Hey Edoed, I've been tinkering with a little kitchen gadget that can automatically adjust spice amounts based on the dish size. Wanna test it out together?

Sure thing! I’m using a cheap photodiode as the “spice density” sensor. The idea is that a thin layer of ground pepper or cinnamon will scatter light, so the photodiode’s voltage drops as the layer thickens. I wire the photodiode to the microcontroller’s analog pin, sample 10 times per second, and average the readings to smooth out noise. Then I map the voltage range—say 0.3 V (empty) to 1.5 V (full) —to a spice‑dose range, like 0 to 5 grams, using a simple linear interpolation in the firmware. I also set a threshold; if the voltage stays above 1.2 V for more than 2 seconds, it stops dispensing. That way we’re not over‑spicing and the system is safe. Let me know if you want to tweak the mapping constants or add a quick safety‑shutdown routine.

Sounds good—let’s grab a few grams of pepper, cinnamon, and paprika, step them in, and log the voltage for each. We can pull the averages, fit that linear curve, and tweak the slope if it’s off. I’ll add a watchdog that trips a relay after three seconds of no sensor change, just to keep us out of a loop. Happy to code it up with you.

Alright, set up the board, drop the spices, watch the logs, and tweak that mapping. I’ll keep an eye on the watchdog so we don’t spin forever. Let’s do it.