Development of an Automatic Rice Washing and Cooking System

Rice is one of the essential foods in the world, especially in Indonesia. Before being processed to become food, the rice should be washed first. Mainly the process of washing the rice is done manually and separated from the cooking process. This paper was developed on an automatic rice cooker. The Automatics system began when the water was inserted into the rice tank to wash the rice. The volume of the water was controlled automatically based on the weight of the rice to be processed. The washing process was conducted twice to ensure the cleanliness of the rice. The dirty water from the washing process was removed using a solenoid valve. After the washing process finishes, the cooking process starts by filling the water in the rice tank. The cooking process was controlled using a limit switch. A limit switch was used to detect the level of water. A series of tests have been carried out to define parameters used by the control system, such as the time required by the pump to fill the tank. The test was also conducted to check the performance of the rice cooker. The rotation speed of the stirrer drops significantly when 90 minutes of cooking time and even totally stops starting for 3 kg of weight. The result shows that the rice cooker could be used to cook the rice, even though the time spent cooking the rice is relatively long.