# Sticky  Decent espresso



## Lefteye

Just reading around and stumble upon the decent espresso machine being built. Sounds like it ticks all the boxes. Anyone heard any more about it??


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## MrShades

They certainly have some interesting products in the pipeline yes. YouTube videos are well worth watching if you haven't already.


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## Lefteye

Thanks for pointing out those. Looks even more promising. Steam from a tiny form!


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## risky

I'm watching this very closely. An interesting product for sure.


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## Lefteye

If it does what it says then the rocket R60v will be in trouble


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## Mrboots2u

Lefteye said:


> If it does what it says then the rocket R60v will be in trouble


Not shiny enough


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## Jiiim

Look like really clever products. Not sure I want to operate my machine with an iPad though.


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## Lefteye

Jiiim said:


> Look like really clever products. Not sure I want to operate my machine with an iPad though.


Yes I get that this takes the art out but if I can get consistantly good results on a machine that may come in under £850 then that's appealing.


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## jlarkin

It'd be amazing to see them bring it in at that price. Though I know little about that sort of thing, to me, it just seems unlikely they will.


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## jeebsy

Lefteye said:


> Yes I get that this takes the art out but if I can get consistantly good results on a machine that may come in under £850 then that's appealing.


The art? The art of lifting up a little metal lever that actuates a switch?


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## Jiiim

Lefteye said:


> Yes I get that this takes the art out but if I can get consistantly good results on a machine that may come in under £850 then that's appealing.


I agree if it gets results - and at that price - then brilliant. I'm not fussy about the manual process, just give me a good coffee thanks!

The thing is though, some things are just best left to hardware/mechanical operation. For example, they have a control on the app for turning on and off the steam - I just really don't want to rely on a tablet for that; tapping away at a screen, or laggy interface, or trying to dismiss a message notification while my milk gets ruined.

I also wouldn't want to have to boot up an iPad in order to simply make an espresso. I get that a tablet is good for altering complex settings - it's perfectly appropriate there - open the app to change a profile, or dial in a pressure etc. But once that's done, just give me hardware controls to start and stop the thing.

It may be the only way they can get the machine in at that price though: offloading all processing and control to the iPad, but it still comes at a cost to the consumer. On-going reliance on a tablet and software isn't cost free, and obsolescence is a risk.

If they do go down that route, I just hope they use open standards/apis so other control options are open to people. 3rd parties/enthusiasts could make hardware controls, or raspberrypi alternatives for example.

Jim


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## Jiiim

jeebsy said:


> The art? The art of lifting up a little metal lever that actuates a switch?


Yeah, it's less about art, and more just tactic-feedback and mechanical operation. Things you can do without looking, and rely on to have immediate effect.


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## "coffee 4/1"

Lefteye said:


> Yes I get that this takes the art out but if I can get consistantly good results on a machine that may come in under £850 then that's appealing.


£850 is that right, considering the strong money for Decent-Doser.


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## Jiiim

\ said:


> £850 is that right, considering the strong money for Decent-Doser.


Yeah, seems unrealistic to me. I think that will ramp up pretty quickly when they get to full production costs, distribution, middlemen, retailer margins etc. I'd say double that is more like it.

I look forward to being wrong though.


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## Lefteye

I was guessing on the cost really as they seem to want to make it sub $1000 I agree it would t surprise me if the cost soon went way up. It's good to see a novel approach though


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## Lefteye

I've just had a reply from the ceo of the company. The development seems pretty much on track and it's likely that they would ship to the uk in August 2016. Noted that they have introduced a paddle version also


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## decent_espresso

Jiiim said:


> Look like really clever products. Not sure I want to operate my machine with an iPad though.


The touch tablet shows you what is going on with your shot, namely flow rate, water temperature, current pressure. It also lets you draw (with your finger) the pressure profile you want to use. You can also easily change water temperature, hot water temperature (for Americanos) and steam pressure.

For people who really, really hate the idea of a tablet on an espresso machine with a tablet on it, I'm working on a paddle controller, that will let you control real-time pressure and flow, as well as using it to actuate the steam and hot water.

I'm attaching an animation of the paddle idea. This design is a work in progress, and definitely not the final shape.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-EEiu1O8atrw/Vud2mkYOi5I/AAAAAAAABQs/eG9W5rfLd9oGi_cW7GVfVgTkFOWoN5sdA/w1600-h1148-no/460bbc8e-6f42-4169-84c5-0b30e098dba5.gif


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## decent_espresso

Jiiim said:


> Yeah, seems unrealistic to me. I think that will ramp up pretty quickly when they get to full production costs, distribution, middlemen, retailer margins etc. I'd say double that is more like it. I look forward to being wrong though.


You're absolutely right, we'd have to charge at least twice that if we were working through resellers and distributors, as each typically takes a 30% to 50% margin.

I really hate the idea of making a machine for £150, selling it to a distributor for £250 and the eventual customer paying £899 for it. There's no way to make a decent machine for that little money.

That's why we're only selling direct to consumer. That lets us spend £500 to make your machine, sell it to you for £999, and we make enough profit to both make something of quality, and support you in the case where you have any problems.


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## decent_espresso

Jiiim said:


> The thing is though, some things are just best left to hardware/mechanical operation. For example, they have a control on the app for turning on and off the steam - I just really don't want to rely on a tablet for that; tapping away at a screen, or laggy interface, or trying to dismiss a message notification while my milk gets ruined.
> 
> I also wouldn't want to have to boot up an iPad in order to simply make an espresso. I get that a tablet is good for altering complex settings - it's perfectly appropriate there - open the app to change a profile, or dial in a pressure etc. But once that's done, just give me hardware controls to start and stop the thing.
> 
> It may be the only way they can get the machine in at that price though: offloading all processing and control to the iPad, but it still comes at a cost to the consumer. On-going reliance on a tablet and software isn't cost free, and obsolescence is a risk.
> 
> If they do go down that route, I just hope they use open standards/apis so other control options are open to people. 3rd parties/enthusiasts could make hardware controls, or raspberrypi alternatives for example.
> 
> Jim


As I'm the tablet programmer, hopefully I can make the UI not "laggy" and so far that's the case. I'm also playing with the idea of a count down timer on the steam, as well as screaming STOP (ha!) at the tablet to stop the steam (assuming working voice recognition).

That being said, I did mention the paddle controller for those that don't want a UI. However, if you don't mind UI, I have one more permutation to offer you: the paddle and a small phone-sized (included) Android device that you use for changing settings, but which otherwise sits in a drawer. You use the manual controls to make coffee.

As to open APIs, yes, this machine is specifically targeted at maker-types, both software and hardware hackers. The gui is open source, but there's also an HTTP/REST interface if you want to make your own gui. In principle, it should be "not that hard" to add new bluetooth controls, much like how musicians use MIDI controllers.


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## decent_espresso

\ said:


> £850 is that right, considering the strong money for Decent-Doser.


I do unfortunately need to be clear that the 220V version will be more expensive than the USA 110V version (currently looking at £999). The reason is that we're putting much beefier heaters and pumps into that model, because we *can*. That means more powerful steam, because at 110V physics is not really on your side, whereas at 220V there's enough juice to make decent on demand steam. Also, faster startup time on 220V.

Just a note that this is not an anti-Brit bias: the UK/EU machine will be just plain better. I'm Britain-born and lived in London for years before launching into this little adventure.


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## Lefteye

Thanks for all the clarification above. Really looking forward to this one.


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## h1udd

Steam on a timer ? .... What if the milk is ready before or after the timer runs down ? And you would need a button for purging the wand before steaming and for cleaning .... And a button for using steam to warm a cup.

some things are easier with a mechanical switch/knob especially seeing that steaming is a 2 handed job and having a big knob or lever right by your wand is a lot easier and safer than trying to operate an iPad to turn the milk on and off whilst trying to hold the milk in the right position

with out meaning to be insulting, as I am truly interested in this venture, but do you use a manual machine yourself as some of the ideas seem to originate from a designers point of view rather than a users perspective ?


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## decent_espresso

h1udd said:


> Steam on a timer ? .... What if the milk is ready before or after the timer runs down ? And you would need a button for purging the wand before steaming and for cleaning .... And a button for using steam to warm a cup.some things are easier with a mechanical switch/knob especially seeing that steaming is a 2 handed job and having a big knob or lever right by your wand is a lot easier and safer than trying to operate an iPad to turn the milk on and off whilst trying to hold the milk in the right position


To quickly answer your question: the screen presents large rectangular "buttons" that turn functions on/off, just as they do on traditional espresso machines.

I think there's a general worry about having to "operate an iPad" that I could do well to clear up. The tablet runs Android, is supplied ready-to-go and boots directly into the controlling application. You don't need to interact with the Android operating system.

I'm working on two ways of using this machine.

The "simple mode" presents 3 huge rectangles on screen that you tap to turn on or off. In this way, they operate exactly like on/off buttons on traditional espresso machine.

This is what this "simple mode" looks like:









those big rectangles measure something like 2" x 3", and should be easy to tap, even if you're busy steaming milk. My GS/3 has a 1cm button to turn steam off, which is considerably harder to hit.

You tap the icon to start a function, and tap it again to stop.

The optional "advanced mode" is getting rolled out progressively and the design is still being refined. Here is what the STEAM page looks like:









the idea is to (a) guide you to choose the amount of milk you want for the kind of drink you've selected (b) let you adjust steam pressure and © work with a bluetooth thermometer to automatically stop steaming when the milk reaches the desired temperature.

Each major function (espresso/steam/hot water) has a screen like this. You can choose to use this "Advanced mode" or stay with the "Simple mode" where the machine works more like a traditional machine.



h1udd said:


> with out meaning to be insulting, as I am truly interested in this venture, but do you use a manual machine yourself as some of the ideas seem to originate from a designers point of view rather than a users perspective ?


No insult taken. <grin></grin>

At home I have a La Marzocco GS/3 and at the office we have a two group E61 "no-tech" machine. The coffee quality of my GS/3 is what we're aiming for, but with pressure profiling added, and more transparency as to what's going on during a shot.

As to the "steam timer" idea, it's just that at the moment, an idea. However, if you consistently heat 200ml of milk up, it's likely that running steam for the same amount of time each day (say, 35 seconds) will produce milk heated more or less the same temperature.

Since we have shot timers and volumetric dosing for espresso, why can't we have an optional steam wand timer? It seems like the same principle to me.

-john


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## decent_espresso

NOW PULLING SHOTS WITH THE NEW MACHINE

We finally put everything together today, and we're making shots. All components are "done" and we're now in "tuning", "lowering manufacturing cost", and "safety compliance". After that, we'll be making our final manufacturing choices.

Back in October, we built and demonstrated a prototype with all our ideas, but that machine cost us $2500 to build. In comparison, the machine that we built to make this espresso today cost us about $550 to make. We're getting close to hitting a manufacturing cost that will allow us to sell this machine directly to consumers at $999.






This is with Scott Rao's pressure profile of a slow ramp up to 8.4 bar for 10 seconds, then slow decrease to 4 bar until the end.

I wonder if we should move gently slope to 4 bar (it's pretty fast right now). Also, we're taking about 10 seconds to get to full pressure, is that perhaps too long?

19g in, 27g out, 30 seconds shot time, medium roast (Brazilian beans). Many thanks to @bloomsroastery http://www.blooms.com.hk/ for providing us with awesome beans.

93.5 celsius water temperature. Our maximum error over the shot was 1.5 celsius (under temperature), which we will be able to improve on over the next few weeks.

Is there anything you see in this video that you would comment on?


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## Mrboots2u

What do you see if any in the potential price differences from USA to UK ? Will the machines be the " same "

Can we have a clip to see how the profile is set , or displayed as it progresses ....

Cheers


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## jlarkin

Mrboots2u said:


> What do you see if any in the potential price differences from USA to UK ? Will the machines be the " same "
> 
> Can we have a clip to see how the profile is set , or displayed as it progresses ....


from a couple of weeks ago



decent_espresso said:


> I do unfortunately need to be clear that the 220V version will be more expensive than the USA 110V version (currently looking at £999). The reason is that we're putting much beefier heaters and pumps into that model, because we *can*. That means more powerful steam, because at 110V physics is not really on your side, whereas at 220V there's enough juice to make decent on demand steam. Also, faster startup time on 220V.
> 
> Just a note that this is not an anti-Brit bias: the UK/EU machine will be just plain better. I'm Britain-born and lived in London for years before launching into this little adventure.


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## bronc

That looks neat! Will be looking forward to the release.


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## oursus

decent_espresso said:


> Is there anything you see in this video that you would comment on?


Hard to tell how it tastes from the video  the mockups and the site look good - the option for analogue controls will inspire confidence.

So for function: how much control over pressure do you have ( how many zones, how is that control achieved etc)

Juice: What thermoblock or coils for brew & steam have you gone with for uk models?

I think the next couple of years will see more than a couple of similarly intentioned machines, if you can get a well constructed machine to market in the next 12 weeks, the world is your oyster!


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## decent_espresso

oursus said:


> how much control over pressure do you have ( how many zones, how is that control achieved etc)


You draw a pressure profile with your finger. Inside the machine, there are 4 zones per second, if you want to think of it in terms of zones (which I know is how other espresso machine do).

Control over the pressure is achieved by detecting the zero crossing of the AC current going into the pump and removing some of the pump cycles that way, thereby slowing down the pump.



oursus said:


> Juice: What thermoblock or coils for brew & steam have you gone with for uk models?


We're using a coiled tube heater for brew, and another for steam, and both are custom made for us (and different). I can't tell you what heater specs we've decided for 220/240V as we haven't yet decided (that's the "tuning stage" we're in now). It'll likely be "as powerful as EC safety compliance lets us have".


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## decent_espresso

Mrboots2u said:


> Can we have a clip to see how the profile is set , or displayed as it progresses ....Cheers


I can't yet show you how the profile is set, as the tablet software is not yet done.

I can show you the UI designer's mockup, with the huge caveat that the text is "total nonsense" inserted there by the UI designer as a placeholder for "real text".

You can see that we'll be charting the goal pressure profile (that's the line), the real pressure achieved, temperature achieved and water flow rate. All given in real time.


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## Lefteye

A good bit of further information has come up on home barista, would @decent_espresso care to share it here too?


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## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> A good bit of further information has come up on home barista, would @decent_espresso care to share it here too?


DE1 and DE1PRO and La Marzocco GS/3.

-----

I wrote an extensive response on Home-Barista.com (http://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/decent-espresso-promises-rock-solid-temperature-and-pressure-for-less-than-1000-t37395-380.html) to a set of really good questions, I'm guessing that's what you're referring to.

I'll repost that here, and I'm happy to take the conversation up here as well.

-----

"Do you have an expected release date for the V2 paddle and the Pro version; or will those be the same machine?"

The paddle feature is a projected future accessory, but I don't know when it will ship, as it is currently being worked on as a lower priority and it's not on our release calendar yet.

Currently, we're projecting an August 2016 ship date for two models, a DE1 ($999) and a DE1PRO ($3999).

The DE1 has:

* excellent temperature accuracy (worst case of +/- 1.0C)

* pressure profiling: choose one of 12 pre-set profiles

* charts that show you temperature, flow and pressure in real time, and also point out technique problems that caused a bad coffee

* a simple "tap the icon to make this" interface

* water temp settable between 80C and 99C

* precise control over the temperature of the hot water tap

* control over the steam temperature

* very high quality portafilter basket (equivalent to VST quality)

* 110V/220V

The DE1PRO adds:

- laboratory level temperature accuracy (no worse than +/- 0.3C, better still to be determined)

- calibration equipment (and steps) are provided so that you can regularly recalibrate your machine to achieve consistently accurate results

- make your own pressure profile

- temperature profiling

- flow profiling

- automatic detection of the end of pre-infusion

- flow vs pressure priority modes

- volumetric dosing

- water temp settable between 20C and 99C

- real time temperature, flow and pressure control, with on-screen sliders

- recording and playback of shots

- later: cloud storage, reviewing and export of all shots

- later: optional taste analysis storing (using the Counter Culture system)

---

"Have you compared DE1 and your GS3 head to head in the cup?"

I do love my GS/3 and I'm friends with Bill Crossland, so I'll try to be as fair as I can be!

For a straight 9-bar shot, if my puck preparation technique is perfect on the GS/3, I find that both the DE1 and GS/3 taste almost identical.

I use a 5 second preinfusion setting on my GS/3, as I find that helps me avoid channeling and I get a more even extraction (I use a bottomless portafilter).

If my puck preparation is not perfect, the 9 bar on/off nature of the GS/3 tends to be merciless, and my less-than perfect technique results in a mediocre shot. I am by no means an Barista God, I've never worked in a café, and the number of shots I've made number in the thousands, not 10x or 100x that, which a professional barista would have done.

I find that the slower pressure ramp up of the DE1 (inspired by Nuova Simonelli's "Soft Infusion System") is more forgiving of imperfect technique, and so I'm drinking excellent shots more often with the DE1.

Both the GS3 and the DE1 have excellent baskets, similar portafilters, and accurate water temperature. I wouldn't expect them to be very different tasting.

The GS3 has amazing steam production, and it took me a while to decide on a steam temperature setting that I could control (about 20s to steam milk). Our DE1 in the lab is currently at about 50s to do the same quantity of milk, but we expect to get to 40s. I don't think we'll achieve the GS3's steam capability.

I have never been able to make the "tea" water-temperature-knob work right on my GS/3, and this has always frustrated me as I make a lot of Americanos. With the DE1's ability to set the "tea" water temperature acurately, my Americanos are the right temperature.

---

"As you have improved technology are you seeing new dimensions to espresso or new challenges compared with the traditional machines?"

In Seattle, I was able to spend an afternoon with Dennis, the brain behindhttps://instagram.com/kafatek/ and we taste compared his Slayer and Synesso machines. They have very different taste profiles, and I was intrigued by Slayer's very long infusion technique. We were making shots with this same profile last week on the DE1, with a 2cc flow rate during preinfusion, lasting about 40 seconds, and the DE1 would go into a 8.4bar-to-4bar pressure profile when it automatically detected that the puck was fully saturated (I don't think Slayer can do this). The flavor we achieved here was more pour-over like, and definitely reminiscent of the Slayer. Dennis told me he prefers the Slayer for his light roasts.

With my GS/3, I play with brew temperature every time I change roasts. It's a bit slow to change temperature, but it does work. With the DE1, I like that I can change the brew temperature and immediately pull another shot to compare each side-by-side.

The same goes with pressure changes: I can pull two shots, one after another (there's no delay between shots with our espresso machine, but we did have delays in earlier incarnations), and then compare them.

---

"Have you noticed with the DE1 that you can do things you could not do on other machines? For example, I believe your temperature and pressure profiling capability is likely changing your approach to beans and grind settings etc. If so can you share some of your observations?"

At this point, we don't have a real user interface to our espresso machine (I'm programming it), it's all driven by Ray's laptop, so we haven't been doing so much experimentation yet. Last week, we tried a Slayer profile, this week, we're onto Rao's profile and next week I want to try a bit of temperature profiling.

I hope that our flow profiling feature will yield interesting results, as it's my opinion that people using pressure profiling are actually trying to regulate flow, so why not simply set a flow profile and let the machine choose the pressure that achieves that?

This is the first post I've made describing the DE1PRO. We previously were holding back on these features because they seemed too "edgy" for a home audience, and more "coffee experimenter". My experience is that the DE1 will deliver shots at least equivalent in quality to the GS/3, whereas the DE1PRO is aimed at a much smaller, tinkerer market. The higher price lets us go "whole hog" and put everything we've developed into one model.

Incidentally, today Ray showed me his temperature profiling today, and I made a movie from our conversation:


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## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> A good bit of further information has come up on home barista, would @decent_espresso care to share it here too?


and possibly this is of interest too...

"John, do you have local retailer/distributors in your supply chain or are you selling direct through the website?"

We are only selling direct. As many people predicted, the DE1 is a lot more expensive to make than the competition (about 3x more) and there is no margin in our business plan to give 40% commissions to middlemen."

Like the rest of the HBers, I too am very concerned about service and support, which is another reason I want to sell direct. If you have any problems, I want you to have a direct line with us, so we can fix the problem. My experience is that middlemen like to make margin from moving boxes, but usually get in the way when there's a problem.

Luckily, shipping things back to Hong Kong is almost free (USD$200 to fill a container from Los Angeles to HK), so our plan is if your machine breaks, you send it to our depot in your country, and we send you a new machine from HK. We'll eventually ship those broken machines slowly back to us, repair them and sell them at a discount as refurbished units.

---

"How soon can we see pricing which includes delivery (and conversion for us outside of the US :| )?"

I've just signed a contract with our fulfilment house (that's a company that does shipping and customs clearance). As to shipping, you're looking at somewhere between USD$100 and USD$250 to ship our machine to you, depending on how fast you want it (15 to 20 days for the cheaper, 3-5 days for the expensive option).

For 220V/240V countries, the price is expected to be about 30% higher for the DE1, because we're putting heavier duty components into it. Some countries, like the EU, also have import duties that need to be accounted for.

---

"Can you post the pressure profiles you will have on the stock DE1, or are you still finalizing them?"

We haven't decided on them at all, and I'm happy to discuss what we should have, on HB. I was thinking of having plenty of flat-pressure profiles, say at 4bar, 6bar, 8.2bar, 8.4bar, 9.0bar, 9.2bar, as well as profiles that imitate the stock profiles of Nuova Simonelli, Slayer and Synesso.

I run a private discussion group with 23 competition baristas, which includes two world champions, and I expect that some of our profiles will emerge from them.

We won't have it at shipping time, but my intention is for people with the DE1PRO to be able to make their own profiles, save and share them via our cloud service, and for people with the DE1 to then be able to download those profiles and use them. I wasn't foreseeing artificially limiting the number of profiles on the DE1 to some arbitrary number. At launch there'll be some set number, but as we push out software updates, this will number will increase until sharing is possible.

---

"Several people have commented that you wont draw GS3/Slayer/Synesso crowds with your $1K machine. I and others made a point that quality and performance certainly might and should. This price point for the Pro model does not surprise me if one looks at the price of a Vesuvius, gs3, slayer etc."

My GS/3 cost me €7000, while a Slayer one group machine is USD$8500 (https://prima-coffee.com/equipment/slayer/single-group).

The DE1PRO is less than half the price of those machines, and except for our lower steam production than a traditional boiler machine, I believe it matches all their capabilities and has a half dozen other capabilities that they don't have. If you buy our 220V machine, I think we'll be close to matching their steam production too.

---

"Many people on HB purchase commercial machines and I would even state that we are more likely to be tinkerers compared with a commercial setting where a barista would not have time to make multiple changes and play with different functions or change beans frequently enough to try out different profiles. I presumed your target audience was the home barista actually."

You're right, that's my background, and that is the target audience. However, nobody would win if we tried to sell the DE1PRO at $999 and subsequently went out of business. It's just too expensive a machine to build (and to have developed: R&D is not cheap) to sell at a BDB price.

---

"As you continue to pile on the features I'm probably going to turn my concern to long term reliability/repairability. Until you came along the BDB was similarly positioned - an extremely capable machine at an unbelievable price. Since then many BDB's have died - but luckily for consumers Breville has gone above and beyond their warranty obligations and kept customers happy. I'm sure you're confident that these are going to hold up, but when suddenly thousands of machines are out in the wild getting used and abused who knows what's going to happen. I'm definitely optimistic, but $4000 is asking a lot of trust from a young company."

Of course we're going to do our best to make our machines hold up. The 3 of us engineers here are in our 40s, and have shipped a lot of new products, so we do have long term experience with this. I previously built and ran a company that grew to 50 employees, thousands of customers, and which ran the email newsletters for 3 US presidential election campaigns: this would have been unlikely to happen with bad customer service.

As a new company, I expect that no matter how great our machine, if it fails in the field and we don't deliver a good service experience, that we won't succeed as a company.

I answered, at the top of this message, how we're planning on supporting our machines. We'll also be selling all parts to anyone who wants to buy them, not just to technicians, in case you want to stockpile parts as a hedge against our longevity.









---

"I wonder, will the $4k DE1 pro have multiple thermoblocks to allow for simultaneous brewing/steaming? If not, it's comparing apples to oranges."

Yes, both the DE1 and the DE1PRO have two water heaters, one for brew and one for steam. Both heaters are used for steam production, but the steam heater is a custom design to prevent "wet steam" from coming out the wand.

---

"Agreed; I was just making a point about high end features and price point. The Vesuvius with pressure profiling would probably be the closest comparison. However, the difference in technology with the DE1 is inherently an apples to oranges comparison with any current machine. I would assume that the Pro model would need a sexy exterior and be capable of simultaneous brew/steam to be competitive at that price point; unless, of course the target audience really is just going to be research/lab."

Simultaneous Brew/Steam for us, is simply a matter of electrical juice available. At 220V/240V, we can absolutely do it, and we probably (not sure yet) can do it at 20A/110V. Not at 110V/15A, though.

Water heating once the shot is at full pressure takes much less electricity (because of the lower water flow), so we're also exploring the possibility of simultaneous brew/steam at about 10 seconds into the shot. That's nearly instantaneous, and might satisfy many people's needs for steaming milk while the shot finishes. This is still to be researched.


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## risky

@decent_espresso Can I ask, on the DE1, with the built in pressure profiles, and apparent ability to download other ones, why restrict the user from being able to make their own profiles? I think as a user I would be very fraustrated that it's essentially 'locked off' by the software. If you're allowing cloud downloading of profiles, and I had a mate with a PRO, I could just get him to make the profile and upload it so I could download and use it? Makes a bit of a mockery of it all?

There is still plenty extra to justify the price tag on the PRO.


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## bronc

@decent_espresso i'm the guy who suggested adding a spring-loaded lever style profile which by the way some people on here have done on their Vesuviuses so they should be able to pitch in. @Mrboots2u springs to mind..

As for the PRO I really think you should focus on making it more capable in terms of hardware rather than software features. I read about the physics modeling and that's pretty cool but you really need to make the $3,000 on top of the DE1 worth it if you want people to buy it. Alternatively you could narrow the price differential.. I'm pretty sure there will be very few people who are willing to spend 3x the amount of the DE1 on top to just get flow profiling, realtime flow/pressure/temp adjustments and higher pump pressure.


----------



## decent_espresso

risky said:


> @decent_espresso Can I ask, on the DE1, with the built in pressure profiles, and apparent ability to download other ones, why restrict the user from being able to make their own profiles? I think as a user I would be very fraustrated that it's essentially 'locked off' by the software. If you're allowing cloud downloading of profiles, and I had a mate with a PRO, I could just get him to make the profile and upload it so I could download and use it? Makes a bit of a mockery of it all? There is still plenty extra to justify the price tag on the PRO.


To my ears, the argument being put forward appears to be "you should give everyone the most advanced software you have developed, at no extra cost, in your $999 version, because it's just bits and bytes and has no manufacturing cost".

The DE1PRO software is much, more more extensive than the DE1 software. In the UI, there are pages not just for editing pressure, but flow profiling, creating temperature profiles, and more. In the firmware, there is about 3x more code written for the pro stuff than for the home.

At some point we have to decide what goes into the pro software and what goes into the home software. Generally speaking, for a $999 machine we're looking to make a machine competitive with the GS/3: easy to use, for people who just want to make La Marzocco grade espresso, at home, and so we don't complicate the use of that machine with things that would to appeal to tinkerers. It's an excellent coffee making machine, period. For tinkerers, we offer a more expensive, more capable, but also more complicated-to-use DE1PRO model.

I know there's reticence to pay for software, and that it's more "fair" to pay for hardware. But, if we've figured out how to do really neat things with software, that would otherwise have required hardware 10x more expensive, can we not meet half way, and recoup some of our investment while still offering a much-lower-priced-than-the-competition machine?

Should we not do innovation in software, and stick only to innovating in hardware, because people aren't willing to pay for software-based innovations?

I know that the $3999 price tag is high, but our nearest competitors (the GS/3 and the Slayer single group) are 2x as expensive, and offer much less (no temp/flow/pressure profiling).

My goal in making a PRO version at a $3999 price was to hugely lower the price of these features, which are currently only available in a very few, very expensive professional espresso machines.

At the end of the day, it seems to me that what should matter in people's decision is whether the features offered at a given price have that value to them, not whether they were implemented in software or hardware.

-john


----------



## bronc

@decent_espresso I actually didn't express myself very well. What I meant is do these $3,000 on top make for a better espresso in the cup or are they just cool features to play with? As you said it doesn't matter if they are software or hardware implemented if they do the same thing. With coffee equipment we are used to the hardware making all the difference so maybe that's why people are finding it hard to accept that the software can demand such a premium.


----------



## decent_espresso

bronc said:


> What I meant is do these make for a better espresso in the cup or are they just cool features to play with?


I think the answer is "we don't know for sure yet", but let me go through each feature and say a bit about it.

*pressure profiling*: the number of people doing temperature or flow profiling, with blind taste tests, is very few. Some world barista champions are very pro pressure profiling, so that technology seems to make a better cup.

*temperature profiling*: one of Scott Rao's books (I forget which, sorry!) has a table of suggested slight over-temperatures to compensate for the cooling effect of the grounds, based on the dose size. Scott is actually the codesigner of our espresso machine, and certainly our authority of everything that is serious coffee knowledge (Scott is wwwwwwaaaayyy beyond my knowledge). Scott has a theory, in discussion with me, that temperature profiling should lead to a better in cup result, because more of the extraction should take place closer to the water set point, by using temperature profiling to compensate for the cooling effect of the grounds. This "problem" with espresso is why Scott prefers pour over, where the entire extraction takes place closer to the water set point.

*flow profiling*: there are a handful of hand-modified machines out there using this technology, I don't know any machine shipping with it. In theory, it should do what pressure profiling aims to do, but to do it better, so I expect the in cup result to be better too.

*automatic detection of the end of preinfusion*: will result in a better cup than timed preinfusion, which is what other machines do. We're also managing Slayer-like slow preinfusion (2 ml/second, for ~40 seconds) with automatic detection of the end of that cycle leading into a pressure profile. That's giving us a really different espresso taste profile, more like drip coffee.

*15 bar extractions*: unknown, but Nespresso claims their machines extract at 15 bars, and according to James Hoffman they're getting very high extractions, so this is an interesting avenue to explore

*Recording and playback of shots*: if you have a really good shot, the DE1PRO can repeat the flow/pressure/temperature profile of it. That should lead to more consistently good shots.

We're also working on manufacturing our own bluetooth scale, and if we can get it ready in time, then these two features will be added to the DE1PRO. If the scale comes late, then people who purchased the DE1PRO will get our scale and software upgrade for free.

*Gravimetric dosing*: the Black Eagle famously touts this feature, as I'm pretty sure this will be part of the DE1PRO too. It depends on whether we can get our bluetooth scale launched at the same time as the DE1PRO.

*Profile imitation*: bluetooth scale allows copying of flow/pressure profiles of other espresso machines (such as lever machines)


----------



## MWJB

decent_espresso said:


> *15 bar extractions*: unknown, but Nespresso claims their machines extract at 15 bars, and according to James Hoffman they're getting very high extractions, so this is an interesting avenue to explore.


Isn't that more a function of their longer brew ratios & grind distribution than blind bar pressure?


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## decent_espresso

MWJB said:


> Isn't that more a function of their longer brew ratios & grind distribution than blind bar pressure?


I don't know, the only article I've found analyzing Nespresso is this one: http://www.jimseven.com/2015/05/21/an-analysis-of-nespresso-part-i/

If you have some links of others analyzing what's going on inside a Nespresso machine, I would love to read those!


----------



## decent_espresso

We're still finalizing the stream heater control algorithm, but it looks like we're able to deliver much better steam power than I had predicted. I had previously said we'd be ~40 to ~50 seconds to steam 200ml of milk. Today, I accomplished this in 34 seconds. This was on our 110V machine.

You can also see how the single hole steam wand tip is performing. I'm finding it fairly easy to control and it's making good quality foam.


----------



## MWJB

decent_espresso said:


> I don't know, the only article I've found analyzing Nespresso is this one: http://www.jimseven.com/2015/05/21/an-analysis-of-nespresso-part-i/
> 
> If you have some links of others analyzing what's going on inside a Nespresso machine, I would love to read those!


I have also measured EY of a few Nespresso shots, not with the same amount of detail that James Hoffmann did. But notice that in his sieve tests of a Lungo capsule 80% of the ground weight was over 500um, filter coffee territory? The lungo I measured was 6.4g dose into 110g of beverage, or a 17:1 ratio in the cup (would equate to 19:1 as a drip ratio, so a bit lower than typical).

The pods I weighed were in the region of 5.1g dose to 6.4g dose, so even for a Nespresso 'ristretto' shot that's ~4:1 ratio, 6 or 7:1 ratio for Nespresso 'espresso'.

So it strikes me that the high yields are related more to the long brew ratios employed, the fact they still taste good into the mid 20's (I measured a lungo at 29%EY and it was bitter as you'd expect) probably more a function of the grind distribution (I have had sweet tasting mid 20's extractions from commercially ground coffee too).


----------



## risky

decent_espresso said:


> *flow profiling*: there are a handful of hand-modified machines out there using this technology, I don't know any machine shipping with it. In theory, it should do what pressure profiling aims to do, but to do it better, so I expect the in cup result to be better too.


 @DavecUK didn't you say that apart from the Vesuvius, all other machines that claim to pressure profile are, in fact, flow profiling?


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## DavecUK

risky said:


> @DavecUK didn't you say that apart from the Vesuvius, all other machines that claim to pressure profile are, in fact, flow profiling?


With the exception of the La marzoco Strada EP (but this is at the moment only a 2 group commercial) for prosumer machines, this does still seem to be the case. If you have a standard Vibe pump or a standard Rotary pump, then your flow profiling, because you use valves, bypasses and restriction, rather than truly varying pump pressure. The ideal would be to have both pressure and on the fly flow profiling of course...

Always lots of people ready to expound myths on the internet, like those about the El Roccio Zarre machine, but in hard testing, it failed to deliver against the myths.


----------



## scottgough

Interesting, I might see if Andrew Meo from Rocket would like to respond to this, he's quite into his engineering.


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## decent_espresso

A few people private-messaged me, asking to see the quality of the milk foam made on the DE1, so I made this very short movie. This was 200ml of whole milk, lifted to about 275ml of volume, in about 35 seconds.


----------



## decent_espresso

We have the bluetooth module working now, and I've written a not-yet-finished version of the tablet UI (no "settings" section yet, no shot-progress info, but otherwise working), and so we were today able to make unassisted coffee drinks. This also demonstrates our accurate-temperature "hot water" feature, making a 60°C Americano. This is a major milestone for us.


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## bronc

What's the purpose of that portafilter-like handle/thing? There is something very unnatural about how it looks.


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## decent_espresso

It's going to be moving to the other side of the group head, in about 2 weeks (new group head design coming). The 2nd handle is there because our machine not heavy like a boiler based machine, and so we found it helpful to put a hand on something (with your other hand) as you lock in the portafilter.

Note that if you don't like the idea of that 2nd handle, it's simply screwed in and you can remove it. I've found it really useful for locking the pf in, but it does get in the way of the steam wand where it now is, which I don't like.


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## bronc

Sounds useful but the design makes it look a bit awkward. Maybe something less obvious that doesn't look like a second portafilter handle?


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## decent_espresso

bronc said:


> Sounds useful but the design makes it look a bit awkward. Maybe something less obvious that doesn't look like a second portafilter handle?


In the video you saw, we're using an alternate design for the handle, that we only have one of, and that we're not going to manufacture.

With our current design (the one we're actually building) the 2nd handle is much smaller and shorter than the portafilter.

I agree that I'm concerned about it, it's something we really asked for feedback on at the Portland CoffeeFest trade show where we exhibited. I was really surprised at how, in person, that 2nd handle elicited nothing but shrugs. No-one seemed to be bother-ed.

Take a look at this video to see what a few views of that 2nd handle. But, I am moving it to the left next week, as it is annoying in the way during steaming, at the moment.


----------



## risky

I must admit I thought the handle an odd looking thing, although I can see how it could be useful depending on how tight the portafilter fits into the group head. Maybe a smaller one reminiscent of the paddle would look better.

As a lefty, the existing placement is good, which made me wonder how awkward it must be on any machine to lock in a portafilter with your right hand.


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## h1udd

As a micro casa elekra owner, the PF locks in that way .... It's mildly awkward for a right hander BUT not because it's difficult, just unnatural feeling as you are used to doing it the other way all the time. It dies keep it out the way of the steam wand though and still leaves it at a decent enough angle to provide leverage when pulling the lever.

in your case couldn't you use a thicker gasket z d have it line up dead centre ?


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## decent_espresso

As it happens, we're currently playing with different gaskets, as the one in there now is waaaay too stiff. The pf locking where it does is that people can use other pf brands and they'll work. We found some pfs lock around "5pm" so we ended up making our lock around "7pm" as a compromise.

As to the 2nd handle, we'll see if it's needed in many cases. We're using rubber suction cup feet, so that if you put the DE1 on tile or any other watertight surface, it stays put despite not being heavy.

As I mentioned above, if you don't like the 2nd handle, it screws out.


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## malling

decent_espresso said:


> You're absolutely right, we'd have to charge at least twice that if we were working through resellers and distributors, as each typically takes a 30% to 50% margin.
> 
> I really hate the idea of making a machine for £150, selling it to a distributor for £250 and the eventual customer paying £899 for it. There's no way to make a decent machine for that little money.
> 
> That's why we're only selling direct to consumer. That lets us spend £500 to make your machine, sell it to you for £999, and we make enough profit to both make something of quality, and support you in the case where you have any problems.


Being a company in US, there is one thing that will hit European hard financially and that is VAT and import duties.

If your machine is indeed sold at £999, the price for many Europeans will however be more like £1250-1300


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## Dylan

I have a Cafelat gasket in my machine at the moment, and whilst its a big heavy VBM I barely lock the PF in and I never get any spurts. I think the design of the lugs and material of the gasket can mean even the lightest machine doesn't need to move when locking int he PF.

Perhaps design a simple way to unscrew the handle and maybe a nice looking decorative cap to go where the screw hole is if you dont use it?


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I have a Cafelat gasket in my machine at the moment, and whilst its a big heavy VBM I barely lock the PF in and I never get any spurts. I think the design of the lugs and material of the gasket can mean even the lightest machine doesn't need to move when locking in the PF.


I'm friends with Paul @ Cafelat and have one of his gaskets here. If you prefer it, you can absolutely use it on our espresso machine.



Dylan said:


> Perhaps design a simple way to unscrew the handle and maybe a nice looking decorative cap to go where the screw hole is if you dont use it?


Because we have a "cover" on the group head, you can't actually see the hole if you remove the handle, unless you bend way down and look for it.



malling said:


> Being a company in US, there is one thing that will hit European hard financially and that is VAT and import duties. If your machine is indeed sold at £999, the price for many Europeans will however be more like £1250-1300


We're shipping out of Hong Kong, where we're building the machines (that's where I am too), but yes, the VAT/duty issue when sending products into the EU is unavoidable.


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> I'm friends with Paul @ Cafelat and have one of his gaskets here. If you prefer it, you can absolutely use it on our espresso machine.
> 
> ---
> 
> Because we have a "cover" on the group head, you can't actually see the hole if you remove the handle, unless you bend way down and look for it.


Good stuff, it seems like its a good option to have in any case so if it's removable and doesn't adversely affect the design then its just an added bonus.


----------



## decent_espresso

Some people have expressed the sentiment that they really don't want to have to use a tablet to make an espresso, and for them that is a major hurdle to them using the espresso machine we're designing.

So, I made a video to show how (not) difficult it is. The goal was to not make day-to-day espresso making any more difficult than a simpler (non tablet) machine. The main benefit of the tablet is that you can go into the "settings" page and change temperature, pressure profile, volumetric dosing, gravimetric dosing (if you have our bluetooth scale) and more.

This video is showing an early version of the user interface: I'll be adding (I'm the programmer) a real time display of water temperature, pressure, and flow, as well as a shot timer.


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## h1udd

Can you show us s vid where you start the pour, then the tablet decides to freeze and you need to hard reset it before the app responds again giving you 1ltr of espresso in that cup









Or the one where you hit stop ... Nothing happens .... Hit stop agsin nothing happens .... Hit it 3 more times .... Then it catches up and stops the shot, starts it, stops it, starts it and stops it.









it does look ace ... And it does look easy to use, but I get these issues using the Sonos app on a notable basis ... A tad annoying but livable ... On an espresso machine, i would insist on a wired button to turn the shot off .... Or at least have the power button on the front


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## decent_espresso

h1udd said:


> it does look easy to use, but I get these issues using the Sonos app on a notable basis ... A tad annoying but livable ... On an espresso machine, i would insist on a wired button to turn the shot off .... Or at least have the power button on the front


Sonos might be able to get away with that kind of thing, but if the DE1 ever acts like you're describing, that would be an EPIC FAIL, it would be widely discussed (and mocked) all over the Internet, and that would be the end of us. It's just not acceptable, I think, for a device to act like you say your Sonos is doing.

That being said, I've mentioned before that we're working on a (extra cost) paddle controller that will let you vary pressure, but also stop/start espresso brew. If you don't want to use a tablet to control our espresso machine, that'd be what I'd recommend to you.


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## malling

Good - but even if you do the programming right bluetooth still loose connections from time to time, although not as often as years back. But still I agree that you really should consider adding a shot off brew switch just in case!


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## h1udd

Doubt it's even the programming most of the time, tablets do just go nuts from time to time, apps crash, sometimes due to their programming, some times due to other programs incorrectly releasing memory etc.

sods law says its will happen mid pour ....

The ipad 1 is particularly bad, the iPad 2 a bit better, the nexus 7 gen1 is the worst, kindle fire is ok, but slow, the iPhone 5s is the most stable and the Lumia 640 is ok as well ... Other than notifications keep popping up stopping what I am doing.

on that it would seem the age of a device has an impact .... So will I need to spend £400a year/2years keeping my coffee machine running sweet ?


----------



## malling

As he wrote you could just get the manual version









That written the steaming seems quite awkward


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## jlarkin

Am I imagining that the tablet is supplied with the machine? So it's also less likely it'll get bogged down by other software etc...I thought I read that but can't see it now.


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## bronc

It would be better of they referred to it as a touch screen rather than a tablet which sounds more daunting than it really is.


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## oursus

I think we've already covered the fact that this will be a supplied tablet, booting straight into the app, not into an operating system, so definitely more stable... I have to agree that an override would be desirable (if only a power switch on the front) though, in kitchens, stuff happens, excluding an interrupter just sounds like hubris to me!


----------



## PPapa

oursus said:


> I think we've already covered the fact that this will be a supplied tablet, booting straight into the app, not into an operating system, so definitely more stable... I have to agree that an override would be desirable (if only a power switch on the front) though, in kitchens, stuff happens, excluding an interrupter just sounds like hubris to me!


Some devil advocates say that specialised hardware/software is less reliable than a COTS equivalents.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean "booting straight into the app". That sounds bonkers to me.

I hope the tablet has been built on Android (which sounds like a better idea), but I agree that not having switches sounds weird. I know most buttons aren't truly mechanical (flown by wire instead), but at least it has a shorter chain of things that can go wrong.


----------



## oursus

PPapa said:


> Some devil advocates say that specialised hardware/software is less reliable than a COTS equivalents.
> 
> Also, I'm not sure what you mean "booting straight into the app". That sounds bonkers to me.
> 
> I hope the tablet has been built on Android (which sounds like a better idea), but I agree that not having switches sounds weird. I know most buttons aren't truly mechanical (flown by wire instead), but at least it has a shorter chain of things that can go wrong.


Pretty simple @PPapa android is linux, just google trademarked.

What you're looking at is a gui, a pretty overlay that can glitch - the app here is the gui, one less layer to glitch, (so not truly an app, just being referred to as one for the sake of discussion) the tablet will, I assume, be off the shelf (they can be bought direct, with no OS)

Most interrupters are mechanical.


----------



## PPapa

oursus said:


> Pretty simple @PPapa android is linux, just google trademarked.
> 
> What you're looking at is a gui, a pretty overlay that can glitch - the app here is the gui, one less layer to glitch, (so not truly an app, just being referred to as one for the sake of discussion) the tablet will, I assume, be off the shelf (they can be bought direct, with no OS)
> 
> Most interrupters are mechanical.


I guess that's just my interpretation of your saying "booting straight into the app". You still boot the OS and load the app (even if you can't use it for anything else).

I am well aware of Linux (regular user for nearly a decade now). Had some anecdotal experience of custom ROMs for the Android based phones and I will religiously say that I won't trust them to operate the espresso machine without an alternative switch off.


----------



## oursus

PPapa said:


> I guess that's just my interpretation of your saying "booting straight into the app". You still boot the OS and load the app (even if you can't use it for anything else).
> 
> I am well aware of Linux (regular user for nearly a decade now). Had some anecdotal experience of custom ROMs for the Android based phones and I will religiously say that I won't trust them to operate the espresso machine without an alternative switch off.


I guess we need to ask @decent_espresso about that - He could of course have written something to be compiled as a reduced functionality, increased stability OS.

The reason the ROMs are less stable, is that they are invariably trying to make use of additional, even bleeding edge functionality, completely the opposite goal to this.

I agree with the interrupt, as I said...


----------



## bronc

I read somewhere that the DE1 is going to have hardware safety features (overheating, high pressure, etc) as in the US if these are software-based the regulators who have to approve the product are much more scrutinizing/demanding and that's one of the reasons ZPM failed. I'm not sure if an 'interrupt' switch is planned but it certainly sounds like a good idea. Maybe just stick it underneath the machine so it doesn't disturb the design.


----------



## risky

bronc said:


> I read somewhere that the DE1 is going to have hardware safety features (overheating, high pressure, etc) as in the US if these are software-based the regulators who have to approve the product are much more scrutinizing/demanding and that's one of the reasons ZPM failed. I'm not sure if an 'interrupt' switch is planned but it certainly sounds like a good idea. Maybe just stick it underneath the machine so it doesn't disturb the design.


IMO it needs to be easily accessed like an emergency stop button.


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## bronc

You can just pull the plug on it if it's an emergency


----------



## PPapa

bronc said:


> I read somewhere that the DE1 is going to have hardware safety features (overheating, high pressure, etc) as in the US if these are software-based the regulators who have to approve the product are much more scrutinizing/demanding and that's one of the reasons ZPM failed. I'm not sure if an 'interrupt' switch is planned but it certainly sounds like a good idea. Maybe just stick it underneath the machine so it doesn't disturb the design.


If you have an emergency situation (steam doesn't stop or overfilling drip tray), having it underneath sounds like a disaster!

On the other hand, we should probably just appreciate that DE team is actually providing us some decent information and they are working hard to prove their machine. Very few manufacturers bother even listening to the feedback, never mind providing design details and stuff.


----------



## risky

bronc said:


> You can just pull the plug on it if it's an emergency


Behind machine, not easily accessible.


----------



## malling

oursus said:


> Pretty simple @PPapa android is linux, just google trademarked.
> 
> What you're looking at is a gui, a pretty overlay that can glitch - the app here is the gui, one less layer to glitch, (so not truly an app, just being referred to as one for the sake of discussion) the tablet will, I assume, be off the shelf (they can be bought direct, with no OS)
> 
> Most interrupters are mechanical.


true, It would just have been allot more simple and easier for people if it were an app that could be downloaded to a android and iOS device. In that case when that tablet decide to die on them they weren't depended on getting a new one from the manufacture or buying an empty tablet from the shelf and the tedious work of installing the os on it.

year sure they don't risk interference from other apps, that is a plus. But the above problem is in my book far more problematic.


----------



## decent_espresso

malling said:


> Good - but even if you do the programming right bluetooth still loose connections from time to time, although not as often as years back. But still I agree that you really should consider adding a shot off brew switch just in case!


Good point.

How about if we stop any activity (shot, steam, hot water) if the bluetooth connection to the tablet is interrupted? That seems sensible.

FYI in my testing I've yet to have bluetooth connections drop yet. I even took the tablet to the bathroom, 100ft away, and the bluetooth connection held, which suprised the hell out of me. Bear in mind that we're providing both the bluetooth module (on the espresso machine) and the tablet, so we control the quality of both ends of the connection.



h1udd said:


> Doubt it's even the programming most of the time, tablets do just go nuts from time to time, apps crash, sometimes due to their programming, some times due to other programs incorrectly releasing memory etc.


Because we provide the tablet, and all the software on it, the tablet should be pretty reliable. Now, if you load it up with bloat and malware, you might manage to make the tablet unstable.



h1udd said:


> So will I need to spend £400a year/2years keeping my coffee machine running sweet ?


Only if you feel that the tablet running your coffee machine absolutely has to have the latest version of Android. If we ship with Android 5.1 and it works perfectly well, why update anything on it, except perhaps the Espresso software ?



jlarkin said:


> Am I imagining that the tablet is supplied with the machine? So it's also less likely it'll get bogged down by other software etc...I thought I read that but can't see it now.


Correct, the tablet is included with the espresso machine.



PPapa said:


> Also, I'm not sure what you mean "booting straight into the app". That sounds bonkers to me.


If the tablet is rebooted, it will first boot into the Android desktop, and then, a few seconds later, run the Decent Espresso app.

You can do anything you want with the tablet, it's a perfectly decent stock tablet, with a 1280x800 screen and a quad-core cpu.

We won't be neutering Android. I really like that skype, for instance, is on Android, so that I can provide video tech support directly to you with it.

Yes, you will also be able to use your Android phone as a backup (or alternate) way to run the app. Also, we will (in time) have an iPhone version of our app.

-john


----------



## risky

decent_espresso said:


> Good point.
> 
> How about if we stop any activity (shot, steam, hot water) if the bluetooth connection to the tablet is interrupted? That seems sensible.
> 
> FYI in my testing I've yet to have bluetooth connections drop yet. I even took the tablet to the bathroom, 100ft away, and the bluetooth connection held, which suprised the hell out of me. Bear in mind that we're providing both the bluetooth module (on the espresso machine) and the tablet, so we control the quality of both ends of the connection.
> 
> Because we provide the tablet, and all the software on it, the tablet should be pretty reliable. Now, if you load it up with bloat and malware, you might manage to make the tablet unstable.
> 
> Only if you feel that the tablet running your coffee machine absolutely has to have the latest version of Android. If we ship with Android 5.1 and it works perfectly well, why update anything on it, except perhaps the Espresso software ?
> 
> Correct, the tablet is included with the espresso machine.
> 
> If the tablet is rebooted, it will first boot into the Android desktop, and then, a few seconds later, run the Decent Espresso app.
> 
> You can do anything you want with the tablet, it's a perfectly decent stock tablet, with a 1280x800 screen and a quad-core cpu.
> 
> We won't be neutering Android. I really like that skype, for instance, is on Android, so that I can provide video tech support directly to you with it.
> 
> Yes, you will also be able to use your Android phone as a backup (or alternate) way to run the app. Also, we will (in time) have an iPhone version of our app.
> 
> -john


You've kind of answered your own question there. If you're connecting this tablet to the Internet, it needs the latest android updates for security purposes surely?


----------



## PPapa

decent_espresso said:


> FYI in my testing I've yet to have bluetooth connections drop yet. I even took the tablet to the bathroom, 100ft away, and the bluetooth connection held, which suprised the hell out of me. Bear in mind that we're providing both the bluetooth module (on the espresso machine) and the tablet, so we control the quality of both ends of the connection.


"Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs."

- E. W. Djikstra


----------



## h1udd

decent_espresso said:


> Only if you feel that the tablet running your coffee machine absolutely has to have the latest version of Android. If we ship with Android 5.1 and it works perfectly well, why update anything on it, except perhaps the Espresso software ?


ok, so if the tablet starts to get old, doesnt hold its charge, etc etc .. as they do .... if I buy a new tablet that comes with Android 6 or 7 on it .... will I need to downgrade the OS, or will your software be compatible .... will you be coding BT drivers and apps for all versions of android .. or just 5.1, or doesnt it matter.

sorry for the confusion of questioning. But my espresso machines are 9-10 years old, 20 years old and 45 years old respectively ...... each still works perfectly ..... BUT I dont have a single bit of "tech" that is more than 5 years old that still works or that is compatible with anything else.?

I am worried that if you stop making this machine, then unless I can find a old Android device on eBay, my machine will be worthless .... well unless I buy the one with a button on it


----------



## Dylan

risky said:


> You've kind of answered your own question there. If you're connecting this tablet to the Internet, it needs the latest android updates for security purposes surely?


I would have thought security is a pretty small concern on a tablet you aren't using in your day to day life and will have limited if any personal details on it.

Decentespresso - what about an optional Bluetooth hardware module with the buttons on it that can negate the need for a tablet and open up the API so people can build their own with custom functionality if they want with a Pi or the like?


----------



## risky

Dylan said:


> I would have thought security is a pretty small concern on a tablet you aren't using in your day to day life and will have limited if any personal details on it.


I may be wrong, but if the tablet is compromised would it not allow a hacker access to your home network making any other device on your network vulnerable?


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I would have thought security is a pretty small concern on a tablet you aren't using in your day to day life and will have limited if any personal details on it.


My Android expert tells me that if Google Play is installed on the tablet, then Google will automatically push security updates to the tablet, without user intervention.



Dylan said:


> what about an optional Bluetooth hardware module with the buttons on it that can negate the need for a tablet and open up the API so people can build their own with custom functionality if they want with a Pi or the like?


The API is open, and the UI source is included, and yes, you absolutely will be able to talk to bluetooth devices like this one and glue it in:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GC37886-Griffin-PowerMate-Multimedia-Controller/dp/B00IRDRL4K/

and I'll be writing sample code to do so (maybe with the Griffin, actually, to offer real-time control of pressure), including that sample code with the espresso machine, so you can buy a popular bluetooth module, and see how it can be added. Or make your own hardware device (perhaps a 3D printed paddle), glue it on a bluetooth module, and off you go.

I'm currently showing this extension mechanism with the TI SensorTag (i.e. providing sample code) so that you can see how you can add sound, light, humidity and temperature sensing via a bluetooth accessory:

http://www.ti.com/ww/en/wireless_connectivity/sensortag2015/?INTC=SensorTag&HQS=sensortag

Some people said they'd be interested in having the humidity and temperature logged with each shot, along with flow rate. In theory, this would allow you to predict dose changes you need to make in order to achieve greater shot consistency in different weather. Since we're also developing a bluetooth controller for grinders (provides weighed doses) you could tell the grinder to adjust the dose weight for you, when weather conditions change.


----------



## malling

risky said:


> I may be wrong, but if the tablet is compromised would it not allow a hacker access to your home network making any other device on your network vulnerable?


Exactly! If one device is insecure your entire network is compromised !

That is exactly why I don't in general want Android devices in my network or try to avoid things on Internet that doesn't have a hardware firewall installed!

Hackers will always go after the weakest link


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## decent_espresso

malling said:


> Exactly! If one device is insecure your entire network is compromised ! That is exactly why I don't in general want Android devices in my network or try to avoid things on Internet that doesn't have a hardware firewall installed!


Just to be clear: you can use the tablet to make espresso with wifi disconnected. If you have these fears, that's what I'd recommend.


----------



## Dylan

The weakest link on your network is likely to be your computer, and the computers of your family. They are used day in day out to access the web which is a hackers easiest route in.

Installing nefarious software on a tablet is more difficult especially if it's only used for a few apps, and it doesn't sound like it will be used for web browsing.

No hacker is going to target you personally unless you have good stuff to steal that they know is there and worth their time. You will only ever be a victim of bots or software created to steal details, you almost always need to install this yourself by clicking the wrong link or thing.


----------



## Kyle T

I am surprised by the amount of people getting caught up on both using a tablet and using a tablet via Bluetooth.

There are kids playing on video game consoles using Bluetooth controllers for 5,6,7,8 hours straight with no issues. People listening to music through their car audio system which is using Bluetooth. Hotels and shops and all different companies using tablets to control a number of things on a day to day basis. I cant see many issues with a tablet using only one app via Bluetooth. Think how many apps your phone has running in the back ground right now, mine probably has at least 10 and 99% of the time I have no problems with it.

I think maybe some people are maybe concerned with the lack of buttons and a mechanical feel but technology has been changing this for years, I suppose its just time for coffee machines to catch up. I think its a great looking piece of kit and cant wait to see the finished product. If I could afford one I would likely buy one.


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## Lefteye

@decentespresso will the new scales you are making work gravimetrically with the basic decent espresso machine or only the pro version??


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## decent_espresso

The scale will work with the DE1 (non-pro) version to add gravimetric dosing capability to that espresso machine.


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## decent_espresso

Some time ago I posted photos of an idea for an optional paddle controller for our espresso machine.

With that design, the bottom part of the paddle controlled espresso preinfusion and brew. The top part of the paddle controlled steam and hot water. In the end, I decided to abandon the idea of a combined paddle. Even though it was aesthetically pleasing to me for it to be so minimalist, it wasn't especially functional.

Below are 3 photos of a new approach, using 3 separate controls.


ESPRESSO) the paddle on the group head controls espresso making (preinfusion and brew)

STEAM) the sliding switch on the right hand side lifts up to enable steam, and permits control over steam output. The idea is to be able to take one hand off the bottom of the milk jug and to tap the steam control with your hand in an upward hand movement. Tap up-up-up to increase steam. To stop the steam use your right hand, which presumably was under the milk jug, and do a downward "karate chop" on the switch, to stop it.

HOT WATER) the sliding switch on the left hand side controls hot water (Americano/Tea) output, with the spout being right behind the portafilter mount in the group head. Again, you can vary the water output and you stop it with a downward motion.


The precise aesthetics of this new approach are still being worked on (I'm not yet happy with the appearance of the side switches), but I wanted to post this set of drawings for comment.


----------



## risky

I like it. I would just echo the comment on Instagram about the water tank looking like a bit of an afterthought.


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## MrShades

Yup - agree with risky... I'd be hanging a tank like that off the back of it rather than the side. Looks very odd and would put me off a purchase, though I am somewhat strange when it comes to symmetry.


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## oursus

It would almost be better separate, with a feed to the machine, like a nespresso machine


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## decent_espresso

re: water tank.

Understood, though the reason we designed it that way was for the water tank to be really easily accessible (filled with your right hand) and for you to be able to see the water level. I hate being interrupted mid-shot when my water tank runs out.


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## decent_espresso

This "top view" shows the 3 controls much more clearly.


----------



## Missy

decent_espresso said:


> re: water tank.
> 
> Understood, though the reason we designed it that way was for the water tank to be really easily accessible (filled with your right hand) and for you to be able to see the water level. I hate being interrupted mid-shot when my water tank runs out.


Surely most people check it? And how do you refill it one handed unless you have a jug and water to hand? By the time you've taken the lid off, grabbed a jug and turned on a tap/wrested the lid from your bottled water it's a bit late anyway, and you should have just checked first, or added to the design so you can see it's empty... the rest of it is beautiful though.


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## decent_espresso

If the water tank were behind the machine, or underneath the machine, you mostly wouldn't be able to see the water level. My current espresso machine [big italian name] has the water tank under the machine, behind the drip tray, so not only can I not see the water level, but adding water means taking the drip tray out.


----------



## UncleJake

I like being able to see the water levels - and I'd prefer not to add depth to the machine. It's not perfect visually - but I think it's worth the compromise. I'm mostly good at checking water levels - but will run the gauntlet for the last cup of the day and occasionally get caught out.

I like the new slider buttons too - functionally - but as you say, need refining a little.


----------



## bronc

@decent_espresso afaik the vesuvius doesn't stop the pump/heater if intrashot the water level falls below the preset level (maybe there is a second, lower level which is considered critical and if reached it kills the shot). Can that be implemented with the DE?


----------



## 9719

Hopefully I have added photo of quickmill silvano to show their solution for the water tank, slides out for refills, top ups, cleaning etc. Works great & such a simple solution


----------



## decent_espresso

bronc said:


> @decent_espresso afaik the vesuvius doesn't stop the pump/heater if intrashot the water level falls below the preset level (maybe there is a second, lower level which is considered critical and if reached it kills the shot). Can that be implemented with the DE?


The DE1 will only stop the shot when water isn't reaching the pump. It does not measure water level in the tank.

Besides letting you run your tank to the last drop, this also opens up a future for us where the DE1 is plumbed into the water supply.

As long as the water pump is not "sucking air", the espresso shot will continue.


----------



## jlarkin

I like the idea of the tank on the side. It also makes it really easy to see if you should be giving it a good clean and it's straightforward to refill etc.


----------



## espressotechno

On Jura B2C machines, if the lowering water level trips the reed switch mid-brew, the brewing process completes its cycle then the machine "stops" to await a tank refill.


----------



## decent_espresso

VIDEO: DIGITAL MILK THERMOMETER - six final samples just arrived from our thermometer factory.

I've been working with a German thermometer manufacturer to make our digital milk thermometer, by modifying a model they already make as a meat thermometer. This is the first time I've seen the final design in the real world (and not as a render in CAD software). Everything looks good, so I'm asking them to proceed to manufacturing these now.


----------



## Lefteye

Glad to see that in the latest incarnation the machine now has a contained water chamber rather than one stuck on the side. Anyone going to see it when it comes to London. Sadly I think it'll be too far for me to get to unless I can get a discount


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## 4085

More importantly, hows the production schedule going? When can we expect them over here?


----------



## oursus

Lefteye said:


> Glad to see that in the latest incarnation the machine now has a contained water chamber rather than one stuck on the side. Anyone going to see it when it comes to London. Sadly I think it'll be too far for me to get to unless I can get a discount


Is that not the pro version?


----------



## Lefteye

I thought it was all models that now had the under machine reservoir but to be fair I can't quite work out which machine is being discussed on hb. I assumed that the chassis was pretty much the same bar software for the first two models and then the high end one not sure.


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## oursus

Afaik only 2 models: the DE1 @ $1000 & the DE1P @$youhavetobekidding


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## decent_espresso

We've moved the water tank off the side of the machine, it is now underneath the machine, kind of like the GS/3's water tank (slides out for filling).

Picture below shows (in pink) where the tank will go.









There will be 3 models, at $1000 (DE1) , $2000 (DE1+) and $4000 (DE1PRO). They all make the same quality coffee.

I'll make another posting with details of the 3 machines.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Espresso Product Line Rationalizing*

A bit of news here on how we're envisioning the feature split on our espresso machine. Previously I'd mentioned having two products, a DE1 ($1000) and a DE1PRO ($4000). We've been mulling it over, and we now think that three products makes more sense: DE1 ($1000), DE1+ ($2000) and a DE1PRO ($4000).

The DE1 will be a pressure profiling, highly accurate espresso machine, but the software will focus on simplicity for home users. The software for this is close to done.

DE1: ($1000)



- +/- 1°C temp accuracy espresso

- Americano water with +/- 1°C accuracy, and you can set the ml dose

- pressure profiling: choose from preset pressure profiles

- PID electrically heated group head

- steam immediately after espresso brewing ends

- very high quality basket

- 720P tablet

The DE1+ will have a separate control app, giving you many "tinkerer" oriented features that are currently listed on the DE1PRO pagehttp://decentespresso.com/de1pro such as:

DE1+ ($2000)



- create your own pressure profiles

- flow profiling

- temperature profiling

- slow infusion system option

- end of preinfusion autodetect

- flow vs pressure priority mode

- preinfusion can be set in ml of water or seconds at a specific flow rate.

- god shot reference

- cool touch steam wand

- 1080P tablet

Yes, you will be able to upgrade your DE1 into a DE1+.

The DE1PRO will come later, as it requires hardware mods that we haven't yet developed, as opposed to the DE1/DE1+, which have ended R&D and are now moving into production.

Our DE1PRO ($4000) plans are:



- fully plumbable

- steam during brew

- paddle for real time flow control

- analog controls for steam and hot water

- more powerful steam for faster milk heating

- continuous operation

- gravimetric dosing

- classic machine mimicry, and other features still TBD.

- Retina resolution tablet

- tablet is optional: espresso can be made without it and you can store the tablet in a drawer

----

*WORLD TOUR*

I'll also mention that we'll be doing a USA and EU tour, likely in September/October, where you'll be able to pull shots with our machines. The plan is to be several days in each city, with the East and West coasts of the USA planned, and a number of European capitals (and London, too <grin>). We might hit some other British cities too.</grin>

The plan is to take orders for our machine during that tour, so that we have a feel for how many parts we should order. More orders also means getting our manufacturing partners to do more pre-assembly, so that we have less work to do in final assembly and testing in HK.


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## MrShades

October you say? Around the time we're planning to have the Forum day at Rave in Cirencester.....


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## MrShades

decent_espresso said:


> We've moved the water tank off the side of the machine, it is now underneath the machine, kind of like the GS/3's water tank (slides out for filling).
> 
> There will be 3 models, at $1000 (DE1) , $2000 (DE1+) and $4000 (DE1PRO). They all make the same quality coffee.
> 
> I'll make another posting with details of the 3 machines.


That's a MUCH better plan - I like it!


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## decent_espresso

MrShades said:


> October you say? Around the time we're planning to have the Forum day at Rave in Cirencester.....


Would it be in bad taste for me to show up with my gear and show you stuff? I don't want to crash the party...


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## Dylan

A few of questions -

Is the DE1+ significantly different hardware wise, or is the difference software based?

What is the point in a 1080p tablet? It could be 480p for what it will be used for and its going to make so little difference as to not matter.

How does the water tank slide out? Not sure if the picture is just a mock up, but it doesn't look like it can slide out from the left?


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## UncleJake

I like the thought of being able to upgrade from one to two... but a $1000 for a software-only upgrade is always going to be hard to stomach.

I know that you need a pricing structure, and there is no logical difference between buying something that was crafted with hammers and nails and something crafted with ones and zeros - but it 'feels' different.

I suspect this is why Apple charge a premium for it's hardware - but rolls out new software for 'free'.

You're probably using the 1080p tablet and steam wand as the hardware part of this equation but what if I wasn't bothered about that - just the coffee functionality?

I suspect you'd get me eventually with each of those features as in-app purchases... ie: God-shot reference - $50. Temperature profiling $150 etc...

Just my 2c. As the missus consistently points out - I see things differently to most folks!


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## Drewster

UncleJake said:


> As the missus consistently points out - I see things differently to most folks!


To be fair I think she said you are special!


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## PPapa

It's up to manufacturer to decide how expensive is the software. Hint: it's not cheap.

On the other hand, you can have a silent upgrade and whoever complains about you spending too much money on the machine won't notice the difference when you get an upgrade







.


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## 4085

I would probably buy a base model....lets face it, if it really does do what it claims for $1000 then that is amazing. The thing for me, that goes against this whole project is that it looks more like something you would find in a dolls house....could we see some pictures with scale i.e. the machine plus some cups or a grinder we know


----------



## MrShades

decent_espresso said:


> Would it be in bad taste for me to show up with my gear and show you stuff? I don't want to crash the party...


 @coffeechap - Special guest appearance Dave? Your call...


----------



## coffeechap

I don't mind them bringing one along provided they sign up with us all! Would be interesting to get a peek at something new, however the day is leant towards levers


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## Dylan

If it is truly just a software change for the extra $1000 that would sting a bit. And I would imagine DE would find it very difficult to keep it locked down (Android apk's are notoriously easy to pirate).

If what DE are doing is charging an extra $1000 to unlock extra features in software that already exist in the machine then I think that is a very bad decision, and to clarify were these features that were initially destined for the $1000 machine or are they taken from the Pro machine to create a mid level tier?


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## 4085

crikey, does it matter!! it is always the same, someone brings something new to the market and all of a sudden everyone leaps on it...design one yourself dylan and then tell us all about it and see how we react.


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## hotmetal

Whilst I can certainly see how $1k for hardware sounds reasonable and ehen you get the very same hardware but extra software for twice the price it seems harsh - at the end of the day software doesn't develop itself - and may well be a considerable labour element of the overall R&D for the series of machines - which needs to be recovered via sales. If sales of the plus and pro are considerably fewer, that is the same cost split over fewer units and will 'hurt' accordingly. I suspect that offering the extra functionality is not just a question of 'unlocking' features that were always there. Ultimately the market will decide. Then again for me the base model would do more than I actually need!


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## UncleJake

Yes indeed. A phenomenal machine for the money.

And I suspect I'll sell an arm to buy a DE1. I was suggesting though that I would probably spend a little extra in future on some of the extra advances - but wouldn't part with the another $1000 to unlock 'em all.


----------



## oursus

As I think Apple have discovered, mid-range products don't increase overall sales & the perception here will be one of a company trying to squeeze money out of the consumer for an essentially "valueless" product (software - excepting specialists, consumers don't attribute value to it)

I think the smarter move here would be to have "in-app" purchases, with a Kickstarter type option for the full suite included at entry price, for pre-orders.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Is the DE1+ significantly different hardware wise, or is the difference software based?


I think the way this conversation is going isn't very fair, so can I explain a bit and you can make your mind up, with a bit more information in hand?

My original goal was to make an espresso machine that made La Marzocco GS/3 quality espresso, but at 1/7th the machine cost.

But in the 2 years of R&D, we came up with many new ideas, that initially people told us "nobody wants that" and so I pushed them out to a future "PRO" model.

Things like temperature profiling, flow profiling, automatic preinfusion end detection, "emulating" (or mimicking) other machines, aren't found in other machines, not at any price, as far as I know.

So, two years of R&D, tons of programming and physics work (temperature profiling was particularly difficult) and now people tell me "it's just software, so you should give it away for free".

The $2000 machine is my attempt to take all the "super advanced features" and actually ship them.

Selling an incredibly advanced espresso machine at a rock bottom price of $1000, just because the results of the R&D are software, is not really a great way to motivate a company to invest in software R&D.

I realize that people don't want to pay for software, but if the fruits of research are in software, then how can such research be funded?



Dylan said:


> What is the point in a 1080p tablet? It could be 480p for what it will be used for and its going to make so little difference as to not matter.


There are real time charts showing you temperature, pressure and flow rate on screen. Channeling is visible as brief spikes in flow rate. A higher resolution screen makes it much easier to see all this data.

A 1080P screen has 2.5X the number of pixels as a 720P screen.



Dylan said:


> How does the water tank slide out? Not sure if the picture is just a mock up, but it doesn't look like it can slide out from the left?


It slides out of the front or the rear. To fill it from the front you need to take the drip tray out, and flip a lever in the back that lifts the water intake tubes.

If you have access to the back of the DE1, you can simply slide the water tank back and fill it directly.

The legs of the DE1 are a bit like railways lines, they run the entire depth of the machine, and we sit both the drip tray and water tank on them, with little depressions so that the containers "click" and settle into place when they're in the right position.



UncleJake said:


> I suspect this is why Apple charge a premium for it's hardware - but rolls out new software for 'free'.


Apple has "pro" versus "consumer" lines of their software, such as:

- Logic Pro vs Garageband

- Final Cut Pro vs iMovie

that's what the DE vs DE1+ is. Think of the DE1 as free software that comes with your Mac. If you want Pro stuff (Logic & Final Cut) you pay more.



coffeechap said:


> I don't mind them bringing one along provided they sign up with us all! Would be interesting to get a peek at something new, however the day is leant towards levers


I'd love to be around a bunch of lever geeks, because I *really* like the taste of lever coffee, and the pressure & temperature profiling capability in the DE1+ is really my attempt to be able to mimic those results, in a repeatable, high tech way.



Dylan said:


> If it is truly just a software change for the extra $1000 that would sting a bit. And I would imagine DE would find it very difficult to keep it locked down (Android apk's are notoriously easy to pirate).


Regarding : "Locking down"

There is no way on earth you will find DRM, copy-protection, or any other such evil in any product I make.

If you want to "pirate" the software, you will have the freedom to do so. And the moral choice as well.

I'm a member of the advisory board of Open Rights Group UK https://www.openrightsgroup.org/ and former chairman of the EFF https://www.eff.org/ I also run Magnatune, a music service well known for its support of Creative Commons licensing, and I used to be on the board of Creative Commons. https://magnatune.com/info/cc_licensed http://www.osnews.com/story/15694/The_Answer_to_RIAA_and_Music_Piracy_is_Magnatune/

With the Decent Espresso Machine, I'm trying to build an open ecology for espresso fans and also tinkerers, but I also have to find a way to make the company survive, or nobody wins.


----------



## Mrboots2u

You will never make all the coffee geeks happy all the time . Stay true to your vision of what you want the machines to do and what price and will make the company sustainable . Ultimately as you know the market will dictate how successful the company and machines are . Good luck and it's getting exciting now the machines are getting close to going on the road .


----------



## Dylan

DE - I fully appreciate your thinking on the software and why it has value, and I am used to using eye-wateringly expensive software at work (thankfully not usually paid for by myself). The thing with software in anything like the $1000 bracket is that it is 'pro' software. It can be justified to its user because it increases their productivity or improves their end product. Maybe this is more the market you are aiming for... in which case putting off a home user like me with a $1k software add on isn't a problem.

If your machine is popular in the US and around the rest of the world (which if it does what it promises, it will be) there is going to come a point when the apk from the DE1+ appears online, and I think you are going to find a worryingly large portion of your user base who will just download the apk which unlocks the extra features.

In terms of the difference between 720 and 1080p on a tablet only showing a menu screen... unless some of your bars and graphs are seriously small then those extra pixels aren't going to matter that much. But I guess the price difference isn't hugely significant these days, and I a lot of people will prefer to know their tablet has more.


----------



## jlarkin

I think it's a really exciting machine. I can't speak for anybody else but I'd never dream of trying to rip off the software and I'm quite likely to buy the mid-range machine - maybe not straightaway but at some point. I think it looks really interesting, appreciate you taking the time responding to people and of course this is only a very specific set of people's opinions. I think you should keep heart similarly to MrBoots points.

I'm already very annoyed I can't make it to the lever day as I'm on holiday and going away the day before. I'd prefer it if you therefore also didn't go along. OK?


----------



## 4085

If the only difference between version 1 and 2 is software, then would it be possible to sell the base model, and offer the software upgrade over 6 or 12 months? You are recovering your cost of production in model one, and opening up version 2 to those who might want it but not be able to pay in one fell swoop? I have no idea on how this might work....presumably if someone entered into an agreement with you and stopped paying after a few months, there would be a simple way you could disable the 'upgrade'?


----------



## Lefteye

jlarkin said:


> I think it's a really exciting machine
> 
> I'm already very annoyed I can't make it to the lever day as I'm on holiday and going away the day before. I'd prefer it if you therefore also didn't go along. OK?


i too am very excited about this and can't make the lever day. I am looking forward to everyone's opinions and if favourable then intend to purchase this.


----------



## UncleJake

Apologies if my earlier posts seem negative - not meant to at all - just being honest about my (and only my) place in the market. My next machine will be in the price range of the DE1, and if your machine lives up to expectation, it'll almost definitely be a DE1. I'm not in the market for a $2000 machine. However - knowing the nature of upgraditis... I suspect I could talk myself into a $250 tweak down the line... and maybe again year later etc.

I actually love the thought of the 'great tinkerer's' and rock-star baristas creating their perfect profiles - and being able to share them (by email/forum/website?) with those who have a DE1+

Please let us know where you're going to be on the grand tour...


----------



## PPapa

I guess subscription service would be great. It would fight against piracy issue and it is painless way to try out new features while allowing to spread the cost out if you find them valuable.

I pay just under a tenner a month for Lightroom and Photoshop. While I don't use them that often, I am happy to support Adobe and not feel bad about stealing from the company. Been using Photoshop for over a decade now and will probably keep using for next two.


----------



## KopiO

I want one for sure!































 ( Go Decent Espresso )


----------



## Obnic

The pro is the most interesting machine (in my eyes) since the Vesuvius. Auto-recognition of puck saturation and realtime manipulation of flow rate feel like they should reveal some real improvements in shot quality and consistency.

I also have no issue with software-based functionality over hardware-based provided it's durable. (I do like the build quality of my Vesuvius.) it costs plenty of cash to develop and test software; it also opens the route to more functionality in future without having to replace your hardware.

I think software control is the way everything is going. Just as car makers are becoming software manufacturers. Tesla leads the pack but even my Volvo XC90 is tablet controlled and web connected.

Best of luck. It has the potential to disrupt the home user marketplace.


----------



## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> i too am very excited about this and can't make the lever day. I am looking forward to everyone's opinions and if favourable then intend to purchase this.


I'll be in London for a week, so that'll be another place to try it out. Or, of course, you can just read about people's experiences here.


----------



## Lefteye

decent_espresso said:


> I'll be in London for a week, so that'll be another place to try it out. Or, of course, you can just read about people's experiences here.


wish I could make it down for some hands on but I'll trust the guys here. I know on HB you were talking orders, delivery times and they were asking about priority ordering. Any chance of people not able to try it ordering to get at the top of the queue??


----------



## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> wish I could make it down for some hands on but I'll trust the guys here. I know on HB you were talking orders, delivery times and they were asking about priority ordering. Any chance of people not able to try it ordering to get at the top of the queue??


On Home Barista, I started a conversation about what we should do if we have a bug backlog of orders, and people have to wait to get our machines (since they're hand built and we can make about 10 a day). One idea I had was to let people "jump the queue" if they paid more, but that didn't go down well. What do you guys think?


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## decent_espresso

*A PROPOSAL*

Let me make a proposal for our launch and see what people think of this.

What I'm trying to do is manage the situation where a LOT of people pre-order our machine. The question in that situation is "who gets their machine first?". If not that many people preorder, then this isn't an issue, and we just build 10 espresso machines a day with our current staff and factory space.

During September/October, we're going on a "world tour" and we will ask people who want the earliest machines from us to place an order and pay 50% up front.

At the end of October, we look at the orders placed during that time:


we order enough components to build *all* the machines ordered so far

we hire more employees and rent more factory space to be able to build the machines at a much more rapid pace. There are two warehouse spaces available for rent on our floor and I just hired an experienced, worked-for-Apple-for-a-decade factory manager.

we ship espresso machines in the order of whoever pre-paid us the most. That means that if you ordered a bunch of accessories with your espresso machine, you'll get your machine earlier.

however... nobody waits a huge amount of time (all orders shipped in less than 6 months, let's say, but hopefully less than 3 months) ... *if* you get your order in by the end of October.


If you order your machine in November or later, you'll get your machine after the September/October people have gotten theirs.

Thoughts?


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## Lefteye

that seems far fairer than the queue jump idea.


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## 4085

I will not be able to make the tour unfortunately, but based on trust and what you have shown so far, I would be quite happy to do the above, so stick my name down and if thats ok, pm me when you want some dosh


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## PPapa

What's the price estimate for the UK market?


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## Phil104

I wouldn't be a fan of prepaying more to get a machine sooner. We need to celebrate delayed gratification more than we sometimes do. I don't see what the problem is with accepting only a limited number of these can be made, that revenue will be necessary to build them, and that if you order one you get an estimate of when it will be available - and if it's six months, it's six months. As a purchaser, you just plan on that basis.


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## Phil104

PPapa said:


> What's the price estimate for the UK market?


Going up everyday with what's happening with the exchange rate.


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## 4085

If you cannot reward someone for spending more than the next person then there is something wrong. it is a basic sales ploy.....what better way to increase initial turnover? A lot of people will not be an early adopter as they want others to suffer the problems. I swore I would not early adopt again after an experience with one well known brand, but I was going to (and probably am), I would want one of the first machines and not have to wait, and if that means adding on a few extras, so be it. If you do not want a machine @Phil104, then thats a fair point to take.......as owner of a new company looking to make a niche I think it is fair to try and persuade us to part with as much dosh as possible


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## 4085

Phil104 said:


> Going up everyday with what's happening with the exchange rate.


The exchange rate is coming down, if you bother to look....$1.32 from $1.25


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## PPapa

dfk41 said:


> The exchange rate is coming down, if you bother to look....$1.32 from $1.25


He's saying the price is going up as the exchange rate is going down.


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## 4085

If you got $1.25 and you now get $1.32 then the price we pay here has come down


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## Phil104

dfk41 said:


> If you cannot reward someone for spending more than the next person then there is something wrong. it is a basic sales ploy.....what better way to increase initial turnover? A lot of people will not be an early adopter as they want others to suffer the problems. I swore I would not early adopt again after an experience with one well known brand, but I was going to (and probably am), I would want one of the first machines and not have to wait, and if that means adding on a few extras, so be it. If you do not want a machine @Phil104, then thats a fair point to take.......as owner of a new company looking to make a niche I think it is fair to try and persuade us to part with as much dosh as possible


A reasonable point - if you want to get your hands on one &#8230; and you're right - I wouldn't want to be an early adopter, although it sounds a very attractive proposition.

I wasn't being entirely serious about the exchange rate, which is up and down - it dropped after Brexit, rose again at the beginning of July, dropped again the week before, and rose again this last week but not to the level of early July - although since the percentage change in the last 24 hours was +0.66% (in favour of the pound), in the scheme of things, assuming it keeps relatively steady, it's not going to make much difference set against the cost of shipping and taxes.


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## Lefteye

@decent_espresso. If we can put down deposits from here I'd also like to put down one for one of the earlier machines.


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## 4085

I think @Lefteye ought to be first on here (or joint first LOL) since he was kind enough to bring this to our attention


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## Lefteye

Very kind @dfk41. Was going to suggest we did a joint review - the noobie and the old hand!! Still think that would work as this machine seems to offer both of us fun and games.


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## decent_espresso

PPapa said:


> What's the price estimate for the UK market?





Phil104 said:


> Going up everyday with what's happening with the exchange rate.


The 220V components are a bit more expensive, and EU safety certification requires a few more components than UL, for example double-safety failovers for overheating instead of single fail-overs.

So, the 220V version will be slightly more expensive than the US version, maybe 15% more.

We're probably looking at a UK price around £850 to £900 for the DE1, assuming the exchange rates don't change too much more.



dfk41 said:


> If you cannot reward someone for spending more than the next person then there is something wrong. it is a basic sales ploy.....what better way to increase initial turnover? A lot of people will not be an early adopter as they want others to suffer the problems. I swore I would not early adopt again after an experience with one well known brand, but I was going to (and probably am), I would want one of the first machines and not have to wait, and if that means adding on a few extras, so be it. If you do not want a machine @Phil104, then thats a fair point to take.......as owner of a new company looking to make a niche I think it is fair to try and persuade us to part with as much dosh as possible


It is a common strategy, but that doesn't mean that consumers like it.











Phil104 said:


> I wouldn't be a fan of prepaying more to get a machine sooner. We need to celebrate delayed gratification more than we sometimes do. I don't see what the problem is with accepting only a limited number of these can be made, that revenue will be necessary to build them, and that if you order one you get an estimate of when it will be available - and if it's six months, it's six months. As a purchaser, you just plan on that basis.


*YET ANOTHER PROPOSAL (YAP)*

We had a company lunch meeting yesterday, it involved a chicken curry and a bottle of red, and we banged around various ideas and here is what we're thinking of proposing:


We build both the DE1 ($999) and DE1+ ($1999) machines at the same time, releasing the same number of both models each day.

Machines get sent out on a first come, first served basis. Ie: order first, get your machine first. 50% down.

If there is more demand for the less expensive model (likely) then the delivery time will be longer, whereas if you buy the more expensive machine, you'll need to wait less to get your machine.

Accessories, if you buy any, will be shipped to you either right away (we have them in stock) or with your machine, as you wish.

Nobody gets to the front of the queue by paying more


I was told that this is what Slayer does to manage their less vs more expensive production lines.


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## 4085

I think you guys have to do whatever makes sense to you.....everyione will go along with it. At the end of the day, you are trying to find a fair way of selling these. the advantage we have I suppose, is that you will be able to say, we have x number of 220 volt machines so we are competing for those. You cannot please everyone all the time! I suppose the alternate is for those who really want them to order the dearer model for which there is bound to be a smaller initial demand


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## Obnic

Forgive my geekiness but... best manufacturing practice would be to build using a mixed line (i.e. the line can build either machine) and to build in the order that orders are received, and only to build against an order i.e. no inventory machines. That way you will be able to offer the shortest 'time to delivery' whilst not tying up capital as work in progress.

That is unless the + machine is so different that the manufacturing process takes notably longer, and the orders are so variable that some days you need none and other days loads, in which case you run a second line for + machines again building only against orders but thereby ensuring this work does not interfere with the lead time for the basic machines.

The hardest idea to accept is that an idle production line is not a problem if you have no orders to fulfill.

Sorry... sometimes can't hold back the geek inside.


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## PPapa

@Obnic does that mean you would have to wait few extra days to ensure it is tested and what not? I can imagine they are being built *wherever*, bringing the time towards a fortnight?


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## Obnic

PPapa said:


> @Obnic does that mean you would have to wait few extra days to ensure it is tested and what not? I can imagine they are being built *wherever*, bringing the time towards a fortnight?


Oh that's a big question... a short answer is

It means that if I say it takes five days from order to delivery, I can definitely keep my promise without tying up large amounts of money in prebuilt but unsold units.

These units, if they sit sound then depreciate as time passes: perhaps they have out of date software now or they're last years design so have to be sold at a discount or worse you built a batch thinking there would be demand that never appears. Money you would have spent on the latest whistle can't be spent because it's tied up in inventory and warehouse space rental. It slows realization of innovation keeps the unit costs up so the price up too.

Building to order is the best of both worlds, promises the customer can depend upon at a keen price, and efficient operations, fast innovation and good cash management.

For large operations, counterintuitively, it generally means much faster delivery to customers and less mistakes because the business does not get caught up in managing queues, and it's more likely to get it right first time.

If you are interested, this is the life's work of Taichi Ohno and is widely credited with why Toyota became the worlds largest car maker so fast.


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## PPapa

Ah I see. Thanks for clarification.


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## Obnic

Yeh... too much geek first thing in the morning


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## DavecUK

I've skimmed read this thread with some interest. Perhaps this is a Novel suggestion, but why not build a few prototypes and get them tested by people that know what they are doing. Use the feedback to finalise the machine for production. Then....and I know this is novel, but bear with me....*actually build some to either deliver to retailers to sell or sell direct*, rather than selling products you have not yet built as was done by another entrepreneur back in the 70s.

You have 100s, perhaps 1000s of ideas and that's good, you will get interesting suggestions by the dozen from people who don't understand how the machine works, how production works and the mechanical/technical problems of doing what they suggest. You need to decide on what the machine is and will be when it launches, worry about post launch problems and only then, once it's stable, think about future developments...otherwise your selling smoke.


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## The Systemic Kid

DavecUK said:


> .... but why not build a few prototypes and get them tested by people that know what they are doing.


Good idea in theory but look at Reiss's experience with LI when he had to deal with loads of 'experts' in the US and Australia trashing the machine for one reason or another.



DavecUK said:


> .... but bear with me....*actually build some to either deliver to retailers to sell or sell direct*, rather than selling products you have not yet built as was done by another entrepreneur back in the 70s.


Why would a retailer want to stock and sell a machine if the manufacturer is also retailing direct at a much lower price?


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## 4085

The Systemic Kid said:


> Good idea in theory but look at Reiss's experience with LI when he had to deal with loads of 'experts' in the US and Australia trashing the machine for one reason or another.


Reiss was trashed because he did not do an extensive R & D and sent machines out, amidst claims made by him on various forums that the relatively untested L1 was the best, most stable machine in the world. A lot of early machines had issues. Once resolved, then I think the machine meets with early expectations


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## DavecUK

The Systemic Kid said:


> Why would a retailer want to stock and sell a machine if the manufacturer is also retailing direct at a much lower price?


I did clearly write OR


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## Rheas

I'm trying to make the DE1 hacker friendly and could use some advice on what to provide to make the machine easy to hack, using an Arduino, Raspberry Pi, whatever.

I'm putting the finishing touches on what will hopefully be the printed circuit boards in production machines, and would like to check to see if there is anything I have missed.

The machine is designed in such a way that safety is guaranteed by the hardware, not the software, and external software access cannot change anything that we think might result in damage or a safety risk.

*Hardware:*


Communication: the DE1 is set up to communicate serially with a 3.3V external device (such as the Arduino Pro 328) via a ribbon cable.

Power: 24V and 3.3V are supplied.

Analog Inputs: 6 spare unassigned ADC inputs (0 - 3.3V), and 2 extra inputs intended for extra pressure sensors.

Analog Outputs: the conditioned group pressure sensor output is available as an analog signal.

Other: a SPI port that could also be used as GPIO inputs or outputs.


*Software:*

At the moment, this is all speculative. I haven't written the software for external access yet.

All of this information and control will be available via the serial port:


Sensors: Read any sensor, such as temperature, pressure, water level, spare ADC.

Solenoids: Read the current solenoid configuration, and request a configuration.

Pumps: Request a (safe) pressure or flow rate from a pump.

Heaters: Request a (safe) temperature from a heater.

State machine: Request that the state machine do something. For example: "make espresso", "do steam", etc.

Bluetooth: All of the above will be accessible via Bluetooth as well.


Did I miss anything? I welcome any suggestions!

------------------------------

Ray

Internals Engineer at Decent Espresso


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## Lefteye

When I first read this I was concerned but as I see you're also from decent then I think this is a great idea. Doesn't it somehow spoil your plans for the De1+ though. I'm no programmer so sadly can't give advice but the fact it will be adjustable is great in my opinion.


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## risky

Lefteye said:


> When I first read this I was concerned but as I see you're also from decent then I think this is a great idea. Doesn't it somehow spoil your plans for the De1+ though. I'm no programmer so sadly can't give advice but the fact it will be adjustable is great in my opinion.


Yeah I'm a bit confused, as when I suggested this it was met with 'but we can't just give you all the features on the base model'. Which is essentially what this would provide surely?


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## decent_espresso

risky said:


> Yeah I'm a bit confused, as when I suggested this it was met with 'but we can't just give you all the features on the base model'. Which is essentially what this would provide surely?


We did discuss this question in house, and there was a question as to whether open source / free apps should also work on the DE1 or just the DE1+. We decided that we preferred to encourage an open source / tinkerer ecology around our espresso machines and that the DE1 should be able to run the same programs as the DE1+.

In practical terms this means that if you buy a DE1 and some really cool free program does something awesome with the DE1, then you can download that program, and add that functionality. It also means that we can learn from what other people have added to the DE1, and we can reimplement the same ideas, in our own way, and try to get people to pay for them. Obviously, people won't pay for the same idea unless it's implemented in a way that adds significant value.

It's very much like how you can buy LibreOffice https://www.libreoffice.org/ as your word processor but if you prefer the Microsoft alternative, you can pay for MS Word.

To give another example: I know a high school chemistry professor who wants to turn the DE1 into a piece of lab equipment, with his own software. That's unlikely to be software that we'd write, but it's something I want to make possible.

The more cool things there are to do with our espresso machine, the more machines we'll sell. "Open and libre" is good business.


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## decent_espresso

VIDEO: Decent Espresso Factory Prototype: the guts are all working!






We're waiting for the PC board (coming at the end of next week), portafilter and group head handle, drip tray and water tank (still working through difficulties getting these parts made) and then we can show you the working DE1, close to how it'll actually be made.


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## decent_espresso

Photo: wood handles for our espresso machine. We have two companies making handles out of wood for our espresso machine, and we'll pick the nicer of the two. This is the first to arrive.

This handle is matte stained Bubinga wood. http://www.wood-database.com/bubinga/ -- I hadn't heard of this wood, but after a bit of googling I found that it's very common in drum kits, which is a good endorsement of its durability!

FYI we found that using wood for the handles was more expensive per-piece compared to plastic, but not more expensive in the near term, A plastic mould charge is several thousand dollars, which makes a lot of wood handles! A wooden handle can be made on a simple lathe with a very inexpensive guide.


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## Dylan

Have you checked out Protomold - very affordable injection molding, a simple part like that should only cost a couple of thousand dollars for the mold... but this may still be more expensive in the near term as you say.


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## UbiquitousPhoton

Bubinga is used in drum kits because of its resonance, not necessarily because its durable - drum kits have a layer of lacquer usually over the top, but I believe bubinga is actually pretty durable (and its fun to say, too)

Its an amazingly springy wood in sheet form, but it is also rather beautiful, which is another part of its desirability.


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## UncleJake

Yes to the wooden handles! They use bubinga in some (expensive) guitars too - as an alternative to rosewood. Used in Rickenbacker necks - and often in the bodies of basses. It's a good stiff wood... As you say nicely durable.


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## UncleJake

Also - nice to see your new bite-sized Scott Rao vids. As a filmmaker I spend far too much time telling companies that short punchy vids will do so much more for them than longer pieces. 'Oh - we completely agree - that's why we've settled on 15 minutes' is usually the answer. For this sort of thing 15 x 1min is a much better idea.


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## 4085

Wood is far nicer. I have played around with wooden handles quite a lot over the years. They really need to be a hardwood. Softwood even when varnished becomes very tatty after heavy use. No doubt a corporation will require uniformity of the product and that means ordering a lot in one go so as the same wood is used. When wood turning you never really know what is beneath the surface.


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## Missy

dfk41 said:


> Wood is far nicer. I have played around with wooden handles quite a lot over the years. They really need to be a hardwood. Softwood even when varnished becomes very tatty after heavy use. No doubt a corporation will require uniformity of the product and that means ordering a lot in one go so as the same wood is used. When wood turning you never really know what is beneath the surface.


They are beautiful!


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## oursus

dfk41 said:


> Wood is far nicer. I have played around with wooden handles quite a lot over the years. They really need to be a hardwood. Softwood even when varnished becomes very tatty after heavy use. No doubt a corporation will require uniformity of the product and that means ordering a lot in one go so as the same wood is used. When wood turning you never really know what is beneath the surface.


Are those a couple of walnut handles?


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## jimbojohn55

is that birdseye maple and Ash or Oak ?- looking pretty dam good - and is that friction polish?


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## 4085

the 4 similar ones are oak which has been left in a sealed container with ammonia if my memory is correct, which has the effect of bringing out the detail of the graining. The plain single one is Ash and the other 2 Maple I think. I used to be friendly with a wood turner and had handles made for a variety of machines. I used to pay him £15 per pf handle.....maybe I should look him up again!


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## 4085

These were sycamore


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## 4085

The point of posting the pictures was I personally think the Bubinga, in black is a bit austere and I am sure you could find a 'prettier' wood......but thats just my two pence


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## oursus

dfk41 said:


> the 4 similar ones are oak which has been left in a sealed container with ammonia if my memory is correct, which has the effect of bringing out the detail of the graining. The plain single one is Ash and the other 2 Maple I think. I used to be friendly with a wood turner and had handles made for a variety of machines. I used to pay him £15 per pf handle.....maybe I should look him up again!


Maple... Should have guessed.


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## oursus

I'm still smiling that a wood called "Bubinga" is used for making drums.


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## decent_espresso

Besides the handles, I'm also hoping to use wood for the "knobs" on the steam and water controls, and maybe, if we can figure out how to avoid warping, a wooden paddle on the group head. This is for the DE1PRO, which comes out toward the end of the year. On the DE1/DE1+, just the portafilter and group head have handles, and they'll be wood.

I've attached some drawings of what we're thinking about re: wood and controls on the DE1PRO.

FYI, the reason we're using Bubinga is because that's what this tamper manufacturer is using, so they've got it on hand, and they swear it works well.

I agree that the black is a bit austere, but I'm not sure that light wood coloring will go well with the black-and-chrome style of our espresso machine. The handles are on standard M12 screw threads, so you guys can pay your local wood turner £15 and get new custom ones made!


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## decent_espresso

My second source for wood handles just finished theirs, photos attached. The black handle from this supplier really hides the wood grain. The two lighter variations I asked them to do came out interestingly. I'll be curious to see how they look on the actual machine (they're mailing them to me shortly)









Also, we've made the front splash panel very reflective, so that the bend on the bottom looks directly into the bottom of the bottomless portafilter. This lets you see how your shot is doing without needing to bend down low. This design feature was inspired by Slayer, who has a triangular mirror you can place there to cause the same effect.

My only problem with the reflective splash panel is that it's currently made from steel, because Brad says that coated aluminum doesn't last, and that means it's heavy. The DE1 is currently at 22lbs (10 kilos) in weight and will add a few more pounds when we add the drip tray and water tank.

We have rubber feet we like sourced now. We decided to not make them high suction, more "strong grip" because when they are really high suction it's really hard to get the DE1 lifted off table (suction *really* works well, too well).









The steam wand assembly is coming this week, along with all the handles. We're waiting on two missing parts for the two circuit boards (high power and low power boards) and then we can put the machine together. The drip tray and water tank are both being made by two different suppliers, one doing it in porcelain, so that we can choose the one we prefer. More photos soon...


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## jimbojohn55

Good to see wooden handles on a machine as standard, I'm not 100% on the shape of them or the colour - to make a machine really stand our why not go for a more unusual hardwood such as American red oak or zebra wood. The slayer based mirror is a fantastic addition to the design, I used this recently on a training course and now think all machines should have one!

I'm working on some oak handles for a Rocket machine at the moment with m12 threads - this is where I'm at shape wise - its still a little "fat" in my mind but will see what the user thinks.


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## Lefteye

I think the black handle works well with the design of the machine. It would have a premium feel but the look and finish compliment the overall aesthetics of the machine itself. I think a choice of user cost upgrades/choices may work best. Everyone likes to add a personal touch.


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## decent_espresso

Hiya Jimbo/john - I should have made clear that the handles in that photo are the "group head handles" which you can hold onto while tightening the portafilter on. The portafilter handle is a longer version with the same kinds of curves. So, that handle does look on the short side. Your handle design looks very practical, but IMHO the stub-end isn't needed for a portafilter handle, since force is mostly applied sideways rather than on the top, as a walking pole might be.









Hardwoods are, of course, beautiful. I once built a lute from scratch, at a 10 day course in Norwich: http://www.vanedwards.co.uk/summer2005/html/index.html and love all those figured woods. If I can figure out how to use them on our products, I will.









However, at this point I'm talking about the "comes with the machine" portafilter, and at USD$1000 for the whole espresso machine and bits, gorgeous hardwoods are not really on the table. Future options, absolutely. A less expensive wood is what we need to stick to for the standard portafilter.

-john


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## jimbojohn55

Hi John - I agree with the sideways force part, the stubb end is less graceful but also increases the surface contact area of the handles side so when not on the machine or placed on the surface or in a draw it widens the contact point to prevent wear points in one location. You might want to talk about the price of oak to you supplier its not as expensive as other hardwoods. My other thought was that you could pick up the design of the flow lever where its laminated with a metal core, these look great on slayers where they use wood. This is just my opinion of course I have to say the overall design looks fantastic and I'm looking forward to it coming into production.

Just another thought - are you going for a matt or semi matt finish of the handles? - gloss ones always mark quickly.

PS the lute looks very accomplished too.


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## decent_espresso

My preference is for matte, with a bit of grain showing through. I also prefer to feel the wood a little bit, which doesn't happen with a high gloss finish.

I'm trialing two suppliers for the wood handles. Here's a photo of the handle from the other company, which I don't yet have in hand, but which I personally prefer from the photo. People have different tastes, though, which is why I'm talking to y'all 'about this stuff.


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## UncleJake

decent_espresso said:


> My preference is for matte, with a bit of grain showing through. I also prefer to feel the wood a little bit, which doesn't happen with a high gloss finish.
> 
> I'm trialing two suppliers for the wood handles. Here's a photo of the handle from the other company, which I don't yet have in hand, but which I personally prefer from the photo. People have different tastes, though, which is why I'm talking to y'all 'about this stuff.
> 
> View attachment 22482


Personally - I agree. Like to feel and see the wood. This looks more tactile than the high-sheen alternatives.


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## jimbojohn55

there is an absolute quality to the combination of wood and metal in the construction of machines, more power to ya'll,s elbows.


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## decent_espresso

Here are new renders of the DE1, with everything up to date. This is the machine we're building. The circuit boards arrived today, so we can make the two factory prototype machines work now, and next week we're supposed to get the drip tray and water tank.

You can see the water tank from the side for the first time in this render. The tank is being made out of white porcelain, and holds about 2L of water. You can't really see the water tank from a normal standing position, though, as it's about 1" inside the machine on both sides, so you have to bend down (or view from afar) to see it.

I'm trying out both white and black water tanks. Porcelain, which is much lighter and stronger, I'm being told can't be black, whereas normal "stoneware" can. My preference is for the white tank, because (a) you can see if the water is dirty easier when the tank is white and (b) the black tank hides the visual side lines of the DE1.


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## hotmetal

I agree, if porcelain is the better material but can't be black - use the best and don't worry about the colour, especially if it hardly shows in use. Also it's good to have the inside of the tank white as you say. If someone is that bothered, they could always hydro-dip the outside.


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## MarkyP

decent_espresso said:


> My preference is for matte, with a bit of grain showing through. I also prefer to feel the wood a little bit, which doesn't happen with a high gloss finish.
> 
> I'm trialing two suppliers for the wood handles. Here's a photo of the handle from the other company, which I don't yet have in hand, but which I personally prefer from the photo. People have different tastes, though, which is why I'm talking to y'all 'about this stuff.
> 
> View attachment 22482


I like that!


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## malling

Personlly I would prefer granite composite for the drip, as you can get it in black.


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## decent_espresso

Our "Factory Prototype" Decent Espresso Machine is almost ready to be booted up


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## decent_espresso

Just a note that the "Decent Shopping Experience" is now online, and we're now selling 9 new products, including our tamper, funnel, digital milk thermometer, milk jugs, tamping cradle, and barista kit.

http://decentespresso.com/

---

In a few weeks, we'll be adding our two espresso machines, our grinder, and our portafilter.


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## Hairy_Hogg

What are the scales that you include in your Barista kit, they sound pretty cool from the description


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## Obnic

This is a fascinating thread and the Decent eco-system of products really does look genuinely novel. I am particularly intrigued by the 'coming soon' scale that adds gravimetrics to the already very capable machine.

It does seem to me though that at some point this inside look has become a marketing campaign and now includes an advert with links to a retail site. Perhaps it's time Decent considered becaming an advertiser if they haven't already done so.


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## decent_espresso

Hairy_Hogg said:


> What are the scales that you include in your Barista kit, they sound pretty cool from the description


For non-bluetooth, we're currently working with the Brewista Scale http://brewista.eu/ and that's what's boxed into the Barista Kit.

We're working on making our own bluetooth scale, which I'm hoping to have done by christmas, but which works equally well w/o bluetooth. Here's a render of it.


