Taiwan-based coffee entrepreneur and maker Herbet NG had a problem. Conventional packaging machines cost a fortune and were unmodifiable. His solution? Build his own, and in doing so, open the door for open source industrial machinery. His site BehindHebo outlines the steps he is taking to achieve these goals. For an inkling of what he is working on, take a look at this:

… an inner bag opener with pneumatic controls. It grabs and opens a bag in ~2.5s, together with the powder doser, it should yield ~20 bags per min = 1200 bags in an hour. Need another valve to open the bag really perfectly, but I may continue with the rest first. After all, I should get rolls of filter paper in mass production.