Welly-well...

Had a bit of trouble with my LIDO.

It started with a stalled CCD, then a Moka-pot with hella mud in it. The Chemex was stalling about halfway also at a setting of OEL-2.0

When I started looking at the CCD brews, I noticed lots of longer-term floating grounds and REALLY slow percolation, and decided to try a gold-tone filter. Percolation was quick, but the resulting coffee had a ton of sludge in the bottom. Looking at the grounds, there were a lot of big particles on top. Re-filtering that cup produced a bunch of fines - and wouldn't fully percolate.

Decided to have a look at the zero, and found that at OEL-0.25, the burr would bind in one rotation position (and 180° opposite). If I put it in the free position, I could tighten it only to the zero (brass washer). I ground another 10g at OEL-1.5, and found the dreaded "boulders and dust". LOTS of dust. Like about 4g passing through a 400micron screen dust, with a healthy amount of 1mm+ particles. I concluded that my Lido had somehow become misaligned.

I took the opportunity to completely disassemble the thing and clean it.

Clue #1 to what was going on: upon starting disassembly, one of the main nuts and one of the bar nuts was basically finger tight, the other two required less than 1Nm to loosen (like breathe on the wrench and they were loose, less than 10° rotation). OrphanEspresso on youtube says to "tighten them as hard as you can", so these are undertorqued. This, BTW, was the very first time I have taken any tools to my LIDO.

I also had some issues with the "points" in the bearing plate next to the outer burr carrier wedging beans and not allowing them to progress into the burr (Colombia Excelsio Grade). I took the opportunity to knock those points back with a file while I had the thing apart.

Getting it back together wasn't too bad, aligning it was fussy but also not bad. It's now what I'd consider "super-aligned", no high spots when the burrs touch, just a constant "swish" at about 10° tighter than the brass washer. My center burr is just a bug's breath eccentric, but not worth potentially damaging the axle shaft in trying to tweak it.

Back together, realigned, re-set (zero is where the burrs JUST don't whisper, and fully tight is +0.5, so I kept the brass washer where it was, and also made sure the adjuster bar had the adjuster screw as close to centered on the burr as I could get it).

Tightened snug, rechecked the burr alignment, then cross tighten (like lug nuts on a car) about steps of 30° each nut until they all seemed to be very snug and approximately evenly torqued - I'd estimate about 10Nm or so. I could have cranked a bunch more, but it never seems to be perfectly snug - the plastic cap just seems to keep creeping. Not sure about the stretch of the long-bolts or the compression strength of the plastic column, either.

I was still at a loss as to how it got misaligned, and was cogitating on it while making a test cup of coffee. I treat the thing very nicely, never dropped it, never forced it.... until I did my usual procedure after grinding: shake to distribute all the grounds, crank any other dislodged bits, shake again, unscrew the jar and dump into my brewer, then....


...whack the side of the bottom of the grinder over the brewer with my palm to get all of the grounds off the burr. EXACTLY what you do when you are aligning it.
Cue clue #2.

The thing is sturdy, and maybe it gives you the impression it's nearly unbreakable. In hindsight, I learned a few things:

-Nuts that sandwich plastic are prone to creep and losing torque. Check them periodically. Maybe I'll replace with a Mason Jar Lid in the future.
-Try not to knock the bottom of the grinder sideways. This is exactly the motion that is used to align the burrs. If you happen to do this when the bolts are not fully torqued (or have lost torque), the grinder can be knocked out of alignment.


Hope this helps someone out there.

Cheers!

Steve, that's what I did! After alignment, I try to give it a vertical shake rather than thumping on the side of the burr. Followed by a few light puffs of air blown by myself over the sink.

I was very fastidious with aligning, but I got about a quarter turn rubbing at zero (.25 turn). Doug's video said 90% rubbing, so I was happy with 25% rub. (10% is amazing! wish i had that kind of touch. My tight point is also +1/2 turn from zero like Steve's.

I tried to center the adjustment screw like Steve described as well. I think that was one of the key things to making grinds consistent. Anyone has thoughts on putting/modding the top of the adjustment screw so it sits in the dead center of the burr axel?