----------



## scottgough

Great website and selection of products. Digital thermometer and 600ml milk jug on their way!


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> I am particularly intrigued by the 'coming soon' scale that adds gravimetrics to the already very capable machine.


It turns out there are a bunch of interesting things you can do in coffee if you have a 0.1g accurate scale that talks bluetooth. I've written a flowmeter app for Android, that works with other people's espresso machine, and I'm planning on "productizing" that.

I also think we can use the scale to "clone" shots made from other machines, such as a lever machine, by tracking the real time flow rate on the lever machine, and then asking our machine to do exactly the same flow rate with exactly the same grind and dose, thereby "learning" what the lever machine just did.

And (as you mention) a scale lets us add gravimetric dosing very inexpensively to our espresso machine.



Obnic said:


> It does seem to me though that at some point this inside look has become a marketing campaign and now includes an advert with links to a retail site. Perhaps it's time Decent considered becaming an advertiser if they haven't already done so.


I really hope my tone doesn't come off as marketing, but I do recognize it's impossible for me to not be excited about my own products and to come off having a "promotional tone" that might sometimes grate. If I sometimes do that, please give me a pat on the shoulder to remind me to reel it in. I'm no different from you lot, viz a slightly-obsessive coffee guy, except that I decided to try to make stuff.

Everything I've designed has been a conversation with other obsessives.

As to becoming an advertiser on Coffee Forums, I'm happy to go that way, and I do support Home Barista that way too. However, I don't think that being an advertiser would ever give me permission to be crassly commercial on a forum. Can you point me to the right person to ask about advertising?


----------



## The Systemic Kid

Click on 'Contact Us' on the menu bar at the very bottom of the page - to the right. This will put you in touch with @Glenn, site owner.


----------



## decent_espresso

The Systemic Kid said:


> Click on 'Contact Us' on the menu bar at the very bottom of the page - to the right. This will put you in touch with @Glenn, site owner.


Thanks for the link. Decent is now a sponsor of Coffee Forums.


----------



## JGF

Love this thread - thanks Decent for being so open!


----------



## scottgough

just nipped to the post office to pick up my Decent delivery, first of many I'm sure. Great quality products in the flesh, and an espresso cup thrown in for free! Thanks guys


----------



## decent_espresso

scottgough said:


> just nipped to the post office to pick up my Decent delivery, first of many I'm sure. Great quality products in the flesh, and an espresso cup thrown in for free!


Nice. Did your package manage to sneak through HM Customs unmolested?


----------



## Jon

scottgough said:


> just nipped to the post office to pick up my Decent delivery, first of many I'm sure. Great quality products in the flesh, and an espresso cup thrown in for free! Thanks guys
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 22678


Please tell me you have an in car espresso machine!


----------



## decent_espresso

scottgough said:


> just nipped to the post office to pick up my Decent delivery, first of many I'm sure. Great quality products in the flesh, and an espresso cup thrown in for free!


Nice. Did your package manage to sneak through HM Customs unmolested?


----------



## scottgough

decent_espresso said:


> Nice. Did your package manage to sneak through HM Customs unmolested?


Yes it did! Thank you


----------



## Al Mokha

This sure does look interesting. Will be looking out for reviews.


----------



## decent_espresso

Anybody really good at Tetris?

I'm working on the arrangement in space of the DE1 parts, so they don't break in shipping. This will also become the foam arrangement for the DE1 when it's packed into the roller-wheel suitcase.


----------



## decent_espresso

The first version of our "factory prototype" DE1 is now built. We're building two machines next, which will simplify some of the cable complexity in this revision. And I'm working on the tablet software now while Ray works on the bluetooth end.


----------



## decent_espresso

The black-stained wood handled portafilters have now come in.


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## oursus

decent_espresso said:


> The black-stained wood handled portafilters have now come in.
> 
> View attachment 22719


What does the portafilter weigh, just out of interest?


----------



## decent_espresso

The final suitcase design for our espresso machine. We ended up making it a bit taller so that everything was more safely packed, but this also gives you a big space to put a box of miscellany under the machine (such as the power cord, other portafilters, etc)


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## decent_espresso

oursus said:


> What does the portafilter weigh, just out of interest?


464 grams.


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## decent_espresso

I'm currently working on the tablet software for the DE1.

The goal is to keep it simple, but also give you some useful information about what's going on. Below are screen pictures from the software as it currently stands. Tap a big button to start that function, then tap anywhere on the 8" tablet to turn that function off.

Now is a great time to provide any feedback, as I'm in the source code as I write this.

The settings page is where most the fancy stuff will take place, such as setting water temperature, choosing a pressure profile, etc..


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## hotmetal

decent_espresso said:


> The final suitcase design for our espresso machine.


That's a great idea! Really classy and practical packaging. May also mean that couriers are less inclined to throw and kick it when it's got wheels and a handle.


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## Phobic

got to say this is looking great


----------



## UncleJake

decent_espresso said:


> The final suitcase design for our espresso machine. We ended up making it a bit taller so that everything was more safely packed, but this also gives you a big space to put a box of miscellany under the machine (such as the power cord, other portafilters, etc)
> 
> View attachment 22726


Looking fabulous!


----------



## Lefteye

decent_espresso said:


> I'm currently working on the tablet software for the DE1.
> 
> The goal is to keep it simple, but also give you some useful information about what's going on. Below are screen pictures from the software as it currently stands. Tap a big button to start that function, then tap anywhere on the 8" tablet to turn that function off.
> 
> Now is a great time to provide any feedback, as I'm in the source code as I write this.
> 
> The settings page is where most the fancy stuff will take place, such as setting water temperature, choosing a pressure profile, etc..
> 
> View attachment 22728
> 
> 
> View attachment 22729
> 
> 
> View attachment 22730
> 
> 
> View attachment 22731


I assume that the times and temps etc are user defined in a menu prior to this. This then being the 'on' button stating the previously assigned values??


----------



## JGF

Agreed the suitcase looks amazing!

On the software side:

- not sure the icons are that clear re steam and hot water (e.g. compared to steam wand, tap sort of thing)?

- not sure I would expect hitting one of them to immediately start things as opposed to selecting that then having a start / cancel option

- would love to see some dynamic progress view of what is going on, e.g. timer, volume, etc

- personally feel it would be more natural to select the item then go to a carousel of cards to choose from to actually start rather than go to settings, change it there then go back to that item

Appreciate that probably goes against your simple aim and am also aware might be way off the mark based on a few screenshots!


----------



## decent_espresso

JGF said:


> - would love to see some dynamic progress view of what is going on, e.g. timer, volume, etc


I agree, and I think it does what you're asking for.

It's not obvious from those pictures, but the Temperature, Pressure, Volume, Flow numbers are dynamic real-time numbers, not the goal numbers.



JGF said:


> - not sure I would expect hitting one of them to immediately start things as opposed to selecting that then having a start / cancel option. - personally feel it would be more natural to select the item then go to a carousel of cards to choose from to actually start rather than go to settings, change it there then go back to that item


What you're describing is what we originally designed for the DE1+, and it's a two step process to make a shot with the advanced interface.

However, in testing that, I found that most of the time people prefer to "set and forget" and for the day-to-day use, it was better to have "one tap to make something happen" and require fewer steps.

Attached below is the photoshop mockup of the DE1+ page that you'd get after clicking the ESPRESSO button off the main page. You can change recipes, which changes the temperature and pressure and flow profile. You also get much more graphical information about what happened in your shot. Once the DE1 software is complete (hopefully just a few more weeks) I'll be working on the DE1+ software and will absolutely look for feedback on that. It's tricky to balance more features against increased complexity.


----------



## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> I assume that the times and temps etc are user defined in a menu prior to this. This then being the 'on' button stating the previously assigned values??


That's right. On the DE1 you tap the "gear icon" (top right) to change the settings, and then come back to this main page to actually pull shots. The idea is "set and forget" but it's also not too difficult to change the settings. Tap-settings, tap-change-temperature, tap-back. I'll be posting the settings pages as I implement them in software over the coming weeks.


----------



## JGF

decent_espresso said:


> I agree, and I think it does what you're asking for.
> 
> It's not obvious from those pictures, but the Temperature, Pressure, Volume, Flow numbers are dynamic real-time numbers, not the goal
> 
> ...
> 
> However, in testing that, I found that most of the time people prefer to "set and forget" and for the day-to-day use, it was better to have "one tap to make something happen" and require fewer steps.
> 
> Attached below is the photoshop mockup of the DE1+ page that you'd get after clicking the ESPRESSO button off the main page. You can change recipes, which changes the temperature and pressure and flow profile. You also get much more graphical information about what happened in your shot. Once the DE1 software is complete (hopefully just a few more weeks) I'll be working on the DE1+ software and will absolutely look for feedback on that. It's tricky to balance more features


Great re the real time numbers and fair points - looking forward to seeing the + shots!


----------



## UncleJake

Will you be able to re-order the icons? For me - I'd have the one I use the most (espresso obvs) on the left, then water then steam. OR - I'd have the icon above that bit of the machine that dispenses that thing, which may be what you've done here - but without knowing the machine...


----------



## 4085

Can I just ask an obvious question, which is how will warranty work be carried out, obviously thinking of the costs involved if machines have to be shipped back


----------



## decent_espresso

UncleJake said:


> Will you be able to re-order the icons? For me - I'd have the one I use the most (espresso obvs) on the left, then water then steam. OR - I'd have the icon above that bit of the machine that dispenses that thing, which may be what you've done here - but without knowing the machine...


That main page is "skinnable" either by using one of the skins we provide, or making your own skin, or, in a later revision, downloading skins from the internet, via a sharing system I plan to set up.

I've already commissioned a number of alternative skins, tending toward the artistic side, and I'm attaching a few examples below. You will be able to make your own skins that create new buttons.

For example having a button for "single" vs "double shot" or "tea water" vs "americano water".

The idea is to make the tablet UI very customizable and personalizable.


----------



## decent_espresso

dfk41 said:


> Can I just ask an obvious question, which is how will warranty work be carried out, obviously thinking of the costs involved if machines have to be shipped back


We have a "happiness guaranteed" policy. If your machine breaks and needs service, you'll be asked to ship yours to a depot in the UK, and we'll mail you a replacement machine from Hong Kong.

Your old machine will slowly wend its way by container back to us in Hong Kong, where we'll repair it and sell it as a "refurbished" unit at a discounted price.


----------



## Phobic

Pretty sensible idea and great customer service, I like it.


----------



## 4085

decent_espresso said:


> We have a "happiness guaranteed" policy. If your machine breaks and needs service, you'll be asked to ship yours to a depot in the UK, and we'll mail you a replacement machine from Hong Kong.
> 
> Your old machine will slowly wend its way by container back to us in Hong Kong, where we'll repair it and sell it as a "refurbished" unit at a discounted price.


Thanks.....that needs to be well publicised as it is a good idea


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## decent_espresso

This is our first experience trying the real thing in our espresso machine prototype. You'll see how they get placed, and how you can fill the water tank.


----------



## Lefteye

Looking good. Both ceramic parts dishwasher safe??


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## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> Looking good. Both ceramic parts dishwasher safe??


Absolutely. I'm a lazy sod and like to throw everything in the dishwasher.


----------



## Lefteye

I note that you've changed the difference between de1 and de1+ to more than just software. It now appears that upgrading the software doesn't give you the volumetrics etc with the same accuracy as planned. How does this change the upgrade path and cost. Have you considered a 'buy back option' where the de1 is shipped to the depot as it would if faulty and then a de1+ is shipped to the customer for an upgrade fee. I hope a plan is in order as I feel this was one cool USP that others don't offer and would further cement the relationship with the customer so important to the company.


----------



## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> I note that you've changed the difference between de1 and de1+ to more than just software. It now appears that upgrading the software doesn't give you the volumetrics etc with the same accuracy as planned. How does this change the upgrade path and cost. Have you considered a 'buy back option' where the de1 is shipped to the depot as it would if faulty and then a de1+ is shipped to the customer for an upgrade fee. I hope a plan is in order as I feel this was one cool USP that others don't offer and would further cement the relationship with the customer so important to the company.


Yes, that's absolutely something we plan on offering. We need to figure out the prices and costs involved to do it, but we absolutely will offer a "trade up".


----------



## Sami

Sorry if these questions have already been answered but I'm simply too lazy to trawl through all 24 pages...

1) Is the machine dual or single boiler? I read somewhere on your website that steam will be available the instant the shot has finished extracting. Does that mean that simultaneous steaming and extraction will not be possible?

2) Do you have dates for order and delivery yet? On the website it says September for orders and it's already the 26th...

3) Do you have a firm price yet?

4) And finally, should I hold out on getting a Sage DB to get one of these


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## MrShades

I should imagine that most people will be "too lazy" to respond...


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## decent_espresso

Sami said:


> 1) Is the machine dual or single boiler?


From: https://decentespresso.com/de1

Water Heating: We have developed our own on-demand water mixing technology. A delicate stream of cold water is added to slightly-too-hot water in order to bring it down to the desired temperature. This approach gives us incredible accuracy and lets us vary the water temperature during a shot when we want to.



Sami said:


> I read somewhere on your website that steam will be available the instant the shot has finished extracting. Does that mean that simultaneous steaming and extraction will not be possible?


Correct, you can steam immediately after the shot is finished (no waiting) but not during.



Sami said:


> 2) Do you have dates for order and delivery yet? On the website it says September for orders and it's already the 26th...


Deliveries will start in November, orders will start early October. We're a few weeks behind on the dates you mention above, but we are in the final stretch. We won't take orders until the two models (DE1 and DE1+) are in beta, close to feature complete, so you know what you're getting.



Sami said:


> 3) Do you have a firm price yet?


In the US it's $999 (DE1) and $1999 (DE1+) but I don't have final UK prices yet. That'll be announced when we sell the machines. We're still waiting on final pricing on the heaters we're using for 220V markets, which is more powerful than the heater we're using in the 110V markets. The 220V machines are slightly more expensive, and there are also additional parts to comply with the more strict EU safety certifications (double-failover, instead of single fail-over, for example).



Sami said:


> 4) And finally, should I hold out on getting a Sage DB to get one of these


That, I can't advise on: it's your call.


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## Sami

MrShades said:


> I should imagine that most people will be "too lazy" to respond...


I only need one person that isn't!


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## Sami

Thanks for taking the time to reply John. I must say the DE1 has certainly piqued my interest. I have always thought it seemed completely unnecessary to heat 30Kg of metal to produce 30g of hot liquid! All the best to you. I'm sure you will be rewarded for your efforts.


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## 4085

Does this set back presumably mean, that you will not be able to attend the forum day now then?


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## coffeechap

They pulled out of the forum day on the forum day thread


----------



## 4085

coffeechap said:


> They pulled out of the forum day on the forum day thread


Ah, not attending, I did not read that!


----------



## decent_espresso

dfk41 said:


> Ah, not attending, I did not read that!


Yeah, wanted to make it, but we're about 3 weeks behind schedule, sorry!

Bugs and I will be in London for a bit, showing two machines off, in early late October (likely the last week of the month) so if you can make it to London you'll be able to pull some Decent shots.


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## decent_espresso

[video=youtube;-KJubMSb70I]






Besides our espresso machines, we've also designed a range of accessories for espresso making. My goal is to revisit each step of the process, and to try to systemize it, remove the likelihood of error, and thereby increase consistency and quality.

The Barista Kit https://decentespresso.com/barista_kit which my friend Jeremy calls "James Bond, Barista", is almost done.

I've worked with Joao, my portuguese designer, to create a small suitcase to hold all the barista accessories we've made.

I just received these photos from Rudy, my salesperson at the suitcase factory, of two samples for us to nit-pick. There are some things to change (the handle needs to be all black) and the foam inserts need to be made but for a first effort, this is looking good.


----------



## Brewer in training

Looking very good!

Is there any chance you could post some decent excuses for us to use to justify the very necessary expenditure????


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## decent_espresso

Brewer in training said:


> Is there any chance you could post some decent excuses for us to use to justify the very necessary expenditure????


I was hoping to oursource that job to you, by showing up in London with two espresso machines and letting you play around with them.


----------



## robashton

If I'm about I'd love to give these a once over (well, half a dozen over - when the sage eventually dies if these are as good as they look I'd be in for it.


----------



## decent_espresso

MAKING ESPRESSO ON TV: this photo shows me making a shot on the DE1 next door, while others being able to watch me on a big 19" screen, located in the room next door. I'm using Google's $35 chromecast device to send the DE1's 8" tablet screen to any HDMI compatible TV or monitor.

I'm working on the DE1+ software currently, which has real time charts showing pressure, water flow and temperature. That display will be more interesting to watch.

This screen-casting feature is going to be great for presentations and training. Also, some cafés might show espresso being made on a big screen, providing insight to their customers about the science and process behind their drinks.


----------



## coffeechap

Can you please respond to the pm about the lever day?


----------



## decent_espresso

[video=youtube;rxQUg4-imOs]


----------



## decent_espresso

We've decided to have two modes. A "Barista" mode is one-click-to-do-it, and on the DE1+ a "data card" appears giving you useful information about the espresso-making, steam or hot water. On the DE1, we have fewer sensors and thus less data to show but the principle is the same.

New: on the DE1+ we're able to tell you the water mix temperature *and* the temperature of the coffee ground slurry. This lets you see and compensate for (if you wish) the cooling effect of the grounds. We're also now able to optionally automatically increase the temperature of the water coming into the coffee grounds in order to try to bring the grounds up to your desired set point. This results in more of your espresso extraction occurring at the desired temperature and has a noticeable effect on the espresso flavor.

On the DE1+ there will also be a "Creator" mode that is then a two-step process to make espresso, but it opens up the ability to change all parameters (pressure, flow, temperature and more) for each shot. I'll be uploading screens of that as it gets done.

The screens below are from my Mac as I'm coding this. We have the DE1 version of this UI working on tablet and now controlling the espresso machine. Videos of that coming soon too.


----------



## Obnic

I know from my own journey with pressure profiles that 'control' of more parameters leads to periods of near-insanity. I love the idea of being able to smooth flow-rate during the shot, and there is no question that temperature stability has a huge impact but here's the thing. I fear that managing pressure, flow-rate and temperature of the puck is almost as hard as flying a Eurofighter without computer control of air surfaces.  any chance we could program our desired parameters and have the machine work to stay in the channel?


----------



## DavecUK

Obnic said:


> I know from my own journey with pressure profiles that 'control' of more parameters leads to periods of near-insanity. I love the idea of being able to smooth flow-rate during the shot, and there is no question that temperature stability has a huge impact but here's the thing. I fear that managing pressure, flow-rate and temperature of the puck is almost as hard as flying a Eurofighter without computer control of air surfaces.  any chance we could program our desired parameters and have the machine work to stay in the channel?


Be afraid be very afraid






and if that's not bad enough.

http://coffeetime.wikidot.com/the-la-morocco-tx3-humour


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> any chance we could program our desired parameters and have the machine work to stay in the channel?


Yes, that's what "flow profiling" is for. Tell the machine you want 1ml/second and the pressure adjusts automatically, regardless of your dose, tamp quality, etc...

Also, regarding temperature in the basket, we already have an option that automatically tries to get your puck temperature to the set point temperature. In practice, we've found that (say) 92ºC water is actually extracting at around 85ºC at the start of the shot, and close to 92ºC at the end. What we're now doing is automatically increasing the water temperature by a few degrees, about 5 seconds into the shot, to get the puck up to your set point faster. In practice, this means that shots on the DE1+ should be set to a few degrees cooler than on a comparable boiler machine that doesn't do this, if you want a similar taste.

This feature can be turned off, if you want boiler-like behavior (92ºC water no matter what the puck temperature is) but I like it on, and have the PID magic do its thing. Whether this feature makes "better" or "different" espresso will be for others to judge.

Scott Rao says he prefers pour-over to espresso because more of the extraction happens at the same temperature, and this feature is an attempt to do that, but for espresso.


----------



## Obnic

@DavecUK - that's funny  as I read it I realized something about me that may make me a heretic. What I want is the perfect espresso to drink much more than I want the faff of getting that shot. You'd never guess that from the plethora of pressure profiling, water filtering, refracting, weighing, tamping kit that I have but this was all acquired in pursuit of the end drink. One of the things I love about the Vesuvius is that it simplifies some things.

If the DE1+ delivers on the promise, we have a machine that can manage that tri-lateral equation of flow, temperature and pressure. Add the smart-scale and it also manages brew ratio. This sounds like nirvana to me. Set your parameters and drink your drink. Dose and grind I can manage.

I caught myself socializing the idea of a new coffee machine with my wife the other night. There was much eye-rolling!


----------



## DavecUK

Obnic said:


> @DavecUK - that's funny  as I read it I realized something about me that may make me a heretic. What I want is the perfect espresso to drink much more than I want the faff of getting that shot. You'd never guess that from the plethora of pressure profiling, water filtering, refracting, weighing, tamping kit that I have but this was all acquired in pursuit of the end drink. One of the things I love about the Vesuvius is that it simplifies some things.
> 
> If the DE1+ delivers on the promise, we have a machine that can manage that tri-lateral equation of flow, temperature and pressure. Add the smart-scale and it also manages brew ratio. This sounds like nirvana to me. Set your parameters and drink your drink. Dose and grind I can manage.
> 
> I caught myself socializing the idea of a new coffee machine with my wife the other night. There was much eye-rolling!


I'm like you, in fact I did want machines to be more advanced, but only in as much as taking care of things for the user that they don't worry about, but perhaps should..My ideas were more about the machine looking after itself and safety rather than more and more functions. There would be some new functions, obviously, but even there a machine done in ways to make it easier to build, clean, less faults as well as easier to use.

I also prefer passive solutions to active ones, where possible.


----------



## hotmetal

So long as the coffee machines don't take over the world and throw bad shots at Russia. ...


----------



## DavecUK

hotmetal said:


> So long as the coffee machines don't take over the world and throw bad shots at Russia. ...


Lets hope that turkey sticks to coffee roasters then...


----------



## decent_espresso

DavecUK said:


> I'm like you, in fact I did want machines to be more advanced, but only in as much as taking care of things for the user that they don't worry about, but perhaps should. I also prefer passive solutions to active ones, where possible.


I absolutely agree that there are two audiences for advanced espresso tech:

1) make me an amazing espresso, but don't make me think

2) I want to tinker, this is my hobby

The DE1 only covers the first case. The DE1+ has more sensors, volumetric, flow control, and.... two interfaces, a "Barista mode" which is "a do it all for me" but displays what's going on (essentially an advanced version of the DE1 interface), and the DE1+ adds a "Creator" interface for tinkering.

My model is "lovefilm". Most days you just want to watch a movie, but once in a while you want to spend an hour or more to build up your movie list.

Espresso making is like that for me. I get a new batch of beans, and I fiddle with the grind, dose and temperature until I like it, then I just want to make that "recipe" until this bag of beans is exhausted. Hence "Barista" mode, and "Creator" mode. You choose which one you want.


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## decent_espresso

[video=youtube;zfJ-dNjHdFE]


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## Lefteye

Have you got any uk prices yet? You said the 220v would be higher than 110v


----------



## decent_espresso

I was asked two good questions on HB, that I thought I should copy over here, as I think there's an interesting conversation to be had around it.



> Where is basket temperature probe?


It's mounted into the diffuser, a millimeter or two above the basket. We couldn't find a closer place to get it.











> And it looks there is 2 red line on temperature graph, please let me know temperature measurement.


There are two temperatures: the "water mix" (thin line) and the basket temperature (thick line).

We also have two temperature operating modes, which I haven't thought of a name for, but let's call them "traditional mode" and "basket temperature mode"

In traditional mode, the DE1+ outputs a constant water temperature, and we ignore what the basket temperature is (ie, the cooling effect of the grounds, the basket and the portafilter). This is how boiler based espresso machines work, and is what everyone knows and loves.

In "basket temperature mode" our goal is getting the basket temperature to the set point, and we vary the water mix temperature to get it there. This mode compensates for a cold basket, cold portafilter, and the room-temperature grounds. The goal with this mode, which is what you're seeing in the video, is to have as much of the espresso brewing happen at your goal temperature. You can see that the PID system automatically overheats the water at the start, because the grounds have cooled the water down, because we've told our PID to get the basket temperature to the goal.

This technique was motivated by something Scott Rao told me, that he much preferred pour over to espresso, because more of the extraction happens at the same temperature. That's what we're trying to do in this "basket temperature mode".

To my knowledge, this is brand new, and possible because we use water mixing to quickly and dynamically change the water temperature. The theory is that this will produce "better tasting espresso" but of course that will have to be decided in the fullness of time.


----------



## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> Have you got any uk prices yet? You said the 220v would be higher than 110v


I don't have final prices yet, but I will on October 28th (in a week).

In the end, it was simpler for us to "ship, already, geez" by making the 220V version almost identical to the 110V version, and so there won't be much of a price difference. We had wanted to use the extra power of 220V to make a more featureful machine, and we'll do that in the future, but the time for R&D (almost two years) needs to come to an end.

We're building the Beta 3 right now, as a 220V machine, and we'll be testing it this week. It does have more powerful pumps and heaters as the 110V, some EU safety additions (double failover), but otherwise is the same as the 110V machine. When I come to London in ~6 weeks, I'll have the 220V machine with me.


----------



## Sami

decent_espresso said:


> It's mounted into the diffuser, a millimeter or two above the basket. We couldn't find a closer place to get it.


How about incorporating a probe into the portafilter, in direct contact with the basket? Contact points on the 'lugs'.


----------



## DavecUK

Sami said:


> How about incorporating a probe into the portafilter, in direct contact with the basket? Contact points on the 'lugs'.


that's a good idea...how would you do it?


----------



## decent_espresso

Sami said:


> How about incorporating a probe into the portafilter, in direct contact with the basket? Contact points on the 'lugs'.


We thought about that, and yes, it'd be "even better" but it would make us totally incompatible with the existing world of portafilters. A goal with our decent espresso machine was making it work with all the standard pro accessories out there.


----------



## Sami

Apple would love that.


----------



## decent_espresso

I'm making videos this week, of all sorts of things about our espresso machines, in anticipation of Friday, when we start taking orders.


----------



## Lefteye

Looks great. Will the finished software have a section of predefined 'machines' placed in the menu such 'slayer,gs3,lever' etc? Also will there be a place to save your favourites in a series of user definable slots? This is the de1 not the de1+ that we have just watched isn't it?


----------



## decent_espresso

This is the DE1 you're seeing, and yes you can save your settings, and yes there will be predefined ones for the common types of other espresso machine designs out there. However, the GUI makes it easy enough to make new profiles that it might be just as easy to set what you want as it is to hunt for one and load it.


----------



## Lefteye

So we have seen a lot about the software but I haven't heard much about the steaming capabilities of the de1. I know it can't steam and brew but how is the pressure and steam now ( it was planned to be on a par with a gs3 but that wasn't possible.) can you compare its ability in relation to other machines?


----------



## decent_espresso

I haven't said much about steaming because whether "I like the steaming on this machine" is often a matter of personal taste. For instance, we use a single-hole steam tip, and it works very well for me, but others might not like it.

For me, the steaming is great, because I obtain very smooth, small bubbles, repeatedly, something that I don't achieve easily elsewhere.

In terms of power, we're approaching but not yet reaching pro steaming speeds. A 6oz dose of milk is in the 30 to 45 seconds range to heat to 65ºC. On the DE1PRO model, you have 2x the steam heating power (twice the wattage steam heaters).

Note that on all our machines, I always choose quality vs speed. If it's slower to steam, but the foam quality resulting is better, I choose quality.

I'll be posting a video all about steam, because we also have a novel way of making steam, at 170ºC, with half the water. On the DE1+ we tell you how much water has been added into your drink through steaming. Our water flow rate is about 1/2 the norm, because our steam temperature is so high.

If you want to know more about our steam, the best place to read is by reading http://slayerespresso.com/machines/steam/ because our steam methodology is very similar.

I previously said that the DE1+ would feature a cool touch steam wand, and the DE1 would not. I've changed my mind about that, because I don't like burning myself and I presume you don't either, so that I decided that both models have a cool touch steam wand, even though it's a more expensive part for us.


----------



## decent_espresso

Just a quick note that we're running a few days late getting everything done to take orders for our espresso machines. I'll post a message here when we've got it up.

The espresso machines are done, what we're spending time on now is the marketing stuff: making videos, updating the web site. We've got 5 videos we've shot that we're editing now.


----------



## lmulli

Interesting to see how these turn out and the UK pricing. In the market for a new machine, so might just hold off purchasing one for now.


----------



## Phobic

decent_espresso said:


> I don't have final prices yet, but I will on October 28th (in a week).


 @decent_espresso dumdidum....


----------



## decent_espresso

A new video, and more to come over the next 2 days...


----------



## Lefteye

Yes please give us the price even if we can't yet order it @decent_espresso


----------



## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> Yes please give us the price even if we can't yet order it @decent_espresso


I've previously mentioned that the price won't far off the US price of $999, as the UK machine is similar, with a bit of extra EU mandated safety paranoia. Unfortunately, customs and VAT are going to be higher than the US. I'll have final prices (including shipping, duty and VAT) in the next two days.


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## decent_espresso




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## decent_espresso




----------



## coffeechap

Will the production models sound the same as the one you are using in the demonstrations? Is it me or does it sound like an old diesel tractor engine?


----------



## Yes Row

coffeechap said:


> Will the production models sound the same as the one you are using in the demonstrations? Is it me or does it sound like an old diesel tractor engine?


Nope, it isn't you...it does

Akin to a 1 cylinder dump truck

Maybe in reality it sounds better?


----------



## UncleJake

Quiet though isn't it... I have to shout over the sound of mine.


----------



## dan1502

It's a shame it doesn't sound like a rotary. Maybe the professional version will be different? Also I think there might be some he machines with pressure profiling.


----------



## Obnic

dan1502 said:


> It's a shame it doesn't sound like a rotary...


I think @coffeechap thinks it's a shame it doesn't sound like a lever.


----------



## Phobic

dan1502 said:


> It's a shame it doesn't sound like a rotary. Maybe the professional version will be different?


I'm hoping exactly the same


----------



## dan1502

I'm really interested to see what people think once they get there hands on them but apart from being concerned how the sheer amount of variable that may be controlled might become baffling (though it seems you can just set targets and let it do its thing), I think the noise would put me off. Where I have my setup at the moment space isn't an issue but the combination of one of these and a cut down EK43 would be tempting if it were. Also the price difference for the professional version is big so whether the additional cost for a more pleasant noise would be justified I doubt. Not that I'm looking to change though.


----------



## Dylan

It's an odd noise for sure, but between vibe pumps and grinders it's not like most people's coffee corners are a zone of tranquility. (Lever/hand grinder folks aside)


----------



## dan1502

I know and the vesuvius sounds like an air raid siren but if there's a sound equivalent to tactile, well it's more of that.


----------



## coffeechap

Obnic said:


> I think @coffeechap thinks it's a shame it doesn't sound like a lever.


No just thought it was little irritating but then so is a vibe pump


----------



## jimbojohn55

still think the portafilter handles look a bit thin at the join to the basket - there probably fine but remind me of either a Victorian lathe handle (solid metal) or something else with a battery in it - I cant help it its just what comes to mind!


----------



## Daren

Dylan said:


> It's an odd noise for sure, but between vibe pumps and grinders it's not like most people's coffee corners are a zone of tranquility. (Lever/hand grinder folks aside)


Lol... I'd hardly call the language that comes from my mouth tranquil when hand grinding (especially with a hangover)


----------



## Obnic

dan1502 said:


> I know and the vesuvius sounds like an air raid siren but if there's a sound equivalent to tactile, well it's more of that.


That's not been my experience. It is notably quieter than a vibe pump. Is yours behaving properly?

---

@coffeechap would be good if it were lever quiet though wouldn't it.


----------



## Mrboots2u

dan1502 said:


> I know and the vesuvius sounds like an air raid siren but if there's a sound equivalent to tactile, well it's more of that.


there is something wrong with your machine then ....


----------



## dan1502

I don't think there is, it just 'winds up' as the pressure rises and I was exaggerating. Now you have me wondering though. Gary didn't mention anything abnormal when he was here and he's used them before.


----------



## coffeechap

I think air raid siren is a little harsh


----------



## dan1502

I apologise and don't want to create a bad impression of the Vesuvius on a public forum. Believe it or not I meant it in a good way.


----------



## decent_espresso

How loud is the Decent Espresso Machine? About the same level as water drops. We put a huge amount of effort into noise reduction and vibration isolation. This video uses a decibel meter during an espresso shot.

[video=youtube;6pcy9-pmKXc]


----------



## Tewdric

But the pump is not working against the resistance of a puck there. What's the peak pump noise working hard on a 30s shot? You're not going all snake oil on us, are you?


----------



## decent_espresso

Tewdric said:


> But the pump is not working against the resistance of a puck there. What's the peak pump noise working hard on a 30s shot?


The pump is much quieter during the shot when it's resisting the puck. It is almost silent at that point, because there's almost no water flowing. The loudest times are pre-heating and purging.

I didn't want to put a scace on the video, because the sound of the water shooting out of the scace into a cup is much louder than the espresso machine.



Tewdric said:


> You're not going all snake oil on us, are you?


I will be in London in about a month's time, where you or anyone else in the UK are welcome to listen to and drink from the machine as you like.


----------



## Tewdric

Fair enough! I am pump-free these days with a line-fed lever but I remember my old E61 being at its noisiest when pumping water through a puck. It does sound very quiet in the videos and I'm looking forward to seeing how your machine pans out in the hands of customers. It certainly seems very innovative and interesting. Thanks.


----------



## decent_espresso

Tewdric said:


> Fair enough! I am pump-free these days with a line-fed lever but I remember my old E61 being at its noisiest when pumping water through a puck. It does sound very quiet in the videos and I'm looking forward to seeing how your machine pans out in the hands of customers. It certainly seems very innovative and interesting. Thanks.


For comparison's sake, why don't some of you download the same app and tell the forum how loud your espresso machine is?

Here is where you can download it (for iphones)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/decibel-meter-pro/id382776256?mt=8


----------



## dan1502

Presumably it uses a vibration pump the sound of which subjectively isn't as nice as the smooth sound of a rotary (or similar). I was just wondering whether the professional version will use a different type of pump. Given all the other great features and assuming real world feedback is in line with what's promoted then I don't think the noise would be a deal breaker, it's just arguably more satisfying to use a machine with a rotary pump.


----------



## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> How loud is the Decent Espresso Machine? About the same level as water drops.


Good answer



decent_espresso said:


> For comparison's sake, why don't some of you ... tell the forum how loud your espresso machine is?


Well I used a different app (SPL Meter) but I am sure it is comparable.

Pre-infusion at 2 bar with an empty portafilter measured 44-46 db.

Full chat at 9 bar measured 62-66 db.

(I get the Vesuvius siren comparison now, it's a rising-tone thing).

@decent_espresso I'm assuming your video was at 9bar or thereabouts?

Readings are quite sensitive to the distance of the meter from the machine. Get close and you pick up noise from the boiler heating. I measured from about 10 inches from the front edge of the drip tray.


----------



## Mrboots2u

Over the recent past I've seen a lot of stuff from various people about a " desirable flow rate " often stated as being 1ml per second . I'm just not sure where this figure for flow rate comes from ( shots taste better , blind testing ? ) or if it's even desirable to try and achieve . Or if people are talking about it in relation to blonding or a brew recipe .

Confused


----------



## Tewdric

That sounds like a fair challenge!







. I'll do it tomorrow when the house is free of 6 year olds


----------



## oursus

Mrboots2u said:


> Over the recent past I've seen a lot of stuff from various people about a " desirable flow rate " often stated as being 1ml per second . I'm just not sure where this figure for flow rate comes from ( shots taste better , blind testing ? ) or if it's even desirable to try and achieve . Or if people are talking about it in relation to blonding or a brew recipe .
> 
> Confused


Good question, surely the flow rate must proportional to the dose & grind?


----------



## MWJB

oursus said:


> Good question, surely the flow rate must proportional to the dose & grind?


Probably more of a relationship to brew ratio (assuming a common grinder).


----------



## dan1502

Mrboots2u said:


> Over the recent past I've seen a lot of stuff from various people about a " desirable flow rate " often stated as being 1ml per second . I'm just not sure where this figure for flow rate comes from ( shots taste better , blind testing ? ) or if it's even desirable to try and achieve . Or if people are talking about it in relation to blonding or a brew recipe .
> 
> Confused


Wouldn't this be very difficult to achieve even with most pressure profile machines? My understanding is that it is the combination of pressure profiling, the bluetooth scales and the programming which enable this machine to adjust to achieve a steady flow rate so the only way I know of to easily try this is to buy one of these and experiment. I've had a go at adjusting mine to steady the flow but I guess it probably requires continual adjustments rather than a few stepped changes.


----------



## MWJB

dan1502 said:


> Wouldn't this be very difficult to achieve even with most pressure profile machines? My understanding is that it is the combination of pressure profiling, the bluetooth scales and the programming which enable this machine to adjust to achieve a steady flow rate so the only way I know of to easily try this is to buy one of these and experiment. I've had a go at adjusting mine to steady the flow but I guess it probably requires continual adjustments rather than a few stepped changes.


All machines & shots have flow rate, in the respect of a given shot weight over so many seconds of total shot time, this machine & the Acaia scales are exciting from the aspect that they can really show how the flow changes & and can be manipulated, but is there anything out there to say that a steady flow is more/less desirable, or a historical precedent?


----------



## dan1502

I have no idea. Although initially you might logically think that a steady flow rate would result in more even extraction, as extraction rate changes with contact with water (i.e. slows as more solids dissolve) presumably an increased flow might result in more even extraction over the length of a shot? I guess this machine would make such experiments relatively simple as you can ask the machine to target a flow profile, level or otherwise?


----------



## MWJB

dan1502 said:


> I have no idea. Although initially you might logically think that a steady flow rate would result in more even extraction, as extraction rate changes with contact with water (i.e. slows as more solids dissolve) presumably an increased flow might result in more even extraction over the length of a shot? I guess this machine would make such experiments relatively simple as you can ask the machine to target a flow profile, level or otherwise?


I can't see the mechanism as to how a constant flow rate (still though, what would it be & how would the requirement change in the real world?) would make a more even shot, but that doesn't mean it can't happen  My gut says decaying flow rate would be useful (I won't say "better"), slower flow as solids become harder to extract, easier to kill shot at target weight (but sometimes my gut just makes odd noises, so I don't listen that hard)? Grind distribution & good preinfusion still seem to be most likely candidates here?

Indeed, it's an exciting prospect.


----------



## Phobic

hmm interesting read on flow rate.

just to check my understanding, if you keep pressure constant, all other things being equal, won't flow rate increase over time as more solids are extracted? So does that mean if you keep flow rate constant you inherently have to reduce pressure?


----------



## decent_espresso

dan1502 said:


> I have no idea. Although initially you might logically think that a steady flow rate would result in more even extraction, as extraction rate changes with contact with water (i.e. slows as more solids dissolve) presumably an increased flow might result in more even extraction over the length of a shot? I guess this machine would make such experiments relatively simple as you can ask the machine to target a flow profile, level or otherwise?


This morning I tried two shots (morning lattes for me & GF) hitting 9 bar, and then having a flow profile starting at 1ml/second, decreasing to 0.5ml/second over the next 40 seconds. The DE1+ automatically adjusted pressure to perform this.

Resulting espresso was much more chocolatey, huge chocolate actually, but less coffee "roast" flavor. Verdict: interesting, we liked it, but I'd say it was different, not necessarily better or worse.

The point of the DE1+ is to be able to try these theories out, easily, once a day with your morning espresso hit.


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> @decent_espresso I'm assuming your video was at 9bar or thereabouts?


Because I didn't put a portafilter in for that video, pressure never rose above 0.25 bar.

However, the noise level from vibe pumps has the exact opposite relationship to pressure that rotary pumps have. The more pressure, the quieter they get. Listen to a Nespresso machine sometime, and the loudest noise is at the beginning. If the Nespresso capsule produces any backpressure (they don't always) you'll hear the vibe pump quieten down significantly.

In the "Introduction to the DE1" video, I make a shot with coffee, and you can hear (or not!) that the DE1 goes very quiet when it's at full pressure.

The reason for this is that a rotary pump "struggles" and thus makes more noise at full pressure, whereas a vibe pump is unable to "smack" into the opposite end of its chamber at full pressure, and so the vibe pump's noise is much abated.



Obnic said:


> Readings are quite sensitive to the distance of the meter from the machine. Get close and you pick up noise from the boiler heating. I measured from about 10 inches from the front edge of the drip tray.


Just measured it, and in the video the front of my iphone is 11" from the front of the drip tray.


----------



## Tewdric

decent_espresso said:


> For comparison's sake, why don't some of you download the same app and tell the forum how loud your espresso machine is?
> 
> Here is where you can download it (for iphones)
> 
> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/decibel-meter-pro/id382776256?mt=8


Ok, did it! My plumbed-in Londinium 1 registers 38-39 dB during the pour with the iPhone 11" from the front of the machine. The background noise in my house registers 37-38 dB.

Grinding 16g in 4.6s on my E37s produced a peak of 70dB at the same distance.


----------



## Brewster

decent_espresso said:


> I will be in London in about a month's time, where you or anyone else in the UK are welcome to listen to and drink from the machine as you like.


Any idea when and where you'll be in London, I'll be keen to stop by if possible?


----------



## decent_espresso

Brewster said:


> Any idea when and where you'll be in London, I'll be keen to stop by if possible?


Covent Garden area is where I'm saying, Prufrock is probably one of my "show & tell" locations, more still TBA. Should be around the 1st week of December.


----------



## Brewster

decent_espresso said:


> Covent Garden area is where I'm saying, Prufrock is probably one of my "show & tell" locations, more still TBA. Should be around the 1st week of December.


Great, I should be able to stop by.

I'm intrigued on many levels, it's an interesting prospect for a whole host of reasons - from technology to business model!


----------



## decent_espresso

*DECENT ESPRESSO MACHINES NOW AVAILABLE*

The Decent Espresso Machines are now available for ordering:

https://decentespresso.com/dem_buy

----

Any questions, post 'em here and I'll do my best to answer 'em!


----------



## Phobic

220V version prices

DE1 - £944

DE1+ - £1766

Just to check that the difference between the DE1 and DE1+ is the tablet control software which means on the DE1+ you can get full control of profiling?

the hardware on both models is exactly the same?

is that right?


----------



## DavecUK

3 questions for you.

I understand that it's a significant increase in cost (around 70%) to get a "professional use" model, so the concept is clear....but what do you mean by



> Our 'Professional use' models are rated to 200,000 shots, whereas our normal models are only rated to 10,000 shots.


https://decentespresso.com/de1pro

*At first glance it seems clear, but when I think about it....it's not clear at all? If I make say 8 cups per day, 4 cups each between 2 people...this might be 3 each per day during the week and a few more at weekends, or if guests come round. This is not a particularly big usage, but in under 3 1/2 years, I will have done 10,000 cups. What happens then?*

People who buy prosumer kit usually make quite a bit of coffee, I realise some people on the forum only drink a couple of cups per day and might be the only drinker, but most peoples machines will make coffee for the houshold and any visitors. Even the little Melitta BTC I have been using has made over 550 shots in just a few months and it's not my only machine and not the only BT machine I was testing in that period. For my household with visitors, a machine might make 10 cups per day in total....that's over 3600 cups per year.

For interests sake I specced up the basic DE1

Shipping and taxes for DE1 220V 50/60hz

UPS delivers within 4 days:

+ Shipping cost: £108.16

+ Tax for United Kingdom: £111.08 (11.77%)

*For a total of £1163.24*

*
*

Looking at this I see Tax for united Kingdom as 11.77%, so this isn't VAT

Then I specced up the DE1 with professional use optionShipping and taxes for DE1PRO 220V 50/60hz

UPS delivers within 4 days:

+ Shipping cost: £108.16

+ Tax for United Kingdom: £119.87 (7.49%)

*
For a total of £1829.03*



*
*The confusion I have is now the tax is 7.49%, again it doesn't seem like VAT, but the normal import duty on goods from Hong Kong. *On a machine of this value and size customs will definitely open it and then want VAT of 20%, which for the last example adds a further £232 or £365 respectively, or have I missed something?*



*
Oh and how are you handling warranty?*


----------



## decent_espresso

The hardware is similar, but the DE1+ adds a flow meter, extra temperature sensors (notably, above the coffee grounds), and thus can support a completely different software program, which yes, gives you full control of profiling, and notably our automatic temperature profiling, which changes the water temperature dynamically to get your coffee grounds to the desired brew temperature.

Here's a video that explains the difference:


----------



## decent_espresso

DavecUK said:


> *At first glance it seems clear, but when I think about it....it's not clear at all? If I make say 8 cups per day, 4 cups each between 2 people...this might be 3 each per day during the week and a few more at weekends, or if guests come round. This is not a particularly big usage, but in under 3 1/2 years, I will have done 10,000 cups. What happens then?*


We don't actually know when the pumps will die, we can only go with the very conservative guarantees that the pump manufacturer gives us. We've yet to "expire" a pump from use, though we have managed to jam one with grit in the water tank and needed to take it out for cleaning to fix it.

So, I'm not saying that I know the pump will expire at 10,000 coffees. We're hoping that it will be much more than that, but since we've not been running our espresso machines for years, we can't do anything for guarantees but repeat what the pump maker says. And of course, the pump maker is happy to sell us a more expensive pump with a longer rated guarantee.

I should also mention that the pump we use is a variant of the extremely common "Ulka" pump that lots of machines use. Ours is a bit quieter and has some other properties we like. However, if your pump did for some reason expire, it's ten minutes' work for a repairman to swap our pump out for an Ulka, a part most shops have in stock.



DavecUK said:


> People who buy prosumer kit usually make quite a bit of coffee, I realise some people on the forum only drink a couple of cups per day and might be the only drinker, but most peoples machines will make coffee for the houshold and any visitors. Even the little Melitta BTC I have been using has made over 550 shots in just a few months and it's not my only machine and not the only BT machine I was testing in that period. For my household with visitors, a machine might make 10 cups per day in total....that's over 3600 cups per year.


I don't think it's a fair to compare "what my Melitta has actually done" vs "what Decent Espresso guarantees".

A more fair comparison would be "What Melitta Guarantees" vs "What Decent Espresso Guarantees". Does Melitta guarantee anything? If so, what?



DavecUK said:


> Shipping and taxes for DE1 220V 50/60hz
> 
> UPS delivers within 4 days:
> 
> + Shipping cost: £108.16
> 
> + Tax for United Kingdom: £111.08 (11.77%)
> 
> *For a total of £1163.24*
> 
> *
> *
> 
> Looking at this I see Tax for united Kingdom as 11.77%, so this isn't VAT


That £111.08 is VAT+DUTY+HANDLING FEES.

We're taking a position vis-a-vis customs that of the £944 we charge for the DE1, that half the value is the software, and half is the hardware itself. The DE1 software is installed automatically, over the internet, when you receive your espresso machine.

This is important: software delivered over the internet is not subject to import duty.

Thus, the import duty for the DE1 is the almost the same as the DE1+, as the value for the DE1+ (from a customs point of view) is in the much improved software.

We think this is a defensible position, and so we've decided to deliver the software over the internet, so as to much lower our customer's duty basis.



DavecUK said:


> *Oh and how are you handling warranty?*


From: https://decentespresso.com/dem_buy

Happiness Guaranteed

On all our products we have a "happiness guaranteed" policy. We will work with you to resolve any problems that arise. If for some reason your machine breaks down due to our fault, we will ship you a new machine for free, and ask you to slow-ship your machine to our repair depot. On all our espresso machines, software upgrades (there are many planned improvements) are free and sent over the Internet.


----------



## Dylan

Wow, I find it very surprising that you are able to reduce the import tax bill in that way.

However when you buy software over the Internet you still pay VAT do you not? Why is the tax bill not 20% of the cost of the machine + the reduced import duty?


----------



## DavecUK

decent_espresso said:


> I don't think it's a fair to compare "what my Melitta has actually done" vs "what Decent Espresso guarantees".
> 
> A more fair comparison would be "What Melitta Guarantees" vs "What Decent Espresso Guarantees". Does Melitta guarantee anything? If so, what?


It was used to illustrate how many coffees a machine can really make, even when I have a prosumer machine on the counter and was testing other BTC machines. The little Melitta has a shot counter, so I could definitely see how many shots real world use in my household was giving under those circumstances (e.g. also using other machines at times). That was all, I wasn't comparing the two machines in any wayl.....just using it as a shot counter.

*
However, as you asked. Melitta guarantees 15,000 cups over a Max of 24 months for non commercial use....so a 2 year warranty. *

Again though I will stress I was not comparing the 2 machines, just using the little BTC machine as an illustration of the shot count record of *part* of my usage...it's a BTC after all and totally different.

*As for your "happiness guaranteed", it's still a bit unclear....not really sure what the warranty is....perhaps I'm a bit slow on the uptake?*

Oh and I hope you're right on the view customs will take in each case....but only the first set of UK orders will tell.


----------



## Phobic

decent_espresso said:


> The hardware is similar, but the DE1+ adds a flow meter, extra temperature sensors (notably, above the coffee grounds), and thus can support a completely different software program, which yes, gives you full control of profiling, and notably our automatic temperature profiling, which changes the water temperature dynamically to get your coffee grounds to the desired brew temperature.
> 
> Here's a video that explains the difference:


That is a massive premium for a flow meter, temp sensor + additional Temp and flow profiling software features, I'm struggling to see how the development/parts cost for this translates into incremental 87% price.

Appreciate you need to recoup these additional costs to get a decent return on investment, however ROI = unit margin * unit sales, with a high premium you're not going to achieve as many unit sales.

the question for the market (and therefore unit sales) is "what's temp and flow profiling worth" with a machine with this hardware spec (e.g. vibe pump) - £800 is a big ask.

temp and flow profiling would need to deliver some marketing changing improvements in the cup for that kind of price!

can't help but think you're shooting yourself in the foot with your pricing strategy.


----------



## decent_espresso

Phobic said:


> can't help but think you're shooting yourself in the foot with your pricing strategy.


I feel that a reasonable way to evaluate a product's price is to ask yourself "is this product's value worth that price to me?"

Perhaps what we offer isn't worth it to you. If so, no problem: we're not the right product for you.

In this first hour of launching, we've sold 5 machines, of which two DE1+, two DE1PRO+ and one DE1.

So far, the majority of buyers are going for our more expensive models, so I suspect they see value in the extra cost.

---------------

Have you looked to see what the cost is of competing machines with temperature profiling? There are precious few of them, they are pro only, and they are expensive, such as this: http://www.ranciliogroup.com/2-Rancilio-Coffee-Machines--Classe_9

The temperature profiling capabilities of the Classe 9 are limited to "up or down" : they cannot do the real time dynamic temperature changing that water mixing makes possible.

Do you know of any espresso machine that offers this sort of insight into what's happening inside the puck?


----------



## coffeechap

Totally agree that it is worth what someone is prepared to pay, however only time will tell for you guys as thus far it is not tried and tested in the market place.


----------



## Phobic

decent_espresso said:


> I feel that a reasonable way to evaluate a product's price is to ask yourself "is this product's value worth that price to me?"
> 
> Perhaps what we offer isn't worth it to you. If so, no problem: we're not the right product for you.
> 
> In this first hour of launching, we've sold 5 machines, of which two DE1+, two DE1PRO+ and one DE1.
> 
> So far, the majority of buyers are going for our more expensive models, so I suspect they see value in the extra cost.
> 
> ---------------
> 
> Have you looked to see what the cost is of competing machines with temperature profiling? There are precious few of them, they are pro only, and they are expensive, such as this: http://www.ranciliogroup.com/2-Rancilio-Coffee-Machines--Classe_9
> 
> The temperature profiling capabilities of the Classe 9 are limited to "up or down" : they cannot do the real time dynamic temperature changing that water mixing makes possible.
> 
> Do you know of any espresso machine that offers this sort of insight into what's happening inside the puck?


disappointing response, doesn't address the point about price versus incremental development/parts costs.

you're not competing with the rancilio, just because you have a similar feature it doesn't justify +87% price.

a sample size of 5 isn't meaningful.


----------



## decent_espresso

Phobic said:


> disappointing response, doesn't address the point about price versus incremental development/parts costs.


I feel I did reply to that point, but you don't, so let's agree to disagree.


----------



## Dylan

Could you address my question about VAT, as I can't see how you would avoid paying this and the £111 or so doesn't seem to account for it as 20% of the machines cost is greater than this amount.

You still have to pay VAT on software.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Could you address my question about VAT, as I can't see how you would avoid paying this and the £111 or so doesn't seem to account for it as 20% of the machines cost is greater than this amount. You still have to pay VAT on software.


The way I read the rules, you are acting as the importer, as you are buying downloaded software from a Hong Kong company, and thus are supposed to declare the downloaded software as imported, and fill out a VAT declaration and pay it yourself.

A quick google on "importing downloaded software into the UK" has forums talking about this.

We're declaring the DE1 at $499 for the espresso machine hardware, so your VAT declaration would be for your price paid to us, minus USD$499 as already imported, multiplied by the 20% VAT rate.


----------



## Drewster

decent_espresso said:


> The way I read the rules, you are acting as the importer, as you are buying downloaded software from a Hong Kong company, and thus are supposed to declare the downloaded software as imported, and fill out a VAT declaration and pay it yourself.
> 
> A quick google on "importing downloaded software into the UK" has forums talking about this.
> 
> We're declaring the DE1 at $499 for the espresso machine hardware, so your VAT declaration would be for your price paid to us, minus USD$499 as already imported, multiplied by the 20% VAT rate.


Hey! What!

Your "price" is based on paying "some" duty/VAT on the hardware

and then when the customer downloads the software "they" need to declare it (and pay the VAT/duty)....

or "they" need to NOT declare/pay the VAT/duty.....

So (basically) your price isn't your price at all - there is (legally) additional VAT/duty to pay that you are hiding?

Please tell me I am wrong in what this seems to be implying! or that I have misinterpreted it.


----------



## coffeechap

This just seems dodgey and avoiding tax!


----------



## Phobic

decent_espresso said:


> I feel I did reply to that point, but you don't, so let's agree to disagree.


saying you're pricing based on what the market will bare doesn't explain how you link your price to your cost base


----------



## filthynines

Why does a business need to explain how price is linked to cost? Its value to you isn't based upon that correlation; it's based upon its merits compared to the rest of the market.


----------



## filthynines

coffeechap said:


> This just seems dodgey and avoiding tax!


On this note: not being a tax lawyer, it still doesn't strike me as dodgy. But presumably the position of Decent Espresso has been the subject of advice from lawyers/accountants/tax experts?


----------



## Phobic

filthynines said:


> Why does a business need to explain how price is linked to cost? Its value to you isn't based upon that correlation; it's based upon its merits compared to the rest of the market.


it's value is exactly based on how price is linked to cost when there is another machine in that businesses portfolio which is 87% cheaper with little functional difference between models - that's the "merits compared to the rest of the market" point that you make....


----------



## Dylan

Whilst you might be trying to save your customers money and/or increase your sales by lowering price, I think you need to very clearly set out exactly how your customer arrives at their landed cost whilst abiding by any and all laws regarding tax and import. You simply cannot ask people buying a machine from you to research what they are supposed to pay on a forum, if they get it wrong or intentionally avoid declaring for tax you are going to be liable for any misinformation or lack of clarity.

You should just be declaring the actual cost of the machine with software like any other piece of hardware/software does. We are used to our taxes and understand the cost it adds. The situation you are creating looks like the artful tax dodging that is so hated in the media at the moment. I cannot understand why you are making things so complex.


----------



## Dylan

Phobic said:


> it's value is exactly based on how price is linked to cost when there is another machine in that businesses portfolio which is 87% cheaper with little functional difference between models - that's the "merits compared to the rest of the market" point that you make....


Phobic, I'm not sure I understand your point.

I can build a PC for £200 and load Linux onto it and it would have cost me £200.

I can build one that is functionally identical and put Windows on it along with Office and it would cost me £400 (making these figures up, but the point is the same).

Why is what DE is doing different?


----------



## Phobic

decent_espresso said:


> We're declaring the DE1 at $499 for the espresso machine hardware


what are you declaring the DE1+ at?


----------



## Phobic

Dylan said:


> Phobic, I'm not sure I understand your point.
> 
> I can build a PC for £200 and load Linux onto it and it would have cost me £200.
> 
> I can build one that is functionally identical and put Windows on it along with Office and it would cost me £400 (making these figures up, but the point is the same).
> 
> Why is what DE is doing different?


in terms of mechanics it's the same thing, the big problem I have is the price delta they're charging for the additional feature.

using your analogy what DE are doing is more similar to

1. Build a PC and load linux onto it, sell it for £900

2. Add in a temperature controlled fan, modify linux to use it, sell it for £1700

if you think it's worth the extra money for fan control, then yes it's worth it for you, and i have no problem with that, but that's got nothing to do with how much it cost to make it.

I'm simply trying to understand the justification for the 87% price.

Q. Are there more features here that I'm not seeing? A. I don't think so.

Q. Did the parts or development of the extra features cost a lot of money? A. doesn't look like it.

Q. Why does it cost so much more? A. because that's what we think we can get away with charging.

I don't have any problem with that, people will buy it or they won't, however I think that's a very simplistic & risky approach to pricing strategy which is likely to drive sales down.

believe it or not I'd like to see this succeed, but I'm frustrated by what I'm reading, I'm smack bang in the middle of the target market for the DE+ and there's no way I'd buy one at this price.


----------



## filthynines

So then the question is "are the enhancements worth the premium"? It's still not a question to be based on the absolute differences between cost and retail price; they're entitled to build in a profit margin, and they don't have to tell you what it is. Personally, I don't see a problem with "charging what we can get away with", because that's what price elasticity analysis is for. If you're right that this isn't a reasonable price point, it is bound to come down eventually. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

There's a chance - unlikely, but possible - that the enhanced spec model is at the "right" price point, and the basic spec model is an absolute bargain in comparison. That's the opposite view to the way you're currently approaching it.


----------



## Mrboots2u

Phobic said:


> saying you're pricing based on what the market will bare doesn't explain how you link your price to your cost base


People are and should be allowed to make a profit for time and effort and risk . Some of which just can't be calculated as a cost in £s


----------



## Drewster

Mrboots2u said:


> People are and should be allowed to make a profit for time and effort and risk . Some of which just can't be calculated as a cost in £s


To be clear - I have absolutely no issue with the pricing pre se - if they can "get away with" charging a big mark-up on the + model good luck to them.

They have always seemed to be open and honest in all their communications and that was cool.

I am a bit concerned with the apparent opacity via-a-viz tax/duty - as this "seems" to be somewhat out of synch with the apparent openness of previous communications.

I hope it is my misreading of the answers given which DE will clarify when he gets round to it.


----------



## scottgough

I initially really like the look these machines, however, as time and production has developed, I've become less enamoured. Not being able to brew and steam at the same time on what's likely to be a £2000 machine here, is a no for me, as is the lack of clarity around pricing / vat / import duty. It just doesn't feel as slick, resolved and on point as I was expecting it to be.


----------



## DavecUK

scottgough said:


> I initially really like the look these machines, however, as time and production has developed, I've become less enamoured. Not being able to brew and steam at the same time on what's likely to be a £2000 machine here, is a no for me, as is the lack of clarity around pricing / vat / import duty. It just doesn't feel as slick, resolved and on point as I was expecting it to be.


You also have the lack of clarity about the "happiness warranty" or whatever the hell it's called.


----------



## Phil104

DavecUK said:


> You also have the lack of clarity about the "happiness warranty" or whatever the hell it's called.


It is called the happiness warranty - guarantees our improved happiness in terms of the world happiness report (with apologies for the size of the image).


----------



## 4085

My local Chinese takeaway has a Happiness warranty, as does a local Thai massage parlour.........I wonder if it is becoming a universal way of doing business


----------



## Drewster

dfk41 said:


> My local Chinese takeaway has a Happiness warranty, as does a local Thai massage parlour.........I wonder if it is becoming a universal way of doing business


Could you comment on your experience with the Thai massage parlour - was it you who were dissatisfied or them? And how was it resolved?


----------



## jimbojohn55

Drewster said:


> Could you comment on your experience with the Thai massage parlour - was it you who were dissatisfied or them? And how was it resolved?


voucher for a BOGOF buy one get one free and double nectar points ?


----------



## 4085

Drewster said:


> Could you comment on your experience with the Thai massage parlour - was it you who were dissatisfied or them? And how was it resolved?


sorry, I have mislead you. In my old age, I became confused between happiness warranty and a happy ending.......please scrub the reference to the Thai massage parlour


----------



## Drewster

jimbojohn55 said:


> voucher for a BOGOF buy one get one free and double nectar points -


Tautology isn't what it used to be... I said tautology isn't what it used to be!


----------



## Mrboots2u

How many people in reality actually brew and steam at the same time ...


----------



## 4085

Mrboots2u said:


> How many people in reality actually brew and steam at the same time ...


me........especially if making 2 drinks


----------



## Phobic

Mrboots2u said:


> People are and should be allowed to make a profit for time and effort and risk . Some of which just can't be calculated as a cost in £s


I have no issue with any company making money, that's what they're in business to do.

Don't agree that you can't calculate cost for time, effort and risk, that's writing a business case 101, that's what these guys are being paid to do.



> There's a chance - unlikely, but possible - that the enhanced spec model is at the "right" price point, and the basic spec model is an absolute bargain in comparison. That's the opposite view to the way you're currently approaching it.


I would have had less of an issue with the DE1 being a closer price to the DE1+, that would show that R&D costs were being recovered proportionally between models and margins were similar on both models - a 87% *differential *in the price shows that's not the case though

Let me breakdown my thinking a bit

1. "$499" declared price for the base DE1 hardware - let's say at wholesale this makes is about $400 cost with a 20% margin

2. cost of a flow meter and temp probe - let's buy something really expensive $100 wholesale

3. incremental cost to develop software to control flow and temp probe needs to cover:-

a. read current probe value

b. set a value to control temp/flow rate - or maybe turn something on or off e.g. heater/pump. Most likely using existing libraries that they've already written, or more likely that their parts supplier provided

c. display some output - I'd use the existing libraries which I've already written for the DE1, no point in adding in cost by starting from scratch

d. make some unique graphics for the UI - cost for a few icons and other graphics

at current exchange rate finger in the air hardware costs comes out at £400 for the DE1+ versus £1766 + tax + shipping - best part of £2k

Yes there are options available in how you allocate wider R&D costs and how you factor in risk to your business case, really struggling to see how applying existing flow and temp probe technology to a new market along with some simple software development aligns with £1366 incremental per unit, you need to be really sure about your target market, have solid market research and quality focus group feedback to have the confidence to go in at that kind of price differential.

Given the target market for these machines, advanced prosumers, I think this is a hard sell given the feature list, build, and benefits versus the competition.

for £2k I would have expected a rotary pump and plumbing included at least - I confess to not knowing how well ceramic boilers compare to other materials but I'm guessing that these are cheaper than the brass boilers which you see on other machines in this price bracket.

Seems like I'm a lone voice in struggling with how this adds up, time will tell but I predict mediocre sales for the DE1+ at this price, I have my hat here and I'm willing to eat it if I'm wrong.

frustrated as would have loved to buy one of these!


----------



## Mrboots2u

Phobic said:


> I have no issue with any company making money, that's what they're in business to do.
> 
> Don't agree that you can't calculate cost for time, effort and risk, that's writing a business case 101, that's what these guys are being paid to do.
> 
> I would have had less of an issue with the DE1 being a closer price to the DE1+, that would show that R&D costs were being recovered proportionally between models and margins were similar on both models - a 87% *differential *in the price shows that's not the case though
> 
> Let me breakdown my thinking a bit
> 
> 1. "$499" declared price for the base hardware - let's say at wholesale this makes is about $400 cost with a 20% margin
> 
> 2. cost of a flow meter and temp probe - let's buy something really expensive $100 wholesale
> 
> 3. incremental cost to develop software to control flow and temp probe needs to cover:-
> 
> a. read current probe value
> 
> b. set a value to control temp/flow rate - or maybe turn something on or off e.g. heater/pump. Most likely using existing libraries that they've already written, or more likely that their parts supplier provided
> 
> c. display some output - I'd use the existing libraries which I've already written for the DE1, no point in adding in cost by starting from scratch
> 
> d. make some unique graphics for the UI - cost for a few icons and other graphics
> 
> at current exchange rate finger in the air hardware costs comes out at £400 for the DE1+ versus £1766 + tax + shipping - best part of £2k
> 
> Yes there are options available in how you allocate wider R&D costs and how you factor in risk to your business case, really struggling to see how applying existing flow and temp probe technology to a new market along with some simple software development aligns with £1366 incremental per unit, you need to be really sure about your target market, have solid market research and quality focus group feedback to have the confidence to go in at that kind of price differential.
> 
> Given the target market for these machines, advanced prosumers, I think this is a hard sell given the feature list, build, and benefits versus the competition.
> 
> for £2k I would have expected a rotary pump and plumbing included at least - I confess to not knowing how well ceramic boilers compare to other materials but I'm guessing that these are cheaper than the brass boilers which you see on other machines in this price bracket.
> 
> Seems like I'm a lone voice in struggling with how this adds up, time will tell but I predict mediocre sales for the DE1+, I have my hat here and I'm willing to eat it if I'm wrong


People will buy or not buy , depending on the price and value they perceive . As usual I see plenty of people pissing on the sidelines when a new machine comes along , when it isn't even out and been tried by anyone yet . most with no intention of buying one .Not so many with the bravery to go into business and make one themselves .


----------



## scottgough

Mrboots2u said:


> How many people in reality actually brew and steam at the same time ...


yep, me too. All the time as dfk41 says, especially if making more than one drink


----------



## Phobic

Mrboots2u said:


> most with no intention of buying one


In terms of customer type I'm an early adopter with disposable income, and existing track record of upgrading.

I'm bang on the demographic for someone who does have the intention of buying one, that's why I'm so frustrated!

dismissing things out of hand is a bit disingenuous at best, I think I've raised some valid points.


----------



## jimbojohn55

Intriguing as this machine is - I would be very wary of getting the early models - I would buy in at the MK2 stage in a years time after its had the bugs fixed -


----------



## Brewster

Mrboots2u said:


> People will buy or not buy , depending on the price and value they perceive . As usual I see plenty of people pissing on the sidelines when a new machine comes along , when it isn't even out and been tried by anyone yet . most with no intention of buying one .Not so many with the bravery to go into business and make one themselves .


+1 - give it a chance, it's only been on sale a couple of hours!

The tax status doesn't seem any different to many other goods people on here buy happily - you're importing it, declare the relevant amount to the taxman at the appropriate time.

As for the difference between models - this sort of price disparity has been going on in every industry since time began. Half the optional extras on a car are half-installed anyway, you're paying someone to unlock the feature in the software and maybe add a couple of relatively cheap components. It could be worse, the DE1 could be a DE1+ with a few options disabled - this happens in other industries.

DE just seem to be a bit more transparent and everyone jumps on them for doing this, seems odd for what is usually a good spirited forum - as others have said, if you don't want it, don't buy it!


----------



## DavecUK

Mrboots2u said:


> How many people in reality actually brew and steam at the same time ...


I do because I can....it also helps me feel superior to those using machines that can't e.g. Rancilio Silvia. So I claim my right to steam and brew at the same time....even if I don't need to.









The more functions a machine has....the more superior one can feel.....so the DE1 etc.. makes good sense....apart from steam envy


----------



## Rhys

I can brew and steam at the same time with the Pavoni (just, managed it once though - it's all in the elbow..














) and the sound of coffee hitting the cup is only overshadowed by the squeak coming from the handle.

As for price differences between models that look the same but have software/internal differences, what about the Ikawa coffee roaster?

Also it can apply to other things like target air pistols for example. A tube that blows a lump of lead through a bit of paper at 10m. I have two. One is a few hundred quid, the other is over a grand. In my hands I'm just as good with both but the more expensive one is a precision made in Austria, the other is Russian..

Personally, I like the sound of the DE machine, but the lack of physical buttons/levers/knobs put me off and it appears you also need an iPad.. "Sorry darling, I need the iPad to make coffee..."

Wouldn't it be better to have an interface built in that is bluetooth/wifi linked to a tablet/smartphone? Load up a profile, then hit one of three buttons on the machine (to keep it simple)? Maybe a small LCD display like on a Vesuvius?

I'm not interested at buying one, but thought I'd share my unbiased thoughts.


----------



## Dylan

Brewster said:


> The tax status doesn't seem any different to many other goods people on here buy happily - you're importing it, declare the relevant amount to the taxman at the appropriate time.


What exactly do you have in mind that has a similar tax status? One where you pay VAT and import duty and then have to research how import the required software that makes it work and discover how to properly declare it?

I have never heard of anything like it.


----------



## Rhys

Is the software available through iTunes? If so you would need to change the country on your account would you not? I tried downloading something a while ago and was told it was USA not UK so wouldn't let me..


----------



## marcuswar

From what I've read I thought the tablet was included with the machine and was Android based not iOS.


----------



## Rhys

Ah, right.. that'll knock a few quid off then lol


----------



## Stanic

DavecUK said:


> it also helps me feel superior to those using machines that can't e.g. Rancilio Silvia


lol


----------



## Tewdric

Mrboots2u said:


> People will buy or not buy , depending on the price and value they perceive . As usual I see plenty of people pissing on the sidelines when a new machine comes along , when it isn't even out and been tried by anyone yet . most with no intention of buying one .Not so many with the bravery to go into business and make one themselves .


A very good point. There seems to be a lot that is genuinely innovative with this machine; certainly enough to make the story of its evolution a very interesting one. Possibly even enough to make the "innovative" approach to import tax palletable!

Would Decent be prepared to supply a demo model for a review? I'd be happy to put it up against the Londinium. No import tax at all then, of course as long as It gets sent back!


----------



## Tewdric

One question I've been meaning to as for a while: Has the higher steam temperature had any effect on the subjective taste of the resulting milk? Conventional wisdom is that the best sweetness is gained by cutting the heating at 65 Celsius. I just wonder if having a hotter gas stream running through the milk as it's heating makes any difference?


----------



## Rhys

Is this using a thermoblock?


----------



## Tewdric

Two









Do keep up at the back!


----------



## oursus

Mrboots2u said:


> How many people in reality actually brew and steam at the same time ...


Fair question, its become an expectation associated with a price point a deal lower than this, not necessarily a relevant one for all. I have to say I'm having a hard time rationalising the price point of the + model myself though


----------



## decent_espresso

Whenever there was a tradeoff between speed versus quality, we always sided with quality. At 110V, if we gave the customer steam, it would be weak because there is not enough power at 110V to do temperature water mixing and also give you high power steam. Lower power steam means more dilution and less fine microfoam.

At 220V we do have enough power to do steam during brew, but we didn't want to delay the release of the 220V machine, so for now the 220V machine is functionally identical to the 110V machine. To do steam during brew, we need to alter our water path, and likely enlarge the chassis by about 2", so the modification is possible, but would mean delaying the 220V release.

Traditional boiler machines can give you steam because they take a long time to warm up and they store the steam power in a boiler. We use water mixing technology, warm up in just 4 minutes, and because we took such a different approach, we can offer a different feature set from traditional espresso machines.

The steaming function on our machines is available immediately after your shot is finished, there is no delay.

If you must absolutely have steam during espresso making, your options are either to not buy our machine, or buy two of them, so you can steam with one while the other brews espresso. Given that a DE1 is only $999, that is what we're recommending cafes that want a multiple group, constant steaming ability.







A future model--at 220V only--will offer steam during brew.

For me, when faced with a choice, beverage quality will always win.

I think it's worth waiting a few extra seconds to get 170°, 3 bar steam, which is what we give you as soon as your espresso ends.

If you disagree, then give us a year, and we'll then have a separately designed 220V machine that steams during brew.


----------



## decent_espresso

Rhys said:


> Personally, I like the sound of the DE machine, but the lack of physical buttons/levers/knobs put me off and it appears you also need an iPad.. "Sorry darling, I need the iPad to make coffee..."


Our tablet is included with and mounted to the Decent Espresso machine. You do not need to supply your own.

We are working on a version with physical buttons for brew/steam/water, which we'll be able to announce in Q1-2017. It'll be a high tech version of the paddle concept.


----------



## decent_espresso

Tewdric said:


> One question I've been meaning to as for a while: Has the higher steam temperature had any effect on the subjective taste of the resulting milk? Conventional wisdom is that the best sweetness is gained by cutting the heating at 65 Celsius. I just wonder if having a hotter gas stream running through the milk as it's heating makes any difference?


That's really good question to ask, and the answer is "we like the taste" and we get "incredibly tight microfoam". That's hardly unbiased, of course. Slayer has announced a machine, the Steam, that uses the same technique, so presumably it doesn't taste all that bad.

That being said, people will need to make their own mind up, and hopefully some forum members meet up with me in London in December, and opine.

So, the longer answer is "this still needs to be determined, by people tasting in the real world"


----------



## decent_espresso

On Home Barista, an early review (from 5h of use) of the Decent Espresso Machine (DE1+)

http://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/morning-with-decent-espresso-machines-t43973.html

with instagram movie:


__
http://instagr.am/p/BMj4CI8h1FY/


----------



## decent_espresso

First 10 days of the tour is now done: I drove from San Francisco, through Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. And then back.

Here are 4 reviews.

http://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/morning-with-decent-espresso-machines-t43973.html

http://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/morning-with-decent-espresso-machines-t43973-60.html#p501424

http://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/morning-with-decent-espresso-machines-t43973-20.html#p500186

http://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-machine-now-available-t43925-120.html#p501354

Articles and opinion in Fresh Cup Magazine, Sprudge, and Roast Magazine should come out over the next month or three.


----------



## decent_espresso

I know the dates when I'll be in London, and will likely be at Prufrock, Timberyard, and several others. Details soon to come. If you want to meet me privately, send me a PM and we'll arrange that.

LONDON:

December 6: Google London

In London from December 4-7, email us if you'd like to meet 1:1.

More soon.


----------



## decent_espresso

LONDON DECENT APPEARANCE:

December 5, 6:30pm, at Prufrock. 23 - 25 Leather Lane, EC1. RSVP [email protected]

more info at: http://www.prufrockcoffee.com/booking/decent-espresso-demo-and-qa-barista-training-london/

and Roast Magazine's "Daily Coffee News" has written a long article about the Decent Espresso Machine:

http://dailycoffeenews.com/2016/11/25/monumentally-modest-the-decent-espresso-machine-brings-wave-of-innovation/

We're working on having a few more London appearances, before I vanish back into my Android tablet programming cave.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here is the final list of Decent Espresso demos in London:

LONDON:

December 5, 6:30pm, at Prufrock. 23 - 25 Leather Lane, EC1. RSVP [email protected]

December 6: Google London

December 7 10am-12pm: Workshop Coffee, 60 Holborn Viaduct

December 7 5:30pm-7:30pm: Taylor St Baristas, 26 Southampton Building


----------



## decent_espresso

This thread has gone quiet, so do tell me to "hush up" if you've had "enough, already".

Two podcasts came out yesterday, that some of you might find interesting.

Sprudge released this podcast yesterday, with an interview of me that starts at 14:30.

Coffee Sprudgecast: Episode 030: The One With John Buckman of Decent Espresso

http://coffeesprudgecast.libsyn.com/episode-030-the-one-with-john-buckman-of-decent-espresso

And at around 50 minutes, Scott Rao discusses his work with me, in this newly released podcast by Cat & Cloud:

http://catandcloud.com/pages/podcast

but Rao's entire interview is interesting.


----------



## Glenn

I'll be popping along to Taylor St Baristas on the 7th. See you there


----------



## Xpenno

decent_espresso said:


> Here is the final list of Decent Espresso demos in London:
> 
> LONDON:
> 
> December 5, 6:30pm, at Prufrock. 23 - 25 Leather Lane, EC1. RSVP [email protected]
> 
> December 6: Google London
> 
> December 7 10am-12pm: Workshop Coffee, 60 Holborn Viaduct
> 
> December 7 5:30pm-7:30pm: Taylor St Baristas, 26 Southampton Building


You doing any dates outside of London in the UK ??


----------



## Phobic

Xpenno said:


> You doing any dates outside of London in the UK ??


believe already confirmed that they're not


----------



## decent_espresso

Phobic said:


> believe already confirmed that they're not


Correct, I've been on the road for 3 weeks straight, driving from Canada to San Diego (Mexican border) and London is all the energy I can muster. Sorry!


----------



## Obnic

I suspect it's gone quiet because you have done a truly outstanding job of previewing a machine that promises a real upgrade in what capabilities are available to a home user. What I, and perhaps others, are waiting for (with real interest by the way) is the first wave of experience from users in the wild. I for one will be watching with avid interest. Please do keep posting.


----------



## Rhys

decent_espresso said:


> Correct, I've been on the road for 3 weeks straight, driving from Canada to San Diego (Mexican border) and London is all the energy I can muster. Sorry!


Jeez, how long did it take to drive from San Diego to London?


----------



## Rhys

Obnic said:


> I suspect it's gone quiet because you have done a truly outstanding job of previewing a machine that promises a real upgrade in what capabilities are available to a home user. What I, and perhaps others, are waiting for (with real interest by the way) is the first wave of experience from users in the wild. I for one will be watching with avid interest. Please do keep posting.


I agree. It's different, and sounds interesting. Has a lot of potential I think.


----------



## Dylan

Obnic said:


> I suspect it's gone quiet because you have done a truly outstanding job of previewing a machine that promises a real upgrade in what capabilities are available to a home user. What I, and perhaps others, are waiting for (with real interest by the way) is the first wave of experience from users in the wild. I for one will be watching with avid interest. Please do keep posting.


Yup, this.


----------



## Phobic

We're all waiting with baited breath to see how it's received out in the wild.

not being able to see it before buying is a pain to be honest, everyone's just left waiting for reviews and a weight of user feedback to come out.

you'd really help uptake if you facilitated a true independent review with someone well respected like @DavecUK Can't you arrange for the loan of a DE1+ ?

would also be good to get more clarity on how warranty claims will be managed without UK distributors - I think for big problems the answer is ship it back.


Who pays for shipping

How long will it take to get a machine back

is it fix and return, or replace with a recon


What about small problems & owner created breakage, how can they be fixed? spare parts?

I still don't understand what the landed price will be for the DE1+. Using the info on your website with an average import tax of 4.2% + 20% VAT I get a landed price of £2427, though your website says import tax could be 15% so £2656.

however you've said before that the declared price of the DE1 for import duties is much less than the price we pay on your website - not sure what the declared price of the DE1+ is, can you confirm please as this significantly changes the import tax VAT and landed price.

Have you considered UK distributors? would be a easy way to make this much simpler for us to buy.


----------



## dan1502

I would have thought the risk versus gain equation of Dave reviewing it wouldn't be worth it but I might be wrong. It has enough differentiating features for it to be appealing to the market. Would a positive review add to its appeal enough (other than to forum members) to be worth the risk of the damage a bad review could do? If I were going down that route I'd probably get it reviewed before release.


----------



## DavecUK

dan1502 said:


> I would have thought the risk versus gain equation of Dave reviewing it wouldn't be worth it but I might be wrong. It has enough differentiating features for it to be appealing to the market. Would a positive review add to its appeal enough (other than to forum members) to be worth the risk of the damage a bad review could do? If I were going down that route I'd probably get it reviewed before release.


No risk, any company that was smart could get it reviewed from an engineering/usage etc.. standpoint and own the review, they can then decide to publish or not. At least they would get any facepalm errors/advice. Or they can let me review and be dammed. You are correct though review before release is always better than release then review....well I would think so. Unfortunately, most companies think they know best and refuse any advice, sometimes even when they ask for it! This can give companies a tough time with retailers e.g. I'm looking at 4 machines for BB at the moment, not because they are going to stock them, I'm looking at them to see if they want to stock them as a new machine or keep selling them. So far for 2 machines it's a "no" from me.

Decent Espresso have a different set of needs/drivers. They manufacture the machine, sell it directly, support their own warranty directly and ship from "Taiwan or whatever". It's a machine than cannot afford to fail and cannot have a bad review in any area. It will probably get it's own closed user group like the bullet roaster. It will have problems, they will be fixed on an ongoing basis by shipping parts to the users, a version II will come out.....etc.. Decent either will or won't stay in business. *Decent probably don't want to hear what I have to say about their machine*. In fairness it may be a great machine, who knows, although I personally don't like the duty/tax avoidance thing too much and presumably it's CE approved?



> you'd really help uptake if you facilitated a true independent review with someone well respected like @DavecUK Can't you arrange for the loan of a DE1+ ?
> 
> would also be good to get more clarity on how warranty claims will be managed without UK distributors - I think for big problems the answer is ship it back.
> 
> 
> Who pays for shipping
> 
> How long will it take to get a machine back
> 
> is it fix and return, or replace with a recon


*I'd never review a machine for free, really couldn't be arsed to do that! *

P.S. You might think rave reviews by interested parties/owners will be enough, but I can assure you it's meaningless. I reviewed so many machines which had rave reviews, but were terrible machines. In some cases, just how truly bad some machines are only comes out years later when the excitement dies down and users start asking questions, the right questions. Once the collective Zeitgeist has ended, reality starts to hit home. I pretty much don't mention these machines, often because it's not worth the hassle.


----------



## oursus

Dylan said:


> Yup, this.


+1

Have to say a review machine to the likes of @DavecUK would have been a faster route to assurance, for me -

- like he says, the buzz is just a distraction, there's a lot of electronics in these machines & they are not cheap, as home kitchen appliances go.


----------



## Mrboots2u

Christ give em a break ... new machine to market , form scratch , with potential feature no other machine has .

They don't have to give a machine to Dave to review . Plus BB won't be stocking it will they ?

People bought the l1 without a davec tear down . And other popular machines ( sage etc ) . I'm Not discounting Dave's experience and opinion or reviews , just it should not be a prerequisite for every new machine to have been sent to one person to Evaluate . No one is infallible for a start .

The proof will be in those users experiences. Props to mr decent for touring the world to show it off and putting their money where their mouth is in trying to bring something different to the market .


----------



## DavecUK

Do they pay UK Tax and give jobs to UK people?


----------



## MWJB

DavecUK said:


> Do they pay UK Tax and give jobs to UK people?


Is that a sensible question to ask in the context of coffee generally & European/Chinese machine, grinder & accessory manufacturers?


----------



## 4085

Mrboots2u said:


> Christ give em a break ... new machine to market , form scratch , with potential feature no other machine has .
> 
> They don't have to give a machine to Dave to review . Plus BB won't be stocking it will they ?
> 
> People bought the l1 without a davec tear down . And other popular machines ( sage etc ) . I'm Not discounting Dave's experience and opinion or reviews , just it should not be a prerequisite for every new machine to have been sent to one person to Evaluate . No one is infallible for a start .
> 
> The proof will be in those users experiences. Props to mr decent for touring the world to show it off and putting their money where their mouth is in trying to bring something different to the market .


Boots, sorry but, if Londinium had taken a different approach then early adopters would not have suffered problems the likes of I did, allowing for changes to be made to design and production for the benefit of future owners. It would seem that the 2 models are quite similar, each relying on a little bit of luck to help them, and why not? The R & D of any product is important and unfortunately, that is where the smaller concern always loses out to the bigger


----------



## Mrboots2u

Selling a machine through a retailer isn't a guarantee that it won't have teething problems . Neither is a review published by a retailer either.


----------



## 4085

Mrboots2u said:


> Selling a machine through a retailer isn't a guarantee that it won't have teething problems . Neither is a review published by a retailer either.


I thought the discussion was centred on a manufacturer being willing to have an unbiased review of their equipment before it goes to production allowing them to iron out blips


----------



## oursus

Mrboots2u said:


> Christ give em a break ... new machine to market , form scratch , with potential feature no other machine has .
> 
> They don't have to give a machine to Dave to review . Plus BB won't be stocking it will they ?
> 
> People bought the l1 without a davec tear down . And other popular machines ( sage etc ) . I'm Not discounting Dave's experience and opinion or reviews , just it should not be a prerequisite for every new machine to have been sent to one person to Evaluate . No one is infallible for a start .
> 
> The proof will be in those users experiences. Props to mr decent for touring the world to show it off and putting their money where their mouth is in trying to bring something different to the market .


I get your ur drift Boots, not after hammering a new product here, more power to their elbow!

That said, they've come on to the forum for a reason, pre launch marketing... & there are some outstanding concerns for potential buyer which can only be addressed by hands on testing & or validation by a trusted 3rd party

This is a machine which is short on traditional hardware & long on control systems, a Vesuvius it is *not*. Durability would be one of my major criteria for anything costing a grand (that doesn't include a long haul flight)


----------



## Phobic

My last post wasn't about slinging mud so please don't read it that way - just an idea to get over that 1st buyer hump coupled with some relevant questions. I don't think anyone is trying to detract from what they've done to get this to market, it's a great effort.

Agree that it doesn't need an independent review, however unlike the sage it doesn't have a UK based retail network to fall back on - I know I could return a sage to John Lewis without any issues.

unless you can get into London to look at one next week you're left waiting to hear the opinions from owners, which is going to take time to get to a critical mass of consensus, or buying one "blind".

I'm not sure why it's hard to understand how that might be a difficult choice when you're parting with £2.5k?

Trying to find ways to increase mine and others likelihood of buying one....


----------



## Mrboots2u

oursus said:


> This is a machine which is short on traditional hardware & long on control systems, a Vesuvius it is *not*. Durability would be one of my major criteria for anything costing a grand (that doesn't include a long haul flight)


There are plenty of non traditional " electronic " bits on the Vesuvius .

Be interesting to see which one is more temp stable for a start .


----------



## Mrboots2u

Perhaps Glenn might have a machine . That would be unbiased enough for me .

Perhaps Dave can go to prufrock , like any other punter and get an opinion ?

If this machine can deliver what is says it can , and is backed up with serviceits gonna seriously

Make a lot of " traditionally built " machines look very over priced.

I know we don't trust coffee professionals opinions on here ( Rao ) or the yanks opinions , they are all lizards and illuminati after all .

Just for clarity I'm

Not buying one of these , but then again I suspect 90 percent of the posters on here aren't either .


----------



## oursus

Mrboots2u said:


> There are plenty of non traditional " electronic " bits on the Vesuvius .
> 
> Be interesting to see which one is more temp stable for a start .


Agreed, but also stainless steel boilers, commercial grade boards, group etc, all proven, durable & easily sourced commercial kit... big difference for product life expectancy.

The temperature maintenance approach to the problem is logical & exciting, same end result, but again, using thermocoils instead of boilers, mixing chamber, pid etc... lots of potential failure points.

This reminds me of nothing so much as when I lived in Detroit when the Prius first came to market - I have little doubt that this is the future of the market, but it would be naive not to expect teething issues (Giants like Honda and Toyota had enough)


----------



## Mrboots2u

The Vesuvius wasn't without teething problems too when it first appeared . Just saying no amount of review of testing is a guarantee


----------



## oursus

Mrboots2u said:


> Perhaps Glenn might have a machine . That would be unbiased enough for me .
> 
> Perhaps Dave can go to prufrock , like any other punter and get an opinion ?
> 
> If this machine can deliver what is says it can , and is backed up with serviceits gonna seriously
> 
> Make a lot of " traditionally built " machines look very over priced.
> 
> I know we don't trust coffee professionals opinions on here ( Rao ) or the yanks opinions , they are all lizards and illuminati after all .
> 
> Just for clarity I'm
> 
> Not buying one of these , but then again I suspect 90 percent of the posters on here aren't either .


If this had been in the hands of a trusted engineer/ reviewer for a month, they would have had my money by now.

As it is, I'll allow the rush of blood to head to fade & wait for the post shake down run MKII version before making a decision


----------



## oursus

Mrboots2u said:


> The Vesuvius wasn't without teething problems too when it first appeared . Just saying no amount of review of testing is a guarantee


Fair comment... & from a smaller unit too (albeit with heavy industry ties) I would imagine none of theirs were with components though?


----------



## Mrboots2u

oursus said:


> Fair comment... & from a smaller unit too (albeit with heavy industry ties) I would imagine none of theirs were with components though?


Imagine all you like . Anyway this thread is about the decent machine. Apologies for taking it off thread . @Glenn I'd be happy for any posts of mine to be split off etc


----------



## oursus

Rhys said:


> Is this using a thermoblock?


Thermocoil


----------



## oursus

Mrboots2u said:


> Imagine all you like . Anyway this thread is about the decent machine. Apologies for taking it off thread . @Glenn I'd be happy for any posts of mine to be split off etc


Aye, my main point was that one of the reasons the thread had gone quiet was that there are concerns that can only be addressed by hearing of someone using one for 12 weeks or so & giving some account of buyer experience etc.

A reviewer is only one way of addressing that, I appreciate Dave's ties to BB may have ruled him out, perhaps @decent_espresso will send @Glenn home with a machine to test?


----------



## DavecUK

Mrboots2u said:


> Perhaps Glenn might have a machine . That would be unbiased enough for me .
> 
> Perhaps Dave can go to prufrock , like any other punter and get an opinion ?


Why would I want to go to pufrock to see the machine? No offence to Glen, but I think I have considerable more experience than he does (I suspect he would be the first to admit it), I also try my best not to be biased.



> There are plenty of non traditional " electronic " bits on the Vesuvius .
> 
> Be interesting to see which one is more temp stable for a start .


There are not, the main board is a 3 group commercial board, it's just flashed with the V firmware, Sensors, solenoids etc.. are all commercially available. The main bespoke parts are the case and boilers, however it's unlikely anyone will ever need to buy a boiler. You may not really understand enough about espresso machines to make this proclamation.



> The Vesuvius wasn't without teething problems too when it first appeared . Just saying no amount of review of testing is a guarantee


*A statement made with absolutely no knowledge of what the Vesuvius would have been like if I hadn't tested it. My god if you only knew what was fixed.* The things I could not account for were finishing issues and early production issues caused by assembly errors. Also some components which are no longer used didn't and have still never been a problem on my machine. I suspect again these were introduced errors during assembly. I'm thinking here of the water level sensor and combined pressure relief valve and vacuum breaker.

As for temp stability, I tested the V and if I set it to 93.5 on a correctly set up machine, it holds exactly that value. Same for other temps. It certainly doesn't use cheap thermoblocks and vibe pumps though. The components in it are expensive as you well know.

As I've said all along, many people comment on their kit and machines, the majority don't really have enough knowledge to do a valid review though.* Look at the QM lever, sent to others to look at, but what happened....a real disaster.* Eventually I was asked why certain problems occurred....I had Jordan at BB remove the case and 5 minutes later I told them what the problems were....too late though, the machine had been killed almost before it was born. it could have been prevented had QM sent me one only right at the beginning, then quietly fixed all the issues before launch. DFK will bear me out on this one.

The Dalian roaster, again my involvement gave the owners some assurance it had actually been tested and worked well...just lately in -5C, roasting is no problem whatever the voltage. Failures in service, I'm not aware of any...and not really expecting any for years.

However boots...it's quite academic, I don't do nearly as many public reviews as I used to, although still doing some engineering reviews. I only did the public stuff because I thought I was benefiting consumers....*I really don't do it for the money. Would I even want to do a review on this if I was asked...probably not, mainly because I can't be bothered so much these days.* It's ceased to be that interesting for me at the moment and many comments from people on here make me think I could be wasting my time anyway if they are seen as "sales" reviews. I've always been willing to help anyone (and give a lot of my time) for free, but with new machines, it's such an emotive subject you really need to be interested to want to do it.



oursus said:


> I appreciate Dave's ties to BB may have ruled him out, perhaps @decent_espresso will send @Glenn home with a machine to test?


Err, I have no ties, I'm not employed by them, they pay me to look at something to see if they want to stock, or they pay for a review, but they can't amend it, they can only publish or not publish....they still got to pay. *I'm never going to ever give something a good review, just because of "ties", if it's bad I will say so.. *You imply I'm in BB pocket, I'm not. I do the reviews to benefit you. I'm happy to disclose my payment works out to about £2 per hour, so it's not done for money. In fact I haven't even sent them a bill for 6 months (something I must get around to doing). I really only do it for you guys...I'm retired, don't care about the money. Also don't really care what machines you decide to buy or what retailer you want to use. Again though this attitude is why I do very few public reviews any more.

....just thought I'd clear that one up.


----------



## coffeechap

That's interesting as BB said you had absolutely no interest in looking at the quickmill! Oh and quickmill were not prepared to listen to anything fed back to them, they had already produced the machine.


----------



## oursus

DavecUK said:


> Err, I have no ties.
> 
> .


You have a long association with BB, Dave, to think that won't tie you to them in people's minds would be naive



DavecUK said:


> You imply I'm in BB pocket


I imply nothing of the sort Dave - what you infer is up to you...

I don't think anyone would be daft enough to impugn your knowledge or impartiality, certainly not me...if you read back, you'll see that I said a positive review of yours would have reassured me enough to have pre-paid for a piece of tech before launch. (Anyone who knows me will tell you that's a once in a decade occurrence) you're being over sensitive, old son!

Same goes for splitting the thread @Glenn


----------



## Glenn

I will be attending the event on Wednesday night but there is no way I will be forming a strong opinion as this will be limited hands-on time on a machine (if that is the format)

A few weeks of bench test would be required before I gave an opinion.

Lets see what shakes out.


----------



## Dylan

MWJB said:


> Is that a sensible question to ask in the context of coffee generally & European/Chinese machine, grinder & accessory manufacturers?


I am actually concerned about how they are dealing with their import status and expensive 'software' that is half the cost of the machine that you must download separately without tax. I'm not even sure I understand it still so will be waiting until it is on sale for people to explain their experiences of going through this weird process.


----------



## mcrmfc

I feel like Coffee Podcast by Cat & Cloud sounds pretty good, what do you think?

http://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-ceicz-1ed8b3b

Scott Rao on the Decent near the end of the podcast


----------



## decent_espresso

Phobic said:


> We're all waiting with baited breath to see how it's received out in the wild. not being able to see it before buying is a pain to be honest, everyone's just left waiting for reviews and a weight of user feedback to come out.


Absolutely reasonable, and what I expect is that anybody who can stand to wait a bit, should, so that (a) we can fix any invevitable hickups that will arise in the early machines (b) multiweek reviews will appear on forums and © you'll know someone with an early Decent machine who you can go visit and try it out.



Phobic said:


> you'd really help uptake if you facilitated a true independent review with someone well respected like @DavecUK Can't you arrange for the loan of a DE1+ ?


Agreed, and it will be done. We've just gone into beta testing a few weeks ago, we don't have CE yet, so we still have a few more steps to go before I'd proclaim this machine "retail ready".



Phobic said:


> would also be good to get more clarity on how warranty claims will be managed without UK distributors - I think for big problems the answer is ship it back.
> 
> Who pays for shipping, How long will it take to get a machine back, is it fix and return, or replace with a recon


We're still working out the details of what the eventual warrantee will be, but for now it's a simple "happiness guaranteed", which is to say that unless you clearly broke it (dropped the drip tray on the ground and it cracked) we'll assume it's our fault and it'll be a free repair.

Since we can arrange to ship the machine back to us from UK->HK for about £100, it's simplest for us to have you ship it back to us, we'll pay the shipping. If you would like an immediate (usually within 48h) swap, give us a credit card to guarantee that you'll sending the dead one back, and we'll air mail you a new machine for free. If you don't want to give us a credit card guarantee, we'll send your replacement when your dead one arrives in HK.



Phobic said:


> What about small problems & owner created breakage, how can they be fixed? spare parts?


All the parts will be available to all punters, not just authorized service reps. As there are lots of home baristas with mechanical knowledge, I expect that will be possible.

Both my DE1+s got damaged on my flight over here, and I was able to repair one of them (a tube got pulled out of a quick connect) with a pair of needlenose pliers. The other machine (sadly, my 220V one) got really, really battered and is out of commission. I guess those are the two extremes of maintenance.



Phobic said:


> I still don't understand what the landed price will be for the DE1+. Using the info on your website with an average import tax of 4.2% + 20% VAT I get a landed price of £2427, though your website says import tax could be 15% so £2656. however you've said before that the declared price of the DE1 for import duties is much less than the price we pay on your website - not sure what the declared price of the DE1+ is, can you confirm please as this significantly changes the import tax VAT and landed price.


The DE1+ 220V hardware has a declared import value of USD$509. The software, which is delivered over the Internet, is not imported along with the hardware, and is thus not subject to import duty, but it is subject to a VAT self-declaration.



Phobic said:


> Have you considered UK distributors? would be a easy way to make this much simpler for us to buy.


We cannot afford a distributor, as they take a 30% to 40% margin. It is currently costing us USD$700 to build the USD$999 DE1, and so we would lose money if we went through middlemen. The lack of middlemen is the reason this machine is not more expensive, as the usual route is a distributor + a reseller, each taking 30%-40%, and so a $1000 machine needs to be manufactured for $150 to be profitable in that traditional model.

In the future, we might "land" a pallet ourselves to the UK, and ship it locally, with a VAT inclusive rate. We can save on shipping in this way, and as (and if) our UK business scales up, we might do this. Both of us owners are Brits, and so this is not a scary proposition for us, but it will take time.


----------



## garydyke1

Well, I'm super excited to follow progress of this machine . Wishing you the best of luck


----------



## dan1502

Reassuring responses, thanks.


----------



## Phobic

great responses thanks, really helps clear things up, very much like the answer on Warranties.

I'll go and re-calculate the landed cost.


----------



## filthynines

Watching with interest, albeit not necessarily as a potential customer. Those looking seriously at the options should be reassured that you have agreed to pay for shipping for returns/replacements, pursuant to rights under s23 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Not a cheap remedy, but entirely appropriate on occasion.


----------



## Scotford

I'm gonna go and have a look at them at Taylor St Chancery Lane tomorrow. 1730-1930. I'll take some pics if possible.


----------



## bronc

How'd it go?


----------



## Scotford

It's later on...


----------



## Daren

How was is? @Scotford


----------



## Glenn

I've been down there tonight.

It is a very interesting machine with a lot of potential.

We saw the beta version tonight and there are ongoing refinements.

I've pulled a shot on it, played with the extraction parameters and understand the machine setup now.

I will put more thoughts down over the next couple of days once I have digested the information imparted.

Would I like one on my bench?

Yes

Would it be the Entry-level, Middle-level or Pro-level model?

Definitely the latter (more extraction parameters to play with)

Does it have a good footprint?

Yes

Does it have good steam power?

Exceptional


----------



## Scotford

I'm gonna echo Glenn here by saying yes, I'd have one. But only as a training and learning tool at first.

Lots of promising features and a really interesting UI with loads of parameters to adjust and tinker with. I liked the real-time view of pressure change, and was really impressed that so much had been crammed into such a small footprint. I would say that I'd like a demo side by side with another profiling machine to really get a feel of how close it is to other high end kit. On demand heating is very interesting, as is the thought that's gone into placement of probes in the group head. Didn't catch what kind of pump is in there though.

I'd have liked Decent to have compared with TSBs Black Eagle by using the same water and grinder if I'm honest but I'm picking at straws there. I have to say that the Lyn Weber grinder they had piqued my curiosity too, can't wait to get my hands on one.

Personally, I think the higher end features on it would be aimed at a quite niche market, such as people who have EKs at home and those wanting to learn about the effects of profiling and experiment with shot variables. Not a bad thing in the slightest, but i feel they'd really only be used by the boffins amongst us.

I really liked that the guy (sorry, didn't catch the name) demoing it was very honest about the fact that he didn't know the full potential of the machine and it's controllable parameters yet as he was still learning too. He knows (I should hope) that he's got what has the potential to be an amazing machine, with amazing features, at an amazing price point.

Bottom line: I'd like to get hold of one and really put it through its paces. I'll even consider looking into getting one next year over an R58 now. The tech for the price is phenomenal so far and I can only see this improving with time and feedback.


----------



## Daren

@Scotford - great review and thanks for taking the time to post it, but, you know what they say.... No photos - it didn't happen ?


----------



## Scotford

Daren said:


> @Scotford - great review and thanks for taking the time to post it, but, you know what they say.... No photos - it didn't happen ?


No pics, was a bit cramped in the lobby of that TSB!


----------



## decent_espresso

Scotford said:


> I'd have liked Decent to have compared with TSBs Black Eagle by using the same water and grinder if I'm honest but I'm picking at straws there. I have to say that the Lyn Weber grinder they had piqued my curiosity too, can't wait to get my hands on one.


My experience so far is that well respected espresso machines each have their own (not very well understood) personalities, and so (for instance) dialing in what we think the Black Eagle is doing gets "sort of close" but because we don't really know what it's doing, it takes more fiddling to get there. With a non-complicated bean, the first attempt at Revolver in Vancouver was very similar to their Black Eagle shot (with the same grind, water, dose, and the same barista prepping), but when we moved to a lighter, more technical roast, it took fiddling to get to similar results DE1+ = Black Eagle. Sadly, I don't remember what we changed to get there, as I wasn't the one doing the fiddling (I was bouncing between two DE1+s to answer questions).

Part of the problem in exactly mimicking other machines, is that most pressure profiling machines have big steps, ie "first 3.5 bar for 10s, then 9 bar for 10s, then 3.5 bar for 10s". In fact, that's the profile that Synesso said they used to make me a spectacular shot. However, I don't know the flow rate, the rate of rise and decrease, and the real temperature at the puck at each step, so that's not enough information to try to replicate it. And if you've looked at Scace profiles of professional machines, you'll also see that they all have non flat, and interesting (possibly tasty) natural temperature profiles.



Scotford said:


> I really liked that the guy (sorry, didn't catch the name) demoing it was very honest about the fact that he didn't know the full potential of the machine and it's controllable parameters yet as he was still learning too. He knows (I should hope) that he's got what has the potential to be an amazing machine, with amazing features, at an amazing price point.


That was me.

These are definitely very early days for Decent Espresso and this kind of introspection into what's happening at the puck. My hope is that this "new musical instrument" we've made (the DE1+) will cause you (the musicians) to develop new kinds of music (new approaches to espresso) and feed back what you learn to us, so we can iterate the machine. Apologies for the metaphorical stretch, but as a programmer and a musician, that's been my central metaphor for all the software programs I've written in 25 years. I've learned that the back and forth, and the time it takes, is a process that can't be circumvented, and which also tends to lead to unforecasted directions.

