Hey Folks
Recently started a thread asking for advice about gas to electricity conversion of Faema Lambro or Conti Empress, but thanks to fellow-member Zeb/Pascal I am now the happy owner of a Conti Empress. She landed in Sweden a couple of days ago, very carefully packed, surviving the handling of various freighters..
The machine has been partly restored and converted from gas to 220V by Zeb, with few restoration issues left to be solved, mostly replating and finding a light bulb for the indicator light, that I've now found a source for. The machine is overall in a very good condition, and I was thinking posting more about the usage including pics, once it is properly hooked up to water.
In the meanwhile I have a few questions/observations that I would like to hear other Empress users opinion about.
I managed last night to make a provisional waterhook up, via the garden hose, while waiting for fittings and an anionic filter to arrive, mostly to do a quick test run.
The machine first didn't heat up, until I realized that the false pressure built up by filling the boiler prevented the pressurestat from activating. After bleeding fp, the machine went up to 0,9 bar with no fuss and no leaks.
Made three shots, the first too quick extraction and sour, already second time, very spot on, just used the same grind as on my Valentina/BFC and adjusted volume and tamp a bit.

Issues: After proper shot volume, the machine keeps dripping for a long time with a volume more than an extra double shot, and when trying to release the PF I felt a resistance known to me from my Pavoni Europiccola, indicating risk for "Sneeze"
I waited a while, like 2 min, and gently released, wiggling a bit on the way out and the pressure escaped without blowing out ground coffee allover the place.
Obviously since this is a dipperfed lever with no solenoid, this could be more or less expected I presume, but is that other Empress owners experience as well? How do you manage? Do you press down the lever a bit to alleviate the pressure before removing PF?
It seems to me that the internal volume of the group must be much bigger than what is needed for a shot, and that is the extra volume dripping out once you've drawn your normal shotsize, leaving you with a wet puck and pressurized group. While pressing down the lever, with empty PF the speed with which the water comes out of the group is in my eyes very fast so you either have to do very short preinfusions if you don't want excessive water volume in the group which would then allow you to release the PF quicker without a sneeze, or find some way of restricting the flow of water into the group. I haven't opened the group yet, so don't know the internals or the diameter of the feeding tube which is of cause also important.
Another thing I noticed is that the dispersion screen is loose, you can press it 2-3 mm upwards and side to side, is this normal for the Empress, or due to a changed unoriginal screen or maybe the new PF gasket?
The pressurestat setting just below 1 bar in in correspondence with what Doug Garrot shows in his video from OE, do you other guys have this level as well? I can say, than steam power is in no way compromised at this setting, it is a wild horse compared to my BFC/Valentina. I saw in Kitts photos that he changed the steam tip , maybe to one easier controlled?
I have sought up an down various coffee forums for user experiences on the Empress, these are remarkably few, but hopefully this could be an initiative to share more knowledge on cup- and user aspects as well.
Hope you chime in
Best regards
Ulrik

Hi Ulrik
I only used my Empress for 2 weeks of testing, but here's my impressions; Bear in mind my lever group was slightly different than some i've seen, it uses an older style piston with 2 seals, not sure shich one you have.

1.I too found the shot volume quite large, at least 2 oz, this was after a 7-8 sec pre-infusion, no drips showing suring pre-infusion.

2.I didn't have much portafilter sneeze, i usually steam milk while shot finishes at same time.By the time i'd poured milk in, portafilter could be removed easily.You might want to check your piston level, just snap off the dispersion screen .I usually find the lower it is, the less residual pressure is left after the shot.I've never found the commercial levers to be as bad as Pavoni/elektra etc home machines.

3.If its the old style dispersion screen, you can remove them by pressing hard in the middle, this will make it deform into a concave shape, and pop off.You may need to raise piston to be able to do this.

