Now that the trees have filled out, it's a great view. In the winter, it's a view of my neighbors' backyards. {image}

Pictures would help. I have seen a needle puller where you take the needle off and reposition it without removing the face plate. If the back comes off the can be "calibrated" Rarely some have screws to adjust, most have a horseshoe shaped calibration that gets adjusted by squeezing it more narrow or widenening as needed. I have also seen

I've been checking out the machine in more detail, and I have to make another quick post because I got super shook by the weight of the hydraulic group. When taking off the four pipes (in/out pipes for the thermosyphon loop and in/out pipes for the hydraulic circuit) and group mounting nuts, I was thinking to myself the

I would first decide on a budget for machine and grinder. Right now you're comparing top-end models with barely functional ones. A top-end machine and a crap grinder can be outperformed in the cup by a decent machine and a good grinder. These days I would say that PID control on the brew boiler is a requirement. I would

I would like to comment on alignment before this thread goes off the rails. Per our own Jake-G, who rebuilds grinders and can do extensive testing, as well as high end grinder builders like Titus, simple tests at the zero point, like using a marker test or the gap betwen chirp and lock are not good indicators of the

I think that a compressed spring is ideally suited to provide pressure due to the fact that it's pressure decline somewhat matches the reduction of resistance as the puck erodes

SSP Cast V1 (silver knight) here, pretty much as consistent as any other burrs I've got. There's a tendency for fast and accelerating shots, puck integrity is not all there, but that's the same for every shot.. Try the stock burrs to (partially) rule out other factors

This is what fascinates me about making espresso. It turns out that making espresso is an thermodynamics challenge, an electronics challenge, a hydraulics challenge, and a fluid flow dynamics problem all wrapped up in a compact physical package. Understanding it and designing the control system has been fun. BTW, the fact that steaming milk requires different temperature

I'm not an expert and I think you can be a bit more specific with the descriptions: Are you plumbed in now or reservoir fed? What does machine on mean? On and not brewing or when you lift the brew lever? Do you have a flow control kit? If you do which gauge is showing 12 bar?

White wall. Very zen