I spent a few hours earlier that day with James Hoffmann, and among the many things he had to say, two seem relevant to what you're saying:

1) he's looking to the future where Decent provides more analysis, and less focus on raw data. The focus on raw data makes sense now, since this is the first time we're seeing this data, but analysis and specifically an understanding of how that analysis translates to flavor, is what he'd like to see from us over the next few years

2) he's interested in getting a "rate of change of the flow rate" chart. In much the same way that Rao has "rate of raise" for coffee roasting, as being a crucial metric, James thinks flow rate change could be a crucial metric. Don't know yet, though... My suggestion to James is this sort of analysis will initially not be in the DE1+ tablet, as the screen is small, but on our web site, analyzing past shots, because a browser based interface has both a larger screen and much more capability overall.



Daren said:


> you know what they say.... No photos - it didn't happen 











and a video:

[video=youtube;XQZscXc-qYw]


----------



## Daren

I see familiar faces in the video! Looking good @Glenn

Lots of interested looking people there.

Thanks for the pics and video Decent, so OK then, it did happen


----------



## Phobic

very interesting read, makes me want to get my hands on 1 to play with it!

loving the idea of website integration for flow rate analysis.

any plans to do anything with logging as well? i can see a neat way to record info about the bean, the shot pull profile, yield weight and present back on the web page.


----------



## decent_espresso

Phobic said:


> any plans to do anything with logging as well? i can see a neat way to record info about the bean, the shot pull profile, yield weight and present back on the web page.


Yes, absolutely, I plan to have a plugin to enable you to indicate what kind of additional data you want to enter, such as the bean, roast date, bag open date, and lots more.

I have a list of 200 potential fields but you'll be able to choose from or add your own. You'll also be able to enter tasting notes, and use the Counter Culture chart https://counterculturecoffee.com/learn/coffee-tasters-flavor-wheel to tap your flavor notes in.

Every shot will be logged automatically (if you so choose) with all the additional data you entered as part of the log and uploaded to the cloud. There will be programmable access to this data, as well as the ability to download your shot history as a SQLite file, so that you can either write your own app, or programmers on Android or iOS can write apps to process this data.

I've done this all before for my book-sharing web site BookMooch, so this part of the product development process is one I feel reasonably competent at pulling off.

-john


----------



## Scotford

John, I think you've really nailed what you've aimed to do with this project. I'm very much backing you.


----------



## Rhys

Reading this has got me thinking that there are more possibilities than just a stand alone espresso machine. The compact size is probably due to having no boilers as such. I'm sure with a bit of redesign it could be made to be actually integrated into a kitchen unit - as there are allready integrated bean to cup machines that do the lot. It wouldn't take much 'giggery-pokery' to combine an on demand grinder next to it (like the new Sette grinder). But that's a different market altogether and would need to be combined with kitchen design places.

Looks promising though and I'm guessing you'd soon get through a shed load of beans toying with it.

Next up will be TDS/Refraction integration where it measures the output and self adjusts the parameters to pull the tastiest shot..







(I may jest, but that might one day happen)


----------



## Phobic

decent_espresso said:


> Yes, absolutely, I plan to have a plugin to enable you to indicate what kind of additional data you want to enter, such as the bean, roast date, bag open date, and lots more.
> 
> I have a list of 200 potential fields but you'll be able to choose from or add your own. You'll also be able to enter tasting notes, and use the Counter Culture chart https://counterculturecoffee.com/learn/coffee-tasters-flavor-wheel to tap your flavor notes in.
> 
> Every shot will be logged automatically (if you so choose) with all the additional data you entered as part of the log and uploaded to the cloud. There will be programmable access to this data, as well as the ability to download your shot history as a SQLite file, so that you can either write your own app, or programmers on Android or iOS can write apps to process this data.
> 
> I've done this all before for my book-sharing web site BookMooch, so this part of the product development process is one I feel reasonably competent at pulling off.
> 
> -john


loving this!


----------



## decent_espresso

Rhys said:


> The compact size is probably due to having no boilers as such. I'm sure with a bit of redesign it could be made to be actually integrated into a kitchen unit - as there are allready integrated bean to cup machines that do the lot. It wouldn't take much 'giggery-pokery' to combine an on demand grinder next to it (like the new Sette grinder).


When I lived in London, my apartment there had a built in machine like this, that had a grinder and espresso machine, and I was able to make basically competent shots despite the portafilter being some weird untampable size: I tamped it against the shower screen, basically, and ruined the gaskets.

A year ago, I hired an industrial designer to draw, in Solidworks, exactly the idea you're suggesting. However, as you mention, there are already machines out there, with big names, that make passable espresso as built ins. I'm not interested in competing with them, both philosophically (I am after very high quality) and business-wise, those big companies would crush me.

In other to pull off a built in I would be proud of (and that Rao wouldn't disown me for) we'll need to design our own grinder, initially as a stand-alone, that we're happy with.

Because of my four week tour I can tell you that only three grinders are actually any good (I can see channeling in the DE1+ charts, so I can assess grinder quality fairly objectively), and those are the Mythos, Peak and the EK. Everything else has jittery pressure curves, while all of these three produce smooth pressure curves. And of those 3, the Mythos is my choice, as the heated beans feature of that grinder produces only a 2ºC drop in puck temperature when we add water, as opposed to 6ºC from the other (unheated) grinders. The DE1+ is able to hit its goal temperature in under 5 seconds with Mythos beans, as opposed to ~10s with all other grinders. At Revolver in Vancouver, we made 40 identical shots with a talented barista (George) prepping shots out of the Mythos. That really impressed me.

I hope that it'll take us less than two years to produce our own good grinder, if we can manage it at all (still to be demonstrated). If we do, then yes, a "built in" is in our future, but you're looking at likely 3 to 4 years before we produce such a thing. For now, we focus on becoming a self-sustaining company off the DE1/DE1+ and our accessories, or that sexy future won't happen.



Rhys said:


> Next up will be TDS/Refraction integration where it measures the output and self adjusts the parameters to pull the tastiest shot.. (I may jest, but that might one day happen)


I don't know if you're really jesting or not, but I can tell you that absolutely, I would love to measure real time TDS and I will fund research directions to see if we can get there. Hoffmann mentioned an idea to me of measuring the fluorescence of caffeine as a way to measure extraction. Rao doesn't think it'll work, but we'll look into it, and other ideas too. That's one reason (among others) why I spend so much time here and on Home Barista, because that's where these wacky ideas surface.

-john


----------



## 9719

Here's a really wackey idea for you to contemplate, why not offer up a DE1+ for the next flaffle on here, the last one generated such interest its gotta be worth your while!!!!! ￼ ￼ ￼ Based on any advertising is good advertising you know it makes perfect sense, so go on what you waiting for, and a +1 from any one else who's up for this........


----------



## PPapa

mines_abeer said:


> Here's a really wackey idea for you to contemplate, why not offer up a DE1+ for the next flaffle on here, the last one generated such interest its gotta be worth your while!!!!! ￼ ￼ ￼ Based on any advertising is good advertising you know it makes perfect sense, so go on what you waiting for, and a +1 from any one else who's up for this........


I'm sure something crazy such as 3x raffle would be alright given the interest in here.


----------



## dan1502

Interesting what you have to say about grinders John and it gives the impression you tell it straight given the one you sell isn't on the list. Of all the grinders out there the only ones that intrigue me over what I already have are the Lynweber and the other similar one available with a choice of flat and conical burrs which has been mentioned on here of which I forget the name. Have you tried those by any chance?


----------



## 4085

Monolith @dan1502


----------



## decent_espresso

dan1502 said:


> Interesting what you have to say about grinders John and it gives the impression you tell it straight given the one you sell isn't on the list.


The one we sell is the least expensive grinder I could find that doesn't suck. Our grinder performs similarly on the DE1+ to the Robur, once you remove the Robur's anti-static bars that cause clumping. However, our grinder is significantly slower than the Robur, taking about 20s to grind 16g. Not sure, but I think the Robur might be 2x as fast as that.

I group grinders into these categories of increasing quality:

1) those that can't make a good shot no matter what you do

2) those that make a fairly good shot if you grind into a vessel, whisk the grounds to remove clumping and then dose

3) those that make a fairly good shot if you grind into a vessel, shake the vessel a bit and then dose

4) those that make a fairly good shot if you dose directly into a portafilter

5) those that give you absolutely straight pressure curves, even when you dose into a portafilter

6) those that give you perfect shots, dosed into a portafilter, and the grounds are warmed

7) those that take less than 30 seconds to prep a shot

8) those that don't break

By "fairly good shot" I mean that objectively, the pressure rises fairly smoothly on the DE1+, with only small losses of pressure that last less than 1s. Except for Baratza, and Orphan Espresso's hand grinder, I haven't seen anything under USD$500 that doesn't have really wobbly pressure curves. There was one other manual grinder someone brought to a demo, I forget the name, that also did well.

In my month of trying grinders, here's what I found:

- the Mythos is the only grinder at #8

- the EK would be at #7 but it takes too long to prep a shot

- the Peak is really fantastic, but it overheats, or breaks, or something, when in production. If they get it to be reliable, it will be at #8.

- the Robur, if you leave the built-in static shield, is at #2. Without the shield, it is at #4.

- the Sette is at #4, and is smaller and less expensive than our grinder, and is my recommendation for Decent Espresso buyers looking for a home grinder. The weighed dosing worked to within 0.2g for me, which is impressive.

- the grinder we sell is at #4, but is pro oriented, rather than home oriented like the Sette is.

- the unseasoned EG-1 was at #3, seasoned it is now at #4. Their manual in fact states that most grinders benefit from dosing into an intermediate container, a statement with which I agree.

Note that stages #3 and #4 are very close to each other, with only a whisk (or wdt) to differentiate them. The difference is basically "are you removing clumps" or are you just "evenly distributing the grind particle size"



dan1502 said:


> Of all the grinders out there the only ones that intrigue me over what I already have are the Lynweber and the other similar one available with a choice of flat and conical burrs which has been mentioned on here of which I forget the name. Have you tried those by any chance?


Yes, I own an EG-1 and have been touring with it. It makes terrible coffee until (a) you season it with 5lbs of coffee and (b) lower the RPM to 600-800.

Then it makes extremely acceptable espresso. Craig Lyn gave me GREAT tech support to set me straight but I've talked to other EG-1 owners who have given up w/o seasoning properly, which is a shame. I think this is only a communication issue on LW's part, because once seasoned, it's a very nice grinder. On the EG-1, I still see a bit of channeling (visible on the DE1+ curves) on pressure rise, between 2 and 5 bar, which I'm told might be fines migration. The EG-1 doesn't have any trouble holding a straight pressure curve once peak pressure is hit and held.

The Peak, EK and Mythos are the only grinders I've seen with perfect curves. Using a refractometer, the highest extraction I've obtained on the EG-1 is 19.3%.

Mind you, things I love about the EG-1:

- low retention

- it's very quiet

- it makes really good espresso, just not as good as the Peak, EK or Mythos. It's definitely in the camp right below those, however. I hope people see that as a not unfair thing for me to say, as those other 3 grinders are the very top in the industry.

- I haven't yet experimented with different RPMs to see what effect that has on drink quality. I might get fewer fines at a lower RPM, for instance.

- it's beautiful

-john


----------



## dan1502

Thanks for the comprehensive answer. As well as being able to achieve extraction yields of 24% or perhaps more with the EK it is the ability to single dose I like about it although I have noticed that there is still quite a difference between the first shot and subsuent shots which suggests to me that some of the retained grounds might be getting into the first shot of the day (I need to look into this further). It is a big beast though. Although I'm unlikely to move away from the EK had the EG-1 or something similar achieved quivalent results and if money were no object I would be tempted due to the very low retention, size and looks. Out of interest have you tried an Anfim Super Caimano (with Ti burrs)? I sold mine when I got the EK but they're supposed to come close and perhaps be better than ther robur in terms of grind size spread.


----------



## Phobic

have been reading with interest the points on grinders.

the mythos has had lots of comments elsewhere about the negative effects of heating the beans, and there's a few articles on the good effects of cooling beans too, how come this is such a positive?

not sure I understand the trade off between negative heating effects v positive effects of quicker time for the group head to hit the right temp.

surely it depends on how long the beans have been at a warmer temp as they will loose volatiles?


----------



## decent_espresso

Phobic said:


> the mythos has had lots of comments elsewhere about the negative effects of heating the beans, and there's a few articles on the good effects of cooling beans too, how come this is such a positive?


I am unqualified to answer this question, but since Roast Magazine put me on the spot and asked me this same question, I will give you same ill informed answer I gave them.

This idea of cooling the grounds seems to be have been recently popularized by Berg Wu of Taiwan, who won the 2016 world barista championship.

My position is that heating ground beans for a while is a very bad thing. If I lock in my portafilter in and don't pull a shot for 15 minutes, my experience is that it will pull fast.

However, I also feel that having the water temperature not drop by 6ºC to 8ºC when the shot starts, would be a good thing, and with the Mythos the temperature drop is only around 2ºC to 1ºC, as measured on the DE1+, vs shots using unheated grinders.

And so, my feeling is that if you dose with the Mythos and work quickly to pull the shot shortly afterwards, you avoid the negatives of heating the grounds for too long, while having more temperature stability in the shot. Seems like the best of both worlds.

Another issue with bean heating is variability. The problem is that some grinders warm up as they work, and so produce grounds at different temperatures. The Mythos is very consistent (being fan cooled) so once the shot is dialed it, it works well for a while.

Others are more qualified to pursue this thread, however, so I'm not sure I will opine more on this topic.


----------



## decent_espresso

dan1502 said:


> Out of interest have you tried an Anfim Super Caimano (with Ti burrs)? I sold mine when I got the EK but they're supposed to come close and perhaps be better than ther robur in terms of grind size spread.


Weird, that's actually the grinder right in front of me! I just ground a 15g dose for you to take a look at. Check out the terrible clumping. These exact same beans grind unclumpy on my EG-1. Hmm... going to go see if the chute is clogged....









ok, after rummaging through the house to find the right allen key as ANFIM has rather unhelpfully decided to make the grounds chute fitted with hex key bolts, I've now cleaned out the chute and the grind quality is better, but still not super impressive. The EG-1, with exactly these same beans, had no clumping, at the same dose-per-shot (16g).

For me, the titanium burr ANFIM super caimano falls into the #3 category of grinders (makes a good coffee if you whisk the grounds).


----------



## fluffles

You seem to be making a correlation between clumps and bad grind... Is this fair? I love to see fluffy as much as the next guy, but I'm genuinely not sure whether clumps matter and have never seen anything definitive on it


----------



## coffeechap

Anfim should only ever be dosered then they are clump free.


----------



## decent_espresso

coffeechap said:


> Anfim should only ever be dosered then they are clump free.


I'm sure you're right, as ANFIMs are usually found with a dosing chamber, and I'm sure that removes the clumps. However, I wanted to grind on demand and also weigh my dose as I grind, so bought the doserless version, which seems to have this clumping issue for me.



fluffles said:


> You seem to be making a correlation between clumps and bad grind... Is this fair? I love to see fluffy as much as the next guy, but I'm genuinely not sure whether clumps matter and have never seen anything definitive on it


Again, let me reiterate that (a) I'm not an expert on grinding, and (b) I'm not trying to convince anyone that I'm right, or win an argument. I merely expressed my opinion since I was asked for it.

As far as clumps go, my problem with them is:

1) they make it difficult to create an even bed

2) with extreme clumping (ie, Robur) after tamping I can see fissures in the bed, and that can't be good. Mostly, this isn't the case on my Super Caimano, probably because the clumping is not as severe as on the Robur.

3) if I grind into something else (a 650ml milk jug), and WDT or whisk the grinds and then dose into the pf, I get a superior shot on the Caimano.

If you disagree, no problem.


----------



## fluffles

decent_espresso said:


> I'm sure you're right, as ANFIMs are usually found with a dosing chamber, and I'm sure that removes the clumps. However, I wanted to grind on demand and also weigh my dose as I grind, so bought the doserless version, which seems to have this clumping issue for me.
> 
> Again, let me reiterate that (a) I'm not an expert on grinding, and (b) I'm not trying to convince anyone that I'm right, or win an argument. I merely expressed my opinion since I was asked for it.
> 
> As far as clumps go, my problem with them is:
> 
> 1) they make it difficult to create an even bed
> 
> 2) with extreme clumping (ie, Robur) after tamping I can see fissures in the bed, and that can't be good. Mostly, this isn't the case on my Super Caimano, probably because the clumping is not as severe as on the Robur.
> 
> 3) if I grind into something else (a 650ml milk jug), and WDT or whisk the grinds and then dose into the pf, I get a superior shot on the Caimano.
> 
> If you disagree, no problem.


Don't disagree at all, was just thinking aloud. I think you're right about creating an even bed


----------



## dan1502

I did have the Barista version with a doser and the doser is one of the aspects of the Anfim that is renowned as being excellent as well as the large flat burrs combined with relative low RPM. The main problem for me was the faff when only pulling one shot most mornings (purge, brush out exite chute, grind, brush out exit chute etc). Anyway I digress, I should have been more specific with regards to my question in that it was the pressure curves aspect that interests me. I'm not really bothered about the need to use various techniques to distribute better as even though the EK is capable of grinding into a basket with a funnel fitted I choose to use a sifter on most occasions as although its a PITA it improves the results.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's a shot I just pulled for myself, using the Super Caimano but whisking the grounds in a milk jug beforehand. Looks good, except that you can see two quick losses of pressure, what I'd interpret at channels opening up and collapsing, on the pressure ramp up. You can see these visually on a bottomless portafilter as a slight and temporary speed increase in liquid coming out the bottom.


----------



## dan1502

Interesting but I'd have to have a decent espresso machine myself and experiment with different prep methods to comment. I often get visually smooth starts to shots with the EK then more turbulent looking later on though less so if I grind really fine (resulting in very long shot times). You should try a mini sifter and see how that affects things.


----------



## decent_espresso

dan1502 said:


> Interesting but I'd have to have a decent espresso machine myself and experiment with different prep methods to comment.


And of course it'd be delighted to see that happen.



dan1502 said:


> I often get visually smooth starts to shots with the EK then more turbulent looking later on though less so if I grind really fine (resulting in very long shot times).


Not that this is what's going on with you, but I find that flat and strong pressure profiles, such as 9-bar-for-30s, erode the puck quickly, and flow rate accelerates 2x to 3x during the shot. That could be the cause of your turbulence.

Though I can't get more than a 19% extraction, I like 50 second shots pulled with very fine grinds, and low doses (14g to 15g). I won't say they're in any way better than ~28s shots, but they're different and tasty.




dan1502 said:


> You should try a mini sifter and see how that affects things.


I do have my eye on some automatic sifting tech, because I want to be able to get more systematic in our understanding of grind quality. A project for another day...


----------



## dan1502

The profile which I've been sticking with is a 1bar per second ramp up from 2 to 6 bar then 6 bar constant. With the current beans I think I'm there or there abouts with 20g to 52g and shots are taking around 41 seconds though I've yet to properly refract these beans as I've also changed water recently (which will now be throught the boiler). I shall probably start testing some this week. The last batch of beans (LSOL on here) frustrated me. I finally got really nice shots grinding fine with 60-65s shots. The longer finer shots gave a visually superior extration but whether it was actually any better I don't know.

Regarding buying one of these, I might at some point but as I have a Vesuvius it wouldn't be a decision I would take lightly. Had the Vesuvius not come up within a couple of miles of where I live at a tempting price I suspect I would be tempted, if not immediately then once they've been out in the wild for a bit.


----------



## decent_espresso

dan1502 said:


> The profile which I've been sticking with is a 1bar per second ramp up from 2 to 6 bar then 6 bar constant. With the current beans I think I'm there or there abouts with 20g to 52g and shots are taking around 41 seconds though I've yet to properly refract these beans as I've also changed water recently (which will now be throught the boiler). I shall probably start testing some this week. The last batch of beans (LSOL on here) frustrated me. I finally got really nice shots grinding fine with 60-65s shots. The longer finer shots gave a visually superior extration but whether it was actually any better I don't know.


hmm.. definitely high pressure isn't causing your varying flow rate. The Vesuvius is a nice machine, and it's great that you're able to do these varying pressure shots that I expect are quite nice to drink.

About a year ago, I wrote an Android app that talked to a bluetooth scale, to give you a flow-rate-per-second chart. The idea is to use this with existing espresso machines to understand your shots more. Once I get the DE1 stable, I plan to release a rewrite (less ugly and less buggy) with our scale, and that might make an inexpensive gadget for you to understand a bit more what's happening with your shots.


----------



## 4085

all this makes me happy to own a Mythos (user friendly, beautiful pf delivery, no fuss) as opposed to an EK(maximum fuss, takes hours to prepare one shot, and is it any better?)


----------



## dan1502

I shall probably be in the market for some new scales soon so shall keep an eye out. If I buy some I'll get a milk jug as well (it's a bit expensive in terms of postage as a single item). In the meantime a member has given me a very useful spreadsheet which calculates things like contact time. The main thing I am working on other than getting the best taste and trying beans is consistent and improved preparation.


----------



## garydyke1

dfk41 said:


> all this makes me happy to own a Mythos (user friendly, beautiful pf delivery, no fuss) as opposed to an EK(maximum fuss, takes hours to prepare one shot, and is it any better?)


Yeah but your Mythos can't do filter grind and you can't switch coffee every shot


----------



## 4085

garydyke1 said:


> Yeah but your Mythos can't do filter grind and you can't switch coffee every shot


As Michael Caine said in Zulu in reply to the statement, 'do you know that the Zulus can run 5 miles then immediately into battle?" with, 'who on earth would want to run 5 miles then have a battle"

I do not wish to switch coffees every shot......I drink what I like and I find very few coffees fit that category, but each to his own!


----------



## garydyke1

dfk41 said:


> As Michael Caine said in Zulu in reply to the statement, 'do you know that the Zulus can run 5 miles then immediately into battle?" with, 'who on earth would want to run 5 miles then have a battle"
> 
> I do not wish to switch coffees every shot......I drink what I like and I find very few coffees fit that category, but each to his own!


I forgot you change machine between shots


----------



## 4085

garydyke1 said:


> I forgot you change machine between shots


Thats as maybe young Gary, but it still does not explain why I do not feel the need to buy a vastly overpriced seed and nut grinder!


----------



## garydyke1

dfk41 said:


> Thats as maybe young Gary, but it still does not explain why I do not feel the need to buy a vastly overpriced seed and nut grinder!


Each to their own. (and never pay full rrp on any coffee gear )


----------



## coffeechap

garydyke1 said:


> Each to their own. (and never pay full rrp on any coffee gear )


How very apt!


----------



## 4085

garydyke1 said:


> Each to their own. (and never pay full rrp on any coffee gear )


is that a compliment, whether meant or backhanded!


----------



## Glenn

Can we please get back on topic?


----------



## decent_espresso

Glenn said:


> Can we please get back on topic?


I looked through my photo archives and found this shot that I did at Revolver in Vancouver, CA, with grounds from a Mythos, about a month ago.

The point I want to make with this shot is that the cooling effect of the grounds is only 2ºC, and because of this the DE1+ is able to hit +/- 0.5ºC accuracy through the entire post-preinfusion (ie brew) part of the shot.

Other things to note is the less significant (but still there) little wobble at the start of pressure buildup, puck erosion visible as flow rate increase, and 1.5 bar overshoot for a few seconds at pressure ramp up, from the DE1+ needing some PID tuning. There's also a 9 bar-to-6 bar pressure profile programmed in here. The "noise" on the pressure sensor is also less than with other grinders, which makes me think it's the Mythos' grind quality at play.


----------



## Obnic

That one picture gets to the heart of what I want to be able to do, your pressure profile is resulting in a consistent flow of water through the puck. I'm assuming this is an ok proxy for water contact time. I love playing with Vesuvius profiles but I've no real insight into why they work - I'm mimicking machines or just shooting from the hip but I can't explain what's happening so I can't really learn and advance my practice.


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> I'm assuming this is an ok proxy for water contact time.


Now that's an interesting question. Shooting from the hip, I'd say "sort of" or "relatively speaking, sure" but I'd think that:

a) dose quantity, tamp, channeling, grind size, grind shape, particle size distribution and quantity of fines would all play a part in letting water through.

b) what kind of experiment would answer that question? We'll soon have a bluetooth scale to play with and live "in cup weight" to correlate against these numbers, but I don't see how that'll help.

And I'd love to know how long a drop of water stays in contact with the puck. Other than chemically marking the water, I'm unsure how to figure that out.


----------



## MWJB

decent_espresso said:


> And I'd love to know how long a drop of water stays in contact with the puck. Other than chemically marking the water, I'm unsure how to figure that out.


How accurate would you really need to be? If the machine tells you the puck is saturated at the end of preinfusion, then any more liquid pushed in, must come out the other side. You could work out over shot time vs weight in the cup, how long it takes to exchange a full puck's worth of liquid, factor in EY against puck erosion too for a full puck prior to flow vs end of shot.

Even without the data you have access to, a rule of thumb would be that a 16:32g shot over 36sec saw the liquid in the puck exchanged once every 18sec on average.


----------



## decent_espresso

I'm preparing a public "bug list" (or "todo list", if you prefer) that will give detailed information about what needs to be done before we ship, and I'll be posting a message about that in the next 2 weeks.

--> When will we ship?

The short answer is that while the espresso machine functioned well during my 2 month (November/December) sales tour, I was not happy with its ability to handle "shipping trauma", especially airplane baggage handlers. All 3 of the DE1s failed at some point during my two month sales tour and needed repairs. That's not good enough to ship to customers, and so:

1) I'm about to hire an independent mechanical engineering company to audit our internals

2) I have hired a new inhouse mechanical engineer to rethink our internal layout. He will be done with this in mid-January, we will make a new machine with his internals that we'll test, and should have that finished by end-of-February. There is also the possibility that we'll want another iteration cycle, which if that happens, will add 5 more weeks to the schedule.

3) I'm purchasing a "shipping simulator" machine, to shake the hell out of the DE1 before it goes to the next stage of beta testing.

This is unfortunately going to push out the DE1/DE1+ out to April/May. I know this is disappointing, but I much prefer to be late in shipping than to ship a product that won't give you years of satisfaction.

If at any point you (or anyone) doesn't want to wait, just drop me an email and I will 100% refund any money you've put toward our espresso machines.

I wish I could give you very precise delivery dates, but these are the first machines we're making, which means ordering 200 parts in volume, getting that right, and getting the reliability and build quality right, and I want to make sure we do a good job.

Hope that makes sense...

-john

Here's what our shipping simulator machine looks like.


----------



## Glenn

That's great transparency and a top attitude towards end user satisfaction.


----------



## Phobic

agree with this, loving the transparency


----------



## Scotford

decent_espresso said:


> I much prefer to be late in shipping than to ship a product that won't give you years of satisfaction.


This is exactly why I'm backing you, John.


----------



## dan1502

Am I right in thinking that the design of your simple scales has changed. I was planning on ordering some as they seemed to be the same as the Brewista scales but I'm not sure now. Do you have more details as there's only one image to go by?


----------



## decent_espresso

dan1502 said:


> Am I right in thinking that the design of your simple scales has changed. I was planning on ordering some as they seemed to be the same as the Brewista scales but I'm not sure now. Do you have more details as there's only one image to go by?


You're right that we used to sell the Brewista scale, but then Brewista told us they were no longer available, for a few months, because they were upgrading the models. So, we switched to a no-timer competitor and halved the price from $60 to $30. Sorry, we're not selling Brewista scales at 1/2 the price of anyone else









So, at the moment the $30 scale we're selling is similar dimensions to the Brewista, but no auto tare or timer.

We're waiting for stock of the new Brewista scales, and when we receive them, we'll be selling them again.

The image on our web site has changed to reflect the fact that these are not Brewista scales.

Hope that's clear!


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## dan1502

Yes, thanks. When I filled my basket before Christmas it looked like Brewista equivalents were $29 which is why I noticed/asked.


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> You're right that we used to sell the Brewista scale, but then Brewista told us they were no longer available, for a few months, because they were upgrading the models. So, we switched to a no-timer competitor and halved the price from $60 to $30. Sorry, we're not selling Brewista scales at 1/2 the price of anyone else
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So, at the moment the $30 scale we're selling is similar dimensions to the Brewista, but no auto tare or timer.
> 
> We're waiting for stock of the new Brewista scales, and when we receive them, we'll be selling them again.
> 
> The image on our web site has changed to reflect the fact that these are not Brewista scales.
> 
> Hope that's clear!


If you ever decide to make a scale in the sub £40 range with a timer then you will very likely have a customer. Perhaps there just isn't much money to be made around that price point, but I literally never used any of the 'auto' features on my Brewisters before they packed in and it pains me to think they are still the best option for a scale with a timer... not at any kinda price above 40 quid tho.


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## Rhys

Just read this which was quite interesting..


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## decent_espresso

Two new episodes out today, of this video series covering our ongoing saga.

-john



*
Spilling the Beans, Episode 7: A New Beginning*


----------



## decent_espresso

"Building the first machines" : Spilling the Beans #9

I suspect this might be the most interesting video we've done for CFers, as there's lots of technical peeks into how we have made our espresso machine.


----------



## TobiasM

nice videos and a really interesting machine, can't wait to read the first user reports.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's what's happening regarding the redesign of the internals of our Decent Espresso machine.

For those that are just joining us, here's an update. Our espresso machines went into beta, and on a sales tour in November. Espresso and steam worked well, but the machines repeatedly broke during shipping, during my sales tour.

As a result, a bit of a staff change, and I've changed my lead mechanical engineer. Veteran engineer David Crist was hired, is currently in Seattle with my EE Ray Heasman, as they completely rethink the internal layout for strength, cooling, shipping, repairability and ease of assembly.

In Hong Kong, I've hired Johnny Au, a mechanical engineer of 27 years experience in consumer goods, with a particular strength on both assembly line design and instruction as well as packaging design. Electronic Engineer Francis Hui has also joined us in Hong Kong.

Jeremy Kuempel, the CEO, co-inventor and MIT-educated mechanical engineer from Blossom Coffee http://blossomcoffee.com has been hired as an expert consultant.

David and Ray have just about finished their rethink of the internal layout of the DE1, and they've been posting their work this week to our internal engineering discussion. They will be ordering parts for this "beta 7" machine starting next week. A "beta 8" machine will follow a few weeks later, and then we move to submitting machines for UL/CE approval.

We're using the extra time to make a number of improvements. I'm posting a design document for beta 7 below, which you can compare to a photo of the internals of beta 6.

- on the chassis, the tablet is now mounted above the group head, freeing up the top of the machine for warming cups

- the usb cable to charge the tablet now feeds into the DE1 directly. Previously it dangled outside, a bit embarassingly.

- we're working on the design of a DE1CAFE model, and will post photos of that shortly. We hope to be able to ship that just a few months after the DE1s start shipping.

- heat and water isolation is much improved in the new version (see photo below) as there is now a metal wall separating the PC boards (and power supply) from the rest of the machine. That entire section can now easily be kept cool from air from the back. Previously, a 1mm plastic sheet separated the PC boards from the heat and moisture of the rest of the machine.

- the water intake mechanism is now totally isolated from the electrical components, and the lifting-lever is now only a few millimeters wide (previously you could get your finger in that slot).

- we're switching to a new tube-connecting technology, which we call "clip connectors", that we've found by looking at the most reliable home espresso machines. These are not, unfortunately, off the shelf parts, and we must design the moulds ourselves, which is one reason for adding extra mechanical engineering muscle. All our previous DE1 prototypes have used all metal "quick connects", and on my 8 week sales tour, I found that vibration (such as in a UPS van) caused the "teeth" that held the tube to either dig deeply into the tube, or allow the tube to slide out. These new "clip connectors" are considered best practice, and we've yet to see one fail.

- the two pumps are now mounted side by side, directly on the bottom of the chassis, reducing the risk of shipping damage, but also dampening vibrations better.

- the two heaters are mounted vertically into a metal wall, so that they can endure a lot of shipping trauma without moving.

- we're experimenting with a NSF-commercial-use-approved resin called "Ultem" for our water mixing chamber, instead of using solid teflon, which we used in our previous iterations. Ultem is a medical and food grade plastic that is highly regarded, and this moves us closer to an eventual commercial use (NSF) certificate.

- overall, there is much more space inside the DE1 chassis due to these changes. This improves repairability, cooling, and ease of assembly.


----------



## decent_espresso

Sneak peak at the upcoming DE1CAFE espresso machine. Wires, plumbing, water tank and drip tray are hidden in the table. More soon...


----------



## Obnic

Is the DE1 Cafe the new name for the DE1 Pro?


----------



## decent_espresso

Nope: the DE1PRO remains as it is, looking like all the other DE1s.

The DE1CAFE is a new design we're finalizing, which will have a few features to make it more useful in cafes. All the other DE1s, for instance, have a back panel that you wouldn't want to show a customer (if the customer is looking at the back of the machine), with power plugs, water lines, fill tubes, etc. all facing them. I'll post more information about it in a few weeks, when I'm happy enough with what we've got that I'd like you guys to bang on the design and tell me where we went wrong.


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## johnealey

Maybe offset from centre to allow a pitcher rinser and / or a second machine to be fitted? (realising you not asking for suggestions yet, but will no doubt have forgotten by the time you do







)

John


----------



## decent_espresso

johnealey said:


> Maybe offset from centre to allow a pitcher rinser and / or a second machine to be fitted? (realising you not asking for suggestions yet, but will no doubt have forgotten by the time you do


I agree, I had already requested that my industrial designer move the espresso machine to the right 3rd of the table, if nothing else to make space for a grinder, knockbox and tamping station.

It also happens I was looking at pitcher rinsers today, having the same idea, and thought about even building a pitcher rinser directly into our drip tray, and then thought better of it (not enough space, confusing two functions into one).

Pitcher rinsers that can be countersunk are widely available cheaply, I found a few on alibaba, so I think I'll leave that to the rest of the coffee accessories world.


----------



## Lefteye

@decent_espresso. Over in home barista you're discussing tablet placement. Have there been any changes to the height of the machine? I've got 50cm clearance to fit it under a cupboard. Also what is the projected time scale for the de1+ now?


----------



## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> @decent_espresso. Over in home barista you're discussing tablet placement. Have there been any changes to the height of the machine? I've got 50cm clearance to fit it under a cupboard. Also what is the projected time scale for the de1+ now?


The change, moving away from the "steelie stand" (an off the shelf tablet stand) to a custom bracket (render of it below), moves the table forward about 10cm, and down about 1cm, so you'll be gaining about 1cm of clearance with the change. Previously, the DE1 with tablet, was about 41cm tall, now it'll be able 40cm tall. So, your 50cm clearance will more than suffice.

As to time scale, nothing to report other than we're still on our current schedule that I've reported, with machines shipping sometime between April and June, depending on how the next two months go.


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## Phobic

it's looking much better as an integrated unit, is it movable? people of different heights are going to have problems if the angle is fixed.

I'm very tall and stooping to use is literally a pain in the neck.


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## decent_espresso

Phobic said:


> it's looking much better as an integrated unit, is it movable? people of different heights are going to have problems if the angle is fixed. I'm very tall and stooping to use is literally a pain in the neck.


My plan is to make that bracket in just the right thickness of aluminum that it holds the tablet solidly, yet can be pushed with some muscle strength to change the tablet angle. It'll take some experimentation to get that right, but I'm in agreement that being able to change the tablet angle is important.

We'll be sure to preserve the option for people to not use our bracket, to use their own preferred tablet stand instead.

We've been using the steelie stand for two years (photo below), in our prototypes. It has the virtue of being movable and attractive, but the tablet does wobble when you tap off center, which is why we're looking at making something ourselves that's more solid.


----------



## peld

i find stuff like this fascinating - assuming this works as it demos, has there been any other big leaps in [espresso] technology in recent times?


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## decent_espresso

We've finished our redesign of how the internals are mounted inside our espresso machine. The movie below shows our CAD model, and everything is now inside, with a bit of space left over.

In this new version, we've moved to using the left, right and front panels to "hang" items. This makes it much easier to build the machine, since each panel can be pre-built. But, it also makes it much easier to repair the machine, because the 4 screws holding each panel on can be removed, and the entire machine folds open onto your table.

We're ordering one-off parts this week to build and test this new design, and in a few weeks we'll do it again with more refinements. Then, we should be ready to submit our machines for UL/CE testing.


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## decent_espresso

Over on Home Barista, I've been having a quite animated conversation for a few weeks now about drip tray design. The crux of the conversation is that of the various designs, some tend to pool water/coffee more than others, and our design was among the worst offenders.

Since we're polishing up the final details, now seemed like a good time to focus on the drip tray. The "least pooling" design is metal wires, with 2mm wires being the best (but looking flimsy) and often used in pro machines (such as the Black Eagle). I'm leaning toward 3mm stainless steel wires, because they're less much flimsy looking and almost as good at not holding water.

Jeffery hand made me a real prototype of the design we made on the computer.

I wanted to experiment with having two of the wires closer together than the others, to indicate the center point and thus help you position your glass under the portafilter. *I can't decide whether the center-guide looks "on purpose" or like a mistake. What do you think?*


----------



## mike57

Perhaps you can be too subtle if the centering function/feature has to be explained?

A gap in the length would both mark the centre and give slightly better drainage but probably adds too much to assembly costs if a further lateral support was needed.

So what about a short semicircular or vee downward facing pressed section on the centre two wires? No extra support and instant visual centre location?


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## decent_espresso

mike57 said:


> Perhaps you can be too subtle if the centering function/feature has to be explained?
> 
> A gap in the length would both mark the centre and give slightly better drainage but probably adds too much to assembly costs if a further lateral support was needed.So what about a short semicircular or vee downward facing pressed section on the centre two wires? No extra support and instant visual centre location?


Yeah, I'm leaning toward some sort of laser etch post-processing to indicate the center points, so it's really clear, if you decided to look at it.


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## johnealey

For my tuppence worth: looks like a mistake in welding, better to have evenly spaced, own personal thought. If intention is to locate the cup in the right area then this would surely be covered up by any scales or if a more central twin spout or naked portafilter used then potentially either be in the wrong or the right place, if that makes sense, either way defeating what trying to achieve.

Design 2, aesthetically, looks better for me

John


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## coffeechap

Design two certainly looks much more appealing.


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## Dayks

It's actually quite surprising how much better 2 looks to 1.

1 just doesn't look right, not sure if it is the middle bars or too much space between the bars in general.


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## decent_espresso

Dayks said:


> It's actually quite surprising how much better 2 looks to 1. 1 just doesn't look right, not sure if it is the middle bars or too much space between the bars in general.


I think there's pretty widespread agreement on that point. I've printed out the render and handed it to Jeffrey, with the challenge to make something in the real world that comes close to looking like the render. I'll post photos of our next attempts and we'll see if we get any closer.


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## Obnic

Two is a rendering: one is a photo. Renderings always look more flattering.

For my tuppence (and I should state I'm properly impressed by the ambition of this machine) I suspect the 'bars on two cross members' design will always look a bit unfinished / tatty in reality. It reminds me a bit of a sushi nori rolling mat which undermines the quality of what's being built here.










This is the Vesuvius grill. It's not the best but the outer ring and the cross-members at the end of the bars do tend to make it look 'finished' and it sits well in the tray.


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## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> This is the Vesuvius grill. It's not the best but the outer ring and the cross-members at the end of the bars do tend to make it look 'finished' and it sits well in the tray.


Thanks for the photo, it's really useful for us to see wire thickness and spacing in detail.


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## Obnic

Looks like 2mm wire 4mm spacing.


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## decent_espresso

Today, we made me a prototype drip tray cover with moveable 3mm wires, so that we could try different spacings.

My goal is:

1) to find a spacing that is visually appealing, so that the real world object looks more like the rendered object, and is aesthetically acceptable.

2) to find at what point close spacing causes water retention.

My feeling is that wider spacing tends to accentuate the "bbq grill" appearance and that the closest spacing that doesn't cause more water retention is likely to be the most desireable.

A wire tray is likely the most functional, but not necessarily the most attractive. Most attractive probably goes to the GS/3 punched metal pattern approach. My goal with this exercise is to see if I can get the most functional design to be aesthetically acceptable. Function, for me, is first.

You'll note that below, the 3mm wires do have a small amount of water beading on top. If we eventually went to a water-resistant coating, that could probably be prevented.


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## decent_espresso

*HELP DECENT ESPRESSO AVOID WATER ON THE PUCK*

I'm trying to determine at what height into the portafilter basket the group head's dispersion screen should sit.

YOU CAN HELP!

Can you please perform this little test:

1) fill a portafilter with ground espresso, level it with your finger and do NOT tamp it (leave it fluffy)

2) mount the portafilter into your group, then remove the portafilter

3) measure how many millimeters into the basket your grounds were compacted to (ie, from the top edge of the basket). Bonus points if you include a photo here on HB.

Our dispersion screen currently goes about 1mm into the basket, but I suspect this is not deep enough, and that we should go a few millimeters deeper.

On many espresso machines, after a shot, you can

a) see the dispersion screen's pattern on the grounds in the portafilter

b) see some grounds stuck to the dispersion screen itself (in the group) that comes off with a group head flush.

Neither of those things happen on the DE1, and we get about 2mm of water remaining on the puck after the shot. I'm trying to get rid of that.


----------



## decent_espresso

- our portafilter stands (separate models for spouted vs bottomless-only) are being finished at the factory, and should be in stock later this week. https://decentespresso.com/portafilter_stand

- we've finished the design of our home knockbox and I'm finalizing my choice between two companies to manufacture it for me. In about 70 days we'll have these in stock. https://decentespresso.com/knockbox

- the mechanical engineering for our scale is almost complete: I'm finishing up the the battery compartment and usb lead. The firmware is done. We're probably about 80 days out from having these in stock. https://decentespresso.com/scale

- we're stocking Scott Rao's books and working with him on printing his currently-only-an-ebook latest "Espresso Extraction" book. https://decentespresso.com/books

- our barista kit and tamping kit is (sigh) still not shipping. We have everything but the foam, and that's delayed because everything we sampled was really smelly, and I do not want strong smells getting attached to accessories used for making coffee. We've just finalized and ordered a new kind of foam: fairly thin (4mm) and dense EVA foam, moulded to shape (not thick) and covered with a thick black nylon fabric. We'll have this in 3 weeks, and if we like it, we'll do the same for the barista kit and finally be able to ship our "*-kit" suitcases.


----------



## decent_espresso

We ordered all the parts to be manufactured (CNCed or bent sheet metal) for Beta 7 last week, and they should arrive this week, we haven't yet built beta 7, because we're waiting for the custom parts to come in.

For beta 7, we pushed the innovation farther than we had planned, redoing virtually all the water connectors to be "clip connectors", which required visits with manufacturers (to supply us with different valve, heater and pump connectors) and also redoing the mixing chamber. In the end, we removed the need for 15 connectors, which greatly reduces the number of things that can go wrong.

I also decided to take the time we had to refine a few things, including:

a) creating and testing new ideas for a splash-free pressure release system http://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-machine-now-available-t43925-340.html#p514330

b) solving a wet puck & drip-after-shot issue http://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-machine-now-available-t43925-450.html#p516716

c) working on a new drip tray cover design that would require less cleanup http://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-machine-now-available-t43925-370.html#p514929

d) moving the tablet forward and designing our own bracket for it, positioned above the group head http://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-machine-now-available-t43925-470.html#p517460

I have posted links on each of the points above to conversations on Home Barista about each change, in case you want to read more.

On a different point, we're continuing to extensively test our beta 1 through beta 6 machines, and we identified a failure mode, where one of the valves fails to open (ie, you can't make espresso) if it gets too warm, which happens when you're pulling shot-after-after for hours for a 20-person crowd of the Hong Kong Coffee Club. I also experienced this one once on tour (hello London!). It took us a while to isolate the problem, which we did two weeks ago, and we discussed it with two valve vendors (our current one, and a prospect). We're getting new valves next week from our prospective new vendor now.

Our new valve maker (http://www.ode.it/en/) is explicitly in the espresso business, and we spent hours face to face with their engineers last week, so we have much greater confidence in them. They have dual HQs in Italy and Hong Kong, which is amazingly helpful for us. Picking our parts suppliers well, and beating the heck out of each part to make sure they're good, is really important if we're going to achieve the reliability we want.









This photo shows the parts for our new side-panel idea. With this new approach, much of the espresso machine assembly takes place on those side panels when the machine is disassembled, making it both easier to build, but also easier to repair.


----------



## Obnic

Feels like you are in the home straight now. Big changes for the latest beta.

It's good to hear you identified the gasket as the reason for pooled water on the puck. Sounds like a nightmare to track down. There seems to be an emerging consensus here that (under normal circumstances) a wet puck is a function of dose size so I did wonder how this would resolve.

I saw your drip tray design on HB. I have to say this looks really high quality (much better than a the wire mock ups you showed here) but it's for your table integrated model isn't it. Where did you end up for the stand alone units.










I'll be curious to see how the tablet positioning works out in practice. It seemed more comfortable to me behind the grouphead rather than over it - it felt more squared away - but we'll see.


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> It's good to hear you identified the gasket as the reason for pooled water on the puck. Sounds like a nightmare to track down. There seems to be an emerging consensus here that (under normal circumstances) a wet puck is a function of dose size so I did wonder how this would resolve.


I agree with you there, "under normal circumstances", but it did bug me that there was an occasional drip from a completed shot into the cup, slowly making it taste less than perfect. Since other machines don't seem to do this (except for espresso machines that lack a pressure release valve), I wanted to chase it down.



Obnic said:


> I'll be curious to see how the tablet positioning works out in practice. It seemed more comfortable to me behind the grouphead rather than over it - it felt more squared away - but we'll see.


I'm not married to the new positioning, but I do really want to get that USB charging cable tidied away, which appears to me easier to do if the tablet is moved forward. However, the "Steelie stand" approach is also "fine by me" if I can tidy the cable up, and I'll likely end up offering both options. In a few weeks we'll have a prototype of the tablet-on-the-group approach and we'll be able to compare it to the Steelie stand next to it here.



Obnic said:


> I saw your drip tray design on HB. I have to say this looks really high quality (much better than a the wire mock ups you showed here) but it's for your table integrated model isn't it. Where did you end up for the stand alone units.


I liked one too -- on the render. But looking at other espresso machines that use wire drip trays, it seems that reality is very different from renders.

The GS/3 drip tray uses a punched sheet metal approach that is a reasonable compromise (functionality wise) and which I think looks quite nice.

So, I've tried to adapt that DE1CAFE tray design to a punched sheet metal process for the DE1/DE1+ models, and this approach just came in today. It's similar-but-different. How do do you feel about it?


----------



## Dylan

Looks very nice.


----------



## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> The GS/3 drip tray uses a punched sheet metal approach that is a reasonable compromise (functionality wise) and which I think looks quite nice. So, I've tried to adapt that DE1CAFE tray design to a punched sheet metal process for the DE1/DE1+ models, and this approach just came in today. It's similar-but-different. How do do you feel about it?


The render looks sharp. I suspect punched metal is easier to manufacture a uniform look. For me, bars 'feel' higher quality (perhaps its just the weight) and in my experience they show less wear and tear in use. Flat areas show scratches. I love the fact that you've shared so much of the development process here but ultimately I suspect you'll drive yourself crazy listening to everyone's preferences. Trust your judgment. So far it seems to be pretty spot on.

Im already socialising the idea of the Pro machine with She Who Must Be Obeyed


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## Tewdric

That's the one!


----------



## decent_espresso

Received this morning a photo from Rob Dawson, who put together something similar to our Decent Pro Grinder, but he used a Mazzer Mini to do it. The Mazzer mini has enough space under the hopper, and is the right height to accommodate a scale/stand/funnel with an adjustable stand.

This setup lets Rob see the weight of his coffee dose while he's grinding.

The end result is surprisingly tidy and quite functional.


----------



## decent_espresso

Hi guys, we're basically in "tying up all the details" mode here, with lots of things that still need to be finalized:

- vibration dampening technique for the pumps

- rubber foot design

- final material of the drip tray & water tank (ceramic is really, really heavy, like 2kg, which is terrible for us since we're air-shipping these : it's +$20 in shipping for those, +$18 to make them. Too expensive.)

- testing new mixing chamber design that has integrated almost all connectors into it, testing new "ultem" material

- testing new approach of "clip connectors" everywhere for the water path, no more compression fitting or expensive (and failure prone) quick connects

- new design for thermometer probes so they look clip connector compatible

- on the firmware side, lots of hard work around implementing a file system and a firmware update system, and some crypto to prevent chinese copying of the firmware. Almost done with that, needs to be tied into the GUI.

- on my end, finalizing the gui, which involves increased polish, support for multiple DE1s in a location, support for load/save of profiles, translating it, and skin support. I also have a few things to do on the DE1+ gui based on what I have learned about our espresso making workflow with our gui in the past 4 months of making shots daily.

Below is the DE1 settings gui, for changing the pressure profile, and for a variety of other settings. This week I should make good progress on load/save of profiles.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's a short movie of us testing the button interface to our upcoming Decent Scale: https://decentespresso.com/scale

[video=youtube;Xzm_eckh-dw]






The idea is for one button to control the timer (on the right) and another button to control the tare weight feature.

There are a few button presses too many on the timer, and the "weight currently changing" LED should stay on for a second longer (since espresso can drip in slowly), but otherwise this is close to OK for me.

Any comments?


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## Obnic

One thing I'm very fond of on the Vesuvius is the seven day / two period timer. It's on when I wake. Off when I'm out. On again when I get home, and it puts itself to bed. And I use different intervals on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Your GUI suggests one single interval, is that right?

Also hear the strong economic case for abandoning the ceramic tray but I bet that was adding some welcome counter weight and general feel of quality/. An upgrade option perhaps?


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## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> One thing I'm very fond of on the Vesuvius is the seven day / two period timer. It's on when I wake. Off when I'm out. On again when I get home, and it puts itself to bed. And I use different intervals on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Your GUI suggests one single interval, is that right?


Right, as it stands now, there's one interval. I've had 3 other people ask for a weekday/weekend scheduler. At the same time, I'm trying to keep the initial feature set down as much as possible, to essentials, so that we can ship this machine. The tablet software will have successive versions, where I can add things that are 'nice to have' but not essential. With a 5 minute warmup time, I was thinking that a power on/off timer was already kind of inessential.

For the eventual power on/off feature, I had already designed, about a year ago, my intentions, which let you have multiple on/off times in one day, and a different schedule for each day even. Here's the design mockup. You can see that it's a lot more powerful, but it's also more work for me to program. So.. this is my intended (maybe version 3) scheduler.











Obnic said:


> Also hear the strong economic case for abandoning the ceramic tray but I bet that was adding some welcome counter weight and general feel of quality/. An upgrade option perhaps?


The problem with upgrades is that we still incur all the design, moulding, QC and minimum order costs, and these are really substantial. A minimum order of a drip tray from ceramic will run us around £15,000. Suppose we sell it at £30 (dubious) we would need to sell out the entire first production run of 500 ceramic drip trays just to pay for the run, before any profit.

Manufacturing stuff is way more expensive than people think: we're all used to junk from the pound store that we don't realize that non-junk is actually very costly.


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## kennyboy993

5 minute warm up time? I'd never use the timer


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## kennyboy993

Auto off perhaps


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## decent_espresso

kennyboy993 said:


> 5 minute warm up time? I'd never use the timer


If you're in a rush to get to work, you don't want to wait five minutes, either. One minute, maybe.



kennyboy993 said:


> Auto off perhaps


It's really not obvious from the settings pages, but the "Screen saver" is actually the auto-power off mechanism.

When the screen saver turns on, the screen dims, and the espresso machine cools down. If you tap the tablet to exit the screen saver, the espresso machine warms up.

The screen saver kicks in after XX minutes of inactivity, or it can be manually started by clicking the "POWER OFF" icon on the tablet screen.


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## decent_espresso

About two weeks ago, we finalized the design for our Decent Knockbox https://decentespresso.com/knockbox and sent it off to a CNC service to make us one.

This one prototype costs about $120 to make. It's expensive, because it's carved out of a solid block of aluminum with a computerized drill. However, it's invaluable as part of the design process, because it lets us hold and use something that is very close to what the final factory-manufactured good will be like.

Instead of plastic, we opted for 2.5mm thick aluminum, with a black anodized finish. The goal is for it to be sturdy, really dishwasher safe (which plastic often isn't) and to not have that cheap "thonk" sound when used. Anodizing provides a similar surface to teflon, though it's more durable and less slippery.

Design wise, the goal was the deeply carve out the front so that a portafilter could be held level as it knocks. Some knockboxes don't have this feature and require you to tilt the portafilter forward or risk banging your knuckles. The back of the knockbox is scooped up to capture "splash". The bar is pushed forward because the spent pucks pile up in the back, and when I used knockboxes with bars in the middle I found that I filled the knockbox up when it was only half full, because the pucks didn't spread out in the container.

We'll be testing this prototype this week and next with different types and thicknesses of foam glued onto the bottom. The "knock bar" on this prototype is borrowed from another knockbox, as we don't have a way to make a prototype of that part without making a silicone mould.

Once we're happy with this, we'll send it the final specs to our factory, and in about 80 days we'll have them in stock.

Below are two photos of the real object, along with a computer-generated render. It's always interesting to compare the idealized perfect version off a computer to the real thing. In this case, they're not too different.


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## decent_espresso

The new design for our drip tray cover came in today from our CNC manufacturer. This version is a hybrid of types "1 and 2" in that from above it behaves like round metal wires, but viewed from the bottom you can see that it's flat. There is no coating on this, nor has it been polished, so it's likely more water retention-friendly than a final product might be.

I poured water all over the top, to see what droplets would stick the top.

The ability of this design to repel from the top is fairly good:

















but viewed from the bottom, the water droplets do like to cling:









however, this is still much better than our previous design, which I photographed today:









My feeling is that the performance of this design is likely good enough, and if we were to spray the bottom with a water-repelling coating, that behavior might be improved too.

A big caveat, though, is that we don't yet know if this design can actually be manufactured at a reasonable cost. This CNC prototype cost us $80 to make. We're going to talk to factories over the next few weeks, and we might end up with a related design, of welded 3mm stainless wires inside a metal frame. The appearance of a drip tray with that approach will be similar to this CNC prototype, from the top, but from the bottom we would get less droplet retention if the wires were round on the bottom too.

*WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS DRIP TRAY DESIGN?*


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## kennyboy993

I really like it - aesthetically its in-keeping with the machine, designed properly and functional.

It's the wrap-around underneath and the slightly increased border around the edges that gives it a feeling of quality for me.

I hope it makes it in to production.

As far as water is concerned - as long as it's easy to remove during end of day routine and a single wipe underneath then fine.


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## decent_espresso

Jeremy from Blossom coffee, who is consulting for us, expressed concern about the long-term reliability of our using Calrod tube http://www.wattco.com/calrodheater.html to heat our group head.

This is what a Calrod looks like:









Probably, we're ok, because they only really heat up when the DE1 powers up, but the problem is that it is hard to shape the heating tube to exactly fit into the group head's moulded channel, so that a lot of heat transfer paste is needed to mate them, and that if this isn't done right, or the tolerances are too far out, the Calrod tube will slowly fail over the course of a few years.

However, besides the "probably ok" there's the inefficiency of the heat transfer that's been bugging me for a while. We're heating the group head, to indirectly heat the water path.

So, instead, I decided that we should spend two weeks on switching to directly heating the water path, with a much smaller heater that will be mounted directly on the brass "shower assembly" where the water actually ends up, right above the espresso puck.

Here is what a ceramic heater looks like:









A few benefits from this approach:

- we can use less electricity (200W vs 800W) to heat the DE1 to ready

- we should be able to heat up faster (less mass to heat up now)

- we will have much less waste heat (less radiating off the group head)

Which means that we no longer need to use plastic to make the group head cover an insulator around the group head. There won't be enough heat radiating off it to burn yourself on.

So, four things going on this week:

- some group head internals redesign to move off of a calrod heater, to a ceramic heater (mechanical engineering, David)

- electrical calculation changes and some software programming to support the change (electrical engineering, Ray)

- design thinking into what a stamped metal group head cover should look like. (industrial design, Joao)

- getting pricing to manufacture this part (Alex and Johnny)

From a designer's standpoint, *I've never been happy about having a big blob of simulated-metallic-finish plastic on the group head*, right where everyone can see it, especially since we spent so much time and money using metal and wood everywhere else, to produce a high end machine.

So, in our next rev this will change to metal, and in the next 2 weeks I'll be able to post here a design for that group head cover, which we can make in metal.









As an aside, another little sourcing detail for us has been how to tidy up that USB charging cable on the tablet, and where should the cable go.

This week Jeffrey found a supplier for flush mount charge-only USB cables. They're virtually invisible, and look like this:









We need to have a custom cable made for us, and either snake it through a slot in the front panel, or through a screw hole. That'll be much cleaner looking.


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## Jollybean

Sounds a good plan and an improvement aesthetically to get a metal group cover. One query though - what is the extent of the water path that will not be heated. Will this still be sufficiently warmed by transferred heat?


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## kennyboy993

And is it likely these significant production changes relatively late with impact sale cost?


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## decent_espresso

kennyboy993 said:


> And is it likely these significant production changes relatively late with impact sale cost?


No change in sale cost: these last steps are us doing a final "walk through" the entire machine, and deciding where things could be improved before we commit to making 500 espresso machines with that design. As I've received more advice from people, the recurring theme in their advice has been to "get as much right as you can at launch, because those initial reviews will stick around forever".



Jollybean said:


> Sounds a good plan and an improvement aesthetically to get a metal group cover. One query though - what is the extent of the water path that will not be heated. Will this still be sufficiently warmed by transferred heat?


The only parts of the water path that aren't heated are the valves, connectors and tubing, which we don't have any effective way to heat. After the 5 minute startup, you should run a shot without coffee to heat those last bits. The shot-temperature chart on the tablet will in fact register that 1st shot as starting about ~8ºC too cool, and in about 20 seconds of running the "blank shot" the machine will be totally heat equalized and ready to make espresso within 1ºC.

I expect that the next internal iteration of the DE1 will start closer to the goal temperature, because

- the metal valve connectors are now plastic,

- and the "metal quick connect" (USD$8 each!) are now built directly into our "Ultem" mixing chambers, to that metal is gone.

- The tubing has always been PTFE, but the diameter is shrinking from 6/4mm to 4/2mm, based on outside engineering advice, and that will lower the amount of cool water in the tubes that need to be flushed out.

- the group head mass will have been 50% reduced.

So overall, we should heat up faster, and be more stable because our heat-input will respond faster. This also makes it faster to do water temperature changes, because we aren't fighting stored heat mass as much.


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## Jollybean

Thanks for your detailed response. I just love the amount of thought and attention to detail that is going into this machine


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## decent_espresso

For the past two years, we've had a moulded plastic cover on our group head. It's been made in plastic to keep you from burning yourself if you touched it. We've recently figured out how to keep the heat in, so we can use metal to make the cover, which will be classier looking and more durable. We're thinking about using stainless steel, though we haven't decided between brushed (resists fingerprints) or shiny (very classic).

So, we're taking the opportunity to rethink this design, and below you'll find some initial concept sketches for ideas we have.

Which one do you like?


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## decent_espresso

File this under the *WHY JOHN SPENDS SO MUCH TIME ON INTERNET FORUMS* category, I had a "holy cow" moment this morning where I put a 3D mockup of our upcoming Decent Scale under the drip tray, rather than on top of it. This was a suggestion made last week on HB, and I realized that this is so much more logical than putting the scale on top of the drip tray cover.

With the scale on top, you lose a lot of espresso cup height, and you also have to worry about water getting into the scale, and it's another thing to clean up. A usb micro charger cable isn't really possible in this configuration.

Under the drip tray, it's out of the way, you don't lose any cup height, and there is no cleanup to worry about. Plus, you can plug the usb power into the scale in a way that isn't even visible.

And, totally by accident, my design of putting the LEDs and buttons vertically, makes this idea possible. This wouldn't work with most other scales, since they all face upwards.

To see if this would work, I put the maximum amount of water into the drip tray, I picked the heaviest mug (IKEA) I have and i put 100ml of water (a lungo espresso shot). Good news: we're still 200g short of the 2000g capacity of our scale, so this should work.

I'll need to make sure that our scale has enough clearance that it doesn't touch the espresso machine when it's on the scale, but otherwise this idea should be straightforward. Since we haven't finalized the ceramic drip tray mould, now is the time to nail this idea down.

On the DE1+ I can make the tablet software tare the scale automatically when you tell it to start making an espresso, and then "gravimetric" automatic shot-off becomes really easy to code.


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## decent_espresso

We're making good progress on the timeline for finishing our upcoming Decent Scale https://decentespresso.com/scale

The firmware is done, and we're testing different types of translucent plastics to let the weight LEDs shine through but have it all look like a solid black black front when it's powered off.

The top LED gives the weight, while the bottom LED stays off by default, and becomes a timer if you tap the [] button to start it.


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## Obnic

Does the USB link mean the scale will be controllable from the tablet and the weight readout will be visible on the tablet screen too? If so, this is really very smart. A front facing scale under he drop tray is very tidy but a bit awkward to view (especially for tall folk like me). I also like the congruence of a single control panel for all machine functions.


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## MediumRoastSteam

@decent_espresso: With regards to the tablet, is the tablet custom made? What about the firmware/software? Say, for example, the tablet breaks: can I replace with any other stock android tablet and install the "decent" app or would I need to order one from you? Thanks. Love the machine and and the openness , well done.


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## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> Does the USB link mean the scale will be controllable from the tablet and the weight readout will be visible on the tablet screen too? If so, this is really very smart. A front facing scale under he drop tray is very tidy but a bit awkward to view (especially for tall folk like me). I also like the congruence of a single control panel for all machine functions.


Yes, but the tablet/scale data connection is over bluetooth, whilst usb is only for charging.

The reason for bluetooth and not USB for data is that Android tablets want to be USB "slaves", ie devices tethered to a real computer. While it is possible (with some hacking) to make an Android tablet into a USB master, the tablet will not charge while in that mode. So... bluetooth really is the best communication approach when working with phones & tablets.

Tablet control of the scale means that the tablet can "press the tare button" for you when you hit "make an espresso", on the assumption that you have put a cup under the group head by the time you started making an espresso. This also means the timer (on the tablet or the scale) can be started at any of these points:

- water starts flowing into the puck

- when preinfusion starts (or ends)

- when the first drop of espresso hits the cup

The goal will be for the under-the-drip-tray LEDs to display weight and time AND for those stats to also be on the tablet. However, the tablet will also use the scale to display "weight in cup" and a real "flow rate into cup" chart. I have a primitive flow meter app already written, so I know this will all glue together.

Note that this scale/drip tray integration will not work if the drip tray is plumbed in. For that, we need a different approach, and our intent for the DE1CAFE was to weigh the drip tray cover.

My plan is to offer this "gravimetric dosing" as an additional feature to the DE1+ for the cost of the scale (about £100) and potentially a low cost bracket to hold it all correctly in place.

- -

A bit off the topic of coffee, but here is a youtube video of an app that a Budapest-based magician named Bence did with our scale, to create a "magic table" that can tell you the next card in the deck by weighing it. You can see the interaction between the tablet, weighing and the scale with this demo.

Weighing "playing cards" on a table isn't so different than weighing a cup of espresso on a drip tray.

[video=youtube;brUd-WVIyU8]


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## mazi

decent_espresso said:


> To see if this would work, I put the maximum amount of water into the drip tray, I picked the heaviest mug (IKEA) I have and i put 100ml of water (a lungo espresso shot). Good news: we're still 200g short of the 2000g capacity of our scale, so this should work.


So the drip tray will be on the scale all the time?

I usually put portafilter on the drip tray when the machine is off. This could overload the scale.


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## Dylan

Does a constant stress on the scale (i.e. the drip tray when not in use) not affect it's longevity?


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## decent_espresso

MediumRoastSteam said:


> @decent_espresso: With regards to the tablet, is the tablet custom made? What about the firmware/software? Say, for example, the tablet breaks: can I replace with any other stock android tablet and install the "decent" app or would I need to order one from you? Thanks. Love the machine and and the openness , well done.


It is a stock Android tablet, with a 720P resolution, running Android 4.4.3. It is in fact this tablet that was made for Argos: http://www.argos.co.uk/product/5769298 and of the 20 or so tablets I tested, it is far and away the best. My guess is that Argos hired someone who really knows their stuff to put this manufacturer through the wringer, because it has the best screen, best Android install, it's really *fast*, it's the most stable, and even has a Google Apps license (very rare from Chinese manufacturers). No other tablet I evaluated came close. Most other tablets had OS stability issues, lackluster screens and were slow. At £70, this is an incredible value.

That being said, you're welcome to buy any Android tablet to replace the one we're using. There's nothing special or fancy about the one I picked, except it's wider than tall, very water resistant, and very, very well done. We'll eventually move to higher resolution tablets (and you can too) as they become affordable.


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Does a constant stress on the scale (i.e. the drip tray when not in use) not affect it's longevity?





mazi said:


> So the drip tray will be on the scale all the time? I usually put portafilter on the drip tray when the machine is off. This could overload the scale.


That's a good question (twice), let me ask my scale engineer.


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## decent_espresso

Lots of interesting espresso-parts stuff arrived today (saturday), and so I thought I'd share...

Yes, the pace of postings is picking up from me, because we're wrapping up so many different things up and can proceed to making these machines. It's mostly mechanical stuff at this point: the tablet software and firmware is looking good, another month or so of work to do.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

DRIP TRAY

We're looking at alternatives to ceramic for the drip tray because:

- it weighs 770g (1.7lbs) -- that's really heavy to air ship these to you.

- it can break if you drop it

- it is not easy to add plumbing to a ceramic dish

- if we want to add "gravimetric" dosing by putting the scale under the drip tray, saving 500g will really help us get way under our 2000g scale limit.

We're considering melamine for the drip tray (NOT for the water tank, have no fear), and today we received samples of a metaline container that is very similar in dimensions to our ceramic drip tray, but it comes in at 1/3rd the weight, and won't break (easily) if you drop it. Plus, you can mould a plumbing drain in it fairly easily (for the DE1PRO).









Melamine FAQ:

https://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm199525.htm

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

We're still working on a "flush diffuser" (what slows down a flush so you don't get splashed) and we've decided that the best solution is to have a big enough container to hold the "waste water" and then let it splash around and drain out. We prototyped the idea below yesterday and it worked well. In order to weigh the drip tray, we need to have a few millimeters of "play" around it, so that the drip tray doesn't touch anything, so we think that moving the diffuser into the machine body itself, and not close to the drip tray, is a good idea.









- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Our new iterations of the manifolds (mixing chambers) came in today, made from high-tech Ultem. The big improvement here is that the water connectors are now all moulded directly into the Ultem, and everything is using "clips" to be held into place. This removes a lot of material needed (lower cost), removes lots of potential water leak sources (every water seal is a liability) and greatly simplifies assembly *and* repair.

We also received a new iteration of temperature probes (with the threads, in the photo below) but we're hoping to move off of those, and have a "clip connector" design for our temperature probe, because threaded components that have a water seal on them are notorious to get right in production: if you screw them in too tightly you stress the seal out, and too loose and obviously you leak. The clip connectors don't have that problem. The parts for the new "clip connector" temperature probe design is in that upper plastic bag.

We're also trialing a new kind of gold-tipped temperature sensor in the small manifold -- keen eyes will spot 3 little drill holes on the amber-colored component on the right. We'll decide in the next two weeks on which of these 3 temperature sensor options we want to go with.


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## kennyboy993

I'm so excited about these machines but I'd be worried about being an early adopter.

Would anything be in place to allow easy and cheap upgrade/trade in paths?


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## PPapa

I have to agree that I love the clarity and seeing the progress. You should rethink "decent" part now! It sounds like you are trying your best to make it as good as it can get.

I might even reconsider about getting a machine at home...


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## booroo

Erm....HOW????!!!

Edit: in response to the magic table video!


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## decent_espresso

I get asked "when are you planning on shipping this machine" as well as "I thought this machine was done? why are you still fiddling?".

Those are very reasonable questions







, and here's what I've got to say on this topic.

- -

THE SALES TOUR:

Back in November, we had a working Beta machine. Not yet feature complete, but close, and making good espresso. I went on a two month sales tour, and received a lot more interest than I had expected, especially for the DE1+'s high end features. People wanted to place orders right now, give us money, to get in line to get one of the first machines. I thought we were just a few months from being able to make what I was demoing to the public.

During the tour, my 3 Beta machines broke down several times due to shipping damage. Upon my return to Decent HQ in January, I decided to fire my mechanical engineer due to these problems, and a lack of progress while I had been gone. I hired a new one to redesign how everything was mounted inside the machine. As we went through all the internals, component by component, we found lots of areas that were "ok", but really could be improved, and rather than wait for a future version, I decided to do the improvements now.

These improvements meant:

- easier to repair (with more space inside, comes apart easily)

- longer machine life (with better cooling, many fewer water seals, longer parts longevity)

- lower energy consumption, faster startup

- better espresso (better temperature stability, better pumps)

Since it's Bugs and I funding this company and the R&D, I felt it was our decision to make: to spend more time and money making the DE1 machines better for even the earliest customers.

- -

SOME POTENTIAL FUTURE PROBLEMS FOUND

In February I hired Jeremey and Matt from Blossom Coffee - two founders of a company who did something similar to us five years ago, but it didn't go that well. They're serious engineers and businessmen with direct experience in our field, and:

a) their extensive review of our hardware uncovered new problems with our existing designs, especially in terms of longevity

b) they had many performance improving suggestions that I thought were worth doing, and that I'd feel bad if our 1st customers didn't have.

The big component I was avoiding touching was the heated group head, because it worked, but Jeremy's arguments for longevity and better & faster temperature control won me over, so I decided two weeks ago to bite the bullet and implement his suggestions.

- -

DESIGN FREEZE END OF APRIL, MANUFACTURING START IN JUNE

We're making great espresso, just as we did back in November, and we're whittling down the list of mechanical decisions.

Our deadline for hardware changes is the end of April, at which point the CAD model moves away from my "creative" mechanical engineer, over to my two "production" engineers, who will refine the drawings for each manufacturing partner, so that each gets made, and we'll start ordering final parts in May. Manufacturing of these "early access" machines then starts in June, and that's when we'll also be applying for final UL certification.

And of course, the day-to-day discussion progress will continue to take place on this forum and on HomeBarista http://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-machine-now-available-t43925-730.html

- John Buckman, co-founder.


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## decent_espresso

Occasionally, we've seen "cavities" in our spent coffee puck, after an espresso shot, that look like hot water came through harder than elsewhere. Ideally, we want water to come out of the group head shower in an even way, so this has been something to solve.

We think that this problem is caused by how the holes on the group head shower are oriented. If you rotate the shower a bit, the holes can lie directly under where the water is coming out, and thus you'll have an uneven water distribution. We thought the problem was possible hole alignment between the shower and the shower screen, and that might contribute, but definitely getting the water to flow through the shower evenly is the first priority.

By the way, this is what a shower looks like:









and this screen sits on it, right on top of the coffee bed.









To test this theory, we loosened the screw, rotated the group head shower slightly, and voila! the holes-in-the-puck problem went away.

However, I don't think that's not a great solution for you guys, because it means everyone then has to worry about how these holes align if they take this apart to clean it. We thought that it'd be better if the hot water entered the group head as close to the center as possible, so that it has a better chance of flowing out everywhere evenly, and in such a way that hole alignment didn't matter.

Below is an annotated CAD drawing of our solution. The water path now has a little "cave" that redirects it very near the center, and in such a position that no shower screen holes will ever be below it.

FYI that hole on the far left is for flushing the dirty water out at the end of the shot. We have a separate water path for that so that we don't soil the clean "making espresso" water path.

And FYI #2, we're likely going to redesign that shower, rather than using an off-the-shelf part, to have more holes in it, so that water enters in a more distributed manner into the shower screen.


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## decent_espresso

This week, we're finalizing the water tank design, so we can send it out for manufacturing. For at least the first 500 machines, we'll be using porcelain (ceramic). While it is heavier than other options, it's totally food safe, even quite hot water, and totally dishwasher safe : lots of other material aren't.

We've previously allowed the water tank to slide out the front and the back. However, I'm blocking the back-fill because I've now had two employees think they're being helpful and unplug the 220V power plug as another person fills the water tank. That has them holding an open electrical wire inches from pouring water. Not good.

Banning filling from the back gains us 100ml of capacity because I can get rid of the little 1cm rim on the back. It also avoids the problem of the tank sliding out when you lift the DE1.

From the front, we've always had a little rim









that you squeeze with your fingers to pull the tank out.









However, ceramics are glazed and very rounded, and it's not been very easy to grab this. If we make the rim bigger, it becomes easier, but at a significant cost in water tank capacity (100ml for 1cm). There's also a ceramic deformation problem that if we have a rim on the front, we need to have a symmetrical rim on the back or the tray will deform when drying.

So, I've decided to remove all rims from the drip tray, which gains us 200ml of water capacity (bringing us up to 2000ml) but now we need a dependable way to get the water tank out.

My favorite idea is to put the tank on runners, so you push it in, hear a click, and it stays put. Then, push it again to have it pop out. Here's a video of what I mean:






However, that's going to take some R&D to get right, and I want to kill all the R&D that I can so that we can move to shipping.

Jeffrey's low-tech-but-just-works idea is to have a metal "pull tab" like so:









placed to the left of the water tank:









a little tug of the finger:









tugs the water tank out.

We've also considered button a metal "collar" around the entire water tank, so you pull that, or a strap, but this pull tab seems the most simple.

I'm soliciting ideas now, so let me know what you think of this, and if you have any other (simple) suggestions!


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## decent_espresso

booroo said:


> Erm....HOW????!!!Edit: in response to the magic table video!


The card deck appears to be randomized but actually it's in a preset order, so that by weighing how many cards are on the table, the software knows how many cards are in the deck, and thus knows what the next card will be when taken off the top of the deck. It's a nice trick.


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Does a constant stress on the scale (i.e. the drip tray when not in use) not affect it's longevity?


I heard back today from the manufacturer of our "load cell". That's the part that actually senses weight changes by measuring metal bending.

They wrote:



> This case won't reduce the durability of scale, but might influence a bit on accuracy because of the creep effect. For example, we put an object of 1kg on scale for a long time. When we remove the object, the value would not be 0 but 1~2g. (not accurate values)


My engineer wrote:



> This won't effect on the linearity of the scale. So it might be safe for our use case, if the total weight is smaller than 2kg.


I wrote back to my engineer:



> It sounds like a TARE will solve the problem, though. We always TARE right before starting the espresso.


To which my engineer replied:



> Yes, I agree. If the tray is not removed, there would be almost no influence.


So @Dylan, it appears that leaving a heavy weight on a scale will slowly cause it to sink slightly, so that if you remove the weight, you'll register a less than zero weight.

However, if you TARE before weighing, even if the weight has been on there a long time, the new weighing will be accurate.


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## Jollybean

As a quick solution for the water tray a removable knob/handle fitted with suction cups?


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## decent_espresso

David in Seattle is building our beta 7 machine now. It's crazy how much cleaner the design has become with a few months of iterations!









And we have new iterations of the group head and main mixing chamber (the amber colored part) made now and ready to slot in.


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## decent_espresso

We' re-engineered our group head water path, because we wanted to make sure that water hit the coffee evenly and with minimum force.

On our earlier machines and on most other machines, water enters via one hole, and then needs to be distributed evenly by the group head shower. The shower screen doesn't always manage to do this, which can result in uneven water flow into the puck. Some people buy expensive shower screens (the last part, touching the espresso puck) to try to even the water flow out there.

In this new design, water is entering in via one hole, flowing around a temperature probe, and then being channeled out in a 6-pointed star pattern. Water no longer will exit with any force. This makes the group head shower's job much easier, so it will be much more likely to evenly flow water into the puck, and with even force out of every hole.


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## decent_espresso

We've been mulling this over, and

- to give people greater confidence in investing their money into buying our espresso machines,

- to foster a greater community of espresso-hardware-hackers

we've decided that...

CAD FILES FOR ALL DECENT ESPRESSO PARTS WILL BE FREELY AVAILABLE ONLINE

That's right, we're going to publish CAD files for all our espresso machine parts.

That way, should anything ever happen to our company, and you have one of our machines, you'll always be able to get the part. Except for the two circuit boards, everything in our machine can be either purchased on the open market (pumps, heaters, Android tablets) or manufactured (CNCed) as a one-off part. That's how we've built our machines during prototyping.

We're going to be using Onshape https://www.onshape.com/ to publish and share these files, because it imports/exports well with Solidworks, exports to most other formats and it's free for non-private use.

Besides giving you (the potential customer) a huge safeguard, I'm personally hoping that this will encourage DYIers to take our parts, modify them, republish their improvements via onshape, so that we and other DYIers can try the ideas out.

For example, if you have an idea for a different water path into the coffee puck--perhaps something that preferentially puts water into the center that is typically denser--you can modify our CAD, have that new part made (it costs us about USD$100 to make a one-off) and test it out. If the idea "has legs" then other people can download your idea and have them printed as well.

Rights-wise, we'll retain the copyright to our parts, but give you rights to make use (copy) and make derivative works from it. I have to give it more thought, but I might use a Creative Commons by-nc-sa v3.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/hk/

As a start, here is the flush diffuser (so you don't get splashed when the shot ends into the drip tray):

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/6727c54dafbd47f2c6485d18/w/afd08d2bee2ec6efc551dff8/e/55a9442f4efca099eea362bf

You'll need to create a free onshape.com account first to be able to view the objects.


----------



## decent_espresso

Thanks to Ben for running a fluid simulation of our old group head design. Besides looking cool, it proves to us that this old design wasn't giving us even flow, and so moving to a new design is a very good idea. Next week we'll have a flow simulation of our new design.

I would theorize that other espresso machines that have single holes into the group head chamber have similarly uneven water flow. It's then up to the group head shower and screen to even it out.


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## Dylan

holes in the puck caused by uneven output from the dispersion thing and having to twist the shower screen so the water doesn't hit the gauze directly and go straight through is something that has cropped up a few times here before.

It's nice to see this addressed, it is difficult/impossible to know how these small things contribute to how the puck extracts, it could be minimal or it could be absolutely critical. Aiming for what seems obviously the 'best' way to go about things right from the outset is great. I think companies like Sage/Breville have made some good steps in group head design over the classic e61, but you seem to have thought of everything they have and more. Really impressed.


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## decent_espresso

We're rethinking the water output into the group head so that instead of the standard single hole (most machines) we use a calibrated maze to output water out of six holes. At 6 millileters/second, each hole should output 1 ml/second.

This design is a lot better than the single-hole version we previously had, with each hole now averaging: This design is a lot better than the single-hole version we previously had, with each hole now averaging: 99.70%, 107.80%, 107.40%, 99.30%, 103.90%, 103.90% (total =6.22ml/second). We can still do better, though!


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## MrShades

This is deeply impressive engineering and shows fantastic attention to detail... I like it a lot!


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## decent_espresso

We were worried that water going into our espresso group head was not being distributed evenly.

On most espresso machines (ours too, until recently), water comes into the group head (above the shower) via one hole. We used a computer based fluid simulation to show how the water is distributed on top of the shower with this way of doing things:






We then designed a new shower screen, so that when water is going onto the coffee slowly (such as during a slower preinfusion) the holes are calibrated to put water evenly around the entire puck. We used different heights in our shower screen to evenly output water across the entire puck at different water flow rates, with higher flow rates moving water further inwards. Our theory is that at slower water flow rates you want water circulating evenly around the entire center of the puck, so that through capillary action the entire puck is most likely to receive the water.

Our flow simulations show that this design is achieving a worst case error of 3% unevenness at flow rates varying between 1ml/second to 6ml/second.

















and finally, in the photo below you can see that we aligned the 12 holes on the cover plate on the top of the group head so that they each feed to a different area of the shower. There is a rotational-lock feature on these parts so that they always fit together the right way.


----------



## decent_espresso

We're still working on the steam wand for our DE1CAFE model, which is a counter-sunk model meant for cafes (or very designery homes). This model features an 18º angled steam wand, at rest. We came to this angle because Slayer and the Black Eagle are in the 17º to 19º range "at rest". This seems to be a great angle for baristas. Also, the wand tip now clears the front of the table so it's really easy to get even a 1 liter jug (pictured) in under the wand.


----------



## decent_espresso

We're starting to work on a distribution tool, that we'd add to our espresso coffee funnel https://decentespresso.com/funnel so that you can grind, spin, tap & tamp your way to better espresso.

I like the ideas behind the OCD but I'm not crazy about the results I get with it. Turns out there's a reason for that: http://socraticcoffee.com/2016/12/examining-the-impact-of-the-ocd-on-total-dissolved-solids-extraction/


----------



## mazi

@decent_espresso

something like this?


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## decent_espresso

mazi said:


> @decent_espresso
> 
> something like this?


Similar idea, yeah, though they have a height adjustment on their blade (cool) and their blade appears to be straight rather than over-engineered







like ours is.

We've come up with another blade idea that we're going to test out.


----------



## decent_espresso

We've settled on a final design on our water tank and we're having two ceramic factories make samples for us so we can choose the best one.

It will be:


made of porcelain,

black glazed on the outside (so it's invisible),

white glazed on the inside (so you can see muck and particles)

will have a small ceramic handle mounted to the front so you can pull it out easily.

have a 2 liter capacity.


It's a bit embarrassing, but we had a major breakthrough last week when one manufacturer asked if we could perhaps CNC what we wanted, because they can't read CAD files. It turns out that none of the ceramics factories in China can read CAD files, but were embarrassed to admit this. Instead they hand-make a mould from scratch by looking at our 2D drawings in the PDF we send. That explains the occasional very odd mistakes they make!

So, we're paying a small fortune ($750 each) to make solid aluminum CNCed "water tanks" that are exactly what we want, and sending them to these two ceramic factories. They'll then use those as forms for their moulds. We have high hopes this will finally solve the tolerance issues.

We also found out that a second "by hand" step is possible of wet-ceramic-gluing a handle to the front. That's a great solution to our "how do you pull the tank out" conundrum.

The ceramics will take about 6 weeks to make, so we want to get this process started now, and get 500 water tanks (and soon, drip trays) made now.


----------



## decent_espresso

Now that our group head redesign is almost done, we've shaved about 1cm from its height, and we can design a new (stainless steel) cover for it. Below are more sketches of ideas. Much more creativity is now possible because the reduced size of what we're covering. FYI, from the feedback I received about materials, it looks like brushed steel is the most often preferred texture for the group head cover. Shiny looks nice, but is hard to keep fingerprint free.

Below is a photo of the new group head (without a cover) and lots of hand-drawn ideas for covers from Joao. The tube coming out of the bottom is the hot water spout for Americanos.

There were a bunch of ideas in there that looked promising to me, so I've asked Joao to do real 3D drawings to see what actually works well in practice.


----------



## decent_espresso

I feel like we've gotten to a fairly good place with the design of the steam wand for our upcoming DE1CAFE model.

It now:


naturally points out at 18º at rest

angles up to a maximum of 36º down to 0º (vertical)

clears the front of the table edge, for easy insertion of very large milk jugs

allows for the milk jug to rest on the drip tray while steaming takes place, for hands-free (lazy) operation.


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## decent_espresso

In this photo:

﻿










We've committed to insulating the two heaters with silicone dips.

we've made custom connectors to weld onto the heater so that the "clip connectors" can used there.

there's a triple failsafe on both those heaters: an expensive German-made high accuracy, auto-resetting fuse at 180°C on the top center (for UL approval), and a non-resetting double fuse visible on the left, set at 200°C (for CE approval). CE doesn't allow resetting fuses for certification, but our idea is that the 180° fuse will always cut in before blowing the non-resetting (ie, repair needed) 200°C fuses.

you can see in this photo the now thin water tube lever slot on the back

toward the back you can see a standard IEC power plug, a RJ45 adaptor for the plumbing kit (or other accessories) and a USB power pass-through to charge the tablet (no more messy cable on the side of the machine).

what you can't see are the two pumps, are mounted on a panel that has been removed in this view so that we can see inside.


In this photo:









﻿


we've managed to raise the wand mounting point by 12mm. I'm happy about this because I wanted a bit more ease of getting a milk jug under the steam wand. We've changed how that front splash panel is mounted so this could be done.

only one mount point for the group head handle.

that yellow tube below the group head is the Americano water spigot. Its exact position is still being figured out.

I lied about the water tank design being finalized :-O - We came up with a last minute better solution of a built in under-handle, like a drawer, which we think the ceramics companies can do. This photo shows that.

we're working on a sharper angle for that splash panel mirror, so that you don't have to bend down to look at it and see the bottom of the basket and espresso coming out.

we're still working on a group head cover design. First attempt is below, but still needs work.﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

We're narrowing our list of the remaining engineering problems to solve. In this week's revisions:


we've flipped the mounting panel for the pumps so that instead of it being on the outside edge, it's inside a bit. This gives the inside of the frame greater rigidity. We were worried that the twisting motion of mounting the portafilter on would gradually deform the chassis. We also have added a large L shaped plate (not visible from this view) that the group head bolts to, which adds horizontal rigidity as well. As a bonus this change also totally isolates the PC boards from the water uptake.

The hot water pipe (for Americanos) now has a stainless steel tube around a solid-teflon tube, so that baristas flailing their portafilters around the group head won't damage that hot water tube.

We've found a place to horizontally mount the flow meter (on that center panel) for the DE1+.

You can see the final design of the water tank pull-out handle in this drawing.


Still to be finalized are the vibration absorbing mounts for the two pumps. We're taking inspiration from an approach that we've found in taking apart a really nicely mounted Nespresso capsule machine, and using a coiled spring that goes from smaller to larger, which prevents resonance frequencies, and next week we'll design the rubber mount which fits on top of the pumps and which absorbs the vibrations. We have lots of good samples of this here to choose from, so we don't think this'll be too hard a problem.


----------



## decent_espresso

We're refining the angle of the mirrored lip on our espresso machine, so that you can look into it and see the bottom of your espresso portafilter, with espresso coming out. In this way you don't have to bend down to assess the quality of your drink.


----------



## itguy

Very impressive!

Excuse my ignorance but what type of system is the machine going to use? Will it be a dual boiler? HX? Thermoblock/coil etc?

Thanks


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## decent_espresso

itguy said:


> Excuse my ignorance but what type of system is the machine going to use? Will it be a dual boiler? HX? Thermoblock/coil etc?Thanks


Neither, it's our invention: we preheat a ceramic vessel to 50ºC, which is a kind of "low temperature boiler" and then use a thermocoil to heat the water a few ºC higher than you asked for, and then use two pumps (one hot, one cold) to mix the water temperature down to what you asked for. This allows us to dynamically alter the water temperature based on the cooling effect of the grounds & portafilter, so that your infusion temperature is reached sooner.


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## decent_espresso

Joao has designed a group head cover that I like, but he has surprised me with a black group head finish (same material and finish as on the body) and I'm finding that I like it. What do you think?

















ps: he's accidentally got the DE1CAFE steam wand design on this pics, that's not the wand design we'll be using on this machine model.


----------



## dlight

itguy said:


> Very impressive!
> 
> Excuse my ignorance but what type of system is the machine going to use? Will it be a dual boiler? HX? Thermoblock/coil etc?
> 
> Thanks


None of the above. Perhaps you should read the thread.


----------



## MediumRoastSteam

Personally, I prefer the black group head better. Maybe would look nice with a black drip tray grid?


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## itguy

dlight said:


> None of the above. Perhaps you should read the thread.


thanks for that pearl of wisdom, at post #582 in the thread.


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## decent_espresso

MediumRoastSteam said:


> Personally, I prefer the black group head better. Maybe would look nice with a black drip tray grid?


I thought that a year ago too, and had a cover made in black. I personally found it just looked "wrong" but that could be my conservatism speaking. WDYT?


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## decent_espresso

itguy said:


> Very impressive!Excuse my ignorance but what type of system is the machine going to use? Will it be a dual boiler? HX? Thermoblock/coil etc?Thanks





dlight said:


> None of the above. Perhaps you should read the thread.





itguy said:


> thanks for that pearl of wisdom, at post #582 in the thread.


Given how much I blather on, I think he can be forgiven for asking a straightforward question.

Even I, who wrote much of this stuff, often have trouble finding my previous posts where I answered something, so a certain amount of repetition is not only going to happen, it's probably a good thing if the basic questions get answered on a cyclical basis.


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## MediumRoastSteam

decent_espresso said:


> I thought that a year ago too, and had a cover made in black. I personally found it just looked "wrong" but that could be my conservatism speaking. WDYT?
> 
> View attachment 25922


I think it's hard to look at things in isolation to determine whether something looks good or not.

What about doing one of the renderings above with a black drip dray & black group head? (I am not sure how difficult that is).

This is an amazing thread and machine. I will definitely be looking at one when they are in production!


----------



## Lefteye

Depending on how the water tray cover was coated would there be a risk of scratching through the black surface, cheapening the look,due to cups etc on the grill less likely with the group head.


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## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> Depending on how the water tray cover was coated would there be a risk of scratching through the black surface, cheapening the look,due to cups etc on the grill less likely with the group head.


Yes, that is likely to be a hard-to-solve problem, and that's also why I'm not using brushed steel on the drip tray and shiny, reflective, polished steel. Ceramic mugs are likely to scratch metal.

- - -

On a different topic, I received a PM suggesting that I post photos of the real DE1's finish, because the renders above make the black finish seem very glossy, which it isn't in the real world.


----------



## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> Joao has designed a group head cover that I like, but he has surprised me with a black group head finish... What do you think?.


+1 for shiny black metal. Makes the look distinctive - not trying to mimic standard chromed brass kit and not looking like less expensive home machines either.

Challenge will be a chip proof coating though. Try as we do, group heads get the occasional bump with a portafilter.

Edit: just read comments about the satin finish. I still say black works.


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## Obnic

Lefteye said:


> Depending on how the water tray cover was coated would there be a risk of scratching through the black surface, cheapening the look,due to cups etc on the grill less likely with the group head.


Would it work to dip the cover in something like silicon? I ask because to my ill informed mind, this might ameliorate scratching but also damp any rattling. I (and others I think) apply stick dots, anti slip matting, sugru and all sorts of fixes to drip tray covers and cup warming meshes to isolate and protect them.


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## dan1502

If the group cover is aluminium it could be blasted and anodised black (or another colour). Some very high end hifi has that finish and some CNC'd cases I had made were finished that way by the company that does the anodising for Naim and such like. It's hardwearing and a lovely finish. Having said that I've seen similar finishes done cheaply that mark quite easily.


----------



## decent_espresso

dan1502 said:


> If the group cover is aluminium it could be blasted and anodised black (or another colour). Some very high end hifi has that finish and some CNC'd cases I had made were finished that way by the company that does the anodising for Naim and such like. It's hardwearing and a lovely finish.


Yes: you're describing the exact the process and materials for the current cases, which is what I'm proposing for the group head cover too. Short of banging on the group head repeatedly with a sharp object, it shouldn't scratch.

I don't see any problem with the occasional tap from the portafilter. We repeatedly whacked our anodized aluminum knockbox prototype, hard, with the portafilter, and we did manage to get some scratches in it, but we had to do this deliberately, and with gusto, about 4 times.

Assuming your psychotic episodes don't happen while you're making espresso, you should be fine.











Obnic said:


> Would it work to dip the cover in something like silicon? I ask because to my ill informed mind, this might ameliorate scratching but also damp any rattling. I (and others I think) apply stick dots, anti slip matting, sugru and all sorts of fixes to drip tray covers and cup warming meshes to isolate and protect them.


It might be that slip dots under the corners of the drip tray will be needed for rattling control. We used duct tape on our 1st beta machine because of rattling, but the later machines haven't needed it, perhaps because the vibration damping mechanism on the pumps has improved.

Except for the drip tray cover, nothing else on the DE1 beta machines has rattled.


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## decent_espresso

We're very late on shipping our barista kits (with suitcase) https://decentespresso.com/barista_kit because getting the foam right has turned out to be incredibly hard. I had assumed that we'd use cut foam, and that's what the rendered models use. However, when we got the cut samples from the factory, I found that they (a) smelled terrible (b) were impossible to clean, because coffee got caught in the foam's air bubbles © were heavy and (d) was not long lasting.

We've iterated over and over and decided to try very thin, foam covered in stretchy spandex. That got rid of the smell, made it easy to clean and long lasting. We first tried this idea out on our tamping kit and it looks good.

﻿








Unfortunately, the edges where the spandex meets the foam are not perfect looking on about half the ones we made, so we're either going to have to sell those 250 forms at a 30% sale, or throw them out







That's why we started with the tamping kit, because it's smaller than the barista kit, and such a mistake is less expensive.

The factory came back with a suggestion to fix the edge problem, and for the barista kit they are sewing on a piece of fabric to cover the and protect the edge. Here's what that looks like:

﻿








we'll receive that in a few days, test it out, and if it's as good as I hope, we'll tell the factory to manufacture 500 of them.

And if you're interested, here's a photo of the CNCed mould that is used to form the foam sheet into the needed shape.


----------



## decent_espresso

Australian barista Lee Safar pointed out that the counter height was too high in our backslash mirror angle experiments, and the person was too far away as well.

So, we redid the render at 30cm away from the espresso machine, 1.7 meter person height, with a 95cm bar (also more realistic). We adjusted the panel angle some more, and I think it's good now.









Here is someone slightly taller, also at 30cm distance (photo is mislabeled) view from the other side. If you're shorter, no problem, just move yourself closer to the espresso machine to change the mirror angle.


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## GaryM

Group head cover - I see mention of black anodized aluminium... The dye used in this process has a tendency to change to a purple and fade over time... And these machines should look good for a very long time. A custom powdercoat may be a better choice.


----------



## decent_espresso

GaryM said:


> Group head cover - I see mention of black anodized aluminium... The dye used in this process has a tendency to change to a purple and fade over time... And these machines should look good for a very long time. A custom powdercoat may be a better choice.


Thanks for the warning. I just read up on this issue on this mechanical engineering forum:

https://www.finishing.com/2400-2599/2459.shtml

and it appears that this problem is not inevitable, rather it is due to two causes:

- a dye that has poor UV resistance

- too thin a coating

That said, we also have powder coated chassis here, and the finish is quite nice too. We'll decide which we go with in May when we get actual manufacturing samples.


----------



## Dylan

I noticed you are selling a couple of other scales on your website now, I just had a couple of questions -

The Brewista V2 - The rendering on your site looks different to the pictures on places like CoffeeHit - is it an accurate representation of the ones you have?

The Skale - Can only find references to this on Indonesian, Taiwanese (where it is made?) and one Aus site... is it any good - do the apps work OK if you are english speaking? Why have you chosen to sell it?


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## dan1502

Done properly in the way discussed I wouldn't be concerned by discolouration, the finish can be superb and very hard wearing. Much more tactile than powder coating in my opinion.


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I noticed you are selling a couple of other scales on your website now, I just had a couple of questions - The Brewista V2 - The rendering on your site looks different to the pictures on places like CoffeeHit - is it an accurate representation of the ones you have?


The render on our web site still looks like the Brewista V1, but it actually is v2. The v2 and v1 Brewistas are only physically different in these ways:

1) Brewista v2 is 2mm taller

2) Brewista v2 has an optional black silicone top that I don't recommend using. That's why it's not on the render. The water and heat resistance of the Brewista is excellent without it.

The best feature of the Brewista v2 is that it has internal rechargeable batteries, and usb charging. At the moment, that Brewista scale is my favorite all-around non-bluetooth espresso scale.



Dylan said:


> The Skale - Can only find references to this on Indonesian, Taiwanese (where it is made?) and one Aus site... is it any good - do the apps work OK if you are english speaking? Why have you chosen to sell it?


I'm impressed that you managed to find it at all because the guys who make Skale are brilliant engineers but terrible at marketing!

But now you've given me a good reason to write the history of these scales, which I'm doing for the first time below.

Skale 1 was created and made in Taiwan by Atomax, a very small company doing their living doing contract-base product design. They wanted to write their own pour-over coffee flow rate recipe app (Taiwanese are REALLY into coffee!) but couldn't do this with any existing 0.1g bluetooth scale (which don't have open APIs), so they made their own scale. It was much more of a project-for-love than a great business idea.

Skale 1 was really nicely engineered, a great API for iPhone and Android and a very striking design. Unfortunately, it was very expensive to make ($40 each factory price). And while Atomax is great at the technical aspects, they're not all that good at marketing. This scale was 0.1g accurate, had a good bluetooth implementation, and two coffee apps (pictures below), but had no display and thus could only be used when connected to a phone or tablet.

After they sold out their 1000 Skales they dropped the pour-over coffee idea, made a less expensive design called Skale 2 (at $20 factory price to make), a rethought design and app aiming for cake baking. The bluetooth was further debugged, a USB plug was added, and significantly, a weight LCD appeared so you could use the scale without connecting to a phone or tablet.

I met Atomax when they were still making their Skale 1, and I had ideas for my own scale. Since they had already done much of the work, I hired Atomax to make the Decent Scale, based on the internals of the Skale 2, but with several changes directed by myself and my industrial designer Joao. Most significantly, the design was totally rethought for high water resistance. The shape was changed to hold two coffee cups, and a timer was added. The user-interface was rewritten to make the scale work well without being connected to a phone or tablet. The batteries were upgraded to 4xAA for longer scale life.

So, to answer your questions as to why we sell these models:

1) the Brewista v2 is an excellent high end non-bluetooth, low profile 0.1g espresso scale

2) the Decent Scale will be available in a few months, and will be the scale we promote for most use, except where you need the lower profile of the Brewista

3) the Skale 2 is likely only appealing to app developers, who want to get started programming now, since the Decent Scale is API compatible with it. As it happens, I'm funding a dozen different open source app projects at a local university, using Skale 2, as those apps will be useful with the Decent Scale too.


----------



## decent_espresso

We're integrating a few people's separate work into the DE1 tablet software now, and this week we've added:


the ability to choose from 14 "tablet styles" (aka "skins") where you tap on the image to activate steam/hot-water/espresso. Some of the tablet styles have different features (such as "instrumented" style that shows you all the internal sensors).

the ability to browse/load/save/modify/delete pressure profiles (and the espresso set temperature)

multi language support, including now having translated the tablet GUI into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese. At launch we'll also include Korean, Japanese, Chinese Simplified & Traditional, Arabic and others if people volunteer to help. All the supplied tablet styles are multilanguage.

While the buttons are now in the GUI, we haven't yet implemented (1) cleaning cycles for espresso and steam (2) firmware updating (3) power on/off timer (4) re-pairing via bluetooth to another machine


Below are pictures of the DE1 GUI in English, and some of the other pages in some other languages we're doing.


----------



## Dylan

Cheers for the explanation regarding scales.

Do you have any plans to try to implement a basic scale with timer? I ask because scales with 0.1g accuracy are available for dirt cheap and in abundance, but if you want a scale with a timer function you are immediately talking 10x the price.

I guess the segment of the market that wants this combination is fairly small so somewhat difficult to drive down the price on such a product. But personally I have very little interest in the new Brewista (after the V1 proved to have worse longevity than a £5 ebay jobby) especially as it's new price, and the only functions I ever used on the V1 were the scale and timer.

I very much liked having the single unit of scale and timer with the Brewista V1, but ultimately any new scale is competing as a value proposition against a ebay scale+separate timer, and this makes a £100 scale seem like an absurd luxury.


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Do you have any plans to try to implement a basic scale with timer? I ask because scales with 0.1g accuracy are available for dirt cheap and in abundance, but if you want a scale with a timer function you are immediately talking 10x the price. I very much liked having the single unit of scale and timer with the Brewista V1, but ultimately any new scale is competing as a value proposition against a ebay scale+separate timer, and this makes a £100 scale seem like an absurd luxury.


The Decent Scale we made works as a nice basic 0.1g accurate scale with timer, without your using the bluetooth features.

But to answer your question directly: I'm not interested in making a low quality, very low cost scale that competes with no-name stuff that you can buy on ebay.

I've bought those scales before and I would rather spend more to get a scale that doesn't frustrate me. If you're perfectly happy with a (say) £10 scale, there's no profitability in that sector to motivate us to spend R&D money to make something that competes. My hope is that after going through a half dozen of those (as I have) you'll be willing to buy more for higher quality. If not, that's fine, that's why those cheap scales exist on eBay.


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## decent_espresso

Not yet for sale online: if you want one, let me know when you order.


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## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> The Decent Scale we made works as a nice basic 0.1g accurate scale with timer, without your using the bluetooth features.
> 
> But to answer your question directly: I'm not interested in making a low quality, very low cost scale that competes with no-name stuff that you can buy on ebay.
> 
> I've bought those scales before and I would rather spend more to get a scale that doesn't frustrate me. If you're perfectly happy with a (say) £10 scale, there's no profitability in that sector to motivate us to spend R&D money to make something that competes. My hope is that after going through a half dozen of those (as I have) you'll be willing to buy more for higher quality. If not, that's fine, that's why those cheap scales exist on eBay.


I don't think I would expect you to compete in the £10 scale market, I dont think it would be behoove anyone to try and compete with the mass produced chinese goods without some specific value add.

What I mean is, for a scale that serves two basic functions - weight and time -

£100 is too much - your decent scale is £80, plus £10 shipping all before taxes and import duty. ('too much' is obviously my opinion here, but one I think is shared to some extent)

You can serve the above function with £10-20 on ebay and two items, but as you say not great quality.

However what is missing for me is a good middle of the market option. This was seemingly served by Brewista when they released their V1 scale, and for the £40 it cost me at the time I was very happy with it. However it then turned out to have many problems reported on the forum, and mine also just stopped working... a problem I had never had with any £10 ebay scales.

What would be perfect for me at least is a 'middle of the market' scale that was able to serve just those two functions, no bells and whistles.

