While many of us enjoy an under-the-counter dishwasher, if your dwelling didn’t come with one, you might find “Bob” the mini countertop dishwasher to be interesting. For £349.90 (~$482) + VAT, this little guy takes care of dirty dishes in a compact space, and, if not portable, could at least be moved from place to place as needed.
It seems like a neat little device, and includes a cartridge that takes care of injecting the correct amount of dish washing liquid for each load, similar to a printer cartridge… And if your techno-sense is starting to tingle a bit, it’s not a false alarm. These cartridges feature an EEPROM chip that tracks the number of washes, forcing you to buy a new one after 30 cycles.
While the cartridges can be returned to be refilled, somewhat offsetting the environmental cost, this doesn’t exactly take care of the recurring cost to your wallet. Have no fear though, dekuNukem is here with his “Bob Rewinder” renewal board/kit.
The STM32-based Rewinder board slides onto the cartridge’s interface port, and after simply applying power and pressing the “RENEW” button, it considers itself good for another 30 cycles. You can also purchase a syringe to actually refill the cassette with soap, as well as a USB-C to USB-A cable if needed.
While the board itself + syringe will run about $35, after that’s paid for the cost-per-wash price goes from 67¢ to 0.87¢, less than a penny in detergent per wash. Of course you’ll still need to pay for power and water, but depending on how much you use Bob, it’s not hard to see where this little device pays for itself. In fact, in his writeup ‘Nukem shows how it will save him over $200 per year–potentially thousands of dollars over Bob’s lifetime!
