Initial Impressions of the Ponte Vecchio Lusso - Page 7

[timo888]

If your coffee is fresh, we should try to learn the cause(s) of the poor extractions.

If you dose to 10g in the double basket, and tamp very lightly, just enough to level the coffee and to get ~6mm of headroom, how long do two pulls take? If less than 25 seconds, try grinding a little finer. If more than 30 seconds, try grinding a little coarser.

What grinder are you using?

There are many coffees to recommend; but if you want to know which roasts I've been using most recently with the Lusso:

Rocket Daterra Reserve Espresso
Rocket DarkStar

They are 100% arabica. Sometimes robusta has the smell of a mangrove swamp -- not unpleasant once your nose adjusts to it.

Regards
Timo

[jmequipe]

Hello timo

At this time, i've only one single basket. Next week, i'll buy a double basket in UK.

I'm going to buy also a grinder like the Rancilio doserless ( what do you think ?) because i think it will be better
to do the job mysef instead the coffee shop. they don't find the good grind for my espresso machine.

Anyway, the pressure of the machine is only 1 bar and i think to myself that is a little bit low ?

Maybe 1.2 will be a good choice.........i'm going to change the rate today if i can.

So my next steps will be :

1 Increase the pressure
2 to buy a grinder
2 a double basket
3 looking for great beans


Best regards

[timo888]

Hello timo

At this time, i've only one single basket. Next week, i'll buy a double basket in UK.

I'm going to buy also a grinder like the Rancilio doserless ( what do you think ?) because i think it will be better
to do the job mysef instead the coffee shop. they don't find the good grind for my espresso machine.

Anyway, the pressure of the machine is only 1 bar and i think to myself that is a little bit low ?

Maybe 1.2 will be a good choice.........i'm going to change the rate today if i can.

The Lusso's single basket is very difficult to work with. The double-basket, on the other hand, is very forgiving. Your coffee will improve when you have a grinder and a double basket.

Coffee ground at the shop is OK for drip and press, but not for an espresso machine. One must make slight adjustments to the grind from day to day as the roast ages. A change in humidity might require an adjustment to fineness of the grind.

The Rancilio doserless is a very popular grinder. You might also look at the Ascaso i-2 grinder. I prefer stepless adjustment, and use a Nuova Simonelli MCF. This grinder is manufactured for Nuova Simonelli by a company called Conti Valerio and is sold in Europe under the Eureka brand name.



The NS grinder is more expensive than the Rancilio Rocky but much less expensive than the Macaps and the Mazzers.

For boiler pressure, the factory manual recommends 1.0 - 1.2 Kg/cm².

Regards
Timo

[sneakymagic]

My this thread has moved on since I went away!

Some extra info on the Sama variants-
and with apologies for adding this quite late in the day - Vis comparisons of springs and pressure generated a couple of caveats: my Sama could be anything up to 20-25 years old so over that time I would expect that different spring batches would be ordered/supplied which could easily lead to differences in bar within the SAMA performances - less likely for the PVs as they haven't been around under that name for the same amount of time. Plus, who's to say I have an original spring as the machine is at least 2nd hand, and quite probably more?

You may also find these models under the name Musette (slighty prettier finish with water/steam knobs front located, though I've only seen one such).

Be aware also folks that older Sama "Lussos" have a Bezerra-alike grouphead, complete with bearing mounted lever arm (Peacecup tipped me off on this and I've seen photos of a couple of examples), so who knows what parts were borrowed/canibalised etc in the transition phase.

keep up the good work guys,
Sneaky.

[timo888]

My this thread has moved on since I went away!

Some extra info on the Sama variants-
and with apologies for adding this quite late in the day - Vis comparisons of springs and pressure generated a couple of caveats: my Sama could be anything up to 20-25 years old so over that time I would expect that different spring batches would be ordered/supplied which could easily lead to differences in bar within the SAMA performances - less likely for the PVs as they haven't been around under that name for the same amount of time. Plus, who's to say I have an original spring as the machine is at least 2nd hand, and quite probably more?

You may also find these models under the name Musette (slighty prettier finish with water/steam knobs front located, though I've only seen one such).