It might just be me, but I think the Brewistas were popular when they came out for this very reason, that they seems like a quality scale, perhaps a bit more than you would normally spend but worth it if you didn't have to buy another scale again for a while and did everything you needed out of them. The V2 scales, as far as I can tell have virtually no users on these forums because they are more expensive and now have a bad rap.


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## Brewster

Dylan said:


> the Brewistas were popular when they came out for this very reason, that they seems like a quality scale, perhaps a bit more than you would normally spend but worth it if you didn't have to buy another scale again for a while and did everything you needed out of them. The V2 scales, as far as I can tell have virtually no users on these forums because they are more expensive and now have a bad rap.


Agreed. My V1 scales have worked perfectly and well worth £40, but not a chance I'd spend the amount they're after for V2. I'd consider myself in the category of people who spend more money than sensible on some things if I'm interested, but I've never been tempted to spend £100+ on a scale with a timer.


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## Mrboots2u

The market for acaia scales would suggest that there is a place for £100 scales ....


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## Dylan

Mrboots2u said:


> The market for acaia scales would suggest that there is a place for £100 scales ....


I am in no way trying to suggest that there isn't, Decent are likely to sell a fair few scales to this exact market.

I am just saying that I personally am not in that market, my comments on brewista scales being too expensive are when considering the market that bought their V1 scales.


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## 4085

Mrboots2u said:


> The market for acaia scales would suggest that there is a place for £100 scales ....


alternately, there are lots of idiots about


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## FerrersWay

Just read through the entire thread over the last couple of days, fascinating to see the product develop and please, keep posting the thought process.

I'm a coffee newbie, but as a developer, I love the idea of having a ton more information about what is happening during the process, have you got any ideas about how to remove the guesswork from grinding? It seems to be a large area of uncertainty/inconsistency


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## decent_espresso

FerrersWay said:


> I'm a coffee newbie, but as a developer, I love the idea of having a ton more information about what is happening during the process, have you got any ideas about how to remove the guesswork from grinding? It seems to be a large area of uncertainty/inconsistency


Grinding and dosing remain difficult for people, and for me the key is measurement and repeatability.

I have a few parts of the puzzle done, such as a spring-calibrated tamper, matching baskets, a tamping cradle, and I'm finalising a grind-by-weight product.

We've also started R&D on a grounds distribution tool, but I want to be honest about this: nobody has figured this out yet, though many people have tried, so there's no guarantee that we'll crack it either. I've got a friendly "coopetion" thing going with Matt Perger, and he tells me he's go something going that is sometimes making 2x better shots, but not consistently (yet). He's got the smarts to crack this problem, and he might beat us to it.

Getting the same dose, at a similar grind, evenly distributed & tamped, is a prerequisite to getting the grind fineness right. A bottomless portafilter is also important, to tangibly verify that you did a good prep job.

On the DE1+ you can see the flow rate, puck compression, and channeling (both as fast pressure drops and also flow rate increases) during an espresso shot. That will tell you a lot about your puck prep and grind (and the quality of your grinder).

To answer your question about grinding:

If your grind is just too coarse, On the DE1+ you'll see this as (a) the puck not compressing [and thus the flow rate not slowing down] or (b) the puck compressing but the flow rate still being too fast and © too short a shot time. You can then adjust your grind accordingly.

In R&D, we're working on a modification kit for existing grinders, to add grind-by-weight, as well as bluetooth control of a grinder. We're starting with the Hey Cafe 64mm burr grinders, because they're very good value for a ~Robur grade grind quality, and once we finalise the mods, we'll ship those grinders already modified.

*IF* it makes business sense and we get the tech working right, and if Mazzer lets us be a reseller, there's also the possibility of our selling modded Roburs (and other Mazzers) with grind by weight and bluetooth control added to them. They'll have their own app, so you can use them with any setup, but they'll also be remote controllable by the DE1+ software. We're starting with Hey Cafe grinders first.


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## decent_espresso

The final forms for our drip tray and water tank have been made. A robotic CNC machine milled these out of solid blocks of aluminum!

﻿https://3.basecamp.com/3671212/blobs/117596a0156b175297b30b1771d5f1a80010/download/miykds.jpg






﻿

In case you haven't been following every single progress report I sent, these were needed because we recently discovered that none of the ceramics factories can read 3D CAD files, but they were embarrassed to say so. They've been approximating by reading our 2D drawings, and getting things only somewhat right. The ceramics factories asked us to give them exactly what we wanted them to make, and they'd figure out how to do that (hopefully, taking clay shrinkage into account!).

We've made two sets because we've got two final contenders in terms of ceramics factories to order from. These water tanks cost USD $750 each to make, so I really hope this "cracks the code" and we finally get something we're happy to use.

Also received today:


in the bottom left, you can see our first attempt at a home-made "flush diffuser" so that you don't get splashed when the pressure is released.

in the center bottom, is our first attempt at a "blade" that will fit into our portafilter funnel, to turn the funnel into a rotating grounds diffusion tool.


Below is a photo of two espresso machine legs, which are also going to the ceramics vendors, so they can make sure the water tank and drip tray they make fit well into it.

These legs are a new design for us, in that they're now made out of one piece of bent aluminum. For the past two years we've made the legs from two parts that we bolted together, but we were concerned that after several years the legs would eventually sag in the middle, so we've switched to this much stronger (but harder to pull off) design.

﻿

﻿


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## GaryM

Are you slip casting the ceramic?


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## decent_espresso

GaryM said:


> Are you slip casting the ceramic?


Pressure casting. The details are apparently too fine for slip casting.


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## decent_espresso

We've now reintegrated the changed mirror angle, shape and length from Joao's study, into our CAD model.









Happily, this also gives us more space to mount the flush tube in, and still have it be out of sight.

We still need to figure out how the usb cable is going to come out the front panel and connect discreetly to the tablet to keep it charged. I don't really want to cut a notch out like this, as it's not a very elegant solution:









much better would be something like this, that we're trying to source this week:


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## Rhys

decent_espresso said:


> We've now reintegrated the changed mirror angle, shape and length from Joao's study, into our CAD model.
> 
> View attachment 26068
> 
> 
> Happily, this also gives us more space to mount the flush tube in, and still have it be out of sight.
> 
> We still need to figure out how the usb cable is going to come out the front panel and connect discreetly to the tablet to keep it charged. I don't really want to cut a notch out like this, as it's not a very elegant solution:
> 
> View attachment 26067
> 
> 
> much better would be something like this, that we're trying to source this week:
> 
> View attachment 26066


As far as the charging thing goes, you can get chargers now that don't need to plug in. I've seen iPhone cases from IKEA that you just sit on top of a charging mat. This could all be built into the cradle.


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## Rhys

decent_espresso said:


> We've now reintegrated the changed mirror angle, shape and length from Joao's study, into our CAD model.
> 
> View attachment 26068
> 
> 
> Happily, this also gives us more space to mount the flush tube in, and still have it be out of sight.
> 
> We still need to figure out how the usb cable is going to come out the front panel and connect discreetly to the tablet to keep it charged. I don't really want to cut a notch out like this, as it's not a very elegant solution:
> 
> View attachment 26067
> 
> 
> much better would be something like this, that we're trying to source this week:
> 
> View attachment 26066


As far as the charging thing goes, you can get chargers now that don't need to plug in. I've seen iPhone cases from IKEA that you just sit on top of a charging mat. This could all be built into the cradle.


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## decent_espresso

Rhys said:


> As far as the charging thing goes, you can get chargers now that don't need to plug in. I've seen iPhone cases from IKEA that you just sit on top of a charging mat. This could all be built into the cradle.


In order to pull that off, we'd need to make a custom case around our tablet, going into its USB micro charger plug, and then have hardware behind the case for wireless charging. Besides the R&D, and the extra cost in parts, this would mean that our form factor cannot change over time, you must use our tablet only and you cannot use just any Android tablet you buy on the open market. I much prefer to stay generic.

Once wireless charging is widespread, and the hardware is built into tablets, we'll certainly go this route. My aim for now is "keep it simple" with an old fashioned usb-micro charger cable, which works on just about every Android tablet out there.


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## DoubleShot

No love for iPhone users?


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## decent_espresso

DoubleShot said:


> No love for iPhone users?


Our espresso machines come with a tablet included, and it's Android and it "just works".

At our launch time, I didn't think that taking your phone out, turning it on, launching an app, connecting via bluetooth, was really a great way to go about making an espresso. That's more likely to frustrate people.

I have plans for porting our tablet app to iPad, but that'll have to wait for next year.


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## decent_espresso

Ben Champion suggested we change the group head design to make experimentation easier, which we've now done. Ben and Ray are now trying several different group head diffuser ideas, some based on calibrated orifices, some on turbulence:









All of these are performing well under simulation, and all are much better than the single-hole approach we had (and that you find in other espresso machines). However, it's unlikely that we'll decide which one is the "bee's knees" of diffusers in the next few weeks. We'll likely choose one of the calibrated approaches, because it's known to work well (turbulence is very hard to understand and model).

We'll keep banging away on these ideas in the months to come, and I'm hoping that once the DE1 is out, other people will join in with their own ideas, and have them CNCed (local CNC cost is about $150 for this part) to see if they work better. With lots of people banging on the problem of even water flow (at low velocity) under varied conditions, I'm hoping that a winning approach will emerge (or maybe several). We'll be posting the CAD files for our own ideas, in case you want to start with that and modify it.

Here's what some of the simulations look like. We're trying to have even water flow, but also quite low velocity, to minimise "drilling into" the coffee puck, at varied pressures and flow rates.

Our next set of simulations, which Ben has started to work on, involve simulating the puck's absorption of water. We're hoping to gain a better understanding of what happens during preinfusion through this work.


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## MediumRoastSteam

decent_espresso said:


> Our espresso machines come with a tablet included, and it's Android and it "just works".
> 
> At our launch time, I didn't think that taking your phone out, turning it on, launching an app, connecting via bluetooth, was really a great way to go about making an espresso. That's more likely to frustrate people.
> 
> I have plans for porting our tablet app to iPad, but that'll have to wait for next year.


I absolutely admire the efforts put into this machine, as well as the tech and all the innovative design of parts, like, ceramic boilers, water mixing etc.

For me, I wouldn't mind having the machine design in a way that the [Android] tablet/phone is an accessory, allowing customers to buy their own or one offered as part of the machine package. I, for instance, would have no issues taking my phone out of my pocket connected and pre-paired via Bluetooth or optionally connect via USB, turn the machine on, and 10 minutes later hit the "Espresso" button. In the same way, my wife could do the same with her phone, or we could just use our "family" tablet to control the machine. I understand that connecting via bluetooth in that way could be interesting if all the devices are in range. So maybe a "priority" list would be ideal.

I am also very aware that the release/development/connectivity of the Android platform is far better than the somewhat restrictive iOS, so it's only natural to first release on Android and then move on to iOS.

Anyway, @decent_espresso, fantastic job, a big "well done" and congratulations from me. Amazing product.


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## decent_espresso

In the past 48 hours, 23 people have volunteered to translate the DE1 tablet software, and we now have added Swedish, Hungarian, Thai, and Danish to the list of supported languages (in addition to Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German).

There are about 40 artistic tablet styles that will be available on the DE1. Instead of doing real work, this past summer I worked with 40 different artists, from all around the world, to create these. The translations are automatically used on all of them. Below you can see some examples of this, in Korean, Japanese and Swedish.


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## decent_espresso




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## MediumRoastSteam

Amazing software and demo! Well done! May I suggest a future enhancement/feature? Towards the end you show the option that the machine can turn on/off at specific times. Is there any plans to do that using a weekly scheduler? For example - and I know the DE1 does not take nowhere as long as an e61 machine to heat up - I have my machine set to turn on at different times during the week to suit my working schedule/pattern and at a later time during the weekend.

Great work!


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## decent_espresso

MediumRoastSteam said:


> Amazing software and demo! Well done! May I suggest a future enhancement/feature? Towards the end you show the option that the machine can turn on/off at specific times. Is there any plans to do that using a weekly scheduler? For example - and I know the DE1 does not take nowhere as long as an e61 machine to heat up - I have my machine set to turn on at different times during the week to suit my working schedule/pattern and at a later time during the weekend. Great work!


Yep, I've sketched out my idea for this, and plan to implement it as a free software upgrade in the future. You're not the only one who has asked for it!


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## PPapa

decent_espresso said:


> In the past 48 hours, 23 people have volunteered to translate the DE1 tablet software, and we now have added Swedish, Hungarian, Thai, and Danish to the list of supported languages (in addition to Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German).


I could spare some time to add Lithuanian language as well. PM me if you feel like it's worth effort for quite small market.


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## decent_espresso

Today, we start ordering parts for the 180 DE1/DE1+ machines that have been pre-ordered. We're buying enough parts to build a first run of 500 machines. Depending on the part, it can take up to two months to receive an order, which is why we're starting now, so we can start assembling in June.

We ordered 500 units of the steam wand for the DE1/DE1+ models. This is an off-the-shelf part from our espresso parts supplier. We're also ordering 500 units of our own-design steam wand for the not-yet-announced DE1CAFE model. In the photos below you can see the difference between them. The cafe model steam wand is meant to extend beyond the front of the counter, and to be the right height in a countersunk espresso machine, and to easily accommodate 1 liter jugs. The DE1/DE1+ steam and is more compact and is optimized for the shape of that espresso machine.

As promised, we will be sharing CAD files for every part we've created. Here is the CAD file for the DE1CAFE steam wand: https://tinyurl.com/de1cafe-steam-wand (you'll need a free onshape.com account to see it)























￼￼￼


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## decent_espresso

Back in 2013, just getting started on this Decent Espresso project, I was at Burning Man and was floored by the LED "eye candy" display by the Disorient camp http://wiki.disorient.info/index.php?title=Disorient

Here is what it looked like:






Being a geek, I scrutinized the circuit board, power supply, and I was really impressed how well engineered it all was. Having something this complicated survive 110ºF and sand storms is not easy. I'm not the only one who was impressed, here's an article about the tech : https://blog.adafruit.com/2014/03/18/disorient-pyramid-beagleboneblack-txinstruments-beagleboardorg/

I happened to meet Disorient's engineer on this project, at a free coffee stand run by some crazy Italians and I picked his brain for a half hour.

One major take-away: he absolutely loved, loved, loved Meanwell power supplies. They'd never failed him, in all his years at Burning Man. That's quite an endorsement.

Today, we ordered 500 units of this Meanwell power supply for the first manufacturing run of the DE1:

http://www.meanwell.com/productPdf.aspx?i=225

It's totally sealed (airtight), fanless, and we've never had a problem with any of them. It's a pricey part, when you're running a power supply inside a hot and humid espresso machine, you want something really, really good.

￼


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## decent_espresso

Today we ordered the bluetooth module http://redbearlab.com/blenano/ made by Red Bear Labs to build the 90 pre-release Decent Espresso Machines in June.

This may sound like minutiae, but because all communications between the tablet software and the espresso machine go over bluetooth, we need to pick something that has been around a while and is known to be reliable.

Lots of people have used this module for their devices, and it's known that Android and iOS apps work well with it. That's important, because--despite its ubiquity--bluetooth can be frustrating unreliable, especially if you cut corners and get cheap parts.

Thinking about the future, going with Red Bear also gives us an upgrade path to offer Wifi upgrades, simply by swapping out this chip.

We also like Red Bear labs because they support open source development, and their bluetooth module has a CPU on it that can be programmed using standard Arduino development tools.

This means that "coffee hardware hackers" can write their own Arduino software that they upload to this tiny computer, and it will enjoy access to the Decent Espresso computer and all the sensors.

For our fans who are software developers, we've written a Python program (that we'll give away) which emulates a Decent Espresso machine, but from your computer. You plug the BLE module into the USB port adaptor, run our Python script, and you can now program much faster without having actual hot water being dispensed as you debug.

We only bought 90 of these, because we'll be switching to a less-large, less expensive version of the Nano for our production machines, starting in June. There is some firmware programming we have to do to make the switch, and we like the fact that this version has a socket in case we need to be changing anything out during the pre-release rollout.


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## decent_espresso

Our knockbox design came in today, 50% larger than the last one, CNCed from two blocks of aluminum and then welded together. It's a bit of a Frankenstein, but it's useful for judging relative size and functionality. This is way more solid than the earlier model. The capacity is maybe a bit more than is typically needed. And on my first "knock" it I was surprised to see splatter so high up on the back wall of the knockbox. We'll play with this prototype for a week, and if we like it, it's off to manufacturing.


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## decent_espresso

Yesterday, I received this question via PM:



> I saw yesterday you mention that a realistic delivery date for regular release DE1's will be October now. Does the same apply for the DE1+? I ask because the website currently mentions a June 30 shipping timeframe for the DE1+. I was planning on pre-ordering one next week (when a paycheck arrives). It probably won't sway my decision, but a four month difference in shipping is something I'd like to plan for.


I thought it was a very good question, that likely others were thinking, and so I asked the questioner if I could answer him publicly. Here goes. It's a long explanation. Sorry about that.

WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG TO BUILD AN ESPRESSO MACHINE?

In November, when we last built 8 machines, it took one person 5 full time days to build one Decent Espresso machine.

There are a few reasons why this was the case with that November design, :

- each building step was sequential, you had to do one, to do the next. That's slow.

- physical access to the machine wasn't easy as things got packed into a small space

- many steps were fiddly and required time to get right, such as mounting the steam wand through the faceplate in a way that was tight and not leaking when steaming

- there were a lot of steps and many weren't easy, some requiring quite a bit of dexterity and assembly experience.

For these reasons, and also because I felt the design of the internals was lacking the refinements that were needed, I sacked my mechanical engineer in January, hired a new one, and we've spent the past 4 months totally redoing the internal design to fix these issues.

With the new design:

- there are a half dozen sub-assembles, which are clusters of components that can be built ahead of time, and tested separately too.

- getting into the machine is much easier, because there are panels where things mount that are removed from the machine, and screwed in at the end

- hopefully, most of the fiddly, hard-to-get-right problems are fixed

We're estimating that each machine will take a full person's day to make.

WHEN WE TRANSITION TO BUILDING MACHINES:

Some facts to bear on our transition to manufacturing:

- we're currently a R&D company, and we have zero "factory workers" on staff who might build machines. To fix this, we're planning on hiring 8 Mechanical Engineering students as summer interns to build machines with us from June 1 to August 30. That gets us "smart people" to build the machines, and 3 months to transition to less highly qualified staff to be building them. I'm also hoping that these students will, by virtue of their studies, have insights for design improvements.

- our office/R&D space (3200 sq ft) is almost totally full at the moment. We have another 2500 sq ft of warehousing, but that's full now too with parts. Why so much space? Because when you order a part (say, tablets) you have to order the minimum order quantity (1000 of them) and they show up in boxes, stacked up on pallets. You have to store them, and they take a lot of space. In June, we're taking out a lease on another 3500 sq ft, directly opposite our front door (6 ft away) and if orders start coming in over the summer, we're also going to take a lease out on another 6000 sq ft (around the corner). We're pretty organised, but it will take a bit of time to fit out the new spaces.

- we don't yet have all the parts in stock, and some will certainly take longer to arrive than others. To work around this, we'll start building and testing sub-assemblies in quantity=200, so that when the parts all finally arrive, we're mostly done.

- each espresso machine will be tested for 3 days before it ships: 24 hours on a shipping simulator machine, and then 48 hours of constantly making espresso and steam. This should expose most problems.

WHAT TAKES SO LONG TO BUILD A DECENT ESPRESSO MACHINE?

Building an espresso machine is similar to building a Tower PC clone machine. You buy parts, you put them into a chassis. However, there is one big difference: with a PC clone, all the parts come ready to be screwed in. With our espresso machine, lots of parts come and require more work from us before we can use them.

AN EXAMPLE: THE HEATER SUB-ASSEMBLY

We have two heaters in each machine (espresso and steam) and here are the steps for getting one heater ready:

- put a temperature probe bead in the center hole, and back fill it with thermal putty

- screw in two thermal fuses for CE compliance

- screw in one thermostat for UL compliance

- use pliers to connect locking power cables to fuse 1, to fuse 2, to thermostat, to electrical in, and also to ground

- place entire heater (with all the fittings) suspended in a 3D printed mould of our own design

- fill the mould with quick drying liquid silicone. Wait 30 minutes to dry. Remove and use a knife to clean up stray silicone. Let it further dry another 2 hours.

- slide two two teflon tubes into the two water connectors (in/out) and use pliers to force in a tiny clip to hold them in place

- put a cable tie into a teflon tube and wrap it around the heater, and then tie it to a metal panel

- hook up the water lines to a water pressure line, and test under 15 bar for leaks

- hook up the electrical lines to power, flow water at a known rate, and test that water is being heated at the rate expected

- repeat again 399 times to make enough heaters for the 200 espresso machines that have already been ordered.

Lots of steps! However, this approach is a good one because:

- it's a major component and it can be built and tested totally independently from the rest of the espresso machine

- it can be done in quantity, alone, so the people doing it can do it faster.

- if we can guarantee quality, we can sub-contract out this assembly in the future. However, it has so many steps, and so many ways to screw up, and it is so vital a part, that for now we prefer to assemble it ourselves.

SO: WHY OCTOBER TO RECEIVE MY MACHINE?

Firstly: because there are 200 people ahead of you in the queue, and if we make 4 machines a day, it will take us 50 work days to build them, which is about 2 1/2 months on a 5 day work week. We're ordering parts now, but realistically of them won't arrive until the end of June, and no espresso machine can leave here until every last part is in stock.

Secondly: we don't yet know how many man hours it will take to build a machine. We estimate it around 1 man day at the moment. If we can reduce that to half a day, that doubles our production speed. I don't think we can reduce it much below that, however, unless we contract out parts of our subassembly to other factories (effectively adding manpower).

Thirdly: we need to hire a lot of people, train them, and have good processes for them to follow. If we do this too fast, we'll have bad staff, poorly trained, with bad processes.

Fourthly: the order backlog is growing each week, and each new order goes to the back of the line.

TO CONCLUDE

This summer, we'll be making espresso machines.

However, we can't go from "no machines per day with no factory workers" to "40 workers and 40 machines a day" in one step. Hiring and training and process-making will be incremental.

We can't afford to sign leases for 3200 sq ft + 2500 sq ft + 3500 sq ft + 6000 sq ft (4 leases) unless we have some idea of demand. Growing capacity too fast is a good way to go bust.

I expect that this summer, if our espresso machines are well reviewed, that orders will increase. We have a plan to cope with that demand, which you've read above. But, it will take a few months for us to deploy that plan.

If you've been reading this forum for a while, one fact should have popped out at you: EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON INITIAL REVIEWS. That's why we're moving slowly, to ensure that from the very beginning, the machines that people receive are good, and people are pleased.

In practical terms, what I expect is that if our espresso machines are well received, that they will be in short supply (like any popular new product) for the first 6 months, as we grow capacity to meet that demand.

I hope this (too long) answer was interesting, and I'm happy to answer any questions.


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## timmyjj21

I have to ask... Are the pucks normally that sloppy?


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## decent_espresso

timmyjj21 said:


> I have to ask... Are the pucks normally that sloppy?


I tend to be lazy about changing basket sizes, and we're constantly changing grinder settings and coffee beans here. I'm currently putting 16.5g doses into my 18g basket, and so there's a puddle of water on top when I'm done. If I put 19g onto my 18g basket, no puddle. Apologies if my bad basket grooming habits offend.


----------



## decent_espresso

We've found what I think what will work well for providing a USB plug on the front splash panel, right near where the tablet needs to plug in. These two models below are:

- minimally visible

- the one on the right is watertight, the one on the left is probably water tight enough

- USB-A, so we stay don't stray from the USB standard

- the aesthetics of the two vary slightly

We're ordering samples of these two today, and will likely settle on one of them.


----------



## decent_espresso

The current design of our Decent Espresso machine.

Recent improvements:

- hugely increased the "twisting" strength (aka stiffness) of the case, with additional bent panels (in the middle, on the top, under the group head)

- hot water return is now as far away from the intake as it can be, so that calcium should precipitate during initial water heating and fall into the ceramic water tank where it causes no damage and can be rinsed out.

- we've found an excellent, high speed temperature sensor (incredibly, with 0.2mm thick stainless steel walls) and now can stop using our hand-made-by-us sensor design (which was expensive and very time consuming). This has allowed us to add two more temperature sensors to the main mixing chamber.

- however, the main mixing chamber now became too big to mould, so it's been broken down into two parts, which is why that part on the top (with all the bolts on it) has that odd shape.

- most of the water tubing is now in CAD

Still to be done:

- a USB charger plug needs to be installed on the front panel (to the left of the group head)

- our flush diffuser design needs to be finalized (it's too small at the moment)

- the "cool touch" group head cover needs to be mounted

- a panel separating the circuit boards from the machine needs to be installed

- the "over pressure safety valve" integration needs to be finalized (that's the part floating above the bright green part)

Looking at this CAD model now, I'm pleased that we took the extra months to rethink and/or refine everything. Nothing is crammed in, the wire paths are not hard to follow, and the design is fairly mature.


----------



## BaggaZee

decent_espresso said:


> ...
> 
> - USB-A, so we stay don't stray from the USB standard
> 
> ...


Just a thought: with USB-C set to become the new standard, I think this risks dating the machine very quickly.

Adapters are available of course but my perception of a device which requires me to use an adapter to connect to my old hardware is very different to one which requires it to connect to my new hardware.

That's assuming I'll be able to connect my own device full-stop, of course.


----------



## Dylan

Why does the tablet plug in on the front, as opposed to the side/back or top?


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Why does the tablet plug in on the front, as opposed to the side/back or top?


The top has a sliding cover, like a PC tower case, and anything that plugged into that would get in the way of the case sliding. We currently snake the cable to the back of the machine, and that works.

However, the usb charging cable is an annoyance that grows more annoying the longer and less tamed it is. The goal of putting a charging port in front is that it's about 3" from the power port to the tablet.



BaggaZee said:


> Just a thought: with USB-C set to become the new standard, I think this risks dating the machine very quickly.
> 
> Adapters are available of course but my perception of a device which requires me to use an adapter to connect to my old hardware is very different to one which requires it to connect to my new hardware.
> 
> That's assuming I'll be able to connect my own device full-stop, of course.


Interesting idea, thanks for suggesting it! I'm not currently seeing USB-C waterproof panel mount connectors, but we haven't looked for it, so we'll take a look and see if we find one.

Yes, you can use your own device, and use our charging port. If you were USB-C, you would need a USB-A to USB-C cable.

But let me get back to you about your USB-C idea.

Ok, just spoke to my EE Ray about this idea, and he says that USB-C just for charging would require him to have a fully working USB circuit on his board, because there is a voltage negotiation step that occurs with USB-C, which isn't the case for USB-A. Given our design-freeze later this week, we don't want to embark on a "what will it take to add fully functioning USB-C to our circuit board?" R&D project.

However, Ray says "it's a very good idea for rev 2".


----------



## BaggaZee

I didn't realise that about USB-C. I've just had a bit of a read and it's clever stuff. Not so helpful in this case obviously!


----------



## decent_espresso

BaggaZee said:


> I didn't realise that about USB-C. I've just had a bit of a read and it's clever stuff. Not so helpful in this case obviously!


In a future version we'd like to have a USB data connection option, so not just bluetooth. That, however, requires additional testing for compliance (both electrical and standards), more circuitry on our part, and thus more time. It'll happen for a future model.


----------



## BRYHER

In post 632 I read "WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG TO BUILD AN ESPRESSO MACHINE?

In November, when we last built 8 machines, it took one person 5 full time days to build one Decent Espresso machine."

Out of interest who ended up with one of the 8 and what were the general thoughts, I understand they were first batch for trial but would make a mouthwatering read. I remember you explaining about the uk trip where transit teething problems surfaced.

Thanks Michael


----------



## decent_espresso

BRYHER said:


> Out of interest who ended up with one of the 8 and what were the general thoughts, I understand they were first batch for trial but would make a mouthwatering read. I remember you explaining about the uk trip where transit teething problems surfaced.


All those machines have stayed with us and various contract engineers I've brought in, so there are no outside reviews yet, sorry!


----------



## decent_espresso

What we're planning on doing--which I believe is a first in espresso machines--is to fully wire up our heaters and then cast the whole assembly in a silicone mould. The goal is to insulate the heaters incredibly well, as if you had the world's best fitting "oven mitt" around the heater. Some espresso machines do wrap their heaters with insulation (many don't) but that leaves air gaps and is messy to fit properly (you have to use a die cut sheet and tie it around).

This silicone casting idea was originally prototyped a month ago, with a mould made of legos (top of photo). This created an amusing pattern on the resulting dried silicone (bottom of photo).









Last week, Alex designed a proper mould for our heaters and it arrived today. The advantage of this mould is that it keeps the wall thickness constant at 6mm all around the heater, and holds it in the right place.

Here's what the first mould looks like, freshly CNCed from a block of solid aluminum:









- - - - - -

In other news, we posted an ad yesterday at a local engineering university for engineering students who might want to build espresso machines this summer. We received 12 applications in 24 hours! We interviewed two today, and they were impressive, with really solid CAD experience, as well as computer programming, and Arduino experience too. This is great, because it means we can put the students in charge of creating testing stations for each part.


----------



## decent_espresso

Ben and Ray have been working pretty intensely for a few weeks on new designs the group head. The goal is for water to be evenly distributed as it comes into the top of the chamber, and then again evenly distributed as it comes into contact with the puck. Even water flow is important for even espresso extraction.

Today, we received one sample each of Ray's design (using calibrated orifices) and Ben's design (using turbulence).

The "apple" shaped parts are for the top of the group head chamber (where water enters) and replace the common espresso design of a single hole. Ben has been using flow simulation software to test all these designs, and I've been posting the graphics here over the past few weeks. The turbulence approach performs a bit better in simulations.

Next, we'll be testing both of these designs in the real world, and choosing one for our first two hundred machines. We might still improve this design over time (or you might, starting from our shared CAD drawings) as Ben convinced us to make these parts modular, and thus inexpensive to CNC.









You might want to compare the design of our parts to these Rancilio parts, that provide a similar function. Our computer fluid simulations found that this sort of design (which we were using a few months ago) resulted in uneven water flow, especially during preinfusion. That's why we've been working on this so much, as it seems like a previously-neglected area of espresso machine design.


----------



## generalguy

Is the upgrade path from DE1 to DE1+ still in the works?


----------



## decent_espresso

generalguy said:


> Is the upgrade path from DE1 to DE1+ still in the works?


Sorry, not currently, no.


----------



## decent_espresso

We're trying to slow down the high pressure water after an espresso shot, so you don't get splashed when the water goes into the drip tray. Here's a slow motion video of our prototype idea, where water goes into a kind of cyclone, and can't exit until it slows down, because the hole is in the opposite direction of the cyclone. This is one of the last things on our "to-figure-out" list before our design freeze in a few days.


----------



## generalguy

decent_espresso said:


> Sorry, not currently, no.










Guess I'll have to stump up the cash for the DE1+ to avoid that coffee FOMO.


----------



## Stanic

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 26254
> 
> 
> You might want to compare the design of our parts to these Rancilio parts, that provide a similar function. Our computer fluid simulations found that this sort of design (which we were using a few months ago) resulted in uneven water flow, especially during preinfusion. That's why we've been working on this so much, as it seems like a previously-neglected area of espresso machine design.
> 
> View attachment 26253


if you plan to release upgrade dispersion blocks for Rancilio, I would certainly buy one


----------



## decent_espresso

One of the really annoying things about building an espresso machine is that there is no standard way to connect the water tubes between things that do stuff to water. Pumps, heaters, flow meters, valves, steam wands: they all use different fittings.

There are lots of different "standards", most of which are fiddly, can leak if they're not installed perfectly, and they're expensive. How expensive? Well, each connector on our first prototype machine cost $9, and we had 15 of them. $135 in connectors in a machine that sells for $999 is not great. And, one of them completely broke during my two month press tour in November. Marvelous.

And then... there are these connectors that have no name.

You only find them when you open up some models of amazingly super-engineered Nespresso machines. We call them "clip connectors" and they are solid teflon tubing, with a metal sleeve inside, and another one outside. Once the tube is made, it simply pushes in with a rubber gasket, and clips in, and... they seem to never leak, they rotate, they're super easy to install and remove. They're amazing!

What's the catch?

The only hitch is that they are totally proprietary and not available off the shelf. Even the tool for making the tubes (mounting the outer metal ring) isn't available for purchase, and it requires exactitude and a fair amount of compression and force.

Sigh.

We did find one company that would make the tubes with the ends on them, and since nobody will sell us the tool to make it ourselves, we're using them to buy the tubes ready-made. A bit more expensive, but they're our only source at the moment.

For converting between other connector types (such as to the steam wand, or the water heater) to these clip connectors, we've CAD designed our own converters. Today, 50 samples of these two converters arrived (they're the shiny things) and you can see them mounted on the back of the steam wand (first photo) and on both ends of the heater (bottom photo). We're sending a dozen of them to our heater manufacturer, so they can give a price quote for welding these on for us.

Happily, it looks like our connector-adaptor designs are working, so now we can use these great water tubes virtually everywhere.


----------



## decent_espresso

We've just about wrapped everything up we're now going to build one final "release candidate" machine, to make sure everything we've changed is ok. That will be ready in about 14 days. Everything that is certain to not change will continue to be ordered.

The only two things left to nail down are:

- the exact shape of the USB plug on the front panel (choosing between USB-A or Micro USB-A)

- the exact shape of the flush diffuser (the rectangle in the bottom right of the chassis).

Here is a render (in false colors) of the final design of the internals.









and here is where we're putting the USB plug, so that a very short cable can connect power to the tablet.


----------



## decent_espresso

We're proofing the translations of our web site into French and German, and in the process, finding confusion around some terms I use.

There are two features in particular, which are new to espresso, and I haven't found a good way to name them. They currently are.

" Basket temperature goal mode"

"Automatic channel healing"

Can you read along, and please suggest ways I could describe these concisely? I feel like both of these are really important new things to espresso, so it's pretty essential that we communicate them.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

*"Basket temperature goal mode"*

In every other espresso machine, you set the water temperature, and that's what the boiler heats to. Say, 90°C water. But, by the time the water leaves the boiler it's gone down about 6°C, sometimes more, sometimes less (depending on the machine). And then the espresso coffee grains themselves are at 20°C (room temperature) and when they make contact with the water, the slurry is a temperature which mixes the water and the coffee (and potentially the cooling effect of the portafilter if it wasn't preheated)

I've made this ugly chart to show what we're doing. Other machines have a constant water temperature, so they have a linear climb toward their goal. Our DE1+ machine can dynamically vary the water temperature, to get the puck temperature to the goal faster.

I like to think that this feature will arguably make better coffee, since different products are extracted from coffee at different temperatures and there really are different flavors at different temperatures. People really fixate on water temperature for pour-over coffee for this reason.









. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

*"Automatic channel healing"*

When espresso is being made, sometimes these channels open up (sometimes called "crevasses"), where water spurts out. This (a) tastes bad and (b) makes a mess. Here's a photo:









when we detect a jump in water flow, we back off the pressure immediately, which generally causes the coffee to fill in and for the channel to "heal". We can only do this because of our use of vibratory pumps, which are like pistons, because we can instantly stop pumping and start again 1/10th of a second later. Traditional pumps can't do this.


----------



## Dylan

With regards to full size vs micro USB.

When moving around the espresso machine, I would have thought it very easy to accidentally knock or yank the wire, I would worry that a micro USB port was more prone to damage.

Something else about micro USB you have probably experienced on your phone is that as the port ages and becomes looser and/or dust builds up inside it it can become very intermittent as to how well it works.

Not sure this has been covered in this thread yet - but how warm is it up top on your coffee machine, and is the Lithium battery within the tablet ok to operate for extended periods at this temperature?


----------



## jlarkin

decent_espresso said:


> " Basket temperature goal mode"


I read your description and the name but I'm not quite sure what temperature you're measuring? I know you've probably covered it elsewhere, so sorry if asking for a repeat. I'm asking because you mention basket temp goal mode but in the description it sounds like it's measuring the temp of the puck. Perhaps if you confirm exactly where the temp read is and which piece you think is most important, it'll help with any suggestion.

For the channel healing, your description makes sense to me. I can't think of another way to describe it. Is there anything specific that concerns you about it, or is it just because it's a novel approach?


----------



## Obnic

I like 'automatic channel healing' or 'channel sensing and healing'.

I hesitate to use the word 'dynamic' both because it is overused but also because it implies variability where stability is the valued attribute of extraction temperature. How about 'active temperature stabilization'?

Or perhaps you could brand a variety of your technologies under an umbrella philosophy - like Volvo's CitySafe is a collection of risk amelioration technologies. For example: DESR (Decent Espresso Sense & Respond). Then have DESR StableTemp, DESR ChannelHeal, DESR AutoPreinfuse etc.


----------



## Wes78

'Puck regeneration technology'

right up their with 'blue sky thinking' I reckon!


----------



## Obnic

On the matter of succinct descriptions - a couple of straw men:

DESR ChannelHeal dramatically reduces the instance of channeling resulting in more even and dependable espresso extraction.

As you pull your shot, DESR ChannelHeal automatically detects minute drops in pressure caused by fissures in the coffee puck. It instantly reduces water pressure just enough for the fissure to close then continues with the extraction according to your target pressure profile.

---

DESR StableTemp prevents temperature variation during your extraction resulting in more focused flavours in the cup.

Unlike traditional machines that pump water at a fixed temperature, DESR StableTemp actively manipulates the temperature of the water throughout the extraction. In this way your coffee puck is brought up to your target extraction temperature within moments and remains at this temperature throughout your extraction.


----------



## Wes78

Obnic said:


> On the matter of succinct descriptions - a couple of straw men:
> 
> DESR ChannelHeal dramatically reduces the instance of channeling resulting in more even and dependable espresso extraction.
> 
> As you pull your shot, DESR ChannelHeal automatically detects minute drops in pressure caused by fissures in the coffee puck. It instantly reduces water pressure just enough for the fissure to close then continues with the extraction according to your target pressure profile.
> 
> ---
> 
> DESR StableTemp prevents temperature variation during your extraction resulting in more focused flavours in the cup.
> 
> Unlike traditional machines that pump water at a fixed temperature, DESR StableTemp actively manipulates the temperature of the water throughout the extraction. In this way your coffee puck is brought up to your target extraction temperature within moments and remains at this temperature throughout your extraction.


love it , where do I sign


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## BRYHER

Obnic, I like your 2 above posts .... For example: DESR (Decent Espresso Sense & Respond). Then have DESR StableTemp, DESR ChannelHeal, DESR AutoPreinfuse etc.

Sense & Respond yep like it.

Michael


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> With regards to full size vs micro USB. When moving around the espresso machine, I would have thought it very easy to accidentally knock or yank the wire, I would worry that a micro USB port was more prone to damage. Something else about micro USB you have probably experienced on your phone is that as the port ages and becomes looser and/or dust builds up inside it it can become very intermittent as to how well it works.


Yep, we're worried about that too, and after all this work, it looks like we're going with a USB-A connector, with quite sturdy mounting features, to help cope with abuse.



Dylan said:


> Not sure this has been covered in this thread yet - but how warm is it up top on your coffee machine, and is the Lithium battery within the tablet ok to operate for extended periods at this temperature?


It's very cool on top, but even in our prototype machines, which run hotter, the aluminum top radiates the waste heat over a large surface, so it never even reaches 30ºC.


----------



## decent_espresso

In the camp of "unbanded descriptions" these are my favorites so far:

Dynamic Temperature Targeting

Intelligent Flow Recovery

Active temperature stabilization

However, this direction (DESR...) is really interesting to me, because "Sense & Respond" is something we do in a few places.



BRYHER said:


> Obnic, I like your 2 above posts .... For example: DESR (Decent Espresso Sense & Respond). Then have DESR StableTemp, DESR ChannelHeal, DESR AutoPreinfuse etc.
> 
> Sense & Respond yep like it.
> 
> Michael


For example, our preinfusion can end automatically when the puck is detected as saturated, as opposed to having a static setting.

Obnic, thanks for sending my thinking in a totally different direction. I'll have to let is percolate a bit, but I'm leaning toward your line of thinking.


----------



## GaryM

decent_espresso said:


> Yep, we're worried about that too, and after all this work, it looks like we're going with a USB-A connector, with quite sturdy mounting features, to help cope with abuse.
> 
> It's very cool on top, but even in our prototype machines, which run hotter, the aluminum top radiates the waste heat over a large surface, so it never even reaches 30ºC.


Good decision on the USB. Reliability rules.


----------



## decent_espresso

Australian Ben Champion, a regular from Home-Barista.com, has been helping us a ton, on a volunteer basis, to simulate the fluid paths in our group head, and has been running similar simulations in other parts of our machine; most recently our mixing chamber:









Ben's quirky and competent approach has really helped in the past month, and so we've decided to make his position official and paid. You'll shortly be seeing an unflattering cartoon representation of Ben appearing on our "about us" page.

His first project is to take the "flush diffuser" (or call it the "flush slower-downer" or the "try not to splash customer device") from Ray's concept, which we filmed here






which taught us that it worked right, but that a lot of the complexity was unnecessary:









which Ben has now turned into this 1st draft:









and we've got a revision or two on that to go (this week!) before it's done. Along with the USB port (most likely now to be USB-A) these are the last two things to finalize.


----------



## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> ...However, this direction (DESR...) is really interesting to me, because "Sense & Respond" is something we do in a few places...


It seems to me the car manufacturers use this approach because (a) they can trademark the names, (b) the 'benefit' of the technology acquires its own brand and so when they use the same name in subsequent models, customers instantly feel they understand (even though the underlying tech may have changed radically between models), and © once branded, prospective customers look for equivalent features in competitor products.


----------



## decent_espresso

We've been literally banging on our frankenstein-knockbox prototype for two weeks, and I've given the go-ahead to the factory to start making it. It'll be about 10 weeks wait now before they arrive : the long wait is because moulds this big take about 2 months to make. https://decentespresso.com/knockbox

We spent $350 recently to try out the larger size, and because it was too large for a CNC machine, it had to be welded from two parts (it looks sort of like Frankenstein's head). We decided we liked the larger size, because it felt damned solid (it's made from 3mm thick aluminum, not plastic) and because it never filled up. We think it's big enough to use in an office where lots of people are making espressos all day.









Just to the right of the knockbox, you'll see our hotrodded Hey Cafe pro grinder https://decentespresso.com/pro_grinder which we've modified to have weighed dosing, using a brewista scale. We're CNCing the hopefully last iteration of the stand this week. We ended up attaching the scale stand to the rubber feet of the grinder, so that you can adjust the distance from the spout by loosening the rubber feet, and when you have it where you want it, you tighten the rubber feet to lock the stand in place.

We've also added a bluetooth on/off switch to the grinder, but we're not yet ready to sell that as a product, because I haven't written the software, as I'm also waiting for our bluetooth scale https://decentespresso.com/scale to be finished.

And speaking of which, I received new firmware and the 4th beta of our scale today, and just about all beta problems are now fixed. I hope that in about 2 weeks I can give manufacturing approval to that, and then the scale will take about 10 weeks to arrive from the factory.

Here's a render of what the knockbox should look like, when it arrives in 10 weeks:


----------



## decent_espresso

We'll shortly be ordering a mix-pallet of Mazzer grinders, to hotrod with weighed dosing and bluetooth control.

I'm currently looking at the Mazzer Robur, Kony, Super Jolly and Mini, as grinders we might offer for sale, hotrodded in this way.

For the time being, I prefer to take existing well-designed grinders, and insert our "value add" to it, of weighed dosing and bluetooth control. There will be a free app for controlling your grinder, as well as merging that feature into the DE1+ tablet gui.

The goal is to offer bluetooth controlled automatic weighed dosing, via three grinder manufacturers:

- Hey Cafe (a division of Mahlkonig), currently for sale at our web site

- Mazzer (PLEASE let me know what grinders of theirs you find interesting)

- ANFIM (potentially: I've sent them my proposal and their management is currently considering it).

I'd love to hear what you guys think of this strategy.


----------



## decent_espresso

We'll shortly be ordering a mix-pallet of Mazzer grinders, to hotrod with weighed dosing and bluetooth control.

I'm currently looking at the Mazzer Robur, Kony, Super Jolly and Mini, as grinders we might offer for sale, hotrodded in this way.

For the time being, I prefer to take existing well-designed grinders, and insert our "value add" to it, of weighed dosing and bluetooth control. There will be a free app for controlling your grinder, as well as merging that feature into the DE1+ tablet gui.

The goal is to offer bluetooth controlled automatic weighed dosing, via three grinder manufacturers:

- Hey Cafe (a division of Mahlkonig), currently for sale at our web site

- Mazzer (PLEASE let me know what grinders of theirs you find interesting)

- ANFIM (potentially: I've sent them my proposal and their management is currently considering it).

I'd love to hear what you guys think of this strategy.


----------



## Dylan

Will you be selling your 'hotrod' mod as a kit for people to upgrade their own grinders?


----------



## MediumRoastSteam

decent_espresso said:


> We'll shortly be ordering a mix-pallet of Mazzer grinders, to hotrod with weighed dosing and bluetooth control.
> 
> I'm currently looking at the Mazzer Robur, Kony, Super Jolly and Mini, as grinders we might offer for sale, hotrodded in this way.
> 
> For the time being, I prefer to take existing well-designed grinders, and insert our "value add" to it, of weighed dosing and bluetooth control. There will be a free app for controlling your grinder, as well as merging that feature into the DE1+ tablet gui.
> 
> The goal is to offer bluetooth controlled automatic weighed dosing, via three grinder manufacturers:
> 
> - Hey Cafe (a division of Mahlkonig), currently for sale at our web site
> 
> - Mazzer (PLEASE let me know what grinders of theirs you find interesting)
> 
> - ANFIM (potentially: I've sent them my proposal and their management is currently considering it).
> 
> I'd love to hear what you guys think of this strategy.


Eurekas Mignon Zenith, 75E, 65E & Ceado e37s are very popular grinders over here and on this forum.

Are you not planning to targeting any of them?


----------



## decent_espresso

MediumRoastSteam said:


> Eurekas Mignon Zenith, 75E, 65E & Ceado e37s are very popular grinders over here and on this forum. Are you not planning to targeting any of them?


I'd never heard of them before, so thanks for the tip. The shape of the Eureka Mignon, as I look in google images, seems like it will be hard to adapt to having a scale under the grinder spout. The Zenith looks like the only one we could make work.

The Ceado, on the other hand, looks like it could work fairly easily. I'll look into it.



Dylan said:


> Will you be selling your 'hotrod' mod as a kit for people to upgrade their own grinders?


I don't know yet. Haroldo (my engineer on this) shocked himself twice the the first time he wired this mod up, and Jeffrey (who has now taken it up) shocked himself once. Once in place, it's very reliable, but you need to be electrical minded to pull off the mod. I'm rather nervous about the liability, to be honest.

The other issue is that the scale integration has to be bespoke for each grinder model and year of the model (the shapes change sometimes in one model). We tried to make a generic scale platform, and I had it on my November/December tour, but despite my having carefully measured other people's grinders, it just didn't work for any grinder (except for I think the Robur).

Here is what the generic platform looked like:









and here are examples of other attempts we made:

















So with the caveat of "you'll sign a piece of paper saying you won't sue us if you shock yourself" and "you own the exact model and year grinder we're using" then "maybe" but honestly, I think we'll make more people unhappy than happy by selling the mod kit on its own.


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## decent_espresso

We've now frozen the design of our espresso machine and we're working with manufacturers to make all the parts. About 90% of our machine is made from custom parts, so each one requires an extensive conversation with a manufacturer, as well as detailed drawings and price negotiations. Each type of part also has different lead times, from 7 days to 2 1/2 months (for parts that require a mould). Of course, we have companies all lined up for this, but until the final drawings were done, we couldn't get a final price quote and other "details".

We're currently interviewing 3rd year students from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology http://www.ust.hk/ and we're hiring 10 of them as summer interns. They're going to be building your espresso machines! We'll have each intern spend time at every station, so that they get a wealth of real world experience.

We originally thought we'd work on building a dozen or so machines at a time, from start to finish. However, to speed things up, and because not all the parts will be here at the same time, we're going straight to building 200 espresso machines at the same time. We're working on "sub-assemblies", which are groups of components that perform a function, such as the water heater assembly, or the water mixing assembly.

In terms of a calendar, this means that:

- nobody will get a machine from us in June

- but everyone who bought a pre-release machine should get theirs in July.

- this does delay our submitting our machines for UL certification, because we likely won't have all the parts we need until end-of-June/early July to completely finish any machines.

- so the 100 "final release" customers won't see their machines until August.

- However, since we're building all the "final release" machines at once, as soon as we have UL approval we'll be able to ship them all very quickly.

- In August/September, depending on how the customer reviews go of our pre-release versions, we'll decide whether to expand our manufacturing space and how many recent engineering graduates to hire. Our landlord, who owns the entire building floor (about 300,000 sq ft) and is a big espresso fan, has bought her own pre-release machine from us, and offering us multiple spaces to grow into with no commitment. That's helping us sleep at night!

Looking at the calendar for when parts will start arriving here, we think that:

Starting June 1:

- the heater subassemblies can be worked on.

- PCBs can be manufactured in house

- tablets can be configured (load from "adb") and mounted to a steelie stand

- legs can be assembled with rubber feet

Starting June 15:

- the left panel can be assembled (power supply, mini manifold, OPV)

- the main manifold (and top bar) can be assembled, though all - valve types might be not be in stock (the specialist valves from Italy might take 3 months).

- the wire harnesses can be made

- the group head can be assembled

Starting end of June:

- the middle panel can be assembled (both pumps, electrical relay, mounting heaters)

- the PCB can be mounted to the back panel

- the steam wands can be mounted

- tubing and wires can be connected to their final position

- reconfirming current postal addresses of 100 pre-release customers.

Starting 2nd week of July:

- shaking test for 12h, and 24h constant-espresso-making burn-in test of each machine

- localising android tablets to the customer's country and language

- send out machines to UL for certification

- boxing and shipping 100 pre-release machines

- accounting follow up with all "50% deposit" customers to pay remaining balance

Starting in August:

- receive UL certification, send out already-built "final release" machines (if no changes)

- or make changes to existing 100 "final release" machines based on UL mandated changes.

- Internet reviews of "early access" machines should be live by then, and we'll know how many machines we should build for the next run (between 500 and 5000 machines, depending on demand).

- Place advertisement to hire recent engineering graduates, start interviewing and hiring.

Starting in September

- summer interns go back to school

- recent engineering students start permanent jobs with us

Starting in October:

- build the next set of espresso machines

Start in November:

- start shipping, in volume, our espresso machines.


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> I don't know yet. Haroldo (my engineer on this) shocked himself twice the the first time he wired this mod up, and Jeffrey (who has now taken it up) shocked himself once. Once in place, it's very reliable, but you need to be electrical minded to pull off the mod. I'm rather nervous about the liability, to be honest.


Nice to know it's not just us regular folk who are foolish enough to shock themselves when messing with electronics.

I managed to get a mains shock to the cheek when messing with my Mazzer, thought I had blinded myself for a split second... your worries are well placed for sure, but hopefully a strongly worded 'we take zero responsibility' clause would allow people to experiment if they like.


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## decent_espresso

Since there's a bit a of wordsmithing talent here, I was wondering if you could lend some brain cells toward a different problem, of clearly and concisely describing the DE1 vs the DE1+. The advice I'm mostly seeing, from successful approaches to this problem, is to elevate a single feature, and present it as a "do this, get this".

For the DE1, for me the standout feature is that you can load "recipes" that do a plausible job of emulating other espresso machines from history, from lever machines, to E61 to the Black Eagle.

So, for the DE1, I'm playing with:

*"Taste 130 years of espresso history with a single machine"*

For the DE1+, for me the standout feature is that you can see what's going on (with the realtime charts) and then program your shot to do pretty much anything you can think of.Master espresso with total control and understanding of the process.

For the DE1+, I'm playing with:

*"Master espresso with total control and understanding of the process. "*

I can "live with" both of those (as opposed to previous attempts, which I cringed at), but I think there's a lot of room for improvement, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.


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## decent_espresso

We've found a pretty classy USB charging cable, with this somewhat unique black rectangle over the micro usb connector. It looks nice and it's sturdy, but it also does a good job of surrounding the micro usb aperture to protect it a bit. The cable is silicone, which we really wanted, because it causes the cable to "flop" elegantly, rather than the usual plastic which is semi rigid and bends oddly.

We're having 500 of these made for us at a length of 14cm, which is the distance from the USB-A charging port on the front panel of the DE1, to the charging port on the tablet. We decided against micro-USB for reasons which were discussed here.









And just FYI, the cable will mount on the left side (the tablet rotates 180°) -- the samples we got from the manufacturer for this cable had the wrong-handedness and so in this photo we're charging from the right, whereas on the DE1 we charge on the left (away from steam).


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## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> So, for the DE1, I'm playing with:
> 
> *"Taste 130 years of espresso history with a single machine"*
> 
> For the DE1+, I'm playing with:
> 
> *"Master espresso with total control and understanding of the process. "*


What sort of person buys the DE1 and what sort buys the DE1+?

Once you really know this, you can understand *why* they choose that particular machine. Your description should confirm exactly their underlying motivation.

For example: if you take someone that just wants to emulate a good shop bought latte, your DE1+ tag line would probably be more appealing - they'll stop reading after 'master espresso'. I am not sure they would feel any affinity with tasting '130 years...' yet the DE1 is probably the better match.

Or: me, the geek with a fastidious wife and a busy household. 'The DE1+ kitchen chic that is tame enough to flatter your partner, but which gives you class-leading control and insight into your espresso extraction.'

[thats rubbish but you get the idea: I have to satisfy my wife's desire for a beautifully staged kitchen, and every now and then drink her coffee, but what I want for myself is espresso telemetry and control over flow, and instant On when I'm in a hurry..]

I would say you have two quite distinct and outstanding offerings. Who are your target buyers? Then you'll know what they need to hear to to convince them to buy.


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## Obnic

I'm prattling on here a bit for which I'm sorry but... It seems your engineering path addresses two distinct feature sets.

The first is about error proofing: channel healing, auto-preinfusion, water distribution, temperature control, standard profiles. It's about consistent high quality regardless of skill. Like having a world class barista in your own home.

The second is about exploring extraction once all failure modes are eliminated: bespoke profiles, auto brew ratio control, super-accurate temperature control, flow-rate control. This is about satisfying the most intrepid of espresso experts. Tame enough to flatter your partner: powerful enough to compete at WBC.


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## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> Who are your target buyers? Then you'll know what they need to hear to to convince them to buy.


For the DE1, my goal always was to make an espresso machine that a barista would recommend to a customer. When I started this project, the GS/3 was the only "acceptable" machine a barista seemed to be willing to recommend. Now, it's probably the Linea Mini.

To those on this forum, who know all about espresso machines, you might be convinced that the DE1 is great machine. However, to anyone new to espresso, every manufacturer, starting at £90, is saying that they'll make "professional espresso at home", and they don't know who to believe.

They likely would go on price, assuming that the £999 DE1 is somewhere on the quality continuum between a £90 machine and a £2000 E61 machine.

As a consumer, I find very unconvincing the argument to "trust us, our £999 machine is so much better than machines that are 7x the price, but a £500 competitor is much worse than us". "Really? says the prospect... sounds like sales B.S. to me"

I previously had the line

"Simply tap the tablet and make the best espresso of your life"

but I suspect that any salesman selling an E61 machine would use more or less the same line:

"simply lift the lever and make amazing espresso" they might say.



Obnic said:


> It seems your engineering path addresses two distinct feature sets. The first is about error proofing: channel healing, auto-preinfusion, water distribution, temperature control, standard profiles. It's about consistent high quality regardless of skill. Like having a world class barista in your own home. The second is about exploring extraction once all failure modes are eliminated: bespoke profiles, auto brew ratio control, super-accurate temperature control, flow-rate control. This is about satisfying the most intrepid of espresso experts. Tame enough to flatter your partner: powerful enough to compete at WBC.


Yes, I think that's a fair characterisation, it's also mimicking my own "coffee journey" of the first (ahem) 8 or so years making bad espresso and slowing figuring why and how to avoid that, and then in recent years going beyond making "a good cup".


----------



## Obnic

That's a good point.

I'll think on it.

Sage attacked this same problem in the U.K. using Heston Blumenthal as the authoritative voice.

Dyson has managed to do something similar with their 360 Eye robot vacuum (which is way more expensive than its nearest competitor) by emphasizing it's 'intelligence'. They did the same with their vacuums by highlighting where others failed because of poor airflow.

Need to think. You should ask folk here to choose one and say why.


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## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> Sage attacked this same problem in the U.K. using Heston Blumenthal as the authoritative voice.


I remember going to John Lewis on Oxford st years ago and having the Sage saleswoman spend maybe an hour with me, pitching me the BDB and then the Oracle. It was an impressive commitment, but I remember thinking it odd that at no point did she make me a coffee to taste. It made me doubt their machine. As it turns out, the BDB makes quite good espresso, so her sales approach caused an objection that could have been surmounted.

Despite my obsession with wordsmithing, my guess is that if the DE1 becomes a success, it will be because "authoritative voices" write that it is a very good product. Most people have never tasted a "decent espresso" (not using those words in a branded manner) and are used to it needing lots of milk and sugar. Recommendations are likely the key, which is why I spend so much time obsessing over the product.

<rant>Speaking of which, have you ever seen the Youtube conversation between the Sage CEO and Blumenthal, where he admits that he uses a capsule machine at the Fat Duck and says that it's a matter of cost, that he can't have a trained coffee-maker available. I was gobsmacked, and it's really tragic that a 3 michelin star restaurant is allowed to serve capsule coffee, when they would get flayed if anything else they served there was a ready-made capsule/tin/package. "In Pursuit of Perfection" ha.</rant>


----------



## Dylan

Yup, the fact that he uses capsules comes up from time to time on here. Whilst I agree with the principle, you can see why he does it. Whilst his customers might be used to good food at home, and exceptional food in any Michelin star restaurant they visit they simply wont have the same palette for coffee likely developed on Costa and Starbucks... What he says about not being able to bay a barista on staff may also be well true for him, in the vast majority of restaurants coffee is made by the bar or waiter - even in a Michelin star place the amount of coffees ordered will be too minimal to have a dedicated member of staff tending to the coffee.

There are restaurants which have made a real show of how good their coffee is, doing a proper pourover next to the table for example. So I think with enough drive and 'marketing' to their customers it can be done, it's obviously just not something that important to him!

With regards to your taglines -

For the DE1 I just dont think it's befitting of an espresso machine, I think it detracts from its function and makes it seem like its there to give you a history lesson rather than make great espresso. I cant think of a good alternative that would alleviate this feeling, and it could just be a personal thing.

For the DE1+, I like this, but would lose "of the process".


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> With regards to your taglines -
> 
> For the DE1 I just dont think it's befitting of an espresso machine, I think it detracts from its function and makes it seem like its there to give you a history lesson rather than make great espresso. I cant think of a good alternative that would alleviate this feeling, and it could just be a personal thing.For the DE1+, I like this, but would lose "of the process".


Hmm, thanks for your thoughts. You're right, "process" isn't a super attractive selling point. I used to say "transparency and malleability" but those are awfully big words. "Visibility" is another candidate.


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## Obnic

This is naming your baby. An impossibly hard task.


----------



## filthynines

I think this tagline business is screaming out for a randomised control trial. Come up with three slogans for each, put each on a Facebook ad, 1,000 (example) page views for each, largest number of click-throughs for each model wins.

I was initially put off by the espresso history bit, but I think it would've piqued my curiosity to see exactly how you were offering that in practice. I think I would have clicked. But, I know that some people just wouldn't care; even coffee buffs. Hence the need for an RCT.


----------



## generalguy

filthynines said:


> I think this tagline business is screaming out for a randomised control trial. Come up with three slogans for each, put each on a Facebook ad, 1,000 (example) page views for each, largest number of click-throughs for each model wins.
> 
> I was initially put off by the espresso history bit, but I think it would've piqued my curiosity to see exactly how you were offering that in practice. I think I would have clicked. But, I know that some people just wouldn't care; even coffee buffs. Hence the need for an RCT.


This is the correct way to do go. Asking on coffee forums is going to taint your answers with the bias of people who frequent coffee forums

Seems kind of out of place for a coffee company so concerned with precision, repeatability and accuracy to not be doing decent statistical marketing techniques


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## decent_espresso

generalguy said:


> This is the correct way to do go. Asking on coffee forums is going to taint your answers with the bias of people who frequent coffee forums
> 
> Seems kind of out of place for a coffee company so concerned with precision, repeatability and accuracy to not be doing decent statistical marketing techniques


It also appears to me that this might need to vary country-by-country. I had an Italian coffee roaster here last night, and what really resonated for him was our learning from the tradition, especially from Lever Machines. It was crucial to him that we respected the tradition and that our goals were in line with them, not arrogantly claiming to have replaced them.


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## decent_espresso

Now that Ben has joined us, I have some extra engineering muscle to put toward the DE1CAFE model.

Ben's timing is good, as Joao and I just finished designing the weighing-feature compatible drip tray cover, which you can see below, for the first time. Each of "load cells" for weighing will be under each of those four corners of the drip tray cover. This should allow for a pretty invisible weighed-espresso feature, both with automatic-stopping of shots at the right weight, but also being able to chart espresso-in-cup weight during the shot itself.

It's not an entirely bad thing that Ben is in Vancouver and Joao is in Portugal, as this allows them to make progress on the DE1CAFE without distracting the rest of my team, who is here in Hong Kong, from getting the DE1 series of machines manufactured.


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## decent_espresso

One last little piece of foam finally came in today, and we can finally put together our barista kits https://decentespresso.com/barista_kit and ship them out to everyone who pre-ordered. Really, really sorry for the delay, but I'm hoping you'll be happier with the result, as we switched from our originally planned cut foam, to using moulded-to-shape foam covered in spandex. Nicer looking, smells better, and much easier to clean.


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## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> It also appears to me that this might need to vary country-by-country. I had an Italian coffee roaster here last night, and what really resonated for him was our learning from the tradition, especially from Lever Machines. It was crucial to him that we respected the tradition and that our goals were in line with them, not arrogantly claiming to have replaced them.


That is surely interesting and worth noting. But equally it's important to try and avoid confirmation bias (and all of the other cognitive biases out there). To take an extreme example: if you focus on what that guy said you might alienate the other 99% who couldn't care less about tradition and actually just want the best cup of coffee that the latest bit of shiny tech can proffer.

I'm not saying that you are going to allow such biases to taint your thinking (in fact, everything so far suggests you're very open to challenge), but I can foresee a meeting not too far in the future where that conversation comes up as a justification for "history", "tradition" etc making the cut despite evidence to the contrary.


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## filthynines

On a separate note: all of your kit is looking awesome! Very much looking forward to seeing the final product.

edit: Just sad that I can't get my hands on any 54mm kit like the tamper etc.


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## decent_espresso

Whoops! Even with four people working all day, we're only going to manage to ship 1/3rd of the backlogged barista kit orders today. Sorry! A lot of them are custom orders (note the yellow highlights on the orders) and we want to make sure we don't mess any orders up! On the positive side, it's lovely to see how many of these orders are for many different products we sell (you can see the little image for each product on all the invoices) https://decentespresso.com/barista_kit


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## decent_espresso

Two hand-made steam wand prototypes for the DE1CAFE just arrived today. Looking forward to trying it out. We have 1 and 4 hole steam wand tips for this.


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## Dylan

Did you ever look at other forms of steam tip like the Sproline Foam Knife?


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## decent_espresso

Yes! I have the Foam Knife here on our dual-group E61, and it's significantly better than the four hole tip that came on that machine.

As part of the "steam emulation" feature we're working on for the DE1CAFE, I want to release a series of different steam tip designs, as that is part of emulating the feel of other machines. Given their size, they're very affordable to manufacture via CNC.

Also very much like the adjustable diameter tips that are available on pressure washer nozzles. That's a really interesting idea (to me) that could be applied to a steam wand.


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## roastini

Not exactly like an adjustable nozzle on a pressure washer, but consider this:

http://lynweber.com/accessories/steam-dial/


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## decent_espresso

Yep, I've got a Steam Dial here too and have talked with Lyn Weber about possibly OEMing it from them, and it's a possibility. It does have a fairly unique spray shape, which is a circle opening up, the more you open up the dial. I have no problem with that, but it is an unconventional shape. It's beautifully machined. It does use different threads from ours, though, so a customised version would need to be made.


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## Dylan

When you say 'very affordable to manufacture via CNC' do you aim to be significantly cheaper that those already mentioned?


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> When you say 'very affordable to manufacture via CNC' do you aim to be significantly cheaper that those already mentioned?


Part of the reason those tips are expensive is they're sold in single quantities to a limited audience. There's a lot of R&D in those tips that has to be paid for somehow. At low sales volumes, by necessity, the price then is high.

What I'm looking at doing is having the DE1CAFE come with a "bullet box" of a variety of different designs of steam wand tips, as part of the "steam emulation" feature. That way, all the R&D costs are amortized across a large number of tip designs, and "baked into" the cost of the DE1CAFE model.

We'll probably also offer alternative tips for the DE1/DE1+ machines, in single units. Personally, I find £80 to be too much for a steam wand tip, but for some reason I can swallow the idea of paying £40. Note that I'm only talking about our bespoke, CNC made "emulation tips". Standard tips, that we can buy moulded and thus are much less expensive to make, are likely to be in the £20 range. We currently have 1 and 4 hole versions of those available to us.

But don't hold me to these prices, I really haven't given this topic any more thought than just now, in replying to your message. I'm really focussed on everything that has to do with shipping the DE1 now. The DE1CAFE won't take much of my brain until July/August, once the DE1s have gone out to customers.


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## Dylan

Great, well good to know there will be options!

When it comes to steam tips my mind reacts in the following way to prices:

£20 - Pricy but understandable, dont mind paying this too much to experiment or change up tips.

£40 - Expensive, would have to really be worth paying this much

£70 - Ridiculous - I understand sales volumes etc but I would have to have money to throw around to consider spending £70 on a steam tip.


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> £70 - Ridiculous - I understand sales volumes etc but I would have to have money to throw around to consider spending £70 on a steam tip.


I'm not sure if it was clear that charging £70 for a steam wand tip was not my intention, but rather is the real price of high end steam wands tips.

In no way knocking those other companies (they're welcome to charge what they want) I just feel that it'd be hard, as a company, to get many punters to take us up on that costly a tip, and that we're likely to sell a lot more tips at half the price, hence my own goal of aiming for £20 to £40 for a fancy steam wand tip.

And, if we do sell a lot of one model tip at £40, we'd invest in a mould for that design, and then be able to sell it at £20, since cast steel is so much less expensive to make than CNCed parts.


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## Dylan

No, you were clear, the remark on £70 steam tips was very much aimed at the Sproline/LW tips!


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## decent_espresso

I don't think I've shared this yet.... it's a picture of our upcoming scale, on a scale stand we've designed (this prototype is too wide!) for bluetooth controlled grinding.

Because the scale is battery powered, we need to come up with a way for the scale to sit in the right place on the stand without using double-sided tape (we're thinking of a little metal tab going into the usb port).


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## Dylan

I would avoid any connection to the usb port that has the potential of breaking it if the whole thing is knocked over.

I think this has been covered earlier - but the bluetooth scale will allow espresso making by weight as well will it not?

And also - after so much thought went in to the angle of the 'mirror' on the espresso machine - how easy is it to see the display on the scale from this same angle?

And one more thing that occurred to me just now - mirror polished stainless is very attractive but over time inevitable gets a bit scuffed and gains a few scratches even with a careful owner. I know its too late to change the first shipping machines now but did you consider something like a mobile phone protective screen cover - but for the polished front panel?


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I would avoid any connection to the usb port that has the potential of breaking it if the whole thing is knocked over.


Hi Dylan, I'm not sure I understand this comment. How does the USB port cause the scale to break?



Dylan said:


> I think this has been covered earlier - but the bluetooth scale will allow espresso making by weight as well will it not?


Yes, the Decent Scale adds "gravimetric dosing", aka "espresso making ends at a specific weight" to the DE1+.

It will also add two real-time charts to the DE1+:

1) current weight

2) weight change per second, in the cup.

#2 should (in theory) be the same as "flow rate" but will use weight in cup, rather than "volume of water entering the group head" and thus will be much more accurate.



Dylan said:


> And one more thing that occurred to me just now - mirror polished stainless is very attractive but over time inevitable gets a bit scuffed and gains a few scratches even with a careful owner. I know its too late to change the first shipping machines now but did you consider something like a mobile phone protective screen cover - but for the polished front panel?


We're using polished stainless for the backsplash panel because it has a much longer life than mirror-coated aluminum.

Even after two years of being in an office environment, the backsplash on our two prototypes is really reflective and relatively unmarred. There are some abrasions, sure, it's not perfect, but it still functions as a good mirror. A perfect, unmarred mirror surface on a kitchen appliance is pretty hard to achieve. We could put a plastic cover on it, but that would effect the mirror functionality.

Here's a photo showing the reflectivity of the DE1 back splash (ignore the blurriness of the scale reading, this photo was of one of the prototypes, and they started out with blurry LEDs)


----------



## Dylan

I was thinking of the metal tab going into the USB port to hold the scale - if the scale and holder were knocked and this was the only point of connection between the two I would have thought that could cause damage to the port - or am I misunderstanding what you mean?

Phone covers are pretty much optically clear, so I would have thought you could find one if you wanted to - but if you dont think it will be an issue then fair enough


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I was thinking of the metal tab going into the USB port to hold the scale - if the scale and holder were knocked and this was the only point of connection between the two I would have thought that could cause damage to the port - or am I misunderstanding what you mean?


Ah ha! Now I understand. Yes, you're absolutely right, that using the micro usb port for mechanical support would be a bad idea.

What I actually meant was putting a metal tab into the rectangular cavity that leads to the micro usb port. Possibly, a second positioning tab in the hole where the battery compartment goes.

Another option, but more complicated due to tolerances, is to have three tabs, that land between the lid cover and the scale itself. That might be best, actually, if we can manage that.











Dylan said:


> Phone covers are pretty much optically clear, so I would have thought you could find one if you wanted to - but if you dont think it will be an issue then fair enough


Let's wait and see if it's a problem, and if it is, sure, this is a possible solution.


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## decent_espresso

We're currently testing this heavy duty USB-A panel mount connector with a completely sealed power converter.

I like this because it's highly water resistant (water in the USB-A will still short it, though), independent, and should stand up to a lot of abuse.

Because we have two panels in the front: a strong one where this USB connector would mount, and then a thin, shiny "splash panel" that mounts in front of it, the two screws for this USB plug won't be visible on the front of our espresso machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

Our Decent Scale went off to manufacturing today. It should be shipping in 10 weeks.

https://decentespresso.com/scale

It's a 0.1g accurate, BLE compatible, two-glass capable, open API, very-simple user interface, scale and timer. It features a single-piece-of-plastic "hat" that covers the entire scale (except for the bottom), and the optional USB charger plugs in from the bottom so you can charge even in wet environments.

*A bit of news:* we're working with Bobby Bobak, the author of the Pour Over app "Filtru" for ios, to integrate our scale with his app. More info on that as it progresses, but there's a scale on its way to him now, so he can start the coding work. https://getfiltru.com/

As I've promised elsewhere, I am sharing our CAD drawings for public use. Here is the onshape URL to the entire scale assembly. This will make it much easier for people to physically integrate our scale into various uses, such as real time weighing of grinder doses. https://cad.onshape.com/documents/a415d97cd36dd02afc5b127f/w/b1df89d3d9c6774b5984ea57/e/7d0a7a52ab63c3d3bf8b1208


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## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> Ah ha! Now I understand. Yes, you're absolutely right, that using the micro usb port for mechanical support would be a bad idea.


Ah righty, having seen the bottom of the scale your options both seem perfectly sound.


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## decent_espresso

We've placed our order for 1000 tablets, and now we're working with the manufacturer to get the tablet looking exactly the way we want.

Here's what it looks like with the logo printed on the back. I think it looks awful.









Pictured above is their dual-boot (Android/Windows) Intel model. Our tablet is Android only, with an ARM CPU (much faster, better battery life).

The manufacturer was very surprised that I didn't want our logo printed on the back, but I think a black tablet without a logo looks really elegant.

We're also picking a texture for the case, and I've gone for a matte black on ABS plastic, which is fairly fingerprint resistant (we're doing the one on the right)









I previously was going to use a material called "oil rubber" for the back (that's what the Windows tablet in the photo above is using) but all my engineers worried that it might turn sticky in a few years, so we're being conservative and going with matte ABS plastic.

The printing next to the ports is in small, Futura type and is fairly unobtrusive.

Finally, we were able to find silicone sleeves that were made for this tablet. We got a sample from them (ugh, in blue) and we'll need to punch a hole for the steelie stand in the sleeve, but otherwise it works well. I personally don't think the silicone sleeve is necessary, but if you're splashing water all over the tablet, or just worried about doing so, we'll be offering the sleeve as a low-cost accessory. Because this sleeve was moulded for this tablet, the fit is quite good and it doesn't look sloppy, like the other not-quite-perfect-fitting sleeves I've tried.


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## decent_espresso

Just took delivery today of these beautiful, tiny, super-efficient water heaters, custom made for us, with the connectors we wanted. They're a lot more expensive than our DE1 heaters, but they deliver the same heat power of normal water heaters in half the space. This is what we're hoping to use in our DE1CAFE models to deliver more steam power when 220V is available. I've received a lot of email from people wanting the features of the DE1CAFE (gravimetric shots, cafe-grade steam) but not countersunk, hence our interest in smaller heaters, so we can put more heating power in for greater steaming intensity. Yet, in the same chassis as the DE1. It might be possible, but it'll definitely require 220V. Since 220V is available in the US, and obviously the rest of the world has it, that could be ok. Can't say yet if a "desktop DE1CAFE" is possible, but I'd love it to be.


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## decent_espresso

Back in November, when we started taking pre-orders for our Decent Espresso machines, we were accepting Paypal and Stripe payments. Almost immediately, Paypal freaked out at our sudden rise in sales, and froze our account with $100k of sales in it.

We were told (whoops!) that presales were forbidden by Paypal and that we had to ship everything within 20 days or provide refunds.

Here's paypal's policy on pre-sales.

https://www.paypal.com/us/selfhelp/article/Does-PayPal-permit-transactions-for-pre-sale-items-FAQ1488

What we ended up doing is offering $100 in free accessories to anyone who had bought on Paypal, and who was willing to repurchase their DE1 with their credit card (and be refunded on Paypal), as Stripe has no problem with pre-orders. All but one pre-order took us up on that offer, and they wanted a refund because they didn't want to wait (fair enough).

With the shipment of the Barista Kits last week, we were finally able to get access today to our paypal account (everything ordered has either shipped or been refunded).

We're not yet accepting payments via paypal, not until all our items are in stock and shipping, so that we don't run afoul of Paypal's rules. I'm hoping to find the time to program a more nuanced shopping cart, that allows paypal if you are only ordering currently-shipping items.

Bugs is jumping for joy at the moment, as this Paypal fiasco happened when I was on tour, and she was managing the company, and doing all the tech support I do, and all the accounting. It was not a good moment for this Paypal mess, but we're happy that it's in the past now!

All part of starting a business.


----------



## Dylan

PayPal are anything but consistent.

When I pre-ordered my HTC Vive PayPal was very much an option and the product shipped well after the refund time allocated by paypal for a failed delivery or sub par product.

They do use Digital River however, so maybe they have an exemption due to their size.


----------



## generalguy

Paypal is notoriously terrible at dealing with this kind of thing. The Prusa 3d printer folks have a similar horror story.


----------



## Obnic

Glad you're not using oiled rubber. I agree it degrades horribly in a short time.

I'm hanging out for the cafe-feature set on a counter-top model so good news about the pumps.


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> I'm hanging out for the cafe-feature set on a counter-top model so good news about the pumps.


That's the same model that Ben wants for himself as well. He's just installed marble countertops in his kitchen, so he's not willing to cut into them. He's exceedingly motivated to figure this out, but he hasn't yet determined how to get the 4 load sensors in there under the drip tray cover, with a suspended drip tray under it, in the countertop DE1CAFE model. It might require a slight redesign of the legs or a taller design.

As in the past, I'll be posting potential designs for comment here.


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## decent_espresso

I have three samples of the new design (version 2) of our portafilter stands. https://decentespresso.com/portafilter_stand

Changes in this design:

- thicker metal (now totally rigid)

- the "tail" of the stand, which holds the portafilter handle, is now lower, so that more portafilters are level when on the stand

- two holes are now in the design, so that we can use those holes while dipping the stand in the paint. This solves the problem with version one, which had not-invisible-enough black marks on the insides, to cover up the unpainted areas where the tool had been to hold the stand while painting.

- includes two pieces of double-sided 3M tape, to optionally affix the stand to a scale

This revision should address the things people didn't like about version one, and I'm looking forward to to feedback on it.


----------



## Dylan

How do you mean fix the stand to the scale? Would this mean you couldn't use the scale for other things, as it would have a stand attached to it? Would removing the stand from the scale damage the load unit (as 3m tape is excellent, and hard to remove, and load units can be bent).

Maybe I am just misunderstanding agin. You could affix two small pegs to the scale which slot into the holes to locate the stand on and stop it sliding about.


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> You could affix two small pegs to the scale which slot into the holes to locate the stand on and stop it sliding about.


That unfortunately doesn't work, because a portafilter is heavy and you will tend to bang into the stand as you place the portafilter into it. You really need to glue the stand down if you want to use it.

So yes, that does mean buying more than one scale if you want one to have a portafilter stand on it.


----------



## decent_espresso

I'll be in London June 1st->5th with my DE1+, so if anyone is desperate for a private demo of my espresso machine, let me know. I haven't scheduled any public events as it's a bit of a short holiday for me before doing a few weeks' tour on the continent (France/Spain/Italy).

I'll be back in London late July and then again in October, and for those times, will likely have some public events.

If there were a few people on this forum who wanted to see the machine, we could also try to schedule a shared date/time, depending on what you guys are looking for.

Scott Rao is staying with me in London, as he's giving some roasting classes around the same time. He might be around for a demo, but it depends on his schedule.


----------



## decent_espresso

We've changed the design slightly for version 2 of our portafilter funnels https://decentespresso.com/funnel

We previously were making them out of stainless steel, and coating them with teflon. The coating looked beautiful, and worked well, but if you've ever had a teflon coated frying pan, you know that sooner or later you end up scratching the teflon off. Teflon is unfortunately too delicate a material, and eventually you'll get blemishes.

This is what the funnel we're using here looks like after 6 months of daily use. The most vulnerable part, the edge, which is both most likely to get banged, and hardest to get teflon to stick, has several "dings".









Also, the stainless steel funnel weighed half a pound (260g), which felt great, but was a bit overkill, and cost us a fortune in air shipping.

The new design is made from food-grade aluminum, black anodised coated. It's almost as no-stick, but much more durable. The weight is much reduced (97g), but still heavy enough to stay put.

Here's a photo of the two models side-by-side, with the old on the left, and the new on the right.


----------



## decent_espresso

I had planned on pre-gluing the stand to the tablet before you receive your espresso machine from us, but now I'm thinking that it might be better to let you glue it yourself, so that you can decide (a) the angle (b) whether you want the stand or prefer to have the tablet elsewhere (such as on a wall). To glue the tablet, you peel the wax-paper off the stand base and stick the now-exposed 3M pad to your tablet.

What do you think?


----------



## decent_espresso

I've started making some default shot profiles to include on the DE1. This will evolve with time, and of course you can make your own, and when I write the cloud sharing stuff, download them too.

One thing that I realized is that some older lever machines don't have a pressure release valve. So, we've added a new bluetooth command to the DE1+ to end a shot program, but hold pressure (don't open the flush valve), so that the DE1+ can copy this style of espresso making.

I'd love to have a conversation about some of the shot styles you'd like to see be in the default DE1.

Here's a off-the-top-of-my-head list:

- flat shots at 8, 8.6, 9 and 10 bar, with no preinfusion (aka commercial machines).

- lever shots that rise to 6, 8, 9 bar, and decrease linearly over 25 seconds to 0 bar.

- lever shots with a 2nd spring, so that the peak pressure is held for 8 seconds, then there's a linear decline to zero bar

- Strada EP style pressure profiling, with the common profile of rise to 9 bar, then decline to 6 bar over 30s.

- E61 shots with preinfusion (at 4 ml/s) for 6 seconds, then a flat 9 bar.

- My personal favorite of preinfusion, then rise to 9 bar, hold for 10s, then decline to 4 bar over 25s. Same for 6, 8, 8.6 and 10 bar.

What other kinds of shots would you like to see included by default?


----------



## decent_espresso

Below is a screen picture of the DE1+ tablet GUI that I'm working on.

This is Scace shot, 30 seconds long, 5 seconds preinfusion, rise to 9 bar, hold for 5 seconds, then decrease to 6 bar over 20 seconds. We've found that our Scaces "open up" with time and have a faster and faster flow rate, which is why this doesn't look so much like an espresso shot (which would compress down to a lower flow rate).









I've added James Hoffmann's suggested "flow rate change" information. I've been struggling with how to display this, because it can be a positive or a negative number. I don't want to make a new chart for this data, and changing the Y axis to go to -6 ml/s would halve the visual resolution.

I decided that a flow rate increase is very different information than a flow rate decrease. A decrease would tend to be caused by the DE1+'s desired profile, though clogging could also cause this. A flow increase is generally caused by temporary channeling.

For this reason, I decided to draw flow rate increases from the bottom, moving up. And flow rate decreases are from the top, moving down.

I'm not 100% sold on this approach, but it's the best I've come up with for now. Changing how this works is very easy, and alternative skins can be offered, as I've coded support for a half dozen alternatives, in coming up with this.









I've also changed the "data card" on the right around, so that it's more useful (I hope). There are a ton of usability improvements too, from what I've learned making espresso for 5 months with this software.

The Y axis for temperature is now auto-generated based on data, so before you think you're having big temperature swings, be sure to look at the Y axis label. This Scace shot started about 0.90°C too cold and within 10s hovered around 0.25°C too hot. The data card on the right now shows you how far off the brew temperature is from your goal, and it also tells you how many ºC over/under the goal we're putting into the group head, in order to reach the goal quickly.

Also new to the DE1+ is a consolidated "zoom mode" that combines flow and pressure on a single chart, doesn't zoom temperature, so that you can see your shot in great detail.

I think an argument can now be made that "pressure change" should also be displayed, and I might do that eventually too.


----------



## decent_espresso

FLOW PROFILE EDITOR

This weekend I got a first pass at a flow profile espresso editor working. Here's a picture of it below.

Matt Perger stopped by Decent HQ today, and suggested that moving the "6 bar start" option into a separate "compress" step would be more logical. I think he's right, and will make that change tomorrow. The steps will then be "Preinfuse, compress, hold, decline".

Another idea Perger proposed was to be able to program a volumetric espresso shot in steps, so that you can say:

1) preinfuse at 4 ml/s until the puck is detected as being saturated

2) run 30ml of water at 1.5ml/second, and then end the shot.

In theory, the in cup weight should be 30ml. The DE1+ firmware can currently do this sort of thing, but I haven't yet programmed the tablet GUI to make it possible. I think Perger's idea is a good one, so I'll make sure that my software can do what he's described.


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## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> FLOW PROFILE EDITOR
> 
> Another idea Perger proposed was to be able to program a volumetric espresso shot in steps, so that you can say:
> 
> 1) preinfuse at 4 ml/s until the puck is detected as being saturated
> 
> 2) run 30ml of water at 1.5ml/second, and then end the shot.


Yes yes yes. That's what I want.


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## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> Yes yes yes. That's what I want.


As soon as Matt had explained it, I realized his idea made perfect sense, and I wondered why this (now seemingly obvious) approach hadn't occurred to any of us before. Volumetric programming has always been a kind of "black box" (I have it on my GS/3), and I think that's just clouded our minds.

So.... my thanks to Matt for coming by and dropping his little pearls of wisdom on his way through.


----------



## decent_espresso

I've been asked many times "how do you fill the water tank on the decent espresso machine?" So I made a movie today showing how.


----------



## decent_espresso

As of today we're able to make flow controlled espresso shots.

I don't know of any other espresso machine able to do this, so this could be a world premiere.

The screen shots below are the results of our first real (coffee, not Scace) fully flow controlled shot, which just occurred a few minutes ago.

Pressure was never a goal in the shot. This was a 4 ml/s pre infusion, followed by a 1.8 ml/s hold, with a flow rate declining to 1.0 ml/s. Look at the green pressure curve, it's really interesting to see what kind of pressure curve fits this kind of flow rate.

I've recorded video of this and will put a movie out shortly, explaining this further.


----------



## Obnic

Pressure vs flow is a breakthrough. Now there's evidence behind what, until now, has been empirics and suspicion. The missing piece for me is a soluability curve vs flow. I am in awe of what you are doing here. This could well be disruptive.


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## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> Pressure vs flow is a breakthrough. Now there's evidence behind what, until now, has been empirics and suspicion. The missing piece for me is a solubility curve vs flow. I am in awe of what you are doing here. This could well be disruptive.


The in-cup weight for this shot was 32g, and calculating volumes from the flow rate and timings on the chart, that would be

10s x 1.8 mls/s = 18g

20s x 1.4 ml/s (average in decline) = 28g

7s x 4 ml/s = 28g

For a total water volume into the group head of 72g.

With 32g in cup, that means 40 was trapped in the puck and group head.

There's a bit of water (I think it's 6ml) that we see in the flush, so lower that to 34g of water soaked into the 18g dose of coffee grounds we used.

Is that the sort of solubility information you were looking for? Or do you mean TDS?


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## decent_espresso

We're about to receive the final sheet metal "factory proofs" for our chassis, and all the Ultem and brass pieces too. We need to check these all for final accuracy before we give approval for mass manufacture.


----------



## decent_espresso

The Flow Profile shot editor is undergoing rapid change at the moment, because I took my first attempt at it to London, where I'm here with Scott Rao, and he immediately poked holes in some of my assumptions.

Below is today's iteration, trying to address Rao's points.

Even though this is a flow controlled shot, there is

(a) an optional exit during preinfusion if a given pressure is reached, and

(b) an option for a guaranteed minimum pressure after preinfusion, in case you want flow control, but you want to make sure the puck was compressed.

Scott and I are with James Hoffmann tomorrow, who I'm sure will poke more holes in our assumptions.

Hopefully, with all this expert advice on what we're doing, we'll be able to find a happy compromise between power and simplicity. It's a work in progress at the moment. My goal is to have something relatively well thought out for next week's World of Coffee conference in Budapest.


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## decent_espresso

Four interns started this week, and because they're all engineering students, we can put them to work on fairly sophisticated tasks. We have them designing stations to automate testing of our components, and we're also having them create CAD drawings of standard parts that we buy off the shelf (that therefore have no drawings).

Man Yi turned around the drawings below in an hour, which is really impressive, so it looks like we're going to give her more things to draw.


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## decent_espresso

Historical Espresso Shots Saved Automatically

Since it's not much data (about 4kb) for a shot, I decided to

(a) save all the historical pressure/flow/temperature data, but also

(b) all the settings that were in place for every shot

© able to chart historical shots, and leave that historical shot charted in place as you make the new shot, so you can compare

(d) able to load any historical shot, with all settings intact.

Essentially, every historical shot becomes a "profile" that can be brought back, and you can make that shot again.

At the moment, I've programmed (a), (b) and (d). I'll get © done after my European tour, in a few weeks.


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## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> The in-cup weight for this shot was 32g, and calculating volumes from the flow rate and timings on the chart, that would be
> 
> 10s x 1.8 mls/s = 18g
> 
> 20s x 1.4 ml/s (average in decline) = 28g
> 
> 7s x 4 ml/s = 28g
> 
> For a total water volume into the group head of 72g.
> 
> With 32g in cup, that means 40 was trapped in the puck and group head.
> 
> There's a bit of water (I think it's 6ml) that we see in the flush, so lower that to 34g of water soaked into the 18g dose of coffee grounds we used.
> 
> Is that the sort of solubility information you were looking for? Or do you mean TDS?


Sorry, I've only just seen this. Thanks for your reply.

My thought (and I am in no way scientific about this) was that as the shot progresses you need to increase contact time in order to leach progressively harder to extract oils from your grinds. So I am imagining aiming for a steady rate of dissolving coffee by varying rate of water flow.

What I was thinking about, but it was almost a rhetorical ask because I have no idea how you would measure this, is information about the efficiency with which oils are being leached as the shot progresses.

You'd have a sort of proxy I think in flow vs weight in the cup. In an utterly unscientific way I try to manipulate pressure on my Vesuvius to get a steady rate of weight increase in the cup. These shots seem to me to have higher TDS and so better EY.


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## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> My thought (and I am in no way scientific about this) was that as the shot progresses you need to increase contact time in order to leach progressively harder to extract oils from your grinds. So I am imagining aiming for a steady rate of dissolving coffee by varying rate of water flow.


That's my theory too, and I've presented it to Rao, who thinks it's plausible.

The real number you want to know is TDS per second. In theory, it would be possible to measure this with a refractometer built into the espresso machine watching the shot drip by. I know that the olive oil world has this sort of gadget (to detect rancid oil through a bottle), so it's theoretically possible, but not something yet available in the coffee world.

A more easy to measure proxy would be "opacity" of the liquid coming out of the bottom of the portafilter, and indeed I have done shots that I told the DE1+ to slow from 1.8ml/s to 1.0 ml/s over the course of the shot, to maintain consistent "darkness" (aka opacity). The "problem" is that those shots take longer to pull, around 50s, and I then start to worry that they'll taste different.

So far, my favorite flow controlled shots are a steady 1.2 ml/s. They finish in ~35s, and they taste "smoother" than the 1.4 ml/s shots.

But, this is just after one week of testing/tasting, and people more talented than I (and with better/different beans) will surely come to different conclusions.


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## decent_espresso

We've upgraded to a high end "pick and place" machine to make our own circuit boards for our espresso machine. We like the control it gives us, to know that every part on the board is the one we chose. It lets us make short runs and also create small circuits for specific tasks (such as for a testing station) . Even better, the machine pays for itself with the first 1000 espresso machines we make, bringing the per-espresso-machine board cost down from $90 to $50.

We're calling this machine "Peter", as in "Peter Piper picked a shed load of components almost 500 and made them into PCB boards".






Here's a picture of a Very Happy Jeffrey with his new toy. You can see the puny old machine we previously used, to its right.


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## decent_espresso

Here's a short video Jasper Coffee took of yesterday's DE1+ demo with Scott Rao in Budapest. Best coffee shots so far on this machine, but that's because it was Scott's own Kenyan roast beans. Both the flow profile at 2.2 ml/s and a 9-bar-flat shot delivered good (but different) results.

[video=facebook_share;1590586847650013]




__ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1590586847650013



and meanwhile in Hong Kong, we're taking over 3000 sq ft (about 300 sq meters) of new space next door, to dedicate it to manufacturing, because our first space space (R&D, accessories, lunch!) is now crammed full.

[video=youtube;1slqPi5-AYk]


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## Dylan

Weird thing on your site -

When you go to the Scales page the Decent Scales are $99

If you add them to your basket they are still $99

If you switch to GBP the price is £99 (There is nothing about tax - why do people in the UK have to pay a £22 premium?)

If you then switch back to USD from GBP the USD price drops to $80... guessing this is a bug


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Weird thing on your site - When you go to the Scales page the Decent Scales are $99 If you add them to your basket they are still $99 If you switch to GBP the price is £99 (There is nothing about tax - why do people in the UK have to pay a £22 premium?) If you then switch back to USD from GBP the USD price drops to $80... guessing this is a bug


Shipping things to the USA from Hong Kong is alas much less expensive than shipping them to the UK, and as shipping is either included (3 or more items) or a low flat rate of £10 (if

As to the $80 thing, that's definitely a bug, I've just managed to recreate it, so thanks for spotting & reporting it. Will fix. I note that the price does get fixed when you click 'pay now' or reload the page. It seems to be a javascript refresh bug.

As far as duty & taxes go, you'll receive your package via Royal Mail, and they will collect (or choose not to) tax due. For these smaller purchases, the postman rarely bothers and most Brits receive their packages from us without taxes imposed.


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## Dylan

Cool, makes basic sense i guess

Does it really cost £22 more to post to the UK than USA? Or is it just a case of keeping numbers round?

As you site defaults to dollars, i imagine you are going to get a fair few brits thinking the price difference is a tad unfair (even if it's not) or that it includes taxes (which tends explain price difference for other products)

Will you be looking for a UK stockist for your products to help people avoid tax 'gambles' with the post office?


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Will you be looking for a UK stockist for your products to help people avoid tax 'gambles' with the post office?


If we used a distributor in the UK we'd need to give them 30% to 40% margin on our products, which would in turn mean that we need to charge a higher price. Selling direct I can spend a *lot* more to make the product, and I also can make sure that if there are any problems, they get addressed. I'm just choosing a different path than the usual one in espresso...


----------



## Dylan

I'm still a bit put out by the extra postage rolled into the UK price, and wondering how it makes sense.

You charge £10 shipping, and according to your above post the difference between the UK and US price goes into shipping, and this is £22. That makes £32 shipping for a set of scales.

Parcels under 2kg are very cheap to post to the UK from china, a 1kg parcel is about £10 to post according to China Posts website.

Even if you then roll in good insurance or faster/better post, I don't see how you get to £32 to post a set of scales unless you are using a super expensive courier.

It means that nearly 30% of the scales price is postage - you could have a UK seller stock your scales, pay them their 30% an still arrive at the same sale price.

This is all before tax of course - and I have never had a parcel worth more than £20 go through customs with no charge in the past 2 years or so, and I have had a few ordered... maybe I am using the wrong couriers or super unlucky, but you certainly shouldn't be asking your customers to hope they 'get away' with tax they should be paying. - something I believe you insinuate in your above post saying most of your customers don't end up paying customs/VAT on import.


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I'm still a bit put out by the extra postage rolled into the UK price, and wondering how it makes sense.


Hi Dylan, I'm kind of trying to avoid having an off-topic conversation here about "why are electronics more expensive in the UK than in the USA?"

The short answer is that it's more expensive to do business in the UK. Besides shipping, in the USA we are obligated to have a 30 day warrantee, whereas the EU mandates 1 year (or is it two, I forget). There's also the EU recycling directive. And CE approval to pay for. And that's not to mention the large currency risk we take in accepting GBP at a time where the exchange rate is changing wildly. All these things sadly make electronics more expensive to buy from inside the UK.

I've lived in the UK many years, so I know that Decent is not alone here, and I've often wondered by $1 = £1 when comparing prices. I've tried to keep the prices fairly close, but at the same time, we can't afford to make less money selling to the UK than we do to the states.


----------



## generalguy

decent_espresso said:


> Hi Dylan, I'm kind of trying to avoid having an off-topic conversation here about "why are electronics more expensive in the UK than in the USA?"
> 
> The short answer is that it's more expensive to do business in the UK. Besides shipping, in the USA we are obligated to have a 30 day warrantee, whereas the EU mandates 1 year (or is it two, I forget). There's also the EU recycling directive. And CE approval to pay for. And that's not to mention the large currency risk we take in accepting GBP at a time where the exchange rate is changing wildly. All these things sadly make electronics more expensive to buy from inside the UK.
> 
> I've lived in the UK many years, so I know that Decent is not alone here, and I've often wondered by $1 = £1 when comparing prices. I've tried to keep the prices fairly close, but at the same time, we can't afford to make less money selling to the UK than we do to the states.


That makes sense, but isn't there an equivalent to ePacket for China-> UK? That's how it ends up being cheaper to ship stuff from China to the US than from the US to the US! IIRC it's a UPU thing


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> Hi Dylan, I'm kind of trying to avoid having an off-topic conversation here about "why are electronics more expensive in the UK than in the USA?"
> 
> The short answer is that it's more expensive to do business in the UK. Besides shipping, in the USA we are obligated to have a 30 day warrantee, whereas the EU mandates 1 year (or is it two, I forget). There's also the EU recycling directive. And CE approval to pay for. And that's not to mention the large currency risk we take in accepting GBP at a time where the exchange rate is changing wildly. All these things sadly make electronics more expensive to buy from inside the UK.
> 
> I've lived in the UK many years, so I know that Decent is not alone here, and I've often wondered by $1 = £1 when comparing prices. I've tried to keep the prices fairly close, but at the same time, we can't afford to make less money selling to the UK than we do to the states.


I do buy a lot of stuff from abroad, and the reason I am questioning it is that the "why does $1=£1" question is usually answered by the 20% VAT that is included in the UK price - your prices don't include VAT, so this is why I raise the question.

I obviously do not have nearly the amount of knowledge or experience you have deciding on these prices, but I just don't think I have ever seen a 30 or so % premium on UK goods before tax is accounted for, perhaps other companies take more of a hit on their bottom line selling to the UK...


----------



## Phobic

I tried to resist......but can't.

using https://decentespresso.com/cart?s=35+1 to price

DE1 220V to France €944

DE1 220V to UK £1149 = €1307.12 at current exchange rate of £1:€1.14

price before delivery and tax, both with CE and EU recycling.

most companies take out a hedge if they're worried about currency fluctuations.

am I missing something?


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## decent_espresso

generalguy said:


> That makes sense, but isn't there an equivalent to ePacket for China-> UK? That's how it ends up being cheaper to ship stuff from China to the US than from the US to the US! IIRC it's a UPU thing


China != Hong Kong.

DHL had quoted me USD$10/kilo if I shopped from Shenzhen. But it's USD$40/kilo from Hong Kong.

But there's no way I'm going run my company out of China, thank you. In Hong Kong we're still mostly under British law.


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## decent_espresso

Phobic said:


> I tried to resist......but can't. using https://decentespresso.com/cart?s=35+1 to price


There seems to be a bug in the shopping cart's javascript that gives incorrect prices if you switch between currencies on the same page. Click on the shopping cart menu item at the top to get the right price. Sorry about that, but people price-comparing between countries they don't actually live in isn't a scenario I tested well.

All all-in GBP price to the UK for a DE1 is £1163 (which equals €1325)

All all-in EUR price to FR for a DE1 is €1411

Because of currency fluctuation, this means that UK buyers are a bit *cheaper* (9%) than Europeans. This is because I can't be constantly changing the price on our web site of our espresso machines as the British Pound swings about. That 9% difference reflects the change in the pound since I set the prices back in November.

Regarding your "taking out hedges" advice, that sounds great, if I were a large company with piles of money just sitting around that I could invest in currency hedging. Decent Espresso is my wife and I, and 11 employees, we're not big super mega corp with lawyers and multi currency hedges. We've sold about 10 espresso machines to the UK, not really a quantity worthy of calling hargreaves lansdown.

Shopping carts below:


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## Obnic

What's the latest on flow control effects in the cup? Have you and Scott had more time to play?


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> What's the latest on flow control effects in the cup? Have you and Scott had more time to play?


Scott has some theories he's testing that he doesn't want me to disclose, because he's working on a new book.

On my end, I'm more of a mid-to-light roast guy, rather than light roasted. I like a little bit of (not dark) chocolate in my coffee and I mostly drink my coffee with milk (sorry!). I'm finding that a declining flow curve (3 mls/ for 12 secs, decline for 15 secs to 2.2ml) makes a very low acid, thick mouthfeel, light chocolate extraction with lots of top notes.

I just spent 5 days in Turino with a roaster I work with there, and he was really suprised how floral his coffee could be, because he's always extracting it on a traditional machine with the temperature set to 102ºC. I'm fairly sure that's an actual extraction at 95ºC as the DE1+ set to 95ºC in cup made espresso the way he said it should be. I'm way down at 88ºC, which is more "lindt chocolate" -- layers of not dark roasted chocolate and quite floral. At 95ºC on the DE1+ his coffee tasted of dark chocolate, more bitter, stronger, and nothing on the nose except for dark chocolate.


----------



## decent_espresso

We've been working for the past 4 months with a ceramics factory to make our water tank and drip tray out of porcelain. The sample they made for us were great, and the price was good (about $7 for both parts). Unfortunately, they've now tried twice to make the parts using the "mass production process" and both times, what we've received has been warped enough that they won't slide into the metal rails of our espresso machine.

The problem, and we've seen this before, is that samples are often made using a process for one-offs (pressure casting), but after you order, a different manufacturing process is used for quantity (slip casting). You don't necessarily get the same result.

We had a much more expensive bid from another company ($23.70 for both parts) that we'd passed on previously, but their quality was great, so we've gone back to them. We've decided to use them now, so that we don't add more delays, and keep working with "slip casting" ceramics companies to see if someone can make our vessels well and cheaply with that process.

The lead time of this new company is 60 days, which unfortunately means that the ceramics will arrive mid-to-late August. That's going to (sigh) put out our DE1 deliveries until then, since an espresso machine that has no water tank is of limited use.

With luck, this will be the worst delay we encounter, and everything will have arrived by then, and we can just slip the ceramic parts in.

Sorry for the bad news, guys. Manufacturing is not easy.


----------



## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> Scott has some theories he's testing that he doesn't want me to disclose, because he's working on a new book.
> 
> On my end, I'm more of a mid-to-light roast guy, rather than light roasted. I like a little bit of (not dark) chocolate in my coffee and I mostly drink my coffee with milk (sorry!). I'm finding that a declining flow curve (3 mls/ for 12 secs, decline for 15 secs to 2.2ml) makes a very low acid, thick mouthfeel, light chocolate extraction with lots of top notes.
> 
> I just spent 5 days in Turino with a roaster I work with there, and he was really suprised how floral his coffee could be, because he's always extracting it on a traditional machine with the temperature set to 102ºC. I'm fairly sure that's an actual extraction at 95ºC as the DE1+ set to 95ºC in cup made espresso the way he said it should be. I'm way down at 88ºC, which is more "lindt chocolate" -- layers of not dark roasted chocolate and quite floral. At 95ºC on the DE1+ his coffee tasted of dark chocolate, more bitter, stronger, and nothing on the nose except for dark chocolate.


This is where I want to play next. I'm sure you are on to something groundbreaking. Please keep us informed.

