baldheadracing wrote: About the OPV - I would argue that there shouldn't be much overflow volume at 'normal' grind and OPV settings.

Form what I saw, an Ulka pump is about 260ml/min at 9bar. If the shot is 40gr in 30s then roughly 90gr of water end up wasted. It's not a lot but the waste is still 3x the useful liquid.

Thanks forth the sale heads up. There's a lot of bad reviews on Amazon regarding poor durability for the BDB. Probability half of them are due to poor water and descaling.

For what it's worth I'm in the same boat. Light roasts are difficult on the Robot, and I'm honestly tired (also milk with a nanofoamer is fussy). I initially considered the Lelit Bianca and VBM Domobar Super Digital, but then I discovered that has copper boilers.. I don't like that so it would have been the Bianca. ECM/Profitec would cost way more than the Bianca for slightly better construction quality. Thing is, I don't think I can live without some sort of flow control, especially for light roasts, so any other lower end machine is a no go to me. BUT, a Decent is just 1500€ more than the Bianca... it's a lot, but all things considered, it's doable. I'm a nerd at core and I think E61 groups are just too old for the new kinds of coffee we are finding on the market. They also require regular disassembly and greasing. So yeah, not soon, maybe in a year or two, but it will be a Decent. I don't know in the meantime if I'll keep using the robot or getting a refurbished Breville/Sage Dual Boiler (used no, descaling destroys a component which is cheap but very time consuming to change). It's a very capable machine, the user thread has ton of info, it can be found refurbished for 5/600€ in Europe. I will probably keep the Robot though, and at least buy an electric grinder. Manually grinding for espresso with the Comandante is the bigger chore of the process.

I thought about the Decent but it's a good 34% more expensive than the Bianca. It's like the pinnacle of espresso geekness. For me, it's too expensive for too much features. Maybe in 5-7 years, the features will be more mainstream and it will be found on cheaper machine. At least that's what I'm hoping for.

Edit: Removed a non-value added comment.

Then yeah, I would go Bianca if you can afford it, or refurbished Breville Dual Boiler if you want something good and cheaper

HazyOmega wrote:I simply don't known how much I'll miss the pressure/ flow profiling

Coming from a Robot, I sure would. Perhaps it's something we take for granted after a while, because adjusting the shot parameters can be done without thinking much about it. But it's such a nice thing to have profiling, in my opinion.

bringyoutomyhell wrote:Light roasts are difficult on the Robot

I disagree. For me it is mainly a grinder issue and having a suitable one made pulling light roasts no more difficult than any other roast. Sure, I pre-heat the piston with a cup of water.. but for my tastes it's actually easier to dial in light roasts than trying to get something nice out of dark ones.

HazyOmega wrote:the Rao Allongé and the Robot is really limited for this type of drink.

This I can relate to. Doable but not ideal, like "filter 2.0". Another reason to get a pressure/flow profiling machine (I would be tempted to mod a BDB).

You will miss the ability to control pre-infusion/pressure on Robot if you don't have it. You pretty much have to go to a flow profiling machine to be an "upgrade" in my opinion.

HazyOmega wrote:Form what I saw, an Ulka pump is about 260ml/min at 9bar. If the shot is 40gr in 30s then roughly 90gr of water end up wasted. It's not a lot but the waste is still 3x the useful liquid.

Thanks forth the sale heads up. There's a lot of bad reviews on Amazon regarding poor durability for the BDB. Probability half of them are due to poor water and descaling.

These are theoretical values for the pump. Also, do not forget the water which remains in the grind/puck. Normally, it doubles the weight so roughly 20/25 gr. Last but not least, if environmental consideration is #1 on the list, I think we should not drink coffee. The water waste when doing extraction is nothing compared to water waste during production and washing, and I do not talk about impact of transportation, packaging, roasting etc... But it is even worse with regular coffee, that is thrown away when not consumed.

It's not really for environmental considerations.
I think it's simply a lazy design to cut corners and to transfer the inconvenience to the consumer. It would have been easy to have a return tube to external tank.

But anyway I looked at video showing the interior of the Bellona and It's not good looking. You can see hose attached to barbed fitting using cable ties. Even Breville don't go that cheap. Even in a $250 Breville drip, they use steel clip.

I ended up ordering a BDB... Lance Hedrick and James Hoffman both seemed to like the machine. The Slayer mod is super simple and will imitate the flow paddle of the Lelit. That and I think Amazon mislisted the machine for the annual sale. Got it new for $1740 CAD instead of $1900. But the decisive factor was my wife telling to order it right now before the special is gone.

You made the best choice I think. I read in an YouTube comment that the Slayer mode (don't know which one) will leave static water in a tube loop in which bacteria could grow, but I've still to watch the video and understand if it's true. I might get a refurbished BDB too before the Decent