When I get into a hobby, I usually find myself neck deep within a week. Espresso (and coffee in general) was no exception!

For the perfect shot, you want to ensure you aren’t extracting your coffee too quickly. Best way to do this? Timing it! There are a lot of smart scales on the market, but the best ones are upwards of $200! Wow, too much for me, especially when I can use it as an excuse to spend $250 on Arduino components, filaments, and prototyping equipment.

The core of this in-progress project is to make a custom scale for espresso. The main features? Fast, accurate, and form factor. After all, it still has to fit on a conventional espresso machine.

The heart of the build will be an Arduino nano with connected to a load sensor and an HX711 load sensor amplifier.