Lelit Bianca User Experience - Page 32

#311: Post by **thm655321** » March 27th, 2019, 2:10 am

I have added a temperature strip to the neck of my Bianca. I have my Bianca set to 94C (accurate based on the Jim Shulman flash boil test) and when the machine is on for a bit the first temp bar will go green indicating somewhere between 90 and 94, but occasionally the second bar will also go green. So I think it is indicating around 94C. Machine has to be on for a bit for the temp bar to light up. Here is a pic, machine is off at this time:

#312: Post by **matomoto** » March 27th, 2019, 2:46 am

another_jim wrote:The brew boiler overheats, about 15C above the target, from a cold start. This speeds up heating the group, since it ups the thermosyphon temperature. If you restart the machine before it has cooled down, it does not do this. I've found that when the display stops flashing after a cold start, the brew temperature is right; but not after a warm start, when it is often too cool, and it is better to wait an extra few minutes.

The easiest way to check is to take a naked thermocouple and use an insulated pad to press it against the neck of the group. When the neck reaches the temperature you've programmed for the shot, everything is good. In general, on E61 groups, the neck temperature is roughly equal to the shot temperature.

The temperature in my house in the mornings is very warm, around 23 ~ 24 degrees. The main measurements are made with cold start and 40 minutes after its start, there is first a short discharge, allowing the boiler to recover.The measurements with the naked thermocouple in the brass are somewhat lower than the group thermometer. It must be said that both instruments are tested.
If @erics could take a look

#313: Post by **Max1411** » March 27th, 2019, 7:57 am

Hey, sounds weird. Is there a chance that you accidentally entered the standby mode a view minutes before the low temp shot?

Have you followed the heat up procedure with your GH thermometer? Is the temperature in the low temp case lower the whole time or does it drop at some point?
Anything different in both cases in the "shut down process" the day before, like pulling the lever up when the machine is turned off which could drain the thermsiphon partially...

I get my Bianca next week, I have the same thermometer and a Scace, then I'll check it.

#314: Post by **JayBeck** » March 27th, 2019, 8:53 am

another_jim wrote:The brew boiler overheats, about 15C above the target, from a cold start. This speeds up heating the group, since it ups the thermosyphon temperature. If you restart the machine before it has cooled down, it does not do this. I've found that when the display stops flashing after a cold start, the brew temperature is right; but not after a warm start, when it is often too cool, and it is better to wait an extra few minutes.

The easiest way to check is to take a naked thermocouple and use an insulated pad to press it against the neck of the group. When the neck reaches the temperature you've programmed for the shot, everything is good. In general, on E61 groups, the neck temperature is roughly equal to the shot temperature.

Do all E61s do this or is this a new feature only Lelit is doing (expediting warm up of the group)? If so, that's a major talking point they need to emphasize more.

March 27th, 2019, 10:27 am

I'm not sure who uses this tweak. The "Lelit Control Panel" hardware is the same Gicar controller used in several other DB E61s, and the parameter programming is the same too. However, it does contain some tweaks, including the goosed start up and the pause-start option for preinfusing. I didn't make a big deal of it in the review because Lelit has been a bit cagey about the details. In particular; if you put the machine in stand by mode, it actually warms up more slowly and inconsistently than if you had it completely cold. So I think it's a system that may need some more tweaking.

Also, even with tweaking, an E61 isn't going to change its spots; it's always going to be a slow start up, keep it on all day, kind of machine.

Tomas, I would also suspect your problem may be related to using the stand by mode -- the group is not fully warmed up when it shows ready after coming out of standby mode.

#316: Post by **matomoto** » March 27th, 2019, 5:44 pm

Max1411 wrote:Hey, sounds weird. Is there a chance that you accidentally entered the standby mode a view minutes before the low temp shot?
I have it disabled
Have you followed the heat up procedure with your GH thermometer? Is the temperature in the low temp case lower the whole time or does it drop at some point?The temperature is irregular, sometimes it marks a temperature and sometimes another. I do flush it climbs instantaneously and it goes back down, only when I make a pressure shot (coffee or blind filter) the temperature rises and stays
Anything different in both cases in the "shut down process" the day before, like pulling the lever up when the machine is turned off which could drain the thermsiphon partially...
That is proven

I get my Bianca next week, I have the same thermometer and a Scace, then I'll check it
I beg you to let me know your results when you check it out. Thank you..

