Abe Carmeli wrote:3) The WBC protocol is not the best way to test a machine's performance for home usage.

i'll just comment that that was never the intended purpose of the protocol.

DAY 5

Today we will take a look at the Cyncra under the hood. Let's move straight to some pictures.


Diffuser

a. Looking up at the diffuser you can see that it is made from stainless steel, the coffee oils wipe clean easily, reducing the effort required to clean the oil build up,

b. The bayonet ring is stainless steel not brass so it is not a wearing part, the ears of the portafilter will wear but not the bayonet ring

c. There is no plating in this picture that will wear off over time or flake away

Front view

a. The brew valve is the industry standard flange mount parker/Lucifer valve

b. The drain for the brew group is incorporated into the discharge manifold for easy draining

c. The wire used is 200 degree C rated

d. The readout for the BREW tank has an offset that allows it to be tuned to show the temperature at the contact point on top of the coffee

e. There is a 10 amp pump reset

f. The SS tube seen on the left carries water from the heat exchanger in the steam boiler to the brew boiler

g. There is no external tubing to cool the water on its path to the coffee, the tube system is also able to constantly bleed air from the groups, to ensure full saturation at all times.

Side view

a. The expansion valve, steam tank drain and sight glass are located over the drain box for easy draining and drip catching

b. The heating elements are all stainless steel

c. Inlet water travels in a heat exchanger through the steam tank to be preheated to a temperature slightly hotter that the brew temperature. The heat exchanger is sized so that it is not able to increase the temperature in the brew group but is able to hold it steady if you are brewing at a quick pace the heating element will run in conjunction with the heat exchanger to hold the group at the set point.

Back

a. The steam tank is foot mounted to the stainless steel frame

b. The shell of the steam tank is 12 gauge

Top view

a. The date and pressure test is noted at the end of each tank (11/05 100psi)

b. The vacuum breaker is a design that is rebuildable, it fits into most machines

c. The copper tube that is used is for gauges and steam, there is no copper or brass in the heated brew water path

top view

a. The probe connection is 1/4" NPT it is an RTD type probe

b. The date and pressure test is noted at the end of each tank (11/05 375psi)

c. All fasteners are stainless steel as well

i was fortunate to visit the synesso works last spring, and got to see several machines in various stages of assembly, plus racks of "raw" parts. i was very impressed by the more-or-less modular design, and apparent ease of assembly.


--barry "and mark is a nice guy"

barry wrote:i was fortunate to visit the synesso works last spring

Too bad I lost/had stolen the camera that I took pictures with. It was really cool, getting photos of Barry, Cindy Chang (Counter Culture), Bronwen Serna, and Jay Caragay all in-frame together with Mark Barnett... peering into Cyncra innards and stuff.

Good times... good times...

Great article guys. Are there any comparisons to other commercial machines (LM?) for the temp profile?

crudo20 wrote:Great article guys. Are there any comparisons to other commercial machines (LM?) for the temp profile?

I have run extensive WBC temperature testing on my Synesso 1 group and picking one series at random out of the 25 I have run shows a reproducibility score of + - .36F and a stability score of +- .93F. This compares favorably with the testing Greg Scace did on the prototype LM GS3 which according to Greg scored +- .48F for reproducibility and +- .87F for stability. Now, which machine makes better espresso I have no idea. I think at this level you are probably just splitting hairs in the repeatability/stability dept. The goal of course would be to get both scores below .5F for any type of duty cycle especially an intermittent duty cycle (typical home use). No machine can make that claim yet.

cinergi wrote:I have run extensive WBC temperature testing on my Synesso 1 group and picking one series at random out of the 25 I have run shows a reproducibility score of + - .36F and a stability score of +- .93F.

Is this before or after the flow restrictor modification Abe mentioned? I ask because your reported results are better than Sean's results, excerpted below:

lennoncs wrote:Series 0
Brew Temperature Reproducibility ˚F (6.3) .65
Espresso Machine Temperature Stability ˚F (6.4) 1.36

Series 1
Brew Temperature Reproducibility ˚F (6.3) 1.28
Espresso Machine Temperature Stability ˚F (6.4) 1.80

Series 2
Brew Temperature Reproducibility ˚F (6.3) .51
Espresso Machine Temperature Stability ˚F (6.4) 1.41

These results are on a stock cyncra 1 group 220v machine. Perhaps the 220v performs a little better than the 110v. I haven't finished testing the larger restrictor sizes yet.

Stability looks quite great. I was wondering if anyone knew how the actual profile compares to the other machines, ie, comparing the report Sean posted earlier (attached) on the cyncra to something like an LM. It will be interesting to see how the 'hump' that Dan has reported in his e61 articles may come into play.

I will be on a short hiatus and will resume the bench review on January 7th. I'm waiting for a check valve replacement from Synesso, as the current one is malfunctioning. My next installment will be a shot to shot comparison between the Cyncra and a PID'd prosumer home machine.