And when is the professional version coming? I confess I find myself stuck a bit . You,re the first manufacturer that gives a lifespan in shots of course (10,000) but for me this sounds a bit short - it's 5 years or so. 100,000 shots is of course overkill but, well, belt and braces... I'd rather be over-engineered than under - I know you will appreciate this as an engineer.


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## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> And when is the professional version coming? I confess I find myself stuck a bit . You,re the first manufacturer that gives a lifespan in shots of course (10,000) but for me this sounds a bit short - it's 5 years or so. 100,000 shots is of course overkill but, well, belt and braces... I'd rather be over-engineered than under - I know you will appreciate this as an engineer.


The DE1PRO will be coming in the Autumn. It's the next thing we do once the DE1/DE1+ ships. We're also working on a DE1CAFE version, for Q1 2018, with built in gravimetric and constant operation.

Think of the 10,000 shots as a guarantee, not a life span. A car doesn't stop working the day after the guarantee expires. All mechanical products need maintenance and service. There's no reason to suppose the DE1 won't run a decade or two, but you'll need to replace pumps and seals in order for that to happen, just like any espresso machine.


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## decent_espresso

This is the first photo I've posted of our new internal design as a real machine. We totally reconceived the insides after we found our November machine wasn't at a high enough evolutionary level.

In this photo, you can see (1) the machine opens up quite easily for complete access (2) the silicone insulated hot water and steam heaters (3) totally redesigned and much lighter group head [for faster temperature change responsiveness] and quicker warmup (4) much more internal space and reduced complexity.

We still have some work to do to organize the tubing better, to test and re-test everything again before we "pull the trigger" on the sheet metal order (which FYI takes 35 days to manufacture) and the mixing chambers (which have been refined to lower mould costs).


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## decent_espresso

These past few weeks, I've been on the road with my DE1+, starting in London, then 3 cities in France, then the "World of Coffee" show in Budapest, and finally a week in Italy. I've got 10 days to myself now in France, so I can focus on finishing the programming of the DE1+ tablet software and then I'm back to Hong Kong. My partner Bugs Harpley can then take a short holiday (she'll also be exhibiting at the Berlin coffee show) while I run things.

This past wednesday, I got to spend a few hours with Francesco Sanapo http://www.francescosanapo.com the owner of cafe/roaster Ditta Artigianale, seen as one of (if not the) top cafe in Italy. The other Francesco (Masciullo) http://www.dittaartigianale.it/en/news/3/359/2017/2 is Itay's top barista and Italy's candidate for this year's WBC in Seoul.

Francesco Sanapo was quite taken with flow control, as he told me that he regularly talks to La Marzocco and Nuova Simonelli to add user control over flow. They tell him that it's possible with hardware changes, but not as an end user. He invited me to share his booth with two DE1+ machines at HOST Milan http://host.fieramilano.it/en - the most important coffee trade show in Italy. Very flattered, I accepted, and if booth space and schedules permit, we'll do it!

At Ditta they use a La Marzocco Strada with a paddle to make their shots, and Scott Rao had visited a few weeks earlier to tweak their profile for even flow. Scott had created a rise-to-9-bar-then-lower-to-7-bar profile by visually trying to maintain constant flow. It turns out he did a good job, because with my DE1+ was set to create a constant-flow profile, and we watched what kind of pressure curve was needed. In the shot below, the pressure rose to ~8.9 bar and decline to ~7.4 bar : very close to Scott's settings.









In the café they use a Mythos grinder, which is my favorite, but for this demo I had to make do with a spare Mahlkonig K30 grinder. Every shot we pulled that used the K30 grinds had a characteristic jitter of pressure variation between 13 and 20 seconds, which you can see above (this shot also had a channel briefly opening at 23 seconds). The pressure rampup is smooth, though, with the K30. My apologies that I forgot to take screen pictures this past week when I had access to a Mythos, so you'll have to take my word for it, for the time being, that curves of shots pulled from Mythos grounds are very smooth.

My way of comparison, here's what a flow profile shot looks like when using grounds from my Lyn Weber EG-1. Quite smooth.


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## Phobic

interesting, what's causing the K30 jitter?


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## decent_espresso

Phobic said:


> interesting, what's causing the K30 jitter?


Generally, I'd say "grind quality" and I'm just theorizing here, but I'd say it's "movement of coffee particles in the puck" which for whatever reason doesn't occur on other grinder. More fines perhaps? I don't have enough data to do anything but pose theories.


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## Phobic

I'm loving the logging and insight that this brings.


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## Stanic

very interesting


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## decent_espresso

Steve Single asked about our choice of Silicone as an insulator, and our interns are confused about how to test the physics of the thing, so I wrote the message below for them, and also for anyone especially interested in why we're dipping our heaters in silicone, something which has not been done in any other espresso machine that we know of.

All insulators (except for a pure vacuum) will eventually reach temperature equilibrium with the thing they are insulating.

The piece of data we want is the "rate of heat loss" that silicone provides, and this is called the "r value". Read about this concept here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-value_(insulation)

Silicone is sold as an insulating material, and its r-value compared to other insulators is given here: http://wiki.gekgasifier.com/w/page/6123767/Insulative%20Products

I attach below an excellent academic paper ("New Advances in Silicone-based Thermal Insulation") that discusses various kinds of types of Silicone products for insulation. Here is an important consideration:

"Thermal conductivity of silicone foam is about half the value of pure silicone rubber. ". We have not yet found a source for foaming silicone that we can use, as we have a very strict requirement that the silicone be odorless even when heated to 160ºC.

Thus, if we can find a foaming silicone product that "doesn't stink", we will double the insulation and lower the weight and material use. We've got 9 interns here, all engineering students, so we've manpower to throw at this! At the moment we are using non-foaming silicone, which works well, but it's heavier and less insulating than if we could get a foamed variant.

I also attach a PDF explaining all the properties of silicone, but here is the important part for our use:

"Silicone rubber withstands high and low temperatures far better than organic rubbers. Silicone rubber can be used indefinitely at 150°C with almost no change in its properties. It withstands use even at 200°C for 10,000 hours or more, and some products can withstand heat of 350°C for short periods. Silicone rubbers are thus suitable as a material for rubber components used in high temperature environments."

￼￼From a safety perspective, we also like that silicone is an electrical insulator. Should a water leak be spraying inside our espresso machine, silicone will not absorb the water and cause an electrical short. Our double-electrical failover components on both heaters are prewired and totally embedded inside the silicone. Chemically, even fully submerged, silicone will absorb no more than 1% of its weight in water.

PDFs:

https://imageserv5.team-logic.com/mediaLibrary/99/InsilThin_Technical_Paper_1.pdf

https://www.shinetsusilicone-global.com/catalog/pdf/rubber_e.pdf


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## decent_espresso

Back in Hong Kong at our factory, we're building two "final release" machines (110V and 220V) in order to catch any last remaining mechanical issues before building the 300 "early access" machines. Having Interns doing the work has actually been helpful, as they build things "naively" and have caught some remaining problems we've been blind to.

The list of problems is not so long, but we do need to solve them.

---

PROBLEM #1: the temperature probe in the group head requires too much skill to mount perfectly, resulting in imprecise temperature readings. This was not caught previously because our machines were built by Jeffrey, and "he's too good". Our interns aren't as good as him.

SOLUTION: stop using a temperature bead and our own design mounting, and switch to using the same ready-made temperature probe we use everywhere else in the DE1.









We haven't yet nailed this, as putting the probe there does alter water flow characteristic, and even water flow on the coffee puck is an important goal for us. We may have as much as two more weeks design work on this before we can have a sample made for real testing.

---

PROBLEM #2 : the water flow meter connectors are about 2mm thicker than we expected. This makes it quite hard to get the tubing on. Again, Jeffrey managed but the interns had trouble. This was not caught before because the supplier had not provided us with technical drawings.

SOLUTION: switch to a new flow meter, from our favorite supplier (ODE, an Italian company), who also make our pumps and valves. Their parts are found everywhere in professional Italian espresso machines.

















We've also gone through several iterations of our mixing chamber (the brown-colored part in the drawing above), because the one we had designed turned out to be very expensive ($85 each) to manufacture. The size is now much reduced, so we can injection mould the part, thus greatly lowering the per-piece price. We are awaiting a sample of our new design so we can test it before paying for the mould to be made.

---

PROBLEM #3: sharp bends required of the tubing, which could cause failure:

SOLUTION: enlarge the hole and the size of the rubber gromet as well.









---

That's what we're currently working on, so we can make our first batch of machines.


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## Dylan

Encasing the boiler in silicone is an interesting approach - and one that concerns me for repairability along the lines of a glued together phone (commonplace these days)

If used in a hard water area without proper filtration the boilers in a typical machine can build up a lot of scale - restorations are easy enough to do as all it requires is a few spanners and the drive to do so.

It looks like it would take a long time to cut away all the silicone encasing your boiler - and if such a thing was done would it have knock on effects for the way the machine behaves?

Perhaps insulation is an essential step in the design of you machine, but I'm fairly sure the majority of users here would rather have a repairable boiler than a slightly cheaper to run machine (assuming that is the only reason - which it probably is not, but please do explain! )

edit: and is the boiler dipped in grease of any kind before going into the silicone to allow easy removal if you so wished? (based off the idea of using vaseline to stop silicone sticking to a mould)


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> It looks like it would take a long time to cut away all the silicone encasing your boiler - and if such a thing was done would it have knock on effects for the way the machine behaves?


Not to worry: the silicone barely sticks to the metal of the water heater at all. If you use a knife to cut a top-to-bottom incision, the silicone peels off, much like a silicone mask on a person. You can replace the boiler and wrap the moulded silicone around the new boiler (if it's the same model), and use two cable ties to hold it tight. We've done this several times ourselves.

If you were to use a different water heater model and the moulded silicone didn't fit, I'd recommend that you wrap the heater with some other insulator and cable tie it. You want to keep the inside of your DE1 cool, both for energy savings and for increased longevity. Lots of people on Home Barista have done this with their own (other brand) espresso machines.


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## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> Not to worry: the silicone barely sticks to the metal of the water heater at all. If you use a knife to cut a top-to-bottom incision, the silicone peels off, much like a silicone mask on a person. You can replace the boiler and wrap the moulded silicone around the new boiler (if it's the same model), and use two cable ties to hold it tight. We've done this several times ourselves.
> 
> If you were to use a different water heater model and the moulded silicone didn't fit, I'd recommend that you wrap the heater with some other insulator and cable tie it. You want to keep the inside of your DE1 cool, both for energy savings and for increased longevity. Lots of people on Home Barista have done this with their own (other brand) espresso machines.


Ah - good to hear - I was thinking more along the lines of a boiler removal to allow it to soak in descaler rather than a replacement but the answer is the same!


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Ah - good to hear - I was thinking more along the lines of a boiler removal to allow it to soak in descaler rather than a replacement but the answer is the same!


For descaling, we'd like you to drop a citric acid powder into the water tank, press the "clean" function on the DE1 tablet, and wait 30 minutes while the acidic water is circulated. You shouldn't need to disassemble anything in our machine for regular maintenance, only if the part positively breaks.


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## decent_espresso

Continuing reports below on our progress. Today there's a batch of more teeny-tiny things that need to be corrected, to make assembly and repair a bit easier.









We've had problems getting the less expensive flow meter to work acceptably in the DE1, so I made the executive decision to put the same $40 swiss-made precision flow meter in both the DE1 and DE1+, at least for these 300 machines we're making. This reduces by half the number of hardware platforms (DE1 and DE1PRO, at 110V and 220V) so that we now have 4 different models, instead of 8. This also means that this batch of DE1s will actually be hardware identical to the DE1+, and that an extra-cost firmware upgrade would be possible to migrate a DE1 to the DE1+. This makes the DE1 more expensive for us to make, but simplifies things for now. We'll need to decide, in the future, whether to simplify the DE1 hardware to make it less expensive to manufacture, or increase its price, or something else.

So, to summarize, this means that for the time being, we're only building DE1+ (and DE1PRO+) machines, and that people who order a DE1 will be actually getting a hardware DE1+ platform, with DE1 firmware in it.


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## Microlot

Any news concerning the CE certification ?

Best regards,Thomas


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## decent_espresso

Microlot said:


> Any news concerning the CE certification ?


We've already had two (paid) reviews by Intertek, and they "don't foresee any problems" and we're now in the accumulating-paperwork stage of compliance certification. However, we can't get that process started until we have 12 final machines built that we can give to them to destroy. So, our priority continues to be "build the early access machines" so that Intertek can have 12 of those machines.


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## Microlot

Thank´s a lot,very helpful information,conlusion is that no early access machine will make it´s way to germany.

At least around christmas time it would be nice to get one.


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## decent_espresso

Microlot said:


> Thank´s a lot,very helpful information,conlusion is that no early access machine will make it´s way to germany.At least around christmas time it would be nice to get one.


Germany is by far the most difficult country to do business with. No only is there CE, but there is a German safety certification as well, and ROHS, and a new recycling directive special to Germany as well. It's great that you have such excellent consumer protection, but it does mean more work and longer lead times to sell to Germany. Yes, I agree that Christmas would be nice, and I plan on getting you your machine by then!


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## decent_espresso

We made a half dozen samples of our scale for beta testing, and feedback from about half the beta users was that our design is *too tall for espresso* machine use. It works fine for pour-over user, or with shot glasses, but enough people use double-spouted portafilters (which remove a lot of height) that our scale, at 3.5cm (1.4") is just too tall to use with many glasses and mugs.

Because we're looking at USD$86,000 in initial costs to make the first 1000 scales (mould fees are expensive) I've made the decision to NOT manufacture this current design. Instead, we're going to take another pass at the mechanical engineering and use a half-height load cell, much as Acaia did in their transition from the Pearl to the Lunar scale. We'll also likely switch from four AA batteries to something smaller. From two segmented LCD strips on top of each other, we'll switch to one longer one, saving on height.

While we're at it, we'll also add a weight-over-USB (not just USB charging) feature because we had 3 companies evaluate our scale for embedding in their product line, and Bluetooth was deemed as not appropriate for that sort of embedded use.

I'll be emailing the 31 people who already ordered our scale and offering them a refund, unless they're willing to wait for us to revisit the design. Currently, I'm estimating the wait to be at least 6 months, as our engineering resources are all dedicated toward the DE1.


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## Obnic

Courageous decision. Props to you.

I've burned through several scales and whilst you never think again about the one that works, the ones that aren't quite right drive you crazy.

Lunar is also good not just because of speed and height but also because it's rechargeable. Just a thought to add to the wishlist if you're going back to the drawing board.


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## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> Lunar is also good not just because of speed and height but also because it's rechargeable. Just a thought to add to the wishlist if you're going back to the drawing board.


Good point. My ideal would be to have removable, rechargeable standard batteries, say AAA, that are charged via usb. That's how my mouse works.

That way, when the rechargeable batteries eventually fail, they can be replaced.

However, this might not be a compatible goal with lowering the overall height of the scale. One reason the lunar is so small (and the brewista II as well) is that they both use a flat shaped non replaceable battery.

To make this yet more complicated, it's becoming really expensive to ship products with lithium batteries. Having the Brewista II in our "barista kit" pretty much doubled our shipping costs, because most air mail services won't accept anything with lithium batteries in it.

That's one reason why I really like removable rechargeable : we wouldn't ship the scale with the rechargeable batteries, you buy them locally.


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## Tiny tamper

Obnic said:


> I've burned through several scales.


M8 I've told you to stop weighing your wallet


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## decent_espresso

Our summer intern Lee has programmed an Arduino and set of temperature sensors to measure the insulating effect of the silicone dip on our water heaters.

At 170ºC (for steam) and 15 minutes later, the air temperature inside the DE1 is 40ºC (we want to stay under 60ºC), and 3 of the 4 temperature sensors show a ~95º reduction in temperature due to the silicone. One of the sensors (on the bottom of the heater), in one of the test, is 53ºC hotter, which likely indicates we need put more silicone thickness at that point.

I've asked Lee to do another test to narrow in on the hotter sensor, and also why it wasn't a case with the 100ºC heater. Also, we need to turn both heaters on (not just one) to adequately measure internal temperature.

Note that for the DE1/DE1+ we let the heaters cool after making an espresso, for home energy conservation. On the PRO and upcoming CAFE models, the heaters will be on all the time.


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## decent_espresso

Every espresso shot now automatically saves everything about itself to a text file, and with a little bit of fiddling, can be shown in Excel. Pressure, flow, temperature as well as all the settings (and profiles) to create (or recreate) the shot.

I need to write something to make the export-to-excel more friendly, but the foundation is there, and the shot saving will be automatic for all DE1 users, so that I as I program features to make the history more useful, your entire espresso history will be there to work with.

I also need to program viewing-historical-shots, viewing-many-shots-on-one-graph, god-shot graphing in the background, restoring settings from historical shots, and lots of other idea&#8230; All for the future!

The Excel spreadsheet below is a quick copy/paste job I did of 3 low pressure shots that occurred from a 2.5 ml/s constant flow rate. This opens up lots of interesting possibilities for data analysis.


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## Dylan

Re the battery:

Why not save yourself the space of AA batteries and go for a flat lithium battery which can be replaced via ebay/aliexpress?

A decent lithium cell will have thousands of discharges as it is, so replacement will be rare. I think there are standard sized cells intended for small drones and such things which should be around for a while. But so long as you choose a common battery spec replacing should be possible in the years to come.

I imagine it would last for ages as well, seeing how long a couple of AA's normally last in some scales.


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Why not save yourself the space of AA batteries and go for a flat lithium battery which can be replaced via ebay/aliexpress?


Yes, that's a good mechanical solution, *except* that we're based in Hong Kong and we airmail all orders from there, and very few air mail carriers want to fly lithium batteries any longer. That means that what used to cost us £15 to post is now often £40, because we have to use a non-competitive price. And Hong Kong Post won't take lithium batteries at all via "slow post", which is the most affordable solution we use for our accessories (roughly 7-10 days for £5 to £20). Our Barista Kit shipping cost has gone from £30 to £80 because Brewista has gone to built in lithium batteries.

And in case you think we should "just not mention it" we didn't know the regs and lost 20 Barista Kits of shipping fees because the postal system scanned, saw the batteries, and returned the packages to us, with postage cancelled.

Sigh, unfortunately, the world is complicated.


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## decent_espresso

Adrien, coffee consultant from @cafeism notices that pressure tends to "go flat" around 35s in the shots we're doing (with constant flow), and he's thinking the shot tastes best stopped at that point. He doesn't have a physical explanation why that'd be so, but it is an interesting observation.

All day on Friday he did constant-flow shots, and the best was the shot below, 3 times pulled and consistent flavor and curves.

18g in, 50g out. 20.5 to 21.0 refractometer readings. 2.5 ml/s, no profusion step.

ps: I'm not sure what's creating the perturbations in our flow control, it might be the noisy electricity out here in rural France, where I am for another week. Something for us to improve.


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## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> Yes, that's a good mechanical solution, *except* that we're based in Hong Kong and we airmail all orders from there, and very few air mail carriers want to fly lithium batteries any longer. That means that what used to cost us £15 to post is now often £40, because we have to use a non-competitive price. And Hong Kong Post won't take lithium batteries at all via "slow post", which is the most affordable solution we use for our accessories (roughly 7-10 days for £5 to £20). Our Barista Kit shipping cost has gone from £30 to £80 because Brewista has gone to built in lithium batteries.


I wonder whether your energy storage needs might be low enough that a super-capacitor could work. No idea whether super-caps are cost effective.


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## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> Adrien, coffee consultant from @cafeism notices that pressure tends to "go flat" around 35s in the shots we're doing (with constant flow), and he's thinking the shot tastes best stopped at that point. He doesn't have a physical explanation why that'd be so, but it is an interesting observation.


I would think that the pressure would flatten out at the point where extraction has stopped (or at least dropped off considerably), and it certainly seems like there isn't much point in continuing the shot at that point.


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## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> I wonder whether your energy storage needs might be low enough that a super-capacitor could work. No idea whether super-caps are cost effective.


A watch battery (or several) will likely do the trick (very flat), I don't know anything about how rechargeable they are (I assume so). I have a bluetooth scale from a chinese vendor that uses one big watch battery. The segmented LEDs on the scale are what use most of the power, it turns out that making light takes a lot of electricity, who knew?


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## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> I would think that the pressure would flatten out at the point where extraction has stopped (or at least dropped off considerably), and it certainly seems like there isn't much point in continuing the shot at that point.


That's the same thing that Rao said to me, and as a test, we added 20 seconds more extraction time, and the total extraction rose only from 20.5% to 21%, so the "most everything extracted" theory seems right.


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## Mrboots2u

decent_espresso said:


> That's the same thing that Rao said to me, and as a test, we added 20 seconds more extraction time, and the TDS rose only from 20.5% to 21%, so the "most everything extracted" theory seems right.


The ey rose presumably not the tds


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## mcrmfc

Loving your work and your open approach this is making me hold fire on upgrading as I really feel you are ripping up the otherwise failrly unambitious overpriced world of prosumer machines.

Would you be able to share what make and model of pressure sensor you use. I have a heavily hacked Gaggia Classic, gravimetrics, flow and temp are fairly cheap and easy (at a one time hacky home level) to interface to say an Arduino but cost effective pressure sensors not so much.

I have seen people use a Danfoss unit...is this just an expensive component for you guys or have you found a cost effective solution.

If you cannot say that's cool, keep up the great work...good luck and can't wait to see the finished product.


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## decent_espresso

mcrmfc said:


> Would you be able to share what make and model of pressure sensor you use. I have a heavily hacked Gaggia Classic, gravimetrics, flow and temp are fairly cheap and easy (at a one time hacky home level) to interface to say an Arduino but cost effective pressure sensors not so much. I have seen people use a Danfoss unit...is this just an expensive component for you guys or have you found a cost effective solution.


No problem at all, but we're talking about a £2 part here. You need to design a circuit board and mounting for it, that's why it's inexpensive. What you're describing are ready-to-plug-in units, whereas we're roll-your-own.

https://world.taobao.com/item/18754437707.htm

Here's the Ultem-CNCed mixing chamber (we call it a manifold) with the placement for that pressure sensor (on the bottom).











Mrboots2u said:


> The ey rose presumably not the tds


Sigh. Apparently 2 double shots a day is not enough to keep my brain cells consistently firing.


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## mcrmfc

@decent_espresso ah I see, wow that's very cool! Can't wait to see these hit the streets, good luck.


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## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> A watch battery (or several) will likely do the trick (very flat), I don't know anything about how rechargeable they are (I assume so).


To my (somewhat minimal) knowledge, most watch (button cell) batteries are not rechargeable. The ones that are that I've seen are lithium ion, which would reintroduce your shipping problem.

Supercaps don't have the volatility of lithium batteries, so I'm guessing would not be viewed as a hazard by shippers. They charge very quickly (in a matter of seconds), and can go through on the order of a million charge cycles. Their energy storage density is still lower than for batteries, though - like around 10x lower. They also behave differently, with a voltage that drops linearly as energy is depleted, rather than holding steady and then dropping suddenly, as rechargeable batteries do. These last two points (plus, possibly, cost) could make them ineffective for a scale.


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## Dylan

There are still a lot of sellers on AliExpress and the like sending small lithium batteries for a very small sum ($15-$20 item and postage) by 'China post Air Mail' (that may not be who they actually use). It is of course possible they are just not declaring and expecting most to get through.


----------



## Dylan

roastini said:


> To my (somewhat minimal) knowledge, most watch (button cell) batteries are not rechargeable. The ones that are that I've seen are lithium ion, which would reintroduce your shipping problem.
> 
> Supercaps don't have the volatility of lithium batteries, so I'm guessing would not be viewed as a hazard by shippers. They charge very quickly (in a matter of seconds), and can go through on the order of a million charge cycles. Their energy storage density is still lower than for batteries, though - like around 10x lower. They also behave differently, with a voltage that drops linearly as energy is depleted, rather than holding steady and then dropping suddenly, as rechargeable batteries do. These last two points (plus, possibly, cost) could make them ineffective for a scale.


I dont think anyone is using super caps as an primary energy source yet are they?


----------



## rytopa

Hey John just a quick question with regards to DE1, would you be able to implement a fully manual extraction, whereby the user is able to manually adjust the pump pressure via the tablet during the shot, maybe like a slider bar on the tablet, slide to the right to increase pressure, sliding back to the left decreases it?

This feature would be great for visual people who likes to stare at the naked portafilter while manipulating the pressure during the different extraction phase.


----------



## decent_espresso

rytopa said:


> Hey John just a quick question with regards to DE1, would you be able to implement a fully manual extraction, whereby the user is able to manually adjust the pump pressure via the tablet during the shot, maybe like a slider bar on the tablet, slide to the right to increase pressure, sliding back to the left decreases it? This feature would be great for visual people who likes to stare at the naked portafilter while manipulating the pressure during the different extraction phase.


It is planned, but not there yet, and the reason is that if I have a "live piloting" feature I also want to record the entire "shot play" and allow you to (a) edit it (b) share it on the cloud with others. Synesso has implemented this sort of shot recording with their paddle, and they've done a beautiful job. I will add this feature, but I want it to be fully-baked when it becomes available.



Dylan said:


> There are still a lot of sellers on AliExpress and the like sending small lithium batteries for a very small sum ($15-$20 item and postage) by 'China post Air Mail' (that may not be who they actually use). It is of course possible they are just not declaring and expecting most to get through.


It's also possible that because "Hong Kong is not China" that the rules are different or that the level of rule-breaking is different. We don't have that many rules to follow in Hong Kong, but we do have to follow them, and the lithium battery policy is a rule that is enforced here.


----------



## roastini

Dylan said:


> I dont think anyone is using super caps as an primary energy source yet are they?


It certainly isn't common, but Coleman did sell a super cap powered cordless screwdriver for a while, and at least one other company is still selling super-cap-powered cordless drills.


----------



## decent_espresso

Before we can have our water heaters manufactured, we need to get the metal water adaptors made for us by another company. This is a custom connection that we're using in our espresso machine because "the whole industry" is moving to this type of connection, as it works great. However, it needs to be made out of metal, not plastic, in high heat situations.

1000 of these adaptors came in yesterday. While they look really pretty, we found that the inside diameter has been made to 7.1mm, and not the 7.3mm that we specified, and so the water tubes won't fit. We enlarged some by hand. Of course, the 20 samples they made for us previously didn't have this problem. Sigh.

We've talked to the factory, and for $320 we can send them back to China to be fixed, and then sent back to us. Once that's done, we can send them back to China to the heater company. So that's what we're doing. Lots of steps!


----------



## decent_espresso

Our manufacturer is having difficulties making a mould to manufacture our knockbox. The way this sort of object is usually made is by creating a solid metal form, that is pushed into a sheet of metal at high pressure.

The problem they're encountering is that stretch marks, appearing as lines, are forming in the metal as it's being stretched into the form.

They've tried two mould approaches (metal and plastic below) but no luck yet.

It's quite interesting to see the real-world challenges that exist in making these physical objects. It's also interesting to me just how rough and raw the initial bent metal is, before it undergoes cleaning, polishing and coating to hopefully (eventually) become the object in the render below.


----------



## decent_espresso

I reported a few weeks ago that we had to fire, very late in the process, the ceramics company we've been working with.

We then upgraded to a much more expensive company to make our ceramics ($9 and $13 to make these parts, instead of $1.50 and $3) but they're working quickly, and more importantly, their work is super-super-super high quality. They're using a compression mould technique instead of slip casting, and a very dense, fine clay. They recorded this video yesterday for us from their factory, where they're testing fit using the espresso machine legs we made for them.

I'm looking forward to seeing the samples in person.


----------



## decent_espresso

1000 tablets have been made for us, but I'm very, very wary of the quality control process with high technology products. Most Android tablets I've evaluated from myriad companies have had issues. The one I decided on was perfect (no hardware problems, clean and functioning Android install)

However: in Bordeaux, France, I ran into someone who used to buy tablets from this same company (when he worked for Argos, a huge UK retailer), and he said that they had a 15% quality-control failure rate but were otherwise a very good choice.

So, I'm not taking delivery of any of these until every single one has been powered up and checked to be perfect.

I was in London a few weeks ago and bought this tablet from Argos' retail store to see what they were selling, and I found an air bubble on the screen of mine. I also found that Argos had "upgraded" to their software include annoying "trialware" of things like Angry Birds. Our tablet uses a clean Android OS installation that has Google's apps, and nothing else.


----------



## Dylan

Still really enjoying all the updates here, its a lesson for anyone interested in how things get manufactured and why things cost more than the sum of their parts.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Still really enjoying all the updates here, its a lesson for anyone interested in how things get manufactured and why things cost more than the sum of their parts.


Glad to hear it. I know I overdid the posting today, but I'm also trying to be honest, not happy-happy-good-news marketing, and tell you about the reality of it.

Many companies simply contract out the entire manufacturing process, providing a computer-drawn design to the "contract manufacturer". I think that approach is one of the root causes of why so many products are poorly made.

Having visited Nuova Simonelli's factory last week, I can see why their espresso machines are reliable. They work with very few suppliers, for a long long time, and they control the entire process.


----------



## Dylan

I think this thread is a demonstration of how much of a headache it would have been if you weren't heavily involved in it all - not sure how it would work if you original designs had just been submitted for manufacture but I cant imagine they would have made the 'right' decision time and again to ensure the end quality of the product was top notch.

And the over posting is great, showing the problems you are having and how you are overcoming them is very endearing to your company and machine.


----------



## Missy

I'm loving this thread too. I couldn't afford your machine in a million years, but it's wonderful to watch the process.


----------



## Phobic

me 3, the insight is great.

I see lots of parallels in my line of work so feel the pain.

also like this from a marketing perspective, as a potential buyer I feel engaged and involved in the whole development


----------



## Norvin

I'm enjoying reading about the development process of creating such an innovative machine.

Probably a naive question, but couldn't you get one of the interns to run a 7.3mm reamer through the connectors, or do you need a special machine to fish out/replace the O ring?


----------



## Microlot

Hi there,

It seems because of some questions too much concerning the date of shipping the thread at HB is "closed"?

No matter what,main thing is you keep us up to date,would like to see a video sometime when control over flow/pressure during the shot is possible.

At this point of time it will be "in my basket"


----------



## decent_espresso

Microlot said:


> No matter what,main thing is you keep us up to date,would like to see a video sometime when control over flow/pressure during the shot is possible. At this point of time it will be "in my basket"


I'll have to make that video for you then, because all the shots for the past 6 weeks or so have been flow profiling shots. At the World of Coffee demos in Budaptest with Scott Rao, that's all we did.



Norvin said:


> I'm enjoying reading about the development process of creating such an innovative machine. Probably a naive question, but couldn't you get one of the interns to run a 7.3mm reamer through the connectors, or do you need a special machine to fish out/replace the O ring?


Yes, the interns absolutely could, but for "playing a long game" reasons, I prefer to have the company that screwed up do the fixing, so that they can't give us goods that have problems and just have us fix it. Other than this hole tolerance issue, the parts are well made. The manufacturer in turn lowered the fixing fee to "we pay the shipping both directions" and they're now doing the labour for free (total cost to fix = £200).

Parts manufacturers seem to always start out "mostly ok" but if you stick with them, point out the problems, are reasonable, and bring back repeat business, the quality goes up over time. Building those sourcing relationships will take time, but it's a wise investment.


----------



## Obnic

Dylan said:


> Still really enjoying all the updates here, its a lesson for anyone interested in how things get manufactured and why things cost more than the sum of their parts.


This is a masterclass; a case study in design to manufacture.


----------



## decent_espresso

Microlot said:


> would like to see a video sometime when control over flow/pressure during the shot is possible.


I've made this video explaining how flow profiling works, how you configure it, and you can see a shot being made this way:


----------



## decent_espresso

I've mentioned before that we make our own PC Boards -- from scratch. I know this sounds insane, but it allows us to make revisions to our boards and improve them every few weeks, rather than doing larges batches. Outsourced PC Board companies don't like making just a few boards, because there is so much parts set up time involved. On the DE1 we have a "high voltage" board to control pumps and heaters, and a "low voltage" board that is essentially a computer, talking to the sensors and to the high voltage board.

In building our recent "release prototype" we found that if a PC board were to fail, that you would need to take apart most of the inside guts of the DE1 to replace it. Whoops.

The reason for that difficulty is that we were screwing the board down from the inside at the beginning of DE1 assembly, and later, when all the pumps, heaters and such are in place, you can't get at those screws any more with a screwdriver. All the stuff inside is now in the way.

Today's revision fixes that problem.

Small "bolts" are now soldered to the PC Board directly, so that the screws now slide from the back panel of the DE1 (from the outside), and tightened using a screwdriver with the whole machine staying assembled. It also means you won't have an "oh shit" moment when a screw falls inside the machine and you can't find it afterwards.


----------



## decent_espresso

Back in November, when I first toured with the DE1+, my prototype machine broke down often because wired connections would come loose from the espresso machine being thrown around so much during traveling.

We've improved that quite a bit since then, but even now, on this tour, I had one wire, on one valve, that has kept coming off. Each time I traveled someplace new, before a demo I would pop off the top of my espresso machine, check the wire, and (usually) put it back into place with a pair of tweezers. Not cool.

To fix this problem, we're doing two things:

1) wherever possible we've replaced wired connections with small PC boards that fit over the connectors, and the whole thing is soldered in place

2) locking connectors everywhere else.

For our mixing chamber, which is a very parts-dense area of the machine, we designed an L shaped PC Board that fits over all the valve connectors, and which also brings 5 temperature and pressure sensors into once place, with a locking connector sending the data back to the low voltage PC Board.

This board just got manufactured (by us) today and we'll be putting it in place on monday.

























For a humorous comparison to where we've come from, I've included a photo of the last "R&D prototype" we made, before redesigning everything for proper manufacturing.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> wherever possible we've replaced wired connections with small PC boards that fit over the connectors, and the whole thing is soldered in place


On balance, maybe this is the right call, but soldering in parts that are prone to failure reduces repairability. Valves and pumps in particular are prone to needing to be replaced. If they are soldered onto boards (particularly boards with other components), that makes it harder to replace them.


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## Tewdric

Indeed. Can you convince us that soldered PCBs are going to be more reliable in the long term than good quality crimped connectors? I appreciate you need to allow for idiots and are pursuing an agent-free model, but a more modular and accessible approach would be more attractive to me whom I imagine to be in your target market..


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## grumpydaddy

Sockets, You should consider sockets on the pcb for each solenoid to plug into. The board itself should lock these together and reduce the chance of any loose connection.

When you consider how many terminals such as these, with connectors such as were used in the prototype, have been fitted to cars over the years and the operating environment these have endured compared to the typical use of a coffee machine, I feel that although it is pretty the pcb idea might just be overkill and just makes the machine less desirable due to serviceability issues.

If the leads were falling off then the cable lengths were wrong and/or there were quality issues with the terminals.


----------



## jwCrema

Tewdric said:


> Indeed. Can you convince us that soldered PCBs are going to be more reliable in the long term than good quality crimped connectors? I appreciate you need to allow for idiots and are pursuing an agent-free model, but a more modular and accessible approach would be more attractive to me whom I imagine to be in your target market..


Once chips are soldered into a Printed Circuit Board if they don't initially fail, they're good for eons. http://www.pcguide.com/ts/rrr/feasFailures-c.html

Crimped connectors have a higher failure rate over the long term due to corrosion. https://www.osti.gov/scitech/servlets/purl/1288669

The solution given of with small replaceable PCB's is exactly what is done in the high tech world.

- I have made a deposit on a DE1+ and I have no other tie to Decent Espresso other than as a future customer. I'm over here watching for updates on my future machine.


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## MTLexpress

jwCrema said:


> I'm over here watching for updates on my future machine.


Looks like there are a few of us who have been forced to migrate after a certain site decided to lock down the thread on DE.


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## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> The solution given of with small replaceable PCB's is exactly what is done in the high tech world.


Here's an example of a self-standing PCB (the flush valve), that is not connected to the other valve assembly. It's a very small PCB, that converts the terminal connections to a much more robust locking and water-resistant connector.

We put all the valves together on one PCB to simplify wiring and reduce failure. Instead of needing 4 valves x 3 connectors (12 wires) going all the way to the back of the machine (to the high voltage board), now one single robust multiconnector cable can go back to the high voltage board.

Also, to simplify assembly and testing, it's better to have assembled parts ("sub-assemblies") that can be built out of the machine, tested beforehand independently.

The opposite approach, of having each component totally separate, coming together at the end, is more likely to find problems late in the assembly process. You'll also have many more wires and connectors flying about, which themselves cause problems. Ideally, when you open up an espresso machine, you should mostly see empty space, and the few wires and tubes should be clear in function, as short as possible, and tidily put away.

If you look inside most modern electronic products, you'll find compact sub-assemblies plugging into each other. It's unusual to find individual components wired together these days.


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## jwCrema

MTLexpress said:


> Looks like there are a few of us who have been forced to migrate after a certain site decided to lock down the thread on DE.


I've done business in Asia for years. Once a supply chain is nailed down, it runs like clockwork and you get life-long friends as an added bonus. But, getting all of this rolling is not for the faint of heart or those who want it done yesterday.


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## decent_espresso

Today's video shows you the insides of the "manufacturing prototype, v2". At this point we're finalizing the sheet metal brackets, insulation of the heaters, temperature probe mountings, and the spacial arrangement of all the components inside the box.

If there's anything in this video you have a question about, please post a screen capture of the inside of the machine, pointing to what you'd like more info on.

[video=youtube;-lei489wKkA]


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## decent_espresso

The water pumps and safety valves to build 300 Decent Espresso Machines (110V and 220V), arrived today. There are two pumps per machine, in case you're wondering about the quantities.

These are made for us by the Italian company ODE (Officine di Esino Lario) ) whose products are found all over professional Italian espresso machines. http://www.ode.it/en/


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## decent_espresso

We're developing a competitor to the Scace 2 https://www.espressoparts.com/scace-2-espresso-machine-thermofilter-temperature-pressure-device because we ourselves need a number of features that the Scace does not provide.

We have several Scaces here at Decent Espresso, and they are the standard. However, there are some missing capabilities that we really need. Three other espresso manufacturers I've visited had each created their own hacked-together devices for the same reason.

We want to be able to measure pressure and water flow digitally, so that we calibrate the internals of our decent espresso machine to match with real measurements. Espresso repairmen use the Scace frequently for this very reason.

We want to be able change the exit hole size so that we can simulate different flow rates, more closely approximating real espresso flow rates. We're enabling this by using calibrated orifices from Lee http://www.leeimh.com/precision-orifices.htm an American company that we currently use inside our DE1 machines. You can swap the orifice size. This also means that if the hole gets jammed (say, with calcification or a bit of coffee) you can just swap this part out, and not throw the whole thing out. We could supply you with several different hole sizes.

Our product will be built entirely into a 58mm compatible portafilter basket, so you can use it with your existing bottomless portafilter on any 58mm espresso machine. We won't have to make different models for different types of portafilters.

For digital output, our plan is to have a battery-powered box included, with an Arduino computer in it, and a two-line LCD showing you pressure and temperature. A USB plug would send data out and which can be stored on a computer via any number of data logging apps. Analysis of pressure and temperature in Excel then becomes possible.

We're considering having an optional flow rate sensor be able to plug into the output "barb" at the bottom. It would have its own cable that connects to our Arduino box.

Our interns have been building Arduino-based test devices all summer, so we already have much of this already developed. The new bit to create is the hardware, which Ben has done an initial design of.

For a few months, this testing tool will only be used by us internally, to ship the 300 espresso machines already ordered, and to work out the bugs in the testing tool. Later in 2017 we could start making this for the public, if there is interest in it.

Below you'll find photos of our proposed design. I'm very much looking for feedback on these ideas. Please opine!


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## decent_espresso

Several people emailed me to point out that the silicone tubing near the water intake didn't look so happy. We saw that too, and had a meeting later the day I recorded the video, where we moved things around to fix that.

The problem was that we were asking that tubing to be very short, and to bend sharply. To fix this, the flow meter was moved left a bit, and the intake tubing is now longer, and comes in from the other side of the flow meter. This gives it plenty of length in which to comfortably move.

We also weren't happy with the water level sensor tube touching and rubbing the side wall, so we've covered that tube with a tough fabric outer sleeve.

The photo below shows the new parts layout, which we think solves these issues.


----------



## decent_espresso

The new group head came in yesterday, which now uses "screw in" thermometer probes. We've been using these probes in our mixing chambers and really like how accurate, non leaking, and easily replaced they are.

One probe dives into the middle of the group to obtain a temperature reading about 5mm above the coffee surface.

Another probe measures the metal temperature to ensure the group head is accurately preheated.

All that messy glue from previous prototypes is now banished for good.

Our "coffee puck" temperature readings will now be more accurate too. Also, if any probe stops working, it's now straightforward to remove and replace it.


----------



## decent_espresso

A number of people have asked "how do you steam milk with your decent espresso machine?" This video gives a short lesson. There are (of course) other ways to steam milk, and if you are a barista, you already know how, so this video is likely of interest to beginners.


----------



## rytopa

Thanks John for the many updates really appreciate you work. Hope i am not asking too much but I have three questions with regards to the DE1;

1) From some of the videos you posted about the DE1 interface its seems with regards to pressure profiling the options are available are prefusion > ramp up to certain pressure > end at certain pressure (3 stages). Would it be possible like the V60 & Vesuvius to instead specify more stages of the profiling ie, hold at 2 bar 5 secs > 6 bar 10 secs > 9 bar 10 secs > 5 bar to the end (4 stages)? I understand that the way your machine works for pressure reading is via the puck instead of internally which i believe the Rocket V60 and Vesuvius are doing; if so would such an option for multiple stages still be feasible in the DE1?

2) With regards to temperature profiling, i understand that only the DE1+ has the option for manipulating the temperature of the basket via a exclusive portafilter DE1+ thermal prob during the shot.

Would you be opening the option to DE1 whereby the water output temperature can also be manipulated during the shot at the rudimentary level ie. mixing chamber or boiler, irregardless of the temperature of the basket. I am currently using a HX machine which i am beginning to appreciate the temperature bump during the first 10 seconds of the shot for certain beans; i would certainly appreciate the option to emulate the HX machine temperature profile.

3) Lastly from your website Specs; you mention that the DE1 is able to "Mimicry" other espresso machine example the Slayer; would that mean it is able to emulate the 30 sec+ slayer style preinfusion?

I understand that coming from a business decision, alot of the exciting stuff such as indepth manipulation of the machine, flow profiling and basket temp profiling can only be found the the pricer DE1+ due to the more power sensors onboard and more R&D money going into it, however i personally feel that given the lack of such senors on the DE1 does not diminish the potentiality of the machine to do more since on the software level there can be much more manipulation of the machine. It would be great if you could fully maximize the DE1 and "open" up more indepth options for the DE1 users.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> A number of people have asked "how do you steam milk with your decent espresso machine?" This video gives a short lesson.


Looks like 30 seconds to get to 65C. How much milk was that? 200ml?


----------



## decent_espresso

rytopa said:


> 1) From some of the videos you posted about the DE1 interface its seems with regards to pressure profiling the options are available are prefusion > ramp up to certain pressure > end at certain pressure (3 stages). Would it be possible like the V60 & Vesuvius to instead specify more stages of the profiling ie, hold at 2 bar 5 secs > 6 bar 10 secs > 9 bar 10 secs > 5 bar to the end (4 stages)? I understand that the way your machine works for pressure reading is via the puck instead of internally which i believe the Rocket V60 and Vesuvius are doing; if so would such an option for multiple stages still be feasible in the DE1?


Yes, you can create any number of steps in an espresso shot using the advanced shot editor. I'm in the process of programming it, that's why you haven't seen it . The "pressure profile" and "flow profile" tabs are meant to handle most people's needs, and to make creating the standard profiles quick and simple.

If you want pauses and pulses, such as for creating a V60 pour-over (yes, we're working on that) then the advanced shot editor is for you.











rytopa said:


> 2) With regards to temperature profiling, i understand that only the DE1+ has the option for manipulating the temperature of the basket via a exclusive portafilter DE1+ thermal prob during the shot.
> 
> Would you be opening the option to DE1 whereby the water output temperature can also be manipulated during the shot at the rudimentary level ie. mixing chamber or boiler, irregardless of the temperature of the basket. I am currently using a HX machine which i am beginning to appreciate the temperature bump during the first 10 seconds of the shot for certain beans; i would certainly appreciate the option to emulate the HX machine temperature profile.


The DE1 is not meant to be a hobbyist/coffee-hacker machine. It will be kept simple, making very nice shots with constant water temperature and variable pressure.



rytopa said:


> 3) Lastly from your website Specs; you mention that the DE1 is able to "Mimicry" other espresso machine example the Slayer; would that mean it is able to emulate the 30 sec+ slayer style preinfusion?


The DE1 can imitate flat-temperature profile machines, with constant flow. You need the DE1+ if you want to imitate a Slayer, because you need precise control over flow to do that.

The DE1+ will do a better job of imitating other espresso machines, because it can also follow the temperature curve that actually exist in those machines, which the DE1 cannot do.



rytopa said:


> I understand that coming from a business decision, alot of the exciting stuff such as indepth manipulation of the machine, flow profiling and basket temp profiling can only be found the the pricer DE1+ due to the more power sensors onboard and more R&D money going into it, however i personally feel that given the lack of such senors on the DE1 does not diminish the potentiality of the machine to do more since on the software level there can be much more manipulation of the machine. It would be great if you could fully maximize the DE1 and "open" up more indepth options for the DE1 users.


From a product design perspective, our espresso machine product line is:

DE1: great espresso for the non coffee-hobbyist, home use, 1 minute per shot

DE1+ : advanced espresso, for the coffee hobbyist, home use, 1 minute per shot

DE1PRO+ : advanced espresso, light commercial use, 50 seconds per shot

DE1CAFE : advanced espresso, heavy commercial use, 35 seconds per shot.



roastini said:


> Looks like 30 seconds to get to 65C. How much milk was that? 200ml?


It was 150ml.

We're in the 35s to 45s range with the DE1/DE1+ to heat a typical 8oz/200ml drink.

With the DE1PRO that time goes down to about 20-30s.

With the DE1CAFE that goes down to 12-18s.


----------



## decent_espresso

I decided to count the total number of different parts inside our DE1 espresso machine, and found that there are 105 different parts. If you're wondering why it takes a long time to go from design to manufacturing, this is part of the reason...

This screenshot is from the inhouse-created Lotus Notes database we have for keeping track of all parts, vendors and purchases.


----------



## decent_espresso

We borrowed a great idea Slayer Espresso had of using mirror to see your espresso as it comes out. We built an angled mirror directly into our DE1 to do this.

This week, the new mirror design came in: we've enlarged the mirror 50% and angled it much more, so that now you can (1) see much more of the espresso coming out and (2) don't have to bend down to get to the right angle.

You can see the difference in these before vs after photos.

Depending on your height, you move yourself forward or back from the DE1, and can remain standing while inspecting your espresso's extraction.


----------



## Microlot

Nice price increase .........

almost 25% on DE1+


----------



## Mrboots2u

Microlot said:


> Nice price increase .........


Perhaps you could be a little more specific


----------



## jwCrema

Mrboots2u said:


> Perhaps you could be a little more specific


I just looked at DE.com and in USD, the price is the same for a ******. Might be foreign exchange related?

I was thinking about a Londinium R, Jaguar, and a Range Rover about a year ago when there was the exchange blip.


----------



## decent_espresso

Microlot said:


> Nice price increase .........almost 25% on DE1+


Afraid so, prices on our machines are going up because:

1) the EU has many expensive regulations we have to comply with, extra certifications, two year warrantee, recycling directive, ROHS, and more

2) shipping and customs are more expensive inside the EU than to/from USA

3) Our current parts total cost for the DE1 stands at $636 at the moment (that's before labour, R&D costs, overhead, repaying the investment), and it will go up more before we ship.

The DE1, in the end, is a more expensive (and nicer) machine than we planned to build 2 years ago, when we set the price. For instance, pressure profiling was not part of the initial remit. The DE1+ is currently, by a fair margin, the most advanced espresso machine announced. Selling it at a bargain price doesn't make a lot of sense.

The previous pricing has been "early adopter" pricing, below what we could charge to have a sustainable business, and was meant to encourage people to take a risk and buy from us, when there was more risk. The 300 machines we're building now are just about sold out, so our pricing is now going up.

Hope that makes sense, and sorry about the disappointment this causes, but in the end, we've made a much more advanced espresso machine than we set out to, and so it has become more expensive to make, and thus has to sell at a higher price.

Also, I did update all prices yesterday to current exchange rates.


----------



## decent_espresso

Two weeks ago I posted about some difficulties we're having forming aluminium sheets into our knockbox design.

https://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?30500-Decent-espresso&p=512597#post512597

We've made some progress, and the form is looking closer to something acceptable.

We've tried stainless steel, and aluminum at different thicknesses. We've polished and sandblasted the form.

Here's what it looks like now:






Next step is to black powder coat a sample, and anodize another, to get a feel for what the finished product could look like. I'll report back when I have those in hand.


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> Afraid so, prices on our machines are going up because:
> 
> 1) the EU has many expensive regulations we have to comply with, extra certifications, two year warrantee, recycling directive, ROHS, and more
> 
> 2) shipping and customs are more expensive inside the EU than to/from USA
> 
> 3) Our current parts total cost for the DE1 stands at $636 at the moment (that's before labour, R&D costs, overhead, repaying the investment), and it will go up more before we ship.
> 
> The DE1, in the end, is a more expensive (and nicer) machine than we planned to build 2 years ago, when we set the price. For instance, pressure profiling was not part of the initial remit. The DE1+ is currently, by a fair margin, the most advanced espresso machine announced. Selling it at a bargain price doesn't make a lot of sense.
> 
> The previous pricing has been "early adopter" pricing, below what we could charge to have a sustainable business, and was meant to encourage people to take a risk and buy from us, when there was more risk. The 300 machines we're building now are just about sold out, so our pricing is now going up.
> 
> Hope that makes sense, and sorry about the disappointment this causes, but in the end, we've made a much more advanced espresso machine than we set out to, and so it has become more expensive to make, and thus has to sell at a higher price.
> 
> Also, I did update all prices yesterday to current exchange rates.


I understand that all and it was clear that prices will rise after the pre-order phase. But actually it is still labeled as pre-order and the prices went up - so some fear that there will still be another price change...

I expected a clear cut - pre-order closed with old prices - new orders with new and higher prices and shipping in spring 2018. Actually you can order for higher price with shipping announced for October...this is confusing.


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> But actually it is still labeled as pre-order and the prices went up - so some fear that there will still be another price change... I expected a clear cut - pre-order closed with old prices - new orders with new and higher prices and shipping in spring 2018. Actually you can order for higher price with shipping announced for October...this is confusing.


Hi Embrya,

My apologies, I made a technical mistake on the price change yesterday and accidentally applied a higher "EU compliance" rate to the DE1 than intended, this has now been fixed. We're following what we see Apple is doing, which is GBP price = US price @ xe.com conversion rate + 10% EU compliance fee.

The price of the DE1 has gone up in the USA to $1199 (from $999) and the 220V machine has gone to $1199 (from $1149). All our other machines have stayed at the same price.

We've decided to add the CE-mandated double-failover safety mechanisms to the 110V/USA versions of our machines, which increases our costs somewhat, but increases safety.

I agree, we need to make it clear on the web site that the initial 300 machines are now sold out, and this will be done shortly. It's a bit of a challenge to get everything done simultaneously here, as the same people work on the web site who also work on getting the espresso machines finished, and our higher priority is shipping, so the web site tends to lag behind.


----------



## embrya

Hi John,

Thanks. But now the machine got cheaper - looking at prices for Germany DE1+ 220 Volt was 2150 € as preorder, raised to 2741€ yesterday and now costs 1869 €?!

And there is no price difference between 110 and 220 Volt?!


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Hi John,
> 
> Thanks. But now the machine got cheaper - looking at prices for Germany DE1+ 220 Volt was 2150 € as preorder, raised to 2741€ yesterday and now costs 1869 €?!
> 
> And there is no price difference between 110 and 220 Volt?!


Correct, we decided to price 110V and 220V the same, because we're now building them identically.

GBP and EURO have had huge currency fluctuations, and yesterday our currency tables were updated for the first time in a year. It wasn't so long ago that one pound was almost equal to one dollar.

So yes, prices on the DE1+ have gone down for both GBP and EURO prices, thanks to those currencies getting stronger.


----------



## Dylan

something that is a little confusing on your site:

The shipping states "free shipping when you buy 3 accessories", it also states "Get a 10% discount when you buy 5 accessories".

It appears (once you added in said accessories) that this only applies to the accessories themselves and not the machine. This is understandable as shipping is £110 and a 10% discount on the machine would be £160 - so this would just be giving away a bunch of free accessories and a discount as well. But it might be best to make this clear on the checkout page.

A simple change to the wording like "Get a 10% discount on accessories when you buy 5" and "free shipping on accessories when you buy 3" would make it clear.

Something else to note: You machine now has a 'declared value' that is less that the cost of it's parts, and this is all public knowledge. I hope your legal advice is sound.


----------



## Dylan

Also - do you have any videos or actual images of your simple scale?


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> My apologies, I made a technical mistake on the price change yesterday


Just another small mistake: 220 volt and 50% deposit gives 1005 Euros--110 Volt 934 which indeed is 50 %...



decent_espresso said:


> I agree, we need to make it clear on the web site that the initial 300 machines are now sold out, and this will be done shortly. It's a bit of a challenge to get everything done simultaneously here, as the same people work on the web site who also work on getting the espresso machines finished, and our higher priority is shipping, so the web site tends to lag behind.




From the website:
​
*"We expect to begin delivering "Release Version" machines in January 2018."* I am confused now.... you mean for orders from now on?? Or for all 50% deposit orders?? On "the other" website you confirmed (afaik) that even orders with 50% deposit would be included in these first 300 De1+ machines. Should I now be worried?


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> something that is a little confusing on your site: The shipping states "free shipping when you buy 3 accessories", it also states "Get a 10% discount when you buy 5 accessories". It appears (once you added in said accessories) that this only applies to the accessories themselves and not the machine. This is understandable as shipping is £110 and a 10% discount on the machine would be £160 - so this would just be giving away a bunch of free accessories and a discount as well. But it might be best to make this clear on the checkout page.


Hi Dylan, the clarifications are there on the web site, in two places. There's a lot of information to absorb, so I'm not surprised you missed it.

On the bottom of the checkout page you will find:

"Quantity Discounts: 10% when you buy 5 or more accessories. 15% at 10 accessories. 20% at 20 accessories. 25% at 40 accessories. 30% at 80 accessories."

on the grinder and DE1 order pages you will find:

"Our grinder and our espresso machines are not eligible for free shipping or quantity discounts."



Dylan said:


> A simple change to the wording like "Get a 10% discount on accessories when you buy 5" and "free shipping on accessories when you buy 3" would make it clear.


Agreed, the wordsmithing needs improving.



Dylan said:


> Something else to note: You machine now has a 'declared value' that is less that the cost of it's parts, and this is all public knowledge. I hope your legal advice is sound.


As it happens, we're revisiting this point today from a meeting last night. With a staff of 11 to do R&D, manufacture and do marketing and sales, not everything happens at the same moment, not like (say) how Apple can do everything at the same time. Bear with me for a few days while we get everything sorted.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Also - do you have any videos or actual images of your simple scale?


Good point, we haven't, so I made this quick video:


----------



## decent_espresso

markant said:


> "We expect to begin delivering "Release Version" machines in January 2018." I am confused now.... you mean for orders from now on?? Or for all 50% deposit orders?? On "the other" website you confirmed (afaik) that even orders with 50% deposit would be included in these first 300 De1+ machines.


I'm assuming you've been following this forum (or others), but in case you haven't, here's where things stand:

1) we've ordered some of the components (heaters, pumps, tablets) for the manufacture of the first 300 machines

2) but we haven't ordered everything yet, because we haven't finalized the "manufacturing prototype". The details remaining are small and easy to do, but there are plenty of them.

3) in about two weeks we should have the 3rd "manufacturing prototype" here, and we're hoping that's the final one.

That schedule has parts for 300 machines coming about 2 months later, which is October. The EU won't let us import 220V machines that aren't CE certified, so the first 100 machines will be 110V, destinated to the USA. Assuming two months for CE, that has us certified in mid-December, and thus CE certified machines will start shipping in January 2018.

I realize that people are excited to get a machine as soon as possible, but there's a process to getting the machines built and in your hands, and I've tried to explain how that all works, here on this forum. The worse possible outcome for everyone is sending machines out that disappoint, hence the slower schedule.


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> Correct, we decided to price 110V and 220V the same, because we're now building them identically.
> 
> GBP and EURO have had huge currency fluctuations, and yesterday our currency tables were updated for the first time in a year. It wasn't so long ago that one pound was almost equal to one dollar.
> 
> So yes, prices on the DE1+ have gone down for both GBP and EURO prices, thanks to those currencies getting stronger.


That's good news!

The best way to avoid problems with fluctuating currency exchange rates would be to have only prices in US-Dollar.


----------



## decent_espresso

Last week, we received the parts for our "manufacturing prototype #2". We changed 22 things with that prototype in a week, all relating to the physical placement of things in space. Today we are ordering parts to make "manufacturing prototype #3", which we hope will be our last one, and in 10 days we'll be building that.

The biggest change is the removal of the left panel, onto which we were mounting a safety valve, and one of the mixing chambers. Because the panel was removable, long tubes were needed. I didn't like the long tubes for a number of reasons. It made that space very crammed, and meant that when you opened/closed the panel, you changed how things fit, and thus could cause (or fix) an unseen problem.

Below are before vs after photos of this area. The safety valve is now directly mounted to the exit hole, and the "auxiliary" mixing chamber is now stacked directly onto the "main" mixing chamber (you can just barely see it peeking out from the top middle of the photo).

We also changed how the wires come together in the PC Board area (left hand side of the photo), so that things are much less crowded. All connectors now congregate at the top, so that you can slide a new PC Board in, screw it in from the back of the DE1, and then connect everything from the top. Better airflow, visibility and easier repair.


----------



## decent_espresso

This just announced:

*Our first manufacturing run of 300 espresso machines has now sold out.*



*
We are not taking new orders for espresso machines until we start shipping.*



*
Once shipping, we will take orders for our winter 2017 manufacturing run, delivering those machines in early spring.*


----------



## Obnic

Congratulations. That's no mean achievement. I wonder if the Vesuvius sold 300 units.


----------



## decent_espresso

We use a company called "EasyShip" here in Hong Kong, as our broker to dozens of other courier services.

Below is a promotional video made by them, which came out today. I thought it might be interesting for you to see a bit of our operation as well.






No courier is best worldwide: for example the less expensive couriers to Europe are more expensive to the USA, and vice versa. The difference can be just 20% or 2x more expensive.

We've written our e-commerce system (and shopping cart), logistics and tracking systems, and integrated them into EasyShip's system.

In case you're curious, here are three screen pictures showing our internal systems. As much as using off-the-shelf-software can save money, it generally creates a chaotic experience for customers, which is why I chose to write everything from scratch. This way, it would all be integrated, providing a single shopping/ordering/tracking/tech-support/repair/warranty system for customers.


----------



## decent_espresso

We're almost finished developing our Decent Grinder https://decentespresso.com/pro_grinder where we take a good quality pro grinder made by someone else (a Chinese company owned by Mahlkonig) and modify it so that you can see the weight as you're grinding. It's a simple feature, but surprisingly useful, since consistent coffee ground dose weight is crucial to making good espresso. In this video, Jeffrey shows his latest idea, a slot for easily moving the scale (and portafilter stand) sideways so that the coffee grounds pour into the center of the portafilter. Front to back adjustment is made by loosening the screws on the feet of the grinder so that you can slide the entire scale stand forward and back.

This grinder is non-automatic. You turn the grinder on, and then off when the dose weight is what you want. The burrs are 64mm flat.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> We're almost finished developing our Decent Grinder


Did you ever get around to redesigning/customing the grinder's nozzle, to minimize clumping?https://decentespresso.com/pro_grinder



decent_espresso said:


> This grinder is non-automatic.


Will it be possible (future proof) to wire up the grinder with an upcoming Decent Bluetooth scale?


----------



## Dylan

patrickff said:


> Did you ever get around to redesigning/customing the grinder's nozzle, to minimize clumping?
> 
> 
> 
> Will it be possible (future proof) to wire up the grinder with an upcoming Decent Bluetooth scale?


I thought it was discussed a bit more in this thread, but all I can find is this post

But I seem to remember DE saying that they didn't want to provide a DIY kit because of the risks involved in opening up a grinder.

Their scales have bluetooth with an open API however - so would only take the right person to create a DIY kit that could use the scales - a little like this with the Acaia:

[video=youtube;-dustqnN-MA]






Edit: just realised this video may very well be from someone at Decent Espresso - as the creator links back to the DE website int he comments.


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> Did you ever get around to redesigning/customing the grinder's nozzle, to minimize clumping?


We did try a few different shapes, and ended up with a teflon coated spout. The spout doesn't cause clumping, but a very fine grind or high humidity will still cause clumping, as it does on most grinders.



patrickff said:


> Will it be possible (future proof) to wire up the grinder with an upcoming Decent Bluetooth scale?


Not likely, unfortunately, because the bluetooth module we have in our testing grinder did cause two engineers to get shocked learning to install it, so I'm very leary of selling something to people and asking them to do something will likely cause them to be electrocuted.

The two engineers now know how to put the module into the system without being shocked, but the fact that one Mechanical Engineer and another Hardware Hacker got shocked doesn't give me great confidence in this being anything but a qualified electrician should be doing.

We did pursue another approach for a while, using a bluetooth controlled power plug, but that company never came through on their promise of a 220V version (it's only 110V and ungrounded at that). Plus, that approach can only turn the grinder off, not on, so it's not as flexible as the embedded bluetooth controller inside the grinder.



Dylan said:


> I thought it was discussed a bit more in this thread, but all I can find is this post
> 
> But I seem to remember DE saying that they didn't want to provide a DIY kit because of the risks involved in opening up a grinder.
> 
> Their scales have bluetooth with an open API however - so would only take the right person to create a DIY kit that could use the scales - a little like this with the Acaia:
> 
> Edit: just realised this video may very well be from someone at Decent Espresso - as the creator links back to the DE website int he comments.


Yes, that video was from Haroldo, who worked for me for a year, and brought his invention along. However, the idea of adding weighed dosing to existing grinders hit the Mechanical Reality  that most grinders don't have enough space to fit a scale under the grinder spout. Add to that the fact that Acaia decided to close the API to their scales, and that seemingly-almost-ready-to-ship product was an R&D cul de sac, and was killed about a year ago.

Sadly, not all R&D paths lead to products, as was the case with Haroldo's idea.


----------



## decent_espresso

Thanks to "chemical engineer/coffee nerd" DIYCoffeeGuy for plotting 182 espresso shots we've made on my DE1+ espresso machine.

We do a huge amount of experimenting with grinds, grinders and roasts, so there's a lot of data all-over-the-place. The "pressure vs time" chart isn't especially enlightening to me (it shows that we're experimenting a lot and our pressure is all over the map). I'm not the only one using this machine, so lots of other people's experiments are plotted here, which accounts for some of the variability.

However, the flow vs time chart is a lot more interesting. Here are some takeaways from the data:

1) our pre-infusions are mostly around 4ml/second, but plenty around 2.5ml/second too

2) most shots have their pucks compressing around 6 seconds, and fully compressed by ten seconds (by looking at the slowdown in flow possible through the puck)

3) most of our shots are around 2.5 ml/s during the main extraction, though there is a healthy number of slower extractions around 1.8 ml/s

4) most of our shots end around 25s, some go to 35s, but very few beyond.

This sort of visualization is interesting to me for a few reasons:

1) it helps prove that I (the DE1+ tablet programmer) don't have all the answers and that others have other perspectives on the same data

2) data export from the DE1+, especially over a large sample size and in a cafe production use, could yield interesting and new insights. This sort of data is not usually collected outside of lab settings.

3) some of these visualizations that people do will make their way back into the DE1+ tablet software, other will be programmed by either me or anyone-who-wants-to using Javascript, once I integrate our espresso machines into the cloud, and make this data publicly crunchable.

You can visit DIY's Instagram post


__
http://instagr.am/p/BXram2KByYk/

for more charts of the same data.


----------



## Dylan

Getting electrocuted was what i thought you gave as a reason before.

I electrocuted myself in the cheek (scared the shit out of me, predictably) installing and Auber timer, so your concerns are more than valid.


----------



## grumpydaddy

One is tempted to ask why anybody would be wiring something up Live ??

Live testing OK but with great care. Wiring ?? Absolutely not.

Anytime you are working inside the machine it should be unplugged unless you are testing for a voltage and for that use probes.


----------



## Obnic

Dylan said:


> I electrocuted myself in the cheek....


I'm sorry, I'm really sorry but I have tears rolling down my face from laughing. This story surely qualifies for the Master Muppetry thread.


----------



## DaveP

grumpydaddy said:


> Live testing OK but with great care. Wiring ?? Absolutely not.


Sometimes I understand why there are Darwin awards


----------



## MildredM

Dylan said:


> Getting electrocuted was what i thought you gave as a reason before.
> 
> I electrocuted myself in the cheek (scared the shit out of me, predictably) installing and Auber timer, so your concerns are more than valid.


Thank goodness you lived to tell the tale (and nab my spare Acme cups!)


----------



## Dylan

Yup, i can see the funny side. I thought i had unplugged it but actually unplugged the machine instead. Lent over the grinder to look inside and got a jolt to the cheek, which made me head but the cupboard above.

For about half a second i thought i had blinded myself, which was what scared the shit out of me, i probably wasn't far off doing so.


----------



## DavecUK

I've sort of lost track of this very long thread....does anyone on the forum actually have a decent espresso machine yet?


----------



## Obnic

Dylan said:


> For about half a second i thought i had blinded myself, which was what scared the shit out of me, i probably wasn't far off doing so.


Not so funny really. Glad you're ok. Still a candidate for the muppetry thread though. There's some very good company in there.


----------



## grumpydaddy

DavecUK said:


> I've sort of lost track of this very long thread....does anyone on the forum actually have a decent espresso machine yet?





> Our first manufacturing run of 300 espresso machines has now sold out.
> 
> We are not taking new orders for espresso machines *until we start shipping.*
> 
> Once shipping, we will take orders for our winter 2017 manufacturing run, delivering those machines in early spring.


I guess that is a no just now


----------



## Dylan

Obnic said:


> Not so funny really. Glad you're ok. Still a candidate for the muppetry thread though. There's some very good company in there.


Indeed, if there is a competition with prize perhaps I'll enter ^_^


----------



## decent_espresso

Last week, Ray had a worry that tension from bending a tube might cause the water seal to fail sooner. While none of our connections is leaking now (even under tension), everyone agreed that it would be better to not have uneven tension on the water seal.

To research if any other manufacturer also worried about this, Jeff went diving through our morgue of dead & disassembled espresso machines. He found one Nespresso machine that apparently had this same worry because that machine had little plastic moulded de-tensioners to hold 90º and 180º bends in place.

Alex drew up a SolidWorks model inspired by what Jeff had found, and over the weekend he 3D printed our de-tensioners. There's a photo below, showing where they'll go in. They work nicely, and we'll be using them in all the machines we're building.

This may or may not be an issue, but with these detentioners costing about $0.10 each, it'd be crazy to not use them to make the worry go away.


----------



## decent_espresso

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that one of our last engineering problems was to decide how to insulate our two heaters.

Our interns built a test rig, with a tiny Arduino computer, at both 100ºC and 170º, to test all the different ideas we had.

Originally, we liked silicone, but our first batch had a nasty chemical smell when heated. Two other manufacturer's samples also had a smell. Also, it's very hard to get air bubbles into the silicone, so the pure silicone insulating solution adds a lot of weight, and is not as insulating as it could be.

We thought we'd solved that problem when we found a no-smell silicone mix that bubbles when mixed, to a selectable amount between 10% and 30%. The problem is that it's extremely hard to get into a mould and in a regular shape. Immediately upon mixing it swells about 60% but then overnight, as it dries, it continues to swell unpredictably. You end up with a messy "pillow" in the morning.

We tried making a metal mould to contain the expanding foam, and that helped, but it left some areas under-covered as the foam expands in ways that differ each time (presumably because of uneven distribution of the foaming agent).

Ray realized that PC boards are made of fiberglass, an excellent insulator, and they're very cheap to have cut into custom 2D shapes. So, he designed a fiberglass box for our heater made from PCB, which is then soldered together.

It's a bit of an oddball solution, but it worked quite well.

We then tried foaming silicone inside the box, and the thermal insulation results were amazing--the best yet--but it was really hard to do and the results are very irregular and not pretty.

In the spreadsheet below, you'll see the results from all our materials, and you'll see that the air temperature (that's the important metric) is OK for all of them. We want to keep it under 40ºC inside the DE1, and all our solutions have done that. You'll notice that PCB+Foam is the best performing, though, by a small amount.

Today, we're doing our final test, which is placing a pre-cut insulating blanket inside the PCB box, wrapped around the heater. We're expecting that it'll give us a lot of the same insulating benefit of the silicone foam, but be much, much easier and faster to assemble (no pouring into a mould and waiting overnight).

Below are photos of the various attempts and tests we've done, for those interested in following along with our progress.

We're awaiting the parts for our "release candidate #3" which are due in about 7 days. That machine will likely use this PCB Box + Blanker heater insulating technique, which is what we'll use for the 300 machines we're building.


----------



## GaryM

Pcb laminate will degrade with time if it gets too hot. You can buy it in a high temperature rated version though. What about ceramic fibre blanket?


----------



## decent_espresso

GaryM said:


> Pcb laminate will degrade with time if it gets too hot. You can buy it in a high temperature rated version though. What about ceramic fibre blanket?


Understood. We're using single layer boards, without laminate, and uncoated as well. We're pretty sure that makes the "PCB" nothing but a single layer sheet of fiberglass.

If you disagree, please do please let me know, as there are lots of options with PCB.

Regarding a blanket, the problem is that if there are air gaps, heat will flow out of them. Our heaters are small with lots of connectors that get in the way of a simple blanket pattern. With big espresso machine boilers, the connectors are (by percentage) a small part of the total surface area, and less of an issue. We liked the idea of a silicone dip, because it ensured no air gaps, and we might still figure that one out, but since the PCB solution works well enough, we're going with that for now. We're not going to hold production to find an optimal solution, as all the insulators tested as staying under 40ºC.


----------



## GaryM

decent_espresso said:


> Understood. We're using single layer boards, without laminate, and uncoated as well. We're pretty sure that makes the "PCB" nothing but a single layer sheet of fiberglass.
> 
> If you disagree, please do please let me know, as there are lots of options with PCB.
> 
> Regarding a blanket, the problem is that if there are air gaps, heat will flow out of them. Our heaters are small with lots of connectors that get in the way of a simple blanket pattern. With big espresso machine boilers, the connectors are (by percentage) a small part of the total surface area, and less of an issue. We liked the idea of a silicone dip, because it ensured no air gaps, and we might still figure that one out, but since the PCB solution works well enough, we're going with that for now. We're not going to hold production to find an optimal solution, as all the insulators tested as staying under 40ºC.


Probably ok if the laminate isn't touching a hot surface. Get the fr4 175 degree rated material. I don't think there is much cost difference.


----------



## decent_espresso

GaryM said:


> Probably ok if the laminate isn't touching a hot surface. Get the fr4 175 degree rated material. I don't think there is much cost difference.


Thanks, that's helpful.


----------



## decent_espresso

For busy cafes, I've often received emails from baristas worrying that wet fingers won't work well on our tablet. It's true that if you get water on a touch screen tablet, you need to wipe it off for the touch function to work well. Wet fingers, on the other hand, don't seem to be a problem: water drops on the tablet do.

The medical, dental and beauty industries all have foot pedals for dealing with this problem, freeing up your hands to do something else.

I especially like the idea of a foot pedal for steam, because I sometimes destabilize the milk jug as I let go with my left hand to turn the steam off.

You could even put away our Android tablet and make espresso drinks only using the pedals.

I've done a quick look at available foot pedals and here are some features I'm looking for:

- can cope with a wet floor (raised off the floor)

- can cope with water poured directly on the footswitch (IP64 or IP65)

- colour coded so you can easily tell the difference between steam/hot-water/espresso buttons

- comes in 1, 2, and 3 pedal versions, so that people can choose what espresso functions to move to a foot pedal

- the pedal design makes it unlikely to push the wrong one

- rugged

The picture below shows 3 variations of one pedal design that meets those requirements. There is also a compact two-pedal variant from this company that is more attractive but also more confusing to use.

My mine "gripe" with this design (and pretty much all industrial foot pedals) is that the colour scheme is chosen for functionality, not aesthetics. The light blue colour of the "chassis" is a bit "hospital" for me. I'm asking if we can choose a different coloured plastic for our versions.

These foot pedals would plug into the bottom of our DE1CAFE machines, and provide a mechanical alternative to using the tablet. You can keep the tablet around to see the shot quality or put it away completely.


----------



## decent_espresso

Several months ago, here and on other forums, we had a big discussion about what form a USB charger built into the DE1 should look like. In our current "Release Candidate 2" espresso machine we had all the bits to wire it up (and the PCB was supposed to support it) but we'd never done so.

Our first attempt, when we thought things were working, blew up a tablet (smoke!) and then a USB fan. We discovered that the problem was a "sample USB cable" that had been made for us to consider, had been wired backwards. Sigh. New cable and tablet, and now everything works.

1.28 amps are the most I've ever seen get into my tablet, and we're getting that charging from the DE1. Note that USB charging turns off automatically when you're making an espresso or steam because we use all the power to make sure those functions work right.

The USB charger and panel-mounted USB-female connector are both sealed and meant to be used in wet environments.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> Several months ago, here and on other forums, we had a big discussion about what form a USB charger built into the DE1 should look like. . . . New cable and tablet, and now everything works.


So happy to read this, and to know that my DE1+ will only need to be plugged into the wall once.


----------



## decent_espresso

Our alternative to the "Scace II", a tool for measuring temperature and pressure, is making progress. We're sending off the design to have one made this week. We're calling it the "Decent Sensor Basket".

We've made several revisions to the design I posted a few weeks ago.

We've placed an easily removed "splash shield" in front of the pressure sensor, so that water coming in doesn't cause noise on the sensor, but also so that if your machine is dirty and coffee material gets into the sensors, it's easy to clean it out.

We've changed the water outlet to a standard barb so that a flow meter could be attached to it in the future. Also, this makes it easy to attach a rubber hose to the outlet and guide waste water to a receptacle.

To change the calibrated flow constrictor, and thus have a different speed of water flow, you now pull the plastic sleeve out, use a paperclip to change the flow constrictor and push it all back in. This is also what you can do if coffee debris clogs up the outlet.

Instead of a complete portafilter, we're putting all the sensors into a portafilter basket, so it'll work with any bottomless portafilter that fits 58mm standard baskets. La Marzocco and Nuova Simonelli both follow this standard, but the location of the "wings" on their portafilters is different. Since you'll be using their bottomless portafilter with our basket, there's no problem.

When the Sensor Basket hardware arrives in about 10 days, we'll wire it up to an Arduino, with an LED display, write a bit of software, and start using it to test and calibrate our DE1 espresso machine. Every pump and flow meter is slightly different in the real world, so every espresso machine needs to be calibrated before it goes out to a client.


----------



## kennyboy993

decent_espresso said:


> Our alternative to the "Scace II", a tool for measuring temperature and pressure, is making progress. We're sending off the design to have one made this week. We're calling it the "Decent Sensor Basket".
> 
> We've made several revisions to the design I posted a few weeks ago.
> 
> We've placed an easily removed "splash shield" in front of the pressure sensor, so that water coming in doesn't cause noise on the sensor, but also so that if your machine is dirty and coffee material gets into the sensors, it's easy to clean it out.
> 
> We've changed the water outlet to a standard barb so that a flow meter could be attached to it in the future. Also, this makes it easy to attach a rubber hose to the outlet and guide waste water to a receptacle.
> 
> To change the calibrated flow constrictor, and thus have a different speed of water flow, you now pull the plastic sleeve out, use a paperclip to change the flow constrictor and push it all back in. This is also what you can do if coffee debris clogs up the outlet.
> 
> Instead of a complete portafilter, we're putting all the sensors into a portafilter basket, so it'll work with any bottomless portafilter that fits 58mm standard baskets. La Marzocco and Nuova Simonelli both follow this standard, but the location of the "wings" on their portafilters is different. Since you'll be using their bottomless portafilter with our basket, there's no problem.
> 
> When the Sensor Basket hardware arrives in about 10 days, we'll wire it up to an Arduino, with an LED display, write a bit of software, and start using it to test and calibrate our DE1 espresso machine. Every pump and flow meter is slightly different in the real world, so every espresso machine needs to be calibrated before it goes out to a client.
> 
> View attachment 28584


Now this would be something!


----------



## phenyl

decent_espresso said:


> Our alternative to the "Scace II", a tool for measuring temperature and pressure, is making progress. We're sending off the design to have one made this week. We're calling it the "Decent Sensor Basket".
> 
> We've made several revisions to the design I posted a few weeks ago.
> 
> We've placed an easily removed "splash shield" in front of the pressure sensor, so that water coming in doesn't cause noise on the sensor, but also so that if your machine is dirty and coffee material gets into the sensors, it's easy to clean it out.
> 
> We've changed the water outlet to a standard barb so that a flow meter could be attached to it in the future. Also, this makes it easy to attach a rubber hose to the outlet and guide waste water to a receptacle.
> 
> To change the calibrated flow constrictor, and thus have a different speed of water flow, you now pull the plastic sleeve out, use a paperclip to change the flow constrictor and push it all back in. This is also what you can do if coffee debris clogs up the outlet.
> 
> Instead of a complete portafilter, we're putting all the sensors into a portafilter basket, so it'll work with any bottomless portafilter that fits 58mm standard baskets. La Marzocco and Nuova Simonelli both follow this standard, but the location of the "wings" on their portafilters is different. Since you'll be using their bottomless portafilter with our basket, there's no problem.
> 
> When the Sensor Basket hardware arrives in about 10 days, we'll wire it up to an Arduino, with an LED display, write a bit of software, and start using it to test and calibrate our DE1 espresso machine. Every pump and flow meter is slightly different in the real world, so every espresso machine needs to be calibrated before it goes out to a client.
> 
> View attachment 28584


Will it be possible to build this into a smaller basket too, fitting eg. Dalla Corte machines?


----------



## decent_espresso

phenyl said:


> Will it be possible to build this into a smaller basket too, fitting eg. Dalla Corte machines?


Sure: the sensors in the basket are not so tightly packed in there that we can't squeeze 4mm out of the diameter,

The sensor basket we're first making fits 58mm baskets, but we'll be CNCing each one for the foreseeable future. As such, different sizes are definitely possible, such as 53mm or Dalla Corte's 54mm or even <cough> a certain French company's 57mm baskets.</cough>

However, to pull this off, we'll need proper drawings of the baskets for these nonstandard sizes, as you can probably imagine I don't have competitor's £20k espresso machines lying around my factory waiting for me to measure and test our sensor basket with them.


----------



## decent_espresso

Our two portafilters (bottomless and double spouted) don't currently fit in La Marzocco espresso machines, though they do fit in E61 and most other 58mm standard machines, as well as in our DE1 machines. It's a small annoyance I was hoping to remedy with a new order for 1000 portafilters I've put in.

Below are before and after animations showing the current versus LM-compatible portafilter models. You can see that the LM compatible design has an angled handle. Our stands are accommodating the two handle designs ok without much change in basket angle. Great.

However, the main use of our portafilters is on our DE1 espresso machine, and I think the angled handle looks awkward on it (photo below). Damn.

So, for now, we're not going to an LM-compatible portafilter design, because the angled handle doesn't look good with our machine. Possibly, in the future, we'll work with the manufacturer to make a new mold, but that's a time-consuming and expensive endeavor, one that I'm going to put off for now. I like our current portafilters, and we're just going to have to live with the fact that they don't work on La Marzocco espresso machines.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> When the Sensor Basket hardware arrives in about 10 days, we'll wire it up to an Arduino, with an LED display, write a bit of software, and start using it to test and calibrate our DE1 espresso machine.


How do you calibrate the sensor basket hw? (curious b/c I work for the US institute that does this kind of stuff - not me personally)


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> How do you calibrate the sensor basket hw? (curious b/c I work for the US institute that does this kind of stuff - not me personally)


The flow constrictor is guaranteed to be accurate within 5% by the manufacturer, but as to calibrating the temperature and pressure sensors, I have to delegate answering that to my lead engineer Ray, who I've emailed your question to.


----------



## Rheas

patrickff said:


> How do you calibrate the sensor basket hw? (curious b/c I work for the US institute that does this kind of stuff - not me personally)


Much as I'd like to claim amazing accuracy in our basket, my aim is to go for reasonably good precision, and if someone disagrees with our calibration, they at least know that they can add a constant offset to any measurement made with any of our baskets, and be fairly close to the right answer.

We don't have a perfect reference here for temperature, for example. Our two scaces disagree with each other by 1.2°C. I hope to get something better than that to use as a reference, but worst case we just pick one of our scaces and use it as the initial reference.

The DE1 machine in my lab has three temp sensors in the group head, and over the course of a long shot, all three tend to the same value, and the value stays constant to less than 0.1°C, and I get the same value across multiple shots, as measured using a scace. The spec sheet for our temperature sensors only promises 1% accuracy, but the precision for sensors in the same batch seems to be much better than that.

So, we'll take one sensor basket and attach it to a DE1, then do a super long shot and let everything stabilize. We'll then use that temperature as the reference temperature. We'll do the same shot with a scace, and assign the measured temperature on the scace to the reference temperature.

We then do several shots with several decent baskets, calibrating them to the DE1. We put those baskets and the DE1 aside. In the future we use the baskets to check each other and the DE1.

The way we currently calibrate pressure is a bit primitive (hence our making the decent basket). We have one scace we use as a reference, and we set a DE1 to produce a well defined pressure (100 PSI, in this case because it's the top of the dial on our scace). I then watch the needle to see what the pressure is and enter this into the DE1, which multiplies it's current calibration value by the inverse ratio of the error. Usually, I only have to do this once to get within a PSI or so of the scace reading. (Zero error is removed by a separate calibration that the DE1 runs on boot).

So, I'll be using our reference DE1 again. I'll calibrate it to match a scace, then any decent baskets connected to it will take the measured pressure from the DE1 as a calibration input. We'll occasionally check the DE1 against the reference baskets to see if any errors show up.

FYI, the decent basket will have a digital connection to the DE1, so it can do a realtime comparison between its sensor reading and the sensors in the DE1. This allows us to make calibration automatic, in either direction.

I don't know what our final accuracy and precision will be.


----------



## decent_espresso

My manufacturer has been toiling for 4 months over problems with making our knockbox out of stamped metal.

The problem is that our asymmetrical shape causes "stretch marks" to appear in the 3mm thick aluminum. We've tried stainless steel and thinner metal, with the same result.

In the end, they sand blasted and polished the knockbox form, then anodized it, and most of the stretch marks on the outside are now invisible. Unfortunately, they can't as vigorously do the same to the inside, so some stretch marks are still visible.

It's pretty heavy duty, being made out of 3mm aluminum, it's a bit on the large size (about 25 shots capacity) and the knock bar is solid aluminum surrounded by silicone.

I'm writing this post to ask your opinion: would those inside stretch marks be offensive to you, if you used this knock box?

I'd love this to be as perfect as the CNCed prototype I made, but those cost $350 each to make, which isn't super practical as a product


----------



## DavecUK

There is a product called the Grindenstien, I have had one for nearly 10 years. it's cheap, easily washable, fits under the group, holds around 6 or so double pucks. It's small size is part of it's effectivenetss, as it doesn't go mouldy because it's empties so often. In domestic use the ability for to hold 25 pucks is not really useful and after a few days it's going to become mingin. It looks very expensive, too big and ugly and won't really be easy just to pop in the dishwasher. I think you might be inventing something that is not required.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dkitchen&field-keywords=Grindenstein+Knock+Out+Box


----------



## UncleJake

I thought my Grindenstein was too small when it first arrived - but for the reasons above it's proved perfect. I tend to use it and empty it pretty much straight away - stick it in the dishwasher once a week.


----------



## gwing

Although I can't see the detail in your photographs I could probably live with some stretch marks, however the problem would be the largish size and vaguely industrial appearance, I don't think it would be given house room by the boss. For a very small office environment it would probably be ideal though.

There are a few nice domestic products like the Grindenstein, personally I use the Cafelat Tubbi whick is likewise small, cute, colourful and able to go in the dishwasher occasionally when needed. It is a little larger and so doesn't fit under the group set, but it has room not just for the morning's pucks but a few kitchen towel squares as well and so keeps all the waste together.


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## embrya

I love the design which will surely avoid any mess around the knockbox. I could live with some stretchmarks inside as it gets dirty inside anyhow and so I think it will not be much visible. But it also depends on the price - e.g. for 100 Dollar I would expect that it is perfect.


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## Dylan

Why not cast aluminium?... Too expensive?


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## Rhys

I think @DavecUK is right about the knock box. It's too big for kitchen/domestic use, and in a commercial setting they would probably be using a one that sits into the counter and the pucks fall straight into a bin, or larger container. My Sage knock box is small, nicely designed and kitchen friendly. It also hold about the same as a Grindenstien so pucks don't go mouldy as you need to empty it (although sometimes the odd blue one appears in the bottom of mine







)

This would maybe suit something like a pop-up etc.


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## timmyjj21

My fists concern was the portafilter accidentally hitting the side and scratching/denting the soft aluminium when banging out a puck. I assume the wide mouth should prevent this, but I'm also a Grindenstein user and fan due to its small size.


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## grumpydaddy

Not keen. Too big, much too wide and the flare seems ott.

Like the bar a lot but would not buy this in aluminium anyway due to potential for "dings"

Personally think shape and curves should mimic machine


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## Tewdric

It doesn't look great - this design only works it's Apple-perfect manufacture and finish. That's a coal scuttle.

I use the Motta shiny knock box. It just works.


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## decent_espresso

I own a Grindenstein, and it's an excellent small home knockbox. I didn't see the point in redoing what they have successfully done. If I need a light knockbox holding less than 8 pucks, it's perfect. I find the Grindenstein design really adorable too.

Last year I CNCed a Grindenstein scaled version of this design, and that's what I've been taking on tour with me. When space is at a premium, smaller is better.









We make a lot of espressos here, and I wanted something more heavy duty that I didn't need to constantly empty.

As far as scratching goes, this is anodized aluminum, which is one of the stronger surface treatments. Cookware, for example, is often anodized.

The design was made by Joao Tomaz, the same designer as the rest of our stuff. We didn't copy the DE1 design because I wanted to focus on functionality. The outward flared design is meant to capture splashes, and the high knock bar lets you "knock your portafilter" at a variety of angles, including upward. The Grindenstein has a similar feature. Talking to baristas, longevity and durability was a major concern, with the knockbar being called out as an especially troublesome part.

Whether you like the design or not is a matter of taste, and it seems this design is polarizing, which I consider to be a good thing. A bored, non reaction would be worse. Here's how the knockbox looks next to the DE1 (this render is old, and the DE1 design is not identical to this currently), if you want to see how the designs sit next to each other.


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## decent_espresso

I'm working on the app icons and default wallpaper for the tablet on our Decent Espresso machine. You'll see this page when you turn the tablet on, swipe to unlock, and then run our app.

By default, there's only one app on the page, to make it simple. You can tap the (...) icon on the middle bottom of the tablet to see all the other apps, which are the default Google-licensed (ie, clean!) apps.

I'm thinking that it'd be fun for each "manufacturing run" of our espresso machines to have their own default wallpaper.

For the first 300 machines, these customers are "in on a secret" and so I thought I'd use our "spy theme", which shows secret dossiers, books about spying, as well as an espresso, glass of water and steamed milk drink, on the desk.

Of course, you can change it if you don't like my choice, and this Android installation is unlocked so you can install your own apps as well.

I originally thought I'd auto-run the app on startup, but in practical use, I found this annoying, because I had more than one espresso app (DE1 vs DE1+) and if an open source ecology builds up around our machines, I'd like my app to not have an unfair (ie, auto-run) advantage over alternatives.

Is this wallpaper too artsy, or do you like this idea?


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## decent_espresso

Over the past two years, I've learned how to work better with factories, and one thing has emerged: photos, clear pass/fail criteria, and checklists are the best way to improve quality.

The factories also really like these, because they are very clear, both sides agree on what to be delivered. Typically, a "quality control" person is assigned to our order, and they do the checklist for every item.

While some English is needed, it's best if photos are used. Generally, only the management and salespeople speak English.

As our knockbox is a fairly simple product, and this is our first manufacturing run, I haven't seen that many flaws, thus my QC checklist is only 4 pages long.

Each manufacturing run, there is inevitably some new way discovered that the product can be badly produced, and this is then added to the QC checklist for next time.

Our milk jugs are incredibly complicated to make, and the QC checklist runs to 24 pages. This is also because we've done so many manufacturing runs of it, and so we've seen so many ways to screw the job up.

In case you're curious, this is what the QC checklist for the knockbox now looks like.

When items are delivered to us, we re-check each one and separate them into "full price", 30% and 50% off, with those discounted items ending up on our http://decentespresso.com/sale sale page. I don't want to throw away almost-good-enough items, and some people are less fussy and happy to get a better price.


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## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> I'm working on the app icons and default wallpaper for the tablet on our Decent Espresso machine. You'll see this page when you turn the tablet on, swipe to unlock, and then run our app.
> 
> By default, there's only one app on the page, to make it simple. You can tap the (...) icon on the middle bottom of the tablet to see all the other apps, which are the default Google-licensed (ie, clean!) apps.
> 
> I'm thinking that it'd be fun for each "manufacturing run" of our espresso machines to have their own default wallpaper.
> 
> For the first 300 machines, these customers are "in on a secret" and so I thought I'd use our "spy theme", which shows secret dossiers, books about spying, as well as an espresso, glass of water and steamed milk drink, on the desk.
> 
> Of course, you can change it if you don't like my choice, and this Android installation is unlocked so you can install your own apps as well.
> 
> I originally thought I'd auto-run the app on startup, but in practical use, I found this annoying, because I had more than one espresso app (DE1 vs DE1+) and if an open source ecology builds up around our machines, I'd like my app to not have an unfair (ie, auto-run) advantage over alternatives.
> 
> Is this wallpaper too artsy, or do you like this idea?
> 
> View attachment 28722
> View attachment 28723
> 
> 
> View attachment 28724
> View attachment 28725


I like the idea and the design. I would love to have it on my DE1+ as one of the 300!


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## patrickff

I personally favor wallpapers that are abstract and out-of-focus. This makes it easier for icons to pop out (sharper, more details) - no searching.


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## jwCrema

As one of the 300 I am very excited about this. My DE1+ is going to be in the kitchen, and I was not looking forward to the typical tablet screen. As someone walks in, they were going to say, "dude, there is a tablet stuck on top of your espresso machine." I'm assuming the tablet boots when we turn on the machine so the screen will be off most of the time.


----------



## roastini

patrickff said:


> I personally favor wallpapers that are abstract and out-of-focus. This makes it easier for icons to pop out (sharper, more details) - no searching.


I had the same reaction, but given that this tablet is primarily going to be used to launch only one app, I'm not sure this really matters much.

In fact, although the tablet won't ship with the app auto-launching on tablet boot, I might change that for my tablet.


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## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> As one of the 300 I am very excited about this. My DE1+ is going to be in the kitchen, and I was not looking forward to the typical tablet screen. As someone walks in, they were going to say, "dude, there is a tablet stuck on top of your espresso machine." I'm assuming the tablet boots when we turn on the machine so the screen will be off most of the time.


The tablet is autonomous, it powers on its own and boots on its own and is not married at the hardware level to the espresso machine.

You need to turn the screen on to make an espresso, but otherwise you can keep the screen off. Or you can leave the screen on and let the screen saver kick on.

And if you want a different, perhaps blurry or abstract background, you're welcome to choose one. The tablet comes with a large number of google-provided backgrounds to choose from.


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## decent_espresso

We just received the parts to build version 3 of our manufacturing prototype. We'll show you many of the parts that go into the machine and some of the things that have been improved.

In a few days we're receiving a slightly modified group head design (we're calling that machine version 3b), to further isolate the pre-heated group head from the rest of the machine, and then hopefully we're done with R&D!

But first, we have to build the 110V and 220V versions of this machine and make sure we're happy with all the little changes from a month ago when we built our manufacturing candidate v2.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> We just received the parts to build version 3


So many screws, mounts, etc. (a lot of parts) - makes me go back to the days when I assembled PCs.

Since the R&D is done: PCB + mat = the insulation solution for the v1?


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## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> Since the R&D is done: PCB + mat = the insulation solution for the v1?


R&D won't be done until this v3b machine is declared as "fit for reproducing", which should be in the next 10 days.

As to insulation, this v3 machine is the first one we're testing with the PCB+mat inside the machine. Previously we've used silicone dipped heaters in the DE1s, and the PCBs have been tested on their own (in test situations) but not real-world yet.

We couldn't test the PCB box in a real DE1 because the shape and size of the box was different (and larger) than the silicone-dip, so we needed to make chassis changes to accommodate it.

We have a variety of mats and fillers to test (photo below), and I expect (hope!) that one or more of these will work well.


----------



## decent_espresso

About a year ago, João and played around with some "barista pin" ideas, jealous as I was that sommeliers have a wide variety of grape vine inspired pins, and looking to have an unusual "free gift" for our clients.

We gave up on the effort, as everything we drew was pretty lame.

A few days ago, a pin manufacturer contacted me with a variety of designs, and I wrote back "sure, ok, send me some samples" as I liked the look of the 3-bean pin. I did howl with laughter over the "drip coffee maker" pin. Well done, drip coffee maker dude!

I received the pins yesterday and decided to "model" it on some of my clothes, to see "if it works". I'm not so sure it does.

The problem, I think, is that sommeliers dress up a lot fancier than baristas do. A "jewelry pin" looks nicer on a fancy dinner jacket than on a collared shirt, but what barista would dress in a nice jacket to make coffee?

I know this is a really trite topic, but it's an amusing diversion from my daily being-very-practical way of being.

What do you think?


----------



## Dylan

I can't say i ever wear pins, but fwiw they look quite nice.

Maybe the same design on a small magnet for your fridge or coffee machine would be more useable?


----------



## eddie57

Whatever floats your boat


----------



## NoNothing

How about on the machines as a logo?


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## Obnic

NoNothing said:


> How about on the machines as a logo?


Hmmm... bit weak given the brand.

Don't rate the bean trio myself. I'd go for a stainless 'decent' pin. Low key but on brand. Bit like that American italic LaMarzocco Strada text.


----------



## patrickff

On ARCore, someone even hacked together an app for Google's complicated espresso machine - if you hold up your phone, you'll see instructions like "Put your grounds here" or "Don't touch this piece, it's hot" overlaid on the camera image

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/29/16219696/google-arcore-augmented-reality-platform-announce-release-pixel-samsung

Now we know what we need









(btw. complicated espresso machine = LM GS/3)

As for the pin: I am with Obnic: A "Decent" pin would be the best


----------



## decent_espresso

I'm working on the design for a "DESCRIBE" button that appears on the DE1+ after you make an espresso.

The goal is to replace the paper notebook that some (very organized) people keep of each espresso they make, in their efforts to improve the quality of their drinks.

The DE1+ already stores everything about every espresso, 10x per second (pressure, flow, temperature, and all settings) so that you can recreate it, but in addition, I'd like to give you the option to enter in the most relevant data points.

I want to keep this as short as possible but not miss anything vital.

My current list of fields for each shot is:

- type of grinder

- grinder setting

- coffee dose weight

- brand of coffee bean

- type of beans

- roast date

- other notes

- TDS? EY?

I could also include sliders for 1-10 ratings for:

- Quality 1->10

- Acidity 1->10

- etc...

but I haven't give that much thought yet.

I know there are taste grading sheets out there, and I'd LOVE to hear what you guys think works well. For example, the SCAA Q grader cupping form (picture below)

Also, I will shortly be announcing a partnership with SCENT ONE, a new company that has an "Aroma Standard" with vials for 100 flavors. The DE1+ will have a GUI for quickly describing the characteristics of an espresso (ie, vanilla, grassy, anise, etc...)


----------



## Obnic

There's a good iOS app called barista log that records taste and mouthfeel characteristics as a spidergram, along with grind setting, temperature, brew ratio etc. Might be worth having a look at for inspiration.

Scent tone looks interesting - like Le Nez Du Vin.


----------



## patrickff

The "DESCRIBE" really only makes sense if you could use it in combination with a "shot log" (= recorded profile) diff.

For example, Shot-A and Shot-C were nutty, while Shot-B was not. Now showing the difference (think "3-way merge") between the three shot logs might help to figure out why.


----------



## jlarkin

Obnic said:


> Scent tone looks interesting - like Le Nez Du Vin.


It's even more like Nez du Cafe though (a real thing they also do)


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> There's a good iOS app called barista log that records taste and mouthfeel characteristics as a spidergram, along with grind setting, temperature, brew ratio etc. Might be worth having a look at for inspiration.


Thanks for that ios app link. The criteria they give to rate a shot are really interesting, as they went for a 0-10 rating system on 16 criteria.

And, I think the app's programmer did a *very* good job of picking criteria that aren't obscure, and fairly easy for people to agree on:









The advantage of the slide approach on 16 criteria is that it produces fantastic eye candy, and I can imagine an animation that let you survey a variety of espresso shots:









The Scentone approach is to add adjectives (ie, grapefruit) but not to qualify their intensity. Of course, both approaches have merit.



Obnic said:


> Scent tone looks interesting - like Le Nez Du Vin.


What I really liked about their approach was the attempt to be objective. The vials with the extracts mean everyone worldwide is anchoring to a standard. And, the booklet gives the actual chemical composition (with percentages) of each aroma.









I've mentioned it before, that Counter Culture's chart is my favorite, because it allows people to get started describing their shots (ie, chocolate & fruity) at a beginner level, and as they progress, they can move outwards on the wheel (lemon zest, anis, dark bitter chocolate)









It will take me several years to code it all, but I'd like to support multiple systems, and multiple analysis methods, and really work with the coffee geek community to try to data mine this stuff so that it's actually useful to anyone passionate about espresso. For now, I'm making a first pass.



patrickff said:


> The "DESCRIBE" really only makes sense if you could use it in combination with a "shot log" (= recorded profile) diff.
> 
> For example, Shot-A and Shot-C were nutty, while Shot-B was not. Now showing the difference (think "3-way merge") between the three shot logs might help to figure out why.


Completely agree, and that's where this is going. Realistically, I think summer 2018 is a reasonable estimate for when this sort of analysis will start to appear, along with APIs, a Cloud Service, fora to try to make sense of this all.


----------



## jlarkin

decent_espresso said:


> What I really liked about their approach was the attempt to be objective. The vials with the extracts mean everyone worldwide is anchoring to a standard. And, the booklet gives the actual chemical composition (with percentages) of each aroma.
> 
> l.


The main issue seems to be that you can't actually buy it anywhere? Unless I'm just completely missing it whenever I check.

I have to say though, the more I read this thread, the more I wish I'd gone with my typical approach and just bought a DE1+ as soon as it was possible.


----------



## decent_espresso

jlarkin said:


> The main issue seems to be that you can't actually buy it anywhere? Unless I'm just completely missing it whenever I check.


Scent One a really new product, and they are going the "one local reseller" route with "local exclusivity", and I'm not (ahem) 100% convinced this is a good approach.

What I can tell you is that I've negotiated with Scent One to be able to sell their product worldwide, mail order, ourselves, from our web site.

So, very soon, it'll soon be easy to buy Scent One, from us or (if you prefer) your local friendly exclusive distributor.

Jake, the CEO, is flying to Hong Kong next week to meet me (we first met in Budapest at SCAE) to hammer out the details, and I'll show him the tablet software implementation that (cough cough) I'll have finished before he arrives.

-john


----------



## jlarkin

decent_espresso said:


> Scent One a really new product, and they are going the "one local reseller" route with "local exclusivity", and I'm not (ahem) 100% convinced this is a good approach.
> 
> What I can tell you is that I've negotiated with Scent One to be able to sell their product worldwide, mail order, ourselves, from our web site.
> 
> So, very soon, it'll soon be easy to buy Scent One, from us or (if you prefer) your local friendly exclusive distributor.
> 
> Jake, the CEO, is flying to Hong Kong next week to meet me (we first met in Budapest at SCAE) to hammer out the details, and I'll show him the tablet software implementation that (cough cough) I'll have finished before he arrives.
> 
> -john


Excellent! I have a Nez du Cafe anyway but this is the kind of stuff I really enjoy. Maybe I just heard about it too early, because I felt like it was talked about ages ago and I could never find it. I'll be more than likely happily buying it from you in the future then!


----------



## decent_espresso

This iteration of the Decent Espresso machine sees us tidying a lot of things (everything should look neater) and also (importantly) we're going to be testing in real use our (hopefully final) heater insulation strategy, using a fiberglass box stuffed with insulating material. This also has the 3rd revision of our pump mounts, to dampen their sound. A more heat-isolated brass group head should arrive in a few days, and we're hoping that we're then at the end of this long R&D journey.


----------



## Dylan

Looking great!

Did you at any point in development test a shower screen without central screw? I know you have done crazy amount of flow dynamics and such things so I expect you have found it the best design - I always just 'guessed' (science!) water dispersion would be better with a 'clean' shower screen.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Did you at any point in development test a shower screen without central screw? I know you have done crazy amount of flow dynamics and such things so I expect you have found it the best design - I always just 'guessed' (science!) water dispersion would be better with a 'clean' shower screen.


I'm sure you're right, that no screw would be better for water flow, but we didn't go down that path, as we started with existing espresso machine group head components two years ago, and have slowly been rethinking/redesigning over the past two years. We haven't challenged the central-screw design, and I haven't really even thought about if it'd be possible.

It's a little bit like the bolt holes on grinder burrs, they've been there so long that nobody has thought to remove them.


----------



## Obnic

No screw on my shower screen. It's held in place by a close fitting gasket.


