How about a BDB modded with ITO board and leva! software (for 50Hz people at least)?
I assume the programmed pressure/flow profiling would be the main plus from leva!

It would be hard to frame BDB into the ito/leva! scheme in terms of temperature control, As BDB has 3 temperature control mechanisms (brew boiler, steam boiler, group head cartridge heater) + heat exchanger for pre heating the brew boiler inlet water.
Breville designed these features to achieve a flat temperature curve (?). But if leva! could control all of these with support from a flow meter; rising/declining temperature profiles could be possible.

For instance: brew boiler idle at pid set temperature of 95°C (or another), steam boiler at room temperature, steam boiler/brew boiler/group head heating elements all turned off once the shot starts would give the highest temperature decline.
Or having brew boiler idle at pid set temperature of 90°C(or another), steam boiler at max temperature, steam boiler/brew boiler/group head heating elements all at full power once the shot starts would give the highest temperature rise.
And any temperature curve target in between could be achievable obeying physical limitations of the system, if a capable control protocol is implemented using enough sensors.

I assume the ito board still has 2 inputs for temperature sensors so it could only be possible with hardware upgrade and implementing these control protocols would need serious support from the creators..

Nobody will do that. Ito is and will be a single boiler hardware *software.

You can program the heating resistance power per time segments, full power in Pi and drop when brew. You can do a increase, decrease or straight line temp profile with Ito on a sbdu. Ito doesn't work on hx, db, rotary pump and the best results are with ring group -boiler mounted on top.of the grouphead, because of fast feedback.

Denis wrote:Nobody will do that. Ito is and will be a single boiler hardware *software.

You can program the heating resistance power per time segments, full power in Pi and drop when brew. You can do a increase, decrease or straight line temp profile with Ito on a sbdu. Ito doesn't work on hx, db, rotary pump and the best results are with ring group -boiler mounted on top.of the grouphead, because 90 of fast feedback.

Well the temperature part was brainstorming on what could be possible if someone does it.

For only pressure/flow control part, do you mean Ito/leva! is not compatible with BDB?
I assumed you could install it without pid to turn it into digitally controlled pressure/flow profiler.

Quick summary. A Decent DE1+ has a lot of opportunities and control for all the variables possible. A BDB can also allow you to manipulate a few variables and you are able to pressure profile on the fly using the hot water valve. The espresso quality though would you say you are able to get is the same?

With shipping, the base DE1 is going to be around $2750 which is a ~$1700 difference from the BDB. Is the extra $1750 that much worth it for a tablet controlled espresso machine if one is just looking at the espresso shot in the cup (specifically light roasts).

And the answer for me would be BDB and take the extra cash and purchase a KafaTek Monolith grinder! Just saying...

jevenator wrote:Quick summary. A Decent DE1+ has a lot of opportunities and control for all the variables possible. A BDB can also allow you to manipulate a few variables and you are able to pressure profile on the fly using the hot water valve. The espresso quality though would you say you are able to get is the same?

^^^This^^^ is what the BDB will do totally stock. But this is NOT the "Slayer mod", which is quick and easy. The "Slayer mod" adds a whole world of extra capability... more than an actual Slayer, in fact.

HTH.

-Peter

pcrussell50 wrote:There is a school of thought on those tiny channels, that if you can catch them early enough and dial back the flow, "on the fly", you can "heal" them. At the very least, slowing the flow reduces the "damage" from them, and you can still have a salvageable shot

When the Decent DE1 was still a pre-production prototype, Decent advertised that as one of its premier features. It was supposed to detect a sudden pressure drop or flow rate increase indicative of channeling and then heal it by automatically reducing the pressure.

If I'm not mistaken, Decent never achieved this and stopped claiming channeling healing as a feature.

My experience is in line with this as well. Not only does it not "heal" the puck, water distribution is so bad that you end up with craters on top of the puck like 90% of the time which is for sure not helping with extraction. Which is why you see people putting paper filters on top of the pucks on DE1. This should have been addressed long ago.