My solution to the "throw-left" issue is to use a plastic dosing tray, which you can obtain from Orphan Espresso. They're on sale at the moment. I use them for weighing beans and the dose, too.

After filling from the doser and checking the dose weight, I squeeze the tray slightly at one corner and tap the grounds evenly into the basket. The doser throw becomes irrelevant and WDT isn't necessary. I finish off by leveling with a modified Sockfleth's move and two or three taps to settle the grounds. Tamp and go.

Not an original idea, but it's the best way I've found to get even distribution.

Let's get back to the subject of the thread for a moment.

This morning I looked down into the throat of my K10 and was surprised to see that the OP is right -- the outer burr carrier moves slightly when the lock screw is tightened. I haven't yet tried to determine how much concentricity is affected.

I tried running the grinder with the screw not tightened down, and while there's no gross movement of the grind setting, it's not clear to me that it won't change slightly as a single dose is ground. Also, there's so much startup torque that the outer carrier tends to jump slightly at the beginning of the grind if the screw isn't tightened.

It'll take some experimentation to see if the flow rate is affected by the state of the lock-down screw. I'll try to find time to test and get back to the group on that.

It's probably too much to hope for that Compak compensates for the movement by installing the burrs slightly off center...

Peppersass wrote:My solution to the "throw-left" issue is to use a plastic dosing tray...

I know it works for you, but that's alot of work! Is your PF a 58mm or are you running a smaller sized PF?
(I used to think people who complained about WDT were just too picky. You can count me in that group now I guess! )

My dosing tests so far are looking good. The mound of the pile from the doser is slightly to the left of center, but no where close to the edge. Using a finger or popsicle to move that mound to the edges for an even load is 2-3 moves, then tamp. No WDT. No RDT. No tapping. No funnels. No spritzers. Just easy espresso.

I'll have to switch to my spouted PF for some dosing tests and pulls too. That will center the PF in the fork for sure; just to make sure I'm not settling the naked PF on the left side to compensate like usual.

Peppersass wrote:Let's get back to the subject of the thread for a moment.
This morning I looked down into the throat of my K10 and was surprised to see that the OP is right -- the outer burr carrier moves slightly when the lock screw is tightened. I haven't yet tried to determine how much concentricity is affected.
...
It's probably too much to hope for that Compak compensates for the movement by installing the burrs slightly off center.

First off, Compak can't compensate for any movement since they don't know where that lock screw will set in relation to the carrier. You can mount the top on the carrier in a few different positions, so it's just not possible that this has been done.

As far as the movement in the burr carrier that is limited to the vertical "slop" of the threads. The tighter the thread tolerances the less vertical movement you will have. Not sure what the tolerance is on these K10, but the threads are pretty tight. I imagine there is very little room for movement, but a machinist with a few precision tools could tell for sure.

Any findings you have will be interesting to read.

The K10 burr carrier has always had a lot of slop, set screw or not. When I use the revision that has the screw, I anecdotally get more consistent results by lightly tightening it while grinding beans.

Are you talking about vertical thread fitting slop? Mine seems pretty tight on the vertical plane.

Eventually, I'll make a full report with some more photos and pics if necessary, but for now this should suffice for many that need the mod.

Okay, this doser fix seems to be working okay, so here are some pics of my mod.

Empty PF on tamping stand. Holds 16.5-17.0g when full.


Put the PF on the doser fork. Left it there without any hand to steady it and dosed into the basket 17.0g. I didn't touch the mound at all. Should have taken some side shots I guess. You can see it loads barely to the left of the PF after my mod. Before the mod I would have had grounds all over the left hand side of the basket lip.


Light leveling with my popsicle stick. Fingers work fine too. I use the popsicle stick with a tapered, squared end for cleaning out the grinder burr chute, so it's a dual purpose tool. I used 3 swipes of the stick to level out the grinds.


Tamped and ready without any WDT, funnels or other implements.


(Note: You might want a little more tape around the top edge of the plastic. What I have works, but longer might be easier to work with in sticking.)
A top down view of the doser chute with the mod. The plastic is cut just a little wide to it will hold position in the chute without any tape. Use aluminum tape on the plastic, carefully wedge the plastic in place and hold the bottom where you want it. Carefully position the top of the plastic about 1/2 way down the chute, sealing the edges around with the aluminum tape to give you a clean and slick surface.


Another top view.


Bottom view. Notice how I'm angling off the left front flare of the chute. That's the design problem really - it's too wide. Anyway, make sure that left side flare is angled off.


More bottom views


More bottom views


When you have this plastic in place use a knife or razor to cut it off using the height of those black edges around the chute as your cut guides. I just carefully cut mine with a knife, keeping the same level and it works and looks fine.

Hope that helps someone.

looks awesome! when i develop some patience i will try this with an empty milk carton...so the aluminum tape never gets in the way of the bottom doser vane?

No, the tape starts about 1/2 way down the chute, so it's well away from everything moving. Also aluminium tape is thin enough and slick enough that grinds don't generally stick. So far with about 10 doses I didn't have anything spilling off the side of the PF. Even when it's loaded peaking high above the rim the peak is near center.

Compak just over extended that flare on the left, and with the inertia of the doser vanes and lever "thwacking" it throws grinds over the edge of the PF. Stopping those flying grinds from hitting the edge seems all it needed.

DanoM wrote: In case that helps I thought I'd throw it out there for you. Beans might benefit from more rest, but I don't know how long Demitasse rests their beans before use.

might be too late now to help but wanted to let you know that we prefer to use the beans with at least 6 days rest. the difference from 5 to 6 days is pretty staggering. earlier in the rest(before 6), the espresso is quite bright and doesnt have the balance that i'd prefer. 6+, the acidity subsides a bit and sweetness develops.

Frank,
Thanks for the pulling notes. I appreciate it. My Foundation is sitting on the counter with 7 days age right now. I'll have to get another pull in from that later today.
I don't typically pull espresso until at least 5 days, but sometimes you just have to see what happens.