Build Your Own Cocktail Machine

Lay Out the Parts

Pumps, a relay board, a single-board computer, a DC supply, silicone tubing and jumper wires. Count everything before you mount anything - a missing barb fitting stops the whole build.

Build the Frame

An open frame with a bottle rail on top and a shelf below for the electronics. Extrusion, plywood or 3D-printed brackets all work; the only requirement is that the bottles sit above the pumps.

Mount the Pumps

One pump per ingredient, on a common rail so the tubing runs parallel. Keep the runs short and equal - tube length is volume, and every extra centimetre is liquid you have to prime and purge.

Wire the Control Side

Signal wires from the computer to the relay board, then power leads from the relays to the pumps. Two separate worlds: thin and low-current on one side, thick and high-current on the other.

You do not have to work this part out from a picture. Once your pumps are configured, the admin panel lists every board, every pump and the pin each one drives, next to a diagram of the Raspberry Pi header - so what you wire and what the software drives cannot disagree. A drawing goes stale the moment you move a pin; the panel reads your own configuration.

Distribute the Power

One DC supply sized for all the pumps you expect to run at once. The supply ground and the board ground must be tied together at a single point, or the relays will not switch reliably.

Run the Tubing

From each bottle, down through its pump, and forward to a single dispensing head above the glass. Food-grade silicone throughout, and a check valve on anything that would otherwise siphon.

Calibrate Each Pump

Run a pump into a measuring cylinder, tell the software what came out, and it works out the flow rate. Ten minutes for the whole set, and it is what turns a pump into a measured pour.

Serve

Add your recipes, put the machine where people are, and let them order from the touchscreen. Everything after this point is software you already have.