Cimbali Junior & Mazzer Super Jolly weight mystery

[Nocturnal]

Well it's a mystery to me. Looking at the specs between a Cimbali JR & a Super Jolly.

Cimbali Jr: Motor 300 watt, sheet stainless housing, weight 34 lbs.

Super Jolly Motor 350, cast housing, weight 31 lbs.

I would assume that with a smaller motor, and a sheet metal housing the Junior would weigh significantly less than a SJ with a larger motor & cast housing, however, the JR is 3lbs more. Does anyone know why?, Puzzled here.

Thanks Much

N

[Spironski]

I would think the answer is obvious: so there is more to a grinder then just the wattage of the motor and the housing!

[HB]

I would assume that with a smaller motor, and a sheet metal housing the Junior would weigh significantly less than a SJ with a larger motor & cast housing, however, the JR is 3lbs more. Does anyone know why?

I haven't weighed the burr carriers of the two grinders, but that probably accounts for some the difference. The Mazzer's aluminum housing is surely lighter than the Cimbali's stainless steel wrap. Then there's minor stuff like the hopper where again the Cimbali's is a bit heavier.

[cannonfodder]

The electronics pack in the Cimbali looks a little more robust but that should not account for a much weight. I have a couple of Cimbali's and (or rather had) a Mazzer Mini. I like the Cimbali's better but I am biased toward them since I have a few. I would have thought the heavy outer casting on the Mazzers would have made the SJ heavier than the Jr. I guess Cimbali put sturdier parts where it counts (could not resist that shot)

[MrMonkey]

I bought a Cimbali Max Hybrid from Chris's Coffee at the end of last year. On the web site, it lists the weight of the Max at 35lbs. When I received the UPS ship notification e-mail it had a weight of something like 32.5lbs. I don't have that e-mail any more, but I know the shipping weight was a couple lbs less than 35. When I saw that, I thought perhaps they sent a Junior by mistake? But, when it arrived there was no mistaking the Max with conical burrs!

If I has a scale capable of weighing the Max, I would. Not that it really matters. I love the grinder!

[houdina]

I borrowed the wife's bathroom scale and the results are:

Max Hybrid 27.8lbs
Super Jolly 28.2lbs

They feel very different when you pick them up, the Mazzer is much denser. I have had the Max Hybrid for over a month now and my major complaint is that it is made up of light panels which vibrate and make it noisier than the Super Jolly.

Gregg

[cannonfodder]

Those weights are very close and your bathroom scale probably has a higher margin of error (probably at least 5% of scale or more) than the weight discrepancy. Don't get sucked into the weight game. It means very little, the grind quality is what matters.

I think the Mazzers are one of the quieter grinders with the MACAP being the loudest and the Cimbalis in the middle, although grinding beans is far from a quiet job unless you use a hand mill. A little heavier stainless or possibly a touch of thin foam tape between the body seams may dampen it a little. The Cimbalis are the easiest to take apart should you need a repair. It takes 5 minutes and 7 screws to tear the grinder down to the internals.

I still like the smooth lines of the Mazzers versus the more industrial lines of the Cimbali but the grind quality outweighs the box lines, at least it does for me.

[avogadro]

Yeah, as measured those two weights are likely indistinguishable if yours is like any bathroom scale I've had the displeasure of using. The scale under my current employ is particularly exciting to use while weighing my dogs. It requires you to stand on the scale motionless for 30 seconds while holding a squirming 85lbs animal before supplying its wildly inaccurate guesstimate on what our combined weight is.

Macaps are louder than Cimbalis? Grinding or dosing? When at a friends house testing out his equipment I compared the sound of his juniors doser to the sound of banging two hard rock maple rods together. It was more a KLACK KLACCK, than the thwack thwack on my SJ.

I've done quite a bit of transporting my SJ around and its chassis durability and simplicity seems to trump the cimbali's. No plastic hangy bits or sheet metal to dent or ding.

[houdina]

I am thinking of finding the damping material that is used to quiet car doors and stainless steel sinks and using it on the back panel on the Max. I hope it will make a difference and that there is enough clearance for the material.

Gregg

[jesawdy]

I am thinking of finding the damping material that is used to quiet car doors and stainless steel sinks and using it on the back panel on the Max. I hope it will make a difference and that there is enough clearance for the material.

Dynamat should be available at most car audio stores and sold in a sufficiently small quantity for this application. I don't think clearance would be an issue but I have not tried it. Some other dampening materials mentioned here in Eliminating noise from vibration. If you do this, please report back your impressions.

[cannonfodder]

Odd, I have a Macap on the test bench right now and think it is much louder than my Max and about the same as the Mazzer Kony. The Macap doser reminds of me smacking two hammers together. A very sharp clack-klunk and the Max is a much deeper toned thump-thump. Grinding is inherently noisy unless you use a hand grinder.

You would have to whack the stainless steel body of the Cimbali with a hammer a few times to dent it. It is a more industrial design with the boxy lines but I think it does a comparable job at grinding and is a bit lower price. I like the ergonomics of the Jr better than the Super Jolly, particularly the doser handle/switch location/style.

[RAS]

I actually lined the inside of my Cunill Tranquilo with Dynamat only to discover that the real source of noise when it's grinding is vibration transmitted through the plastic dosing funnel. The Dynamat did help, but it was not significant.

While I was waiting for my Max Hybrid to arrive, I pulled out the Tranquilo again. Over the Holidays, I had the idea of putting a bit of thin rubber (bicycle inner-tube) between the grinder body and funnel. That combined with the Dynamat has brought it to about the same SPL as a Super Jolly when grinding.

As far as Dynamat-ing the inside of a Cimbali, I think it would help, but what concerns me are the two capacitors which make contact with the case. Dynamat is about an 1/8" thick - which may be a problem with the caps. And yes, putting the Dynamat on the outside should work, but man that would be ugly.

[houdina]

I will give that a try Bob

Gregg

[Psyd]

I would assume that with a smaller motor, and a sheet metal housing the Junior would weigh significantly less than a SJ with a larger motor & cast housing, however, the JR is 3lbs more. Does anyone know why?,

The bases on my Majors are quite heavy, and seem to be ballast. There is no other reason to make them that robust, thick, and heavy, as if they attached the feet to the cast body you could pretty much get away with anything stiffer than tinfoil. I'm betting that both have some sort of low CG (Center of Gravity, not Coffee Geek!) weight added to keep them from wandering during the grinding process.