.30 inch of space between the 2 platforms that are operated by a Nema 42 dc motor

Not sure if i was clear enough though, english isn't really my main language so yeah if there is some thing you don't understand I can try to explain again.

Maybe wvmarle wasn't clear enough: The time you will waste on tinkering with some half-assed amateur solution is the time you should be devoting to running your business and making money. Remember, your business is baking, not mechanical engineering. Are you going to build your own premises/delivery vans/ovens/mixers/... too?

Consider cheaper equipment to start with; perhaps second hand stuff from an insolvency auction for example. Maybe just rent an equipped kitchen.

wvmarle and arduarn have covered many of the reasons you should not do this but let me rain on your parade a little more: who is going to use this machine? If the answer is anyone other than you, you're opening yourself up to legal liability if it malfunctions and injures someone.

Also, if your business plan can't support the purchase of the equipment you need, perhaps that's the area you need to look at rather than trying to build commercial kitchen equipment on the cheap.

Given that a smaller press would work for you, what are you planning to make? miniature pizza? Tortillas?

Do you have the know-how and experience to machine stainless steel to a high quality finish? If not, you have no chance of building this by yourself.

Same for the mechanics. That's more high precision manufacturing, to make sure it moves freely yet does not allow dirt, dough or water (cleaning!) in.

I pretty much agree with the advice you've received. Now let me go off on a slight tangent. Do you know how much force this will require? Could an arbor press be fitted with a large enough plate to work for you? I have a 1-ton arbor press on my work bench and it has just enough room to fit an 8" diameter plate. A 2-ton press would be able to handle something larger.

Alternately, could you use a pizza dough roller?

That would take care of most of the mechanical issues right there. As for electronics: you haven't said anything that leads me to believe you need a microcontroller. Mechanical depth stops on presses have been a thing for decades, if not longer. My pasta roller lets me set dough thickness quite accurately and repeatably.

and, on top of that, you could just learn how to spread pizza dough with your hands. that is what millions of pizza makers do... not much expensive as the chances are that you already own a pair of hands.

The first challenge is to the mechanical design. To make something that will press hard enough without breaking is outside the purview of this forum.

But there may be good reasons to include an Arduino.

If you are going to have sensors, it may be helpful to be able to monitor their state.

To achieve the optimal thickness, you may want to have an extra protection of a limit switch to detect when the press is close enough to break. A pressure sensor may help too.

If you want to be able to set the thickness according to the type of dough, the Arduino could read a distance sensor.