Be aware also folks that older Sama "Lussos" have a Bezerra-alike grouphead, complete with bearing mounted lever arm (Peacecup tipped me off on this and I've seen photos of a couple of examples), so who knows what parts were borrowed/canibalised etc in the transition phase.

Sneaky,
I have not been able to find on the web a photo of the Musette. Would you happen to remember where you saw them?

Regards
Timo

[sneakymagic]

Hi Timo,

Italian ebay was the picture source - having trawled the Italian pages of google to see what I could find I drew a blank (or at least for the 12 or so pages I checked!).

The machine was clearly of the Bezzera "Family"/OLympia Club/ Sama or PV Lusso style and despite the location of the controls was closes to the last 2 in my memory, not having a bearing mounted lever a la the Bezzera.

Not much help I know, but there you go.

P.

[timo888]

That is helpful. I can exclude US pages from my search.
Thanks
Timo

[peacecup]

I've seen a couple of non-Sama Family-like machines on Ebay Italy as well. Can't remember their names. Have not seen any lately. Good thing the Lusso is still in production.

[mgwolf]

Timo,
You've had your Lusso for about 2 months now. Any further, up to date impressions? Are you still happy with it? What's your current impression of the ease/consistency of pulling good shots? Does it still compare favorably to the Cremina? Steaming issues? Any annoying aspects? Thanks. Michael

[timo888]

You've had your Lusso for about 2 months now. Any further, up to date impressions? Are you still happy with it? What's your current impression of the ease/consistency of pulling good shots? Does it still compare favorably to the Cremina? Steaming issues? Any annoying aspects?

Yes, Michael, the Lusso is still making very good espresso.

I have been using it twice a day, three times a day on weekends, and there have been no reliability problems.

The Lusso heats up quickly and can be left on for hours, if desired, without any overheating issues whatsoever. The absence of conducted heat from the boiler accounts for this. The self-regulating convection of the thermosyphon loop keeps the group at optimal temperature.

The Lusso has good intra-shot and inter-shot temperature stability. Between shots, the group cools off by itself, again because there is no heat conducted to the group from the boiler. The group has to dissipate only the excess heat it sinked from the brew water.

Steaming is great--very easy to produce microfoam. Also, the ability to steam milk while the extraction progresses and without any impact upon temperature stability has proven to be very convenient. The Lusso is always ready to steam, and recovery after steaming is instantaneous.

All of these strengths make the Lusso a good choice for a personal machine but also a good choice for those who would like their machine to produce drinks for guests. With the Lusso, you could easily entertain half a dozen guests. However, the Lusso is not a catering-class machine that can produce a drink every 60 seconds; but caterers need such machines; a home-barista does not.

With the consistency of the spring, it is very simple to dial in the grind. With the spring-lever, when you make a small adjustment to the grind, you know it will have an effect upon the extraction. With a manual lever, muscle memory is much less consistent, and so your tweak to the coarseness or fineness of the grind might be undone by variations in muscle power.

The Cremina is made to much tighter tolerances and to me is aesthetically the more pleasing of the two machines. But a new Cremina costs over $3000 and the Lusso costs under $800. Even a used Cremina on eBay these days is likely to cost more than a new Lusso and could very well need replacement parts that drive the cost up and delay one's gratification.

Regards
Timo

P.S. What I do not like about the Lusso is its drip tray grate: drips from the spouts form puddles on the surface of the grate. If it were mine, I'd have enlarged those holes a few mm with a drill already. That's all it would take, I think, to eliminate the annoyance.

[grong]

P.S. What I do not like about the Lusso is its drip tray grate: drips from the spouts form puddles on the surface of the grate. Rolling Eyes If it were mine, I'd have enlarged those holes a few mm with a drill already. That's all it would take, I think, to eliminate the annoyance.

I have a dedicated drip collection cup, a Dansk coffee cup. When my shot is drawn, I slide my espresso cup out of the way, and slide the drip collection cup into position under the portafilter. I also use this drip collection cup to collect water bled off from the hot water spout (recommended once a week), and purging the steam wand. This helps keep drippy messes contained, and the shallow drip tray beneath rarely has any water in it.

