I have a Keurig coffee maker, have had for many years. Over time, the K-cup holder collects a lot of coffee ground fines. No real way to get in there and clean it out with a paper towel, usually end up disassembling it to clean it.
Mrs. Downeaster mentioned it was getting pretty nasty so I was working up the ambition to clean it, wishing I had a micro-vacuum so I could just suck that stuff out of there without having to disassemble it.
Got to thinking...I've got a itty-bitty vacuum pump out of an inkjet printer. Hmmmm. I've also built a cyclone-type dust separator for my big vac that is stupid simple to make and works very well. HMMMMMMMMM. If I was to make a miniature version of that...
Had a few odds and ends of surgical tubing and various fittings from some sort of medical device I stripped for parts and used a little hot glue to hold things in place. Et Voila! MicroVac! Runs on DC and I hooked my power supply to it and spun it up at 6vdc and it will suck that pudding container flat! Cleaned the grounds out of the cup holder slick as a smelt.
I accepted that as "proof of concept" so I think I'll slick it up a little bit. At full load (as in sucking the container out of shape), it was pulling about 800 milliamps at something over 6 volts. I have a 7.5 volt wall wart good for 1800 milliamps, so that should suffice as a power supply. Mount things to some sort of base, include a switch and get some longer bits of tubing and I can see it coming in handy from time to time. I'll have to buy some tubing, everything else came out of my stash.
Mrs. Downeaster mentioned it was getting pretty nasty so I was working up the ambition to clean it, wishing I had a micro-vacuum so I could just suck that stuff out of there without having to disassemble it.
Got to thinking...I've got a itty-bitty vacuum pump out of an inkjet printer. Hmmmm. I've also built a cyclone-type dust separator for my big vac that is stupid simple to make and works very well. HMMMMMMMMM. If I was to make a miniature version of that...
Had a few odds and ends of surgical tubing and various fittings from some sort of medical device I stripped for parts and used a little hot glue to hold things in place. Et Voila! MicroVac! Runs on DC and I hooked my power supply to it and spun it up at 6vdc and it will suck that pudding container flat! Cleaned the grounds out of the cup holder slick as a smelt.
I accepted that as "proof of concept" so I think I'll slick it up a little bit. At full load (as in sucking the container out of shape), it was pulling about 800 milliamps at something over 6 volts. I have a 7.5 volt wall wart good for 1800 milliamps, so that should suffice as a power supply. Mount things to some sort of base, include a switch and get some longer bits of tubing and I can see it coming in handy from time to time. I'll have to buy some tubing, everything else came out of my stash.