I picked up a Simonelli MDX. Man, those things are big and ugly. So, in an attempt to make it worthy of the countertop, I made a few modifications.

- Removed the ugly black plastic base and relocated the switch and motor capacitor up into the body
- Replaced the ugly black plastic switch with an old school metal switch. This had the side benefit of having to only drill a hole instead of cutting a rectangular hole out of it.
- Rubber feet from Home Despot
- Stripped the paint from the body
- Ground out all of the casting marks from the body
- Polished the body to a mirror finish
- The grind chamber is large enough to hold about 18g worth of beans, so I removed the hopper since I drink real coffee in the morning, and decaf the rest of the day. I didn't want to have to empty the hopper all the time. Right now, I'm just setting a stainless cap for a small thermos on top of it.
- Can anyone guess what the doser was replaced with?

Here is a before pic and after pics:

Sleek! Don't know about the funnel. An old oil filter?

Not an old oil filter. Originally, I bought a $5 stainless water bottle and some stainless condiment cups (4 for 88 cents) at Walmart. I cut the ends off the water bottle, and tried welding the condiment cup to it. It would have been awesome, but it was 26 gauge metal, and I didn't have a small enough electrode or small enough filler rods for it. I got it welded up, but it looked like crap. Never show anyone your crappy welds... I could have done it with the MIG, but didn't have the right gas for stainless.

To be honest, I think what I used looks great, but I haven't tested it yet. I don't know if the bottom angles enough to prevent grounds from sitting on the slanted portion. If they do, I'll pull it off and polish the inside of it to make it more slippery. Failing that, I'll have my buddy turn one out of aluminum on his lathe. If anyone has interest in a custom machined one, let me know, he'd probably be interested in making a few bucks.

So, any more guesses on the chute?

no idea on the chute. looks awesome. from how you describe I'd guess you very inventively found something that is a perfect fit for the original doser cover that needed little to no modding. I'm gonna guess it's a center cap cover from a truck hubcap thing a majingy whatdyacallit or some such thingamabob.

It's not the original cap either. It's a Porter Cable PTA30 replacement gravity feed paint cup for an HVLP sprayer. $15 brand new, and it's stainless.

Well the thing looks great! Have you tested to see if it's retaining much of the grinds? it would seem to be a low cost alternative. Ive got a mazzer that I wouldn't mind getting rid of the doser. I'm working on a glass hopper for it now.

That is a really well executed restore and mod. Congratulations!
Respectfully
~Richard

benhogan wrote:Well the thing looks great! Have you tested to see if it's retaining much of the grinds? it would seem to be a low cost alternative. Ive got a mazzer that I wouldn't mind getting rid of the doser. I'm working on a glass hopper for it now.

Yesterday, it was retaining a LOT of the grinds. Probably 10g on a 15g dose. This morning, it wasn't nearly as bad, so I have no idea what changed. But it still does retain quite a bit, both from static, and from grinds not exiting the grind chamber completely and building up in the port that goes into my chute.

I'm looking for suggestions or ideas on anti-static options right now. There are products out there (tiny ionization probes), but they are expensive at $600 or more.

The other part is getting the grinds to exit into the chute completely. I think that this can be fixed fairly easily by putting something resembling a ducted fan "ring" on the top or bottom of the burr carrier. I need to pull it apart and look to see where it would suck in air the best. Making one would be easy, as you'd just have a ring of flat metal, and then cut angled slits into it, and bend them all up at the same angle. The more effective option here would be to cut out a hole below the grind chamber exit, and then slope it downwards at a steep angle, but that's a pretty major modification, and the motor might be too close to the housing body to do this properly. Another option might be to put a small silicone "extension" on the 4 machined surfaces on the bottom of the burr carrier to make it throw the grounds better.

The nice thing is, this grinder is amazingly simple compared to the exploded diagrams of some of the others I've seen, and it's designed to be easily serviceable. I can tear the whole thing down in about 10 minutes, and it takes about 15 mins to put it back together. And that's taking *everything* off of it.

As it sits right now, it grinds very well, and it does it's job. I just have to brush all of my grounds out of it after I grind, which takes about 15 seconds.

Whatever you do don't get a polonium based ion source, its been used successfully to kill at least one ex-spy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko. Ive used it in ultra precise analytic balances to reduce static forces on the sample. Also, I think a fan would blow grind all over the place. Maybe just tapping the chute will be sufficient?

Whatever you do don't get a polonium based ion source, its been used successfully to kill at least one ex-spy.

Hah, maybe I'll stick a chunk of my uranium ore in there. It's not nearly radioactive enough to cause ionization though, it's only about 5 times normal background radiation. My Fiestaware uranium glazed plates from the 1930's though....

This morning though, there was considerably less static, so I'm not quite sure why. Maybe when the guts of a newly cleaned machine get coated with coffee oils, it prevents static charges from forming so easily because the grounds have a layer of oil between them and the bare metal. Just speculation, but that's the only thing I can think of.

As far as the fan blowing grinds everywhere, if I make an aggressive one and it causes a coffee storm in my kitchen, at least I'll know that it works. I can then make it less aggressive. It just needs to be aggressive enough to get the grounds out of the grind chamber port.