We built with my husband a cocktail printer: a machine that is able to "print" different cocktails out from 6 liquid sources. But it could be 4, 8, 12, 37.... Whatever you want.

This system allows to decide which cocktail you want to print through a NFC tag.

Step 1: What Do You Need

You'll need:

some electronics (we used a Timesquair element and relays)
peristaltic motors (motors that are used in agronomic and pharmaceutical industries)
build a box (we used plexiglas in order to let people see the inside, and also for cleaning purpose)

Step 2: The Motors

The motors that are used are peristaltic motors. You can buy it in some online places. We bought it on Aliexpress...

This kind of motor is ideal for the machine we want to build because the liquid does never enter into contact with the mechanism. We bought 6 of them, and did download the footprint pf the motor in order to design accordingly the box and the holes to fix the motors.

Step 3: The Box

We draw 3 "floors":

a spare floor (corresponding to the height of glasses
a flloor for the liquids pipes coming from the motors
the top floor for the electronics (above the liquid, and isolated from the liquids

The box is rather simple. In order to fasten the assembly of box, there is a bolt+nut system as shown on the pictures

Holes are made following the motor footprint given by constructor. At the back of the box, there are other holes for the wires. Everything has been build from 5 millimeters Plexiglas, cut with a Laser cutter machine.

This is the best way to get very precised and clean result.

The sketchup file containing the 3D design of the box and the parts ready to be exported is attached.

2016-02-20_imprimante_cocktails.skp
Download View in 3D

Step 4: The Electronics

As mentioned, the electronics is based on TimeSquAir. There are "recipes" available on Instructables. It is a system based on a Raspberry Pi, and a graphical interface to draw easily full systems.

The GPIOs of the Raspberry Pi are used to drive relays, one relay per motor. Each motor is activated during a certain time, in order to manage the different liquids quantities. NFC tags are associated to cocktails, and each tag will launch the corresponding "flow" that contains the time for each motor. Easy!