Lusso's wide tray makes it easy to keep the drip collection cup out of the way of espresso preparation activities, yet nearby, ready to be slid into service. Well, that's my solution, for now anyway.

[timo888]

Yesterday, the pressure continued to rise to 1.5 without stopping at 1.1-1.2 where it is set, so I immediately turned off the machine. I had descaled once before with CleanCaf about 2½-3 months ago and perhaps it was time to descale again. I use only relatively soft Deer Park spring water. A few bottles of Durgol® descaler, a Swiss product new to me, had arrived the day before.

Durgol is a "rapid" descaler whose active ingredient is amidosulfonic acid. Judging from the instructions on the bottle, the company assumes you have a tiny boiler and call for a 1:1 Durgol-to-water ratio:

Put 1-2 cups of Durgol® express [odd that "express" is not part of the registered name] into the water tank and dilute it with the same amount of cold tap water.

The large bottle contains only 16.9 fl. oz (500ml), so if you have to use a 1:1 concentration, you would need a liter of the stuff for a 3 liter boiler 2/3 full, which would make the product an expensive descaling solution for machines with a large boiler. So I decided to use a relatively dilute concentration: 240ml of Durgol with 2+ liters of water.

I descaled by pulling lots of blank shots, running the steam wand and hot water tap, taking care to turn off the machine when the water level approached the bottom of the sight glass. When the pressure had dissipated, I refilled the boiler with clean water and repeated that same process, twice again.

Unlike CleanCaf, which imparts a bluish tint until rinsed away, Durgol at dilute concentrations is clear; but it has an odor which lingers until it has been rinsed away.

After the descaling, the machine was so "squeaky clean" the piston was not working smoothly. (This did not happen with CleanCaf.) The seals seemed to be binding inside the cylinder. So I decided to lube the seals. This over-cleanliness suggests that the Durgol concentration could be even further diluted.

The piston-lube is a task for the intrepid.

I removed the c-clip that secures the piston-rod-pin -- it popped off and is somewhere in my kitchen. Next time, I will take the machine to a clean room at Intel headquarters and dress in a white suit. I do prefer the eyelet-type circlip even though they look less elegant.

I removed the drip tray grate and drip tray, put a soft plastic food container beneath the group bell, and tapped on a small wooden dowel with a hammer to push the piston rod down. The spring is under quite a bit of compression inside the bell, and it shot out with considerable force and cracked the soft plastic food container. So make sure something soft is beneath the piston if and when you do this piston-lube. You might want to do it in the back yard with a blanket and soft earth beneath you. Who cares what the neighbors will think

Tomorrow: Re-installing the piston.

Some measurements:

Spring
Length: 72.5mm
O.D. 37mm
Thickness: 5mm
Number of active coils: 6


Piston seals:
O.D. 39mm ; thickness: 7mm

Group gasket:
55x43x5mm



Regards
Timo

[hbuchtel]

Some measurements:

Spring
Length: 72.5mm
O.D. 37mm
Thickness: 5mm
Number of active coils: 6

Cool, nice to see the inside!

For reference, the original Zerowatt spring had these dimensions-

Length: 87mm
O.D.: 46.5mm
Thickness: 5.5mm
Coils: 4

Henry

[Dogshot]

Nice to see the guts of the PV group.

One thing that I like about the PV group that is different from other groups like the Cremina, Pavoni (I think), and also some other spring groups like the Micro Casa is that there is no water exchange between the area above the piston and the area below it. This means that the spring in the PV group never actually comes in contact with brew water (and contacts less lube, seals etc).

One minor improvement that I think the PV group could borrow from the Micro Casa group is how low the boiler feed from the group is in the Leva's piston chamber. On the Micro Casa, this would lead to less suction through the basket before the brew water engages.

Would you be so kind as to tell me how you (and what you used to) remove the GH screen? What were the exact steps taken to remove the piston, and where exactly you put the lube? Since the cast aluminum base is not so easy to remove from the body of the Export, I suspect that I will buy a clamp large enough to span the group before I try disassembling mine.

