Ken Fox wrote:RAS wrote:Just received my La Cimbali Junior after sitting on the fence too long and missing the incredible deal offered on two of them by Chris during the recent HB-anniversary sale. Oh well. When I amortize the price I paid over the number of years the Junior will last, I'm fine with what it cost me.
This last weekend was my first chance to play with it, and as others have already written, this is an incredible grinder. Being a tinkerer, I decided to take the hopper off and have a slightly better look at the burr and entry path for beans into the burrs. I came up with a feed-funnel idea that I've already implemented; it guarantees that no beans get hung up on the little ledge right before the burrs (I used a cycling water bottle which I cut down to give me a funnel which fits perfectly inside the throat).
While I had the hopper off, I plugged the grinder in and turned it on, then off, and noticed that, as the lower burr was slowly coming to a stop, it is not perfectly aligned with the upper burr, in a rotational sense. That is, it seems to wobble a bit relative to the upper, stationary, burr. My guess is that the mounting hole for the lower burr is larger than the motor shaft onto which it mounts, and that it was cinched into place while slightly out of alignment. (A bolt is used to secure the lower burr to the shaft.)
The grinder seems to grind very well in spite of the wobble, so I'm wondering if it's worth trying to correct... Though, if it grinds this well with the burrs slightly out of alignment, how good would it do if they were aligned?! Malachi, or anyone else who's gotten familiar with this grinder, as only a true geek can, I'd appreciate some insight.
Thank you!
I think you need to confirm that it is really out of alignment, and what you are seeing is not an optical illusion. Also, you need to be sure when this condition exists; if it is just as the burrs are coming to a halt, it may have something to do with the design of the grinder, rather than it being a manufacturing fault.
Any company can make a manufacturing mistake, or any product can be damaged in shipping, however Cimbali does have very high standards on everything they put out with their name on it.
Greg Scace called me with a similar problem he had observed on a Junior grinder that he bought a couple of years ago; in the end he had it replaced. How he confirmed that in fact there was a problem and not just an erroneous observation, I'm not sure.
For the record, I have essentially three of these grinders, a ten year old Cadet (bought new) which is more or less the same thing, plus two current vintage Juniors. I've not had any problems with any of them.
With the information you have given us I don't think there would be any way that we could tell you what the difference would be if you got one that ground in a more "aligned" fashion.
For the record, grinding for espresso the burrs are pretty damn close together. If there was a significant problem with the alignment you would either get poorly and irregularly ground beans with inability to make fine adjustments, or you'd be hearing metal on metal grinding as the burrs hit at some point, or both. In the absence of those observations and if the grinds come out well and you have no problems with adjustability, my guess is that you have either an optical illusion or a design situation in how the grinder stops once the power is cut.
ken