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> I'm sure you're right, that no screw would be better for water flow, but we didn't go down that path, as we started with existing espresso machine group head components two years ago, and have slowly been rethinking/redesigning over the past two years. We haven't challenged the central-screw design, and I haven't really even thought about if it'd be possible.
> 
> It's a little bit like the bolt holes on grinder burrs, they've been there so long that nobody has thought to remove them.


I have thought to remove them! It in fact baffles me that no one has tried it yet - when burr design can make such a difference to the output surely 3 great honking holes in the burr must have some kind of effect...

Unfortunately I dont design grinders.

As Obnic says - shower screens held in place by the gasket are fairly common. Wouldn't have thought it to difficult to add in but its obviously a little late at this stage.

The assumption is that so long as water isn't shooting out of the screen that it develops in the headspace above the puck in any case and this helps with an even extraction.

Even the shower screens with no screw still tend to have a blank spot where the screw would be, so who knows if it makes any difference at all.


----------



## Obnic

Dylan said:


> ....so who knows if it makes any difference at all.


Watching you this last year John I'd be pretty happy to bet that at some point you will be the first to know for sure


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> No screw on my shower screen. It's held in place by a close fitting gasket.


So it turns out that my based-in-Vancouver coffee engineer Ben, who designed the group head, has had his eye on this for a future version, and IMed me a photo of the basket design he had in mind:


----------



## Obnic

That's interesting. I think I probably go against the flow of some on here when I say that I feel the IMS shower screen's principle contribution is more even puck wetting at the price of considerable fragility. In my experience IMS competition screens are easily damaged by a Pallo grouphead brush. I also suspect your grouphead design has already addressed the dispersion and even wetting issue. I think some smarter folk than I have bought a KVW showerscreen which looks a bit more robust.


----------



## Dylan

Have a look at the other side of that ims screen, as i think it has a metal part with holes before it hits the fine mesh.

And yes, also look at the KVDW one, i only vaguely remember reading about it, but remember thinking it was different in a positive way to the IMS.

It would be interesting with the feedback your machine provides to see if any of them make any kind of difference!


----------



## dan1502

The kvdw one is made by ims. It just has no dead patch in the middle.


----------



## decent_espresso

Going from "beta" to "release" is always a big step, and it also presents my last chance to change anything that has been really bugging me, but I've been putting off. Also, most of my programming effort in the past year has been on the DE1+ (to wow! people) and now I need to do as good a job on the DE1 tablet software.









In that vein, I have given espresso "presets" their own tab, and it's the first (default) tab you'll see. There's now a sentence or two about each preset, to help you understand why you'd want to use it. Espresso temperature now is set with clear +/- buttons rather than an obscure graphic that wasn't clearly for tapping.









Making profiles: when I would let people make their own profiles on my demo machine, I noticed that sometimes they'd choose settings that wouldn't actually work. The chart made it seem like it would, but it wouldn't. The chart now much more accurately simulates the shot (taking into account how quickly pressure can be ramped up, for instance) and prevents you from doing things that are illogical (such as declining in pressure from 9 bar to 11 bar).

What was previously labelled as step 2: "hold" is now "rise and hold" because the mechanics of what happened in this step confused people. You need to build pressure up after preinfusion, and then you can hold it. Previously, people could go from "preinfusion" to "decline", the chart would look like a Lever machine, but the shot wouldn't actually work, because there was no pressure rise. The software now always includes a "rise" step, to avoid that confusion.









The "tablet styles" have been broken out onto their own half-page tab, and given a lot more vertical space. They were really cramped before.

Hot water (for Americanos) now has a clear-to-understand slider control rather than my too-clever graphic.









The Machine Maintenance page now has separate buttons for CLEAN vs DESCALING as these are different processes.

Bluetooth pairing is now done with a dedicated button, rather than being magical. That makes it much easier to have multiple DE1 machines next to each other.

I'll be making a new video, showing this new (and close to finalized) tablet gui in action.


----------



## PaulL

There are a lot of pages to read through here, are there any videos of the machine to date in action?


----------



## rytopa

Nice progress! Any updates on programming stage pressure profiling for the DE1? ie. Vesuvius style: stage 1: 2 bar 5 sec, stage 2: 6 bar 5 sec??


----------



## decent_espresso

PaulL said:


> There are a lot of pages to read through here, are there any videos of the machine to date in action?


Videos of the machine here:

https://decentespresso.com/de1plus



rytopa said:


> Nice progress! Any updates on programming stage pressure profiling for the DE1? ie. Vesuvius style: stage 1: 2 bar 5 sec, stage 2: 6 bar 5 sec??


Sorry, no, the DE1 is a 3 stage pressure profiling machine: preinfuse, rise & hold, decline.

The DE1+ is what you need to do what you describe above, which is a very sophisticated shot.

In fact, you'd need to use the "Advanced profile editor" to do that kind of shot on the DE1+.

If you could give me some real world, actually practical, profiles from the Vesuvius, I'll make those profiles and include them as defaults.

And FYI, here's what the advanced profile editor currently looks like. You can have as many stages as you like, and they can be pressure or flow defined.


----------



## Obnic

John have you experimented with declining flow rate?

My instinct is even flow would work best - same water/bean contact time as the shot progresses. However, I am curious to know whether slowing flow results in more dissolution of solids or whether there is a trade off with pressure.

Wouldn't mind seeing how you construct a managed flow rate shot on the DE1+ too if you have a film already.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> now I need to do as good a job on the DE1 tablet software.


Very minor:

- I would put the "pressure" slider on the left side for "decline" - so the order is similar to "rise and hold"

- No "pressure" slider for "preinfuse" (always 0.5)?

- Even though the graph in "Preview" and "Profile" shows the same data, it does look different due to the shortened X-axis in "Preview"


----------



## sra

Exciting to see DE1 updates.

I also like the idea of a pressure slider for the preinfusion stage. Or does variation of pressure not make a difference for preinfusion and 0.5bar is going to work for any type of espresso prep? Or would that option make the DE1 too similar to the DE1+?


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> - No "pressure" slider for "preinfuse" (always 0.5)?





sra said:


> I also like the idea of a pressure slider for the preinfusion stage. Or does variation of pressure not make a difference for preinfusion and 0.5bar is going to work for any type of espresso prep? Or would that option make the DE1 too similar to the DE1+?


There is no pressure setting during preinfusion because there is no actual pressure at the puck during preinfusion. Pressure is created when water flows through a medium that resists the flow. A dry puck provides (almost) no resistance.

Every other machine except the Decent espresso machines, and notably the La Marzocco Linea PB, measures pressure behind a flow constrictor. Thus, all those machines are unable to tell you the pressure at the puck, which is where you want to know it.

So, when those machines talk about "3 bar preinfusion" what they're actually saying is "provide water at some unknown flow rate, until the flow constrictor creates 3 bar of pressure (measured between the flow constrictor and the pump)". Most people do not know this, even most repairmen, but I've had conversations about this with engineers from 3 other machines, and this is how they all work.

Yes, they're actually giving you a lower flow rate during preinfusion, but they (you) have no idea what the flow rate provided is.

All our machines tell you actual flow rate, and actual pressure at the puck.

Thus, on all our machines, preinfusion is a FLOW CONTROL stage in the espresso machine. In the chart below a FLOW CONTROL step is shown with a blue dotted line, whilst a PRESSURE CONTROL step uses a green line.

On the DE1, preinfusion is hard-set at 4.0 ml/s, as that is the most common I've found on professional machines (they use a gigleur to mechanically cause this, and there's nothing wrong with that). I've occasionally found as high as 4.5 ml/s, but this requires better puck preparation skills.

I've made this labelled info graphic for you to explain what a DE1 shot looks like. This is the default "Rao Recommends" profile. This is the espresso I am actually drinking right now, as I write this email. I only made one shot, and this was the first out of the machine this morning (I'm the first one at the office).


















Careful readers will notice that the machine was set to a preinfusion rate of 4 ml/s (the dotted blue line) but the machine didn't manage that. I'm not sure why, but this shot was pulled on a now 3 generations old machine without a flow meter, so my apologies there. However, I think it's very useful (and interesting) to see what the machine really does, rather than what it claims to do.


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> John have you experimented with declining flow rate? My instinct is even flow would work best - same water/bean contact time as the shot progresses. However, I am curious to know whether slowing flow results in more dissolution of solids or whether there is a trade off with pressure.


My personal taste preference is for medium roast beans, which already incline toward low acidity. For these, a constant flow rate tastes best to me, as a declining flow makes the shot last too long, with tannins coming out, but also reducing acidity to a level where the espresso is a bit boring (like a wine w/o acidity).

With very high acidity light roasted beans, I think that a coarse grind and a slightly declining flow could be good. However, I haven't done a lot of experiments in that direction. I hope others do.

My preference for light roasted beans is low pressure and low (constant) flow. Coming down to 3 to 5 bar as a peak pressure seems to really work well.

I've been trading WhatsApps with Kapo Chiu, the local celebrity here in Hong Kong (he was #2 World Barista a few years ago) as he's been experimenting with flow control on his Opera http://www.sanremomachines.com/en/machines/opera/ and he tells me that he's achieving good results with his light roasts with a constant flow around 2.3 ml/s (no separate preinfusion step).

A month ago, I was in France with Adrien from Cafeism (my original trainer) https://cafeism.fr/ and he spent two days on my DE1+ working with flow control with the well regarded Mokxa beans from Lyon. He had never previously been able to extract them well. He was really, really happy with 2.5 ml/s constant flow (no preinfusion) with peak pressure around 5 bar, dropping to 3 bar, with a 35 second extraction.

Adrien voiced an interesting theory about the rate of change of the puck erosion rate being a proxy of "current extraction %". I've discussed this with Rao and Perger, and I think there's something really promising there, to help people understand when extraction has stalled and when they should stop the shot. More on this later, as it's something I'm working on at the moment.

On that topic, does anyone know about the Opera? It has a very pretty Android app for configuration setting. I don't see any mention of flow control, though, just pressure.











Obnic said:


> Wouldn't mind seeing how you construct a managed flow rate shot on the DE1+ too if you have a film already.


Have you seen this video?






If so, and it doesn't tell you what you want to know, can you tell me a bit about what you'd like to see?


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> - Even though the graph in "Preview" and "Profile" shows the same data, it does look different due to the shortened X-axis in "Preview"


hmm... you're right. Three possible solutions:

1) make the preview chart wider by moving the temperature, perhaps just display the temp without a thermometer graphic

2) make the Y axis less tall

3) make the entire right hand "half" wider, subtracting width from the left hand side.

Both #1 and #3 are not bad compromises. If you have other suggestions, please do opine...



patrickff said:


> - I would put the "pressure" slider on the left side for "decline" - so the order is similar to "rise and hold"


I specifically chose to not do that, because I wanted each slider to be situated near the chart area it controls.

Here's an annotated version of that page, showing you what slider controls which aspect of the chart.









Your point about control symmetry is a good one, but I like to think that the positioning I chose has this other overriding benefit.


----------



## sra

decent_espresso said:


> There is no pressure setting during preinfusion because there is no actual pressure at the puck during preinfusion. Pressure is created when water flows through a medium that resists the flow. A dry puck provides (almost) no resistance.
> 
> On the DE1, preinfusion is hard-set at 4.0 ml/s, as that is the most common I've found on professional machines (they use a gigleur to mechanically cause this, and there's nothing wrong with that).


Thank you.

When the puck becomes saturated after let's say 20ml and the pressure increases as a result, does the flow stop (let's assume that the set preinfusion time is longer than it takes to saturate the puck)?


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> 3) make the entire right hand "half" wider, subtracting width from the left hand side.


Best option IMO. Most of the time the profile title will be rather short. The 'description' can be used to go in further details (which would also benefit from an enlarged right hand side.



decent_espresso said:


> I specifically chose to not do that, because I wanted each slider to be situated near the chart area it controls.


While I am not a fan of overly colorful UIs, I wonder if it would help to have matching colors for the sliders and graph segments

(e.g. "preinfuse" slider + 1st segment = green, etc.).

(P.S. I love the Opera Android app running on an iPad.







)



sra said:


> When the puck becomes saturated after let's say 20ml and the pressure increases as a result, does the flow stop


 If I understand correctly, then the DE1 always stops after a certain # of seconds, while the DE1+ stops after a number of second or certain flow criteria are met.


----------



## roastini

sra said:


> Thank you.
> 
> When the puck becomes saturated after let's say 20ml and the pressure increases as a result, does the flow stop (let's assume that the set preinfusion time is longer than it takes to saturate the puck)?


On a DE1+, when the puck is fully saturated, preinfusion ceases, which I think is what you really are asking. At that point, the recipe moves on to the next step. In a standard profile, that will be rise-and-hold, which would mean flow would not stop.


----------



## sra

That's what I seemed to remember for the DE1+, that it can move on to the next step after a user-defined criterion is met. For the DE1, there still seem to be two possibilities. Water flow may stop if the pressure increases above, let's say, 0.5bar because that would reliably indicate saturation of the puck, and the program would then just wait for however many seconds remain for the preinfusion step. Or the machine may try to keep the flow rate at 4ml/sec for the whole length of preinfusion up to whatever max. pressure the hardware allows (in that case, a too long preinfusion time would be problematic since 4ml/sec is too fast after the preinfusion step).


----------



## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> My preference for light roasted beans is low pressure and low (constant) flow. Coming down to 3 to 5 bar as a peak pressure seems to really work well.


My instinct is constant flow too. On my Vesuvius I have a declining profile that I tune by sight and rate of weight increase in the cup for even flow. Nothing like the flexibility and accuracy of the DE1+ though. Despite that, it seems to be my 'go to' profile. And it was interesting to see how stable the pressure was to achieve your target flow in the video so pressure may not be such an awful proxy for flow after all.



decent_espresso said:


> Adrien voiced an interesting theory about the rate of change of the puck erosion rate being a proxy of "current extraction %". I've discussed this with Rao and Perger, and I think there's something really promising there, to help people understand when extraction has stalled and when they should stop the shot.


This would be the science behind my hunch. Can't wait to see this discussion pan out.



decent_espresso said:


> Have you seen this video? If so, and it doesn't tell you what you want to know, can you tell me a bit about what you'd like to see?


I had seen it but this time I was paying proper attention to how you set up the shot. Thank you.

Just out of interest, what is the Slayer profile - you seemed to suggest a 30s 0.5ml pre-infusion then a ramp up to...?


----------



## dingus

great progress, John! looking forward to ordering a DE1+.

very minor UI suggestions that i feel passionately about:

1) always include units on axis labels (e.g. "PRESSURE [bar]:" instead of "PRESSURE:").

i see you do it on some plots but not others:



















also, always include axis labels on plots (i think you are already doing this).

2) use capital "L" instead of "l" as the symbol for litre. alternatively, consider "ℓ" (script small l).

while "l" is an accepted SI symbol, it has its drawbacks, particularly with the font you've selected:



Bureau International des Poids et Mesures said:


> The litre, and the symbol lower-case l, were adopted by the CIPM in 1879 (PV, 1879, 41). The alternative symbol, capital L, was adopted by the 16th CGPM (1979, Resolution 6; CR, 101 and Metrologia, 1980, 16, 56-57) in order to avoid the risk of confusion between the letter l (el) and the numeral 1 (one) [or the letter I for that matter].


also, mL just looks very aesthetically pleasing!


----------



## icom102

what machine is this?


----------



## Bob Stern

I think you did a great job on the GUI, but I have a minor suggestion. I think it would improve readability to use Title Case for parameters (but not units) on graphs and controls.


----------



## decent_espresso

sra said:


> Thank you.
> 
> When the puck becomes saturated after let's say 20ml and the pressure increases as a result, does the flow stop (let's assume that the set preinfusion time is longer than it takes to saturate the puck)?


The default behavior on all our machines is to move to the next step, not to pause, when one of the "exit conditions" on a step is met.

For preinfusion on the DE1, the only "exit condition" is a timer from 0-10 seconds.

On the DE1+ and above, you can set preinfusion to end by:

1) total water volume (volumetric)

2) pressure reached (my favorite, and present as a simple slider)

3) flow rate minimum (ie, the puck is refusis to accept water at the fast rate you want) -- this also works very well.

4) timer

If you want to have a pause after preinfusion, you'd want to use the DE1+'s "advanced profile editor" to introduce a "zero flow" step. Note that this is a "pressure maintained" hold step. If you want a "pressure valve released" step, then create a "zero pressure" step.



patrickff said:


> Best option IMO. Most of the time the profile title will be rather short. The 'description' can be used to go in further details (which would also benefit from an enlarged right hand side.


Bear in mind that the tablet is multilanguage, and some languages habe längere Worte für gemeinsame Dinge, especially Portuguese tem palavras mais longas para coisas comuns.

So, I tend to allocate a LOT of space, especially where user-entered stuff is concerned.

But, I'll do some experimenting, probably for v1.1, as this is good enough to ship at the moment, and moving things around the page is extremely time consuming (because everything has to look perfect).



patrickff said:


> While I am not a fan of overly colorful UIs, I wonder if it would help to have matching colors for the sliders and graph segments
> 
> (e.g. "preinfuse" slider + 1st segment = green, etc.).


I prototyped that in Photoshop and really didn't like the colored lines. Plus, many people are color blind (myself included).

I prefer call-out labels in the chart, and possible thin vertical lines delineating the sections. When the shot runs, a vertical line is used to show the move out of preinfusion.



patrickff said:


> (P.S. I love the Opera Android app running on an iPad. )


Yeah, I noticed that too and wondered, because the web page explicitly calls out that an ASUS tablet is included with the Opera. Maybe they also have an iOS version? Or maybe it's a screen shot?



patrickff said:


> If I understand correctly, then the DE1 always stops after a certain # of seconds, while the DE1+ stops after a number of second or certain flow criteria are met.


Yes, see above for clarification, but to be ultra precise, I'd prefer to not say "stops" but rather "continues to the next step".



sra said:


> That's what I seemed to remember for the DE1+, that it can move on to the next step after a user-defined criterion is met. For the DE1, there still seem to be two possibilities.
> 
> Water flow may stop if the pressure increases above, let's say, 0.5bar because that would reliably indicate saturation of the puck, and the program would then just wait for however many seconds remain for the preinfusion step.
> 
> Or the machine may try to keep the flow rate at 4ml/sec for the whole length of preinfusion up to whatever max. pressure the hardware allows (in that case, a too long preinfusion time would be problematic since 4ml/sec is too fast after the preinfusion step).


The exit conditions for preinfusion on the DE1 are:

- the max time you set

- OR if 4 bar is reached

Thus, you can set a preinfusion time of 10s on the DE1 and it will "just work" and exit preinfusion at the appropriate time.



Obnic said:


> And it was interesting to see how stable the pressure was to achieve your target flow in the video so pressure may not be such an awful proxy for flow after all.


That's the "Rao recommends" profile and it's been created by years of him trying to get constant flow, visually, using pressure profiling machines. He did this before we ever met, because he liked the resulting drink, so I agree that

(a) this pressure curve is fairly good (say, 20% error) at creating constant flow, and

(b) Rao decided long ago that constant flow tastes good.



Obnic said:


> Just out of interest, what is the Slayer profile - you seemed to suggest a 30s 0.5ml pre-infusion then a ramp up to...?


I don't think there's any definition of it, other than "slow preinfusion using the needle valve". I had heard of 30s preinfusions.

Last weekend, my newly-hired Korean representative Shin was here for 3 days, brought his own lightly roasted beans, and did a bunch of experiments with long preinfusions. He much preferred 20s preinfusion over the others.

And yesterday, Peaberry Ltd, the exclusive distributors of Slayer in Thailand, were here.

https://www.facebook.com/peaberrylimited/?rf=114965101915750

their coffee guy said that a Slayer Shot for him is 18s preinfusion at 2ml/s, followed by a 25s extraction peaking at 9 bar, descending to 6 bar. That's a precise definition, and quite helpful!

I had to make the grind finer than for traditional fast-infusion espresso to have a 25s post-preinfusion-extraction, but then the result was extremely good. I watched tPeabody managing director actually get weak in the knees for about 5s when he sipped the result, and there was much exchanging of Thai with words that start with "yum". I tasted it and thought it was the best expression so far of these Korean beans.



dingus said:


> 1) always include units on axis labels (e.g. "PRESSURE [bar]:" instead of "PRESSURE:").


Good suggestion, thank you. Doing so now.



dingus said:


> also, always include axis labels on plots (i think you are already doing this).


I try to, but call me out if I omit one.



dingus said:


> 2) use capital "L" instead of "l" as the symbol for litre. alternatively, consider "ℓ" (script small l).
> 
> while "l" is an accepted SI symbol, it has its drawbacks, particularly with the font you've selected:
> 
> also, mL just looks very aesthetically pleasing!


Huh, interesting. Yep, Google confirms that you are correct. Changing today!



icom102 said:


> what machine is this?


It's a hybrid DE1/DE1+ machine: a DE1+ tablet but with the DE1 firmware espresso making capability so that I can verify that the DE1 shots are pulling as they are supposed to.


----------



## decent_espresso

A few weeks ago I wrote about our "Decent Sensor Basket", which is an all-digital alternative to the Scace 2.

The two main uses for this are:

1) to digitally measure the temperature and pressure coming out of your espresso machine

2) to calibrate your machine (because we use very accurate (and expensive) calibrated flow constrictors) to the flow rate you want

Our first attempt at this has now come back from the machinist, and we'll be assembling and testing it over the next few days.


----------



## sra

decent_espresso said:


> The exit conditions for preinfusion on the DE1 are:
> 
> - the max time you set
> 
> - OR if 4 bar is reached
> 
> Thus, you can set a preinfusion time of 10s on the DE1 and it will "just work" and exit preinfusion at the appropriate time.


Very informative.

To make sure, under "normal" conditions it won't be possible to do a 30sec preinfusion step (as mentioned here) on the DE1 since the 4 bar exit condition should be met after maybe 5 sec and the next step will start; but it can be done on the DE1+.


----------



## decent_espresso

sra said:


> To make sure, under "normal" conditions it won't be possible to do a 30sec preinfusion step (as mentioned here) on the DE1 since the 4 bar exit condition should be met after maybe 5 sec and the next step will start; but it can be done on the DE1+.


That's right, though you and I might quibble about whether it should be called PREinfusion if you've achieved espresso level pressures.

The DE1+ preinfusion slider goes to 60s, has flow control and a programmable exit:









I've switched to working on the DE1+ GUI now, as I have some work to do to make those preinfusion settings easier to understand.

And just FYI I switched the charts (based on suggestions here) to have (bar) (ºC) etc... labels, and I've also dropped "title case" off those labels, to reduce visual noise. In general, I prefer to NOT USE ( irony intended here) title case in the GUI, instead using a bold font, because it's easier to read (lots of studies show that ALL CAPS is difficult to scan) but also because ALL CAPS doesn't exist in most non-Western alphabets, and my visual vocabulary has to work across things like the (beautiful) Thai language.


----------



## dingus

what, if any, kinds of (ab)use or service/repair work do you imagine could cause a DE1(+) to fall out of calibration?

do you envision a need for recal after a certain period of time?


----------



## decent_espresso

dingus said:


> what, if any, kinds of (ab)use or service/repair work do you imagine could cause a DE1(+) to fall out of calibration?


Calcification and then not cleaning, and blocking the cooling fan, would be fastest way to shorten the life of our machine, as well as most machines.

As far as calibration goes, one of the reasons we're making the Decent Sensor Basket is so that people who want to regularly calibrate their DE1 can buy one, and do so.



dingus said:


> do you envision a need for recal after a certain period of time?


Well, no, a recall would wipe out all our profit on every machine and then some, so quite a lot of work has gone into making sure no recall would be needed.


----------



## dingus

decent_espresso said:


> And just FYI I switched the charts (based on suggestions here) to have (bar) (ºC) etc... labels, and I've also dropped "title case" off those labels, to reduce visual noise.


i like the changes in the screenshots. i think you missed capitalizing the litre in the volume label in the second screen shot though.

also, i just want to emphasize that, for the most part, unit symbols (and their prefixes) are case-sensitive. styling them in different letter cases typically at best changes their meaning or at worst makes them invalid according to scientific convention.

examples:

mL (millilitre, 10-3⋅L) vs ML (megalitre, 106⋅L)

bar (preferred symbol) vs Bar (not preferred)

pA (picoampere) vs Pa (pascal)

kg (kilogram) vs KG (invalid)

naturally, appending 's' for plurality (like pounds --> lbs) shouldn't be done.

also, just FYI, the capitalization convention for a unit symbol is this: if it's named after a person, its initial letter is capitalized (e.g. Pa [unit of pressure named after Pascal]). otherwise, it's lowercase (example: s [second]).



decent_espresso said:


> In general, I prefer to NOT USE ( irony intended here) title case in the GUI, instead using a bold font, because it's easier to read (lots of studies show that ALL CAPS is difficult to scan) but also because ALL CAPS doesn't exist in most non-Western alphabets, and my visual vocabulary has to work across things like the (beautiful) Thai language.


agreed


----------



## dingus

dingus said:


> what, if any, kinds of (ab)use or service/repair work do you imagine could cause a DE1(+) to fall out of calibration?
> 
> do you envision a need for recal after a certain period of time?





decent_espresso said:


> Well, no, a recall would wipe out all our profit on every machine and then some, so quite a lot of work has gone into making sure no recall would be needed.


not 100% sure if we were understanding each other; clarifying here just in case: by 'recal' i meant 'recalibration' and not 'recall'


----------



## Obnic

dingus said:


> not 100% sure if we were understanding each other; clarifying here just in case: by 'recal' i meant 'recalibration' and not 'recall'


Ha! . Yes, that's clear now you say it. I confess I read it as 'recall' too and thought it an odd question. Note to self: "pay attention Bond"


----------



## decent_espresso

dingus said:


> not 100% sure if we were understanding each other; clarifying here just in case: by 'recal' i meant 'recalibration' and not 'recall'


I have to say "we don't know" because the machines haven't been out there, in the public, getting abused, and thus getting out of calibration. Calcification would definitely affect things, but bear in mind that we have pressure sensors, multiple temperature sensors, all with PIDs on them to automatically adjust for deviance from goals.

The one thing I'd say that would mess things up is calcification on the temperature probes. Besides running a citric acid wash cycle regularly, you can remove any thermometer probe by pulling out the retaining clip, inspect it, polish it, and place it back.

And cat hair. Cat hair is bad. There is a mesh filter on the intake tube. Don't remove that.


----------



## decent_espresso

dingus said:


> i think you missed capitalizing the litre in the volume label in the second screen shot though.


Thanks for catching that. Fixed now.









I'm working for a few days on the "rate this espresso" feature (reached via the icon with the heart above the espresso cup: it's a bit crowded, I know)

For the aroma components, it'll be tap-tap on the relevant flavors. Another few days and I should have this feature done. I plan to also do Counter Culture's system, but a bit later in the schedule.

Below are two draft screens. I'm aiming for a "works well enough" implementation right now, as doing this GUI to perfection this isn't the highest priority, and I'll revisit it all again when I have a time to work on the analysis & reporting components.









I don't have the text labels on here yet but you can get the idea of what the "berry" options look like:









Mostly just doing photoshop work at the moment, setting this all up.


----------



## Bob Stern

decent_espresso said:


> I prefer to NOT USE (irony intended here) title case in the GUI, instead using a bold font, because it's easier to read (lots of studies show that ALL CAPS is difficult to scan) but also because ALL CAPS doesn't exist in most non-Western alphabets...


FWIW, title case is not all caps, it is "Rise and Hold".

https://daringfireball.net/2008/05/title_case

When limited to very short phrases, I think title case can be helpful to draw your attention to key words. For example, in the pressure graph, it is helpful to capitalize "Pressure" because it is more important than the units "bar" or "seconds". As a second example, in the legend "Auto off", the key word is "off", yet "Auto" attracts your attention if it is the only capitalized word.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> "rate this espresso" feature (reached via the icon with the heart )


I would assume that most DE1 owners won't rate their shots immediately after making it, but after they've actually finished drinking it (i.e. a few minutes). I would either (a) show a popup-dialog after the end of the brewing process ("How was the shot?"), (b) add an action button "log & rate" to the main screen, © add a "last shot" button to the main screen - shows graph of thelast shot (DE1+ only?) and would allow to rate shot.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> R&D won't be done until this v3b machine is declared as "fit for reproducing", which should be in the next 10 days.


How is v3b looking? Has it been promoted from manufacturing candidate to manufacturing reality?


----------



## roastini

I think that this review of the Breville Oracle Touch is an interesting one for those thinking about the DE1/DE1+:

https://www.wired.com/2017/07/review-breville-oracle-touch/

In many ways, it targets a different market - it's practically a super-auto. But I think it's still interesting to consider, because it's $2500 ($900 more than the DE1, and $300 more than the DE1+ - but keep in mind that the Breville includes a grinder, though perhaps not a great grinder), it has a touch screen, PID, a heated group head and a preinfusion option (not adjustable - one size fits all).

If Breville has priced the Oracle Touch correctly, that suggests to me that the DE1 at $1600 is reasonably priced. The DE1+ at $2200 is a closer call, but I suspect that's a decent (pun intended) price, too.


----------



## Dylan

You would have to be bonkers to spend $2500 on the breville touch - my guess is that their target is wealthy folk who want some hand holding.

Dont get me wrong - the Breville/Sage machines have some great features like a heated group so its ready fast, and basic pre-infusion settings, they are also reviewed well and hold their own against the much more established classic designs. If there are a few extras in this new machine they are there to hold the hand of the average home user - not the coffee enthusiast - it's certainly not something you would want to pay a $1000 premium for over the regular Oracle. You also wouldn't want to tie yourself to what has proved itself to be no more than an OK grinder.

The level of feedback and tweaking that can be done with the DE1 (and moreso with the +) is leagues ahead of what the breville/sage machines do - there are similar ideas in both machines and they are both innovating instead of rehashing the same ideas again and again but in reality I think the machines barely compare in what they deliver to the home enthusiast and barista market.


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## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> I would assume that most DE1 owners won't rate their shots immediately after making it, but after they've actually finished drinking it (i.e. a few minutes).
> 
> I would either (a) show a popup-dialog after the end of the brewing process ("How was the shot?"), (b) add an action button "log & rate" to the main screen, © add a "last shot" button to the main screen - shows graph of thelast shot (DE1+ only?) and would allow to rate shot.


I agree, but that's how it's implemented at the moment. A "rate this" button is on the "make an espresso" page (it's the "espresso with a heart above it") and when you tap that, you can describe the espresso (quality, coffee beans used, dose, and also use the scentone adjectives).

You can rate the espresso at any time, until you have made a new espresso. I could make it so you can change the ratings on past espresso, if that seems like a good idea (probably is).

...

However, this is as good a time as any to bring up something I'm pondering...

There is a huuuuuge amount of programming work on my end to make the entered data useful for something.

Here are some goals I have:

1) I'd like to (for instance) help you dial in the "best" settings for a particular bean (grind and dose)

2) I'd like to help you evaluate different beans you've bought, which have you liked

3) I'd like to help you decide how best to change the dialed in settings as the beans age.

4) I'd like to help you assemble your tasting notes

5) I'd like to have a "multi-shot trial" mode, where the machine automatically varies each shot's parameters (pressure, preinfusion, water temp...), and you rate them w/o knowing what changed, with a later analysis step showing you what parameters led to your subjectively highest rated scores.

and that's before I've even started on about sharing your data with other people. That requires me to program from scratch, a cloud service, and integrate it into the Android tablet software. And design an API so that people can do their own analysis.

Given that "we need to ship" and there's lots of more pressing programming work on my plate, I'm thinking of making one of these three choices:

1) leaving the data entry feature in there for the DE1+, but there is no data analysis capability, other than you being able to download your entire shot history (with all the ratings too) and do your own analysis. You need to either be a programmer, or some programmer needs to make an open source program to do this for you.

2) hiding the data entry feature for now, on the assumption that an incomplete feature (you enter data, but there's no analysis) is more likely to annoy people than the feature missing completely.

3) have a "enable BETA features" toggle in the UI which turns this on (and possibly other things).

Your thoughts???









As an aside, the "data card" above has had a significant makeover from the past few days of work, because in live demos I've found that the data interested people but was too chaotically presented to be useful.


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> How is v3b looking? Has it been promoted from manufacturing candidate to manufacturing reality?


The 3B group head has still not arrived, but it should this week.

However, we're not too worried about it, because its main change is heat isolating the brass from aluminium pieces in the group head, and we've managed to do that (in a non manufacturable way) with a big O-ring, with this v3 group.

We're continuing to order parts. The ceramics should arrive this week, but (for instance) the drip tray cover has not been ordered, because ceramic shrinkage on the drip tray was less than expected, and so our CNCed sample was too small for it. So, we're now waiting for a new CNCed drip tray cover before we order that. There are about 50 parts that are in this sort of dependency waiting. The metal legs, for instance, can't be ordered until the ceramics arrive and we can measure the real shrinkage.

The plan is for all espresso-making R&D to be wrapped up this week.

This afternoon, I'll be running my "test suite" of espresso shots (everything from "stuck pucks" that were ground too fine, to coarse 15s shots) to make sure all looks good.

In yesterday's shots, the puck temperature was within 2ºC of the goal at 5s into the shot, and at 1ºC at 10s in, with a maximum overshoot of 0.6ºC. At the start of the shot (1s in), the puck temp is around 6ºC to 8ºC below the goal (due to the room temperature grounds cooling the overall slurry).

Just to be clear -- I'm talking about coffee puck temperature, not water temperature.

Those temperatures are within my goals. This morning, Ray is going to increase the gain on the PIDs to see if he can speed the rampup to the goal temperature (my hope is within 1ºC under 5s), but increasing gain will tend to also increase overshoot, so we'll decide where the balance is. I'm happy with these numbers, and I'm hoping my users will be too.

We did find a dozen or so sheet-metal related changes we want to make, and so we'll be ordering a v4 chassis to be made CNCed to test that. The changes are almost all related to increasing the ease of dis-assembly for repairs.

Since the sheet metal parts have a relatively short lead time (35 days) we're allowing ourselves to leave finalizing that for last, as we wait for things like the flow meters (10 week lead time) to arrive.


----------



## embrya

I like the Rating and analysis Options and go for option 3. I have no Problem waiting for a final version!

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


----------



## Obnic

The DE1 and + software offers so much already that it's scope sounds ready for distribution. The shot tracking, testing and analysis sounds like a spectacular version upgrade. If it were me, I'd be nailing down and tying off what you have already whilst feeling good about having a clear direction of travel and time to get it up to 'Decent' standards by involving your 'coffee guru' colleagues. Sometimes less is more. You've a potentially ground breaking class beating product. Get it to market.


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## markant

+1 option 3.

F A N T A S T I C


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## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> Your thoughts???


I would go w/ (1), because I know how hard it is to finally get a release into production. History should either be stored in a "process-able" format (XML) or a Python/Perl script could be used to covert the data. Excel or R for further analysis.



decent_espresso said:


> ceramic shrinkage on the drip tray was less than expected


Even w/ the compression moulding?


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## Mrboots2u

Obnic said:


> The DE1 and + software offers so much already that it's scope sounds ready for distribution. The shot tracking, testing and analysis sounds like a spectacular version upgrade. If it were me, I'd be nailing down and tying off what you have already whilst feeling good about having a clear direction of travel and time to get it up to 'Decent' standards by involving your 'coffee guru' colleagues. Sometimes less is more. You've a potentially ground breaking class beating product. Get it to market.


This.....


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## roastini

Dylan said:


> You would have to be bonkers to spend $2500 on the breville touch - my guess is that their target is wealthy folk who want some hand holding.


I agree. My point was not that the Oracle Touch is comparable to the DE1 or DE1+, but rather that it offers some insight into the pricing the market will accept. In that respect, while the machines are very different, I think the pricing comparison is still useful.


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## Dylan

roastini said:


> I agree. My point was not that the Oracle Touch is comparable to the DE1 or DE1+, but rather that it offers some insight into the pricing the market will accept. In that respect, while the machines are very different, I think the pricing comparison is still useful.


That depends how much you generalise 'the market'. There is undoubtedly a market of home enthusiasts willing to spend thousands on great gear - there is also undoubtedly a market of wealthy folk who like coffee but need their hand holding a bit. There isn't a huge amount of crossover between these markets, and for this reason I dont think the Oracle is a good indication of the kinda pricing the market the Decent machines are aimed at will accept.

It's honestly very hard to have an idea of what the Decent machine could be priced at if you were comparing them to the existing high end espresso market- other machines that offer any type of pressure control are both very expensive and only offer a fraction of what the Decent machine offers. If you were to look at the existing espresso machine market you would think the Decent machine should be priced in the region of £4-5k+, there is simply no other machine on the market today that offers anything like what Decent are bringing to the table.

I assume the price they are offering their machine at is the best compromise they can strike between mass market adoption and feature set, I imagine they will have to sell rather a lot of machine to make their R+D costs worth it.


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I assume the price they are offering their machine at is the best compromise they can strike between mass market adoption and feature set, I imagine they will have to sell rather a lot of machine to make their R+D costs worth it.


Our current espresso machines are intentionally priced lower in order to build up an initial audience, reviews, and buzz. Over the next 12 months, after each manufacturing run, the price will slowly drift upwards to a more realistic price so that Decent can be sustained by it, and yes, so that the R&D that went into it can also be repaid. Our machines are not nearly as mass-market friendly as the Breville Dual Boiler, we're much more an aficionado's espresso machine. I don't expect to sell tens of thousands of these machines, which is what we'd need to do to keep the price very low (as well as to use much less expensive components, to build the machine more cheaply).


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## Bobbyd

certainly looks good


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## aris

Hi all, just found out about DE while in the market for a new espresso maker, and wow, this is exactly what I've been looking for. Science. Coffee. Geek stuff. This is hands down the best machine in the market (conceptually). I'm looking forward to ordering when possible.


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## Dylan

It already is available to order, if you are sure you want it then seriously consider pulling the trigger. It will take a while before it arrives but the price is only going up.


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## aris

I went to the site, and it doesn't allow me to order, am I doing it wrong?


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> It already is available to order, if you are sure you want it then seriously consider pulling the trigger. It will take a while before it arrives but the price is only going up.





aris said:


> I went to the site, and it doesn't allow me to order, am I doing it wrong?


Aris, you're not doing anything wrong: we've sold out our initial batch of 300 machines. We're hand making themselves, so that we learn from each iteration and make the next one better. We're way behind schedule in getting these out, because we keep finding things we need to solve (or improve) so that we make sure those first 300 customers are really happy. We're just about at the end of that cycle, and all the parts for those 300 machines should be arriving in November.

In November, we'll re-open online ordering, for a batch of 1000 machines that we will hand make, for delivery in April.

If you're on the newsletter (signup here https://decentespresso.com/) or stay on this forum, you'll receive a notice.


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## Dylan

Ah whoops, i thought pre orders were still going. My bad!


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## decent_espresso

I'm currently reworking the tablet software for our DE1+ espresso machine, and one of my major goals is giving you the power to make very sophisticated espressos, such as the "Slayer Shot", but with accuracy and repeatability.

On a Slayer espresso machine, you can adjust a mechanical "needle valve" to control the pre-infusion flow rate. People have found that slow pre-infusions work very well with lightly roasted beans.

On the DE1+ we give you precise control over the flow rate, so you can exactly set it to what gives you the best flavor result.

A few days ago, the distributors of Slayer in Thailand spent the day with me here in Hong Kong. Their tech guy came along and really helped me understand how this style of espresso is made. In the end, we achieved shots that generated many Thai words that sounded like "yum".

My experience is that ground espresso can hold about 2x its weight in water. We set the pre-infusion to 2 mL/second, for 18 seconds, to saturate our 18g espresso coffee puck.

On our first attempt, water leaked through before pre-infusion was over, and the tech guy told me that the grind has to be really fine for this to work. So, adjust grinder, repeat.

After pre-infusion, rise to full pressure (9 bar) or 25 seconds. You should have 36g in the cup.

Below is the screen shot on the DE1+ showing this shot program using pressure profiling. Note that the chart tries to guess that pressure will be rising during pre-infusion and charts it. However, it's just a guess, and if your coffee is coarse, that won't happen, but still, this chart is my best attempt to let you see what will happen with this shot program.









Another approach, with different pros and cons, is to use flow profiling. This is the part of the tablet software I've been lately working on improving.

Since pre-infusion on our machines is always flow controlled, there's no difference there.









After pre-infusion, though, instead of rising to 9 bar (with whatever flow rate that might cause), I instead opt to "rise" the pressure to 4 bar, which guarantees that the puck has been compressed and will now make espresso. You can see that the chart represents this by raising the flow rate the 6 mL/s for a few seconds to achieve the desired pressure.

Next, this shot maintains a constant flow rate of 2 mL/s for 18 seconds, to achieve 36g in the cup. Because the coffee puck is fully saturated at this point, each gram of water in should (more or less) come out. This might not be completely true (coffee is not that reliable) so you might need to change the "hold" period to get the in-cup volume you asked for.


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## aris

signed up and purchased some accessories yesterday. thank you. Keep up the great work.


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## Bob Stern

During the shot, it would be nice to superimpose the selected pressure or flow profile graph (post 977 but without the controls) on the real-time measurement graph (post 961).


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## decent_espresso

Bob Stern said:


> During the shot, it would be nice to superimpose the selected pressure or flow profile graph (post 977 but without the controls) on the real-time measurement graph (post 961).


That is in fact what the dotted lines on the charts are showing you. When they're green the goal is pressure, when they're blue the goal is flow. Here's an example of a flow controlled shot (that had a minimum pressure setting in it, that's why there's a green dotted line stage):









However, the dotted lines on the real-time chart are more accurate because they are the "current goal", taking into account what just happened in the stage before. For example, if preinfusion failed to create any pressure, in the next stage the line will be steeper.


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## Bob Stern

That's perfect. I assume that when you're finished programming, you will hide the zero-pressure dashed lines during controlled-flow periods, the zero-flow dashed lines during the controlled-pressure periods, and the vertical lines before and after those zero value dashed lines.


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## decent_espresso

Bob Stern said:


> That's perfect. I assume that when you're finished programming, you will hide the zero-pressure dashed lines during controlled-flow periods, the zero-flow dashed lines during the controlled-pressure periods, and the vertical lines before and after those zero value dashed lines.


Those vertical lines indicate a move into the next step. Yes, the first one will go away, because I'll stop charting things to the left of that first left bar, because water is not yet flowing into the portafilter. The 2nd vertical bar indicates the move from preinfusion to the main espresso stage, and that vertical line is very much there on purpose.

As to the dotted lines at zero, I was planning on leaving them, because they make it clear that pressure (or flow) is not a goal at that stage. I found that if I ducked them under the zero line, that this was not as clear. But I could be convinced otherwise!

It was argued on this forum that I should move the pressure sliders to the right of each choice, but I disagreed at the time. I've changed my mind, and followed the advice:









I've today made the "off" sections hide all the unnecessary controls









and added a discrete water-level indicator:


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## decent_espresso

I'm working on the tablet software for flow profiling and could use your opinion about if what I've done makes any sense.

[video=youtube;VR_DOF-mIsM]






Just one correction: yes, I know the Mina espresso machine has flow profiling, so the DE1+ is the 2nd flow profiling machine, but what I meant was that there haven't been any GUIs trying to help people make flow profiling shots.


----------



## jwCrema

I have never owned a machine that could do this, so I can't advise on the merit of the guarantee idea. Based on how I have been using preinfusion on my 67 Cremina I am just looking to saturate the puck, which I do by keeping the lever up and using time. How analog!

I plan on trying this feature Slayer style as you posted recently. I can see varying the time of preinfusion and tweaking the flow rate. Based on grind will the bars of puck pressure matter? I suppose guarantee won't hurt anything to be there.


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## roastini

I think the "guarantee" should always show a rise blip in the interface, even if you estimate it won't happen, just to show (on the graph) that guarantee has been selected. You can make it a tiny blip if the "correct" estimation is no rise at all.

I also think I would call it "mandatory" (i.e. it is "mandatory that pressure exceeds the chosen value") rather than "guarantee."

What happens if you select guarantee but the coffee is not ground finely enough to hit the chosen pressure level?


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## patrickff

I wonder if the "guarantee" is clear enough. What it effectively does, is to introduce what would be 2nd step in "Advanced":

Step 1:

(Action) 4.0mL/s

(Exit condition) 15s OR 4.0bar

Step 2:

(Action) 8.0mL/s

(Exit condition) 4.0bar (no time limit)


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## jwCrema

roastini said:


> What happens if you select guarantee but the coffee is not ground finely enough to hit the chosen pressure level?


This was what I was alluding to in my reference to "grind" - I'm in the camp the bars of pressure in pre-infuse doesn't seem matter as much as time and water flow.

But, what would Scott Rao advise? I'll go with what he says.


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## Bob Stern

Re: Post 982:

I think ">" should be "

(1) Both time and pressure are upper limits such that when either is reached, the preinfusion stage exits. It makes sense to label both with the same inequality operator.

(2) Your previous English legends "Up to" and "Until" are interchangeable, reinforcing the logic of (1).

"Guarantee" is fine, but you might consider "Force" because it suggests the abruptness of the pressure ramp if the time elapses without attaining the target pressure.


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## decent_espresso

Here's what the Sensor Basket looks like after being used for a few dozen shots. This was made in sandblasted aluminum and looks a bit industrial.









Because this prototype was made by carving out a block of aluminum, the "lip" is thicker than a traditional basket. This made the fit in the espresso machine too tight, and a portafilter with the Sensor Basket had to be wedged hard. To solve this, I sanded off a bit off the top tip (you can see the sanding marks). In the next iteration, we'll try to take a millimeter off the thickness, or else flatten the top on purpose, like I did with the sander.

I haven't yet installed the shield on the pressure sensor since it's not wired in. You can see where that'll go in the photo below, and it's there to prevent splashing water from giving you temporarily high pressure readings.

One thing that was not great about the Scace was that its flow rate was much faster than a good espresso actually is, making it a not-great simulation for our testing. The Scace's flow rate is more like a "gusher" espresso.

What I've found, however, is that a smaller hole, that properly simulates real espresso, is much more likely to get clogged with a coffee particle. So, there might be a method to Scace's madness.

On the positive side, because the water comes out of a "barb" you can (ahem) put your lips around the exit barb and blow hard to push the particles out. Then give it all a nice rinse and try to forget what you just did.

If you'd like to be more professional, you can buy a very thin guitar string and use that to push the jammed particle out.

Or, you can clean out your espresso machine better than I did, before using this testing tool.

(update 1h later) or you actually install the mesh filter that was designed to prevent this clogging problem (sigh).


----------



## Bob Stern

Re: Posts 979 & 981:



decent_espresso said:


> Those vertical lines indicate a move into the next step. Yes, the first one will go away, because I'll stop charting things to the left of that first left bar, because water is not yet flowing into the portafilter. The 2nd vertical bar indicates the move from preinfusion to the main espresso stage, and that vertical line is very much there on purpose.
> 
> As to the dotted lines at zero, I was planning on leaving them, because they make it clear that pressure (or flow) is not a goal at that stage. I found that if I ducked them under the zero line, that this was not as clear. But I could be convinced otherwise!


When one parameter (eg, flow) is regulated and the other is not (eg, pressure), the unregulated parameter is intended to be nowhere near zero, so it is confusing to represent the unregulated value by a dashed line at the zero axis. The disparity between the realtime measured value and the dashed line looks like a deviation or error.

To permit eliminating the dashed line during a stage when there is no target for the graphed parameter, I suggest displaying this entire stage (time interval) with a gray shaded background. The shaded background would have vertical boundaries at the start and end times of the stage, thereby appearing almost like your vertical dashed lines, but eliminating the confusing transition to zero.

During the same stage (time interval), the corresponding graph for the other parameter that *is* controlled would have a white background. The presence or absence of a shaded background would identify at a glance which parameter is being controlled during each stage.


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## Bob Stern

decent_espresso said:


> One thing that was not great about the Scace was that its flow rate was much faster than a good espresso actually is, making it a not-great simulation for our testing. The Scace's flow rate is more like a "gusher" espresso.
> 
> What I've found, however, is that a smaller hole, that properly simulates real espresso, is much more likely to get clogged with a coffee particle. So, there might be a method to Scace's madness.


The VST basket has conical holes, with the inlet narrower. It seems immune to clogging, unlike baskets with straight holes. I wonder whether the same solution would work for your sensor basket.


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## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> I think the "guarantee" should always show a rise blip in the interface, even if you estimate it won't happen, just to show (on the graph) that guarantee has been selected. You can make it a tiny blip if the "correct" estimation is no rise at all.


I've been leaning in that direction too, as I had an inkling that my current approach (hide the blip if probably won't happen) might be a bit too clever, and thus cause confusion.



roastini said:


> I also think I would call it "mandatory" (i.e. it is "mandatory that pressure exceeds the chosen value") rather than "guarantee."


I'm not a fan of "guarantee" either. But, I'm not all that happy with "mandatory" either, it sounds so disciplinary.

Previously I had "Reach 6 bar" or "Require 6 bar".



roastini said:


> What happens if you select guarantee but the coffee is not ground finely enough to hit the chosen pressure level?


I suspect you know the answer <grin></grin>

The pump puts out 6 mL/s tryo to reach the desired pressure, and if it never gets there, you have a "gusher".



jwCrema said:


> This was what I was alluding to in my reference to "grind" - I'm in the camp the bars of pressure in pre-infuse doesn't seem matter as much as time and water flow. But, what would Scott Rao advise? I'll go with what he says.


I've been discussing this intensely with him, and he feels strongly that you should *not* be using time to set the end of preinfusion, but that you should exit preinfusion based on pressure. He wants me to visually diminish the importance of the timer during preinfusion.

I know, every other machine uses a timer for preinfusion, but Scott and I have both independently found that preinfusion ending at a pressure simply works better (it makes better coffee). Getting the exact number of seconds for a proper preinfusion takes multiple attempts and varies daily based on bean age, whereas preinfusion-exit-on-pressure "just works"



Bob Stern said:


> I think ">" should be "
> 
> Done: you convinced me.
> 
> 
> 
> Bob Stern said:
> 
> 
> 
> "Guarantee" is fine, but you might consider "Force" because it suggests the abruptness of the pressure ramp if the time elapses without attaining the target pressure.
> 
> 
> 
> Done: I also prefer "force". Both the noun and verb meanings of force apply in this case, which is also nice.
> 
> Thanks a bundle, Bob.
> 
> 
> 
> patrickff said:
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder if the "guarantee" is clear enough. What it effectively does, is to introduce what would be 2nd step in "Advanced":
> 
> Step 1: (Action) 4.0mL/s (Exit condition) 15s OR 4.0bar
> 
> Step 2: ( Action) 8.0mL/s (Exit condition) 4.0bar (no time limit)
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> That is very similar to my previous draft, a week ago, where I had an optional "RISE" feature. Since it's unlikely to be used in most cases (preinfusion usually provides enough pressure), it seemed that a lot of visual complexity was added for a not-so-often-used feature. So, I was working on removing that step, which is what yesterday's draft did.
> 
> Here's what the flow profiling GUI looked liked last week, with the RISE feature in there:
Click to expand...


----------



## decent_espresso

Bob Stern said:


> The VST basket has conical holes, with the inlet narrower. It seems immune to clogging, unlike baskets with straight holes. I wonder whether the same solution would work for your sensor basket.


Unfortunately, our sensor basket only has one hole, and it's made by a company named Lee that specializes in calibrated flow restrictors for the US military. They're seen as the best available, and I have no ability to get them to change their shape.

Also, with VST baskets the holes are not creating 9 bars of back pressure, it's the coffee that is. A VST basket with no coffee in it will create negligeable back pressure.

Thus, the holes in a VST baskets are much larger than the single hole in our sensor basket.

But thanks for suggesting it, even if I shot your idea down.



Bob Stern said:


> To permit eliminating the dashed line during a stage when there is no target for the graphed parameter, I suggest displaying this entire stage (time interval) with a gray shaded background. The shaded background would have vertical boundaries at the start and end times of the stage, thereby appearing almost like your vertical dashed lines, but eliminating the confusing transition to zero.
> 
> During the same stage (time interval), the corresponding graph for the other parameter that *is* controlled would have a white background. The presence or absence of a shaded background would identify at a glance which parameter is being controlled during each stage.


I was planning on doing some experimenting with the charting library in the next few days to see if colored sections are possible with it. You'd be surprised how limiting the software charting libraries are. They make things simple by doing it all for you, but if you want to do something they didn't conceive of, it's really, really difficult.

In this case, my chart is a line chart, and so far I've only found that I can draw lines on it. But, we'll see if I can find a work around.

In a future software version I might switch to a different charting library, but this close to release, it's too much work to make the change. I've finally worked the bugs out of this one and don't relish fixing/finding the bugs in another.


----------



## Bob Stern

decent_espresso said:


> In a future software version I might switch to a different charting library, but this close to release, it's too much work to make the change. I've finally worked the bugs out of this one and don't relish fixing/finding the bugs in another.


I realize it's too late now, but for future reference Gnuplot probably can do what you want. It can draw a rectangle with a specified background color in a layer behind your plot.


----------



## Bob Stern

decent_espresso said:


> I've been discussing this intensely with him, and he feels strongly that you should *not* be using time to set the end of preinfusion, but that you should exit preinfusion based on pressure. He wants me to visually diminish the importance of the timer during preinfusion.
> 
> I know, every other machine uses a timer for preinfusion, but Scott and I have both independently found that preinfusion ending at a pressure simply works better (it makes better coffee). Getting the exact number of seconds for a proper preinfusion takes multiple attempts and varies daily based on bean age, whereas preinfusion-exit-on-pressure "just works"


You could move the maximum preinfusion time to a global preference setting instead of displaying it in each individual recipe/program.


----------



## decent_espresso

Bob Stern said:


> I realize it's too late now, but for future reference Gnuplot probably can do what you want. It can draw a rectangle with a specified background color in a layer behind your plot.


Gnuplot is in fact available to me in my Androwish environment (Tcl on Android) and is one among about a dozen choices for charting that I might use in the future.

http://www.androwish.org/index.html/vdiff?from=f33cd260bb9c9744&to=35c4f510aa3ffe58&sbs=0&v

However, I've used a lot of different charting libraries in my years of coding, and all of them have their particular quirks, so I don't want to underestimate the amount of work, and potential features lost, by moving to another charting library. The current one has the advantage of not having any bugs (or rather, I've worked around them) and being fast (since I do real-time shot animation on an inexpensive tablet device).

What I'm really looking for in a charting library, for the future, is easy support for callouts. I want to put arrows with labels, pointing to potential insights about your espresso.


----------



## decent_espresso

Bob Stern said:


> You could move the maximum preinfusion time to a global preference setting instead of displaying it in each individual recipe/program.


That would violate two assumptions I have:

1) that we're way to early into this to make any assumptions about what works everywhere (ie, a global preference)

2) that complete "espresso setups" need to be shareable, and easily downloadable, so that as people find things that they think work, others can fully recreate the experiment, and discuss their findings.

I remember discovering Science Commons http://sciencecommons.org/about/ and their mission of enabling the reproduction of experiments (in their case, by standardizing legalese).

If enough experimenters are using the same hardware platform, and can share much of their experimental protocol (much of it automatically, via software, but not all) then I feel we (the coffee community) might make faster progress on some topics that have so far evaded us.


----------



## roastini

Instead of making preinfusion time a global setting, I would (consistent with Rao's suggestion) make the preinfusion setting have the flow and pressure up top, and then smaller settings below for the "fail-safe" conditions - max time, and whether to require a pressure rise.

The idea is to signal that preinfusion is about flow rate and saturation (which is really want the pressure condition is about). The time setting and the pressure rise are about addressing situations in which flow and saturation don't do what we usually would expect (i.e. they are secondary settings, not primary ones).


----------



## jwCrema

roastini said:


> Instead of making preinfusion time a global setting, I would (consistent with Rao's suggestion) make the preinfusion setting have the flow and pressure up top, and then smaller settings below for the "fail-safe" conditions - max time, and whether to require a pressure rise.
> 
> The idea is to signal that preinfusion is about flow rate and saturation (which is really want the pressure condition is about). The time setting and the pressure rise are about addressing situations in which flow and saturation don't do what we usually would expect (i.e. they are secondary settings, not primary ones).


Completely concur. The simple idea from Scott is that saturation is measured by pressure. The only suggestion I could offer now that I (may) understand it, is a "stop" in the event of a gusher.


----------



## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> Completely concur. The simple idea from Scott is that saturation is measured by pressure. The only suggestion I could offer now that I (may) understand it, is a "stop" in the event of a gusher.


Agreed, and I'm going to put a "time out" on the "pressure guarantee" of something like 10 seconds, so that if the requested pressure can't be reached, the DE1+ gives up and moves to the step, hopefully making a less terrible espresso. I'll have to tinker with the exact number.



roastini said:


> The idea is to signal that preinfusion is about flow rate and saturation (which is really want the pressure condition is about). The time setting and the pressure rise are about addressing situations in which flow and saturation don't do what we usually would expect (i.e. they are secondary settings, not primary ones).


I think we're all in agreement, and I have some ideas for changing the UI based on this discussion, and will report back in a few days with my latest attempts.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here is a new draft of the user interface for configuring pre-infusion, when making a flow controlled espresso on the DE1+. Thanks for all the feedback, it really helped.

What's changed:

- The flow bar was moved from horizontal to vertical, so it's like the other flow-bars on the page.

- Both seconds and max pressure are now labelled with a

- The "guarantee" concept has turned into a "rise" checkbox which simply means the DE1+ should try to "rise" the espresso to this pressure (at the end of preinfusion)

I've made a small animation showing how the chart changes as turn this "rise" feature on and off.

What do you think?


----------



## decent_espresso

A few days ago Michael Hollesen suggested color coding the espresso sections and uploaded a photoshop mockup he made of his idea.

I liked where he was going with it, and today tried to implement something similar.

Let me know what you think of this direction.


----------



## jwCrema

Love the idea Michael forwarded. The colors themselves don't matter to me, but the association of a color to a phase is a great improvement.


----------



## roastini

jwCrema said:


> Love the idea Michael forwarded. The colors themselves don't matter to me, but the association of a color to a phase is a great improvement.


I agree. On the color choices, I would just suggest that you choose colors that will still be easily differentiated by those who are red-green colorblind (which actually refers to two types of colorblindness, since red-green colorblindness can refer either to protanomaly or to deuteranomaly; those are the two most common forms of colorblindness). Bonus if the color scheme is also easily differentiated by those with blue-yellow colorblindness (tritanomaly), but that is far more rare than the red-green conditions.


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> - The flow bar was moved from horizontal to vertical, so it's like the other flow-bars on the page.
> 
> - Both seconds and max pressure are now labelled with a
> 
> - The "guarantee" concept has turned into a "rise" checkbox which simply means the DE1+ should try to "rise" the espresso to this pressure (at the end of preinfusion)


Rise concept still not clear enough. Is the preinfusion ending at reached set pressure, so before set time has passed? Or is flow rate increased only after set time to achieve set pressure? Or could be both depending on set flow rate??

So "rise" seems to mean: "End at" or "Rise & End at"=> If PI pressure is reached before set PI time has passed, go to hold. If pressure not reached at set PI time, increase flow rate till PI pressure reached, go to hold.

[just coming from the question: what happens if I set PI flow rate at 6 mL/s. Of course that doesn't make sense when thinking of real world preinfusion, but it is possible in your concept; in fact talking about setting a pressure in a flow-profile is a bit confusing, but I understand why and what you want to do.]

But what if I want to have a PI of say 30 seconds. (yes, crazy, I know). Guess this will never be possible if there is a set flow rate that cannot go to zero.

So I suggest to add yet one other option, below the "rise" option: flow-bar and a checkbox for the amount of water for pre infusion. If reached, flow stops, until end of set PI time. Then flow rate could go up to max to reach an "End at" PI pressure (if option checked) or go up to the flow rate of the hold phase.

For me such an option of max amount PI water makes sense since I can force a PI time as long as I can set on DE1+. Compare: lever/spring-lever with pre infusion at boiler pressure ~1,2 bar: the puck can become completely saturated with water (maybe even compensating for tamping too hard?) and I can still wait if I like to.

For my wife it would also make sense if she wanted to make tea in my portafilter (







HORROR! But hey, have heard and seen stranger things.....







).

NIT-picking? at the chart: flow rate increase - 1 sec up to 4 mL/s; flow rate decrease from 6 to 2,5 in ~3 sec. Of course this is a chart showing how to configure a profile, but how close is the rate change to reality?


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> A few days ago Michael Hollesen suggested color coding the espresso sections and uploaded a photoshop mockup he made of his idea.
> 
> I liked where he was going with it, and today tried to implement something similar.
> 
> Let me know what you think of this direction.


Great suggestion of Michael; your implementation is even better; however I don't like the pastel colors ....

(By the way: in the video, that is not a lever (flow)profile; but you know that, I am sure







).


----------



## decent_espresso

This:



markant said:


> If pressure not reached at set PI time, increase flow rate till PI pressure reached, go to hold.


is what "rise" means.

It's not easy to explain in one word, since it's a new concept. I'm not sure there's a solution to this, other than a "help" button with text or video providing more information.



markant said:


> just coming from the question: what happens if I set PI flow rate at 6 mL/s. Of course that doesn't make sense when thinking of real world preinfusion, but it is possible in your concept;


That's not crazy at all. If you have a well prepared puck, a preinfusion at 6 mL/s, followed by a "hold" flow of 2.2 mL/s will produce a very nice espresso.

I only have two month's experience now with Ben Champion's totally rethought dispersion plate,









(ours is on the left, the traditional plate is on the right)

but it feels that faster preinfusion rates are now easier for me to achieve. I think it's because water is prevented from hitting the puck at high speed, and is evenly distributed during PI, but it could also be that I'm just becoming better at puck prep.

For medium roasts, I tend to prefer the flavor from the fastest preinfusion I can get away with. My Italian shots have recently been in the 18s-22s range (fast, I know!) and I've bumped my infusion temperature up from 88ºC to 92ºC as part of those changes.



markant said:


> But what if I want to have a PI of say 30 seconds. (yes, crazy, I know).


You absolutely can do that. Flow rates down to 0.2 mL/s are possible with low error (

A 30 second PI would likely be at 0.6 mL/s for an 18g coffee dose (yielding 36g of water during PI).

I've made a fair amount of shots with preinfusion between 20s to 30s, and the technique works well to rapidly outgas freshly roasted beans, with a higher extraction being the result.

Long, slow preinfusions are a really interesting technique, which Slayer pioneered, and which I'm hoping to help people explore.



markant said:


> a checkbox for the amount of water for pre infusion


Setting total water volume for PI is currently possible in the advanced editor,









and I'll probably not migrate it over to the other tabs, as those are meant to be "easy" and remove as much as possible but still handle the majority cases.



markant said:


> at the chart: flow rate increase - 1 sec up to 4 mL/s; flow rate decrease from 6 to 2,5 in ~3 sec. Of course this is a chart showing how to configure a profile, but how close is the rate change to reality?


As you surmise, those are generalisations on my part, but my experience is that pressure decreases take longer than you would expect, as the espresso machine is at the mercy of the coffee puck and can't do anything to speed it up.

However, pressure rise is very much in our control, and we can change flow rates very quickly (that's a real advantage to vibe pumps over gear pumps, they're very low latency).


----------



## BlueWater

I haven't followed all of the Decent discussion on this site, so please forgive me if you've previously covered these areas. I'm wondering what state the machine will achieve at several points using this interface if the settings are not well matched to the puck properties. The PI parameters in particular are related differently from those in other sections of the shot: they function as two possible limit values with an OR relationship and the parameter adjusted by the machine to control this section of the shot is always actually flow, not pressure. Changes in this section can significantly alter the hydration of the puck in ways that are difficult to understand. It would be helpful to see total water dispensed into the puck at the end of the PI stage to help reproduce a similar puck saturation via different flow rates/time to understand the interplay of flow rate, pressure limits, cumulative water delivered, and time. Yes, this is probably better done in the Advanced editor, but a showing a "volume of water dispensed" value here (not setting a total volume restriction as is possible in the Advanced editor) will help someone understand what PI result their settings of flow/time/pressure accomplished, especially if they choose odd settings.

The parameters in the other sections of the shot operate via AND, and use either pressure or flow, as desired, for the control variable. The interpretation is straightforward for the rise-and-hold region-the machine will deliver the specified flow or pressure for the specified duration, if possible. Here again, showing water delivered to the grouphead during this section would be interesting; you already plan to plot the actual flow/pressure achieved during the shot.

The machine behavior during the decline phase is unclear to me. For pressure control and a target value of x at y seconds, there are several possible profiles. The machine could calculate dP/dt after some flow decrease and smoothly or stepwise decrease flow to reach x pressure at the target time. If the target pressure can't be reached at the target time, then what-rapidly open and close the three-way valve? Stop flow and let the pressure fall naturally as far as possible? Do you have some validation checks so this can't happen (such as requiring the decline phase be at least "Y" seconds)?

Your UI already offers much more capability for shot profiling than what is possible on commercial machines today. The software will certainly evolve as users explore the capabilities of being able to have so much control and provide feedback for software improvements; I'm really looking forward to this journey. And, to answer your question, I do like the idea of color-coding the phases of the shot and prefer more vibrant colors instead of pastels.


----------



## decent_espresso

This video demonstrates our ability to integrate with a Bluetooth scale, and thereby chart the real-time flow rate of an espresso into the cup itself. The scale weight is automatically tared when the shot starts, and you can see the drops start around 8 seconds of preinfusion and speed up to approach the water flow rate as measured going into the puck from the machine.






Note that the blue flow rate line is calculated on this machine (not using a hardware flow meter) as we are trying to create an accurate physics model to determine flow rate by counting water pump strokes. We wrote this "gravimetric flow meter" in order to test and improve our physics model.

We are working on making our own Bluetooth scale, as well as an integrated scale in the drip tray of our upcoming DE1CAFE model.

Naturally, in the future, the espresso machine can stop making coffee when the desired in-cup rate is reached.


----------



## phenyl

decent_espresso said:


> This video demonstrates our ability to integrate with a Bluetooth scale, and thereby chart the real-time flow rate of an espresso into the cup itself. The scale weight is automatically tared when the shot starts, and you can see the drops start around 8 seconds of preinfusion and speed up to approach the water flow rate as measured going into the puck from the machine.


Are you planning on publishing the API of your scale?


----------



## decent_espresso

BlueWater said:


> It would be helpful to see total water dispensed into the puck at the end of the PI stage to help reproduce a similar puck saturation via different flow rates/time to understand the interplay of flow rate, pressure limits, cumulative water delivered, and time.


That's an interesting idea and I agree that would be useful information.

I could imagine displaying total water volume next to the timers for Preinfusion and Pouring. Here's a mockup of how that might look (with the arrow pointing at the two new numbers)











BlueWater said:


> The machine behavior during the decline phase is unclear to me. For pressure control and a target value of x at y seconds, there are several possible profiles. The machine could calculate dP/dt after some flow decrease and smoothly or stepwise decrease flow to reach x pressure at the target time. If the target pressure can't be reached at the target time, then what-rapidly open and close the three-way valve? Stop flow and let the pressure fall naturally as far as possible? Do you have some validation checks so this can't happen (such as requiring the decline phase be at least "Y" seconds)?


In the "easy" shot editors for pressure and flow, the behavior is for the decline to be interpolated over the time you have specified. Thus, if your shot is holding at 9 bar, and you set a decline to 6 bar in 10 seconds, the DE1+ will draw a 10 second line between 9 bar and 6 bar, and gently move the shot toward it.

For example,









In this shot (no portafilter attached) I created 3 stages:

4 mL/s PI

3 mL/s hold

2 mL/s decline

You can see that the first two stages have a horizontal "blue dotted line" which is the goal.

The final stage (decline) has a tilting line, interpolating the change over the 10 or so seconds I had set (I forget exactly how many seconds I set it to).

Note that the brown line in the chart is charting flow rate into the cup, as measured by weight. Apologies for the blue line being off by 20% as we're still working on our physics simulation to measure flow rate w/o a hardware flow meter.

----

Flow is not (usually) stopped as you go into the decline phase. Instead, a PID regulates how much the flow into the puck should change in order to hit the target. We don't have validation checks to prevent this, because I prefer to give people more control at the risk of their making espresso profiles that don't make real-world sense with actual coffee. I don't think there's a big risk, anyway, because if they did this 9->0 decline, they'd run the shot and see that a decline of (say) only 4 bar was possible in 3 seconds.

Of course, if their grind is coarse and producing a "gusher", they might actually be able to drop 9 bar in 3 seconds, and that might be exactly what they wanted to do.

Obviously, if you're holding a 9 bar shot and indicate that pressure should decline to zero in 3 seconds, it's likely that the pid will cut all flow into the puck, in order to try to accomplish that.

In the advanced shot editor, each stage has control over whether the transition should be sudden or interpolated. Here's the icon for setting this behavior:









Did I manage to answer all your questions? There were a few you had that seemed to be interrelated, so I want to make sure I actually addressed everything.



BlueWater said:


> Your UI already offers much more capability for shot profiling than what is possible on commercial machines today. The software will certainly evolve as users explore the capabilities of being able to have so much control and provide feedback for software improvements; I'm really looking forward to this journey. And, to answer your question, I do like the idea of color-coding the phases of the shot and prefer more vibrant colors instead of pastels.


Everyone seems to have their own preference for colors, and so today I moved the color choice into a user-editable configuration text file, with the simple format of:

color_stage_1 {#c8e7d5}

color_stage_2 {#efdec2}

color_stage_3 {#dbcce1}

If you plug the tablet into a computer and use the free Android File Transfer software, you can set the color scheme to whatever you desire.

I should mention that the entire UI is open source, using the easy-to-learn Tcl interpreted language, and the complete source is included on the tablet itself. That makes tweaking possible, but not necessarily easy. However, if enough people want something, I can make it easy if you can handle editing a text file.

For instance, I've been tinkering with charting a "pressure change per second" line, to see if it might tell us something about whether the extraction is mostly complete. The theory is that if the pressure is no longer decreasing rapidly at constant flow, extraction should be complete. However, I haven't found the line to be useful, so it's off by default.

Changing the config file from:

display_pressure_delta_line 0

to

display_pressure_delta_line 1

will display it. There's lots of experimental stuff in the GUI that's not yet ready for mass exposure, but I've left the code in there for people want to experiment.


----------



## decent_espresso

phenyl said:


> Are you planning on publishing the API of your scale?


Yes, it's here:

https://decentespresso.com/scale_api


----------



## Bob Stern

The Rise stage is confusing to me too, especially since it seems to be the only stage in which the slope and duration cannot be controlled by the user.

In a Pressure Profile program, it seems to me that you should not have a discontinuity between the final pressure in one stage (preinfusion) and the initial pressure in the next stage (rise and hold). Why not simply define the initial pressure of each stage to be the final pressure of the preceding stage? The pressure control for each of the 4 stages (preinfuse, rise, hold, decline) would specify the *final* pressure for that stage (as already suggested by the pressure control being on the right!). Splitting rise and hold into separate stages would allow adding a control for the rise time.

Similarly, in a Flow Profile program the flow control for each stage would specify the final flow rate for that stage, with the initial flow rate for each stage being the final value of the preceding stage.

Names of stages: For Flow Profile, why not simply number the stages after preinfusion without naming them Hold and Decline? Since flow profiling is experimental, perhaps the names are too limiting. Or name them extraction 1 and extraction 2.


----------



## decent_espresso

Bob Stern said:


> The Rise stage is confusing to me too, especially since it seems to be the only stage in which the slope and duration cannot be controlled by the user.


True, but that's also because I'm trying to simplify things for users in that page, and not present them with too many options. "rise" is shorthand for "go to 6 mL/s for however long it takes to reach Y bars of pressure, but no more than 10 seconds". If you want control over those parameters, they're available in the advanced shot editor.



Bob Stern said:


> In a Pressure Profile program, it seems to me that you should not have a discontinuity between the final pressure in one stage (preinfusion) and the initial pressure in the next stage (rise and hold). Why not simply define the initial pressure of each stage to be the final pressure of the preceding stage? The pressure control for each of the 4 stages (preinfuse, rise, hold, decline) would specify the *final* pressure for that stage (as already suggested by the pressure control being on the right!). Splitting rise and hold into separate stages would allow adding a control for the rise time.


The problem with setting a final pressure for preinfusion is that slow preinfusion shots explicitly don't create pressure, whereas traditional preinfusion (faster) does.

Preinfusion ends when the "first drops" come out of the puck, which is a proxy for puck saturation, which is mostly like a proxy for total water volume in ml.

I know that I could accommodate both slow and fast preinfusion with a single "how many ml of water, and at what rate?" but that would require more from the barista. The "exit preinfusion when you reach Y bar" means the barista doesn't have to think if they don't want to, the total preinfusion time is figured out for you, regardless of coffee dose, grind or preinfusion flow rate (as long as it's above 2 mL/s).

Yes, I could offer "time to rise" control, but in watching baristas work with paddles, I've never seen one slowly ramp up to full flow after preinfusion. They all move quickly.

Thus, this simple GUI mimics the common case I see baristas do with existing tools.

I'm also trying to remove as much complexity as possible in these simple guis. The power to do everything you're describing is available in the advanced tab.



Bob Stern said:


> Similarly, in a Flow Profile program the flow control for each stage would specify the final flow rate for that stage, with the initial flow rate for each stage being the final value of the preceding stage.
> 
> Names of stages: For Flow Profile, why not simply number the stages after preinfusion without naming them Hold and Decline? Since flow profiling is experimental, perhaps the names are too limiting. Or name them extraction 1 and extraction 2.


All doable, but that makes flow profiling even different feeling than pressure profiling, and my goal is not make things familiar where possible.

Most espresso made that is flow controlled (via a paddle) that I've seen, has used a "preinfuse->hold->decline" recipe. That's what I see in cafes and on youtube.

Hence, that's been my model for these simpler guis. More control and thus, different metaphors, can be accommodated in the advanced tab.

Of course, this may evolve over time, but for now this 3-steps-to-espresso is the central metaphor in the simpler GUIs, for both pressure and flow profiling.

The most common reason given for "I don't like your espresso machine" a year ago was "it seems too complicated". That's why I work to remove complexity for the common cases.


----------



## decent_espresso

It's really interesting to be able to see the rate at which espresso pours into the cup. I think it's going to lead to some insight.

In the espresso below, I am using a somewhat fine grind, 18g dose, the coffee is fairly old (4 months) and medium-dark roasted (not so yummy). The two graphics are the same espresso: one is a "zoom" of the other.









What's interesting about this shot is:

- even though preinfusion has definitely finished (pressure is high)

- the puck continues to absorb water

- which you can see because the water out of the puck (brown line) is half the speed of the water into the puck (blue line)

- and as the puck becomes fully saturated (toward the end of the shot), the flow rate in finally equals the flow rate out

I think that a slower, longer preinfusion would fix this, as would a coarser grind (the beans would have less water holding capability).

That would change the flavor, and it'll be interesting, with this new data, to see if it's possible to "make the chart look good" equal "espresso tastes good"


----------



## Obnic

Did you just put some science behind the Slayer shot?

Should we distinguish between puck saturation and grind saturation?

Or is grind saturation - water in = water out, the natural endpoint of a shot?

So many questions now.


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> Did you just put some science behind the Slayer shot? ... So many questions now.


Let's say I've created a tool. The science will come later, from you guys, when these tools have been in your hands for a while (soon, soon).

I do think we could know a lot more about preinfusion.

The espresso in yesterday's video (different beans, fresher, less roasted) didn't behave like these beans at all, and instead had a stable grams/second when water flow was a stable ml/s. Here's a still from that:











Obnic said:


> Should we distinguish between puck saturation and grind saturation?
> 
> Or is grind saturation - water in = water out, the natural endpoint of a shot?


I'd like to believe that preinfusion saturates a puck, and then flow in = flow out. That's the case for yesterday's espresso, but not for today's. Huh. #assumptionsshattered


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> I'd like to believe that preinfusion saturates a puck, and then flow in = flow out. That's the case for yesterday's espresso, but not for today's. Huh. #assumptionsshattered


Keep in mind that grams in the cup is not the same as water out, because part of the weight in the cup is the extracted elements from the beans - you know, the stuff that makes the espresso actually be espresso rather than a cup of hot water.

So if water in = water out, grams out should be slightly higher than ml of flow in.


----------



## bachamp

roastini said:


> Keep in mind that grams in the cup is not the same as water out, because part of the weight in the cup is the extracted elements from the beans - you know, the stuff that makes the espresso actually be espresso rather than a cup of hot water.
> 
> So if water in = water out, grams out should be slightly higher than ml of flow in.


I had the same thought and even talked about how we might even be able to calculate the rate of extraction if we could measure it accurately enough.

But then realised that the volume in the portafilter will always be consistent, so any solids extracted will be replaced by water. So "ml in" = "ml out", just that "ml in" is just hot water, and "ml out" is espresso.

There will be a slight difference in "g in" compared to "g out" due to density difference, but it's not going to be much.


----------



## roastini

bachamp said:


> I had the same thought and even talked about how we might even be able to calculate the rate of extraction if we could measure it accurately enough.
> 
> But then realised that the volume in the portafilter will always be consistent, so any solids extracted will be replaced by water. So "ml in" = "ml out", just that "ml in" is just hot water, and "ml out" is espresso.
> 
> There will be a slight difference in "g in" compared to "g out" due to density difference, but it's not going to be much.


Ah, nice. So if the puck is fully saturated and x grams of solids are extracted, there now is x ml more space in the portafilter for "headroom" water (leaving aside minor differences due to density differences).


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> We're continuing to order parts. The ceramics should arrive this week, but (for instance) the drip tray cover has not been ordered, because ceramic shrinkage on the drip tray was less than expected, and so our CNCed sample was too small for it. So, we're now waiting for a new CNCed drip tray cover before we order that. There are about 50 parts that are in this sort of dependency waiting. The metal legs, for instance, can't be ordered until the ceramics arrive and we can measure the real shrinkage.
> 
> [ . . . ]
> 
> Since the sheet metal parts have a relatively short lead time (35 days) we're allowing ourselves to leave finalizing that for last, as we wait for things like the flow meters (10 week lead time) to arrive.


Have the ceramics arrived? Have the sheet metal parts been ordered? In the chain of dependencies for the supply line for parts, what is the chain that extends out the furthest, and what is the current best estimate of a date for the end of that chain?

My real question is: Is there a fairly solid target date for assembly at this point, and if so what is it? If not, what are the unknowns that prevent a solid target date? (To be clear, I'm not trying to cast blame or anything like that, I'm just in search of data re when a DE1+ ordered from the original batch of 300 might arrive, in the US. If it matters, I'm in the 50% down payment group.)


----------



## decent_espresso

bachamp said:


> I had the same thought and even talked about how we might even be able to calculate the rate of extraction if we could measure it accurately enough.
> 
> But then realised that the volume in the portafilter will always be consistent, so any solids extracted will be replaced by water. So "ml in" = "ml out", just that "ml in" is just hot water, and "ml out" is espresso. There will be a slight difference in "g in" compared to "g out" due to density difference, but it's not going to be much.


Scott Rao, in our internal conversation, had the same thought. It's not clear that it's impossible yet, but it's not going to be easy.

Besides needing very accurate flow measurements (we're talking about a 4g difference here, assuming 20% extraction of a 20g puck) we simply don't know how the water-carrying-capacity of a coffee puck works. Water pockets might be forming, or collapsing, during extraction. Mostly-cellulose-remaining coffee grinds might hold more (or less) water as measured by remaining coffee material.

However, Ray has a physics-model calculation of "puck resistance" that takes both flow and pressure into account, and we do plan on giving that number to the user in a future version, as well as charting it in real time.

If this number is accurate, it will give us insight into % of erosion at any point in the shot, which is another way of thinking about extraction percent.


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> Have the ceramics arrived? Have the sheet metal parts been ordered? In the chain of dependencies for the supply line for parts, what is the chain that extends out the furthest, and what is the current best estimate of a date for the end of that chain? My real question is: Is there a fairly solid target date for assembly at this point, and if so what is it? If not, what are the unknowns that prevent a solid target date? (To be clear, I'm not trying to cast blame or anything like that, I'm just in search of data re when a DE1+ ordered from the original batch of 300 might arrive, in the US. If it matters, I'm in the 50% down payment group.)


The ceramics were ordered a while ago, and were supposed to arrive this past week. They're "in the mail", is what we've been told, and should arrive this week.

We haven't ordered the drip tray cover yet, because we found too much variability on the drip tray, and wanted to wait until the real McCoy showed up and we could see what we were really dealing with. Since it's a cast piece, it will take 30 days for the cast, and 35 days then for delivery. This makes it one of the very last pieces we're expecting (end of November) but the good news is that it does not delay the rest of assembly.

Bear in mind that currently, it takes us about 30 man hours to build one DE1. With 8 people here, even if they're all working on it full time, that would be 10 machines shipping per week, hence 30 weeks. Obviously, we're going to hire people to help, but keep in mind that assembly will take time too. And, totally assembly time will be less than 30h, since we'll be making things in batches. A lot of the v4 chassis changes were to simply assembly and reduce disassembly/repair time.

The heaters are being ordered next week, and are to take 30 days. They're the most important part, because they go in the center of the machine, and if we don't have them, they prevent the rest of the machine from being built. We were not happy to find a 15% defect rate in the 40 samples we had ordered from our supplier, and so we have switched to a heater manufacturer recommended to us by ODE. As ODE has been exclusively in the espresso parts business for decades, we tend to follow their advice. We tested their heaters for the first time in our v3 machine and they look good.

The all-metal chassis has not yet been ordered, as we are waiting for the v4 chassis to be CNCed and arrive here for final testing. That will be ordered in mid-October, and there is a 30 day lead time on that. There were 38 changes from v3 to v4, none of them "risky" but they do need to be seen & tested before we build 300 machines. For example, we added 5mm to the depth of the DE1, because we found that once it was fully assembled, the fit was too tight to remove the low-voltage PCB for repair purposes (a fan got in the way). You had to remove the pumps to remove the PCBs and that would annoy the heck out of a repair person.

So... to succinctly answer your question, parts will start arriving early November, and we'll start by first quality-control testing each part. Then, we'll put together the sub assemblies that we can, as the parts arrive. Ideally, the chassis will arrive mid-November and the sub-assemblies will slide right in.

The biggest worry I have at the moment for schedule slippage is the mixing chamber, which is by far the most sophisticated part in the machine, is CNCed from a somewhat exotic material (Ultem) and requires two suppliers (CNC and custom valves) to work together. That's supposed to arrive between 7 to 9 weeks from now.

And of course, the other concern is that Christmas is arriving, and as a relatively small company, our orders might get bumped in our supplier's schedule, to make space for "more important" clients.

The 110V "early access" machines already sold will go out first, while we wait for the testing lab to certify our "final release" and 220V machines. We expect the testing to take 2 months.

Nonetheless, we're very close to the end of this journey, and espresso machines will soon be shipping.

And the good news is that once we know how to build 300 machines, we'll be in a good position to build the next 1000 machines at a much faster rate.


----------



## decent_espresso

If you buy a DE1+ and as well as our Bluetooth "Skale 2", you will be able to do "gravimetric" shots like you can on the Black Eagle and La Marzocco Linea PB.

A new feature will appear in the DE1+ profile editor, letting you set "stop at weight", if you have a Skale. The feature won't appear otherwise.

The DE1+ will automatically stop making espresso when 97% of that weight is reached. That last 3% is to account for the pressure remaining in the coffee basket, which will still cause some coffee to flow into your cup for a few seconds even after the pump has turned off.

In a few weeks, I'll make the feature a bit more pretty in the Tablet GUI. Not to worry: I know it looks a bit cramped in there now.

The "Skale 2" is a good quality scale, but not meant for use in wet environments, which is why we're working on our own "Decent Scale". However, in the interest of not delaying the use of this useful feature, I've implemented it with the Skale so you can get started using it right away. Eventually, we'll have our own Decent Scale and this feature will work with that too.


----------



## decent_espresso

A few weeks ago, the Nielsen Norman Group published a study indicating: "The popularity of flat design in digital interfaces has coincided with a scarcity of signifiers. Many modern UIs have ripped out the perceptible cues that users rely on to understand what is clickable." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-ui-less-attention-cause-uncertainty/

I found the study very convincing, as I've found my iPhone harder to use since they've made all the UI elements "flat".

In early September, I changed the Decent Espresso web site's "CSS Theme" to use drop shadows on the buttons (previously, buttons were "flat"). I sat back and waited for the complaints to roll in. They didn't, and the "how do I buy something on your website?" tech support messages seemed less frequent.

On our espresso GUI, I've often found it a bit hard for the to track "what should I do next" ?

Today, I've taken the Nielsen Norman Group advice to heart on our espresso machine tablet software, and all "tappable" buttons and tappable icons have a 3D "lift" to them. I'm hoping this makes it a bit easier for baristas to intuit what to tap on.

Below are some animations showing the DE1+ gui and also all the configuration pages. FYI I use photoshop to make the tablet GUI, and its animation feature to test what common commands might look like to the user.

---

And for a walk down history lane...

I'm a big fan of Jakob Nielsen, whose "Green and Blue" usability book as a huge early influence on me in my 20s. My employees grew so annoyed at this book that, in jest, they had a "What Would Jakob Do?" t-shirt and mouse pad custom made as a gift to me.

Jakob had very kind things to say about the Lyris Email List Server software I wrote (he used it, back in the deay) and he even studied how usability increased his newsletter subscriber size: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/mailing-list-usability/ - a very tangible proof of usability making business sense.


----------



## Dylan

I think flat designs with no '3d' indicators of buttons likely follow public adoption of smartphones and touch screens. As we learn to operate the OS of the main players their decisions on where design elements should go become ingrained in our muscle memory - so we know where the 'next' button or 'close' button should be. Once this is learned these flat designs likely work fairly well, but if you are a very infrequent user perhaps they make things harder to learn.

I have to say I am often a bit befuddled by how long it takes friends/family to work their way through a new UI on a different device - something which to me feels like it is obvious. Perhaps this is down to having used tach and different UI's day in day out for most of my life.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> letting you set "stop at weight", if you have a Skale.


I am still a little bit puzzled in regards to gravimetric shots.

Shouldn't measuring the flow rate be enough? After all, [time/s] * [flow mL/s] = mL (1g = 1mL when we ignore the coffee solids)

As for UIs: Hardware designers should never do UI design. I want my OS X 10.6 back.


----------



## roastini

patrickff said:


> I am still a little bit puzzled in regards to gravimetric shots.
> 
> Shouldn't measuring the flow rate be enough? After all, [time/s] * [flow mL/s] = mL (1g = 1mL when we ignore the coffee solids)



If your scale is more accurate than your flow meter, gravimetric is better at getting the desired amount of liquid in the cup.

If your puck continues to absorb some water after the pressure rise that indicates the end of preinfusion, gravimetric is more accurate.


The flow meter counts revolutions of the meter, which is a proxy for volume of water in. And because there is no guarantee that the puck is 100% perfectly saturated at the beginning of the shot (after pre-infusion), volume of water in is a proxy for volume of water out.

An accurate, properly tared scale is a far more direct measurement of espresso in the cup. So if that's what you want to measure, gravimetric control will get you far better results than the indirect measurement from the flow meter.


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## decent_espresso

Steam wands can get hot, and espresso machines usually put a short rubber tube around a bend to help you move the wand without burning yourself. The problem is less acute with "cool touch" steam wands, such as our machines, that have a Teflon inner tube. However, the wand still gets hot simply by being immersed in hot milk, so a rubber tube is welcome.

Two years ago, I bought from several suppliers the protector models they sold. Generally, they were on the harder side (sometimes plastic), with a slight air gap between the tube and the protector. Most tended to slide around instead of staying put. And they are generally fairly small, so you do need to pay attention when reaching toward the hot metal tube.









I wanted the protector to be as long as possible, and to stay put. So, I decided to make my own protector from silicone rubber irrigation tubing. I could make it longer, at 60mm (just far enough to not interfere with a 1 Litre jug). The finish was matte black and looked nice. Heat insulation was not great, however, because of a lack of air gap and the high density of the rubber, so the rubber "protector" itself got hot.

Also, it was really difficult to cut the tube in a straight line, because it deforms as you push down to cut.









This good-but-not-quite-right tubing is what has been on all our machines until now.

This past summer our mechanical engineering intern Tommy studied a variety of tubing materials, to solve this problem. As a heating test, he ran steam continuously for 3 minutes and measured the surface temperature of the rubber. He also overheated the rubber to see if it gave off a smell or deformed. Finally, we wanted 3rd party food-safety certification.









Two days ago, the final tubes arrived, cleanly precut to the right size. The surface is a bit shinier, but the heat insulation is vastly better than my attempt. The fit is tight, so it doesn't move about, and there's a trick to easily sliding it on: soapy water.









The final part costs much less than $1 per machine, but it's such an important part of daily interaction with an espresso machine, that I wanted to be sure to do it right. There's nothing worse than burning yourself in the morning as you make your wakey-wakey espresso drink.









-john


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## decent_espresso

Last week, we picked the company that is going to make all the custom metal parts (about 50 different parts per DE1). As this comes to $319 per machine (and thus represents $100k in business for 300 machines) and is one of the most crucial suppliers in order for us to make a quality product, we're pretty keen to develop a very good relationship with this company.

So far, their salesperson's communications (via chat software) have been really fast and clear (and hungry for our business, despite our being currently a very small order).

Their turnaround speed is impressive: 25 days to get a single final sample to us, and then 10 days thereafter to produce 300 more of that, once we give the thumbs up signal.

That puts these parts arriving end-of-October, and since everything depends on the chassis, it's good news.

Their engineer today sent 3 questions in, and I was impressed by the clarity of the communications and also that a proper audit was done on their end of what's needed. Good signs.

One question, for instance, was about the type of rivets. Another was confusion as to whether they were supposed to supply the rubber feet (they're not).

Above is the "questions document" we just received from them, in case you're curious.


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## jwCrema

Nice attention to detail on the steam wand.

On a slightly different topic, the picture of the tip shows a four hole. Will there be a single hole tip option? Or, will the wand threading allow compatibility with a Brand X single hole tip?

I used a Foam knife tip on my E61 machine, which was vast improvement over its original equipment 4 hole. I finally got to the point I could make the original Cremina 67 four hole tip work, but found a guy on Etsy who offered a correctly sized hole for the Cremina boiler capacity, single tip. Massively easier!


----------



## Obnic

jwCrema said:


> I used a Foam knife tip on my E61 ...


Oh yes, please LM compatible thread. I've always wanted to try the foam knife but all my machines have used incompatible threads on the wand.  Pleeeeeeeeez


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## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> On a slightly different topic, the picture of the tip shows a four hole. Will there be a single hole tip option? Or, will the wand threading allow compatibility with a Brand X single hole tip? I used a Foam knife tip on my E61 machine, which was vast improvement over its original equipment 4 hole. I finally got to the point I could make the original Cremina 67 four hole tip work, but found a guy on Etsy who offered a correctly sized hole for the Cremina boiler capacity, single tip. Massively easier!


I'm pretty sure the four-hole you're referring to is from above, and was a piece of clip art I used to illustrate "other steam wands".

Our steam wand tip is currently one hole. That works well with the steam power we currently have (41 seconds to heat 200ml from 8ºC to 65ºC). I have a four hole tip here but it doesn't work well with this steam power. Same for the foam knife, which I have here, and which also does not work well with the DE1 machines.

I do have a traditional two group E61 machine here, and the foam knife was installed on one of its wands. It was*far* *far* superior to the four hole tip.

For the DE1CAFE, we'll have 4x the steam power (from a separate, dedicated 220V plug) and the four hole should then work. However, I'm not a fan of 4 holes, though it'll be there if people want it.

I prefer the "foam knife" approach, and we'll likely design our own version of this idea, probably without a central hole in the middle of the slot. "Water knives" are very common in the pressure-washing industry









http://www.cwcsupplyusa.com/spraytip25degreeimeg14qc.aspx

I quite like the idea of being able to choose the width of the spray by changing a tip, like they do in the pressure washing world.









FYI our tips are not currently La Marzocco compatible, as that's not the standard our steam wand supplier uses.

Here's a technical drawing of our tip assembly:


----------



## decent_espresso

3 new Decent products today:

https://decentespresso.com/new

- the Scent One Aroma Standard: 100 perfumes found in coffee and a book describing the chemical composition of each. This is an interesting new coffee description system from Korea, and exceedingly hard to find in stock at the moment. Integrates into the DE1+ espresso machine software. I met Jake, the CEO, a few months ago at SCAE in Hungary. We have a limited stock of 16 kits, which Jake hand-delivered to me last week when we brainstormed all Sunday about the tablet software I'm working on. https://decentespresso.com/scentone

- New "latte" double walled glass. The unique shape opens up wide to let your milk jug enter deeply into the glass. This makes latte art significantly easier to do. We've sold out of all our other glasses and are only focusing on this shape I designed. The "doppio" glass for espresso has a new handle shape, redesigned to more closely follow the tradition. I first showed this idea for a glass 16 months ago in this video:





 Also, we're now selling glasses in quantity: one, whereas we used to only sell them in four-packs. More info at https://decentespresso.com/glass

- New portafilter baskets in sizes of 7 grams, 10 grams, and 24 grams. I was in Italy two months ago, where they mostly use smaller sizes, and last month at Berlin Coffee Fest Bugs also got feedback that we needed to provide these traditionally Italian sizes. We've also added the super-huge 24 grams basket for those who like to "overdose" (in a good way). https://decentespresso.com/basket


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## jwCrema

decent_espresso said:


> I prefer the "foam knife" approach, and we'll likely design our own version of this idea, probably without a central hole in the middle of the slot. "Water knives" are very common in the pressure-washing industry
> 
> I quite like the idea of being able to choose the width of the spray by changing a tip, like they do in the pressure washing world.


Nice! I'd be happy with a single hole or fixed foam knife for my future DE1+, with and upgrade option for an adjustable version down the road.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> New portafilter baskets in sizes ...


Which size ships (by default) with the DE1 (and DE1+)?

(my Silvia mostly takes 23.5g)


----------



## roastini

patrickff said:


> Which size ships (by default) with the DE1 (and DE1+)?
> 
> (my Silvia mostly takes 23.5g)


As of March 3, John said:



> A 20g basket is included, but if you want a different size we'll put whatever you want in. A bottomless portafilter and a blind basket (for cleaning) are also in the package.


Also, keep in mind that the rated size of a basket is really the approximate midpoint of a range for which it will work well. I have a 20g Decent basket that I most often use with 16g of grounds, for example.


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## jwCrema

My final thought on this whole tip idea - why not go LM compatible on the thread? It was really nice my old e61 machine was LM compatible; it offered a number of other possibilities for tips. While I don't know this for a fact, but it seemed like there were a lot of possibilities with LM tips. On other machines that weren't LM compatible, finding a better tip was a complete hassle. I was rescued by the Etsy craftsman to get a single hole for my Cremina.


----------



## Dylan

Never had the experience of having a 'LM compatible' tip - but perhaps offering thread adapters might be easy? So Decent>LM Tip for example.


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## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> My final thought on this whole tip idea - why not go LM compatible on the thread? It was really nice my old e61 machine was LM compatible; it offered a number of other possibilities for tips. While I don't know this for a fact, but it seemed like there were a lot of possibilities with LM tips. On other machines that weren't LM compatible, finding a better tip was a complete hassle. I was rescued by the Etsy craftsman to get a single hole for my Cremina.


My preference would also be to have an LM compatible tip, but we are limited by the relatively few number of companies out there with expertise in designing and making steam wand assemblies. There are about 20 parts in the steam wand assembly, and it's non-trivial to make it swivel in 360º and not leak. The company we use doesn't make their steam wants in an LM compatible manner. If we paid them for the R&D, and ordered a relatively large quantity of wands, they likely would accommodate us. But that would also mean that we'd need to pay for molds and R&D for them to make tips for us.

With this DE1 project we've already reinvented and/or redesigned waaaaay more than I had anticipated, so it was nice to be able to source a well thought out steam wand from somebody, and not have to figure that out too.


----------



## jwCrema

decent_espresso said:


> With this DE1 project we've already reinvented and/or redesigned waaaaay more than I had anticipated, so it was nice to be able to source a well thought out steam wand from somebody, and not have to figure that out too.


In product development, looking outside in, things seem so easy. For the soul who's on the inside there are "those details" the outsider has no visibility of, and therefore no appreciation of their complexity. A single hole tip is all that I'd like to see happen. Anything else is a bonus.


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## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> In product development, looking outside in, things seem so easy. For the soul who's on the inside there are "those details" the outsider has no visibility of, and therefore no appreciation of their complexity.


On that topic, we've hired the 3 best summer interns to work 1 day each week during the school year.

Each time they come, they scrutinize a different component and post a report to our Basecamp discussion group of their finding.

...

Charlotte, a 3rd year mechanical engineering student, yesterday reported on her measurements and inspection of 10 insulating rings that are used where the steam wand bolts down to the front panel. We added these to the steam wand assembly because we found that without this, the ball joint of the steam wand transferred heat to the front mirror panel, and made it unpleasantly hot.

















She wrote:

Highlight of Result:

- Actual thickness (about 0.6mm) is slightly deviated from that of part drawing (0.5mm)

- Small black spots appear on washer

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Tommy, also a 3rd year mechanical engineering student, worked on the rubber spacer that fills the gap on the group head handle (so that naked threads aren't visible). We didn't specify the durometer hardness of this piece, because we didn't think it mattered, and when the handles arrived last week, we found that the rubber was soft enough that it compressed unattractively when the handle was screwed in. We paid US$120 to have 1000 of this piece made in ABS plastic, which arrived a few days ago, and now we need to use a knife to cut the old rubber part out (it's glued in) and put the new ABS part in.

Tommy checked this (spacer), and also the thread size and depth.

Here are his results.

















. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Stanley, a 3rd year electrical engineering student, is figuring out how to use our very expensive (USD$1500) "Hi pot" tester.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipot

This is a machine which checks for any electrical leakage, even slight. This is useful to see if the insulation is everywhere thick enough, or if some naked connections (such on the PCB) are too close to something else and bleeding a bit of current.









. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

No exciting news in any of this, but you guys have indicated interest in "how our stuff gets made" so here is a bit of the gritty details.


----------



## decent_espresso

I've been working on a feature to describe (and rate) the espressos you make on the DE1+.

As you're fiddling with various settings, this lets you track what your experiments are doing to the coffee flavor. And because all settings (and live data) is automatically saved to disk with every espresso made, you can load up anything from your history and recreate that God shot you made.

Above is today's iteration. It's been quite a struggle to reduce complexity and the data-entry burden yet still ask the vital questions.

The goal with this iteration is to make it clear that you need only answer the ENJOYMENT question, and hit save. That's enough and very useful.

The "your setup" tab is where relatively-unchanging data is entered. The type and brand of coffee beans, grinder setting, and dose are entered there. I'll post a screen picture of it in a few days when I've gathered and incorporated feedback from this "your espresso tab" I'm posting today.

Many thanks to Mat North and Scott Rao for their extensive help on this.


----------



## o2c

decent_espresso said:


> It's been quite a struggle to reduce complexity and the data-entry burden yet still ask the vital questions.


I'd love to see the option to toggle off options or even levels/tiers of complexity, one of which could be a user defined measurement. Aside for the subjective measurements, all I've really got is a scale. So refractometer based measurements aren't a priority for me, but weight in and weight out would be nice.

Also on my daily shot, I'll probably be record the overall rating but not bother with the others.


----------



## decent_espresso

o2c said:


> I'd love to see the option to toggle off options or even levels/tiers of complexity, one of which could be a user defined measurement. Aside for the subjective measurements, all I've really got is a scale. So refractometer based measurements aren't a priority for me, but weight in and weight out would be nice. Also on my daily shot, I'll probably be record the overall rating but not bother with the others.


I absolutely want to automatically capture as much data as possible. For example, if you're using the DE1+ with our scale, I'll save flow-rate-into-cup as well as final in-cup weight. I have beta support working for the TI Sensor tag to capture environmental temperature and humidity (as well as daylight <grin>) http://www.ti.com/ww/en/wireless_connectivity/sensortag/ and will offer that in the future too.</grin>

As to the others, I am leaning toward "enjoyment" and "notes" as being the only subjective "measurements" as I'm seeing disagreement amount very educated folks about "acid" vs "bitter" vs "sour" and how these do or not interact with "sweetness", and I think it's unlikely I could pick any 4 questions that would satisfy even 30% of people. Better to stick with what definitely works and reduce complexity.


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## decent_espresso

From the discussion that emerged around my proposed "Describe this Espresso" feature, it became obvious that 5 competent baristas would propose 5 different ways to describe an espresso. No single choice I might make would please more than 30% of the audience.

Following on how I've read Switzerland's governance to work, I prefer to "do nothing unless there is a consensus".

As such, I've simplified the GUI to only have one subjective measurement, and that's "Enjoyment", and "Notes" you can write to yourself. Everything else the DE1+ collects is hard data.









As mentioned yesterday, I now show you the "Your setup" page. Here, things that are relatively unchanging should go. That keeps the data entry load down for you, but hopefully still gathers useful information.









Also, from a data analysis standpoint, I (the programmer) can do a straightforward analysis of which parameters lead to espressos that you enjoy more. Before, with acidity/sweetness/aftertaste in the mix, that sort of analysis was problematic.

To further simplify the main page, I'm now hiding the sliders for "drink weight" and "TDS and Extraction Yield" unless you "Enable these features".

I've also done away with the hideous "rate this espresso" button that was on the main GUI. Yes, I designed it, so it's my fault, and I hated it.









It's now been replaced by a discrete "heart icon" that appears on the "data card" once your shot has been finished. FYI if you steam milk and come back to the espresso tab, the heart icon is still there (for those of you who want to describe your milky drinks).

I'd love to get your thoughts on the "Your setup" page. I've not done any visual grouping yet (via photoshop) as I'm expecting some good suggestions in the next 24 hours...


----------



## embrya

Good idea to simplify it and hide the hard facts as long as they are not activated by the user.

