Ditting 804 dial upgrade

Grinders are one of the keys to exceptional espresso. Discuss them here.
jb-0101
Posts: 175
Joined: 12 years ago

#1: Post by jb-0101 »

Hey all,

I've had a Ditting 804 for about 7 years and always been frustrated by the lack of markings on the dial. I always found it so hard to dial in coffee accurately as I use it for espresso mainly and filter sometimes. I would often need to make a small change in between 2 of the markings, but it would be really hard to get it exactly back if I swapped coffees or made filter etc.

I first tried drawing little lines between the standard markings but it always looked bad and wore off.

Next attempt was to buy a soft tape measure - like a sewing one - and use cm and mm markings, but they all had the numbers upside down when you put them on the dial.

Next attempt was make my own ruler in Word, using a table and reducing the cells to 1mm each. This worked really well, but wasn't standardised as the markings on the Ditting dial correlate with micron grind size, and are about 1.2cm apart, so you lose the ability to adjust by microns.

So finally I came up with this. I made a dial label with the main numbers marrying up exactly with the markings on the factory dial, but with 20 markings between each number for super fine tuning and repeatability. I went with 1, 1.5, 2 etc numbering so it was easily comparable with the original dial, otherwise it wasn't intuitive to know where you were compared to the original. So I record grind setting as major marking/minor marking, ie 1/6, 1.5/2, 4.5/8 etc.

The only thing, you have to print the file at 112% to get it to marry up exactly to the original Ditting markings. Then cut it out, put sticky tape the whole length of the label plus a bit extra to wrap round, then stick on! The sticky tape then acts as a water/coffee dust proof cover that can also be cleaned without damaging the the paper.

I want to share the file here so it can help other Ditting users, but can't see how to add a pdf file, does anyone know?



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roadman
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Posts: 361
Joined: 19 years ago

#2: Post by roadman »

Nice work. I'd love to put this on my KR 804.

If you can load your pdf to a file sharing site and post the link on H-B, you should be good to go.

mtbizzle
Posts: 246
Joined: 4 years ago

#3: Post by mtbizzle »

I'd love to use as well. I recently got a lab sweet, it has better markings than yours (how obnoxious that dial is..!), but it is still frustrating, you have to squint and look from the side to see the 0.# marks. No reason for it to be so hard. Maybe I'll print out and apply with some double sided tape.

Maybe Google Drive would be a good option for sharing? I'm not sure.
"All people by nature desire to know" -Aristotle

scoran
Posts: 12
Joined: 3 years ago

#4: Post by scoran »

jb-0101 wrote: I want to share the file here so it can help other Ditting users, but can't see how to add a pdf file, does anyone know?
image
Did you find a way to share the photo? I'm interested for my 804.

ethiopianbuffman
Posts: 137
Joined: 3 years ago

#5: Post by ethiopianbuffman »

Totally looking for something like this. Does this work for the extended gear too on the labs?

roadman
Supporter ♡
Posts: 361
Joined: 19 years ago

#6: Post by roadman »

Inspired by the OP in this thread, I was able to create something similar in Adobe Illustrator and save it as a pdf.

You can download the pdf for the Ditting 804 scale here:

Letter size

A4


Marmot
Posts: 375
Joined: 3 years ago

#7: Post by Marmot »

roadman wrote:Inspired by the OP in this thread, I was able to create something similar in Adobe Illustrator and save it as a pdf.

You can download the pdf for the Ditting 804 scale here:

Letter size

A4

image
Wow! Thank you a lot! I will try this out on my KF804. I was just about to make some comparison regarding grind size and shot duration. This will help me very much.

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Marmot
Posts: 375
Joined: 3 years ago

#8: Post by Marmot »

Just put this scale on my KF804. It really is an amazing upgrade especially if you grind for espresso. :D