4.I had pressurestat at .8 and still had plenty of steam

5.Yes, i changed steam tip, i usually do, as i find the old 4 or 5 big hole tips way too fast for the 4oz of milk i steam.Keep the original just in case.It was a standard 10mm x 1mm thread

6.It's normal to have a little play/movement in dispersion screens on these snap on type screens

Hope that helps, let me know if you need pic's/anything else

Thanks for the reply Mike, it was helpful. I will check the space between dispersion screen and piston, to see how much deadspace I have. Do you remember if it was a close fit between dispersion screen and piston in yours? Is there a way to modify this, can you adjust the length of the piston by unscrewing it some mm's? I understand that the spring is still pressurized in the "relaxed" state, so how did you get it out ( which I presume you will have to do to alter the length of the piston, if possible)
Best regards
Ulrik

Hi Ulrikmo,

as my group is in parts at the moment and as i know from the blog the piston in yours is identical to mine, i can give you the size. I think there is no possibility to change the "dead space", there are only two positions of the piston: lever up - piston down to the dispersion screen or lever pulled ( completely) - piston is up.
The two openings ( about 2mm each) where the hot waters comes thru are about 45 mm up from the dispersion screen, the diameter of the piston is about 50 mm so volume of the room between coffee powder and raised up piston should be ca. 88.5 ccm ?! Quite much!! ( as you wrote: propper shot + more than two extra-shots).
The feeding tube for the group has a diameter of approx. 8mm.
Is the shotsize of old faemas as high as well??

Espresso doppio wrote:Is the shotsize of old faemas as high as well??

My Lambro gives about 1 3/4 oz with a 7-8 sec pre-infusion.

Ulrikmo- while the piston height is not really adjustable, i just thought there was maybe something wrong with your set-up to be still having pressure 2 mins after shot.Here's a pic of my piston.It just touches dispersion screen when in the down position

Re ; the shot size - i just pulled the cup to one side when i thought the shot was finished/blonding started

I checked with the position of the piston, it is as shown in Kitts photo. When the spring is fully compressed, the piston travels ca. 3,8cm up, leaving a space corresponding to a volume of ca.78ml, more or less what EspressoDopio calculated, and a little bit more than the 2Oz stated by Kitt. Once I have the machine hooked up again I will measure the flowrate of the water, but a rough guess is that I could fill a 2 oz cup in 2-3 seconds. The Lambro of course have the flow restrictor, I presume it would be possible to alter the flow rate by inserting a smaller piece of pipe in the beginning of the feeding tube functioning as a kind of gicleur. I saw the shot size of a friends Faema Antiguo yesterday (the Spanish equivalent to the Lambro) and it had normal espressoshot volume. I think updosing would help on the sneeze problem. I noticed on the posterior side of the group is a small 2 mm hole, maybe for lubricating the spring?
Still waiting for the last fittings for the plumbing, hope next week

A few pics :



An interesting feature is the indicator light in the upper right corner, I haven't seen this in any other of the models depicted in the forums, but seen in on the Conti Princess. Can't wait to get the light bulb installed

Very nice Ulrikmo, looks to be in great shape.The spring on yours looks to have uneven compression in the middle, my original spring was even worse.Did Zeb happen to tell you which spring it uses? Doug from Orphan espresso says they use some Italcrem lever group parts, but i still found the Italcrem spring to be too long, and had to cut it down a little.

Hy all

I'm very busy right now but i didn't forget i had to try finding a good spring for this Conti Group .

I'm a little bit surprised that the Italcrem is too long, i thought it should be nice. I have to check in the week with my supplier and i'll tell you an answer.

Pascal


edit : Just made a mail to him, answer soon i hope

Did notice the uneven compression of the spring, and of course this may lead to uneven pressure relief and be a part of the explanation for residual pressure. I realized that I wrote something confusing yesterday, the flow restrictor of the Faema's serves for regulating the flow of the thermosyphon and not the direct flow to the group. The pipe diameter of 0,8 cm for the feeding tube of the Empress is larger than at the Pavoni, don't have the measures right now, and don't know how it is on other dipperfed levers..
Best regards
Ulrik
Edit: Just measured the diameter of the feeding tube in the Pavoni Europiccola, it is also 0,8cm outer measure, 0,6cm inner measure, meaning the same as the Empress!