Hello,

I got my LIDO 2 this weekend and I was very excited. I had waited for a while and was eager to try it out. So I looked it over. I examined the fit and finish . . . very solid, no blemishes--like a work of functional modern art. And then I got down to business to check out the burrs. I turned it upside town and held the handle against a table so it would not move and then rotated the hopper.

And I noticed that the inner and outer burrs are not aligned. There is about a 1 mm offset. That seemed a little strange . . .

So I emailed OE, and received an explanation that that is in fact a property of all grinders . . . that they all are designed with an offset such that the axis of rotation of the inner burr is in fact not the center of the circle formed by the outer burr.

Naturally, I thought that was odd and replied. So OE says I sound unsatisfied, they don't want to talk about it anymore, and they'll give me a refund if I send it back. Okay . . .

But I still don't understand why they say grinders are designed such that the centers of the inner and outer burrs are not the same.

Does anyone have any light they can shed on this?

Thanks

Ok, now that I have some time let me run through this again...

First, in our email response to your query we never said or implied that the burrs are designed with an offset so that the rotation of the burr is not in the center of the circle formed by the outer burr. This is absurd and NOT what we said in our email. So let's get that straight right off.

Now, all the tools to understand burr grinders and grinding burrs is contained within the hallowed halls of this very forum. I have been following along for 6 years or so and have learned a lot and gleaned a lot and then with a couple of years rebuilding wood box grinders and then 3 building Pharos and 1 building Lido 1 and now with about 350 Lido 2's done and out...but really one does not have to build these things to absorb a lot of the information right here on the forums. Terranova (Frank) has taught me more with his over the top renewals of Versalab grinders than he likely knows .

Ok, the Lido 2 has two 10mm bronze bearings with a 10 mm axle running through them. These are machine tolerances of 10.0mm. The inner burr has a 10.0mm hole through the center and it slides snugly on the 10.0mm axles. For the axle to turn smoothly all of these 10mm components must be in alignment or else the axle will bind. Now, this assembly is installed in some relationship with the outer burr which is in a carrier with the lower bearing in the adjustment ring which is threaded onto the carrier. Any misalignment of the threads means that the ring will not screw on to the carrier. The only moveable component in the system is the outer burr and if it is vastly off alignment as you reported to us then it would bind up and not turn. The tolerances all act as a fail safe in the construction of the grinder in that if the bearings are aligned then the inner burr is centered and if the outer burr is wrong then the whole thing locks up so what you reported to us is simply not really possible or we are misunderstanding what you are reporting.

We suggested that instead of taking the grinder apart and parsing out something that is possibly an artifact that you grind some coffee and see if the grinder performs to your expectations. In the instruction manual we suggest that one use the grinder and not take it all apart as the reassembly might be a bit fussy, unless you have assembled a few hundred of these things. There is a technique and different torques to think of and order does count so that is why in the instructions we suggest not taking the outer burr out of the machine until we at least get time for a full instruction to detail how to put it back in properly. If not done properly then the zero may not be at the same mark point, as you noticed.

With the Lido 2 we had hoped that people would just use it as a tool to grind coffee and evaluate it on the merits in the cup. As a manufacturer we had hoped that the grinder would be used out of the box and not dissected upon arrival with the result being a non working grinder. It was suggested to us that we use tamper proof screws in assembly but we thought that too cynical.

We always offer a refund upon return for the products we make and sell and since we have a waiting list worldwide for this grinder it will not be in house long upon its return. It is the manner which we meet any and every complaint as this saves a lot of time and seems an open and honest way to approach customer dissatisfaction.

In our first response to you about your query we tried very hard to shed light on grinders and burrs et al. Using electric burr grinders as an example we pointed out that these grinders specify to only adjust the burr setting with the machine running. Why? It is because the burrs will touch at one spot on the 360* of the circle and that is called zero. When you hear the buzz you will turn it away from this point, but if you tighten the setting with the machine off you can find a spot (due to the manufacturing tolerance of the burrs) that you can set the gap BELOW zero and this will result in a burned motor or broken burr or both, so as a safe feature the grinder must be set only when running. This is a handy thing for electrics, since it obscures the reality of grinding burr manufacture, particularly the conicals. As far as flat burrs, it is a different situation since the flat tolerance is easier to get right than the conicals and the best machines have good parallel tolerance in the moving parts (think Ditting). Besides obscuring the not perfect fit of the inner and outer burr with the set only when running rule the electrics also benefit by not being able to be run upside down.

After 3 years of hearing about Pharos alignment (even though the espresso was great) we really don't want to get started on the Lido 2 since it is pretty much a self aligning fail safe machine, that's all.

Well Jebediah, have you ground coffee on the Lido 2 yet? If so, what is your impression of the result with regards to the appearance of the grounds and the taste of the cup?

How did you measure the 1mm "offset"?

Have you got a picture to describe what you see?

