I have been using my Duetto III for nine months now. Really satisfied but some details on the machine is not really satisfactory for a machine in the price range. The main annoyance is the drip tray and the stainless grate that is placed in the drip tray.

The grate is causing a lot of rattle and noise during extraction. Any of you other Duetto users who has any tips and tricks on how to get rid of this problem?

Mine is stamped metal and I just put some of the little sticky pads on there. I dunno know if that would work for you or not, but you could also try a couple dabs of pure silicone in a few select places. Maybe someone else has better ideas.

hrbrun,

Tell me about it! I know about grate-rattling as my VBM was doing it, too. WAS...because NOW it doesn't.

What I did is turn the tray over and apply a nice, neat "bead" of epoxy adhesive (waterproof so no problem with being in a "water environment") along all 4 sides of the grate, even where it's held between the folded edges of sheet metal (in the case of the VBM's drip tray grate). Since this is done from the back, none of the "epoxy welding" is seen from the front/top.

True, the machine makes vibration noises elsewhere, but the drip-tray-grate is NOT one of them.

If you do choose epoxy (comes in those dual syringes/packages), be advised the stuff mostly available is the VERY short working-time 5-minute epoxy and you have to work fast! Even the longer 30-minute working time epoxy seems a bit short (it's not even close to 30-minutes!) so if you want a neat bead of epoxy along the edges, you have to do it in sections.

The epoxy usually comes in a clear or light amber color...or, you can get it in a "metalized" format (gray). Additionally, if you want gray, you also could use some JB Weld (similar to epoxy).

Whatever, in my case this fix is working out fine...

I agree that machines in this $$$$ price-range shouldn't have these common-sense issues, but even the more expensive machines have issues -- like the $7K La Marzocco GS3...some GS3 issues are MORE than simply annoying, so I'll take a noisy grate anytime!

Still, it seems our expectations of $$$$ espresso machine and grinder manufacturers are misplaced/unreasonable.

...but they shouldn't be!

Good luck,

-- BR

Thanks for the tips!

I'll try to dab some silicone dots first on some spots where the metal-to-metal-vibrations are worst, seems to be the easiest way to begin with!

I only notice mine rattling if the cup is up against the preinfusion/drain chamber on the grouphead.