What ever happened to Sean's "Custom espresso machine build"?

#1: Post by **de-man** » January 27th, 2019, 3:39 am

Hi all

Just finished reading this thread: Custom espresso machine build

Was an awesome read, however, it left me wondering...

- What ever happened to the build?

- Did it get finished?

- Whatever happened to lennoncs? he seemed super talented, shame the thread died...

If anyone has any info on the above points it would be great to hear it.

Thanks

#2: Post by **civ** » January 27th, 2019, 6:28 am

Hello:

de-man wrote:Hi all
Whatever happened to lennoncs? he seemed super talented ...

Indeed ...

I was once wondering the same thing and sent him a PM but received no reply.
That was couple of years ago (maybe a bit less).

His last entry was on 19/05/2015.

I'd also want to know.

Cheers,

CIV

#3: Post by **redbone** » January 27th, 2019, 8:57 am

I recall he was an avid bicyclists. This maybe him.

FRCC President in Clarkston, M http://www.flyingrhinocc.com/contact-us/
Posted on May 2018 http://www.flyingrhinocc.com/cycling-ne ... -ride.html

Also last login Nov 2007. https://www.coffeegeek.com/members/LennonCS
Here on H-B as previously mentioned. Last active May 19, 2015.

January 27th, 2019, 8:47 pm

Cheers Team

Redbone, this seems to be the person, maybe we can tempt him to come back and finish his thread off? I want to see and hear about the end result...

#5: Post by **TomC** » January 27th, 2019, 9:05 pm

I had a few conversations with Sean over the years, trying to nudge him to share any updates. I know cycling took center stage in his free time since his HB days.

#6: Post by **lennoncs** » January 27th, 2019, 10:13 pm

Still alive(despite my best efforts)

odd thing you folks have started this,
about 3 weeks ago I dug it out of the crate I placed it in when the shop got moved (a long time ago) and set it on bike repair bench.

I sat down there with a beer and had a "where are we now" moment.

well....I just sort of flamed-out on the machine a while back

Times and opinions change, I no longer feel the need for a highly programmable machine. I put a tremendous effort into servo needle valves for temperature mix and control board for pressure profiling.

As someone that deals with machine automation on a daily basis, I am quite tired of automatic systems that I am always tweaking and fidgeting with to run. to that end....here is what I have been thinking about.

a paddle control on the group head that manually controls the pressure(simple analog input to to the pump controller.
forget about the temperature control...at least for now (valves were a PITA anyways)
Keep the campy racing crank for the steam valve, prolly another crank for the water control...maybe a downtube shifter.
need to come up with a cup tray
glass sides (hate to hide nice tube work

)

no promises, but, a cracked brew boiler on my E61 is kinda making this machine more of a priority.

good detective work on the Flying Rhino connection! it kinda threw me for a loop tonight.

cheers,
sean

January 27th, 2019, 10:55 pm

BOOM! He rallys!.

Good to see it! alive in the flesh in the present day...

So first of all:

- Love the Campag crank, showed my wife and she way like "oh my...", she rides a Bianchi Infinito with Campag. I'm more of a SRAM guy myself.

- Love all the pipe work, I don't know about placing glass around it. I would try to keep this as raw as possible, i.e no protection at all, however that is dangerous, so to keep with the appeal of stainless, what about a beautiful stainless cage, kind of like a bird cage, but rectangular and fully custom so it doesn't look cheap and tacky... would be a bit of work with the ol' TIG but once you got the groove would be pretty quick.

Agreed if it was me I wouldn't be pushing for a highly programmable machine. I would have temp and pressure control though but I wouldn't be running it off servos.... On my machine I have used a RPi, and coded a PWM etc to control SSRs. That's all, and the temp control is perfect, and it wasn't hard to program.

No pressure at all, it's really good to see you're alive and well, and the machine is also... Welding up the cracked boiler shouldn't take you too long though...

March 20th, 2019, 2:24 pm

Hi Sean

Any new thoughts towards the revival?

#9: Post by **redbone** » March 20th, 2019, 3:21 pm

lennoncs wrote:Still alive(despite my best efforts).......

good detective work on the Flying Rhino connection! it kinda threw me for a loop tonight.

cheers,
sean

Thanks,

Was 50/50 (other priorities vs adverse) on your abrupt disappearance from what otherwise seemed a passionate project with a determinate finish. Good to see you back, will be following your project to its hopeful completion. Found the build quality, materials and design to be attractive and impressive.

#10: Post by **truemagellen** » June 14th, 2019, 2:12 pm

Sean I want to see this thing up and running. Question...do you have some pictures or info on the servo piston driven machine you made that had some stability issues years back? feel free to PM me.