I meant bearings.

This is thread about experiences between the two so I am giving them. I owned helor for 3 months and Kinu for 4 months(still have). Putting emotions aside the refractometer showed Kinu superior. It also has less retention, easier to take apart and adjust. Much better customer service. Helor not even close

UFGators wrote:Yes, sent it untracked... not the best idea but I have had good luck in the past.

1. The aluminum case is fragile and very easily dented on the Helor
2. The bushings are not smooth in operation
3. Customer service is not good from Helor. Terrible at returning emails.

I disagree with everything here. The case is not fragile at all, it feels sturdy in hand and it has never dented in any of the times I've dropped it. It has a confident weight to it for its size. I have had the blasted finish wear off from rubbing against something else when I moved across the country, but that is my own fault for not packaging it correctly. Purely cosmetic, and has no bearing on the build quality.

Everything feels smooth about using the Helor, not sure where you're getting that from.

I have had good customer service in the few questions I've asked, that have been related to different products. I've asked about the drill attachment and the Helor 102 and they've gotten back to me. If it's malfunctioning in some way (which i can't envision happening)...It's a pretty simple handgrinder, if there's a problem it's easy enough to just take it apart and figure it out

My retention is close to zero on the Helor. there is a small dusting of grounds that stays near the separation of the inner/outer burrs, but that's it. I never spray with water or anything either.

buddalouie wrote:I disagree with everything here. The case is not fragile at all, it feels sturdy in hand and it has never dented in any of the times I've dropped it. It has a confident weight to it for its size.

Everything feels smooth about using the Helor, not sure where you're getting that from.

I have had good customer service in the few questions I've asked, that have been related to different products. I've asked about the drill attachment and the Helor 102 and they've gotten back to me. If it's malfunctioning in some way (which i can't envision happening)...It's a pretty simple handgrinder, if there's a problem it's easy enough to just take it apart and figure it out

My retention is close to zero on the Helor. there is a small dusting of grounds that stays near the separation of the inner/outer burrs, but that's it. I never spray with water or anything either.

Have you owned other hand grinders for an extended period of time? Have you put 15-30 pounds of coffee through them and see how they hold up? Maybe helor is all you know

I've used a rosco, Lido 3 and E for this type of handgrinder. Helor is the best I've used by far. I've easily put 30 lbs through the Helor and the Lido E I had, and find the Helor better in just about every way. From what I hear the Kinu would also be much better than the Lido's, but I'm not certain that it would be that much better if at all than the Helor.

I've also used a Mahlgut and Pharos extensively, but those are in a bit of a different class.

I'm glad you have had a great experience with Helor, wish my experience was different. If you get the chance try the Kinu

buddalouie wrote:My retention is close to zero on the Helor. there is a small dusting of grounds that stays near the separation of the inner/outer burrs, but that's it. I never spray with water or anything either.

Oh yes, that's something I forgot to mention because I've added a paper gasket there (made from cereal cardboad box). If you cut a circle with ~49mm OD and ~38mm ID, that will fit between the grind cup and the clamp ring. No more specs of dust on the grind cup.





Onto the topic, I won't get into which is better argument because to me they are different products. Sure enough I have considered the Kinu as well. But I needed something light to complement my main grinder. The Kinu is ~1kg and doesn't have a lid. Body size is a bit larger. The friction fit outer burr is great for precision, but it'll be difficult if I want to replace the burrs 10 years down the road. I have to send it down to someone who is able to file that outer burr for me. The friction fitted bearing poles are interesting as well as that's the first time I've seen that. Overall the Kinu M47 seems to be part-fitted individually at the factory so the QC for each unit will be really high.

From the accounts reported here, my impression is that the Kinu M47 is more foolproof/user-friendly than the Helor. The Helor is simple constructionally and not much can go wrong, and I can't see why would anyone be unhappy with it. It does have its compromise from engineering perspective, the assembling aspect doesn't seem so intuitive to some users, and it appears the Helor lacks QC in assembling some of the units. The Kinu seems to fit users who just want something that is guaranteed to work out of the box (without needing to disassemble anything).

Grind quality wise I do doubt there's a significant difference, if there is any.

UFGators wrote:I'm glad you have had a great experience with Helor, wish my experience was different. If you get the chance try the Kinu

I'm sure I will cave and buy one someday

samuellaw178 wrote:Oh yes, that's something I forgot to mention because I've added a paper gasket there (made from cereal cardboad box). If you cut a circle with ~49mm OD and ~38mm ID, that will fit between the grind cup and the clamp ring. No more specs of dust on the grind cup.





Onto the topic, I won't get into which is better argument because to me they are different products. Sure enough I have considered the Kinu as well. But I needed something light to complement my main grinder. The Kinu is ~1kg and doesn't have a lid. Body size is a bit larger. The friction fit outer burr is great for precision, but it'll be difficult if I want to replace the burrs 10 years down the road. I have to send it down to someone who is able to file that outer burr for me. The friction fitted bearing poles are interesting as well as that's the first time I've seen that. Overall the Kinu M47 seems to be part-fitted individually at the factory so the QC for each unit will be really high.

From the accounts reported here, my impression is that the Kinu M47 is more foolproof/user-friendly than the Helor. The Helor is simple constructionally and not much can go wrong, and I can't see why would anyone be unhappy with it. It does have its compromise from engineering perspective, the assembling aspect doesn't seem so intuitive to some users, and it appears the Helor lacks QC in assembling some of the units. The Kinu seems to fit users who just want something that is guaranteed to work out of the box (without needing to disassemble anything).

Grind quality wise I do doubt there's a significant difference, if there is any.

I appreciate Kinu's fool proof ready out of the box nature. I'm not one to enjoy tinkering especially when it comes to alignment because I would always wonder if I've got it right or not, and especially when you are paying a pretty high price for a manual grinder.
I also thought about burr replacement down the road. I'm hoping that once Kinu is established they will make already preshaped replacement burrs available to purchase in which case I would go ahead and buy a spare set since I don't think the burr set would be that expensive. I'm pretty sure all the burrs are shaped the same way to fit exactly the stainless steel tubes which are CNC milled to be the same. I highly doubt the burrs are filed one at a time to fit each tube because the labor involved would be so costly they wouldn't be able to survive. Even if I'm not able to get a spare burr set, 10 years of perfect use would be well worth the cost of the grinder.

Good point Randy. Not everyone likes to tinker and I am guilty of that.

That being said, aligning the Helor is not quite what it was/is on Lido & Pharos (or even the HG1/Versalab I had tried aligning). On Helor you just need to center the burrs, which is done by loosening the screws and locking the burrs together. It takes a few seconds at most. Calling it alignment might be misrepresenting it, as the word 'alignment' reminds me of the tedious experience I had on aligning Pharos/Lidos/HG1/Versalab - I had put in hours after hours, and still chasing my own tail. I think that's the image most people have in mind when we talked about 'aligning'.

The Kinu m47 is interesting for sure and I would love to try one out (I had wanted to email Kinu so many times but resisted ). Your point about outer burr makes sense (I had the impression the burrs a're manually polished/filed from reading but never confirmed it) so that's one less reservation about the Kinu.