Hi guys and girls

I have been gifted an old Junior D1 with vibe pump. I'm renting an apartment at the moment and it would be a problem to do direct plumbing to the machine from the main water supply.

I understand that the Jr. can't suck from an external tank because of the dosing chamber that needs pressure to fill itself.

Is there a way to get the Jr. to suck from a tank? Possibly by circumventing the dosing chamber?

/Jim

Welcome to Home Barista. I'm not certain what you mean by "dosing chamber".. I would guess that you mean portafilter basket where the ground coffee is placed.

Anyway, a vibe pump is self-priming and will work fine with an external tank, especially if you can have the water reservoir (tank) at or above the level of the pump. It's a rotary pump that shouldn't be run from a tank. It will also work, but if you have cavitation or water starvation i.e. inadequate flow it will shorten the life of a rotary pump.

.

wookie wrote:Welcome to Home Barista. I'm not certain what you mean by "dosing chamber".. I would guess that you mean portafilter basket where the ground coffee is placed.

Anyway, a vibe pump is self-priming and will work fine with an external tank, especially if you can have the water reservoir (tank) at or above the level of the pump. It's a rotary pump that shouldn't be run from a tank. It will also work, but if you have cavitation or water starvation i.e. inadequate flow it will shorten the life of a rotary pump.

.

Thank you very much.

When i say dosing chamber i'm referring to the plastic container with the metal rods, that gets filled with water by the pressure from the water supply.

I stole a picture from Help with my new but old La Cimbali Junior. It's the square plastic container with brown lid and all the wires coming out of it.

Thank you for the clarification. I would call that a volumetric doser (or volumetric dosing container). It's a clever design; the newer machines use a flowmeter to measure the water volume.

I'm not sure if the dosing chamber is filled by the water line pressure or by the vibe pump. Certainly you could get the vibe pump to use a tank if you bypass the dosing chamber. But if it is filled by the vibe pump, I don't think that you'd need to bypass it. Also, it shouldn't take very much pressure to fill the dosing chamber.. so even if it is filled by the water line pressure, a tank that is elevated a bit above the dosing chamber would probably still fill fine by gravity. If that didn't answer your question, let us know.

.

Thanks for the help

I will give the elevated tank a go, but i would like to be able to suck from a tank underneath a table.

If anyone has any experience with this let me now.

I don't know if a vibe pump will draw water from a tank that is a meter below the pump level. The lifting capacity of pumps is called "head" and varies widely amongst pumps. I haven't seen any data (or experimented) with espresso vibe pumps drawing water from containers that are below the pump level.

I'm sure that someone else who has tried this will comment. Or you could temporarily remove your vibe pump and see how far the pump can be raised above a water tank and still pump. It may work, I don't know one way or the other.

.

It's easy enough to hook up to water mains with any washing machine tap in a laundry room. Just buy the relevent adapters to go from 1/4" from the Junior to the water tap. Mine's set up in the laundry room. Took 15 minutes in the hardware store finding the parts and about 10 minutes to hook up, mostly spent applying silicone tape. You might also be able to rig up a system with a portable dishwasher sink adapter, which allows for moving the machine and the convenience of a quick release.

darilon wrote:It's easy enough to hook up to water mains with any washing machine tap in a laundry room. Just buy the relevent adapters to go from 1/4" from the Junior to the water tap. Mine's set up in the laundry room. Took 15 minutes in the hardware store finding the parts and about 10 minutes to hook up, mostly spent applying silicone tape. You might also be able to rig up a system with a portable dishwasher sink adapter, which allows for moving the machine and the convenience of a quick release.

It's not that I don't know how to hook up the Jr. to my main water supply. It would just be waaaay easier for me if I could draw water from a tank. And my apartment isn't exactly the kind of apartment with a "laundry room"

Nobody knows if this is possible in any way?

Hello Jimdk:

Jimdk wrote:I understand that the Jr. can't suck from an external tank because of the dosing chamber ...?

From what I can tell your D/1 is like mine: plumb-in, vibe-pump and autofill.

If this is so, you will need a minimum level of water pressure (the manual says something about it) not only to fill the doser tank but most importantly the boiler, which means that the differential between water mains pressure and the boiler pressure has to be enough to actually fill the tank when the autofill sensor opens up the corresponding valve.

I do not use the hot water tap so I am bale to cope with the low (ie: barely the Cimbali issue standard) water pressure I have at home as the boiler is not under pressure when the D/1 is turned on every morning, so the boiler quickly tops up to where the sensor is, replacing the small amount of boiler water my milk steaming has used up.

Asides from this (IMO, the most important issue) when the doser tank is full, the doser circuit permits a few things inside the machine to happen eg: allows the pump to work until the desired volume is reached. This means that this circuit would have to be modified.

From my point of view, if you can/are allowed to install a small water purifier in your kitchen you will probably be able to plumb in the D/1, which is I think the least expensive way to go about it.

BTW: Don't forget to make some provision (I use a bucket) for the tray below the group.

Hope I was of help.

Cheers,

CIV