Thanks and enjoy T1, Hugh.

I talked to Jim at 1st-line about the T1 because I was curious about a couple questions I had and he gave interesting insight that explained some of my observations.

1) Steam tip - The new machine has 1mm steam tip holes instead of 1.5mm holes, which explains why it is so easy to even steam/texture 4oz of milk (and I thought I was just that good). I'd be curious to try it with 1.5, but it is hard to complain about the 1mm holes as they do a great job.

2) Cup warmer - The regulations in Europe changed making it so they could not have holes in the top of the machine, so the drip tray is now different. This explains the cooler cups as well as the fact that now the vents are on the back towards the top, so the heat pattern is different. The heat instead of rising towards the top gets pulled to the back. This results in much cooler cups and cooler side panels. The back of my machine is out of the way, so I have not noticed if it is hot or not, but I assume it must be hotter than the sides and the top.

3) Insulation - I asked about insulating the boiler and he thought that it was not a bad idea. He said it would not void the warranty on the machine, but that it would be a problem if the machine caught on fire in terms of insurance - their insurance would not cover the altered machine the way it would if you did not alter it. He also said keep it away from the heating element.

4) the small shelf on inside on the back panel. The new machines have a shelf on the back panel that supports the cup tray. A number of the new machines including mine have had the shelf fall off in transit. It is easy to fix with JB weld (I brought mine to Fortuna and they fixed it in about 10 minutes, but anyone could do this themselves in the same amount of time). The tray was fairly stable even with the shelf out, so again this is not a major issue, but it is probably worth paying attention to.

5) auto dose buttons - on mine I can't figure out how to turn off the autodose buttons early. Neither the button you pressed first nor the K button work to turn it off early. This used to work on the old machines. You can, of course, pull the cup out from under, and I confess I usually don't use volumetric dosing so it does not bother me, but there was one time when I was backflushing and wasn't paying attention and hit the big dose button. The only solution I could come up with was to turn the machine off. Jim is going to check with Elektra to see if there is a combination of buttons that will turn it off.

6) plug - Jim said that the 15 amp plug was high enough quality that it would not be a problem to keep it on as long as the breaker, the wire, etc was all up to the necessary 20 amp standard. This confirms my instinct when I looked at the plug I was taking off and the plug that was on there and thought they were essentially identical except for the orientation of the prongs and the writing on it. It would have been a problem, he said, if someone had skimped on the plug and put on a cheap 15 amp plug, but this was a well built, expensive one. That also agreed with what my contractor had said. Don't take electrical advice from me, though, as I know little to nothing about it!

By the way my posts are addressing the nuances I've found, but I should make it quite explicit that I love this machine so far and I do not expect that to change. I'm quite pleased with the advice of forum members and the review that led me to choose it.

In regards of the NOT able to stop the programmed dosing,

Just got off the phone with the elektra factory tech
the way to "stop" the programming is the following:
turn machine off
push and HOLD the second and fifth button
while turning the unit back on
done.
Dosing of course are still active
however when/if you decide to
stop the shot manually the led light will blink ( just like used to with the old dose pads if the flow was slow, restricted etc etc)

to return to factory dosing setting repeat same procedure

Mille grazie Stefano!

The solution works like a charm. Even though I don't tend to use the volumetric dosing much I am very glad that this works and it may well mean I use it more now.

Thanks

I appreciate it, this is the main reason why I don't use the volumetric dosing.

I would appreciate if any of you elektra expert could upload a video of steaming milk, with this machine.

I thought it would be worth pointing out the recent thread

New Elektra T1 Programming Problem

which includes the following quote from Elektra about programing...

Since the Deliziosa machine (Sixties T1) is provide with only one push-buttons, the leds of the second pushbuttons are located on the control box.
To see them, you have to remove the screw number 4 in order to take out the upper grill number 1 and the cup heater number 2

The point is that to program the Elektra you need to take off the cup warmer and drip tray and this reveals a second set of LED lights that are used for programming. This only requires removing one screw, but, of course, you do need to remove all the cups, too.

One question I had originally had is whether the programing would be retained when you turn the machine off, and, thankfully it does. So I, for example, have it set to come on two hours before I get up and to turn off when I am done drinking coffee for the day (about 3pm), but when I head off to work I can turn the machine off to save energy as long as I flip it back on some time before I go to bed.

It will be a bit of a pain when I unplug the machine because to reset the time will require taking off the cup warmer. We have enough thunder storms here that I will probably unplug it a couple times a week in the summer.

