EddyQ wrote:Thanks for the update Dave. Seeing these coming together is exciting. I'd be curious how the motor performs with hard light roasts.

It was tested on Nordic roasts, performed fine no trouble at all. I used the same sort of Nordic profile as Tim Wendelboe I think (well when I looked his up, it was the same as mine to be more accurate). The only difference in the UK and US motors is the voltage they run at, everything else is the same. When testing the US motor in the prototype, I cranked it down to 96V and it worked fine, ground fine and cleared fine, so in the range 100-120V, which is way within your allowable range, it's great. I overvolted it as well like I did the UK one no problem.. For a given bean the power draw pretty much remains the same under load whatever the voltage, because it still has to do the same amount of work. I realise that in the US voltage used to be and possibly still is a bit variable with some getting 110 and others getting 120, the average is probably around 115V I guess.

At the moment I am using a US step down transformer, to take our UK voltage down to US...in fact the thing actually takes 235V and drops it to 106V! and even at 239, which is about the highest I see it's probably only running at 110V at best. However it's working fine and of course the 50/60Hz thing makes no difference at all.

If you had Niche and were traveling to the UK a small 300W converter would be absolutely fine. I'm using a 500W, because that's what they will need for overload/destruction testing e.g. running under huge loads and stalling it numerous times it until something melts. Plus duty cycle testing and motor temperature monitoring, which is ongoing. At the moment it's looking fine for domestic and looks like it will even meet some of the commercial cycles...but it's not rated for commercial use.

I will pop some video up soon (it's not very good) of some snippets of US voltage testing done on the prototype. Unfortunately I don't have, or can't find any testing done with the M burrs, just the ones I recommended they didn't use, because they didn't pass testing on light roasts and perversely weren't as fast as the M burrs that easily passed.

DaveC, you quelled about 80% of my concerns with your post. Thank you! If the production run is well-received, I'll likely be trying to put in an order on the following run I'm a bit bummed I couldn't afford it at the time of the crowdfunding campaign, but I'm happy it appears all those who took the leap will be getting a great grinder for the price point!

I said I would post some Video, I had a few minutes today, had ran out of the coffee I was drinking to grabbed a bag of very light roast and stale stuff out of the cupboard to shoot the Video. It's a working kitchen so I had to rush to take the opportunity while my other half wasn't cooking for the family. I obviously lucked out on the US to UK voltage converter stakes as mine gives a lower voltage than expected, but the Niche still seems to work fine. The video isn't "produced" or lovingly edited. I just use it for evidence based reviewing. It's also not designed to show shot quality as the coffee was stale and the roast very light. I didn't like it much, so didn't seal up the bag very well.

It's 7 minutes showing the production tool built grinder (e.g. final production version) you will get the following points, but if you don't want to watch it I have listed them below.

1. It works at even very low voltages and still clears the chamber well (as shown by dose variance)
2. Dose variance was around 0.07g to 0.08g during the test.
3. It works as well if not better than the prototype
4. The US version is simply a US voltage version of the motor, with identical characteristics to the UK motor
5. If you visited the UK you could get a $40 voltage converter (ideally only 300W required) and continue to use the grinder at any allowable UK voltage

Looks great Dave - thanks for taking the time to post a video. I'm very excited for these to hit production!

Well I pre-ordered a white one. I figure by August I'll know if this Versalab is gonna work for me or be relegated to drip (which I don't drink)

EddyQ wrote:Thanks Dave.
I saw one of these today at the SCA Expo in Seattle and witnessed its operation. Unfortunately, they were not making coffee. It looked to be a very fine, well built unit. Nice and small as advertised and very quiet. No significant retention as your video showed.

I think it probably ran a bit faster than mine as I would hope they were getting a bit more than 103V

I realise I only have 1 US spec grinder and of course 1 is not necessarily representative of all that will be made...but it is from production tooling and I always try and use evidence based reviewing e.g. Videos. So I am not surprised the one you saw performed the same, especially as the construction almost dictates they will be "peas from a pod". The only thing my Videos misrepresent is how loud the grinder is. It's actually very quiet, but the auto gain on cameras forward facing michrophones...makes it sound much louder. I always wince when I play back the videos...so I am glad to have it confirmed that it is actually very quiet.

Glad to hear that it's actually quiet. I was a bit worried after the video, but I figuted it had something to do with the acoustics of where it was. Good to know it was the phone.

I am signed up for the June perk. Does anyone know whether things are on track?

Hey, me to! I almost forgot about this grinder.

Looks like the latest blog post is from August '17, the latest update on the indiegogo page is from 4/18/18.

I say, no news is good news. Fingers crossed.

The only way to know for sure is to ask directly - hello@nichecoffee.co.uk