Rather than wrestle with the interpretation of TSA guidelines, can anyone report experience with passing through airport security with the cartridges? A few minutes of searching lead me to this firsthand report of success:

wideasleep1 wrote:I did finally look it up on TSA's site, and saw conflicting info...'no compressed gas cylinders' carry-on or checked...BUT also saw COMPACT gas cylinders yes and yes for both carry-on and checked, along with the flotation vest accompaniment clause. Figuring all I had to lose was a few cylinders, I decided to add 4 to my camera bag that holds the Mypressi and Porlex (which has caused delays itself at the x-ray) and just passed security with no questions. He backed up the conveyor and took a second extended look, and I sighed, awaiting for the drill, but was surprised when he flicked the conveyor back on. Passed this time, so YMMV.

Has anybody had any trouble with the twist out of the box?

I feel like an idiot. Just received a new one from Amazon, popped a cartridge in, loaded up the portafilter with some fresh BlueBottle Hayes Valley, preheated the group, loaded up the water, called my wife over to witness the wonder and held the trigger (and my breath).

Nothing happened. Tried it couple times, nothing was happening, so I carefully opened the lid on the water chamber remembering that it was built like a radiator cap to find zero pressure. Then I poured the water out and opened up the water reservoir to check that the infamous little o-ring was still in place (despite my assuming that there would be some noise if it weren't), it was still there.

I popped the empty "coarse" portafilter into the holder and put it all back together with water and tried again to no avail.

Very cautiously turned the end cap on the gas chamber to see if there was pressure on the chamber. I assume there was because the threads were stiff and I didn't have the guts to back it off further than a quarter turn for obvious reasons.

My thought is that the trigger is not working. I called their "tech support" but I'm guessing this is a small shop as there is nobody answering on the weekend. I checked their "knowledge base" to find a meager showing of knowledge there.

I must say, given the rave reviews, I must have done something wrong; but its still insanely disappointing. Guess I should just stick with my Pavoni and deal with the crap I find on the road when traveling.

Please somebody tell me what I have done wrong!

arri

I've had this happen regularly with mine -- pull the trigger a few times until you hear the pressure building. For some reason it sometimes takes a few trigger pulls before the valve opens. The older generation didn't have that problem (for me, at least), and it's much less of an issue than the cartridges emptying themselves over 2-3 days -- which they solved with the update.

Sweet!! I must have missed that note in the instructions. I'll give it a shot

Yup, it worked. Thanks!!