This is a grinder that I got with a Laurentis machine from a restaurant. The seller called it a "big, old ugly thing" that he'd throw in with the machine purchase. The grinder has a decent reputation and new ones are quite expensive so I'm going to work on it a bit.



Here's looking into a 16 year old commercial grinder at a fancy, downtown Seattle seafood restaurant. Just as it looked when they pulled their last shot with it I assume. I know that machine maintenance is spotty in general and I'm learning that grinder maintenance is almost non-existent.

The manager told me that they were converting to pods for coffee. I told him that I thought that was probably a good idea.



Doser didn't look too bad from the top. It appears to sweep pretty cleanly even if the vanes are caked with oils and grinds. It's beat on the outside though. I think I'll go doserless instead of replacing the expensive doser bits.



Maybe I can do some carbon dating on the grinds trapped in between the doser canister wall and the body.

djmonkeyhater wrote:Doser didn't look too bad from the top. It appears to sweep pretty cleanly even if the vanes are caked with oils and grinds. It's beat on the outside though. I think I'll go doserless instead of replacing the expensive doser bits.

I'd say that it sweeps very cleanly. How bad off is the rest of the doser? Personally, I'd keep it if it sweeps that well... that put's my unmodified Mazzer Super Jolly to shame.

OK. I won't throw away all of the doser pieces yet.



Out comes the top burr. Three screws and the burr is in my hands. These are usually not too hard to get out.

The micro-adjustment on this grinder is done by the little index points in the burr carrier. There is a spring loaded pin in the top of the body that aligns with them. It's technically not stepless but since it's a large diameter and the index points are numerous, it should be pretty flexible for adjustment.

I have a Super Jolly which is effectively stepless but it's design isolates the burr carrier from the rotation of the adjustment ring. The top burr floats vertically but is axially fixed and does not require that pin/detent interface to resist the rotation of the spinning burr and the beans. The Mazzer system is more complex and I'm sure more expensive to manufacture.



Bottom plate off of the doser and some more goods up in the spout. And it has a counter.



Here it is with the doser "lens"/plastic canister out.

Interesting to note is that the grounds exit via a plastic chute from the grinding chamber. So the main body is just a way to hang the grinder pieces in the right places and actually doesn't touch beans. Maybe it's more modifiable since you aren't attacking the top 1/3 of the machine like the Cunill or even the whole body like in a Mazzer if you try and modify the chute.

It also means you might be able to take just the guts, hang them from something and get closer to that Versalab minimalism.....

Here's the bottom plate. It stayed pretty clean inside the doser mechanism.



Apparently some over enthusiastic barista busted the portafilter fork off a couple times and they free-formed the hardware to keep it exciting.

All said - is this thing handsome or what???



Here's the doser star. Those vertical fins seem to rotate to optimize a sweep of the canister walls. A cool feature it would seem.

Every now and then when I come across something I don't want to clean, I look up the cost of buying the parts to motivate me. The five pieces of plastic and one piece of stainless you see in front of you are worth more that $100 before shipping to replace. Into the cleaning tank for you!!!

found it!! here she is just as i got her home.

I'm gonna need a new one of these if I keep the doser. You can't see it here but it's all chewed up on top from portafilter screeing/leveling.



Here's the plastic chute out. Cheaper plastic than I was thinking it might be.



A view into the belly of the beast.

Keep up the posts, it inspires me to get back to work on my La Cimbali Cadet. The amount of old beans stuck in the insides of all these used grinders makes we question having coffee at any place other than home or at a fellow HB's place...

Mark

hello,
if you are interested in more pics and ideas:

http://popovic.info/html/lsm_90_umbau.html
http://fotoalbum.web.de/gast/grazie_marco/lsm_90_beige

today I would not do the doserless-mod any more.
cari saluti blu

blu wrote:...
today I would not do the doserless-mod any more.
cari saluti blu

Why wouldn't you go doserless?

Fascinating pictorial, the San Marco in the post has a nice clean method of attachment. I would love to get a hold of just the burr assembly from a grinder for some experimenting..

Mark

Let's take a look down inside. Here's the bottom burr, the one that spins. The burr is mounted on brass carrier, visible in the center, and held on by the three screws. The hex bolt in the center holds the carrier onto to a steel shaft that the motor spins. ON THIS GRINDER, THE HEX BOLT IS REVERSE THREAD. This will be difficult to replace if you break it like I did. You do not need to mess with it to change the burrs.

The three things on the side that stick up around the burr are "wings" that help to sweep the grounds out of the chamber and into the doser. From messing with these, I think that it's about 50% physical contact and 50% air movement. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. It's clear to see that there are lots of places for coffee scunge to get stuck in this mechanism. If you could get those wings to really throw some air, it would hopfully go a long way towards clearing ground coffee from the the exit port. On most grinders like this that I have used, the exit port does not ever empty completely. Once the coffee is in the port the wings can't push it out and the air movement is inadequate. I've seen a modification that talked about compressed air as a solution but you'd need to make sure the grounds only blew in the right direction.



Here's the panel that covers the bottom. 4 screws and it's out. I'm not sure of the rationale behind routing the power cord out of the front. Maybe it's a cafe thing. I may relocate it to the back. It looks a little grimy, who knows what lies within. I like the badge on the bottom a lot. Maybe it can be relocated to where you can see it.



It turns out - not much. The sealing up above must be pretty good all told because this thing was NASTY dirty up top.