Ok, thanks, I get your point.

I've got two Nino grinders and love them, one being the original design and the other being the later one with the modded chute, which makes absolutely no practical day-to-day difference.

It's a fantastic no-fuss timed grinder that requires little purging, but it's neither small nor cheap - and it's no good for single dosing. I wouldn't swap mine for anything else.

Could you elaborate about your view on dosing, please? From observation on You Tube, and around bars, I thought, one would be hard to press find a single machine on the market which is ideal for single dosing. Isn't that reality?

If you go to the "niño owners can it beat the robur" thread that Jason referenced you will see the single dozing issue addressed... It seems that the nino's 600 rpm speed is too fast for the timer's 0.1 sec resolution. For comparison the Compac K 10 has a motor speed of 300 rpm and the Mazzer Robur has a motor speed of 500 rpm with a timer resolution of 0.05 sec

Thanks, now it makes sense, although this is an edge barista has, whereas for a neophyte like me it is a factor slightly over my head. Looks like I will have to read relevant thread again and more carefully. (In Europe I thought that Nino is operating also around 500 [R.P.M.] at 50 [Hz], but I cannot vouch for that number).

You're right, in Europe most motors in an espresso machine (rotary vane pump motors and grinder motors in particular) spin about 17% slower than they do in the US.

I got rid of my Nino because it was too wasteful for my use (short, spread out sessions and often changing coffees frequently). Although the grind path after grinding is incredibly small, the bean column requirement and the grinder's high sensitivity to small variation in bean column weight when the column is short make it much more finicky to work with than a K10 or a Robur, unless you're keeping the hopper full of coffee. If you use a weight to counteract this sensitivity the grinder becomes extremely fast, so much so that the timer adjustment causes large changes in dose. This requires you to dial in by grind instead of timer-dose, which plays hell with the grind rate and screws up any correlation between the grind time and the dose weight that is delivered. You can easily wind up chasing your tail, and in any case you wind up wasting many more shots dialing in than you would dialing in a single-dosed K10. Well, that's my experience anyway. It's a beautiful grinder, but it needs finer timing adjustment or a slower motor. Preferably both. Given these issues and the price and voltage requirement, it seems easy to see why it's relatively shunned in the US.

I got my K10 WBC for ~$1100, and I have to say it's pretty much the best grinder I've used at home. It's biggest annoyance is a horribly designed chute fitting that has to be modified for optimum functionality.

shadowfax wrote:You're right, in Europe most motors in an espresso machine (rotary vane pump motors and grinder motors in particular) spin about 17% slower than they do in the US.

I got rid of my Nino because it was too wasteful for my use (short, spread out sessions and often changing coffees frequently). Although the grind path after grinding is incredibly small, the bean column requirement and the grinder's high sensitivity to small variation in bean column weight when the column is short make it much more finicky to work with than a K10 or a Robur, unless you're keeping the hopper full of coffee. If you use a weight to counteract this sensitivity the grinder becomes extremely fast, so much so that the timer adjustment causes large changes in dose. This requires you to dial in by grind instead of timer-dose, which plays hell with the grind rate and screws up any correlation between the grind time and the dose weight that is delivered. You can easily wind up chasing your tail, and in any case you wind up wasting many more shots dialing in than you would dialing in a single-dosed K10. Well, that's my experience anyway. It's a beautiful grinder, but it needs finer timing adjustment or a slower motor. Preferably both. Given these issues and the price and voltage requirement, it seems easy to see why it's relatively shunned in the US.

I got my K10 WBC for ~$1100, and I have to say it's pretty much the best grinder I've used at home. It's biggest annoyance is a horribly designed chute fitting that has to be modified for optimum functionality.

Thank you for your time and sharing part of your experience, Nicholas.