La Cimbali Junior Grinder Mod - Hopper Throat Extension - Page 2

#11: Post by **trojanman** » May 19th, 2008, 11:24 am

Do you have any additional pictures or info about your mod? I am working on doing the same mod to our machine but the pictures shown seem to show a taper on the slip side of the adapter with the same wall thickness all the way down to the threaded section. Is this correct? The 1 1/2" Male adapters that I have found will not allow for this type of machining. If the adapter is a 1 1/2" Male pipe on the threaded side what size is the slip side adapting to? This might make is easier to find.

Thanks
Trojanman

May 19th, 2008, 12:31 pm

I actually haven't used the Junior grinder in a while since getting a Super Jolly - I just don't have the room to have them both in the same area at this time (hopefully that will change). The adapter was in a box that called the part a "1 1/2" male adapter" so I'm assuming it will fit 1 1/2" PVC on the slip end and a 1 1/2" female threaded fitting on the other end. The slip end was thinned down to allow it to fit into the adjustment collar but also the hopper which has an extension at the base where the beans feed through. It shouldn't be a tight fit to allow for adjustment when the upper burr assembly rotates and moves up or down. There isn't a taper and what you are seeing is likely due to the camera lens. I didn't use any sort of lathe or anything, just a Dremel and a benchtop belt sander. As long as it fits and functions then that's what I was going for rather than precision. It works great, but there is almost always room for improvement to make it appear more like it came that way from the factory - maybe using ABS fittings (black) would look nicer if you can find them.

#13: Post by **RAS** » May 21st, 2008, 3:32 pm

OK, this is going OT a bit, but I've made another addition to my Hybrid that I like. This one is a "hopper within the hopper". Works great to create a nice bean column above the burrs - and it requires fewer beans to do so.

The bottle I used is a Trader Joe's margarita mix bottle. Had to hurry up and make enough margaritas to empty the bottle.

Works great, and with a little electrical tape around the throat, the fit is perfect. Best thing is that it's snug, but can be easily removed.
Some additional pictures to follow.

#14: Post by **RAS** » May 21st, 2008, 3:37 pm

Another picture:

#15: Post by **RAS** » May 21st, 2008, 3:39 pm

And finally, a shot of just the section of the bottle I used (sorry, I only have a minute, and I can't seem to get multiple images into the same reply):

#16: Post by **RAS** » May 21st, 2008, 3:43 pm

OK, one last comment about the adding the bottle. It's worth pointing out that I took a Dremel tool to the bean cut-off in the actual hopper. You can kind of see, in the first picture, how I carved it out a bit to follow the line of the bottle-hopper. The plastic on this cut-off is very soft, and with the grinder attachment on my Dremel, it took a couple quick passes to get the curve I wanted (took maybe a minute).

Also, I removed the original hopper, then removed the cut-off from that to be able to get right at it.

#17: Post by **cafeIKE** » June 29th, 2008, 7:45 pm

RAS wrote:Overall, I cut the height of the tube to about 1.5". Sorry, I didn't measure the diameter of the tube (and parts container), which may make picking one of up that much easier - let me know if you need this info, and I'll take a measurement of the one that wasn't sacrificed (for a very worthy cause).

The throat will accept 55mm and walls up to 1mm thick should clear the hopper.
Tube height of 39mm allows zeroing the burrs without binding.

As elegant as the pipe adapter is, 10 minutes with scissors has far more appeal than several hours with a grinder, so I cut down an 8oz / 240ml Crystal Geyser bottle.

#18: Post by **Lockman** » January 24th, 2009, 1:56 am

Water bottle worked for me. Down and dirty. I took the door out as well...

I don't think I want to try to convert to doser-less though.

January 25th, 2009, 10:23 pm

I took the finger guard inside the hopper off, turned it over, cut the tabs off and trimmed it down to length and put it in the throat. Been running it like that for a year or so.

January 25th, 2009, 11:03 pm

Trimming the finger guard sounds like a nice easy way to go - mine didn't have one when I bought it, so I had to go with something else. I guess whatever works, the concept is pretty similar to create a tube which allows the beans to go down into the burrs without getting stuck on the "ledge" from the upper burr assembly. Good to see what others came up with for theirs.