Commercial lever grouphead availability? - Page 2

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FotonDrv
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#11: Post by FotonDrv »

I was just kidding! I don't see Doug & Barb dismantling their home to sell their personal Lever machine.
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IMAWriter
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#12: Post by IMAWriter replying to FotonDrv »

I knew you were kidding. They LOVE that machine for sure.

John, I'm wondering if building a lever machine will be for you as cost effective as was building your grinder?
I can tell you love the process, but I believein many cases, parts were matched to spec, such as springs/piston/group, and I'm prolly wrong here, but it would take a serious bit of some sort of math to match odd parts in a way that would create a cohesive whole?

from what I gather, though there are numerous Contemporary Commercial spring lever machines, there are only about 3-4 groups used by all, such as the Bosco, or Astoria. CMA, etc. I gather it's to make the building of the machine more "universal?"
I admit to being not so in the know here.
I hope you can do this!

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beer&mathematics
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#13: Post by beer&mathematics »

I hope you find one--I'm exited to see what you come up with.
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bostonbuzz (original poster)
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#14: Post by bostonbuzz (original poster) »

I'm not super excited on the Conti group, I'd much rather have the Bosco or CMA. I sent Astoria an email, well see if they respond.

This will be a winter project, but I'm already thinking about boiler designs and doing things a bit differently than others.
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beer&mathematics
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#15: Post by beer&mathematics »

Open boiler!! hehe
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FotonDrv
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#16: Post by FotonDrv »

These guys have a different approach. http://modbar.com/
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Terranova
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#17: Post by Terranova »

I have sold mine already for 280€ each they did their job for many years.
Just to give you an idea about the price range.

http://www.kaffee-netz.de/zubeh-r/68371 ... ruppe.html

In January 2012 Victoria Arduino implemented the double spring Rossi / Brasilia (testa pesante / heavy head) groups in the Athena, same like Quickmill did with the Achille.

These groups are available at Nuova Simonelli for about 800€ + tax

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bostonbuzz (original poster)
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#18: Post by bostonbuzz (original poster) »

Thanks for all the great responses. I would want to keep the project cost-effective, i.e. less than a Strega. I'll weld the boilers out of stainless and build the whole frame, but buy everything else (piping/pids/electronics/heaters). One of my goals is also to make the machine smaller than anything available, and I'm not sure that I can do this with a commercial lever group. They need a large base to prevent tipping. Don't get excited about a build coming anytime soon, I just wanted to test the waters. I'm interested in pressure profiling, and I thought that maybe a spring lever was more easily/cheaply procured than it is. :?

I'd love to build a saturated grouphead (you certainly can't buy one of those), but they seem very complicated - but I'm not sure they have to be. I'll have to study up some more.
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drgary
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#19: Post by drgary »

If you bolt it to the counter, similar to those countertop machines linked earlier, size won't matter. You can have a commercial spring lever group and whatever size you want. Or ... wait until a CMA machine comes up for parts or extremely cheap and mod away to your heart's content. I'm sure you'll let you us know what you come up with.
Gary
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