Decent Espresso Machine - Page 75

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decent_espresso (original poster)
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#741: Post by decent_espresso (original poster) »

roastini wrote:That suggests to me a UL certification date in August (assuming no problems with the design) and final machines begining to ship in maybe September or October. Obviously there are many variables, so the real outcome could be very different, but is that a plausible estimate
We'd submit for UL Certification in June, it would come back with a hopefully yay or nay in July/August. However, UL won't delay our shipping, because we have 90 "early access" machines already ordered, so we'll be making those as we wait for the UL certification paperwork to arrive. Once it does, we just continue making machines, but now we put a UL/CE label on the machines.

Currently, about 170 DE1/DE1+ machines have been ordered, and we'll start fulfilling that backlog as of June. August/September is probably a realistic date for when we'll have delivered on our pre-orders and start to be able to ship to new customers.
bachampion wrote:Do you find much use for the left hand leaver (The one that attaches to the group head)? I ask as I think if the group head cover went lower and had a hole for the right hand leaver to go into it may look better, but it would only work if the there was only one position for the leaver.
I'm sorry, I don't understand what "leaver" you're describing. On the front, there's a group head, steam wand, and tablet. No "lever".

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#742: Post by bachampion »

decent_espresso wrote: I'm sorry, I don't understand what "leaver" you're describing. On the front, there's a group head, steam wand, and tablet. No "lever".

The handle is probably a better name for it. The thing you hold onto when inserting the portafilter. I noticed in your renders that there is 2 locations for it. One just to the right of center-line and the other ~90 degrees to the left.
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#743: Post by decent_espresso (original poster) »

bachampion wrote:The handle is probably a better name for it. The thing you hold onto when inserting the portafilter. I noticed in your renders that there is 2 locations for it. One just to the right of center-line and the other ~90 degrees to the left.
Ah, now I understand what you mean. There currently are two drill holes for it in the group head, so you can choose if you want it on the right or left side. Some small number of people (maybe 10%) prefer it on the left hand side, but most like it on the right. I haven't yet decided if we'll keep the left hole when we manufacture. Probably.

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#744: Post by bachampion replying to decent_espresso »

Personally I don't like the look of the second hole, looks like something is missing. Just my 2c
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#745: Post by jwCrema replying to bachampion »

Other espresso machines have dials and possibly a PiD. This machine is using a tablet going far beyond what dials can do. So, you get more information, but through the tablet. This is an ultra modern design. :D

(I do have a DE1+ on order, so I am biased).

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#746: Post by bachampion replying to jwCrema »

If you have a look at this image, all I'm referring to is this second placement of the handle. That's all.

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#747: Post by decent_espresso (original poster) »

bachampion wrote:If you have a look at this image, all I'm referring to is this second placement of the handle. That's all.
I agree, it does look like a missing part, it's a minor thing, but I get your comment. I don't know if we'll remove that in the future or not, it's a flexibility vs aesthetics question.

In most cases, though, that unused port is not visible, because the group head cover hides it.

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#748: Post by decent_espresso (original poster) »

Revisited: getting an even water flow into the coffee bed.

Occasionally, we've seen "cavities" in our spent coffee puck, after an espresso shot, that look like hot water came through harder than elsewhere. Ideally, we want water to come out of the group head shower in an even way, so this has been something to solve.

We think that this problem is caused by how the holes on the group head shower are oriented. If you rotate the shower a bit, the holes can lie directly under where the water is coming out, and thus you'll have an uneven water distribution. We thought the problem was possible hole alignment between the shower and the shower screen, and that might contribute, but definitely getting the water to flow through the shower evenly is the first priority.

By the way, this is what a shower looks like:



and this screen sits on it, right on top of the coffee bed.



To test this theory, we loosened the screw, rotated the group head shower slightly, and voila! the holes-in-the-puck problem went away.

However, I don't think that's not a great solution for you guys, because it means everyone then has to worry about how these holes align if they take this apart to clean it. We thought that it'd be better if the hot water entered the group head as close to the center as possible, so that it has a better chance of flowing out everywhere evenly, and in such a way that hole alignment didn't matter.

Below is an annotated CAD drawing of our solution. The water path now has a little "cave" that redirects it very near the center, and in such a position that no shower screen holes will ever be below it.



FYI that hole on the far left is for flushing the dirty water out at the end of the shot. We have a separate water path for that so that we don't soil the clean "making espresso" water path.

And FYI #2, we're likely going to redesign that shower, rather than using an off-the-shelf part, to have more holes in it, so that water enters in a more distributed manner into the shower screen.

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#749: Post by anakinstoys »

to continue on your theory, can you recreate the "cavities" by aligning the holes? just curious because you said "occasionally" and wanted to rule out some weird tamping thing. which make me wonder if "squirters" are a tamping thing or if water is distributed unevenly. it seems to me it was always blamed on the tamp.

what happens if you get rid of the shower altogether? i ask this because....
my expobar has a single hole dispersion screw, i find those little grooves interesting and wonder if they do anything...

water comes out of that hole and directly hits the shower screen..

now the creative thing that they did, and i'm not sure if its engineering or marketing, but they carved out a trough/channel that fills up before the full pressure hits the puck...


i'm just curious what happens if you just let the water hit the screen and especially so with a much finer screen like the IMS.

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#750: Post by decent_espresso (original poster) »

anakinstoys wrote:to continue on your theory, can you recreate the "cavities" by aligning the holes? just curious because you said "occasionally" and wanted to rule out some weird tamping thing. which make me wonder if "squirters" are a tamping thing or if water is distributed unevenly. it seems to me it was always blamed on the tamp.
What's a "squirter" -- is that what I might call "tempoarary channeling" where it sprays water out some random direction? If that's what you mean, I'd agree with you that's a tamping/grinding issue.

No, I'm talking about a ~4mm depression in the top of the puck, when you take it out. Doesn't happen every time though, which is confusing.

That expobar setup is pretty clever, it looks to me like they put some research work into all that.

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