shadowfax wrote:How's it looking on the counter? I am curious to get an idea of what your shortening work looks like.

The shortening was only of the legs (which in my case are just metric bolts cut down to minimal length). Overall the install is kinda ugly right now since the cover isn't on and such so I didn't take a picture. Spilled water will be tough to clean up though. The front is about 1/8" off the counter.

Mark

Hi again,

I'm planning to plumb-in mine next week as I've finally figured out what I need to buy to do that. All the parts should be in by then, so the machine should be back together for testing.

It's annoying that the tray is so damn shallow as this means that any cleaning you do will be completely trashed by the first cooling flush. Can't say all the ideas that Elektra engineers had were good.

So you mentioned something about the insulation working, is it indeed good enough, or not?

Are you planning to make a naked on your own, or let someone else do it for you? I guess this really depends on whether you have access to a lathe or at least an electric drill with a hole saw bit (something I will use probably).

Regards,
dsc.

dsc wrote:So you mentioned something about the insulation working, is it indeed good enough, or not?

It's certainly working since I can put my hand on the insulation, you don't want to do that with a boiler...

If someone else has a Killawatt meter (or equiv) we can compare an insulated boiler vs one that isn't. Now these reading are from a cold start (over night). But they include three double espresso and lots of cleaning. Still the amount of water heated was probably only a couple of cups. The main difference in the insulated vs non-insulated should be the power used to keep it all hot, the amount to heat the system up should be about the same (assuming boiler fill to the same level). Current draw, pump off is 12.1 amps at 116 volts which is 1400 watts during boiler operation.

Power Readings
Time KWatts
0:56 0.41
1:18 0.52
1:49 0.81

dsc wrote:Are you planning to make a naked on your own, or let someone else do it for you? I guess this really depends on whether you have access to a lathe or at least an electric drill with a hole saw bit (something I will use probably).

I'll just go with a hole saw with the unit screwed down to a piece of wood and use my drill press.

dsc wrote: the shot looks a bit blond though

Noticed something this morning during the second shot that I should have been paying attention to, the pressure during the shot was 13-14 OK, find a screw driver and adjust the rotary pump, hmmm, clockwise or counter clockwise, ah, counter clockwise to have less pressure, adjusted down to 10 for now, I'll get it to 9 next time.

A while ago, I posted about the frame and the motor just touching. Indeed, my machine has a loud rumble when the pump is engaged, not the quieter sounds I was hoping for from a rotary pump. I then pressed some rubber padding between the pump and frame and it's a lot quieter. I may need to shim the pump mount (or bend the frame) about 2mm to keep the pump and frame from touching.

Time to finish my second espresso and start taking up ceramic tile from our slab in the bathroom...

Mark

I took a crow bar and a block and bent the frame 2 mm at the back support area where the pump was touching the frame. What a massive difference Now this is what I expected from a rotary pump machine. Sure you can hear a pump, but not a load roaring kinda sound. Put the cover on and the heating rack.

Hmmm, a bit of rattle from the drip tray, but I've got some of this black shelf liner. Cut some long rectangular pieces and placed them in the bottom of the tray.



Put the tray in place. Cut up some small black squares and put them under edge corner of the tray. Place a thin rectangle piece back against the back edge. Two thin rectangles are now placed flush in each of the front corners.



Still have to cut route the water and drain lines properly, but for now it will do.



=-=-
Mark

Looking good. The drip tray on my A3 is nothing like that. It is bent/welded tube. There is no liquid that gets pooled on it, looks like yours would be prone to pooling and splashing. Elektra added 'stilts' to the portafilters to compensate for the huge distance between the grouphead and drip tray. They were the first things I took off when I got my machine. I picked up a small silver expanded steel basket at bed bath and beyond. I use it as a riser to put my demi's on when using the standard portafilter or bottomless.

The gauge on the Elektra reads a little high for brewing. My gauge reads about a gauge needle over 9 bars, the ScaceII puts it at just under 130psi, around 128psi if I remember correctly. I have the mains set so the onboard pressure gauge reads 1 bar. I know it is below the specked 2-4 but it works just fine and I like the shots so why tinker with it. I also changed the group jet to slow the infusion rate. Keep in mind, rotary pumps are sensitive to input pressure, so if you increase you input pressure, your brew pressure will increase as well.

Elektras in general don't take well to updosing. Make sure you keep plenty of headspace in the basket. After the shot, I have the very faintest of marks from the group screen screw in the puck. The top of the side on my Reg Barber tamper piston is just below the basket rim after the tamp. I use a fine grind and light two fingered tamp.

Still working on getting the dosing right... I typically just level off the grounds with the top of the portafilter. Pretty close this way, but I think it's a bit too much. I'll have to dig out the digital scale and start weighing things.

Man the cooling flush has to immediately precede the shot, the head gets back up to temperature really fast. I think I'll turn the pressure down a bit to keep it running a bit cooler. Seems to be about 10 when pulling a shot, I'll get this down to 9 instead.

Getting an occasional false pressure in the vacuum breaker, guess I should have replaced it. It's clean so, it can't be scale but it has stuck in the up position more than once now.

I now understand how the coffee shops just put the steam wand in the milk and get foam with little apparent effort. If I'm not doing at least say 5 oz, I can't figure out how to not make too much foam. Even if I immediately sink the tip I still get too much fluffy foam. Maybe I need a smaller steaming pitcher?

Mark

Yep, too much typing with too little thinking. I was thinking of two things at once to correct and typed 1/2 of each.

Mark

mhoy wrote:
Getting an occasional false pressure in the vacuum breaker, guess I should have replaced it. It's clean so, it can't be scale but it has stuck in the up position more than once now.
Mark

Here too, Nic from Cafe Creme, gave me a couple of o-rings to replace the one in the valve. He doesn't have replacement valves because he said they're easy to fix. I have yet to put a new one, if it works I'll let you know. I'll have a spare o-ring if I do things right the first time.

Still having the vacuum breaker valve malfunctioning? I can send you my leftover o-ring, it did solve my problem.