The thermistor for Connected Kettle: Temperature reading works well so far, but disconnecting and reconnecting it all the time is a pain. Stage 4 of this project is to work out a better interface to reduce the friction of removing and replacing the kettle on the enclosure.

There are two self-contained parts to this stage, which use a plug-and-socket interface

Handle attachment

The handle attachment is just enough to fit snugly against the handle, with space near the top for a "bridge" to be snapped into place, securing the attachment to the handle. The attachment also houses the thermistor wiring, which is soldered on to two pins of the microphone panel connector. To cut down on time taken to prototype the enclosure, I "blocked out" sections of the model to be subtracted before exporting the model to the slicer. Non-destructive modifiers like the "boolean" modifier make it easy to prototype changes and variations without needing to undo and revert changes to try new things.

Handle attachment support

The handle attachment support is designed to line up the plug with the connector, but not to provide any structural support. This is to ensure that the weight of the kettle is fully borne by the load sensor in the enclosure base, for accurate estimations of how much water is in the kettle. The attachment is secured with an M4 screw, and channels the wires safely underneath.

Next steps

Now the kettle can be connected and disconnected securely, we can show the temperature readout on the display. Connected Kettle: Home automation integration adds support for broadcasting the temperature and scale state over MQTT.

This article is part of the Connected Kettle set.

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