This post doesn't add to the technical meat of the discussion, but I wanted to say that I'm impressed with both parties (so far) posting here with a difference of opinion, yet not losing their cool, disparaging the other side, etc. I know from personal experience that it can be hard to express one's self, especially in an online forum, without digging in to the other party a little bit. Good job

This was OE's first reply, which only increased my curiosity:

"There will always be some level of gap on one side and not the other - it is the nature of all burrs. The zero point is where one single bit of the inner burr touches the outer burr, and we assemble the grinders with the zero mark set actually below first touch so that as they break in that point becomes closer, and the zero moves in the finer direction. This setting was a decision we made so that there was the least amount of loss of range. We could have chosen it such that there would be no touch at all, and just proclaimed it as zero, but doing that cuts off the lower end or range, but does limit the perception of, and argument about misalignment. When you remove the jar, and look at the burr from below, you will likely note that the inner burr appears to be seated in the outer burr, when you hold it up to the light, and look through the hopper, you can see the effect that I think you are referencing. What you are seeing is actually the dirty little secret of all coffee grinders - even the most expensive of grinders - the inner burr, and the outer burr do not perfectly center, and they will always touch at one place first - always. This is why an electric grinder manufacturer instructs to have the adjustments made while the motor is running - that first buzz of a sound is the burrs touching...If they touched all the way around, they would jam, and lock up. When you hear the buzz you call it zero, and back it off. With a hand grinder, you can actually set below zero by finding the corresponding off-round spots. In other words, the phenomenon is observable in a hand grinder. Since we didn't create a stop, limit the range, you can see that happen.

Does the grinder produce a satisfactory grind for your purpose?"

I ground some coffee at around 3/4 revolution from zero and found that it was good. I haven't used it enough to be able to compare and contrast it with other grinders yet.

I misspoke earlier. I did not "completely disassemble" the grinder as I said earlier--I removed the screw from the handle, removed the handle, removed the screw from the bottom of the lower bearing assembly, and removed the lower bearing assembly as described in the LIDO 2 prototype demo video. I did not remove the outer burr. I then reassembled the grinder in the obvious manner.

In the event that the axis of rotation of the axle is not through the center of the circle formed by the outer burr, the effect of this offset will be mitigated by using coarser settings. However, finer settings would be more affected--the distribution of particles sizes would be broadened more and more as one got closer and closer to the zero point. An offset of this nature would automatically make such a grinder relatively poor (or poorer) for finer grinds and espresso grinding compared to one without such an offset (all else held equal).

I like everything about the LIDO 2 except this particular issue . . . and unfortunately I do not see any way to fix it. Is there a way to fix this? Do other LIDO 2 owners have a similar offset? Perhaps a part supplier supplied a part that is out of spec?

My burrs don't seem to be exactly centered either, judging by the light gap I can see on one side but not the other. As I turn the handle, however, they seem to center themselves. I'm guessing what I'm seeing isn't any kind of misalignment but rather the results of a little play between the two burrs, likely by design.

As far as results in the cup go, everything is great so far! I don't even have the tightness in the knob that some are experiencing during break-in.

frank

If the tight spot moves when you turn the handle than the shaft is bent, the bearings are loose or the inner burr is imperfect. If the tight spot stays in the same spot you could try turning the outer burr. If it follows the rotation of the outer burr it's the outer burr, if it doesn't than it's the housing. Answer those questions and it will become much clearer what's going on. Also a close up in focus picture showing the magnitude of the problem would let all the other Lido 2 owners compare what you see to theirs so you'd get an idea if what you're seeing is normal or abnormal.

Ira

Without pictures to help me judge for myself, I'm going to assume the OP is obsessing in the "My Precious" stage of new gadget ownership. No judgment implied; we've all been there. My own preference would be for this to get resolved cordially via email/PM/whatever, but obviously that's not happening...

jebediah wrote:In the event that the axis of rotation of the axle is not through the center of the circle formed by the outer burr, the effect of this offset will be mitigated by using coarser settings. However, finer settings would be more affected--the distribution of particles sizes would be broadened more and more as one got closer and closer to the zero point. An offset of this nature would automatically make such a grinder relatively poor (or poorer) for finer grinds and espresso grinding compared to one without such an offset (all else held equal).

IMO, it is not true. When you set it closer and closer to the zero, the gaps of different sides of the inner and outer burr are closer and closer at the same time, so the grinds for espresso would not be poor, unless it is misaligned severely. The Pharos which makes excellent espresso proved it. I never considered that a conical burr grinder without this offset would be better since this grinder does not exist. I don't think the circle formed by the outer burr is a perfect roundness either. If you think the offset is a big issue, you should get a flat burr grinder.

One thing I noticed is that the inner burr 'floats' on the shaft. When you tun it upside down you can hear and see it shift on the shaft. This may influence how the alignment looks whether right side up or upside down.

Would be interested in the Doug's take on that.

So far the only improvement, other than the sticky knob, I can come up with is that instead of grooves on the adjustment and locking collars, use ridges for a better purchase. No complaints so far on it's ability to help produce good coffee.