As I own several grinders it would be nice to enter them once and then just need to select the one used for the specific shot.

Gesendet von iPad mit Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> As I own several grinders it would be nice to enter them once and then just need to select the one used for the specific shot.


I agree, and that goes for "your name" and "beans" as well, so that there's a drop down list of registered "users". Lots of small usability improvements are possible and will get slowly rolled out.


----------



## o2c

How pretty could you make it if you had the option to pull up a number pad instead of the slider for weight and the like?


----------



## thesmileyone

It's shocking to see that third year mechanical engineering students can''t spell whether or assembled.


----------



## Tewdric

thesmileyone said:


> It's shocking to see that third year mechanical engineering students can''t spell whether or assembled.


Let's see you write them perfectly in Cantonese then..


----------



## u2jewel

Tewdric said:


> Let's see you write them perfectly in Cantonese then..


Yes, kudos to those who speak and write English well as a foreign language.

But I think thesmileyone meant it as a light hearted jab (because can't = can"t)


----------



## Tewdric

So did I


----------



## decent_espresso

u2jewel said:


> Yes, kudos to those who speak and write English well as a foreign language.
> 
> But I think thesmileyone meant it as a light hearted jab (because can't = can"t)


I was pretty surprised to find that all the engineering classes and written exams in Hong Kong, are in English.

I learned English starting at age ten, so I shouldn't have any excuses, but if you're a close reader of my posts, you'll find them dotted with embarrassing spelling and grammar mistakes.

A few weeks ago I plugged "Grammarly" into my web browser, and that's really helped. I'm going to recommend it to the interns.

Over the past few years, I've been using the amazing French Canadian program "antidote" when writing in French, and they recently went bilingual. It's truly shocking to me to see the number of mistakes I made pointed out, but at least I get to fix them now before y'all see them.

Ah, but there is a bright side: Antidote points out the French grammar mistakes that native French speakers make when I quote and reply to their messages. That helps boost confidence.



o2c said:


> How pretty could you make it if you had the option to pull up a number pad instead of the slider for weight and the like?


I can see that being better for precise entry, though for shot weight, my plan is to auto-enter that data via our Bluetooth scale. Eventually, we'll also have a Bluetooth link to a grinder and can enter (and control) dose weight automatically.


----------



## jwCrema

I worked for a large company who manufactured products in many countries. I went to the PRC to talk about translation of project specifications in Chinese many years ago. I was surprised with the response - they wanted build specs in English. Chinese is morph'g between Cantonese and Mandarin which creates confusion and they simply give up on chemical words - they spelled those out in English. There is no translation for something like 2,3 diethyltoluene.


----------



## decent_espresso

Good news and bad news today.

The good news is that all the ceramic parts came in today (drip trays and water tanks) and they look great. Six pallets now sit in our soon-to-be-buzzing espresso assembly room.

The bad news is that the company that was supposed to manufacture the "drip tray cover" started to do it, and suddenly at the last minute, "there's a problem". They don't want to make our design. They want us to add cross-beams for strength.

The design of this drip tray cover was among the most intense conversations on Home Barista.com, stretching over 8 screens of comments. I would rather not change it. I'm fairly proud of this part, as it is very functional (very low water retention, easy cleaning) and fairly attractive.

The metal casting company is saying that the metal in those long lines might warp during casting, and that's why they want crossbeams: for strength.

So... my engineer Fabrice and I have spent the past few days designing cross beams that might be attractive enough, with rounded liquid-like shapes that are slightly countersunk. In the meantime, we also went looking for manufacturers who might say "ok" to our design.

Today, a metal casting company said "ok" to our current (no cross beam) design, and we're going to go with them. Hopefully, the first company is being unduly paranoid, and this design will cast successfully.

Unfortunately, with this new supplier, there's a 40 day lead time on the mold, and another 30 days for production after that. This new schedule has this fairly trivial piece arriving around Christmas, a full 6 weeks after everything else should have arrived. If the company we'd went with hadn't changed their mind, we wouldn't have this problem.

So.... having a lack of alternatives, we're going with the "around Christmas" company because we want this part to have our design. We're also going to see if we can get this part CNCed (computer made) at a reasonable price so that we don't delay shipments. Previously, this part has cost us USD$150 to CNC, which is a bit expensive for a minor component on a $999 espresso machine.

At least this is happening to a part that isn't in the "assembly flow" and really is added at the very end.

Stay tuned...


----------



## Dylan

Assuming you know of protomould? They specialise in small runs/prototyping and rapid turnaround but are typically more expensive than full production runs. Their main schtick is injection moulding but they also do CNCing.

Expecting that you have a much wider understanding of all the companies out there than myself but ya never know!


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> Good news and bad news today.
> 
> The good news is that all the ceramic parts came in today (drip trays and water tanks) and they look great. Six pallets now sit in our soon-to-be-buzzing espresso assembly room.
> 
> The bad news is that the company that was supposed to manufacture the "drip tray cover" started to do it, and suddenly at the last minute, "there's a problem". They don't want to make our design. They want us to add cross-beams for strength.
> 
> The design of this drip tray cover was among the most intense conversations on Home Barista.com, stretching over 8 screens of comments. I would rather not change it. I'm fairly proud of this part, as it is very functional (very low water retention, easy cleaning) and fairly attractive.
> 
> The metal casting company is saying that the metal in those long lines might warp during casting, and that's why they want crossbeams: for strength.
> 
> So... my engineer Fabrice and I have spent the past few days designing cross beams that might be attractive enough, with rounded liquid-like shapes that are slightly countersunk. In the meantime, we also went looking for manufacturers who might say "ok" to our design.
> 
> Today, a metal casting company said "ok" to our current (no cross beam) design, and we're going to go with them. Hopefully, the first company is being unduly paranoid, and this design will cast successfully.
> 
> Unfortunately, with this new supplier, there's a 40 day lead time on the mold, and another 30 days for production after that. This new schedule has this fairly trivial piece arriving around Christmas, a full 6 weeks after everything else should have arrived. If the company we'd went with hadn't changed their mind, we wouldn't have this problem.
> 
> So.... having a lack of alternatives, we're going with the "around Christmas" company because we want this part to have our design. We're also going to see if we can get this part CNCed (computer made) at a reasonable price so that we don't delay shipments. Previously, this part has cost us USD$150 to CNC, which is a bit expensive for a minor component on a $999 espresso machine.
> 
> At least this is happening to a part that isn't in the "assembly flow" and really is added at the very end.
> 
> Stay tuned...
> 
> View attachment 29617
> 
> 
> View attachment 29618
> 
> 
> View attachment 29619


What about DMLS+ Sandblasting/anodizing/electropolisihing for finish?

I have been surprised lately by the quick turnarounds, the number of possibilities and the price keep going down. My last run I printed pieces that weight 300 grams each, 4 pieces in TiAl6V4 for about 2000 bucks. Stainless steel and smaller pieces should knock down the price a lot, and you will have a quick turnaround (pretty sure they can produce 8-10 drip tray covers in 1 run).

I can send you details of the pepole I used in the states for printing. Big reliable company.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Assuming you know of protomould? They specialise in small runs/prototyping and rapid turnaround but are typically more expensive than full production runs. Their main schtick is injection moulding but they also do CNCing.


I didn't know about them, but it turns out they don't mould metal, they 3D print it or CNC it, so they're not likely to be less expensive than CNCing here in Hong Kong:

https://www.protolabs.com/materials/comparison-guide/?filter=metal-materials

We did make drip trays in plastic (3d printed) two years ago, to test the design, but it's (a) not food safe and (b) not strong enough for real use. Gotta use metal.



Andreugv said:


> What about DMLS+ Sandblasting/anodizing/electropolisihing for finish.I have been surprised lately by the quick turnarounds, the number of possibilities and the price keep going down. My last run I printed pieces that weight 300 grams each, 4 pieces in TiAl6V4 for about 2000 bucks. Stainless steel and smaller pieces should knock down the price a lot, and you will have a quick turnaround (pretty sure they can produce 8-10 drip tray covers in 1 run). I can send you details of the pepole I used in the states for printing. Big reliable company.


We're not putting a finish on the drip tray because we found that even anodizing looked bad after a short period of being finely "sanded" with the bottom of ceramic coffee mugs. Also, getting food safety certifications on these finishes is not easy, and since people regularly pour the drip tray water on their garden plants, I felt that even the drip tray had to be certified. That's also why we're using ceramic for the drip tray and not plastic: for food safety reasons.

We're paying $150 for 1 drip tray cover piece to be made, and the weight is 105g. You mentioned $500 per piece for 300g, at 4 pieces made. Cast and mass produced, this piece comes in just under USD $10 (amortizing the mould cost into this batch: it's $4 for the part, and $6 for the mould). While the drip tray cover doesn't waste much material, it is slow to make via CNC because of all the fine detail, and so much rounding. The high CNC cost is due to machine-time, not materials.

You can understand why I'd rather use the cast pieces, since I've already paid $10,000 to have one thousand of them made. Paying 10x more for a part that is coming 8 weeks later is a bit frustrating. :-(


----------



## decent_espresso

For the drip tray covers, I'm of hte opinion that our best approach is convince the new manufacturer to get it done faster.

I should note, that since UK customers will be waiting until we have CE tests complete, before we send them their machines, that any delay with the drip tray cover won't effect when they get their machines from us. We can send the DE1 out for CE testing without a drip tray cover.


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> I didn't know about them, but it turns out they don't mould metal, they 3D print it or CNC it, so they're not likely to be less expensive than CNCing here in Hong Kong:
> 
> https://www.protolabs.com/materials/comparison-guide/?filter=metal-materials
> 
> We did make drip trays in plastic (3d printed) two years ago, to test the design, but it's (a) not food safe and (b) not strong enough for real use. Gotta use metal.
> 
> We're not putting a finish on the drip tray because we found that even anodizing looked bad after a short period of being finely "sanded" with the bottom of ceramic coffee mugs. Also, getting food safety certifications on these finishes is not easy, and since people regularly pour the drip tray water on their garden plants, I felt that even the drip tray had to be certified. That's also why we're using ceramic for the drip tray and not plastic: for food safety reasons.
> 
> We're paying $150 for 1 drip tray cover piece to be made, and the weight is 105g. You mentioned $500 per piece for 300g, at 4 pieces made. Cast and mass produced, this piece comes in just under USD $10 (amortizing the mould cost into this batch: it's $4 for the part, and $6 for the mould). While the drip tray cover doesn't waste much material, it is slow to make via CNC because of all the fine detail, and so much rounding. The high CNC cost is due to machine-time, not materials.
> 
> You can understand why I'd rather use the cast pieces, since I've already paid $10,000 to have one thousand of them made. Paying 10x more for a part that is coming 8 weeks later is a bit frustrating. :-(


Yes, it is painful. But if it is something that is going to hold back shipment for the first batch... Might be worth it.

Pricing, keep in mind I did use Titanium-Aluminum-Vanadium, which is definitely more expensive than SS.


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> keep in mind I did use Titanium-Aluminum-Vanadium, which is definitely more expensive than SS.


Ha, I missed that! Imagine a titanium drip tray!


----------



## jwCrema

decent_espresso said:


> Ha, I missed that! Imagine a titanium drip tray!


A new accessory for the DE1 is born! Upgrade to a Ti drip tray for 500 quid


----------



## decent_espresso

Lots of little usability improvements on the tablet, as I continue to polish things for release:

1) there are now working timers for elapsed shot time, preinfusion, pouring, and how long your espresso has been sitting there.

2) each "frame" in making an espresso now has a vertical line (before, only pre-infusion was so divided). This will especially help with advanced shots that have many "frames".

3) the START/STOP button now says "WAIT" if the machine is heating up, or doing something important before it can do the next thing. Flushing the previous shot out, for instance. Previously, you had to read the "small print" that reads "ending"

4) the pressure and flow "goal lines" are now hidden they're not in effect. Previously, these dotted lines appeared on the bottom of the chart, cluttering up the page.

5) if you turn your DE1 off (but leave the tablet on), the tablet will detect this and automatically go into "screen saver" mode, reducing screen brightness and saving power. When you power your DE1 back on, you'll need to tap the tablet to exit the screen saver. This now incidentally causes the tablet to Bluetooth reconnect to the DE1, Previously, the tablet app needed to be killed and restarted if you power cycled the DE1.

6) if you're using a Decent Scale, you can power it on at any time and the tablet will automatically notice it, displaying current weight on the "data card".

7) we've made good progress getting our in-line flow meter (which measures water into your espresso) to match up with the scale's view of the flow rate into the cup. Those are the brown (weight) and blue (water) lines on this chart.

8) the water level in the water tank is displayed as a blue rectangle on the side of the "data card".

9) the cleaning and descaling features have been implemented in the tablet (but not yet in the DE1 firmware).

On my to-do list:

a) make the FLOW information be accurate (currently, the warmup water is incorrectly included in the total), and to separately report the total water volume put in during preinfusion and pouring stages.

b) my BIG todo is to write the "advanced shot editor"

c) and as soon as Ray gets "firmware updating" working, I'll have a week or three to write the tablet side of things. The goal is to have firmware updates happen overnight. Because Bluetooth is so slow, they could take hours to happen and we'd rather not have to ask you to initiate them. There will be a "revert to previous firmware" feature, however.

and then we're close to finished.


----------



## decent_espresso

Pre-infusion or preinfusion?

It is not-so-helpfully spelled 3 different ways in its definition at Coffee Geek:

http://coffeegeek.com/opinions/markprince/07-20-2004

Pre Infusion: the act of pre-wetting the bed of ground coffee inside an espresso machine before actually commencing the brew. Some espresso machines do this by using the pump; water is pumped to the coffee for a second or two, then halted for another second or two. After this pause, the pump activates again, and continues brewing the shot. Super automatics and some automatic machines use this pre-infusion.

Another type of preinfusion is called "natural" or progressive preinfusion, and occurs in machines equipped with an E61 grouphead. When the pump is activated, a secondary chamber must fill prior to full pressure being applied to the bed of coffee. This gives a 3 to 7 second saturation time for the grounds before the pressure builds up. This type of preinfusion is preferable to pump and pause active preinfusion.


----------



## MWJB

decent_espresso said:


> Pre-infusion or preinfusion?
> 
> It is not-so-helpfully spelled 3 different ways in its definition at Coffee Geek:
> 
> http://coffeegeek.com/opinions/markprince/07-20-2004
> 
> Pre Infusion: the act of pre-wetting the bed of ground coffee inside an espresso machine before actually commencing the brew. Some espresso machines do this by using the pump; water is pumped to the coffee for a second or two, then halted for another second or two. After this pause, the pump activates again, and continues brewing the shot. Super automatics and some automatic machines use this pre-infusion.
> 
> Another type of preinfusion is called "natural" or progressive preinfusion, and occurs in machines equipped with an E61 grouphead. When the pump is activated, a secondary chamber must fill prior to full pressure being applied to the bed of coffee. This gives a 3 to 7 second saturation time for the grounds before the pressure builds up. This type of preinfusion is preferable to pump and pause active preinfusion.


Seems to just be a preference issue, or pre-ference?  Both preinfusion & pre-infusion are legit.


----------



## o2c

decent_espresso said:


> Pre-infusion or preinfusion?


When you compare Google results for espresso and the two, pre-infusion returns more results compared to preinfusion. It goes up to three times the results if you put them in quotes (which I can't seem to link properly).


----------



## Bob Stern

Any chance you could offer customers the option to pay a bit extra for November delivery of a machine with a cheap, temporary drip tray cover? I'd be happy to have one made of cardboard or chicken wire if it expedited the delivery!

(Why is non food grade plastic prohibited when no one would consume coffee from the drip tray?)


----------



## Bob Stern

Have you considered protecting the chain of possession of the Android tablet to ensure its firmware won't be hacked before it is packaged for shipment? It's a concern because it will be connected to users' home networks. (Although most users already have TV's and internet-of-things gadgets on their network, it would be nice to be able to ensure that the DE1 is not adding another possible security hole.)


----------



## decent_espresso

o2c said:


> When you compare Google results for espresso and the two, pre-infusion returns more results compared to preinfusion. It goes up to three times the results if you put them in quotes (which I can't seem to link properly).


That's a clever way to make progress on this question, thank you!

Now another question for you: *what comes after pre-infusion?*

Is it:

- brewing

- pouring

- infusion

?


----------



## decent_espresso

Bob Stern said:


> Have you considered protecting the chain of possession of the Android tablet to ensure its firmware won't be hacked before it is packaged for shipment? It's a concern because it will be connected to users' home networks. (Although most users already have TV's and internet-of-things gadgets on their network, it would be nice to be able to ensure that the DE1 is not adding another possible security hole.)


Ray and I are extremely paranoid about the DE1 firmware, as those are our trade secrets that make our machine do its clever things.

We're using a serialized encryption chip on the PC boards that makes it very unlikely that the source code be extracted from the DE1 and modified. We buy the encryption chips in lots, where the supplier provides us with unique chips. You'd also need our 64bit private encryption key to do an update, as the update process checks that the firmware has been appropriately signed. We're using the best-available current methods to prevent what you describe.

Regarding the Android firmware: if the NSA (or other state-based actor) is able to intercept the Android tablet on its way to you via UPS, I cannot do anything to prevent that. I don't know what else you mean by "protecting the chain of possession". The tablet goes from here to you via UPS or Fedex. If you don't trust this chain, you're free to use your own tablet and destroy the one we sent you.

In a few years, if Android 8 succeeds, we'll hopefully be able to re-image the supplied tablet with a Google-supplied generic android image.


----------



## decent_espresso

Bob Stern said:


> Any chance you could offer customers the option to pay a bit extra for November delivery of a machine with a cheap, temporary drip tray cover? I'd be happy to have one made of cardboard or chicken wire if it expedited the delivery!


If it turns out that the drip tray cover is the only thing delaying your machine from getting to you, sure, we could send the drip to you later. However, if you're not in the USA, we're not able to send you a machine until our safety certifications come through in early 2018, so the cover won't cause a delay for you anyhow.



Bob Stern said:


> (Why is non food grade plastic prohibited when no one would consume coffee from the drip tray?)


When the DE1 was being designed and I (on forums) was discussing drip tray materials, I found that a non-trivial number of people recycle the drip tray water, by pouring it on their garden plants. A plastic drip tray would potentially leach plasticizers into their garden's food chain. Since we've paid so much attention to water safety along the whole process, I didn't see the point in wimping out at the end. Better to have no worries.


----------



## decent_espresso

A pallet of James Hoffmann's book collecting his best writing on coffee just landed here! I bought 500 of them and as soon as i get a web page done for it, I'll be selling our stash. James said he'd only ever do one printing. More info at http://www.jimseven.com/2017/03/11/best-jimseven-book/


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> Now another question for you: *what comes after pre-infusion?*


I vote for "extraction."


----------



## MWJB

roastini said:


> I vote for "extraction."


The liquid at the bottom of the puck will already have extracted a significant amount. Of course, there is nothing/next to nothing in the cup at this point, so no extract to show...I could be guilty of a 'distinction without a difference' 

How about "flow".


----------



## decent_espresso

And.... we're now selling James Hoffmann's book, link below. I *think* we're the only place on the Internet currently stocking it.

https://decentespresso.com/books


----------



## decent_espresso

A feature on the DE1+ that I haven't spoken much about is that we automatically change the water temperature going into your coffee puck to quickly bring the puck itself up to the brew temperature you specified.

In the video above, I'm showing this feature working, as a kind of "thermometer" showing how much over the goal temperature the current water temperature is.

Here's an explanation of what's going on with "Adaptive Water Temperature", and why I think it could be a good technique for making better espresso.

When you make an espresso, coffee grounds are at room temperature (say, 20ºC). They mix with the boiler-hot water and the resulting brew start temperature is typically lower 8ºC to 12ºC.

As the espresso extracts, the brew temperature (by which I mean the temperature of the water/ground coffee slurry) rises toward the temperature of the boiler water. It can take a good 20 seconds for your espresso brewing to be within 1ºC of your input water temperature. I've observed that heated coffee grounds from a Mythos grinder cut this time down significantly.

When you make espresso you're actually brewing over a wide range of temperatures for most of the shot. Given that there is a lot known about the interaction between brew temperature and what is extracted, I've always felt that this situation was sub-optimal.

On the DE1+ we initially put in the desired water temp but within a second our temperature sensor above the coffee grounds senses the cooling and raises the water temperature to get the brewing temperature to your goal faster.

5 seconds into your shot, the DE1+ is typically within 2ºC and at 10 seconds it's typically within 1ºC.

I'm experimenting with a new "widget" which shows this process in action. That's what's shown in the video. Note that the "shot" in the video is not real -- this is running on my computer to easily create this animation.

Besides being interesting, the information is "actionable" for a barista, because:

- the portafilter temperature has a significant effect on our ability to bring the brew temperature up

- if you preheat the portafilter with water or by leaving it in the group for a few minutes, great.

- if you rinse the portafilter off in cold water, you'll see the DE1+ use higher temperature water for a longer period of time, try to compensate

- also, working quickly to make a 2nd shot, so that your portafilter doesn't cool, helps keep the portafilter hot.

However, I'd like your feedback on this idea.

I'm concerned that it's a bit distracting, a bit "eye candy", but also a bit "advanced barista"

The "Adaptive Water Temperature" feature is on by default in all espressos, but you can turn it off by creating an advanced shot profile if you prefer a constant water temperature.


----------



## Dylan

I'm going to have to start heating up my PF, I had always written it off as hearsay.

Do you think for someone without your machine a tamped puck might benefit from being left in the machine for a minute to warm before extraction?


----------



## jwCrema

Not a feature I would use for everyday driving, but very cool for demonstrationing its advanced technology. I think it could be useful in shot experimentation & trouble shooting. I.e., does spike in water temp toast the puck.


----------



## Onticoms

Apologies for barging in, but is there a summary post somewhere - I'd love to see more about the machine, but it's a long thread.


----------



## patrickff

I wonder if being at a lower temperature at the beginning is actually a good thing. A lower temperature should mean that less solids are dissolved initially, i.e. primary during the preinfusion phase.

(I preheat my PF for ~ 30 mins when heating up my Silvia)

I find the widget a little bit distracting - too much information


----------



## Tewdric

Any chance of getting a dem machine to the Forum day at Rave in November? You know you can trust us! :^)


----------



## sra

roastini said:


> I vote for "extraction."


+1


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Do you think for someone without your machine a tamped puck might benefit from being left in the machine for a minute to warm before extraction?


In my experience, a puck heated for 1 minute in the group will have a faster flow rate. Since I haven't set my program to take that puck property change into account, my shots are worse if I leave the puck in for a minute.

Clearly, the puck being warmed for a 1 minute has changed in a very meaningful way, besides just being warmer.

However, it might be that if I changed my program to adjust for this, my shots would be better.

Since the Mythos makes every shot warm, and you thus set the dose and grind for this reality, and people like Mythos shots, it could very well be that a 1 minute grounds warming could be a good thing.

Experimentation and testing/tasting is needed to answer your question!



jwCrema said:


> does spike in water temp toast the puck.


We think we avoid the "toasting" issue you mention because we don't put the hotter water in until there is a 3mm "buffer" of water on top of the puck, which is cooler than the goal, so none of the coffee should ever be over-temperature.



patrickff said:


> I wonder if being at a lower temperature at the beginning is actually a good thing. A lower temperature should mean that less solids are dissolved initially, i.e. primary during the preinfusion phase.


Funny -- when I first proposed temperature profiling to Scott Rao he wrote me back asserting that a declining temperature was the only possible profile that would taste good.

I then wrote him *exactly* what you propose, with the additional argument that "as the puck erodes, extracting more coffee material becomes more difficult, and so perhaps an increasing water temperature would be better".

To which he replied, "huh, damn, yes, that's also a good argument."

So now both Scott and I both feel that "we don't know" what temperature curves during espresso would be best (constant, or increasing, or decreasing).

Again, testing/tasting is needed to figure this out.



Dylan said:


> (I preheat my PF for ~ 30 mins when heating up my Silvia)


I believe that's seen as "best practice" and on my DE1+, if the machine has only just heated, I like to run a hot water shot through the group to heat the pf up fast. I haven't done A/B comparisons though, so you and I might both be members of the same cargo cult.



Dylan said:


> I find the widget a little bit distracting - too much information


Yeah, that's my worry too. I think the best solution is to offer people the option to hide it.



Tewdric said:


> Any chance of getting a dem machine to the Forum day at Rave in November? You know you can trust us! :^)


Not with CE approval by that date, and it'd be not-too-clever of me to put an uncertified machine in a public place. Sorry! Soon!


----------



## decent_espresso

I've collected all the advanced features that can cause info overload, and made a page where you enable/disable them. Now, it's your choice how much data you want to look at.

The charting of pressure and flow rate changes is particularly experimental at the moment. In theory, these lines should give you insight into channeling and current extraction rates.

- For instance, under constant flow, a pressure that no longer declines rapidly probably indicates that your coffee material is mostly extracted.

- Under pressure profiling, short leaps in flow likely mean a channel opened up and healed itself.

- During a pressure rise at the start of a shot, if pressure drops and recovers, this probably means your grinder is not very good.

- It's also possible for the chart data to mean something else or even nothing at all. Maybe a temporary electrical blip from turning the blender on while making espresso?

All these insights are pretty advanced and I also feel that Decent and its user community will need to work hand-in-hand to refine them to make them more helpful and to remove "false positives" cases.

Thus, I've made these features optional.

There are another dozen or so other configurable features that I haven't yet exposed to the GUI, but I might in the future based on discussions with you.

For example, how many degrees +/- the goal temperature, do you want the chart Y axis to be? For the time being, if you want to change that sort of thing, you'll need to edit the settings text file on a computer.


----------



## decent_espresso

The past few days, mechanical engineer Fabrice Martin has been building the DE1 from scratch, alone, using nothing but our assembly manual. The goal is to find missing steps, dependencies, very difficult steps, etc, in advance of receiving all the parts to build 300 (and then 1000) machines. He's never done it before, so he's a good guinea pig.

Everything is being built with samples from the actual manufacturers supplying us with parts. Nothing is from a high-end prototyping CNC service.

For instance, we found that soldering wires to the thermal safety fuses was impossible, and it turns out that's for a good reason, as that's not UL allowed. The soldering gun is hot enough to potentially damage the fuse. You have to use special double-sided crimps. And it all has to be insulated with tubing that, if it were to catch on fire, quickly self extinguishes (ie: http://www.schlauchtechnik.de/en/novoplast-schlauchtechnik/industrial-products/flame-resistant-tubing.html). We also found that our fancy custom made bracket to hold the thermal fuses didn't hold them tightly enough and that a simple washer actually worked better.

We've had small leaks in previous group head designs, so we're a bit paranoid about that potential problem. Today we held the group (with a blind basket and portafilter) at 19 bar for two minutes with no leak (using a summer-intern built rig for this purposes), so we think we've licked that problem.

Once this machine is built and has no problems, we give the final approval to the existing parts manufacturers, and they deliver the total quantity already paid for.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> There are another dozen or so other configurable features that I haven't yet exposed to the GUI, but I might in the future based on discussions with you.


What about a textfield that allows to set/remove options that aren't exposed by the UI? (maybe ala VIM "set [option]=[value])


----------



## coffeechap

Has this really been 18 months and still no machines?


----------



## kennyboy993

And it's gonna be a while longer yet


----------



## decent_espresso

kennyboy993 said:


> And it's gonna be a while longer yet


Yep, afraid to say it really has been a long time, and hopefully will be worth it for everyone involved.



patrickff said:


> What about a textfield that allows to set/remove options that aren't exposed by the UI? (maybe ala VIM "set [option]=[value])


There is a text file named "settings.tdb" that has everything in it. If you plug the tablet into a computer, you can edit it directly.

And the format looks very similar to what you describe:

app_brightness 100

decline_stop_volumetric 500

display_espresso_water_delta_number 0

display_flow_delta_line 0

display_fluid_ounces_option 0

display_group_head_delta_number 0

display_pressure_delta_line 0

display_rate_espresso 0

display_weight_delta_line 1

enable_commanumbers 0

enable_fahrenheit 0

enable_fluid_ounces 0

enable_negative_flow_charts 0

enable_spoken_prompts 0

etc...


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's a preview of this last major feature for the DE1+ espresso machine. I made this movie to get your thoughts before I finish coding it!


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> I made this movie to get your thoughts before I finish coding it!


I am not sure if it is visually clear enough that the "Advanced" tab is based on the "Pressure" or "Flow" tab. In the video you clicked on "Flow" and it changed (added a step) the "Advanced" settings.


----------



## jwCrema

I watched the video this morning, and was initially thrown off by the Settings icon to launch the shot configuration editor. I see the use of the Settings icon for the configuration of the application itself. I can see the Settings Icon to configure that machine that were discussed on the previous page:



patrickff said:


> What about a textfield that allows to set/remove options that aren't exposed by the UI? (maybe ala VIM "set [option]=[value])


I imagine having many shot configurations, of which I may describe some as a baseline, then copy and tweak variations on it. A command button that says "Advanced Shot Editor" or something like that would make it clearer.

But this is a nit - overall, the rest of the user experience within the editor itself is very intuitive to my eye.


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> I am not sure if it is visually clear enough that the "Advanced" tab is based on the "Pressure" or "Flow" tab. In the video you clicked on "Flow" and it changed (added a step) the "Advanced" settings.


Yeah, I struggled with that too. I could have put an "advanced" button inside the flow and pressure pages, rather than as a separate tab, and that would have been clearer.

The problem with that approach, though, is that there is no necessity at all that an Advanced shot profile be based on an existing profile. You can delete the steps and create an entirely new profile (and save it). For example, next week I'm working on a "pour over" profile that (obviously) will be entirely flow based, but (also obviously) will not consider pressure at all.

In other words, "advanced shots" are really any shot that you can't make with the two existing pressure/flow wizards. I didn't want to make it seem that you could "only" modify wizard created shots.



jwCrema said:


> I watched the video this morning, and was initially thrown off by the Settings icon to launch the shot configuration editor. I see the use of the Settings icon for the configuration of the application itself. I can see the Settings Icon to configure that machine that were discussed on the previous page:


In a web-based or desktop app, I agree, and there would be a pull down menu with separate entries. However, this app is running on a 9" tablet, every button has to be at least 1cm square in size to be finger-friendly, and pull down menus are uncommon in tablet apps.

Thus, the app has two modes "make drinks" vs "change settings". Since most of the day-to-day is in "make drinks" mode, I want to keep that as uncluttered as possible.



jwCrema said:


> I imagine having many shot configurations, of which I may describe some as a baseline, then copy and tweak variations on it. A command button that says "Advanced Shot Editor" or something like that would make it clearer. But this is a nit - overall, the rest of the user experience within the editor itself is very intuitive to my eye.


Currently, to edit a shot you hit settings, then the "profile" tab. Then hit "save" to go back.

However, you just gave me an idea, which is that if you're editing a shot, then hit save, when you hit "settings" you should go back to where you were in settings (editing the shot), NOT back to the first tab. That'll speed up the workflow.


----------



## viveur

decent_espresso said:


> Ray and I are extremely paranoid about the DE1 firmware, as those are our trade secrets that make our machine do its clever things.
> 
> We're using a serialized encryption chip on the PC boards that makes it very unlikely that the source code be extracted from the DE1 and modified. We buy the encryption chips in lots, where the supplier provides us with unique chips. You'd also need our 64bit private encryption key to do an update, as the update process checks that the firmware has been appropriately signed. We're using the best-available current methods to prevent what you describe.
> 
> Regarding the Android firmware: if the NSA (or other state-based actor) is able to intercept the Android tablet on its way to you via UPS, I cannot do anything to prevent that. I don't know what else you mean by "protecting the chain of possession". The tablet goes from here to you via UPS or Fedex. If you don't trust this chain, you're free to use your own tablet and destroy the one we sent you.
> 
> In a few years, if Android 8 succeeds, we'll hopefully be able to re-image the supplied tablet with a Google-supplied generic android image.


I really don't like the sound of the firmware lockdown. Primarily because it takes away control from the owner. Most prosumer coffee machines are highly customisable - and repairable. The most complicated electronic part on my current machine is the PID controller - which is a commodity item. If anything breaks on my machine, it's easy to replace it and fix it myself. If any component doesn't do what I want, I can replace it or modify it. It doesn't sound like that will be the case for the DE1, which is annoying if I want to change some aspects of machine operation. It's downright bad if the electronics break - I'm sure you'd hope that DE doesn't go bust and can repair these machines, but if that does happen then all DE1 owners are short of luck if the electronics in their machine fail (whereas mechanical parts are easier to repair). I don't think that's an unreasonable worry for buyers given DE is a small operation at this time.

In fact, to me, locking down the process to require signed binaries is outright hostile to owners. I can almost understand trying to protect the DE authored code, but preventing other code from running is a defect IMHO.

I'm glad that at least the tablet software will be open (at least that's what the website tells me). My experience is that mobile devices tend to become useless after 2 years (in other words I'd be replacing the tablet a few times over the life of the machine) so locking that down would really kill the machine in my eyes.


----------



## Obnic

Actually i like software security.

The extreme scenario of business failure is usually handled by putting the software in escrow to be distributed to clients on that unfortunate event .


----------



## decent_espresso

viveur said:


> In fact, to me, locking down the process to require signed binaries is outright hostile to owners. I can almost understand trying to protect the DE authored code, but preventing other code from running is a defect IMHO.


You will not find a single home appliance that allows user editing of firmware because it is forbidden by both UL and CE safety standards. Nothing is allowed by UL/CE that enables the user to bypass built in safeties, and editing firmware falls into that category. So, even if we wanted to let you edit our firmware, we would not be allowed to.

As to your worry about firmware problems: if you flip a DIP switch on the DE1 pc board and power up the machine, the pc board will revert to the factory default firmware. This is a backup safety feature in case your machine were updated to very, very broken firmware.

As to your point about PID controllers being commodity items and preferable: what it seems that you're arguing for is a firmware-free espresso machine, that only combines generic components (such as generic PID controllers). You are of course welcome to prefer that kind of machine, but a "no firmware" policy on the basis of "I don't like it if I can't modify the firmware" will limit your buying choices.

Note that the firmware update program is also open source, and updating can happen over bluetooth or a serial port (using the standard ATMEL update software).

Even the GS/3 has firmware, and like our machines (and every home appliance) you are not able to edit the firmware in that espresso machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> Actually i like software security. The extreme scenario of business failure is usually handled by putting the software in escrow to be distributed to clients on that unfortunate event .


Not only is the tablet software open source, but all the firmware updates will be in the Google Play store version history of the app. The current firmware is embedded as a .hex file with the android app distribution.

Several web sites automatically archive all versions of every app on the Google Play store, so even if Decent were to "go away" you would be able to download historical tablet software and firmware.

We're about as open as we can be, legally. I've been in talks for two years with the Free Software Foundation, as we're trying to get the "Respects Your Freedom hardware product certification" http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom

Even the FSF certification allows firmware to not be open sourced, because it's a safety certification reality. Today, the only thing blocking us from getting certified is the fact that our tablet isn't using an open source Android distribution. We're working on solving that.


----------



## Obnic

Yes. Exactly. Particularly your point about CE mark certification.

I should have added that i think escrow in this case would be overkill. And impractical for some third party components.


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## jwCrema

Yea! Great news!


----------



## Nishimiya

decent_espresso said:


> Even the FSF certification allows firmware to not be open sourced, because it's a safety certification reality. Today, the only thing blocking us from getting certified is the fact that our tablet isn't using an open source Android distribution. We're working on solving that.


Probably a very long shot, but <cough>http://copperhead.co</cough>. If there's some miraculous way to work something out with 'em, you get a whole bunch of advantages: AOSP-based, ultra-fast to update, and hardened, so probably as far as one can reasonably go to minimise concerns some might have with having another Android device connected to WiFi...


----------



## decent_espresso

I wanted to show you how the DE1+ display lets you understand the complicated reality of an espresso shot.

The photos below show the program I set, and what actually happened. This was a "slow to develop" shot, with a long preinfusion, slow drips at the beginning, and then a pressure decline.

The resulting shot was thick, delicious, with a taste of toasted peanuts that I don't get from these beans when I do flow profile shots (which is what I usually do).

I am also showing you these two photos so you can see the difference between the desired program, and what happens when you bring reality (ground espresso) into the picture.

FYI the shot ended before the pressure reached 6 bar, because the in-cup weight of 28g was reached (this was a 14.5g dose).


----------



## decent_espresso

Nishimiya said:


> Probably a very long shot, but <cough>http://copperhead.co</cough>. If there's some miraculous way to work something out with 'em, you get a whole bunch of advantages: AOSP-based, ultra-fast to update, and hardened, so probably as far as one can reasonably go to minimise concerns some might have with having another Android device connected to WiFi...


The problem is one of cost and lack of tablet support. The only devices that Copperhead support are the latest, greatest, very expensive *mobile phones*: (not tablets)

From the copperhead web site:



> CopperheadOS currently supports the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P as a free offering. Pixel and Pixel XL support is available as a product.


Ironically, we could be FSF certified if we didn't ship a tablet with our espresso machine and asked you to sort yourself out, with us providing you with a download link.

While the Apple world swims in iPad tablets, the Android world is still mostly telephones, and that's reflected in the device support from open source android variants.


----------



## Nishimiya

decent_espresso said:


> The problem is one of cost and lack of tablet support. The only devices that Copperhead support are the latest, greatest, very expensive *mobile phones*: (not tablets)


As I said, long shot... And I can absolutely see where cost might be a serious issue.

As far as tablet support goes, per them, they supported the Nexus 9. Source for this stuff should be available, it then becomes questions of support for hardware features on the tablets you're using / cost of porting and licensing, neither of which is inconsequential, of course. And if you're going to integrate the brains at some point in the future, there also seems to be work on kirin boards. As far as open-sourcing, and long-term security updates, goes, the argument strncat is making in favour of those, vs snapdragon, seems like an interesting one.


----------



## decent_espresso

Nishimiya said:


> As far as open-sourcing, and long-term security updates, goes, the argument strncat is making in favour of those, vs snapdragon, seems like an interesting one.


I have high hopes for Android 8, and the "Project Treble" initiative to abstract the hardware layer. My understanding is that all Android 8 certified tablets will need to be able to run the stock open source distribution. If this plays out as Google is hoping, then in a few years we'll have affordable generic tablets that run the same "latest and greatest" Android distribution from Google, or any open source distribution that sits on those generic drivers.

More reading:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/android-8-0-oreo-thoroughly-reviewed/2/#h6

FYI the tablet we include with our espresso machines is virtually identical to the Nexus 7 (1280x800 resolution) from Asus, though with a newer Android (v5.1 vs v4.1) and some different chipsets. I forget the name of the open source Android distribution that recently imploded, but they had an experimental branch that looked like it could work on our tablet. I think the parts are out there for anyone who wants to play. We will be FYI offering our tablets on their own at USD$99 as a replacement part, in case someone manages to brick theirs.







At tablet is much easier to support on Android than a phone, since there isn't any of that fancy phone stuff to implement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus#Nexus_7


----------



## Obnic

Good decision. Not really the time to change horses.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> I forget the name of the open source Android distribution that recently imploded, but they had an experimental branch that looked like it could work on our tablet.


CyanogenMod. The non-commercial successor is LineageOS.


----------



## roastini

BTW, it's very exciting to see the "final final" prototype. It makes me think back to about a month ago, when the plan of record was:



> So... to succinctly answer your question, parts will start arriving early November, and we'll start by first quality-control testing each part. Then, we'll put together the subassemblies that we can, as the parts arrive. Ideally, the chassis will arrive mid-November and the sub-assemblies will slide right in.
> 
> The biggest worry I have at the moment for schedule slippage is the mixing chamber, which is by far the most sophisticated part of the machine, is CNCed from a somewhat exotic material (Ultem) and requires two suppliers (CNC and custom valves) to work together. That's supposed to arrive between 7 to 9 weeks from now.
> 
> And of course, the other concern is that Christmas is arriving, and as a relatively small company, our orders might get bumped in our supplier's schedule, to make space for "more important" clients.
> 
> The 110V "early access" machines already sold will go out first, while we wait for the testing lab to certify our "final release" and 220V machines. We expect the testing to take 2 months.
> 
> Nonetheless, we're very close to the end of this journey, and espresso machines will soon be shipping.


Are parts still due to arrive in a few weeks, and the chassis in mid-November? Are the Ultem parts still due to come in around late November? Is it reasonable to estimate that units will go out around early December to the testing lab for certification?


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> Are parts still due to arrive in a few weeks, and the chassis in mid-November? Are the Ultem parts still due to come in around late November? Is it reasonable to estimate that units will go out around early December to the testing lab for certification?


Yes, we've managed to stick to that plan.

Additionally, I will be looking for a few EU area (that still includes the UK) beta testers, but they must be "coffee professionals" (as we have not yet passed the certification testing) and it'd be better if they have experience repairing espresso machines, in case any changes are needed to come into compliance.


----------



## decent_espresso

It's been awhile since I've shown you a shot being made on a current DE1+ machine. So here you go&#8230;


----------



## embrya

Machine still sounds strange - have to get used to it as I will get one next year...

I would love to get the Decent scale along with it- but see that it is only available by May 2018. Any chance to get it earlier?

How did you change the tablet mode to see the shot details?

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Machine still sounds strange - have to get used to it as I will get one next year...


I know, it does sound different from traditional machines, as there are two vibratory pumps. However, the volume level is less than you would think from the movie. Focussing the iphone on the espresso machine makes the microphone increase the gain on the sound in front of it, which is only the relatively quiet espresso machine.

In person, so far the only comment I get about the sound is how quiet it is. Seriously.











embrya said:


> I would love to get the Decent scale along with it- but see that it is only available by May 2018. Any chance to get it earlier?


The "Skale 2" that we have for sale on our web site works with the DE1+, though it doesn't have a timer and is not very water proof. Sorry, that's the best we can do. :-(

As to the Decent Scale, I can't give you any estimated date. Ben has done a first pass of mechanical engineering on it, reducing the height to the same as the Acaia pearl (barely more than AAA batteries), but we still need to design a PCB, and write firmware. None of this will happen until espresso machines are shipping routinely from here first.

We have 5 hand-built Decent Scales here, and that's what you see in the video. Unfortunately, the manufacturing cost turned out to be crazy ($87 each, and that's if we make 1000 of them), as we worked through a Taiwanese based company that only uses one manufacturer, so we couldn't price-compare. That's another reason why we're going to do the scale completely ourselves (so we have our choice of contract manufacturers).



embrya said:


> How did you change the tablet mode to see the shot details?


You can tap on the smaller chart for pressure or flow, and the chart expands to maximum height. The zoomed chart combines flow and pressure onto one chart for maximum height. You can zoom any time (before, during, after a shot).

You can also tap on the smaller chart for temperature to get a full height version.

Tap again on the "zoomed" chart to go back to the normal size.


----------



## CardinalBiggles

Lefteye said:


> Yes I get that this takes the art out but if I can get consistantly good results on a machine that may come in under £850 then that's appealing.


The words "Decent" and "Quality" go together very nicely. I'm not sure that "Decent" and "Budget Price" will ever be seen in the same sentence, however.....


----------



## decent_espresso

CardinalBiggles said:


> The words "Decent" and "Quality" go together very nicely. I'm not sure that "Decent" and "Budget Price" will ever be seen in the same sentence, however.....


I don't know if it's just a coincidence, but yesterday we were told that our trade show stand at the Korea coffee show has "Decent" next to "Honest".









We tried to watch the old movie "Honest Decent and True"





 last night, but it's just too 1980s...


----------



## decent_espresso

A year ago, Jeff came up with the very clever idea of insulating our water heaters by pouring silicone around them. He built a mold out of legos to try the idea out. You can see that experimental heater 3rd from the-right, bottom row.

We then spent a good nine months trying to move the idea into production. The problem was that silicone with no air bubbles didn't insulate very well (bottom left, middle and right heaters, in the photo).

As we added bubbles to the silicone mix we ran into two problems:

1) the bubbles caused a slow, creeping expansion while drying. This tended to break the mold or for the silicone to ooze out unpredictably, sometimes even uncovering areas (2nd heaters from the left, on both rows)

2) as the silicone dried, the bubbles migrated upwards, leaving the bottom very high density (low insulation) and the top overly bubbly (top left in the photo).

The solution to both these problems is to do this properly, with a metal mold under compression, and having a machine rotate the product constantly as it dries. That means we have to outsource this to someone who actually knows what they're doing, because we clearly don't.

So here's what we decided&#8230;

For the 300 machines we are building now, we have a solution that works well, but is very time-consuming (about 30 minutes each). We make a box from fiberglass boards, and stuff the inside by hand with mineral wool. That's the two heaters in the top right of the photo.

For the next 1000 machines, we'll be working with a new company to make our water heaters, using our custom design (a bit more steam power, even at 110V), and they will also make a two-part mineral-foam insulating box for our heater. That will save us a lot of time.

Alas, sometimes research leads you to a dead end&#8230;


----------



## rytopa

Just a question regarding the steam output from DE1/DE1+, have you compared the the end weight frothed milked using the DE1 vs lets say typical HX machine or DB machines?

Or in a blind taste test, have you found a difference between the milk taste as compared to typical espresso machine?

I understand Slayer Steam model is uses a rather similar method as yours to generate steam; claims to generate 10-15 percent lesser water weight added to the final product.


----------



## decent_espresso

rytopa said:


> Just a question regarding the steam output from DE1/DE1+, have you compared the the end weight frothed milked using the DE1 vs lets say typical HX machine or DB machines?


I have not compared the final weight of steamed milk, but that's a good suggestion.

What I have done is:

1) determined the water flow rate of my gs/3's steam (about 2 ml/s)

2) the DE1+'s flow meter tells us the flow rate is about 0.5 ml/S

The GS/3 at 128ºC (it's highest setting) heats milk about 2x as fast (it's very capable steam).

Per ºC increase, the GS/3 uses about twice as much water.

It's not clear to me how noticeable this reduced water is on the palate, as I have not done side-by-side tests. My suspicion is that the quality of the milk is a more important factor, as a lot of low quality milk tastes watery before you even heat it.



rytopa said:


> Or in a blind taste test, have you found a difference between the milk taste as compared to typical espresso machine? I understand Slayer Steam model is uses a rather similar method as yours to generate steam; claims to generate 10-15 percent lesser water weight added to the final product.


Yes, we've done blind taste tests, and the DE1's foamed milk tastes more "raw", "less cooked", "not at all caramelized". You will not get "dulce de leche" style flavored steamed milk from our espresso machines.

My opinion is that both "raw" and "caramelized" milk flavors are equally good and valid, just different.

On the DE1+, as we'll have a 220V outlet dedicated to steam, we expect to optionally give you steam characteristics for "dulce de leche" style foamed milk, if that's what you desire.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> My suspicion is that the quality of the milk is a more important factor, as a lot of low quality milk tastes watery before you even heat it.


My kids don't even drink non-organic milk anymore. "Normal" milk tastes more watery and less grass-y.

Shelf-stable (e.g. Parmelat) is by default more caramel-y, because of the higher homogenization temperature.



decent_espresso said:


> On the DE1+, as we'll have a 220V outlet dedicated to steam


Plus or Pro Plus?


----------



## Obnic

patrickff said:


> My kids don't even drink non-organic milk anymore.


Bit off topic but last time my kids were in Britain they complained that the milk tasted sour. I chided them for talking nonsense but on tasting it i could see exactly what they meant.


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> Plus or Pro Plus?


Brain lapse on my part: the DE1CAFE will use two plugs. All the other models are single plug.


----------



## Andreugv

Obnic said:


> Bit off topic but last time my kids were in Britain they complained that the milk tasted sour. I chided them for talking nonsense but on tasting it i could see exactly what they meant.


When I moved to the states several years ago I had some trouble getting used to how sweet and watery the milk is here. I guess each market has it's own "recipe".


----------



## Obnic

Andreugv said:


> When I moved to the states several years ago I had some trouble getting used to how sweet and watery the milk is here. I guess each market has it's own "recipe".


Yup ours is mountain meadow fed, organic, free roaming, 3.9% fat deliciousness.


----------



## Stanic

I could really taste the difference when i lived in UK some years ago, the milk had a sort of "plastic" taste to it..here in Poland it is kind of neutral (white liquid with faint milky taste), probably gets homogenised on a large scale

two months ago visiting Slovakia and frothing milk I was blown away how good the coffee was, tasting the milk (cheap supermarket whole) it was great with distinct nutty/hazelnut taste


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> When I moved to the states several years ago I had some trouble getting used to how sweet and watery the milk is here. I guess each market has it's own "recipe".


The sweetness is from the heavy amount of sugar in the mostly-corn diet fed to cows in the USA. I'm not sure that any other country feeds their cows mostly corn.

Here's a lot more on that topic (cows and corn), from author Michael Pollan:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/interviews/pollan.html

Since I've done a fair amount of travelling and demoing, I usually buy several milks in each area to find the best. In the USA, it's Organic Valley milk, available nationwide from local sources:

https://www.organicvalley.coop/products/milk/

The UK has great milk even if chain grocery stores, but in the EU the industrial milk in grocery stores is just ok. Get near the mountains (hello Obnic) and drink local, and yeah, you're in bliss. When I lived in Savoie the local raw milk from the cheese coop was a revelation.

I'm persuaded that Italian's distaste for cappuccinos is because their milk is mostly watery industrial junk. In July I was there for a few weeks on tour. I bought proper milk from the organic grocery (more and more common there) and 2.5Xed the amount of coffee to milk ratio (they were making cappuccinos with 7g shots) and the Italians were surprised to like the drink. In cafés the cappuccinos were undrinkable.



Stanic said:


> I could really taste the difference when i lived in UK some years ago, the milk has a sort of "plastic" taste to it..here in Poland it is kind of neutral (white liquid with faint milky taste), probably gets homogenised on a large scale
> 
> two months ago visiting Slovakia and frothing milk I was blown away how good the coffee was, tasting the milk (cheap supermarket whole) it was great with distinct nutty/hazelnut taste


Some UK grocery stores such as Tesco (and M&S) are surprisingly industrial, the closest I've seen to USA grade food. But there's still a lot of really great grocery available in the UK as long as you're either in a poor area (farmer's market) or a rich one (high end grocery).


----------



## decent_espresso

We're beginning to insert all the parts in our Decent Espresso Machines into our shopping system. This will enable anyone to buy the parts to repair/replace anything in our espresso machines.

A goal is to reassure buyers of our espresso machines that they won't have any trouble getting parts from us. There are no forms to fill out, no approval needed. Everything is transparent. You can even buy parts ahead of time if you're the worrying type.

We will be posting annotated CAD files to http://onshape.com to make it even easier to see how everything fits together. We'll also be posting our own assembly instructions (videos, tips, and notes) to make disassembly/repair/re-assembly easier.

Our entire product database (parts and everything else) is publicly available as a Javascript JSON file, with quite a lot of detailed info. This database includes the quantity we have on hand, and much else besides. Click the link to see:

https://decentespresso.com/js/data/decent_products.js

Next, we've made the URL to create a shopping cart intentionally very simple. The goal is to help people build software that automatically orders things from us. The URL is composed of pairs of "part number" and "quantity". Here is an example:

https://decentespresso.com/cart?s=73631+1+73773+1

For companies that have automated purchasing systems, it's quite easy to integrate our products into your process and a few companies already work with us in that manner.

As with other things we sell, there is free shipping at 3 items, and price discounting starting at 5 items (10%).


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> As with other things we sell, there is free shipping at 3 items, and price discounting starting at 5 items (10%).


You might want to think about this. The rubber sleeve for the steam wand (part 72015) is US$0.72. I could buy 19 of those plus a US$799 grinder, and my sub-total (with the 20% discount for buying 20+ accessories) would be about US$650.

The same trick would work in the UK, though the cheapest part is (I think) £2, so it doesn't have quite the same effect.

But regardless of currency, this discounting system seems to encourage the purchase of a few cheap parts for no reason except the discount.


----------



## bachamp

I was thinking that as well, but it does say this on the grinder page:

"Our grinder is not eligible for free shipping or quantity discounts."

I assume its the same for the other high value items.


----------



## roastini

bachamp said:


> I was thinking that as well, but it does say this on the grinder page:
> 
> "Our grinder is not eligible for free shipping or quantity discounts."
> 
> I assume its the same for the other high value items.


At a minimum, it allows one to get (for US orders) free accessory shipping for US$1.44. On a tamper (which is eligible for quantity discounts), one could buy 4 rubber sleeves plus the tamper. That would save US$10 on shipping plus US$9.90 on the tamper itself, for a net savings of about US$17.

The Barista Kit (US$449) also seems to be eligible for quantity discounts. In fact, everything except the machines, the Mean Well power supply, the Android tablet, and the grinder seems to be discountable.

Note that you can't play this game yet with most of the parts, which are marked "todo" in the JSON listing. But the rubber feet inserts are available (for £3 each).

So right now (and I'll use UK examples in deference to our forum), you can buy a Skale v2 for £94 (84+10 shipping), or a Skale v2 plus 2 rubber feet inserts for £90 (84+6, free shipping), or a Skale v2 plus 4 rubber feet for £86.40 (94+12, 9.60 discount, free shipping).

That's a non-trivial discount for doing something wasteful.


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## Tewdric

Have you twigged that your return-to-base-get-a-new-one warranty model is going to result in a lot of mysterious failures at 1 year 364 days? :^)


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## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> You might want to think about this. The rubber sleeve for the steam wand (part 72015) is US$0.72. I could buy 19 of those plus a US$799 grinder, and my sub-total (with the 20% discount for buying 20+ accessories) would be about US$650. The same trick would work in the UK, though the cheapest part is (I think) £2, so it doesn't have quite the same effect. But regardless of currency, this discounting system seems to encourage the purchase of a few cheap parts for no reason except the discount.





bachamp said:


> I was thinking that as well, but it does say this on the grinder page: "Our grinder is not eligible for free shipping or quantity discounts." I assume its the same for the other high value items.


As bachamp noticed, we don't discount the grinder, espresso machine, and other expensive items.

The minimum price for parts will likely be around $2, not US$0.72, because we still need to order, unbox, store, stock, pick, pack and ship each item. As there are several hundred parts in the database, we haven't yet gone through and compared each part to espressoparts.com and amazon to set a reasonable single-unit price (that's in progress).

As far as "abusing the discount" system goes, you're absolutely right that someone could order 80 o-rings for $2 in order to get 30% off on their milk jugs.

However, to prevent such sort of abuse of the system, I'd have to put lots of rules & regulations in, that would unnecessarily complicate things for the 99% honest folk. I quite dislike rules that punish the honest majority in order to potentially stop the dishonest few, and I'd rather (a) wait and see if anyone does actually abuse it and (b) if they do, simply manually notice and email them with a "that's not on" email.

A fairly simple rule change, if I do need to stop this, would be discount on individual quantity, rather than cumulative. In other words, buying 80 O-rings would get you 30% off that part, but nothing off the single milk jug. That would bring our discounting more into line with industry practices.

However, I quite like that Coffee Parts in Australia is able to make a "mixed order" from us of 80 different items, on a regular basis, and thus promotes our products to their customer base. https://www.coffeeparts.com.au/accessories/by-brand/decent-espresso


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> A fairly simple rule change, if I do need to stop this, would be discount on individual quantity, rather than cumulative. In other words, buying 80 O-rings would get you 30% off that part, but nothing off the single milk jug. That would bring our discounting more into line with industry practices.
> 
> [/url]


Surely it would be simpler to ring-fence parts that are (for example) below £2-5, otherwise your 'honest' customer who wants to order a milk jug, scale and tamper (for example) wouldn't get a discount.


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## jwCrema

Crickets.

(I apologize if this doesn't make sense. While I was born in Cambridge, I wasn't there long enough to remember if there are crickets in the country side.)


----------



## Mrboots2u

Price the items fairly forget the discount on smaller one offs , personally discount equals bulk buy , not one of two or three things ( a jug , a basket , a tamper ) . If they are good quality and a good price to start with people shouldn't be moan paying a price for them without haggling .


----------



## malling

decent_espresso said:


> The sweetness is from the heavy amount of sugar in the mostly-corn diet fed to cows in the USA. I'm not sure that any other country feeds their cows mostly corn.Here's a lot more on that topic (cows and corn), from author Michael Pollan:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/interviews/pollan.htmlSince I've done a fair amount of travelling and demoing, I usually buy several milks in each area to find the best. In the USA, it's Organic Valley milk, available nationwide from local sources:https://www.organicvalley.coop/products/milk/The UK has great milk even if chain grocery stores, but in the EU the industrial milk in grocery stores is just ok. Get near the mountains (hello Obnic) and drink local, and yeah, you're in bliss. When I lived in Savoie the local raw milk from the cheese coop was a revelation.I'm persuaded that Italian's distaste for cappuccinos is because their milk is mostly watery industrial junk. In July I was there for a few weeks on tour. I bought proper milk from the organic grocery (more and more common there) and 2.5Xed the amount of coffee to milk ratio (they were making cappuccinos with 7g shots) and the Italians were surprised to like the drink. In cafés the cappuccinos were undrinkable.Some UK grocery stores such as Tesco (and M&S) are surprisingly industrial, the closest I've seen to USA grade food. But there's still a lot of really great grocery available in the UK as long as you're either in a poor area (farmer's market) or a rich one (high end grocery).


Yeah there might be a few countries in the western hemisphere where livestock is mostly feed with local crops, however allot of livestock get supplements, whole food pellets from international food suppliers, these tend to be made off what is cheapest eg. soybean hulls, corn etc. that doesn't result in the best tasting milk. definitely prefer milk from biodynamic/organic fed Jersey cows, where the stock are mostly grass, herb, weed fed. We shouldn't forget that breeds deliver very different tasting milk, and some of the explanation for the difference in taste is also found here.


----------



## decent_espresso

We're back from the Korea Coffee Show. Our man Shin and his coffee-trainer/engineer friend ran the demos and made 1400 espressos in 4 days. This was a good test of DE1+ reliability under stress.









Indian National Champion Paras Bindra came by with 2kg his El Salvadorian Geisha (!) and was grinning ear-to-ear an hour later as we'd tuned the DE1+ to extract it at it's best (17s preinfusion at 3.5 ml/s, 8 second hold at 9 bar then decline to 7 bar). Sort of a Slayer-start with a Synesso end. "Wow, that's good coffee," said another SCAA judge, upon tasting it.

Super fan Chihyun Ahn is in the photo below, along with Joe McTaggart of Brew Brothers in Germany, representing Comandante hand grinders. I was super impressed by their grinder, though it took 60s to hand grind the Geisha, made a really an excellent Geisha espresso.









A big hello to our new friends Doug and Barb from Orphan Espresso, who we shared coffee, pastries and manufacturing war stories with.









I got to spend some quality time with Marco Feliziani of Nuova Simonelli who walked me through the incremental improvements to their Mythos 2 (my favorite coffee grinder).









And we were super excited to see my friend Kapo Chiu of HK's The Cupping Room - Roastery make it to the finals and take away 3rd place in the World Barista Championship.


----------



## decent_espresso

We didn't have a faultless four days. Four defects/weaknesses made themselves known that we're making sure we rectify.

a) the biggest problem was that the "catering kit" for the DE1+, which is an external pump that refills our water tank, was accidentally pushed off the back of the table. As it fell, it ripped out the RJ45 phone connector on the PC board that it was tethered to. This "whoops" is likely to occur in the real world, so we're going to heavily reinforce the RJ45/PC board connection.

b) tilting the DE1+, traveling in a cab to a cafe, and immediately righting the machine left the water level sensor confused, likely because water had dribbled up into the sensor tube. The next day, the water in the tube had dried and all was fine, but the water level sensor was confused and caused spurious "out of water" software reports at the cafe demo. We're going to work around this by optionally ignoring the water level sensor when it does this, as we can believe we can detect this (mis)state on power up. There is a more sophisticated solution possible, which involves using a semi-permeable membrane, but in the past year, we've not been able to reliably mount it without tearing or crinkling it, as it's very delicate stuff.

c) a screw holding the box around a heater came out. Some "locktite" should fix that.

d) two rubber feet came out because the holes holding them hadn't been drilled by our fabricator to our tolerances.

Two reasons I do these trade shows are:

1) to create deadlines

2) to real-life test the current state of the machine.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We received samples this week of our espresso machine packing system. We're using 3 different pieces of foam to different effect. Rather than using styrofoam, I decided to use the same packing approach for our suitcase as for our cardboard box.

People who buy an espresso machine from us without a suitcase (the majority) will have this foam holding their espresso machine in a cardboard box, and that box will, in turn, be packed in another box, with an air gap between the boxes.

To hold parts in place, we're using the same molded EVA foam (spandex covered) technique that's in our Barista Kit. This time we've added a ton of ribbing for extra strength. The center layers are two symmetrically die cut PU foam pieces. Under the molded EVA foam pieces you'll find simple rectangular pieces

Two years ago, the foam I had made was high density, all glued together. The big problems with that were (a) it smelled terrible, very perfumey (b) the gluing effect was ugly, and © the foam weighed 5kg. The total espresso machine weight was 21.3kg, just slightly over most airplane limits, causing me to haggle at the airport every time I flew.

The new foam comes in at 1.6kg, bringing the "flight weight" of the suitcase and all espresso parts, to just under 18kg, safely well under the airplane limit.

The one mistake we made with this prototype is to require you to take the layers apart to get the tablet out. We're correcting that design assumption (with a cutout for the tablet stand) so that you can leave all the layers of foam in place as you insert/remove parts.


----------



## gtjeffw

decent_espresso said:


> ...the biggest problem was that the "catering kit" for the DE1+, which is an external pump that refills our water tank...


Isn't the catering and plumbing kit only available for the PRO model?

Related to that, I'm curious if the plumbing kit is failsafe. For instance, if the water valve gets stuck open (or just leaks) does the water go down the drain?

--

Jeff


----------



## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> Isn't the catering and plumbing kit only available for the PRO model?


You're right, and at the Korea coffee show I had one DE1PRO+ and one DE1+ with me.



gtjeffw said:


> Related to that, I'm curious if the plumbing kit is failsafe. For instance, if the water valve gets stuck open (or just leaks) does the water go down the drain?


It has two fail safes:

- if water is being added to the tank but we can't sense a water level rise, the kit is disabled

- there is a timeout to adding water to the tank

The valve is of the "normally closed" type, so when voltage is no longer applied, water flow will stop. That being said, if the valve (like a water tap) were to become sufficiently calcified then yes, it would leak.

We have two kits for the pro model, the "catering kit" is a pump, used to suck water out of a water tank. That's what we were using. Pressurized water is (to my knowledge) always at risk of leaks.


----------



## gtjeffw

decent_espresso said:


> Pressurized water is (to my knowledge) always at risk of leaks.


Just thinking out loud, it might be interesting to see if a future version of your product could switch to a fully watertight pathway from water mains on through the machine. I think this would require some sort of tank instead of the water tray, plus additional heating elements and actuated valve(s). That would probably change the machine design a good bit though.

Alternatively, with DE2(PRO) you might consider adding some sort of overflow lip or tube to the water tray that spills into the drip tray, which in turn is modified to have an optional drain line. This could provide additional safety redundancy that is (maybe?) not that expensive to implement.

--

Jeff


----------



## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> Just thinking out loud, it might be interesting to see if a future version of your product could switch to a fully watertight pathway from water mains on through the machine. I think this would require some sort of tank instead of the water tray, plus additional heating elements and actuated valve(s). That would probably change the machine design a good bit though.


Yes, that would change the design quite a bit, but it's also hard to implement from a EU compliance standpoint, because any device plumbed in has to make it impossible for dirty water to make its way back into the water mains. The "air gap" approach we currently use provides that needed compliance.



gtjeffw said:


> Alternatively, with DE2(PRO) you might consider adding some sort of overflow lip or tube to the water tray that spills into the drip tray, which in turn is modified to have an optional drain line. This could provide additional safety redundancy that is (maybe?) not that expensive to implement.


This idea, I like quite a bit. An overflow hole on the water tank could spill out into the drip tray dirty-water-out path.


----------



## Danm

not been on the forum that much second half of the year, but each time I do, this thread seems to have grown.

If I wanted to get hold of a De1 machine - what is the lead time and cost. Apologies if it has been asked a thousand times before, I went back a few pages but could not see it. thanks


----------



## Andreugv

Danm said:


> not been on the forum that much second half of the year, but each time I do, this thread seems to have grown.
> 
> If I wanted to get hold of a De1 machine - what is the lead time and cost. Apologies if it has been asked a thousand times before, I went back a few pages but could not see it. thanks


I believe right now you can not preorder as the initial batch was sold out. Current list price for the DE1+ seems to be 2199 USD (so 200 USD up from the previous price point).

Correct me if I am wrong!


----------



## decent_espresso

Danm said:


> not been on the forum that much second half of the year, but each time I do, this thread seems to have grown. If I wanted to get hold of a De1 machine - what is the lead time and cost. Apologies if it has been asked a thousand times before, I went back a few pages but could not see it. thanks





Andreugv said:


> I believe right now you can not preorder as the initial batch was sold out. Current list price for the DE1+ seems to be 2199 USD (so 200 USD up from the previous price point). Correct me if I am wrong!


Andre is right -- our first batch of 300 machines is sold out with shipping of those to start in December, and UK models (CE approved) planned for February/March.

Once the first independent reviews go online (December or January, I'd think), we'll start taking orders for our next batch (v1.1) which are scheduled for delivery in April, and we'll be making 1000 units of those machines.

As to prices, they're available here:

https://decentespresso.com/dem_buy

With the DE1 v1.1 to be going for sale at £1339.

You can click on the options to see prices for other models.


----------



## Jollybean

Is £1,339 the confirmed sale price for the DE1 as the webpage shows $1,599 (in the blue box)? If so does this price include shipping and taxes?


----------



## decent_espresso

Jollybean said:


> Is £1,339 the confirmed sale price for the DE1 as the webpage shows $1,599 (in the blue box)? If so does this price include shipping and taxes?


The price you see depends on your currency setting which is set by your destination country. You set your currency and destination in the shopping cart page. If the stars align and I was sufficiently caffeinated when I wrote the code, your country and currency was auto-determined from your TCP/IP address.

https://decentespresso.com/cart

As to taxes and shipping, this is not included in the £1339 price and again is dependent on your destination country. When you add the espresso machine to your cart, and then view "shopping cart" you will be given various delivery service options (UPS, Fedex, etc) and also told the tax & duty cost for your country.

Unfortunately, you can't get that exact "all in" price right now, as our espresso machines cannot be bought at the moment. However, I can estimate for you that for a UK address the shipping + tax for a DE1+ is in the ~£210 range at the moment.


----------



## Jollybean

Thanks for for the speedy reply


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> Andre is right -- our first batch of 300 machines is sold out with shipping of those to start in December, and UK models (CE approved) planned for February/March.
> 
> Once the first independent reviews go online (December or January, I'd think), we'll start taking orders for our next batch (v1.1) which are scheduled for delivery in April, and we'll be making 1000 units of those machines.
> 
> As to prices, they're available here:
> 
> https://decentespresso.com/dem_buy
> 
> With the DE1 v1.1 to be going for sale at £1339.
> 
> You can click on the options to see prices for other models.


I have a doubt right now John. For those of us who preordered a Final release version, we are looking at February-March as well?


----------



## jwCrema

Andreugv said:


> I have a doubt right now John. For those of us who preordered a Final release version, we are looking at February-March as well?


Hi Andregy,

I pre-ordered a DE1+ a while back. For several decades I worked for a company who has had some significant accomplishments in product innovation through manufacturing partners in Asia. Doing what Decent Espresso is doing is not easy.

While I appreciate and understand doubts at this point, if you look at the improvements that have been done through a relentless commitment to "doing the right thing" I can only say this: I have zero doubt.


----------



## rytopa

Hey John, any updates on the timeline for shipping?

I understand parts are slowly streaming in, any major parts which are getting delayed which would prevent the assembly of the machine?


----------



## decent_espresso

rytopa said:


> Hey John, any updates on the timeline for shipping? I understand parts are slowly streaming in, any major parts which are getting delayed which would prevent the assembly of the machine?





Andreugv said:


> I have a doubt right now John. For those of us who preordered a Final release version, we are looking at February-March as well?


There's only going to be a delay if you're a US customer, receiving the 110V beta, and if there's any, it'll be on the order of weeks, not months.

We were told recently that the main mixing chamber (with 4 valves) has been delayed to December 9th, but with all vendors, dates are always approximate (it could be sooner or later than that).

At any rate, for the 220V world, there shouldn't be any ship date changes, as the limiting factor is Intertek safety certification. Later this week, our 220V machine is going to them for a 2 week pre-test. If we pass that, we'll then need to deliver 12 "final" machines to them (in December) for destructive testing.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> At any rate, for the 220V world, there shouldn't be any ship date changes, as the limiting factor is Intertek safety certification. Later this week, our 220V machine is going to them for a 2 week pre-test. If we pass that, we'll then need to deliver 12 "final" machines to them (in December) for destructive testing.


Is Intertek also doing your 110v certification? Is that on the same schedule as the 220v testing?


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> Is Intertek also doing your 110v certification? Is that on the same schedule as the 220v testing?


Yes, they're on the same schedule, but whilst the EU prohibits non-CE devices from being used in the EU, the US is more lax, and allows non-UL certified equipment to be used in the USA.

Thus, for the early access machine orders, we can ship all the 110V machines we make to the USA.

For EU (that includes the UK for now) we can ship 220V "early access" machines to people who self-describe themselves as "qualified technicians" and the machine will be marked as "not for consumer use". As machines are made, we'll contact 220V "early access" purchasers to see if they qualify and they'll need to sign a piece of paper saying so to receive the not-yet-Intertek CE certified machine.

The "release version" machines in both 110V and 220V will be made simultaneously. In the end, we opted to add the extra CE mandated double safety features into the 110V machine, as the increased safety is a good thing and the increased parts cost is offset by the decreased complexity here in assembly (the only difference now between UL/CE machines is different PCB, Heaters, Pumps and fuses, for 220V). As we wait for Intertek, we will nonetheless be assembling machines, with the assumption that any Intertek failures will be relatively minor and fixes applied later. This is also why we're making only 300 machines now, in case that assumption is wrong.


----------



## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> For EU (that includes the UK for now) we can ship 220V "early access" machines...


Does that mean after 2019 you'll be building and shipping clockwork machines to the UK since France owns most of Britain's electricity infrastructure?


----------



## DavecUK

Obnic said:


> Does that mean after 2019 you'll be building and shipping clockwork machines to the UK since France owns most of Britain's electricity infrastructure?


For gods sake, we will just go back to steam....not clockwork.


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> Does that mean after 2019 you'll be building and shipping clockwork machines to the UK since France owns most of Britain's electricity infrastructure?


Gasoline powered!


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> Gasoline powered!


Gas option is only available on the DE1CAFE.


----------



## decent_espresso

This new feature helps you save everything about your best espressos so that you can try to keep making them as good as that amazing one.


----------



## decent_espresso

Because the DE1+ interface has tabs, it's always taken two taps to start a function. For example, tap the "STEAM" tab, then tap "START".

On classic espresso machines, there is a dedicated button the machine, and so you only need to touch one thing to start a feature. That's much faster for a production setting, such as a café.

Today, I added a "one-tap mode" option.

If you turn this on, now when you tap a tab in the DE1+ GUI, that feature starts automatically. No more two-taps to start something, it's now one tap.

This is an optional feature, because it's not how "tabbed user interfaces" usually work, and might take a few minutes for you to get used to.

However, I think this is going to be a popular feature for cafés that use our machines, as well as for most people, once they become experts with making drinks on their DE1+.

You might also notice a new "stress test" option at beginning of the attached movie. This causes the feature you enable to repeat forever until you tap the STOP button for it. We're going to use this feature to "burn in" our espresso machines before shipping them to clients. However, I left this feature in the GUI in case you might find it a useful option.


----------



## jwCrema

decent_espresso said:


> ... However, I left this feature in the GUI in case you might find it a useful option.


I am really glad this made it into the DE1+ My wife is getting better at handling iPad apps but my fear was that all of the screens in the DE1+ would mean zero usage by her. "I just want a shot of espresso."

With this addition she's eager to use the machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> My wife is getting better at handling iPad apps but my fear was that all of the screens in the DE1+ would mean zero usage by her. "I just want a shot of espresso."


As this forum is for enthusiasts, I've only been posting images of the high-functionality skins. However, there are "dead simple" skins you can choose to use, which might be what your spouse is looking for.


----------



## decent_espresso

I'm often looking at a portafilter and wondering "what capacity size is this basket?"

An idea I had was to laser etch the number, LARGE, in the bottom of the basket. The laser slightly pits the stainless steel surface, causing the number to be legible. It shouldn't affect the basket's functionality.

However, something interesting happens when the laser intersects a hole. A black carbon "explosion" appears on the underside of the basket. I *think* this is caused by some of the very thin stainless steel of the edge vaporizing. Or something else?

At any rate, the black carbon does start to clean up with a rough sponge, but it's really hard to get into these nooks and crannies and clean it all out. A mechanical polishing might be better but probably wouldn't get all of it. Waterpik? Fine sandblasting?

I put the basket on the light table to see if I could discern any hole size difference, and I couldn't. However, the black marks are pretty clear to see and unsightly.

While the black marks probably won't affect the functionality of the basket, they're likely would make customers nervous. Before I go ahead with this labeling idea, I'd want to fix the black mark problem.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.


----------



## u2jewel

Nice idea, even if it only helps a very small subset of people who not only owns multiple baskets of similar sizes (like 18g/20g combo or 15g/18g) but also swaps baskets regularly..

Small real estate, but how about above the ridge? On or around the lip?


----------



## Dylan

On the outside edge/face would be fine, you don't need to know it every time you look at it!


----------



## Obnic

VST marks the rim


----------



## roastini

I don't want a basket with any etching on the bottom of the basket, for fear that it will cause differential wear and/or bending, which would make the basket function differently.


----------



## Bob Stern

I think VST's marking on the rim is more useful than on the bottom. To make it more legible, I'd use a font with a heavier stroke and a greater ratio of width to height than VST uses.


----------



## decent_espresso

Thanks for the tips. I think VST might use ink rather than a laser to label the basket. I'm going to talk to the basket engineer and see what options are open to us.


----------



## decent_espresso

I've now saved my "best" shot on the shared office DE1+ as a "god shot". You can see how this feature plays out in real use. This afternoon's espresso (just made it) had slightly less pressure, a bit faster flow into the cup, but similarly accurate temperature, to my reference.

Result: this shot tasted good (nothing really defective with it) but not as good as the really good shot I made two days ago, which I saved as my GOD SHOT.


----------



## kennyboy993

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 30379
> 
> 
> I've now saved my "best" shot on the shared office DE1+ as a "god shot". You can see how this feature plays out in real use. This afternoon's espresso (just made it) had slightly less pressure, a bit faster flow into the cup, but similarly accurate temperature, to my reference.
> 
> Result: this shot tasted good (nothing really defective with it) but not as good as the really good shot I made two days ago, which I saved as my GOD SHOT.


Awesome.

It's a god shot with that bean and grind isn't it - so would need to record that somewhere


----------



## roastini

kennyboy993 said:


> Awesome.
> 
> It's a god shot with that bean and grind isn't it - so would need to record that somewhere


Bean, grind, days since roast, ambient temp, humidity, barometric pressure, relative positions of mars and venus, song playing on the radio, price of gold on the spot market...


----------



## BlueCoffeeBean

Keeping my eye on it, will be interesting for sure


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> As this forum is for enthusiasts, I've only been posting images of the high-functionality skins. However, there are "dead simple" skins you can choose to use, which might be what your spouse is looking for.


It would be nice if a user could add 2+ buttons that appeared (say, next to the settings button) on every skin that let one quickly change profiles. This would allow different people in the house to quickly select their favorite skin+settings, without having to go through the menus. The buttons could default to having a letter or number, but be customizable with a pic that you could take with the tablet. Perhaps one could even choose one profile as the "primary" profile, and have the tablet revert to that tablet after X minutes idle.


----------



## jwCrema

decent_espresso said:


> As this forum is for enthusiasts, I've only been posting images of the high-functionality skins. However, there are "dead simple" skins you can choose to use, which might be what your spouse is looking for.
> 
> View attachment 30356


She is now seriously excited to have what was formerly described as "my new espresso machine". My job - dial it in with our favorite beans. Her job - hit the button.


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> It would be nice if a user could add 2+ buttons that appeared (say, next to the settings button) on every skin that let one quickly change profiles. This would allow different people in the house to quickly select their favorite skin+settings, without having to go through the menus. The buttons could default to having a letter or number, but be customizable with a pic that you could take with the tablet. Perhaps one could even choose one profile as the "primary" profile, and have the tablet revert to that tablet after X minutes idle.


That's in the works, but I haven't made the time to implement it for v1.0. Eventually, there should be "quick user switching". However, since the skin you choose really forms the GUI, at the moment if you change the skin you need to restart the app. I know how to program out this requirement, but it's work I've deprioritized for the moment.



kennyboy993 said:


> Awesome. It's a god shot with that bean and grind isn't it - so would need to record that somewhere


I agree, which is why the God Shot button is on the same page where you describe your setup. Screen picture below. I've intentionally left a lot of blank space on this page so that it can morph over time based on discussions here and elsewhere.


----------



## decent_espresso

We're working on many fronts at the moment, trying to perfect the 200 or so parts that are arriving in quantity=300 to make our first batch of espresso machines.

If you'd rather not "get into the details" know that things are proceeding well, with the so far the excuses and delays from suppliers only being in the one-to-two week scale. Everything still looks like it will arrive in December, but now it's late-December rather than first-week-of-December.

---

UPCOMING SAFETY CERTIFICATION AUDIT

For UL (USA) safety certification, we have two more steps:

1) a two-week detailed audit by the testing company, to ensure that nothing appears wrong in what we're doing

2) thereafter, we build 8 identical machines that are "destructively tested"

We're preparing for that audit now, and in double-checking everything, we found 3 small things that need fixing.









The biggest was that the "green light" on/off switch we use, has to be swapped for one without a light. We're using that switch to turn off both line voltage (110V/220V) and a 24V power supply, and it turns out that the with-a-light version of this switch wasn't approved for such use. A few hours ago, the light-free switch was wired into the machine sitting on my desk.

The other two safety certification issue what anti-fire certification level we need around the insulating foam in the group head and around the circuit board compartment. Intertek's engineers are researching the question.

Once we pass UL certification, we'll go through the EU certification process. There's no sense in doing both in parallel since the EU standard is mostly a superset of the UL standard.

CAST DRIP TRAY COVER

Next, we received the drip tray covers that are now cast (instead of being carved out by a computer). The good news is that the fears we had (caused by other suppliers not wanting to take the job) were unwarranted and there aren't any significant problems.









However, where the two molds meet, you can see a "parting line" where a thin amount of metal seeps through. This needs to be reduced, and then manually removed with a bit of sanding.

Also, the grade of aluminum used for this sample was not what we asked for, and the finish is correspondingly dull and tin-like.

So, we're asking for another sample to be cast, with the correct metal and with the parting lines manually removed.

FITTING THE CASE ON

Finally, the rounded cover that goes around the case, doesn't fit all that well on the two samples we've received. A flat piece of sheet metal is first cut and then bent, to make the chassis. Rounded corners are apparently difficult to get just right, so we're adding a bit more space to them to help the cover go on smoothly. The several-millimeter gap potentially caused will be hidden the reflective splash panel (on the front) and the back plate, so this solution should be fine.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> The biggest was that the "green light" on/off switch we use, has to be swapped for one without a light


Without the light, how would I know if the machine is on? (assuming that the tablet is in standby)


----------



## filthynines

patrickff said:


> Without the light, how would I know if the machine is on? (assuming that the tablet is in standby)


Looks like a rocker switch - that should be ok?


----------



## roastini

patrickff said:


> Without the light, how would I know if the machine is on? (assuming that the tablet is in standby)


Note that this switch is on the back of the machine, so even if there were a light it wouldn't be that useful for many people. (I'm assuming that often the back of the machine will be facing a wall.)


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> Without the light, how would I know if the machine is on? (assuming that the tablet is in standby)


When you turn the machine on, the pump makes a few noises and a pressure test happens, which takes about 3 seconds. That's how I notice that I powered the machine on.

If I expect the machine to be on, I put my hand on the group head (or body) to feel for warmth.

There are several LEDs on the back, which you can see through the semi-opaque back panel, that light up as power is distributed between the three heaters. That's technically how we check that the machine is working correctly.

In previous DE1 versions, we had the CPU/PCB fan running all the time, which was useful to tell that the DE1 was on. However, Ray and I decided to only turn the fan on when needed (PCB temp>50ºC), as having an absolutely silent home appliance is preferable.

In a future version, we're thinking of having a colored LED behind the group head, which will have the multiple-use of indicating

(a) power is on

(b) the machine is ready to make an espresso (green) or heating (red)

© the machine is making an espresso and lighting up the scene (white)

Generally, I leave the DE1 powered on all the time, as it goes to sleep automatically and consumes the same as a BLE device (virtually nothing) in such a state. The tablet can be turned off or just left on with its no-backlight screen saver on (you have control over the lighting level of the screen saver). That makes the screen saver use very little power. In such a situation, when you tap the screen, the screen saver goes away, and the DE1 heats up. When I'm done making my espresso, I usually tap the "power off" icon on the screen: the DE1 goes back to sleep and the screen saver pops up on the tablet. The other advantage of doing this is that you can schedule the tablet to "wake up" the DE1 at a scheduled time, so you don't have to wait 5 minutes for it to warm up. That's also what I do, so I can make an espresso in the morning in my bathrobe without delays, and without an earlier pre-shower "power on" visit.



filthynines said:


> Looks like a rocker switch - that should be ok?


Yes, once your body "learns" that the rocker switch pushed in, toward the outside of the case, means the DE1 is on, you can feel the switch to see if the machine is on. Of course, I do this, but I think this is a bit too much to expect of people.


----------



## decent_espresso

I previously mentioned that we were working to fix a problem with the cover not fitting well on our espresso machine chassis. To make 100% sure that the problem is solved, we're now paying the sheet metal company to completely assemble our chassis, so that they can confirm (before shipping to us) that everything fits. We shipped them last week a completely assembled espresso machine that we put together, they could copy from.

We'll need to disassemble the case a bit here in Hong Kong, in order to put all the espresso machine components in. However, I think the slightly wasted effort is worth it to know that all the metal parts really, truly fit together. Not just once, but for every complete chassis.

Attached are some photos we received this morning from our sheet metal manufacturer in Shenzhen, showing what they've done. They're sending it to us today, so we can take it apart and make sure they assembled it right, and that all the little problems we spotted in the past few weeks have truly been resolved.


----------



## decent_espresso

Two thousand thermometer probes arrived today. We use 6 of these in each machine (they're very useful). That can cause a problem: so many probes and wires that look identical, how to make sure you plugged the probe into the right place? That problem is compounded by the fact that the probes all plug into a single circuit board, all in a line.

That's why we're putting a color-coded fabric mesh tube around each cable, with each cable getting its own color combination. This stretchy tube expands to 2x its size and then stays put on the cable. We can make colored drawings that show how everything should plug in together. Someone nontechnical can then be assigned to check that everything was done correctly.

In the photos, you can see the thermometer probes, two photos showing where they plug in, and the colored tubes we're looking at using.


----------



## jwCrema

decent_espresso said:


> Attached are some photos we received this morning from our sheet metal manufacturer in Shenzhen, showing what they've done. They're sending it to us today, so we can take it apart and make sure they assembled it right, and that all the little problems we spotted in the past few weeks have truly been resolved.
> 
> View attachment 30489
> View attachment 30490
> View attachment 30491
> View attachment 30492


Love this idea. The problem of 32 hours per machine is The Goal per Goldratt. Suppliers that are able to pre-assemble components to the degree it's practical will be a breakthrough.


----------



## decent_espresso

600 water heaters arrived today (in each espresso machine: one for hot water, one for steam). We were waiting to receive them before we ordered the parts to make the insulation box around each. We were worried that some dimensions might have changed between "our receiving the sample" and "our receiving the final product".

The good news is that "nothing changed" and so now we'll have the boxes in about a week, and we can start assembling them.


----------



## Norvin

decent_espresso said:


> I'm often looking at a portafilter and wondering "what capacity size is this basket?"
> 
> An idea I had was to laser etch the number, LARGE, in the bottom of the basket. The laser slightly pits the stainless steel surface, causing the number to be legible. It shouldn't affect the basket's functionality.
> 
> At any rate, the black carbon does start to clean up with a rough sponge, but it's really hard to get into these nooks and crannies and clean it all out. A mechanical polishing might be better but probably wouldn't get all of it. Waterpik? Fine sandblasting?
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.


Ultrasonic bath?


----------



## decent_espresso

A good year ago, we all had a lively discussion about how to charge the tablet that sits on our espresso machine. What kind of connector? Waterproofing? Standards? Aesthetics? Permanent or removable?

In the end, we went with the standard "USB-A to USB-Micro" cable that virtually all Android phones use. We found a rubberized "panel mount" water resistant plug for the front panel of the espresso machine.

For the USB cable itself, I wanted something as invisible as possible, and just the right length. We only needed a 6cm long cable, whereas the shortest off-the-shelf cables were 14cm (photo shows ours vs the standard cable). The too-long cables looked really sloppy. I also didn't like the design "features", with logos, multiple colors and shapes, strain relief circles. Give me Simple, please.

So, we designed our own USB cable.

It uses a minimalist "box" shape for the side the plugs into the tablet (USB micro), that you can easily grip because of its size. For the USB-A side, a simple shape, no logo, is all we needed.

It wasn't easy finding a company that would make our cable because this is so inexpensive a part (about USD$1 each) that minimum order quantities are usually 10,000 cables.

Because we went with a common standard, you can (a) use your own cable if you prefer, such as to have a longer cable, or (b) use your own USB charger, if you prefer.

Or, just use our cable, which is an appropriate length for its intended use, and of a fairly invisible design, that it fits in.

1500 of these cables arrived today.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> 1500 of these cables arrived today.


With all the parts arriving, your office space must look like a jungle


----------



## decent_espresso

Getting a perfect distribution of grounds to make an espresso is really difficult. Your grinder and your "grooming technique" are key, and they have a huge impact on the quality of your espresso drink. This is one of the hardest things to learn, and even the top baristas struggle with this problem.

A major issue is that you literally do not know what's going on inside your puck.

A tool like the OCD appears to give you uniform density, but research from Socratic Coffee has shown this be illusionary. The OCD makes your espresso quality more variable, despite appearances.

After you tamp, you likely still have areas of different coffee ground density. If you use a bottomless portafilter, you can see the nefarious effect of this when you pull your shot.

We've designed a tool, integrated into our calibrated tamper, which (if it works) will show you what's going on inside your puck after you've tamped.

Attached are some photos of the design we have in mind, of a tamper integrated into a pressure sensor. A preliminary test with a tamper on a rectangular sensor at about 50lbs of force, showed that this could work.

We've discussed this with @sensitronics and are awaiting a proposal from them to build such a thing. Initially, we would make prototypes, for use in understanding grinding and grounds distribution better. If it's economically feasible, this could become a product.


----------



## Dylan

Tech in your tamper!

It would certainly be interesting to see if the distribution techniques we use are effective in this way, doesn't half sound like it will be an expensive tamper tho!

I have pondered a proper distribution tool that would sit on top of the basket and has mixing arms that poke into the puck and mix it up, but leave a perfectly level bed to tamp, something to take the guess work out of distribution.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I have pondered a proper distribution tool that would sit on top of the basket and has mixing arms that poke into the puck and mix it up, but leave a perfectly level bed to tamp, something to take the guess work out of distribution.


Ahem. We might be thinking along similar lines.


----------



## Dylan

Ah yes, I remember that from earlier in the thread. What was the idea behind it again as it seems to sit above the basket?


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Ah yes, I remember that from earlier in the thread. What was the idea behind it again as it seems to sit above the basket?


The idea is to not compact the grounds. The blades lift the extra grounds up, rather than compressing down.

The fairly large width of those blades causes the coffee grounds to pile up inside the funnel during grinding. After you grind, you spin the funnel to distribute the extra grounds.

Currently, it's working well except for the center circle idea. Grounds can't make their way through that.

Still, this is a work in progress and needs a few more revisions.

Part of the idea behind being able to see inside the puck is to really understand what we're doing to the grounds, rather than creating a theory that seems to fit the observable facts.


----------



## Dylan

To me the apparent observable facts would suggest that with some grinders (especially free fall direct from burrs) certain groups of particles find their way to the edges and others fall more directly downward. I would imagine static and weight play a part.

If this is the case they I would imagine your tool would only catch a certain group of particles, and those that spray to the edges would fall around it first, and then the rest deposited in top.

Of course, your own experimentation is more concrete evidence than my guess work above, but it is what occurred to me when looking at it.


----------



## u2jewel

I'm not sure what to make of this.

I see this as a diagnosis tool. If I've understood this correctly, there are numerous individual pressure sensors to be arranged on the tamper base, giving you readings on pressure applied? Higher pressure spots = higher density?

If one was to look at the naked portafilter, and examine the pattern of how the beads of espresso form and start to seep, along with at what time lag amongst varying areas, one could visualise (and hypothesise) what kind of uneven distribution and/or uneven tamping took place.

Post mortem will teach you a lot about the cause of death and circumstances leading to that point. But for that individual, meaningless. Same for espresso (sorry for the morbid analogy). Only cumulative knowledge can be applied for better future preparation. So in that sense, since it is a diagnosis tool, it is only as good and useful as how the tool is utilised and applied.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying this is an unnecessary tool; just as we use various parameters to forecast weather (radar, satellite, barometers, wind etc) I think the more differing tools we have to collaborate individual data, the higher and more accurate the resolution of our understanding of what caused that particular shot profile. So in that sense, more the merrier!

So to brainstorm out loud, how would the data be presented? Is it going to be Bluetooth? Surely no one wants a tethered tamper like the good old mouse ☺. Also you'd want a marker spot on the basket to which the grinder and tamper should be aligned to. Otherwise, correlation of data would be difficult.

Prep work is still by far the most neglected aspect of espresso making. How the grind is delivered to the basket or container will determine the level of 'grooming' required after the delivery.

I have seen lots of efforts and attempts put into the remedy side of the delivery, but no preventative ingenuity applied thus so far in this market. It is high time that energy and resource be put into 'how' the grind is delivered to the basket. I say basket, because people who grind into cups and containers (usually) do so to mitigate the delivery flaw.

Delivery manner is more problematic when single dosing.

I have no doubt that a tool like this is within your creative and engineering capability.

But why can't there be a revolution? I'd love to see Decent Espresso tackle this weakest link in espresso making. With regard to doser grinders, it's still stone age technology from the days before I was born! On demand grinders have evolved a bit in the last few years. All good for pro cafes, but domestic consumers always have to sacrifice convenience or freshness. Both are currently difficult to achieve simultaneously. On demand is iron age. At least it's advanced an age.. Dosing Funnels and all sorts of distribution tools. Just to make coffee sit in the basket the way we want it.. Goodness, how do those super autos do it all inside the machine? Surely there can be some technology transfer here!

I truly believe that there is a massive group of people who have tried espressos but not returned, because the had a bad one. Amongst things like hygiene and beans quality, there are number of reasons why an espresso can be terribly wrong. Just like sushi, where 20 years ago, outside of Japan, it was very difficult to be greeted by an a) authentic, b) fresh, and c) good sushi (because like espresso, big part is prep work and technique, not just raw freshness!) And I think majority of those sink shots served to customers in sub-par cafes are results of badly extracted espresso. There are too many places serving near cold and sour espressos where people could easily try for the first time and say 'never!' If you asked me for a specific reason why a bad espresso is most likely to happen, I think it will boil down to this pinpoint, which is badly prepped basket caused by bad delivery. Slight over or under extraction tastes nowhere near as badly as a channelling shot. Tamping is important, but no technique can alter the already laid foundation layout or its density.

So there's a fork in the road. Do we fix the delivery? A doser that homogenises the grind and makes it snow evenly like a good shower screen? Or create a super smart tamper with flexible base, which contours to the necessary landscape, thus creating an even density puck?

Fix this seemingly simple problem with a very complex solution; because this complex problem has yet to find a simple solution, and we have a winner, where the global espresso consumption would increase by ten fold!

If this many people are willing to invest in a puq press (I'm still surprised!) then a counterpart dosing machine; one that mixes the grinds and sieves it out by shaking the homogenised grinds to make it fall into the basket will, sell just as well and if not more, because doing this well is more valuable than tamping well.


----------



## u2jewel

Wow, conversation progressed while typing a long input!

Anyway, have you guys seen this?

https://www.coffeeparts.com.au/accessories/edo-twister-dosing-tool-silver


----------



## Dylan

I had not.looks interesting but I do wish prices for such things were not such a joke tho.

Edit: to be fair, £140 odd isn't the most expensive thing in the coffee world, but it would be 200+ imported.


----------



## u2jewel

Dylan said:


> I had not. I do wish prices for such things were not such a joke tho.


Agreed.. Even more because it's AUD, it makes it look more expensive than the already expensive real price..


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> To me the apparent observable facts would suggest that with some grinders (especially free fall direct from burrs) certain groups of particles find their way to the edges and others fall more directly downward. I would imagine static and weight play a part.


I agree with you, and those are my hunches too.



Dylan said:


> If this is the case they I would imagine your tool would only catch a certain group of particles, and those that spray to the edges would fall around it first, and then the rest deposited in top. Of course, your own experimentation is more concrete evidence than my guess work above, but it is what occurred to me when looking at it.


Perger's (friendly) criticism of my distribution tool's approach is that I don't "go deep" and fix the problems well below the surface. He's of course right. He's working a grooming tool that does that.

So far, because the blade sits in a funnel, the ground dose generally rises 1cm to 2cm above the lip of the basket, and is now in the funnel. Spinning the blade fairly even distributes that final (say) 2cm of coffee. It doesn't so much for the grounds that just passed through.

My personal feeling is that the right way to get to a homogeneous particle distribution is via the grinder and with that you have a hint as to the direction we're going.

So far, I'd say that my "blade" distribution tool aims to "be a better OCD", ie groom the top of the puck evenly, and to do so without unevenly compressing the puck (which results in a lower TDS). This blade tool is not as good as grinding into a milk jug and shaking the grounds around (which is what I do when I want a REALLY good shot). And, I don't know that our blade will ever become a product. It's an experimental direction, at the moment. Once I get proper data on what it's doing, it can be refined and maybe become good enough to be manufactured.


----------



## decent_espresso

u2jewel said:


> Wow, conversation progressed while typing a long input!
> 
> Anyway, have you guys seen this?
> 
> https://www.coffeeparts.com.au/accessories/edo-twister-dosing-tool-silver


To me as a coffee fan (not speaking as a manufacturer or competitor), this looks super interesting and potentially good approach.

What I'd love to see is more objective analysis tools, so that people like Socratic can do reviews of the different approaches, and we can try to bring a bit of the scientific method to the espresso world. TDS measurements have been a huge help, but we need more methods.


----------



## decent_espresso

u2jewel said:


> If I've understood this correctly, there are numerous individual pressure sensors to be arranged on the tamper base, giving you readings on pressure applied? Higher pressure spots = higher density?


Yes, that's the theory.



u2jewel said:


> If one was to look at the naked portafilter, and examine the pattern of how the beads of espresso form and start to seep, along with at what time lag amongst varying areas, one could visualise (and hypothesise) what kind of uneven distribution and/or uneven tamping took place.


I agree with you, and certainly many coffee obsessives watch how the shot starts out to determine if their distribution was good. This is why we put a big mirrored lip on our espresso machine.



u2jewel said:


> Just to clarify, I'm not saying this is an unnecessary tool; just as we use various parameters to forecast weather (radar, satellite, barometers, wind etc) I think the more differing tools we have to collaborate individual data, the higher and more accurate the resolution of our understanding of what caused that particular shot profile. So in that sense, more the merrier!


As a friend of mine likes to say, "we're in violent agreement".



u2jewel said:


> Also you'd want a marker spot on the basket to which the grinder and tamper should be aligned to. Otherwise, correlation of data would be difficult.


Good point, a rotational marker on the basket and tamper would be helpful.



u2jewel said:


> So to brainstorm out loud, how would the data be presented? Is it going to be Bluetooth? Surely no one wants a tethered tamper like the good old mouse ☺.


Our first attempts are going to be modifying a Puqpress and possibly a Macap, so that we remove most of the human variability.

For the moment, this is "lab gear" and tethered to a computer. Given that this thing is going to be expensive to make, and likely not that durable, I can't imagine using it in a production setting.

However, mounted into a Puqpress, it's theoretically possible that this could be used in a cafe, with a quality-control pass/fail type anaylsis for each puck.



u2jewel said:


> Prep work is still by far the most neglected aspect of espresso making. How the grind is delivered to the basket or container will determine the level of 'grooming' required after the delivery.


I'm still in "violent agreement" with you....



u2jewel said:


> I have seen lots of efforts and attempts put into the remedy side of the delivery, but no preventative ingenuity applied thus so far in this market. It is high time that energy and resource be put into 'how' the grind is delivered to the basket. I say basket, because people who grind into cups and containers (usually) do so to mitigate the delivery flaw.


I *suspect* that there was significant R&D time during the Mythos development, to this problem, as that grinder appears to do a much better job than others at this problem. It does happen sometimes that engineers do great things that are not communicated to the public.



u2jewel said:


> But why can't there be a revolution? I'd love to see Decent Espresso tackle this weakest link in espresso making. With regard to doser grinders, it's still stone age technology from the days before I was born!
> 
> On demand grinders have evolved a bit in the last few years. All good for pro cafes, but domestic consumers always have to sacrifice convenience or freshness. Both are currently difficult to achieve simultaneously.
> 
> On demand is iron age. At least it's advanced an age.. Dosing Funnels and all sorts of distribution tools. Just to make coffee sit in the basket the way we want it..
> 
> Goodness, how do those super autos do it all inside the machine? Surely there can be some technology transfer here!


Your rant could have come from my lips. I agree, and for now, we need to get our espresso machines shipping. The slogan on the web site is "Rethinking everything about espresso" and we won't be stopping at espresso machines.



u2jewel said:


> I truly believe that there is a massive group of people who have tried espressos but not returned, because the had a bad one. Amongst things like hygiene and beans quality, there are number of reasons why an
> 
> espresso can be terribly wrong. Just like sushi, where 20 years ago, outside of Japan, it was very difficult to be greeted by an a) authentic, b) fresh, and c) good sushi (because like espresso, big part is prep work and technique, not just raw freshness!) And I think majority of those sink shots served to customers in sub-par cafes are results of badly extracted espresso. There are too many places serving near cold and sour espressos where people could easily try for the first time and say 'never!' If you asked me for a specific reason why a bad espresso is most likely to happen, I think it will boil down to this pinpoint, which is badly prepped basket caused by bad delivery. Slight over or under extraction tastes nowhere near as badly as a channelling shot. Tamping is important, but no technique can alter the already laid foundation layout or its density.


I'm still agreeing with you: "it will boil down to this pinpoint, which is badly prepped basket"

My experiments with cheap Chinese grinders (I've bought 1 of most of them) is that if you homogenize the grinds in a milk jug, and then prep the basket well, they make very acceptable espresso. I was surprised. Unfortunately, the people who would buy such a grinder are very unlikely to do the necessary "post processing", so I don't think there's a market for those grinders.



u2jewel said:


> So there's a fork in the road. Do we fix the delivery? etc... thus creating an even density puck?


Personally, I think it's the grinder's job to fix this problem.



u2jewel said:


> If this many people are willing to invest in a puq press (I'm still surprised!) then a counterpart dosing machine; one that mixes the grinds and sieves it out by shaking the homogenised grinds to make it fall into the basket will, sell just as well and if not more, because doing this well is more valuable than tamping well.


I'm still agreeing, though I believe the homogenising should take place in the box we call a "grinder".


----------



## Obnic

+1 for 'it should take place in the grinder'.


----------



## decent_espresso

We use the standard IEC cable to plug our espresso machines into the wall. These are the same cables you find on computers.

Two years ago, I noticed that the cable was often warm, and while back in the US, I bought a thicker cable (for $29 https://www.amazon.com/6ft-Nema-5-15P-Locking-Auto-Lock/dp/B00S5K9G52/ ) and found that the cable was now no longer warm.

We've just received 1000 power cables for the US, UK and EU standards. For the EU, we're using the hybrid Germany/France standard, which can ground either top/bottom or with a dedicated pin.

We bought the thickest, most heavy duty cables we could readily find. In the bottom photo, you can see the difference between ours (left) and the common PC cable (right), which is what we've always used.

For the techies out there, our US cables are 14AWG, while our EU/UK cables are 16AWG (1.5mm²).

Especially in the US, where 110V is not-that-much-power, we're happy to enjoy the extra juice that a good cable provides. And that's not even mentioning the ecological issue of not wasting electricity because of the cable warming.


----------



## Bob Stern

decent_espresso said:


> Two years ago, I noticed that the cable was often warm, and while back in the US, I bought a thicker [14 AWG] cable (for $29 https://www.amazon.com/6ft-Nema-5-15P-Locking-Auto-Lock/dp/B00S5K9G52/ ) and found that the cable was now no longer warm.


As a matter of curiosity, was the entire cable warm, or merely the connectors?

I find that the connectors often get hot in low cost AC power cords, presumably because of bad soldering or welding between the connectors and the wire.

Once I removed a plug from a power cable from a well-known US audiophile manufacturer and found that one conductor had only one of its strands connected to the plug.


----------



## decent_espresso

Bob Stern said:


> As a matter of curiosity, was the entire cable warm, or merely the connectors? I find that the connectors often get hot in low cost AC power cords, presumably because of bad soldering or welding between the connectors and the wire. Once I removed a plug from a power cable from a well-known US audiophile manufacturer and found that one conductor had only one of its strands connected to the plug.


On the cable I held in the USA, the cable was quite warm (~40ºC) at the middle. I didn't think to touch near the connectors.

I'm going to ask one of our EE student interns to do a side/by/side comparison of the cables' electrical properties.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> On the cable I held in the USA, the cable was quite warm (~40ºC) at the middle. I didn't think to touch near the connectors.
> 
> I'm going to ask one of our EE student interns to do a side/by/side comparison of the cables' electrical properties.


