Summary of Arduino-Based “Analog” Slow Cooker Controller
The article describes a DIY project to upgrade an analog slow cooker by adding timer and temperature control without modifying the cooker itself. Using existing components and inspired by a previous Adafruit project, the creator controls the slow cooker’s AC power via GPIO pins, allowing selection among Warm, Low, Medium, and High settings. The user interface is built around an Adafruit RGB LCD Shield with buttons for simple, local control. Wireless connectivity and advanced IoT features may be added later, but the initial goal is a straightforward, cost-effective timer and temperature controller.
Parts used in the Arduino-Based “Analog” Slow Cooker Controller:
- Analog slow cooker
- Wireless outlet remote control (modified for GPIO control)
- Controller with two GPIO pins (e.g., Arduino)
- Adafruit RGB LCD Shield with integrated display and buttons
I had two options: One required me to spend money. The other cost me nothing and gave me an opportunity to make something useful.
To make a short story longer, I have an “analog” slow cooker (just a dial on the front) and I wanted the ability to set the cooking time and temperature. Now I could have just gone out and bought an appliance timer, which certainly would have done the job. But that wouldn’t have given me temperature control. I had a few bits lying around from other projects, so I decided to smash them together and see what happened.
Since I would actually be using the slow cooker for its intended purpose, I really wasn’t concerned with being able to set the temperature to the exact tenth of a degree. Being able to select Warm/Low/Medium/High would be fine. Instead of modifying the slow cooker, I would just set the dial to High and control the AC power connection. Having played around with Adafruit’s SousViduino project a while back, I would use that as a starting point. There, I modified a wireless outlet remote control such that I could control it with two GPIO pins. This allowed for the actual mains power switching hardware to be completely isolated from the controller. I’ve used this trick several times to great effect. This time would be no different.
With the AC power control figured out, I considered the User Interface. I opted for something simple. The Adafruit RGB LCD Shield would work well as it had both a display and buttons built in. Sure, I could have beat this project about the head and neck with “IoT”-this and “ESP8266”-that, but I was feeling lazy and just wanted a simple timer control. Of course, there’s nothing that says I won’t add some kind of wireless connectivity, but for now, local control is fine.
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