Mark

[timo888]

Would you be so kind as to tell me how you (and what you used to) remove the GH screen? What were the exact steps taken to remove the piston, and where exactly you put the lube? Since the cast aluminum base is not so easy to remove from the body of the Export, I suspect that I will buy a clamp large enough to span the group before I try disassembling mine.

I am going to make a simple clamp after a design I've seen here on H-B. When I remember who showed how to do this in a restoration thread, I will link to that thread.



Four threaded rods, eight washers, eight hex nuts, two pieces of 2x4, a saucer scooped out from the bottom piece for the bell to nestle into, and a slot chiseled out of the top piece to keep the top of the group bell from becoming skittish. Tighten the top nuts to squeeze the spring back into place.

Top view:

.....................................
.....................................
....(O)..................(O)......
.....................................
....(O)..................(O).....
.....................................

To remove the piston, I removed the circlip, tapped the pin out with a flat punch, placed a wooden dowel on the top of the piston rod and gave it a few judicious taps with a hammer, to push the piston down and out of the group. At a certain point, the piston comes out with much force, which pops the screen off. One could use the clamp to keep things under control during disassembly.

To lube existing seals in good condition, I simply spread a little Dow 111 on all exposed surfaces of the seals. Doesn't matter if a little gets onto the piston gland. A little smear suffices.

Regards
Timo

[mousetail]

I dismantled and re-assembled my PV Lusso group using this clamp.




With some care it is possible to clamp between the top of the group (behind the piston rod) and the shower screen before removing the lever pin, thus avoiding the exploding spring scenario. You need first to remove the drip tray and support the machine - I used a workbench - to get the clamp in the best position.

regards
Bob

[timo888]

I dismantled and re-assembled my PV Lusso group using this clamp.

<image>
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With some care it is possible to clamp between the top of the group (behind the piston rod) and the shower screen before removing the lever pin, thus avoiding the exploding spring scenario. You need first to remove the drip tray and support the machine - I used a workbench - to get the clamp in the best position.

Bob,
That clamp appears to be much better suited to the task of lubing the Lusso's piston seals than my quick-and-dirty version of the wooden clamp. I used a modified version of the quick-and-dirty wood clamp last night, and wouldn't want to do that again.

The most difficult aspect of the reinstallation was repositioning the lever fork so the pin could be reinserted: a notch had to be cut into in the top 2x4 to accommodate the fork, whereas your clamp could be positioned behind the fulcrum, leaving the fork mount unobstructed. How precarious is that ledge?

Also, the wooden clamp needs a small wooden disk positioned directly below the piston, so that when the bottom 2x4 is flush with the bottom of the group bell, the piston is being pushed up into the group. I used a stack of large washers as a stopgap. Your clamp handles that aspect of the task well too.

Regards
Timo

[mousetail]

How precarious is that ledge?

It does need some care but it's possible to use it. The top jaw of the clamp has a plastic anti-scratch guard which helps with the grip.

..and no, I'm not an agent for Irwin clamps...

Bob

[Dogshot]

That clamp appears to be much better suited to the task of lubing the Lusso's piston seals than my quick-and-dirty version of the wooden clamp. I used a modified version of the quick-and-dirty wood clamp last night, and wouldn't want to do that again.
Also, the wooden clamp needs a small wooden disk positioned directly below the piston, so that when the bottom 2x4 is flush with the bottom of the group bell, the piston is being pushed up into the group. I used a stack of large washers as a stopgap. Your clamp handles that aspect of the task well too.

This is all very good to know. I was thinking that the wooden clamp would need a piece of something to help push the piston against its spring to get it high enough into the group to re-engage the c-clamps.

Without first removing the dispersion screen, is there no chance that the force of the piston pushing out the screen could damage the screen?

Mark

[timo888]

Without first removing the dispersion screen, is there no chance that the force of the piston pushing out the screen could damage the screen?

My experience with spring-type dispersion screens is not extensive, though I have never damaged a dispersion screen by using the piston to force it off. The damage to these screens that I have seen documented here on H-B occured when attempts were made to pry them off. Prying can bend or break the claspers.

Regards
Timo