Jim as I say to the partner the standby is disconnected, it seems to me as you say a slow and unstable way

#317: Post by **Max1411** » March 27th, 2019, 6:29 pm

matomoto wrote: I do flush it climbs instantaneously and it goes back down, only when I make a pressure shot (coffee or blind filter) the temperature rises and stays

All Appartamentos have almost the same behavior. If I flush, the temperature sinks by a few degrees and stays there forever. I need to make a pressure shot to get it back to the normal temperatur. I think it's a partial TS Stall. But thats a vibration pump HX machine and it's hard to imagine that a rotary pump brew boiler machine suffers the same issue. Even almost all other HX machines I've tested don't have that issue.

#318: Post by **shotwell** » March 31st, 2019, 10:48 pm

Wow. 12 drinks in and I'm in love. The Bianca is simple, intuitive, and incredibly flexible. It's like the lovechild of a Blossom One (without the fiddly PID programming) and a lever espresso machine. It is the perfect fit for me.

I've been manually brewing for years, and the Flair Pro was the first step into home espresso. I thought there was no way that a boiler operated machine could be as intuitive as the direct lever, didn't want to fool around with temp surfing a home lever, and didn't really consider the DE1+ to be a great fit after my Blossom experience. This is a marvelous machine, comically easy to use for anyone that thoroughly understands manual brewing, and basically the end game for a home setup. It's so remarkable that a cafe I'm planning for a big development in 2020 is going to end up with a Bianca or a true commercial profiling machine on the brew bar there!

More than anything I'm really amazed by the flexibility and the ease of adjustment from drink to drink. This morning, I went from a lungo out of a spring lever profile to an ultra sweet, light roast ristretto with a half cocked guess at a grind adjustment. I just had to pay attention to flow, which is basically how I've been brewing for years in a v60.

#319: Post by **Max1411** » April 12th, 2019, 2:19 pm

Hey, I have done some testing and reviewing of the Bianca, which I publish in the german coffee community. I tested some heat-up scenarios which may help @matomoto with his problems and give a good overview, how the Bianca heats up.

Everything is published here, the graphs are in English, google translator may do the rest...
https://www.kaffee-netz.de/threads/leli ... st-1649464

Summary:
The Bianca needs only 18min for dual boiler heat-up until it's stable (first graph). For that scenario, the Bianca-special heat-up procedure is perfectly balanced. That's an incredible value for an E61 and it is way faster than any regular heating dual boiler or heat exchanger E61 machine (last graph). In single boiler mode, the Bianca is at full temperature at 9min, which is even more insane and I would have thought, that this is absolutely impossible for an E61 (graph No. 2). The problem at this scenario is, that it will overheat after 9min, because it's running the same overheat time, as with the service boiler on, but now there is no temperature drop in the brew boiler. For single boiler usage, I recommend to manually abort the overheat phase at around 7min (graph 3).

As to @matomoto problem, I think that's where it might be. The Biance always overheats in single boiler mode at first and it overheats when it has still some remaining temperature (dual boiler, too) that is below the threshold between overheat mode or normal mode (somewhere around 45°C brewboiler). Sometimes it's better to cut the overheating earlier, or deactivate it right from the start (OFF/ON above 50°C).

As to the heating priority I discussed with @another_jim before.
When pulling shots and steaming at the same time, the energy is split 50/50 to both boiler. That works pretty good, since the temperature drop in the brew boiler is almost the same (with normal espresso flow rates) and there is no lack of steampower noticeable at the same time.

#320: Post by **guydebord** » April 12th, 2019, 2:29 pm

Max1411 wrote:Hey, I have done some testing and reviewing of the Bianca, which I publish in the german coffee community. I tested some heat-up scenarios which may help @matomoto with his problems and give a good overview, how the Bianca heats up.

Everything is published here, the graphs are in English, google translator may do the rest...
https://www.kaffee-netz.de/threads/leli ... st-1649464

Thanks for this, Max. Indeed, I am as impressed as you of the temperature stability and warm up speed of the Bianca. One question, what do you mean by:
"For single boiler usage, I recommend to manually abort the overheat phase at around 7min (graph 3). "
Im not sure what you mean by "overheat phase".

Cheers!