Filed under: Patent Pending | Tags: coffee, latte, latte art, new invention
Note: if you are willing to register, you can help me to promote this idea on MyStarbucksIdea site
Long time ago, I saw a great video about “Latte Art”, and figured that I absolutely must build a machine capable of printing the most beautiful art on top of my latte. So I bought a used x-y flatbed plotter (Philips 8155) on eBay and a great book by Matt Gilliland, titled “Inkjet Applications”. I put the two together, to get this nice Latte Art Printing Machine. Here is an brief video my friend Mike took (sorry for poor quality, off topic discussions, and amused laughter of my friends):
In this video I print out Starbucks logo for fun. At the very end of the video, the copyright sign gets printed on the edge of the cup.
So the question is, how can you build a system like this?
You will need:
1) An old flatbed plotter (in my case it was Philips 8155) - make sure it has real x-y translation stage. Your best bet is to perform a search on eBay for flatbed plotter. On a good day, you may get a decent fully working plotter for under 100$. I got mine for 175$ with shipping, because I wanted A3 format for later use, and a bunch of pens.
2) Most old plotters connect through GPIB/Serial interface -mine connected through GPIB interface, so I needed a GPIB card, which I also got on eBay. I got my card for around 30$, because the one I purchased was not a popular kind (LTP1 - GPIB).
3) Matt Gilliland’s book Inkjet Applications. It looks like Parallax has this fabulous kit on 40% sale for 59.95$
4) A small 12V relay (my plotter lowers pen by applying 12V to the solenoid). This relay will enable the stream of ink from the inkjet cartridge.
5 ) Edible ink - preferably brown. You can work with coffee directly instead of ink, but the contrast is not as good as with ink. Again, I got mine on eBay.
Here is another image:
The image of the king is taken from David’s Bellot SVG cards site.
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[...] im Netz gefunden, weiss nicht obs hier schon bekannt ist, wollte es euch aber nicht vorenthalten: Latte Art Printing Machine - how to build one! Oleksiy Pikalo Invents __________________ - Life is too short to drink bad coffee Faema Star, Demoka M203, CBR-101 und [...]
Pingback by Latte Art, die Technische - Kaffee-Netz December 7, 2007 @ 11:01 amLatte Art für Fortgeschrittene
Die Zubereitung einer guten Latte Art setzt einiges vorraus: Eine passende Maschine, den perfekten Milchschaum, ein gutes Milchkännchen, ein ruhiges Händchen und natürlich viel, viel Übung. Oleksiy Pikalo hat es sich einfacher gemacht und das ganze…
Trackback by cyberdan's home December 7, 2007 @ 1:39 pmThis is super cool! There are so many different food things you could plot on! Cookies, Cakes, Beer!
Comment by Mark March 13, 2008 @ 5:11 pm[...] Oleksiy Pikalo har laget en printer for å printe latte art. En slik printer kan du lage av en plotter og litt god oppfinsomhet og vips så har du en printer som kan printe huskelapper i kaffen din om morgenen. Video av maskinen i drift er lengre nede i posten. [via] link. [...]
Pingback by Blomstereng.org - Blog » Blog Archive » Latte art printer March 13, 2008 @ 5:39 pm[...] http://opikalo.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/latte-art-printing-machine-how-to-build-one/ [...]
Pingback by technology guerilla » Blog Archive » Latte Art Printing Machine - how to build one! March 14, 2008 @ 9:51 am[...] can you make coffee more interesting? You could print fancy designs on it. I am not sure how practical this is but WOW does it ever look [...]
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Trackback by Thadeu Penna's Wiki March 16, 2008 @ 3:36 pm[...] of latte art. How long before we see this in Starbucks? Check out how to build your own at Oleksiy Pikalo Invents. HT: Hacked [...]
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Sometime last year David Schomer, famous barista trainer, wrote an article in Barista Magazine predicting that automated machines will eventually be able to perfectly extract espresso more consistently than trained humans, leaving latte art the last pr…
Trackback by Jacob Grier March 18, 2008 @ 7:58 pm[...] to know how you can have this printing machine? Head over to How To Build a Latte Art Printing Machine. « How to control PC or Mac using [...]
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Vor einiger Zeit berichtete ich über die beeindruckende Fähigkeit, mit Milch kleine Bildchen auf den Cappuchino zu malen. Doch wie so häufig - jetzt löst die Technik das (alte) Handwerk ab. Oleksiy Pikalo hat sich einen Drucker geba…
Trackback by vital-Genuss.de March 22, 2008 @ 8:37 pm[...] » Bauanleitung [...]
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