OCD for the win!

Toward the beginning of this thread there was some discussion about knocking. I'm definitely a knocker, though maybe I don't go about it as vigorously as some.

Steve, what you're suggesting sounds plausible, so I'll check my nuts tonight (uh, that sounds wrong). I've never had trouble with these things working their way loose before though. Guess you're suggesting yours were never properly tightened in the first place?

After reading this, I knock mine on the side to get the last bit of grinds out as well. I wonder if I should stop that now

*deleted. Maybe a bit over the line with the double entendre

Update: I checked, and this LIDO knocker's nuts are nice and tight.

Related: for an easy way to reduce the need for knocking in the first place, you might try adding a drop or two of water to your beans before grinding. I was initially skeptical but came away impressed after a quick test. Check out my post in the relevant thread here:

Reducing Grinder Static - Revisited

that wont rust the burrs?

Apparently not based on comments over there. But I don't plan on doing it often--just thought it was a cool trick.

I've done the drop of water trick before, works like a charm most of the time. My Bodum is a little more static-producing, it takes maybe 4-5 drops to get the static down on a really sticky bean.

OT:
I'm pretty sure the nuts were tight upon receipt of my LIDO. It was only recently that I knocked mine out of alignment.

Since my LIDO is now aligned, I decided to experiment with it. The first thing is to check the torque overnight - tight.

Grab my mallet, give it a semi-mild tap on the burr carrier, and check the alignment. Oooohhh... now it's out of alignment, even though the nuts were tight. Bummer. Good news, tho: I could just adjust it back, but it goes out of alignment easier than I thought. It took a borderline sub-painful palm hit to knock it out of alignment - far more than normal but still possible without a mallet.

So, this morning, I modified the cap on my LIDO. Got some #6 washers (about 9.5mm dia), worked with a fine woodworking gouge and tapped a hole around the two main nuts (not the ones on the adjuster carrier bar). With the bar nuts tight, I removed the main nuts, pulled the little donut of plastic out (in the shape of a washer) and stuck my two washers (approximately 1mm thick) into the hole. Torqued the two main nuts.

Then, I removed the adjuster carrier bar, and the cap came off just like I wanted, while the grinder remained clamped and aligned.

Then, I drilled out the adjuster carrier bar holes in the cap, cleaned up all four holes, and put the cap back on. Then I put two washers in, installed the adjuster carrier bar, and torqued them up.

Nice feeling, it clamps down with a clean torque, doesn't feel like it's continually creeping. The cap is a smidge over 1mm thick, but it's smushed around where the nuts used to clamp.

Then, I removed the two main nuts, and installed #8 washers on top of the #6 to capture the cap.

This mod does two things:

-It puts basically metal between the nut and the burr carrier. Stable clampload when torqued, little opportunity for creep or clamp loss.

-It allows me to remove the cap without ever losing alignment (by alternating which pair I keep clamped). I can remove the #8 washers, tighten, then remove the carrier bar, and the cap comes off.

It takes about 3X as much force to misalign it now (but yes, it can still be misaligned with a VERY sharp tap or two). I expect (tho I won't be doing it) that it would stand up fine to hand tapping, but I think I'll leave it be and just use a combo of water drops and vertical-only taps. (I was unable to misalign it with palm hits, but I think I'll still refrain from doing so.)

I did have to move my zero point - it changed by 0.25 turns because the washers under the carrier bar are slightly thinner than the plastic. t-point is still another 0.5 turns tighter than zero.

I couldn't see a way to get a mason jar lid to work without a secondary seal or a metal plate adapter - A standard lid is recessed, so if you clamp it to the burr carrier without a washer, it will just distort badly. If you clamp it with washers, then there is a space between the burr carrier and the cap for grounds to get stuck.

I suppose some day I'll probably move to a metal lid of some sort, but this stabilizes the grinder for now.

CHEERS!


(BTW, 2.0 is decent for a Moka Pot, 2.25 is about 18.5% extraction, 2.0 is about 20%, and 1.75 is right around 22% - at least that's what I've seen with a few quick pots).