The wooden knob sets with bottomless pf are back in stock at 1st-line.

Tonefish wrote:The BIANCA-fy kit available from 1st-line is a great addition to the Mara and fits it perfectly. It works well and is not too difficult to install. It really completes the Mara for a high-functioning, super-high-value machine.

At first I tried to just use flow from my scale to adjust the valve, but I've ultimately replaced the erics with the included pressure gauge and am using an external thermocouple (with excellent correlation to the erics) for temperature. It all works great and produces tasty coffee with all the control of the best levers. It turns out that the last 15-20% of the valve handle rotation is where most of the pressure/flow changes occur, so that takes some getting used to and the pressure gauge really helps to understand that.

Really happy with this kit! Cheers!!

Greetings Jim,
I haven't been around for a good while - as i've mentioned previously, once you learn to use your Mara - it become a fairly boring experience - you just use her... I had much more action with my Sette grinder which went trough a number of under-warranty part replacements and now - out of warranty - the damn thing is simply dying and will be replaced by a Minion shortly.

That said, I've just discovered the whole "Bianca-fy shenanigan" and - naturally - it picked my curiosity, albeit - I still prefer cortados to straight espresso-s...

Quick question - is the built-in pressure gage of any use with the "Bianca-fy" kit in place or it's waaaay too upstream and you absolutely need to add another one into the head? I really can't see myself using my Mara or any other E61 machine without a thermometer, ever.

Cheers!

The numbers for the pump pressure and pressure at the puck are definitely different.

alexeyga wrote:Greetings Jim,
I haven't been around for a good while - as i've mentioned previously, once you learn to use your Mara - it become a fairly boring experience - you just use her... I had much more action with my Sette grinder which went trough a number of under-warranty part replacements and now - out of warranty - the damn thing is simply dying and will be replaced by a Minion shortly.

That said, I've just discovered the whole "Bianca-fy shenanigan" and - naturally - it picked my curiosity, albeit - I still prefer cortados to straight espresso-s...

Quick question - is the built-in pressure gage of any use with the "Bianca-fy" kit in place or it's waaaay too upstream and you absolutely need to add another one into the head? I really can't see myself using my Mara or any other E61 machine without a thermometer, ever.

Cheers!

Not sure how having flow profiling and pressure profiling, as well, could be boring given it offers infinite profile opportunities. Maybe you haven't stepped outside your box?

Tonefish wrote:Not sure how having flow profiling and pressure profiling, as well, could be boring given it offers infinite profile opportunities. Maybe you haven't stepped outside your box?

I would't know - I've only found out about the possibility about 24 hours ago. Though my question really was about the pressure gauge...

slybarman wrote:The numbers for the pump pressure and pressure at the puck are definitely different.

Thanks. How different are they? I mean - are these totally unrelated or the built-in gauge can still give you a sound indication of what's going on?

Jake_G wrote:If you search the repair forum there is a chap who did a very nice job remote-mounting a group pressure gauge by drilling a discrete hole in the back of the group into the cam chamber. This allows monitoring of actual puck pressure while maintaining the group thermometer.

Oh, that's cool.

Jake_G wrote:Completely and utterly unrelated.

My GS/3 has 10.5 bar on the back of the needle valve at all times if the pump is running, but I can set the brew pressure to literally whatever I want to (so long as it's less than the pump pressure ).

With a needle valve mounted in the group, the gauge on the machine panel becomes pretty much useless. If you search the repair forum there is a chap who did a very nice job remote-mounting a group pressure gauge by drilling a discrete hole in the back of the group into the cam chamber. This allows monitoring of actual puck pressure while maintaining the group thermometer.

I'll post a link when I find it.

*Edit*
Found it!
Lelit Mara - HX Profiler Conversion

Cheers!

- Jake

While the link shows the most elegant solution I've seen it is also a fair amount of work and machining beyond the capability of most baristas. An excellent alternative that I am very happy with is an externally mounted thermocouple located appropriately along the hot water path in the group. I show the superb correlation (at the start of the pull) between this thermocouple and the Eric's location in posts 46 and 48 of this thread. No modifications necessary with excellent thermometry and group pressure readings.

Agreed, not the simplest of mods. My initial plan was to take my temperature measurement at the cam chamber and utilize an OEM Bianca pressure gauge on the face of the group. By comparison testing pressure and temperature at the two points, I found that it was most accurate to have the temperature measurement on the group face (Closest to the puck).

So you did not install the thermometry in the cam chamber as per the link? Curious then, where on the group face are you referring to?