Wouldn't the alignment of the Stance be the same as the manual one which has been out for a bit?
I only found one prior thread that discussed it. Not quite sure how to interpret it.

Helor Stance

Wow, a lot has happened in the thread in just overnight.

I can clarify a few things based on what I know.

I would tend to take the same approach as Mivanitski did as well. Any well-made/designed grinder will eventually hit the point of diminishing return, and perform similarly in the end. From my experience in using the Stance, it does seems both the Monolith and Stance have reached that point. The workflow is slightly different, and some of the grinder design/engineerings are different but the end result is the same. So if one is to claim superiority, it's likely come down to preference based on other aspects of the grinder.

In my use so far, there is not a single time that the need for chute sweeper arises. 99.9% of the time, the chute comes out sparkling clean with RDT. I find that I can even skip the funnel removal step (because there is literally nothing in the chute - so one less step). In the case of no-RDT, you would need to remove the funnel and sit it on the dosing funnel, give it a few knock to dislodge the grind. I find that using RDT just makes the process so much quicker. The addition of sweeper would accomplish nothing in my view. I had own a HG-1 with their sweeper and manage to break it accidentally. But even when it was working, it doesn't do much - there will still be some static retention in the chute and the sweeper makes it harder to clean (it's in the way and you have to work gingerly with these sweeper).

The Stance being a straight through design, does benefit slightly more from performing a WDT. If they could incorporate some mixing mechanism that'd be great. However, this design tends to require more effort in keeping the retention truly zero (as in the Monolith you'd have to palm or tap the chute). Just a trade off for another in my view (both are fully acceptable) as almost all grinders when single dosed does require some WDT for best results (no matter how well aligned). So the WDT is worth it if you're pursuing the best result. If you are not, then it wouldn't matter either way.

As for the spring mechanism, it does hold up so far and I don't see why not for the foreseeable future. The spring tension is adjustable as well, I've had it at the least tight position and no slipping has occurred to date. The newer Monolith uses spring-loaded designs as well, as well as Mazzer and many other grinders which has been used in cafes for decades. In theory, a rigidly lock design will be better as it is on the Monolith Conical grinder I am using. But in actual experience, I've not found it to make any practical difference - other than you need to manually lock and unlock the grind setting. I trust Denis has tested and deemed it worthy to have incorporated in his newer Monoliths as well.

About the alignment, I've revisited the review unit I have and I don't see anything concerning. The burrs spin true and the results seem well. One thing though, the design approach of the grinder is very different from other grinders I've seen - which is why I don't fully grasp it. The burr holder is used to determined the relative height of the burrs (up and down movement), and the alignment of the grinder is determined by the clearance between the outer burr and housing. With the inner burr in, there is no perceptible movement (it's a very snug fit and insertion of outer burr requires care). From what Helor has told me, they have incorporated some design changes since the older Stance/102. I've requested for photos/details and was planning to post here but no luck yet.

samuellaw178 wrote: The newer Monolith uses spring-loaded designs as well, as well as Mazzer and many other grinders which has been used in cafes for decades. In theory, a rigidly lock design will be better as it is on the Monolith Conical grinder I am using. But in actual experience, I've not found it to make any practical difference - other than you need to manually lock and unlock the grind setting. I trust Denis has tested and deemed it worthy to have incorporated in his newer Monoliths as well.

Thank you Sam for detailed write up, as usual. I have played with new MonCon and wanted to clarify that new Monolith Conical does not use spring loaded lock or friction lock. Its design is such that outer burr cannot physically spin, it can only move up and down. The alignment is triangulated to the center burr so its perfect.

Stance uses spring loaded friction lock as far as I can see.

Hi David,

I think we might be talking the same thing, but approached from a different engineering design. The outer burr on Stance also cannot physically spin and the movement is restricted by the outer burr housing (super tight clearance to barely only allow up and down movement), so it can only move up and down when the grind adjustment is made. The alignment of the outer burr on the Stance is also restricted by the outer housing to be extremely precise - at least as far as my eyes can visually evaluate.