I have not checked to see if things like volumetric dosing are preserved when unplugged. Much to my surprise I love volumetric dosing because it is nice for the flush. (I usually flush once a couple minutes before pulling shots so the machine will act like it has been pulling shots as Dan suggests in his review and it is nice to be able to press a button and walk away for that).

One question I'd love to know the answer to is if there is a simple way to wake the machine up without reprogramming it. In other words, I usually have it shut down around 3 pm, but if I am having friends over I may want the machine to run all evening. I wonder if there is an overrule button that says "just for now let's ignore the sleep cycle and be awake, but tomorrow we can go back to the standard routine"? Sort of the opposite of a snooze button.

One question I had originally had is whether the programing would be retained when you turn the machine off, and, thankfully it does. So I, for example, have it set to come on two hours before I get up and to turn off when I am done drinking coffee for the day (about 3pm), but when I head off to work I can turn the machine off to save energy as long as I flip it back on some time before I go to bed.

Yes, it does retain current time, sleep time, and wake up time. Although my machine is programmed to sleep bewteen 11pm and 6am, I sometime turn it off to preserve the power and keep the heat in the house at minimum. I actually don't really like cycling machine on or off too frequently, but my wife thinks we are paying too much for electricity. Whenever I turn T1 back on, it knows the current time and go backs to sleep at precisely 11:00pm. Other setting appears to be retained too (volumetric dosage and temperature). I hope this helps.

da gino wrote:I have not checked to see if things like volumetric dosing are preserved when unplugged.

Perhaps it is gauche to quote yourself or to answer your own questions, but today I tried unplugging the machine for several hours. When I plugged it back in it seemed to still have all the programming correct. Oddly even the time seemed to be correct. It is only recorded down to the hour, but I plugged it back in at 9:15 and it said 9. I expected it to either lose the time or pick back up with the time at which I had unplugged it. Perhaps I just got lucky. In any event it was nice that it had not forgotten the sleep cycle (I didn't check dosing, but I assume it keeps those recorded if it keeps the sleep cycle info).

Also as per EricS's rec on the first page I have lowered the boiler temp a few degrees to see if it works just as well at the lower temp. I certainly don't tax the steam in the machine in terms of quantity and if it just meant slightly shorter flushes that would be a minor, but nice bonus. My hunch is that the coffee and the steam will be equal at both temps and therefore the lower one will be a rgood choice.

A couple updates. I'm very happy with the machine as it came to me, and keep getting happier. This is a great machine, but since it was suggested in this thread and it couldn't hurt, I tried turning my machine down 2 degrees and then 5 degrees as EricS suggested. With the 1mm tip I was not happy with the steam at -5 degrees. -2 was fine.

At the factory temp I find pulling shots in sequence easier than -5 because it rebounds so much faster. On the other hand, at the lower temp it is nice that you can just walk up and pull one shot with less flush. (At the higher temp I usually flush about 8 oz before grinding coffee to cool the machine - you can definitely skip this at -5).

I may settle in at a about -2 (which puts me just over 1 bar).

The other update is that just for fun I picked up one of the old steam tips that the A3/T1 used to come with with 1.5 mm holes. With the 1mm tip I could steam 2oz of milk the first time I walked up to the machine and had good success. The steaming with the small tip is very good and very easy. My wife noticed instantly that the milk was sweeter.

I've always been a fan of commercial steamers though so I wanted to try the machine with the old tip especially since it got good reviews in the HB review. I think with the 1mm tip the machine is a great steamer - this was mostly just done because it was cheap, easy, and fun. The 1.5 tip is something different entirely. I don't think I'll ever be able to steam tiny quantities of milk. It will even take a little practice to master 5-6 oz of milk, but after about 4-5 drinks I'm getting reasonable at it and my guess is that after 20-30 pitchers I'll never want to go back. It also gives me better control over the boiler temp should I choose to go for a low setting because at -5 degrees the steam is still pretty good, whereas it seemed anemic to me with the small tip and -5 degrees.

For the sake of concrete numbers, the 1 mm tip took 33 seconds to heat 8 oz of water from 40 degrees to 160 - about twice as long as the HB review said the 1.5 mm tip did (16 seconds in that case). This makes sense since the area of the holes determines the rate of air flow, not the radius or diameter and this should be proportional to the square of the radius (ie instead of 1:1.5 more like 1:2.25).

I make 80 percent straight shots, 19 percent caps and 1 percent other, but I may use both switching out to the slower one for that occasional macchiatto now that I noticed this comment in Dan's review...

"Hint: To easily switch back-and-forth between different steam tips, use a small rubber O-ring instead of thread sealer or Teflon plumber's tape. Finger tight is enough to seal, and you can swap to a lower-volume two-hole steam tip for milk volumes of four to six ounces. "