fellowproducts wrote:Hey there,

I did watch your video. Let me explain a few things:

1) You are correct that the front end of the motor shaft is turned down to prevent the auger from ever sticking again. When I made this design change, I was careful to balance the trade offs doing this would have on the grinder.

2) There is only a couple of thousandths of an inch of clearance between the motor shaft and auger bore. During my testing, between the bearing on the dial mechanism centering on the auger along with spring compression, I found this slip fit acceptable. I could still hyper align the rotary burr without issue. If there was a lot of slop while rotating, you would hear a specific knocking coming from the auger (while the grinder is on and running at 1400rpm). On Gen 2 units, I've found it's actually reduced from Gen 1.

3) Can you help me understand your grind preferences? Could it be that you just don't like the Gen 2 profile? I'm trying to figure out if you just don't like the profile of the burrs vs. something actually wrong with the grinder.

4) After all is said and done we will happily take the grinder back and give you a refund if you are not happy. Just let me know how I can help.

Thanks,

Nick

Hey,
Thanks for the reply!

In order:
1- Ok. Thank you for confirming.

2- Please see my second video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JItHk6fp9g8

With the adjustment screw having the amount of "play" that it has (a different but related issue and yes all the screws are tight), I am able to affect the auger burr while it is running by pushing on one side of the screw gently. My point being that if the auger burr can move off plane while rotating, when beans are introduced, wouldn't the auger burr teeter back and forth causing less consistency?. Also, if the burr can wobble, I see no point of attempting to align it to begin with.

3- I must admit, I am still learning what my profile preference actually is so it certainly is possible that my ignorance is the root cause of this whole topic. I bought a ZP6 and the Ode Gen 2 at the same time, and I keep preferring the taste ZP6 for some reason. Also, looking at the grinds (medium), the ZP6 looks more uniform and that is one thing that has been bothering me. I thought the flat burrs would surely be looking very uniform but I have little experience in the matter. What I do have though is 20 years of manufacturing exposure and it just looks a bit too loose to be precise. Maybe this much gap is required due to the floating auger but I just wanted to know if you thought it was normal and within spec.

4- I am going to try some MP's next week and see if I like the taste. Will go from there.

I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this and keep up the good work.

Happy to talk through things with you. I'll continue to try and address your points:

1) What you're doing in that second video is adjusting the position of the dial bearing, which is compressed against the auger. As you push that dial bearing forward, you drive the auger forward along the motor shaft against the compression spring, which causes the burrs to touch. When you are grinding coffee the load will always be axial in the other direction, so the play there is eliminated from the axial direction. You are correct that SOME amount of tolerance will always be between the auger and the motor shaft, but that has to be true no matter the grinder or else the auger could never slide against the motor shaft to adjust position. Any auger driven grinder ever designed needs to have a slip fit tolerance between the motor shaft and auger in order to operate properly. I can tell you from my experience that alignment absolutely matters, even with gaps due to tolerancing.

2) It is a misconception that all flat burrs are more unimodal than conical burrs. I have designed bimodal flat burrs in my career (and many other people have as well). I have no experience with the ZP6, but it could be the case that the distribution is tighter than the Gen 2 burrs, leading to a clearer cup. The Gen 2 burrs were designed as an all around unimodal style burr with a spread, which would give users of all coffee roast levels and barista experience levels a wide tolerance band where the coffee would taste good. They are more forgiving than a lot of other burr sets, and this is by design. From what I am hearing, the SSP MP burrs may be right up your alley. I have gone on record during Fellow video shoots saying that the SSP MP is to me, my preference in Ode for the style of coffee I like to drink. That being said, I do believe that the Gen 2 can produce excellent cups. One other thing I will mention is that I 100% believe that seasoning is a real thing, and these burrs will greatly improve after the first 5-6 pounds of coffee are through them. They will continue to get better even after that.

If I were you, I would align the Gen 2 burrs, season them a bit, and then still see if they were not to your preference. Even when you get the SSP MP, I have found that those need significant seasoning to hit their stride.

As a whole, the last thing I will mention is that we cannot compare a $345 grinder to a $3000+ grinder. It is not a fair evaluation. While I am an employee of Fellow, I honestly believe that Ode is bar none the best filter grinder on the market in the 64mm category for the money. It may not be for everyone, but when I think about what we have accomplished at the price point I am happy with the design for certain.

Kindly let me know how else I can help,

Nick

Nick,
Very well said. Will see how it goes. Thank you for your time.

fellowproducts wrote:Hi there,

We're working through some last regulatory and compliance stuff right now, but it looks like we'll be past Christmas. Early next year for sure. I encourage you to check with Fellow retailers in the EU. Some are offering presales at the moment. Won't be long now and we really appreciate your patience.

Nick

Any updated when gen 2 will be available in europe?

You guys are killing it, Nick! Great work!

Next up please: The next iteration of the EKG needs a scale. I'm actually kind of surprised that by now nobody has designed a built-in scale on the kettle base. Maybe it's a tricky proposition but seems like a cool differentiator and one that would have come in handy for me numerous times. Whatcha think??

aldarund wrote:Any updated when gen 2 will be available in europe?

We're working through the final stages. COVID really slowed things down for us, but we're at the finish line. We appreciate your patience. Distributors should have news soon.

Nick

jdrobison wrote:You guys are killing it, Nick! Great work!

Next up please: The next iteration of the EKG needs a scale. I'm actually kind of surprised that by now nobody has designed a built-in scale on the kettle base. Maybe it's a tricky proposition but seems like a cool differentiator and one that would have come in handy for me numerous times. Whatcha think??

Hey John,

We appreciate people suggesting things for us to build, but we don't really accept or comment on them. We have a roadmap that's been carved sometimes years in advance, and we're diligently working on a bunch of new cool stuff. I can't comment on what anything is; but this year and next year should be fun.

Nick

I just want to second John's idea of a build in scale to put a tiny bit more weight on the feature request.
At the same time I understand and respect your answer Nick.

Built-in scale does indeed sound like a nice quality of life thing.

I first want to give a shout out to Nick. I have gotten the best customer service right here for my Fellow Ode from Nick then I could have imagined. We're real lucky to have you!

I am loving my Ode Gen 2 by the way, loved my Gen 1 as well. It was also great to get an additional 1 year warranty added to it by registering on the Fellow site.

Just had 2 questions for you. My Auger on my Gen 2 Ode has V1 imprinted on it but I noticed other Gen 2 Augers have V2 imprinted on them. Is there a difference between them?

Also, found it strange that my Gen 2 burrs that came in the grinder didn't say Gen 2 on the back. I have seen other Gen 2 burrs and they all said Gen 2 on the backside. They are definitely Gen 2 Burrs but just thought it was strange it wasn't written on the back.