Both the Stance and Monolith are using spring-lock in the design, but with a distinction from Mazzer in that the burr movement is restricted (whether using the triangulated support or tight housing). So I do feel we're talking the same thing but using a different approach.

ds wrote:Thank you Sam for detailed write up, as usual. I have played with new MonCon and wanted to clarify that new Monolith Conical does not use spring loaded lock or friction lock. Its design is such that outer burr cannot physically spin, it can only move up and down. The alignment is triangulated to the center burr so its perfect.

This is true with regard to the Monolith. The upper burr carrier is a pressure plate that does not rotate. The plate, burr carriers, and funnel are all machined to extremely fine tolerances, and there is essentially no ability for the plate to move in any direction other than up or down. The concept is identical to that of Flat MAX, pictured in that thread. During the beta testing on MAX, Denis actually shipped me a replacement pressure plate, machined to higher tolerances and with some design tweaks, that actually made a difference in how fine one could grind and extract espresso, and noticeable difference in the cup. The upcoming Conical and Flat models share this design and manufacturing process.

It is really easy to align the Helor 101 well, so I would expect that they designed the Stance at least as well. Better still if it is intrinsically "perfectly" aligned, and is not user adjustable, but as EG1 and HG1 demonstrate, you can do very well even without such alignment.

You're right Sam - the thread exploded over night.

I think I have something useful I can contribute to this discussion because a few days ago I checked in with Option-O about user-adjustments on the burr alignment of the Stance Motor. Once again I'm going to quote their response (I hope this is acceptable HB Forum protocol). The content of his response, combined with the level of engineering and user expertise among all of you is way over my head, so I think it would be best to avoid filtering, interpreting or summarizing his response. So, here you go, quoted from Option-O:

"The inner and outer burrs will be parallel (on the same plane) as the parallelism is ensured by our machining tolerance. You can potentially adjust it by shimming if for whatever reason the need arises, but so far we have not seen the case. If you are handy, the parallelism of the burrs can be readily checked using a dial indicator mounted to the bottom of the inner burr, as the burrs are easily accessible and not built inside a closed chamber."

"From users perspective, you can tweak the concentricity of the burrs slightly if you want to - i.e. how centred the burrs are to each other. We will include instructions on how to do that shall there is a need to remove the outer burr - basically by using the inner burr to mate with the outer burr before locking down the outer burr to its holder. Even under the worst case scenario (the outer burr is pushed maximally to one side), the concentricity will be off by 0.04 mm (almost a thousandth of an inch) at most. But that's the worst case and more often than not it's much lower than that if you follow our procedures."

I hope this is useful information.

I do have a question about something that keeps coming up in this thread, though - where can I get a tool to do the WDT and a little sprayer (or whatever it should be called) for RDT?

Thanks a ton samuellaw178. I really appreciate your input.

JohnW wrote:"The inner and outer burrs will be parallel (on the same plane) as the parallelism is ensured by our machining tolerance. You can potentially adjust it by shimming if for whatever reason the need arises, but so far we have not seen the case. If you are handy, the parallelism of the burrs can be readily checked using a dial indicator mounted to the bottom of the inner burr, as the burrs are easily accessible and not built inside a closed chamber."

"From users perspective, you can tweak the concentricity of the burrs slightly if you want to - i.e. how centred the burrs are to each other. We will include instructions on how to do that shall there is a need to remove the outer burr - basically by using the inner burr to mate with the outer burr before locking down the outer burr to its holder. Even under the worst case scenario (the outer burr is pushed maximally to one side), the concentricity will be off by 0.04 mm (almost a thousandth of an inch) at most. But that's the worst case and more often than not it's much lower than that if you follow our procedures."

I hope this is useful information.

I do have a question about something that keeps coming up in this thread, though - where can I get a tool to do the WDT and a little sprayer (or whatever it should be called) for RDT?

Thanks. This is useful information. It sounds very like axial alignment is done the way the Helor 101 is adjusted, which to me is a good thing. Planar alignment should be good from the design, as it is, out of the box.

Search for "vermouth atomizer" on Amazon for RDT spray bottle.

I personally prefer the Londinium WDT tool over others, but it is expensive compared to sticking wires in a cork.