That sounds like the wiring was simply too high gauge, as you surmised. I'm assuming the entire cable was about that warm.

If it was just in a single spot (which seems unlikely), that sounds like there was an internal fray or some other source of resistance at that spot.

If it was just the connector that was warm, that would have suggested a problem with the connection - either the plug or the outlet.


----------



## decent_espresso

Today, testing samples of 21 different designs for steam wand tips arrived.

Our DE1/DE1+ machines come with a steam wand tip that has one hole. This makes microfoam quite easy to create, with the medium-power steam those espresso machines provide.

With the DE1PRO+ and DE1CAFE, we'll have a higher powered steam heater available, and thus the option to direct steam into your milk jug in various ways.

Decent engineer Ben Champion has been studying the various theories behind steam wand designs, as well as putting forward his own ideas, and those of our advisors. He created these 21 designs so we could test them.

At the moment, we have 3 samples of each design, CNCed out of stainless steel. Once we pare down the list of feasible tip designs, we'll want to work with our customers to beta test them, and to see which they like, as well as what interesting designs we might have missed.

I've used the Sproline Foam Knife http://www.talkcoffee.com.au/shop/sproline-foam-knife-steam-tip/ on our two-group E61 machine, and found that to be much easier to control than the 3 hole tip that came with the machine.

It's my hunch that different tips will be useful in different situations. Very high powered steam will likely need a larger aperture, such as a "blade" shape.


----------



## decent_espresso

300 mixing chambers arrived at our factory today. These are made of a medical-grade resin called "Ultem", and they have 3 valves attached.

This part is where water comes, its temperature and pressure is read, and then the valves decide if the water should go to espresso, steam, hot water (tea) or be recirculated because it's not yet at the right temperature.

These were made for us by our Italian valve manufacturer ODE because they're the first production use of a custom-made (small format) valve and they were concerned about leakage.

It turns out that they were right to be worried. 3 managers came over yesterday to tell us that they experienced a 60% failure rate. If one of those 3 valves leaked at 19 bar of pressure, the entire thing has to be discarded.

They kind of lost their shirt making these for us, because Ultem is a very expensive material. For the next run, they've asked us to make some small design modifications that they think should greatly reduce the defect rate.

As you can see in the photo, this is a high precision, low-tolerance part. It's also expensive, at $88 each, our cost, at quantity. Figuring out how to make this part less expensively, and more reliably, will be something we focus on over the next 6 months.


----------



## o2c

So does that mean you only have parts for 120 machines until more arrive? What's the lead time on replacements with the design modifications?


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## decent_espresso

o2c said:


> So does that mean you only have parts for 120 machines until more arrive?


No, it means that the manufacturer of that part had to make 700 of them, in order to deliver 300 parts that survived the 19bar leak test. That's why they wanted a meeting.

We have enough parts for 300 machines.



o2c said:


> What's the lead time on replacements with the design modifications?


It's 30 minutes of work in CAD to make the change (adding 2mm of space for sheaths that will fit into the holes). Really easy.

And because these are CNCed (carved out by a computerized drill) the CAD design change is effective immediately.

So, our next batch of 1000 espresso machines will incorporate that change, and likely other changes as we learn how to further improve the design.

-john


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> It turns out that they were right to be worried. 3 managers came over yesterday to tell us that they experienced a 60% failure rate. If one of those 3 valves leaked at 19 bar of pressure, the entire thing has to be discarded.


The 300 that "made it" should now be ok for years to come, correct?


----------



## jwCrema

patrickff said:


> The 300 that "made it" should now be ok for years to come, correct?


And what happens if they decide they are no longer going to make these things in the future and Decent Espresso decides to exit the espresso machine business to become the Decent Pizza company?


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## Dylan

jwCrema said:


> And what happens if they decide they are no longer going to make these things in the future and Decent Espresso decides to exit the espresso machine business to become the Decent Pizza company?


This has been discussed earlier, but there is a lot to wade through.

Decent accept this is a possibility, but their machine simply wouldn't be possible with off the shelf components. They are very generously going to upload all of the CAD designs for their custom parts so the community might be able to create something that works. At least I think this is what Decent are doing.

Ultimately however a custom made part like this is not going to be easy to make even with the designs to help out, if Decent go bust it may well be difficult to repair down the line.


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## Dylan

@decent_espresso

So something that intrigues me -

Why have you chosen to go down the route of sharing absolutely everything about this machine? It's been mentioned elsewhere but by sharing designs you are eschewing the ability to patent any part of your design and from the speed of development I would guess you have no existing patents on the parts you have designed?

Is the community feedback and limited marketing you get from sharing all this worth it? When sharing the CAD designs do you have worries this will make it easy for copycats? Considering many parts will be difficult/impossible to manufacture for your average joe what are the benefits of sharing that outweigh the negatives?


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## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> And what happens if they decide they are no longer going to make these things in the future and Decent Espresso decides to exit the espresso machine business to become the Decent Pizza company?





Dylan said:


> This has been discussed earlier, but there is a lot to wade through.
> 
> Decent accept this is a possibility, but their machine simply wouldn't be possible with off the shelf components. They are very generously going to upload all of the CAD designs for their custom parts so the community might be able to create something that works. At least I think this is what Decent are doing.
> 
> Ultimately however a custom made part like this is not going to be easy to make even with the designs to help out, if Decent go bust it may well be difficult to repair down the line.


Thanks Dylan, for answering the question for me (grin).

Yes, you're right, but I'd also like to add that


all parts will be available for sale from our web site to any punter (not just repairmen)

if we should stop doing business, all our parts stock would continue to be sold through many outlets

yes, there are custom parts, but the STEP files (CAD format) we're providing are enough for any CNC maker to make them. You might not be able to find someone to make it in Ultem, but our early mixing chambers were made from solid Teflon, which also worked. Nylon and Aluminum would also work, though all of these are less nice than Ultem.

Note that the valves we're using from ODE (big Italian espresso parts company) can be bought directly from them. The only custom part is the CNCed part.




Dylan said:


> So something that intrigues me - Why have you chosen to go down the route of sharing absolutely everything about this machine?
> 
> It's been mentioned elsewhere but by sharing designs you are eschewing the ability to patent any part of your design and from the speed of development I would guess you have no existing patents on the parts you have designed?


Thanks for asking. Patents and copyright are something of a specialty of mine, as I used to be Chairman of the EFF http://eff.org, on the board of Creative Commons https://creativecommons.org/, as well as in the music licensing business http://ilicensemusic.com/

A very short answer would be that Patents lead to two scenarios:

a) a large company copies you. You get to spend a decade and crazy legal fees suing them. At some point they determine how to bypass your patent and you lose. Or you run out of money. Or the large company counter-sues with one of their Patents (relevant or not, you get to pay legal fees to defend yourself). All the while, your management are very distracted by the suits and your business suffers for lack of management focus.

b) A Chinese company copies you, sells their stuff on Amazon and eBay and you can do nothing about it

and this also occurs:

c) you get to pay your lawyers to threaten and pursue anyone who appears to be infringing. If you don't do this, your patent is worthless. Oh, and you make enemies out of every company that you threaten and will likely never partner with them due to this.

Slightly longer answer:

A Patent is a public document, and it makes it much easier for others to copy you, either legally (slight modification to avoid infringement) or illegally (in a jurisdiction you can't do anything about).

Furthermore, anyone can copy anything that is visible. Any competent mechanical engineer can take apart any machine (including ours), and have a drawn copy of it in Solidworks within a week. By keeping our CAD files secret, the only people we would harm would be our customers, partners and repairmen. Our competitors would just make their own CAD drawings.

I feel that the only protection is to keep something secret. The "magic" in our espresso machine is in the firmware. It was really difficult to figure out how to mix hot and cold water to reach fast 1ºC accuracy, while also enabling variable pressure and flow, against a coffee puck that is itself varying in backpressure. I don't have any plans to disclose how we did that (it took 3 years, and USD$2M of R&D to figure it out), in a Patent or otherwise.



Dylan said:


> Is the community feedback and limited marketing you get from sharing all this worth it? When sharing the CAD designs do you have worries this will make it easy for copycats? Considering many parts will be difficult/impossible to manufacture for your average joe what are the benefits of sharing that outweigh the negatives?


First of all, I don't see a Patent as providing any advantage at all (see first point above).

Secondly, as far as advantages go, being open:

1) lets people have greater confidence in buying

2) helps us develop a secondary market (accessories, mods, etc)

3) taps in the maker community and a much larger pool of minds to improve the product

4) makes repairs and maintenance much easier.

5) helps people like us.


----------



## Dylan

Great answer, and really interesting viewpoint on the subject.


----------



## Obnic

Presumably, also, innovating like weasels without the illusion of a patent safety net, creates a culture whereby you guys will be onto the next next next iteration/solution around the time any soulless IP thief gets tooled up to manufacture your stuff.

I had similar challenges in my business with other operations encountering something we had done and just willfully stealing it. The thing was, all the value was in the expertise required to make the thing in the first place - without that, they couldn't apply the tool with insight. They got quite a few client orgnisations into trouble by just pushing buttons without deep know-how.


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## Dayks

The other part I assume with the patents is cost, a quick search online shows the cost of filing a patent in the US to be in the tens of thousands.

So even if there is no interest it could still be prohibitively expensive to do in the first place, especially as I imagine you would need to file multiple patents.


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## decent_espresso

Dayks said:


> The other part I assume with the patents is cost, a quick search online shows the cost of filing a patent in the US to be in the tens of thousands. So even if there is no interest it could still be prohibitively expensive to do in the first place, especially as I imagine you would need to file multiple patents.


According to this article, the average cost to obtain a patent in the USA is USD$60k

http://www.blueironip.com/what-do-patents-actually-cost/

Honest lawyers :-D will tell you that the real cost of the patent is enforcement. As a patent holder you are required to vigorously defend any perceived infringement or else if you ever go to trial, your legal position will be very weak.

And let's gloss over the point that this is a USA patent only and the ignoring the costs involved in filing/defending a patent in each major jurisdiction.

As a passing note on this topic, I'm pretty sure that the major espresso machine manufacturers are infringing on each other's patents (do a search on espresso machine related patents and you'll see what I mean). However, because there's so much cross-infringement, I'm guessing that nobody turns to their lawyers, because that way leads to ruin. The Apple/Samsung patent suits are a good example of where that leads.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's a photo of some of our espresso machine parts that have arrived in 300-machine production quantities.

I thought you might be interested in some comments about some of them.

1: these are how water arrives onto the coffee puck, and these parts exist in the "group head".

1a: is shaped like an apple because our fluid dynamic simulations found this was most effective in breaking the momentum of the water as it arrived in there. Small calibrated grooves evenly spread the water out 12 holes (in 6 sections).

1b: is where the water goes next, and these are concentric "Step ladders" of holes, calibrated so that at 1ml/second, 2ml/second and 3ml/second, each next concentric circle is used. This is so that if you use a slow preinfusion to make your coffee, water will be evenly distributed around the puck. Before these grooves, slow preinfusion caused a random section of the puck to get all the water (somewhat arbitrarily depending on surface tension and microparticles on the plate)

2: is a 3D printed "strain relief" kind of "girdle" that holds this tube in place, so that it does not exert twisting pressure at the joint, which could lead to a leak in a year or two. The page on the left shows how the 3 mixing chambers come together.

3: this metal box slows down the high-pressure water when your espresso finishes, so that you don't get splashed when it arrives in your drip tray.

4: these two "mini mixing chambers" (one is before the heater, one is after heater) mix water and also hold temperature sensors, and are made of Ultem.

5: the custom-stamped rubber sheets, with self-adhesive backs, are to prevent vibration from propagating out of the water tubes into the chassis, which could cause rattling noises.

6: we're color coding our water tubes with shrink tubing, to make it easier for us to assemble the machines, and to make it easier for repairmen and others to understand how the machine fits together. Originally, we found 6 colors, but two weeks ago found a source for 11 colors, which allows us to avoid having to use two colors to label a single tube.

Do you have any questions about anything else you see in this photo?


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## decent_espresso

A year ago, I researched current best practice in boxing things up for shipping. What I read promoted the concept of "crush zones" rather than "rigidity". The idea is that if an airplane baggage "thrower" drops the espresso machine onto the tarmac, that the packaging should be able to crush at the point of impact, and that the tarmac should never come into contact with the goods.

From what I've read about designing cars for crashes, this sounded very familiar. Better to have the packaging get badly crushed than the goods inside.

We've designed a box-inside-a-box, with a 5cm "crush zone". Fairly high-density foam holds the inside box in place. Those foam corners will also be the most likely to take the brunt of a package drop, so they need to be able to absorb and then gently bounce back.

We'll also be testing each espresso machine in our "shaking machine" before quality-control testing. That will simulate most of the voyage, but we also want to be able to withstand a serious package drop.

There is a custom box maker a few floors above us in our building, so we're able to buy these in small lots of 100 at a time. In the future, when I have a bit more time available, I'd like to research foam corners made out of recycled material.


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## decent_espresso

I've been working to finish up the DE1 tablet app so that I could publish it to the Google Play Store. My plan was to use the Play Store as a way to push software (and firmware) updates out to people who own our espresso machines.

However, this week Google announced something that made me reconsider this strategy, a requirement that app support the latest Android APIs or they won't be allowed on the Play Store. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/12/improving-app-security-and-performance.html

Ars Technica discusses it here:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/12/google-fights-fragmentation-new-android-features-to-be-forced-on-apps-in-2018/

The tablet included with the DE1 is a perfectly (good but not current) design. It runs Android 5.1. With this new announcement from Google, it's not clear to me that in the future, I'll definitely be able to put out DE1 App updates that are allowed in the play store. We'd become literally disconnected from our clients.

What if some open source library I'm using doesn't use the latest and greatest Google Tech? Then, I'm stuck either (a) not updating our app or (b) figuring out how to update other open source projects to the latest tech.

This isn't mere speculation: the DE1 GUI uses "Androwish" https://www.androwish.org as its programming language. This is a cross-platform toolkit which allows the DE1 GUI to run today on Android, OSX, Windows, and Linux. Soon, our app will also run on iOS. I picked this toolkit deliberately so that we wouldn't be locked into a single platform: the DE1 app could be run on an iPad or even a Windows or Linux laptop.

The other thing that's been worrying me is what would happen to everyone's DE1 if Google decided that the DE1 app was undesired for some reason. Apple announced last week and then backpedaled a bit (https://www.macrumors.com/2017/12/20/app-store-guidelines-updated-template-apps/) that they have new App standards and are retroactively purging apps that don't meet them. Google could arbitrarily decide to cancel our Play Store Developer Account. Even if we could contact someone at Google (debatable) to reinstate us, would they give us a new Play account, thereby disconnecting us from the existing DE1 App users?

Because of these announcements and concerns, I'm leaning heavily now toward not using the Google Play Store to distribute the DE1 app.

Instead, the App would be preinstalled on your tablet and would update itself by downloading itself from our web site. The DE1 App would also be downloadable as an APK that you install if you want to use your own tablet. And to arrest any worries, the App and its Source Code are downloadable, and open source as well. Instructions on how to run the App on a Desktop (OSX/Windows/Linux) will be provided.

My nervousness is that some change in Google Policy might mean that 5-year-old DE1s can no longer get App updates from Decent, and I want to go down a path where that doesn't happen.

What do you think?


----------



## Nishimiya

decent_espresso said:


> What do you think?


Would replacing the Play store by FDroid be a solution ?


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## dlight

I've had a similar problem on IOS with a security app that I use. I now have to replace an entire security system if I want access on an iPhone (or Android for that matter). I'd suggest avoid using app stores for technology that has a long life, as on Decent's control systems.


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## embrya

I would prefer direct download from DE website to avoid any problems with appstores!

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


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## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> Instead, the App would be preinstalled on your tablet and would update itself by downloading itself from our web site. The DE1 App would also be downloadable as an APK that you install if you want to use your own tablet. And to arrest any worries, the App and its Source Code are downloadable, and open source as well. Instructions on how to run the App on a Desktop (OSX/Windows/Linux) will be provided.


If you go this route, the updates should be cryptographically signed, with a public key (and source site) that can be updated in the program's settings. That way if a hacker gains control of your website, they can't maliciously update the software on everyone's machine. The public key (and source site) should be changeable by the user in case one day Decent goes under and the community decides to take over software development.


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## o2c

The Amazon App store isn't similarly restrictive, is it? How hard would it be to have it try to get updates from different sources, Google, Amazon, or you?


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## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> If you go this route, the updates should be cryptographically signed, with a public key (and source site) that can be updated in the program's settings. That way if a hacker gains control of your website, they can't maliciously update the software on everyone's machine. The public key (and source site) should be changeable by the user in case one day Decent goes under and the community decides to take over software development.


I agree. The Decent Espresso web site has always been https:// (encrypted) only, with no http: access. Updates to the DE1 will be over https:// but will also give a big complaint if the public key does not match. However, it might not be wise to totally block updates if the keys don't match, as some people's Internet providers don't provide any other way to get to the internet, but to be "https proxied". I'll likely follow Google and Apple's example of the warning if the https:// certificate has changed.


----------



## decent_espresso

Nishimiya said:


> Would replacing the Play store by FDroid be a solution ?


Thank you for the F-Droid link. Reading about it https://f-droid.org/en/docs/ I wonder about creating a "Decent Espresso Repository" so that if other people write their own apps (or fork my app) then they could all be available in one place. This could be a nice way to get other compatible-with-decent projects visibility.

With my previous project Magnatune, there were some really great open source projects that integrated with our music, but they suffered from a lack of market-access. In other words, people didn't know (or perhaps, care) that they existed, and they weren't used and withered.



dlight said:


> I've had a similar problem on IOS with a security app that I use. I now have to replace an entire security system if I want access on an iPhone (or Android for that matter). I'd suggest avoid using app stores for technology that has a long life, as on Decent's control systems.


Very interesting, thanks for telling me about that experience.



o2c said:


> The Amazon App store isn't similarly restrictive, is it? How hard would it be to have it try to get updates from different sources, Google, Amazon, or you?


Given how I've been treated by Amazon during the 10 years of my BookMooch.com project, I REALLY REALLY don't want to put myself (and you) under the control of Amazon. They really don't care about being evil, and there's nobody you can call.

. . . . .

There are lots more comments on Facebook on this topic https://www.facebook.com/groups/decentespresso and it appears that technical people tend to prefer the DE1 app not going through the Google Play Store. I'm going to look at what's involved with making our own F-Droid repository, but a lean self-updating mechanism for the app is my likely direction for now.


----------



## rytopa

Hey John, could you maybe do a video on a temperature profiling shot with an example of decreasing temperature across the shot? Curious to see how the machine behaves with such a setting.


----------



## decent_espresso

rytopa said:


> Hey John, could you maybe do a video on a temperature profiling shot with an example of decreasing temperature across the shot? Curious to see how the machine behaves with such a setting.


Yep, good idea. I will do that in the next few weeks. I've not yet "wired up" the GUI I've written for the "Advanced Shot Profile" to the actual bluetooth commands to do it. That's on my very-soon todo list.

Before I make the video, though, I'll want to wait until we get our machine back from certification testing from Intertek. The reason is, that each prototype model we've made has had less and less group head mass, and more thermal isolation. For temperature profiling to work, the group head has to have minimal thermal mass, otherwise it's not possible to drag the temperature down in just 30s. The water mixing will bring the water temperature down, but the group head will bring it back up.

There's an inherent engineering tensions between "temperature stability" and "voluntary, fast, temperature change".

My expectation is that we won't be able to do big temperature swings that effectively yet, as it's not something we've focussed on, but it's something we'll improve with firmware updates. Now that the hardware design has stabilized, we can start programming the code to effectively counter the thermal mass of the group head.

But, we'll see. It might be that the PIDs magically do the right thing. That's how it's supposed to work.


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## jwCrema

Loved the post about the construction of the shipping box. I am really excited about the progress and it looks like we're getting close to building machines. Are we waiting for certifications right now? Any chance for an end of the year update for when the 300 machines will be shipped?


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> Yep, good idea. I will do that in the next few weeks. I've not yet "wired up" the GUI I've written for the "Advanced Shot Profile" to the actual bluetooth commands to do it. That's on my very-soon todo list.
> 
> Before I make the video, though, I'll want to wait until we get our machine back from certification testing from Intertek. The reason is, that each prototype model we've made has had less and less group head mass, and more thermal isolation. For temperature profiling to work, the group head has to have minimal thermal mass, otherwise it's not possible to drag the temperature down in just 30s. The water mixing will bring the water temperature down, but the group head will bring it back up.
> 
> There's an inherent engineering tensions between "temperature stability" and "voluntary, fast, temperature change".
> 
> My expectation is that we won't be able to do big temperature swings that effectively yet, as it's not something we've focussed on, but it's something we'll improve with firmware updates. Now that the hardware design has stabilized, we can start programming the code to effectively counter the thermal mass of the group head.
> 
> But, we'll see. It might be that the PIDs magically do the right thing. That's how it's supposed to work.


I'm enjoying quite how opposite your approach to temperature accuracy is from the historical reliance on thermal mass for stability. You really have had to build from the ground up to achieve the vision of this machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> Loved the post about the construction of the shipping box. I am really excited about the progress and it looks like we're getting close to building machines. Are we waiting for certifications right now? Any chance for an end of the year update for when the 300 machines will be shipped?


Here's an update (we just had a 4 day Christmas weekend):

The "big parts" are set to arrive this week (chassis, heater insulation boxes) and we're just about ready to start making sub-assemblies.

We recently bought a machine that measures and cuts whatever is on a spool, so as to measure out the right lengths of color coding tubing. We'll start cutting the tubing color coding the water tubing next week. Then we'll do the the same for all the electrical wires. The 6 temperature probes are all identical looking, but if you plug one into the wrong place, the firmware is very confused.

We'll shortly also start soldering (sigh) 12 points on each of 300 bluetooth modules. Unfortunately, I'd neglected to notice that the bluetooth modules come from Red Bear Labs as a DIY kit, and just noticed last week. We're going to switch to a machine soldered module with the next round of espresso machines.

Two new technical employees started today: (1) Kit, who has been a repairman for Miele for 8 years, and (2) Ray Wan, who has worked as a repairman of optical-validation-of-pc-boards, as well as having working a lot with Arduino and environmental sensors.

Instead of hiring what they call "labourers" here, I prefer to pay a bit more and get clever people who can add more value than a "grunt" is expected to. For these two positions, I wanted people who are used to troubleshooting, so that as they are assembling our machine, they can spot common problems. For example, during his interview, Ray pointed at an Arduino-powered test rig a student intern had built and said "that's missing a diode there, so your power supply will not be long lived". Hired!

Building an espresso machine is done in parts, with everything coming together at the end. That's especially true for ours, because space is tight. The final assembly needs to be as uncomplicated as possible, since maneuvering in a tight space is slower. So, that means that progress reports here will be about these "sub assemblies" for a while, until everything is ready to be put together, and all the machines will suddenly be ready in a very short time.



Dylan said:


> I'm enjoying quite how opposite your approach to temperature accuracy is from the historical reliance on thermal mass for stability. You really have had to build from the ground up to achieve the vision of this machine.


That's been the R&D journey of 3 years!

We started out, like everyone else, with a massive group head, to achieve temperature stability. 3 years ago, it didn't occur to us that variable temperature would be desirable. Rao advised me that nobody wanted it, and the two machines that had offered it had failed in the marketplace. When our water mixing approach was just getting started, and didn't work that well, the high thermal mass of the group head greatly reduced our error margin.

A big leap forward occured when we redesigned our group head to allow 2 thermal probes to be in the water path itself (at the top of the group [the entry point]) and right behind the shower shield). With much lower latency temperature readings, suddenly the mass became a liability. In the end, we thermally isolated the metal that touches water (which is CNCed in brass) from the rest of the group head (which is aluminum).

In the photo below, you can see the fiberglass insulation layer that separates the brass from the aluminum (the white arrow). I've labelled a few interesting points on this part.

And for those who are interested in the gritty reality, this photo below is an example of a CNCed part from a manufacturer that we rejected. You can see that the carving is quite coarse, either because their bits are worn down, or they're using too fast/coarse a CNC machine to make this.









As an aside, the lighter group head means a quicker warm up time. I think we're in the 4 minute range at the moment. I'll be adding a "I do not use steam" option, for pure espresso drinkers, so that warmup can be another minute faster.


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> As an aside, the lighter group head means a quicker warm up time. I think we're in the 4 minute range at the moment. I'll be adding a "I do not use steam" option, for pure espresso drinkers, so that warmup can be another minute faster.


Very interesting!

I'll appreciate the no steam Option as pure espresso drinker!!!

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## jwCrema

decent_espresso said:


> Here's an update (we just had a 4 day Christmas weekend):


Thanks for the update! I completely believe the 3 year journey has been one of gaining enlightenment and am really looking forward to getting my hands on it.

When I reserved my machine I put the 1/2 down - just holler when you're ready for the balance. I feel like I'm stealing the thing.


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## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> When I reserved my machine I put the 1/2 down - just holler when you're ready for the balance. I feel like I'm stealing the thing.


You are getting a good deal, but that's only fair as you put your faith and money into a project that was still in R&D (and earlier into R&D than I had thought). Back then, what you were getting wasn't even nailed down.

At any rate, you won't hear from us for more money until your machine is just about ready to ship to you.


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## decent_espresso

We use solid Teflon tubes to guide water around our espresso machine. There's not much space inside, so it's easy to lose track of which tube is which and plug the wrong thing into another.

That's why we're color coding all our water tubes. It'll be super easy to make sure everything is correctly connected. It'll also make it easier for anyone repairing our machines to understand what's going on. Our documentation will indicate these colors too.

Yesterday we received our precision cutting machine (top left) which uses a hot blade to slide through a reel of whatever-you-want. It's a neat tool: you can even set the temperature and the speed at which the blade moves.

These water tubes are made of shrink wrap tubing, which is usually used for electrical insulation. The colored tubes are 2x as large initially and shrink by half when heated to 125ºC.

Tomorrow and over the next few days, Miriam is going to color code all these tubes. Her main job is packing up our accessories orders. She's been getting much faster at it, so she usually has a few free hours each day, which she fills by quality-checking our stock (that's why we have a perpetual 30% sale going on for the not-quite-perfect stuff https://decentespresso.com/sale).

The potential for confusion is much greater with the temperature sensors. They all look alike, and there are 9 of them. We'll be using a mesh tube around those, and picking the final colors tomorrow.

We were waiting to order them because the mesh tube has to be cut with a hot knife, in order to seal the fibers. If you use scissors, the tube unwinds itself like an old knit scarf. It took a few hours of experimenting with our new auto-cutter to find the right blade temperature and speed.


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## salty

Hi

Quick question. Do you have a U.K. distributor for the Decent Tamper? Would like to avoid the exchange rate costs, import duty and additional VAT if it's possible


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## decent_espresso

salty said:


> Quick question. Do you have a U.K. distributor for the Decent Tamper? Would like to avoid the exchange rate costs, import duty and additional VAT if it's possible


Sorry: we only sell direct.

If we used a UK distributor, we'd have to charge more for our products (or manufacturer them cheaper) because the UK distributor would ask for a margin (typically 40%). Plus, I prefer to be your direct contact in case what you buy doesn't satisfy you for some reason.

Note that:

1) there are no exchange rate costs, as we charge in GBP using Stripe.

2) Royal Mail usually does not bother to charge duty on our coffee accessories. The UK is unusual in that way, as the continent is very efficient about always collecting duty. It will of course depend on your postman, but that's been our experience with the UK thus far.


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## salty

decent_espresso said:


> Sorry: we only sell direct.
> 
> If we used a UK distributor, we'd have to charge more for our products (or manufacturer them cheaper) because the UK distributor would ask for a margin (typically 40%). Plus, I prefer to be your direct contact in case what you buy doesn't satisfy you for some reason.
> 
> Note that:
> 
> 1) there are no exchange rate costs, as we charge in GBP using Stripe.
> 
> 2) Royal Mail usually does not bother to charge duty on our coffee accessories. The UK is unusual in that way, as the continent is very efficient about always collecting duty. It will of course depend on your postman, but that's been our experience with the UK thus far.


Thanks for the quick response - makes total sense re UK distributor.

Using a credit card that doesn't charge overseas commission and paying in USD using today's exchange rate of £1/$1.31 would result in a saving of around £11 on the total cost including shipping. Is paying in USD but shipping to the UK an option?

Thanks again


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## decent_espresso

salty said:


> Using a credit card that doesn't charge overseas commission and paying in USD using today's exchange rate of £1/$1.31 would result in a saving of around £11 on the total cost including shipping. Is paying in USD but shipping to the UK an option?Thanks again


The USA is cheaper for us to post to than anywhere else.

For some fairly obscure reasons you can read if you're curious

http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/11/05/how-the-usps-epacket-gives-postal-subsidies-to-chinese-e-commerce-merchants-to-ship-to-the-usa-cheap/

the US postal system and the Chinese/HK Postal system have set up a quite-cheap postage rate for HK->US. It's 3x cheaper for us to send HK->US than the other direction US->HK.

No such super-cheap postage rate exists with other countries, and so the price of our goods is cheaper on our web site for USA customers due to the less expensive postage costs. Sorry.


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## salty

decent_espresso said:


> The USA is cheaper for us to post to than anywhere else.
> 
> For some fairly obscure reasons you can read if you're curious
> 
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/11/05/how-the-usps-epacket-gives-postal-subsidies-to-chinese-e-commerce-merchants-to-ship-to-the-usa-cheap/
> 
> the US postal system and the Chinese/HK Postal system have set up a quite-cheap postage rate for HK->US. It's far cheaper for us to send HK->US than US->HK.
> 
> No such super-cheap postage rate exists with other countries, and so the price of our goods is cheaper on our web site for USA customers due to the less expensive postage costs. Sorry.


Thanks for the info - I may well put an order in later. Totally get the difference in postage rates but would still be cool (and better value) if there was an option to pay for the product in USD.

Cheers


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## salty

Really interesting article btw - thanks


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## 4085

@salty

how big in monetary terms was your order to save £11 please?


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## salty

dfk41 said:


> @salty
> 
> how big in monetary terms was your order to save £11 please?


£94 in GBP compared to £83.20 if I paid in USD for a tamper.


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## 4085

salty said:


> £94 in GBP compared to £83.20 if I paid in USD for a tamper.


thanks, just puts it in perspective a little!


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## salty

dfk41 said:


> thanks, just puts it in perspective a little!


Lol - I could see where you were coming from...


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## decent_espresso

salty said:


> £94 in GBP compared to £83.20 if I paid in USD for a tamper.


About £4 of that US/GB £10.80 difference in price *is* attributable to currency fluctuation, the rest is the difference in postage costs.

I set the non-USD prices when the product arrives from the factory that made it for us. Typically, we restock on an item every 6 months, and the currency exchange rates get fixed at that time. Note that USD is how we set the "anchor" price, because virtually all our suppliers get paid in USD (except for some of the European suppliers). Yes, Chinese factories get paid in USD, and (ahem) typically to a Hong Kong bank.

Postage is paid locally in HKD (Hong Kong Dollars) but the HKD value is pegged by the government to the USD, so we're effectively paying postage in USD.

The GBP price for an item on our web site does not fluctuate daily with the currency currency exchange markets, as it would be very confusing if our prices changed daily.

In this case of the tamper, the pound has appreciated about 4% since July, when the latest round of tampers arrived in stock and the price was set. Note that if the pound had depreciated 4% since that time, Brits would be getting a better deal. If the markets become worried about Brexit and the GBP, and the pound comes down in value, our web site price will not change (until we restock again).

Here's the past year of USD/GBP currency rates:

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=1Y

I do want to note that the lower price for the US is not due to some sort of Americo-centric view, but as my attempt to do my best within the complicated mess that is global commerce. I'm open to better options, but please don't suggest we should revalue the GBP/USD rate only when the GBP gets stronger, and not when it gets weaker.


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## decent_espresso

5 pm on a Friday, the guys decide to do some "easy on the brain" work and get the Bluetooth module soldering done. They did 120 of them in two hours, enough to get all the beta DE1 machines built. Ray and Kit, who started this week, did most of the work, but our EE intern Stanley helped out too.

For Bluetooth, we're using Red Bear Labs' module, because (a) it's already FCC certified and (b) it includes a CPU onboard that can be programmed using the Arduino tool "Codebender".

Yes, hacker-geeks, we have a separate CPU running inside our espresso machine, with a high-speed data connection, that you can send programs to. This gives you very-close-to-the-metal extensions power to our espresso machines, while still complying with UL/CE safety certification requirements. For documentation on uploading your own programs to this module this see http://redbearlab.com/getting-started-bleshield/

On the bottom left of the photo, you can see (peeking out over Ray's shoulder) several piles of colored lengths of shrink wrap tubing. Yellow, green, black, and red have been cut today. The cutting machine has been set up to work quite slowly, about 10 seconds per cut, so it's very accurate and the cuts are very clean.

On Monday we'll put the tube colors on, and then someone can work on inserting the water tubes correctly into the mixing chamber. We call it "The Octopus" because it has so many things plugging into it.


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## decent_espresso

Here is a download link to the DE1+ software, that you can run on your Mac OSX computer.

https://decentespresso.com/download/desktop/osx/DE1PLUS.zip

I'm crossing my fingers that this works for you.

Some notes:

- you can run the DE1+ app directly from your Download directory. There is no installer and you don't need to move it to /Applications.

- Since there's no installer, you can simply Trash the app when you're done.

- Because I'm not "Apple authorized" the app will complain and not be allowed run the first time you click it. You'll need to go to "System Preferences / Security & Privacy" after that warning, and click the "open anyway" button. If this makes you nervous, better to not run the app. :-D Note that the app does not require root rights and thus will not ask for your password.

- the app's screen resolution is 1280x800, slightly too large for the small screen MacBook Air model, but fine for most every other Mac.

- a fake espresso machine connects to the app. The simulated pressure/flow/temperature numbers are intentionally not very realistic. I didn't try to simulate an actual coffee puck.

- About 20 languages and 15 skins are included. You can switch between languages in the Settings/Other page. The Translation is NOT up to date. I will release a BETA v2 next week that has up-to-date translations.

- I will also be working on a Windows version.

- Assuming the app works, I will keep it up to date, so that people can get a feel for what it's like to use the DE1+.

- Is there any interest in a Linux x32/x64 version, or Linux/Wayland (x86_64, Debian 9.0), of this?

-john


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## 9719

Is there any interest in a Linux x32/x64 version, or Linux/Wayland (x86_64, Debian 9.0), of this?

Yes especially if you can do an arch version, although can convert .deb to run in arch via debtap.


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## gtjeffw

Thanks for making the software demo. FYI, it only partially worked from the download directory on my Macbook with Sierra. I got an error about readonly files under /private/var/folders/bg/6mb70nz10073sb6zhqf1hk040000gn/T/AppTranslocation/B639FD17-E651-477C-8E4A-1D7BE02FBF4E/d/DE1+.app/Contents/Resources/de1plus

It wanted to read/write to settings.tdb, which didn't exist.

I just moved the app to Applications and re-ran it. That fixed it. I think you could also config the demo to use the tmp directory for settings for those that want to run from downloads.


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## decent_espresso

mines_abeer said:


> Is there any interest in a Linux x32/x64 version, or Linux/Wayland (x86_64, Debian 9.0), of this? Yes especially if you can do an arch version, although can convert .deb to run in arch via debtap.


Can I trouble you to look at the download options for "undroidwish" at

http://www.androwish.org/download/index.html

and download and then see if any of these run:

http://www.ch-werner.de/AndroWish/undroidwish-74a062d634-linux32

http://www.ch-werner.de/AndroWish/undroidwish-74a062d634-linux64

http://www.ch-werner.de/AndroWish/undroidwish-74a062d634-wayland64

It *looks* to me like these are straight executables, with everything inside them packaged inside a ZIP file system. Very tidy.

If one of those downloads works, I can simply include the DE1+ source, with that executable, and a shell script to start it for you.

No installer needed.


----------



## jwCrema

If you put it on a Virtual Machine or in a Docker container you only need to do one version.


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## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> Thanks for making the software demo. FYI, it only partially worked from the download directory on my Macbook with Sierra. I got an error about readonly files under /private/var/folders/bg/6mb70nz10073sb6zhqf1hk040000gn/T/AppTranslocation/B639FD17-E651-477C-8E4A-1D7BE02FBF4E/d/DE1+.app/Contents/Resources/de1plus It wanted to read/write to settings.tdb, which didn't exist. I just moved the app to Applications and re-ran it. That fixed it. I think you could also config the demo to use the tmp directory for settings for those that want to run from downloads.


Thanks for spotting that issue.

I've modified the DE1+ app now to tolerate being on a read-only file system. You'll be able to change settings, but they'll be simply kept in memory rather than stored for good.

If you re-download the app, it *should* now work on your read-only filesystem.


----------



## gtjeffw

Here are some comments.

Overall, very cool! Works much as I expected from watching the videos you have made. I don't think there will be any trouble learning how to use the software.

I did notice a few things that aren't major issues, but I thought I'd share:

1.) The pressure/flow control graph looks like it's interactive even though the adjustment sliders are below. I tried clicking on lines and control points but can't move it. But the sliders work fine.

1b.) (I would not want to program a touch interactive graph either. Some aspects probably wouldn't be too hard, but I bet the edge cases are a pain)

2.) I feel that Material design style sliders (or similar) would look better in your layout

3.) Value adjustment of steam auto-off time, flush volume, and water volume/temp, was initially confusing for me. It took several clicks to figure out that there is a pivot point in the middle and that far above/below clicking jumps big increments and that close to the middle is small increments. There is also no visual change that I can see in the graphic, only the numerical value. That said, all of these seem like things that will rarely be adjusted by me, except maybe water.

4.) I like the artistic themes, but I wish that there was something like a magnifying glass icon that could switch to the Insight view if I'm curious to see a graph. Right now it appears that I must change themes and restart the app.

5.) I wish I knew what the current profile is while in the Espresso mode. Some of the name strings are very long. So I was thinking a selection of icons could be available to assign to each profile (e.g beans of different colors, coffee cups, etc). Also, you could possibly generate Identicons for new profiles. Expert-provided profiles could show a stylized portrait of each, maybe in different shades if multiple profiles are provided. (But just the name string for now would be nice.)

6.) I can't tell for sure without a real machine, but if switching tabs kills espresso delivery, there should be a warning modal to confirm the user really wants to cancel the shot


----------



## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> 1.) The pressure/flow control graph looks like it's interactive even though the adjustment sliders are below. I tried clicking on lines and control points but can't move it. But the sliders work fine.
> 
> 1b.) (I would not want to program a touch interactive graph either. Some aspects probably wouldn't be too hard, but I bet the edge cases are a pain)


I've thought about making the chart touch-friendly, and I might do that in the future, but it's a ton of work.

I'm using someone else's charting software, and it's not touch-friendly. It does let me indicate rectangular zones where you touch and something happens. For example, I could make it so you tap above the middle point and that line (say, preinfusion) goes up.

However, it would likely be clumsy to use because people expect a different interaction, viz "touch, hold and drag"

So, for now, I went with an approach that works and minimizes my time commitment on this particular issue.



gtjeffw said:


> 2.) I feel that Material design style sliders (or similar) would look better in your layout


I agree. Over time, I will likely swap out those sliders for something I write from scratch. For now, it was expedient to use the built-in slider control and try to make it look as good as I could.

Same goes for the lists of text (presets, skins, languages) -- I'm using the built in controls for those, but I think they could be improved on.



gtjeffw said:


> 3.) Value adjustment of steam auto-off time, flush volume, and water volume/temp, was initially confusing for me. It took several clicks to figure out that there is a pivot point in the middle and that far above/below clicking jumps big increments and that close to the middle is small increments. There is also no visual change that I can see in the graphic, only the numerical value. That said, all of these seem like things that will rarely be adjusted by me, except maybe water.


Those have gone through a few iterations, and I agree that in the current implementation it is not obvious how they work, and needs improvement. I've stuck with it because once you learn how it works, it is fast and easy. I've spied people using the tablet app for the first time, and they tend to push their finger around on objects to see what happens, and quickly learn how it works.

I haven't put the programming time yet into making animated widgets, which is really what these need.

I was also reluctant to add too much complexity to the UI, because then that makes it much harder for ordinary people to contribute. Making everything a "touchable JPEG" keeps things simple.

Because the DE1+ app is cross platform, all the UI widgets need to either be standard UI widgets, or else hand coded by me. Over time, I will increase "slickness" of the UI, but I prioritized functionality and getting-the-app-released for now.



gtjeffw said:


> 4.) I like the artistic themes, but I wish that there was something like a magnifying glass icon that could switch to the Insight view if I'm curious to see a graph. Right now it appears that I must change themes and restart the app.


I agree, and my intention is to slowly increase the sophistication of the artsy themes so that they have a similar advanced feature set.

If you load up the "8 Bit" theme, you'll see that it provides the Espresso Chart that you have in the Insight theme, albeit a chart with an 8 bit feel to it.









I'm also hoping that technical people will make their own skins, perhaps using my graphics and code as a base. I have a BIG source release (1.7gb) that includes Photoshop .PSD files for all those skins, and I'll be making that available as a download too.



gtjeffw said:


> 5.) I wish I knew what the current profile is while in the Espresso mode. Some of the name strings are very long. So I was thinking a selection of icons could be available to assign to each profile (e.g beans of different colors, coffee cups, etc). Also, you could possibly generate Identicons for new profiles. Expert-provided profiles could show a stylized portrait of each, maybe in different shades if multiple profiles are provided. (But just the name string for now would be nice.)


That's a cute idea, I like it. It is my intention to change the PRESETS list to include a column for an icon, as I wanted to visually distinguish FLOW vs PRESSURE shots that way. But once we have icons for presets, we can certainly do more with them.

Another way to communicate "what's my current shot profile" would be to display the current profile's curve on the espresso charts, where there is no shot running. The downside is that this would then erase the graph of the previous espresso shot.

Another idea for solving this ...

There is a small amount of space available on the Insight screen, where I could put a mini version of the current shot profile. What do you think?











gtjeffw said:


> 6.) I can't tell for sure without a real machine, but if switching tabs kills espresso delivery, there should be a warning modal to confirm the user really wants to cancel the shot


Yes, switching tabs does stop espresso. Hmm.... I'm not sure now that it *should* do that. Now you've got me doubting myself!

The reason we did it that way is that the espresso machine actually "calls the shots" (groan). If you are currently steaming, then the espresso machine tells the tablet to show the steaming tab. In other tablet themes, to show the "currently steaming" graphic, whatever that may be.

If I allowed you to switch to the Steaming tab while making espresso, I would likely need to make the "hot water start" button say "wait" or "interrupt espresso". That approach has its share of issues too.

You see the problem... the DE1+ is "modal", it can only do one water-related function at a time. The GUI reflects that fact.

I'm not sure about a "WARNING" if you leave the espresso tab. When I used my Brewista Scale to determine when to stop the shot, I'd have my milk jug ready to steam, and when the shot weight was where I wanted it, I tapped the "steam" tab. That stopped the espresso and in a few seconds, the steam tab appeared, which indicated that I could hit START and begin steaming. I found that to be a good workflow to minimize waiting.


----------



## decent_espresso

I spent a bit of time today implementing a way to see what espresso profile you're going to make, as a small graphic. You can see it below.

I'm not quite sure it's a good idea, as it adds a lot of visual complexity to the page.

However, I've left my code in, but disabled it by default. If you buy a DE1+ and want to try this feature, you can enable it by changing "0" to "1" in your settings.tdb file:



*insight_skin_show_embedded_profile 0*

It's currently only implemented for Pressure Profiles, but if people speak up and really like this, I can finish the work and implement it for Flow profiles too.


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## embrya

No ‚warning' pop up please! I like it as it is!

I like the small graphic you just showed - but as I am no informatics guy - could this be enabled directly via the tablet?

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## gtjeffw

I definitely like the embedded profile. I don't think it's too busy visually. Personally, I'd still like the name as well, even if the name is shortened with ellipsis.

As for the shot canceling on tab change, another possibility:

If a shot is actively being pulled and the user clicks a different tab, flash the STOP button solid red 3 times and do not change tabs. This lets the user know that they must push stop in order to allow a tab change. Under settings you could have a checkbox labeled to the effect of "tab change lockout during shot pull" for those that don't want it.

I think being able to switch tabs without ending the shot could also work, but might not scale well with future software/hardware features.

I just know that I superstitiously believe I'm on track for a bad day whenever I screw up making my morning coffee, and I'm all for minimizing the possibility of something going wrong (especially while I'm in a clumsy state). Also, consider how many customers won't read the instructions and will discover the shot cancels on tab change the hard way. Maybe hardly a concern relative to dialing in grind, but it's still something that could influence customer satisfaction while they are impressionable new users.


----------



## gtjeffw

Another thing I was wondering about is the machine "Scheduler" warmup feature. I'm really glad the scheduler made it into this version of the software. But no surprise that once a user tries a feature, they start wanting it to do more. ;-)

So I imagine you might want to eventually support advanced scheduling features on my wishlist like warmup for when I wake up and then cool down and later warmup for when my wife wakes up, and have different weekday/weekend schedules. However, that's a kind of boring feature to work on and I'm sure you have many higher priorities.

I got to thinking about an alternative. What if you allowed an external scheduler like TaskBomb?

I think you might need to either be able to detect that another app has requested that your app run (even if your app is already running and in the foreground). Or you could make a special app called "DE1 Warmup". All this app does is tell the machine to warmup and then it immediately switches to the DE1+ main app. DE1 Warmup could be called by TaskBomb in any fashion a user desires and you wouldn't need to ever worry about programming a complicated scheduler. Cooldown delay could be based on a setting within the DE1+ main app.


----------



## coffeekidd

I simply wanted to voice "yay" for the mini shot profile graphic. If anything, making this as detailed as possible would be nice. In the two examples you offered in two posts, I may favor the first one slightly. X and Y axis units are definitely nice, but I'd prefer them to be smaller, and for the graph itself to be larger. Regardless, this is a great idea.


----------



## o2c

decent_espresso said:


> Yes, switching tabs does stop espresso. Hmm.... I'm not sure now that it *should* do that. Now you've got me doubting myself!


Here's how I think it should work if you're in the middle of an action: A single tap to a new tab should change the start button to "Stopping in 3 (press to cancel)" with the new tab and the start button flashing. If no user input, count down and switch. Press the start button to cancel the switch, press the tab again to switch immediately. The delay can be customizable. A double tap on the tab should stop immediately and switch.

Inadvertently hitting another tab and killing your current shot should be avoided.


----------



## Dayks

I like the sound of it with your work flow, you would just need to be careful to make sure everyone knows that it does this, so you don't get people complaining their machine is faulty.

Maybe have it optional whether it just switches you or warns you.


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> I like the small graphic you just showed - but as I am no informatics guy - could this be enabled directly via the tablet?


Yes, if both of you like it, I can spend another few hours and finish the feature as part of a v1.1 release, and make it optional. There already is a page in the GUI for enabling these optional features. If enough people like the feature, I will remove the option and just make it the default.











gtjeffw said:


> I definitely like the embedded profile. I don't think it's too busy visually. Personally, I'd still like the name as well, even if the name is shortened with ellipsis.


Getting the name in there is not difficult, there is space and I like that idea. In fact, I've now "gone and done it", with the slight modification that the label for the profile name also happens to describe whether it is Pressure or Flow or Advanced. The next software update I put out will include that change.











gtjeffw said:


> As for the shot canceling on tab change, another possibility:
> 
> If a shot is actively being pulled and the user clicks a different tab, flash the STOP button solid red 3 times and do not change tabs. This lets the user know that they must push stop in order to allow a tab change. Under settings you could have a checkbox labeled to the effect of "tab change lockout during shot pull" for those that don't want it. I just know that I superstitiously believe I'm on track for a bad day whenever I screw up making my morning coffee, and I'm all for minimizing the possibility of something going wrong (especially while I'm in a clumsy state). Also, consider how many customers won't read the instructions and will discover the shot cancels on tab change the hard way. Maybe hardly a concern relative to dialing in grind, but it's still something that could influence customer satisfaction while they are impressionable new users.


Maybe, maybe, but I'm not yet sold







I don't want to "go all MS Word on you" and have a gazillion options. Personally, I'm now using the "one touch mode" option all the time, so that when I hit the "steam" tab, steam starts immediately. That's unusual UI design for a tabbed interface, but it's nice to have one less tap.


----------



## decent_espresso

coffeekidd said:


> I simply wanted to voice "yay" for the mini shot profile graphic. If anything, making this as detailed as possible would be nice. In the two examples you offered in two posts, I may favor the first one slightly. X and Y axis units are definitely nice, but I'd prefer them to be smaller, and for the graph itself to be larger. Regardless, this is a great idea.


Yeah, I prefer the first one too, but that's because I had "faked it" with Photoshop. Because it was fake, I was able to remove all the "padding space" around the chart and make it much bigger.

When I actually went to implement this "mini shot profile" feature in code, the charting software I use insisted on adding white padding space around the chart, even if there are no X or Y labels. That's why the chart came out so much smaller in the actual implementation. I tinkered with the line thicknesses and other variables, but it's still a bit wee for my tastes.



gtjeffw said:


> Another thing I was wondering about is the machine "Scheduler" warmup feature. I'm really glad the scheduler made it into this version of the software. But no surprise that once a user tries a feature, they start wanting it to do more. ;-) So I imagine you might want to eventually support advanced scheduling features on my wishlist like warmup for when I wake up and then cool down and later warmup for when my wife wakes up, and have different weekday/weekend schedules. However, that's a kind of boring feature to work on and I'm sure you have many higher priorities.


I agree that a more feature rich scheduler would be a good thing, and it's already on my todo list for a future version. I have sketched out my intended design for it, which you can see below. It'll appear in a future tablet software version. For now, I focussed on a "good enough for v1.0" implementation.









Note that I did this design for a scheduler about 2 years ago, when I thought we'd have 3 power modes (high/standby/off) but we only have two now.



gtjeffw said:


> I got to thinking about an alternative. What if you allowed an external scheduler like TaskBomb?
> 
> I think you might need to either be able to detect that another app has requested that your app run (even if your app is already running and in the foreground). Or you could make a special app called "DE1 Warmup". All this app does is tell the machine to warmup and then it immediately switches to the DE1+ main app. DE1 Warmup could be called by TaskBomb in any fashion a user desires and you wouldn't need to ever worry about programming a complicated scheduler. Cooldown delay could be based on a setting within the DE1+ main app.


Thanks for the suggestion, but I think it's a bit overkill for this feature. The scheduler I've designed above is touch-friendly, and will, I think, satisfy most people's needs.


----------



## decent_espresso

Each DE1 espresso machine has two heaters in it, for espresso and for steam. Each needs to have wired in two thermal fuses, and a thermostat, for CE safety approval. We then surround it with mineral wool insulation and suspend that into a fiberglass box of our own making.

At the moment, each one takes about 30 minutes to make. That's 300 hours of labor to satisfy our current orders of 300 machines, or 7.5 weeks if someone did nothing but this (though they'd go batty).

Kit and Ray, who started a week ago, are both very experienced technicians, so I've put them on the task of figuring out how to assemble these heaters as efficiently as possible. Hopefully, they can get it down to 15 minutes.

You can see Kit making crimped cables, and Ray soldering, to decide what order to do things in. Next week, a former coworker of Ray's, electronic technician Parry, starts working here. I'll have him focus on PC Board wiring, both doing it and figuring out how to do it better and faster.

We've also pulled out from the shelving all the parts and tools that we've been using for these past years in R&D. Now that we're moving into "production mode" all this miscellany needs to be categorized, labeled, and stowed away. Time to get organized!

On the bottom right photo, in the distance, you can see Josephine washing up after our communal lunch. She and I cook together for everyone (we call it "Jojo's café"). It's noodles all week, keeping it fast and simple. That's because when not working on lunch, Josephine is helping out on DE1 assembly. You can see a pile of now color-coded water tubes in the bottom right photo. That's her and Miriam's handiwork.


----------



## Rhaikh

decent_espresso said:


> Personally, I'm now using the "one touch mode" option all the time, so that when I hit the "steam" tab, steam starts immediately. That's unusual UI design for a tabbed interface, but it's nice to have one less tap.


I think I missed when you implemented this, but this sounds really dangerous!! I just tried it on the mac version... I don't think this should be a thing at all. Even if you really wanted it, what are the chances someone might come by when you aren't paying attention and press the button?


----------



## dlight

Not sure I understand the concern. That's true of any existing machine that has a button to activate the extraction. Most commercial machines work this way.


----------



## Dayks

dlight said:


> Not sure I understand the concern. That's true of any existing machine that has a button to activate the extraction. Most commercial machines work this way.


This.

I also can't imagine anyone being able to do that while you are using it.

Plus a tablet makes it a bit more secure in a way, if you put a pin on the tablet, then people can't just press buttons when you are away from the machine.


----------



## gtjeffw

decent_espresso said:


> Getting the name in there is not difficult, there is space and I like that idea. In fact, I've now "gone and done it", with the slight modification that the label for the profile name also happens to describe whether it is Pressure or Flow or Advanced. The next software update I put out will include that change.


I like it. Seems to do the job for the initial release version. I'll probably also enable the little visualization if it's available, but no big deal to me if it's not implemented.



decent_espresso said:


> Maybe, maybe, but I'm not yet sold
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't want to "go all MS Word on you" and have a gazillion options. Personally, I'm now using the "one touch mode" option all the time, so that when I hit the "steam" tab, steam starts immediately. That's unusual UI design for a tabbed interface, but it's nice to have one less tap.


In my case, I think the discussion has pretty much engrained in my mind that tab switching kills machine operations. So it's not a huge issue for me. I figure the most likely mistake would be if I went to click the graph to zoom in and somehow missed and hit a tab instead.

My scheduling suggestion was more of a stop gap suggestion if the fancy scheduler takes a long time to implement (I like your mock up for the future scheduler, BTW). I don't know if it's difficult with your Tcl/Tk framework to interface with Android specific API features, but a cursory look at Android App Links docs makes me think you could support special resource URLS like /warmup and /cooldown. I'm imagining an external scheduler could call your app with these paths to trigger the appropriate action, no need for an additional warmup app as I previously suggested. But also no point in implementing if the fancy scheduling is coming soon.

--

Jeff


----------



## Rhaikh

dlight said:


> Not sure I understand the concern. That's true of any existing machine that has a button to activate the extraction. Most commercial machines work this way.


The problem is that it breaks intuitive user interface guidelines. For the average person, the intuition with switching tabs from experience with other user interfaces (e.g. web browsers) would never initiate any sort of activity. It wouldn't be so bad, except in this case burning hot steam is emitted from the machine as a result.



Dayks said:


> This.
> 
> I also can't imagine anyone being able to do that while you are using it.
> 
> Plus a tablet makes it a bit more secure in a way, if you put a pin on the tablet, then people can't just press buttons when you are away from the machine.


The interface stays active for some time if you simply walk away from it.


----------



## gtjeffw

Bug report: With "one tap mode" enabled, hitting the espresso tab, waiting a couple seconds for the graph to start, and then hitting the espresso tab again results in the graph getting messed up. The graph appears to only partially reset and the line drawing cursor gets stuck at zero in the X axis, but still moves in Y. I guess this may only be a bug while in simulation mode.

--

Jeff


----------



## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> My scheduling suggestion was more of a stop gap suggestion if the fancy scheduler takes a long time to implement (I like your mock up for the future scheduler, BTW). I don't know if it's difficult with your Tcl/Tk framework to interface with Android specific API features, but a cursory look at Android App Links docs makes me think you could support special resource URLS like /warmup and /cooldown. I'm imagining an external scheduler could call your app with these paths to trigger the appropriate action, no need for an additional warmup app as I previously suggested. But also no point in implementing if the fancy scheduling is coming soon.


Yes, you're right, I believe I have ready access to those Android specific functions.

However, I'm looking to the future when we have an iPad version of the app, as well as a Web app, and thus I'm trying to avoid features that are Android-specific. My intent is to offer a web API (REST/JSON) that can then be used to do things like wakeup/sleep, as well as data logging, distributing espresso profiles, etc... As much as is reasonable, I want to offer application features myself, through the app, so that every platform is at feature parity.

Here's an example of a use of the Web Api : Coffee Roasters have expressed a lot of interest in the DE1PRO+, because they often need to install an espresso machine in their client's premises, and often these are restaurants, or office kitchens, where the people don't necessarily know how to make good coffee. Having a remote view of what's going on with the machines you placed in the field, and being able to make recipe adjustments (or come and give training) is a compelling feature to some coffee roasters.

My intent is to have similar tools that "server farms" have for running lots of web servers, being able to auto monitor lots of espresso machines and be alerted when something is wrong.

This will, of course, be opt-in and require the user of the machine to agree.


----------



## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> Bug report: With "one tap mode" enabled, hitting the espresso tab, waiting a couple seconds for the graph to start, and then hitting the espresso tab again results in the graph getting messed up. The graph appears to only partially reset and the line drawing cursor gets stuck at zero in the X axis, but still moves in Y. I guess this may only be a bug while in simulation mode.


Jeff, do you mean this?









If so, then yes, I know about it, and it's an imperfection in my "fake DE1" emulation. It "resets" after each shot and then moves to its new pressure/temperature up at an impossibly fast speed. My fake DE1 emulation is not very realistic, it's there to enable testing of the full UI more than anything else.

But maybe you mean some other visual defect?

ps: the Windows version of the DE1+ App is almost done, and hopefully will be out in the next 24h. Linux and source versions too.

-john


----------



## gtjeffw

decent_espresso said:


> Jeff, do you mean this?


Here is a capture. It's probably the same issue, but note the going back in time on the graph.









--

Jeff


----------



## decent_espresso

Our first step is to inventory everything, Then we'll quality check them all. And then we'll start putting "subassemblies" into the chassis, to make espresso machines.

Our newly rented 3000 sq ft "factory" is starting to fill up with pallets!


----------



## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> Here is a capture. It's probably the same issue, but note the going back in time on the graph.


You've got a talent for causing bugs! I can't read it (too low resolution) but it looks like the X axis numbers are huuuuge values as well.

Can you consistently cause this bug? If so, can you PM me with the steps? I started/stopped/started an espresso as you indicated and didn't have this problem.


----------



## decent_espresso

These are 4mm thick EVA foam, with a layer of spandex on both sides. They're mostly air, very light, low on materials usage, and that's why there is so much "ribbing" in the shape: to give it strength. We also like the fact that these can stack, saving space in our warehouse. Also, they're long-lived so you can use them to ship your machine back to us if you ever need to.

There are also two middle layers of cut-through foam, they're the "meat in the sandwich" that holds the espresso machine in place. Those arrived last week from another company.


----------



## decent_espresso

I've bought a few of HM Digital's Coffee Refractometer to evaluate for possible integration into the DE1+ and as something we might also sell.

http://hmdigital.com/product/rcm-1000bt/

Does anyone reading this have any experience with this refractometer?

A Refractometer allows you to learn the percent amount of coffee you've extracted from your beans, and this is widely seen as an objective way to judge your drink quality. Better equipment and skills will bring your percentage up. Some cafes regularly measure their baristas to maintain consistency.

The DE1+ already lets you enter Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and Extraction Yield (EY), but you have to enter it in by hand.

My idea is that if the DE1+ app connected to the Coffee Refractometer directly, over Bluetooth, then you could simply use an eye dropper to periodically get a refractometer reading and the results would be automatically saved as part of your shot history database.

ps: their dedicated app (Android and iOS) is free, and the refractometer would cost in the range of USD$500, which makes it quite competitively priced. We at Decent would not charge for our app integration, either.


----------



## decent_espresso

Download it here:

http://decentespresso.com/download/desktop/win32/de1plus.zip

To run it:

- unzip de1plus.zip to its own directory

- no installation necessary: double click the de1plus.exe icon to run it

- then delete the zip and directory once you're bored with it.

Notes:

- the purpose of this Windows program is to let you feel what it would be like to own a DE1+ espresso machine, as well as to make it easier for people to develop their own extensions, skins and translations.

- the non-English translations are not yet up to date. I have some programming work to integrate the latest translations, and I didn't want to delay this win32 release for that. I'll have the translations up to date next week.

- this is a 32 bit executable. I have tested it on NT (32 bit) and Windows 7 (64 bit)

- I'm working on releasing source and "Linuxen" versions and should have that done in a few days.

-----

Apologies for posting 3 msgs today, gagh!

-john


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> let you feel what it would be like to own a DE1+ espresso machine


How difficult would it be to have a DE1 version? Thank you


----------



## John Doe

> You see the problem... the DE1+ is "modal", it can only do one water-related function at a time. The GUI reflects that fact.


As someone who designs interfaces for a living, in my experience actions that are destructive (cannot undo / cause an immediate state change that is not reversible) you always want to have a confirmation of that destructive action before initiating the action. To put it another way: better to have a desired action take 2 taps than to have an irreversibly action take place accidentally.

Another thing to think about: if you allowed swapping tabs and had actions within the tabs trigger the confirmation dialog to cancel the previous tabs' action, that would allow someone to start brewing espresso and explore/configure elsewhere while they wait (or if they're steaming they could start tweaking an upcoming shot they want to draw next).

When I get some free time I want to concept how the interface could be improved by applying some standard interface design principles. From what I've seen so far it's pretty well done; the main thing I wonder currently is about touch target size for the UI elements on the tablet.

I'm beyond excited about being in the initial 300 batch =).


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> How difficult would it be to have a DE1 version? Thank you


It's in the works: soon.


----------



## BlueWater

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 31111
> View attachment 31112
> 
> 
> I've bought a few of HM Digital's Coffee Refractometer to evaluate for possible integration into the DE1+ and as something we might also sell.
> 
> http://hmdigital.com/product/rcm-1000bt/
> 
> Does anyone reading this have any experience with this refractometer?


I don't have any experience with this or any other coffee refractometer yet. It is a potential red flag to me that HM does not say anything about the precision/repeatability of the measurement. A 0.2 accuracy is not as good as either the Atago or VST units, but usable IF precision is good. Otherwise, there will be too much uncertainty in the measurement for the result to be of much use. I've been leaning toward getting the Atago-no Bluetooth, but much cheaper and has been evaluated with decent results. If I'm going to go through the hassle of a reflectometer measurement, I probably won't mind needing to enter a couple or numbers manually.


----------



## decent_espresso

https://decentespresso.com/downloads

Notes:

- Both DE1 and DE1+ software is now included

- This is the first version for Linux users

- Also, now a separate source code release

- Windows users running the Antivirus programs "Avast" and "Windows Defender" reported alerts with the "de1plus.exe" previously included. So: with this release, I have switched to "double click de1plus.bat to run", so as to avoid the scary anti-virus false-positive message.

- OSX has been split into downloads (DE1 vs DE1+) because its security sandboxing didn't allow me to share files between the two icons

- the translations are still not up to date (sorry! getting this all working was more work than predicted)

-john


----------



## roastini

In the emulator, in the steam pane, when I stop steaming, the right panel displays the time the steaming took, and starts a count-up timer labeled "done" that seems to let me see how long it takes for me to pour the milk into my drink. There's no way to stop this timer, other than to switch away from the steam pane entirely. Maybe that's no big deal, but it seemed a bit odd to me.

Far more concerning, in my view, is that after I've stopped steaming, if I click in the right panel (the "make amazing latte art" panel), that restarts steaming. I appreciate that you want a big on/off button for steaming, but if I click in the left panel, that doesn't restart steaming. The only reason I clicked in the far right panel was that I was hoping it would stop the "done" timer. I was very surprised to have the steam start again. I would suggest limiting the steam on/off button to taps in the center panel.

(I see that there is a "done" timer in the flush and water panes, too, which activate when you finish the flush or water pour. I ever so vaguely understand why someone might want to time how long it took them to pour their steamed milk, but really don't understand what the "done" timer is for in the flush or water panes.)


----------



## roastini

[accidentally posted twice]


----------



## roastini

Two things:

(1) Is there an option somewhere to select/deselect screensaver images? Not everyone will want "manga_girls" to potentially pop up on their machine screen when it is inactive.

(2) I can't get the skin change option to work, or the "one-touch" mode to do anything.


----------



## jwCrema

This is awesome. My initial impression is the app makes me want to get the machine that much sooner. Not that I was in a stalling mood going in anyway. On the unpack of the zip - since the app isn't signed by Decent Espresso, the unpack will show a warning, but it can be safely ignored. It ran on Windows 10 Pro with Defender without a hitch.

On steaming, I'd like for the app to help me understand how long I steam manually. Right now my analog Cremina it is all about feel. Instead of auto-off after X seconds, let me do a manual on/off and show a timer with elapsed seconds on the steam pane.

After I figure out how long I need, I'll set the designated number of seconds and do the auto-off mode. I steam precisely the same quantity of milk that comes out of the same refrigerator whose temperature gauge says is always holding the same temperature, so I just need to figure out how long is long.


----------



## decent_espresso

John Doe said:


> As someone who designs interfaces for a living, in my experience actions that are destructive (cannot undo / cause an immediate state change that is not reversible) you always want to have a confirmation of that destructive action before initiating the action. To put it another way: better to have a desired action take 2 taps than to have an irreversibly action take place accidentally.


Currently, there is a kind of two step process on the "Insight" skin. "click on relevant tab" then "click on START button"

However, it would be quite unlike traditional espresso machines to make you hit START twice. I'm also not sure that "make espresso" is an irreversible action, because you can tap again to STOP it, and you have a few seconds in which to do that before the water flows.



John Doe said:


> Another thing to think about: if you allowed swapping tabs and had actions within the tabs trigger the confirmation dialog to cancel the previous tabs' action, that would allow someone to start brewing espresso and explore/configure elsewhere while they wait (or if they're steaming they could start tweaking an upcoming shot they want to draw next).


Yes, that's a very reasonable alternative UI approach. The reason I took my approach of having most things in "settings" is that I find most people prefer "set and forget" devices. Most days they'll simply be tapping START on the function they want, and occasionally they'll go to Settings to change how they make their espressos.

The one exception to this is the auto-off timer on the steam and hot water pages, which is adjustable right from there. The reason I did that is that it's nice to slightly tweak those without having to jump to a new screen.

In developing this UI, I was wary about making it too "computer like", with extra user-labour needed to perform tasks that are "tap and go" on traditional espresso machines. While this is an "app" its main purpose to have you make coffee, and it shouldn't make that appreciably more work than non-tablet based machines are.



John Doe said:


> When I get some free time I want to concept how the interface could be improved by applying some standard interface design principles. From what I've seen so far it's pretty well done; the main thing I wonder currently is about touch target size for the UI elements on the tablet. I'm beyond excited about being in the initial 300 batch =).


I'd love to have you contribute your own "Tablet Style". The kind of UI you're describing is very much doable as a loadable choice, and ideally, you'd share your work with others who might also prefer it.

Right from the outset, I assumed that every decision I made would be unpopular with *somebody*, and so it was best to give people the flexibility to choose/change/create their own UIs.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> In the emulator, in the steam pane, when I stop steaming, the right panel displays the time the steaming took, and starts a count-up timer labeled "done" that seems to let me see how long it takes for me to pour the milk into my drink. There's no way to stop this timer, other than to switch away from the steam pane entirely. Maybe that's no big deal, but it seemed a bit odd to me.


Because foamed milk separates quickly as it sits, I wanted to give you a very loud indicator of the quality of the foamed milk that's sitting there. Ideally, a café would have a rule that all foam needs to be poured within (say) 15 seconds.

I do agree that it's odd to have the timer ticking away forever. I could have the timer stop after several minutes, but that'd be arbitrary. I could have it say "> 2 minutes" at some point, if the eye-distracting timer gets to be annoying.

Just FYI, after I make my morning coffee, I always press the POWER button, which loads the screen saver, and cools the machine off. I usually do this just after steaming. That's why this timer doesn't bother me. You're not seeing this workflow (yet) as you don't have an espresso machine attached to it.



roastini said:


> Far more concerning, in my view, is that after I've stopped steaming, if I click in the right panel (the "make amazing latte art" panel), that restarts steaming. I appreciate that you want a big on/off button for steaming, but if I click in the left panel, that doesn't restart steaming. The only reason I clicked in the far right panel was that I was hoping it would stop the "done" timer. I was very surprised to have the steam start again. I would suggest limiting the steam on/off button to taps in the center panel.


That's a good point, and as you can guess, this was done on purpose. I got quite a bit of grief two years ago from people who felt that they would have to precisely find a button on the tablet to turn steam on or off, thus proving their point that the tablet was ill suited as an espresso machine controller.

When you're steaming, the entire screen becomes an OFF button, for this very reason.

However, I concede that you have a point, and that ON should likely only happen when you tap in the general vicinity of the ON button. I will change the behavior on steam/water/purge so that you have to tap in the center third of the tablet to RESTART, and not have the right 1/3rd be an active tap zone.



roastini said:


> (I see that there is a "done" timer in the flush and water panes, too, which activate when you finish the flush or water pour. I ever so vaguely understand why someone might want to time how long it took them to pour their steamed milk, but really don't understand what the "done" timer is for in the flush or water panes.)


For flush, it's because people will use that feature to preheat their mugs, and it takes a bit of time for hot water to fully heat your typical thick ceramic coffee mug. I have an animation planned (but not implemented) that shows the cup tilted after 30s, to indicate that you can now pour the hot water out: your mug is now warm.

For hot water, it's because you:

1) might have a teabag in there, and want to know how long it's been brewing (stewing!)

2) because the water has an auto-shut off, you might come back to the hot water some time later, and want to know how long it's been sitting there.

As a general policy, I thought consistency would be good across all functions, so espresso/steam/water/purge all have

1) an auto-off timer

2) a "time since ending" timer

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> (1) Is there an option somewhere to select/deselect screensaver images? Not everyone will want "manga_girls" to potentially pop up on their machine screen when it is inactive.


Ha, sorry about that! On my todo list is to write a "screen saver manager" as well as the option to download more. This hasn't made it into v1.0.

For now, I will purge the not-to-everyone's-tastes screen saver images in the next release. They'll be downloadable in a future software version.

Just FYI you can delete any screen saver .jpg from the /de1/saver/1280x800/ and it won't be in rotation. For that matter, you can place your own images in there as well, as long as they are 1280x800 jpegs.



roastini said:


> (2) I can't get the skin change option to work, or the "one-touch" mode to do anything.


Are you running the app on OSX? If so, I suspect that you're running the app on a read-only drive, so your skin change can't be saved. Drag the app to Desktop and you should be ok.


----------



## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> This is awesome. My initial impression is the app makes me want to get the machine that much sooner. Not that I was in a stalling mood going in anyway. On the unpack of the zip - since the app isn't signed by Decent Espresso, the unpack will show a warning, but it can be safely ignored. It ran on Windows 10 Pro with Defender without a hitch.


Great, glad to hear it worked on Win10/Defender, as my previous release attempt did not.



jwCrema said:


> On steaming, I'd like for the app to help me understand how long I steam manually. Right now my analog Cremina it is all about feel. Instead of auto-off after X seconds, let me do a manual on/off and show a timer with elapsed seconds on the steam pane.


Not sure I understand - are you on the DE1 or the DE1+ gui? The DE1+ shows you seconds steaming as you do it, and when you stop steaming, the total time you steamed remains on screen.



jwCrema said:


> After I figure out how long I need, I'll set the designated number of seconds and do the auto-off mode. I steam precisely the same quantity of milk that comes out of the same refrigerator whose temperature gauge says is always holding the same temperature, so I just need to figure out how long is long.


Yep, that's the goal, and I do the same thing every morning, as I steam 340ml (for two drinks once). I even let the machine steam "hands off" after I get the whirlpool going in the first few seconds. While it's steaming I knock out the portafilter and clean it, and prep my wand-steaming rag with water.


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 31001
> 
> 
> Here is a download link to the DE1+ software, that you can run on your Mac OSX computer.
> 
> https://decentespresso.com/download/desktop/osx/DE1PLUS.zip
> 
> I'm crossing my fingers that this works for you.
> 
> -john


Thanks John - something to play until the DE1+ arrives in spring!

I couldn´t download it from the link above - there just didn´t happen anything...

But it worked directly from the website:

https://decentespresso.com/downloads

Stefan


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> I couldn´t download it from the link above - there just didn´t happen anything... But it worked directly from the website:https://decentespresso.com/downloads


That earlier link was to a beta version, to get some quick feedback from this group. Now that the software is "out of beta" the downloads page you pointed to is the right place to go.


----------



## embrya

Thanks John. I played a little and wondered that mostly no or very short preinfusion (2 sec) took place?!

Which profile emulates a slayer shot?

Stefan


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Thanks John. I played a little and wondered that mostly no or very short preinfusion (2 sec) took place?!
> 
> Which profile emulates a slayer shot?


When you hit START on this, the resulting "espresso" will not actually follow the profile you just chose. This is because you're running a simulated DE1+, and I did not provide a full simulation. Ray's firmware, written in C and running on the DE1+ itself, is what executes the profile.

Sorry about that, it's a limit to the simulation at this point. I didn't see my putting lots of time in recreating Ray's firmware in this desktop simulation.


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> When you hit START on this, the resulting "espresso" will not actually follow the profile you just chose. This is because you're running a simulated DE1+, and I did not provide a full simulation. Ray's firmware, written in C and running on the DE1+ itself, is what executes the profile.
> 
> Sorry about that, it's a limit to the simulation at this point. I didn't see my putting lots of time in recreating Ray's firmware in this desktop simulation.


Ok, I understand. And which setting is meant to emulate a slayer style shot?


----------



## MrShades

Having played with this a little, using the "Insight" skin - when I pour an espresso, the control is initially "START" (which is good and logical) and changes to "STOP" when I'm pouring (again, seems good).

However, when I STOP the shot the control changes to "RESTART". I assumed that this was a resume function, rather than a start (all over again) function. However, in using it - it seems to be identical to the "START" function (pouring a new shot) - so it's confusing as to why it's labelled "RESTART".

On the "FLUSH" and "STEAM" tabs, the start goes to stop and then restart - but if you move off those tabs onto another, then "START" is reinstated when you return. On the Espresso tab, whenever you go back to it, it's always "RESTART" and you never see "START" ever again... unless turning off/on.

Bug or intentional?


----------



## jwCrema

decent_espresso said:


> Not sure I understand - are you on the DE1 or the DE1+ gui? The DE1+ shows you seconds steaming as you do it, and when you stop steaming, the total time you steamed remains on screen.


I'm using the DE1+ gui.

In the first pane of the Steam, the pane on the left, I've labeled as "Step 1" wants a number of seconds. Until I figure out how many seconds I need, I suppose I'll set it to some arbitrary number like 240 seconds, then when I hit Stop, I'll see the number to specify. That works. My suggestion was to not have to use Pane 1's auto-off and make Steam entirely manual until I know.


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Ok, I understand. And which setting is meant to emulate a slayer style shot?


These shot presets are all variations on a "Slayer Shot"

- Gentle preinfusion flow profile

- Very slow preinfusion for light roasts

- Slow preinfusion for light roasts

I've been told that 20s is a typical Slayer shot preinfusion most frequently, but people have also claimed 30s and occasionally 40s to 60s.

Since "Slayer shots" are needle valve and paddle-controlled, and not automated with an over-pressure valve, I treat them as "flow controlled" shots, and not pressure controlled.

Personally, I've had the best taste results with Slayer-style shot preinfusion set to a 0.5 bar exit, with a flow rate at 2 ml/s. That will exit preinfusion around 30s to 40s.

However, you can also do a 60s preinfusion at 1 ml/s, but the water will start to drip out before any pressure happens on the puck, so you need to make preinfusion exit be time-based if you do this. That flavor is more pour-over with this technique.

A future feature, once we have our bluetooth scales out there (hopefully later this summer), will be for preinfusion to exit on "first drop" out of the portafilter.

Because the DE1+ charts "gravimetric flow rate" (speed of espresso into the cup) against "flow rate into the puck", you can see how successful the preinfusion was. The two lines should equal each other in a successfully preinfusion. This is *really* helpful in understanding flow rate speeds and exit conditions. I can't really live without a scale under my cup when I make espresso.

Does that info help?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> In the first pane of the Steam, the pane on the left, I've labeled as "Step 1" wants a number of seconds. Until I figure out how many seconds I need, I suppose I'll set it to some arbitrary number like 240 seconds, then when I hit Stop, I'll see the number to specify. That works. My suggestion was to not have to use Pane 1's auto-off and make Steam entirely manual until I know.


For safety reasons, and because we can (since we're using a computer controlled valve, and not a manual one), I prefer to have a timeout on every "dangerous" function. I believe I've defaulted steam timeout to 200s, and the maximum steam time allowed at once is 255s. In that time you can heat a litre to >70ºC from refrigerator temperature.


----------



## decent_espresso

MrShades said:


> Having played with this a little, using the "Insight" skin - when I pour an espresso, the control is initially "START" (which is good and logical) and changes to "STOP" when I'm pouring (again, seems good). However, when I STOP the shot the control changes to "RESTART". I assumed that this was a resume function, rather than a start (all over again) function. However, in using it - it seems to be identical to the "START" function (pouring a new shot) - so it's confusing as to why it's labelled "RESTART". On the "FLUSH" and "STEAM" tabs, the start goes to stop and then restart - but if you move off those tabs onto another, then "START" is reinstated when you return. On the Espresso tab, whenever you go back to it, it's always "RESTART" and you never see "START" ever again... unless turning off/on. Bug or intentional?


It's intentional because once a shot has concluded I want to indicate that as a different state.

After a shot concludes:

1) there is a heart icon displayed where you can enter shot and tasting notes, TDS/EY and other things

2) a countdown timer shows you how long your espresso has been languishing, unloved.

3) there is a table showing timing and water volume used at each stage of the espresso.

4) if you have a scale, the final espresso cup weight is also shown

The START/RESTART is not entirely consistent, I know, but there's a method to the madness.

On FLush/Water/Steam, RESTART is the word used after something has concluded, instead of START. If you move away from that tab and come back, I'm assuming you no longer need to know what the previous operation completed and so START returns as the button's word.

On Espresso, RESTART (and the heart and data indicators) are "sticky", but the charts are "sticky" too. This is because I often will make a latte, and then taste it, and hmm... "this doesn't taste right, I wonder what the curves on this shot were" and so I click back to "Espresso", and the shot's info is still all there for me to peruse. I don't want the Espresso page to reset until I RESTART and make another shot.

I will often go to Settings to adjust the shot timings, but want to refer back to the shot I just pulled. So... Settings, ... whoops, cancel... look at shot... back to Settings again.

And finally, if I'm drinking a latte, I can't enter shot tasting notes until I've put milk into my drink, which means I make an espresso, click the steam tab, make my latte, now click back to espresso and click the heart icon.

I suppose this is a long way of saying that the GUI has been considerably tuned to how I, an amateur barista, want to interact with it, in reality, rather than as created in a design lab.

This means it's more idiosyncratic, but hopefully, gets in the way less.

Here's another example. With the pressure/flow charts zoomed, there is no more space for the tabs. But steam is the most common thing to tap after making an espresso, so I snuck just that tab into the available right top corner.


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> These shot presets are all variations on a "Slayer Shot"
> 
> - Gentle preinfusion flow profile
> 
> - Very slow preinfusion for light roasts
> 
> - Slow preinfusion for light roasts
> 
> I've been told that 20s is a typical Slayer shot preinfusion most frequently, but people have also claimed 30s and occasionally 40s to 60s.
> 
> Since "Slayer shots" are needle valve and paddle-controlled, and not automated with an over-pressure valve, I treat them as "flow controlled" shots, and not pressure controlled.
> 
> Personally, I've had the best taste results with Slayer-style shot preinfusion set to a 0.5 bar exit, with a flow rate at 2 ml/s. That will exit preinfusion around 30s to 40s.
> 
> However, you can also do a 60s preinfusion at 1 ml/s, but the water will start to drip out before any pressure happens on the puck, so you need to make preinfusion exit be time-based if you do this. That flavor is more pour-over with this technique.
> 
> A future feature, once we have our bluetooth scales out there (hopefully later this summer), will be for preinfusion to exit on "first drop" out of the portafilter.
> 
> Because the DE1+ charts "gravimetric flow rate" (speed of espresso into the cup) against "flow rate into the puck", you can see how successful the preinfusion was. The two lines should equal each other in a successfully preinfusion. This is *really* helpful in understanding flow rate speeds and exit conditions. I can't really live without a scale under my cup when I make espresso.
> 
> Does that info help?
> 
> -john


Thanks John, that helps a lot. These presets are a good starting point for me and I will first test some of them to get a feeling how things are going with the DE1+.

I do not use a scale actually but once I have my DE1+ I will go for your scale to use the benefits of the direct communication. On your website it is mentioned that it will ship in May, so this is an outdated information as you said it will be available late summer (that would be July or August for Europe).

Stefan


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> I do not use a scale actually but once I have my DE1+ I will go for your scale to use the benefits of the direct communication. On your website it is mentioned that it will ship in May, so this is an outdated information as you said it will be available late summer (that would be July or August for Europe).


We do have a bluetooth 0.1g scale that works and is shipping today and that's the "Skale II" that sells at £84 https://decentespresso.com/scale

As to our own scale, its "tabled" at the moment, so I don't know exactly when it'll come out. We have the mechanical and industrial design pretty far along, but the PCB and firmware both need to be done from scratch. So yeah, May is likely way too optimistic at this point, as shipping the DE1 product line is really the focus now. I'll update the "decent scale" ship date now.


----------



## RobW

Wow, just reading through this thread and liking what I am reading very much! Great to see innovation and an open dialogue with the community.

Apologies if I have missed it but when are subsequent batches of machines likely to be available? I've been trying to maximise my current Rancilio Silvia but all the tech in these machines is going to be very hard to resist!


----------



## embrya

RobW said:


> Wow, just reading through this thread and liking what I am reading very much! Great to see innovation and an open dialogue with the community.
> 
> Apologies if I have missed it but when are subsequent batches of machines likely to be available? I've been trying to maximise my current Rancilio Silvia but all the tech in these machines is going to be very hard to resist!


Yeah, this is awesome!

Short answer to sum up all the past information for you (for details check the previous posts in this long thread):

The first batch of 300 machines is sold out and will be shipped within the next 2-3 months (for Europe due to CE certification first machines are predicted for March...). The next batch of 1000 machines is available as soon as the first pre-release models (110 Volt, so USA customers mainly) are out and some independent reviews are available. This shall be in spring 2018.


----------



## jwCrema

embrya said:


> Thanks John, that helps a lot. These presets are a good starting point for me and I will first test some of them to get a feeling how things are going with the DE1+.
> 
> I do not use a scale actually but once I have my DE1+ I will go for your scale to use the benefits of the direct communication. On your website it is mentioned that it will ship in May, so this is an outdated information as you said it will be available late summer (that would be July or August for Europe).
> 
> Stefan


The whole concept of preinfusion has been an amazing learning experience in the last year. The difference in the cup using preinfusion with some number of seconds has been made a ridiculous impact on what we drink. Right now I'm counting "one Mississippi, two Mississippi, yada up to twenty Mississippi" first thing in the morning before I've gained my bearings. Can't wait to automate this!


----------



## decent_espresso

RobW said:


> Apologies if I have missed it but when are subsequent batches of machines likely to be available? I've been trying to maximise my current Rancilio Silvia but all the tech in these machines is going to be very hard to resist!


Hi Rob : the next batch of machines are scheduled to ship in April, with ordering for that batch to start in February, once public, independent reviews of the machines we have already shipped, are readable on the net.



jwCrema said:


> The whole concept of preinfusion has been an amazing learning experience in the last year. The difference in the cup using preinfusion with some number of seconds has been made a ridiculous impact on what we drink. Right now I'm counting "one Mississippi, two Mississippi, yada up to twenty Mississippi" first thing in the morning before I've gained my bearings. Can't wait to automate this!


Hey, I'm glad you've found that. Professional machines with a Gicleur feature built into the group head are effectively doing a somewhat-gentle preinfusion, which is part of their quality secret. Machines without a Gicleur (and no preinfusion) are much more difficult to make non-channeling shots with.

With my E61 two group with manual on/off levers, I used to count 5 seconds on, then 5 seconds off, and then start the shot.


----------



## Bob Stern

GUI comments:

The Mac version of the DE+ emulator crashes on launch on a Retina display Mac running MacOS 10.12 (Sierra). The following comments are based on the preceding version, which did not crash.

During a shot, the continuously expanding time scale in which "now" defines the right end of the X-axis is dizzying. I'd prefer a preference setting to define a fixed time interval for the X-axis. If the shot exceeds that time, you can let the scale begin expanding.

The Settings (Gear) icon appears on the flush, steam and water screens even though it is relevant only to Espresso. I suggest moving the Settings icon to the tab bar along the top as an additional tab. Since a user chooses the setting before making espresso, I suggest positioning it as the first tab, and moving the Flush tab to the far right. Although your instinct probably is that the Settings should be less prominent than the other tabs, the Plus model is more for geeks, so my advice seems more appropriate than for the basic model. Also, my idea could be an alternate skin.

We senior citizens would appreciate larger fonts in many places, such as the legends and numerical markers on the graphs, and the data below the Start button. Gray text for the values is difficult to read. Instead of using gray to distinguish the values from the titles, one option is to use serif and sans-serif fonts, respectively. Alternatively, make the titles blue or gray and the values black. The titles never change, so their readability is less important than the values.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here are a few photos from our new 3000 sq ft (about 300 meters squared) espresso machine factory, where we are starting to build the first 10 machines.

We have most, but not all of the parts, but everything we ordered should be here in the next two weeks.

However, as these are our first production machines, we also expect a few "whoops" where we realize that we forgot to buy some small part. This is part of the transition from R&D to production, and now everything has to be done "according to the manual", where we've been writing out and documenting everything little thing.

As such, the first 10 machines will likely take a few weeks to make, but then things should speed up considerably.


----------



## decent_espresso

1) as discussed here a year ago, we're not gluing the tablet stand to the tablet ahead of time. Instead, you'll peel off the wax paper and place the stand onto the tablet, as appropriate for your body height and tablet height. We're designing a die-cut plastified piece of paper to include, that will serve as a guide to help you center it (photo: bottom left).

2) we've designed a plastic guide for our use, for gluing the hidden thin iron plate inside the chassis, which keeps the tablet invisibly in place with the magnetized tablet stand. The plate is a large enough magnet that adjusting the tablet (see above #1) still finds its place. (photo: bottom right)

3) we're finalizing the part to assemble the "catering kit" for those who bought the plumbable DE1PRO+ machines. This is built from an aquarium pump, an LED, an RJ45 connector and cable, and a metal enclosure. Middle-left photo shows the in-house prototype, while middle-right photo shows the planned enclosure.

4) the PC boards have not yet been delivered. They are finished and sitting in Shenzhen, but the manufacturer accidentally forgot to order one part, which happens to be the main AC power connector (photo: top right). Whoops. Next week, we should receive 10 finalized sets from them and give our approval for full delivery the following week.

5) we're settling on what colors to assign to which thermometer cables (there are 6 in all) and we'll be receiving the final color-coded fiber tubing next week. (photo: top left)

6) Two new people started this week (EE/technician Parry, and former seamstress Jennifer), while the two people who started last week didn't work out and are now gone. I had hoped that Jennifer's fine sewing skills would mean that her manual speed and dexterity was a transferrable skill, and that's been extremely the case. She's lightning fast and lead mechanical engineer has slotted her for more advanced tasks. We might be hiring more seamstresses in the future!


----------



## embrya

Regarding the tablet stand I don´t really understand how it is fixed and how adjustments for body height are possible when fixing. Pictures would help!

Stefan


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## patrickff

Thanks for the update. Boxes full of small pieces - just like my son's LEGO











decent_espresso said:


> the PC boards have not yet been delivered. They are finished and sitting in Shenzhen


I thought you wanted to make the PCBs in-house, to be able to make changes whenever necessary?


----------



## Rhaikh

patrickff said:


> I thought you wanted to make the PCBs in-house, to be able to make changes whenever necessary?


They designed the PCBs, and I think they intend to assemble the components onto the boards in-house. Actual manufacture, like the rest of the components, is outsourced.


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## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Regarding the tablet stand I don´t really understand how it is fixed and how adjustments for body height are possible when fixing. Pictures would help!
> 
> Stefan


the metal stand glues to the back of the tablet, and the other end is ferrous, and there is a rubber-coated magnet that sits on the DE1. On the inside of the DE1 there is an iron plate stuck where this magnet will sit, which keeps it in place.

To adjust the angle of the tablet, you glue to a different point on the tablet. Once it's glued, it's not adjustable except by removing it.

You can lift the entire tablet, and magnet, off the DE1, so that it wipes clean.

Here's a photo from the tablet on my desk, with labels.









<cranky> Can I request that we not have a discussion of "why did you choose this stand?" as this was discussed ad nauseum over a year ago, and is a decision that has been made, with 1000 stands now in stock. Another reason the stand is not glued on ahead of time, is so that those who don't like our choice can buy their own stand.</cranky>



patrickff said:


> I thought you wanted to make the PCBs in-house, to be able to make changes whenever necessary?


We have the facilities here make our own PCBs, and we've done so for the entire R&D process. Outsourced companies really don't like making two PCBs for testing: there's a slow turnaround, and they charge a lot for the setup each time.

However, now that we need to make a thousand boards (there are several in the DE1) I'd rather outsource that to someone with expensive robotic equipment to make and auto-test the boards. I think the reliability will be much better. Since we're 10km from Shenzhen (it's across the river/border), where 90% of the mobile phones are made, this is worth it. Note that it's actually a bit more expensive (about £15 more per machine), at our (relatively small) quantity, to outsource the board manufacture, but I prefer to go with a process that is easily scaled, so that when (I hope) we start making a lot more espresso machines, we can ramp up production volume easier.


----------



## decent_espresso

Bob Stern said:


> GUI comments:The Mac version of the DE+ emulator crashes on launch on a Retina display Mac running MacOS 10.12 (Sierra). The following comments are based on the preceding version, which did not crash.


Huh, that's strange, as there isn't much difference between the two versions. Did you copy the DE1+ icon to your desktop? Also, I'm running that exact hardware/OS setup here.



Bob Stern said:


> During a shot, the continuously expanding time scale in which "now" defines the right end of the X-axis is dizzying. I'd prefer a preference setting to define a fixed time interval for the X-axis. If the shot exceeds that time, you can let the scale begin expanding.


A few people have expressed that sentiment, though others have said they like feeling dizzy (grin).

At any rate, my intent is for the "God shot" feature to resolve this. When you save a God Shot today, you can't see into the future, as the God Shot reference is drawn at the same time as the current real-time shot. I didn't think this was optimal.

What I plan to do in the future is have the complete God Shot chart lines pre-drawn before the shot starts. In that case, there will be no X axis growth (unless your shot exceeds the God Shot's time).

This way of resolving this issue be simpler than asking people to specify the number of desired seconds on the axis, which demands a bit too much numeracy to answer.



Bob Stern said:


> The Settings (Gear) icon appears on the flush, steam and water screens even though it is relevant only to Espresso. I suggest moving the Settings icon to the tab bar along the top as an additional tab. Since a user chooses the setting before making espresso, I suggest positioning it as the first tab, and moving the Flush tab to the far right. Although your instinct probably is that the Settings should be less prominent than the other tabs, the Plus model is more for geeks, so my advice seems more appropriate than for the basic model. Also, my idea could be an alternate skin.


Settings currently does two things:

1) as you noticed, it is for espresso (the first two tabs)

2) however, tabs 3 and 4 of settings are not Espresso related

That's why access to Settings is available on all tabs.

It's also likely that we'll have a future ability to set steam parameters (temperature, pressure and flow rate) inside Settings.

I've mentioned, in response to another set of comments, that the way Settings works will likely get a makeover in version 2. I feel that mixing the "how do you want to make espresso" stuff (flow/pressure curves) with the rest of settings, isn't as optimal as it could be.

However, what's there works well enough, and I prefer to not redesign "in an echo chamber" and instead I will wait for 1000 machines to have shipped (that's the plan by summer) and then gather real user experiences into the redesign cycle.



Bob Stern said:


> We senior citizens would appreciate larger fonts in many places, such as the legends and numerical markers on the graphs, and the data below the Start button. Gray text for the values is difficult to read. Instead of using gray to distinguish the values from the titles, one option is to use serif and sans-serif fonts, respectively. Alternatively, make the titles blue or gray and the values black. The titles never change, so their readability is less important than the values.


Larger fonts are a real challenge on an 8" tablet with a lot of information to display, and where all text can be in a different language and I have to plan enough space for large languages like German.

I've tried to design, where I can, for long text strings (the "heart" espresso section, for example), but others, such as the Espresso tab, have a high amount of information density and that's difficult. Labels on charts are (for me) a low priority, because once you know what that chart does, you'll never need to read that text again. Data text is much higher priority to be readable.

Your readability concerns do not fall on deaf ears, however, and my plan is to make a high-readability version of the Insight skin, with smaller charts and a bit less data on screen, to accomodate larger fonts as well as have higher contrast.

Note that you do not need to wait for me to improve the situation, you can:

1) buy your own LARGE Android tablet, such as the 9.7 inch Samsung S3:

https://www.cnet.com/products/samsung-galaxy-tab-s3-review/

and use that instead of our tablet. I posted the Android software for free download a few days ago: https://decentespresso.com/downloads that should work nicely on that tablet.

2) then, use your Android's Settings to change screen contrast to high

But at any rate, there will be free software updates, and a "Readable Insight" skin will appear in the future on customer's tablets.


----------



## decent_espresso

As we're focussing on building espresso machines faster, we're now paying attention to the steps that take more time, or that take a bit of skill (better if it doesn't) to get right.

"Crimping" in our case means bending a small piece of metal around a wire. We have hand-squeezed tools to do this, but we're finding that our hands are getting tired.

"thermal fuses" are a fire safety precaution, and they are devices which interrupt the flow of electricity if they reach a certain temperature. The tricky thing is that if the connection to the thermal fuse is not reliable, then your device will be unreliable too. And what's more, the wires have to be crimped, not soldered, onto a thermal fuse, because soldering is hot and can damage the fuse (whoops!) in the process.

Today we're ordering two different crimping tools so that our connections are more solid and less fatiguing.

For the thermal fuses, there's the big green machine in the photos. It takes a spool of copper wire, and (kind of like a sewing machine) wraps it around very lightly whatever you've put inside the loop.

For the grounding tabs and the high voltage electrical connections, a separate machine is required. This one runs on an air compressor, is actuated with a foot pedal, and has various different bits you fit into it, for different kinds of crimps.

These machines will arrive next week and should speed up this part of the process.

FYI for machines from v1.2 and later (from August onwards) we plan on having about half of these done ahead of time for us. For example, the thermal fuses will be installed, with a thermostat, onto each water heater, by the new company that will be making those heaters for us. We will still have some crimping to do (so we'll be happy to have these machines) but about half as much.

-john


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> the metal stand glues to the back of the tablet, and the other end is ferrous, and there is a rubber-coated magnet that sits on the DE1. On the inside of the DE1 there is an iron plate stuck where this magnet will sit, which keeps it in place.
> 
> To adjust the angle of the tablet, you glue to a different point on the tablet. Once it's glued, it's not adjustable except by removing it.
> 
> You can lift the entire tablet, and magnet, off the DE1, so that it wipes clean.
> 
> Here's a photo from the tablet on my desk, with labels.
> 
> View attachment 31247
> 
> 
> <cranky> Can I request that we not have a discussion of "why did you choose this stand?" as this was discussed ad nauseum over a year ago, and is a decision that has been made, with 1000 stands now in stock. Another reason the stand is not glued on ahead of time, is so that those who don't like our choice can buy their own stand.</cranky>


Thanks John, now I got it. My interest was in how this is done, not to start a discussion about the stand´s design. This is fine for me!


----------



## gtjeffw

John,

You may have answered this before, but what is your process when dialing in grind for a flow profile? I'm guessing you first look to see if the flow is matching your target profile and next check if pressure is tracking within a certain desired range. Have you found that flavor doesn't vary much for grind changes when using a flow profile (assuming the flow target is met)?

Thanks,

Jeff


----------



## runini

John,

- related to dialing in a profile. For the years that I have been using my current machine - a Crossland CC1 that I purchased when the ZPM went belly up - I have been using only an 18gm VST basket. On the DE have you seen any way to automatically 'scale' a saved profile to produce a first approximation for a different sized basket if the beans, grind and tamping are the same?

Ron


----------



## gtjeffw

runini said:


> - related to dialing in a profile. For the years that I have been using my current machine - a Crossland CC1 that I purchased when the ZPM went belly up - I have been using only an 18gm VST basket. On the DE have you seen any way to automatically 'scale' a saved profile to produce a first approximation for a different sized basket if the beans, grind and tamping are the same?


My naive speculation is that a flow profile would probably get you most of the way there. But preinfusion settings and the actual flow rate might need just a tiny bit of tweaking to be perfect, which I guess is what you are suggesting.  It does seem like grind would eventually need to be adjusted.

I wonder if a well dialed in pressure profile is ultimately more consistent shot to shot as compared to a flow profile. It seems like a machine monitoring and adapting pressure would be more precise than with flow, but I'm no expert on the sensors involved.

In any case, I'm looking forward to trying out both.

--

Jeff


----------



## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> You may have answered this before, but what is your process when dialing in grind for a flow profile? I'm guessing you first look to see if the flow is matching your target profile and next check if pressure is tracking within a certain desired range.


When I get new beans, I start with my standard profile:

1) a 3.5 ml/s preinfusion, automatically exiting when pressure reaches 4 bar (takes 9s to 15s)

2) a 2.2 ml/s flow rate for a total shot time around 35s

3) 36g in glass

And I grind 18g into the portafilter.

If my shot runs between 6 bar and 12 bar around the goal time, my coffee already tastes pretty good.

I'll generally then fiddle with the grind and dose over the next few days to arrive at the best flavor for those beans.



gtjeffw said:


> Have you found that flavor doesn't vary much for grind changes when using a flow profile (assuming the flow target is met)?


Changing the grind will require me to change the dose weight. A shot tasting great at 18g that I then fine the grind on, will need me to drop the dose down to (say) 15g or else the pressure will shoot over 13 bar and not much will extract. At 15g, I will keep the same extraction ratio (30g in cup) otherwise I don't like the flavor.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that a shot that tastes good with 18g of coffee won't taste much different at 15g, as long as the 2:1 extraction ratio is held. Fining the grind further does change the flavor, and over the next two weeks with a bean, I'll settle on my preferred dose/grind, generally between 15g and 19g.

My opinion is that most of the taste variability between shots is currently due to puck prep, though bean aging is a constant that one needs to adjust to (personally, I do this by slightly increasing the dose by a few tenths of a gram).

For reference, here's the shot I just pulled and am drinking at the moment. It was a 15g, 25g out shot. I tend to pull shots shorter when they're going into milk (this was for a flat white). The thicker, lighter colored lines are the "god shot" reference shot I'm trying to hit.









On the temperature side, note that is was the first shot of the day, just turned the machine on, cold portafilter (I had a double spout mistakenly in the machine, and switched to a bottomless at the last moment).



runini said:


> John,
> 
> - related to dialing in a profile. For the years that I have been using my current machine - a Crossland CC1 that I purchased when the ZPM went belly up - I have been using only an 18gm VST basket. On the DE have you seen any way to automatically 'scale' a saved profile to produce a first approximation for a different sized basket if the beans, grind and tamping are the same?


My opinion is that using a basket that is too large for the dose doesn't have a noticeable impact on the drink quality, except that:

1) preinfusion will take a bit longer due to the extra headspace (but since we auto-exit preinfusion based on pressure, you won't notice this)

2) your puck will by muddier with too big a basket.

My personal range of baskets that I actually use is 15g 18g 20g.



gtjeffw said:


> My naive speculation is that a flow profile would probably get you most of the way there. But preinfusion settings and the actual flow rate might need just a tiny bit of tweaking to be perfect, which I guess is what you are suggesting.  It does seem like grind would eventually need to be adjusted. I wonder if a well dialed in pressure profile is ultimately more consistent shot to shot as compared to a flow profile. It seems like a machine monitoring and adapting pressure would be more precise than with flow, but I'm no expert on the sensors involved.


Flow profiling is gentler on less-than-perfect oucks (which are the majority, mine included) because channels in your puck won't result in high-speed gushing like a pressure profile shot does.

FLOW PROFILE: shots pulled at the same flow rate (Say, 2.2 ml/s), but +/- 10% resulting pressure change, will taste quite similar.

PRESSURE PROFILE: shots at the same pressure (say, 9 bar), with +/- 10% flow rate, will taste quite different.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Via tech support, I was asked a question today, that might be interesting to the group:



> After you make a shot, is it possible to save the pressure, flow, and temperature data as a function of time to a file? An ascii file in column format with time, presssure, flow, and temperature.


Yes: each espresso shot is automatically saved in the /de1plus/history directory.

There is a command line program that will convert each into a csv. Below are the commands, and the resulting excel file. I think this is pretty close to what you asked for. Use Android File Transfer to copy the directory to your computer.

Note that two kinds of flow are given: water into the group, vs weight increase into the cup (if you have our Bluetooth scale). And two kinds of temperature are given: water temp into the group, and water temp behind the shower shield (which approximates the puck slurry temp)

/d/admin/code/de1beta:*ls history/*.shot*

history/1514876463.shot history/1514877094.shot history/1514951917.shot history/1514952468.shot history/1514953498.shot history/1515117285.shot history/1515117880.shot history/1515132836.shot history/1514876490.shot history/1514877179.shot history/1514951964.shot history/1514952601.shot history/1515030729.shot history/1515117867.shot history/1515117884.shot history/1515401198.shot history/1514877003.shot history/1514881060.shot history/1514952357.shot history/1514952994.shot history/1515042143.shot history/1515117875.shot history/1515118067.shot history/1515468514.shot

/d/admin/code/de1beta:*./history_export.tcl*

Exporting........................done

/d/admin/code/de1beta:*ls history/*.csv*

history/1514876463.csv history/1514877094.csv history/1514951917.csv history/1514952468.csv history/1514953498.csv history/1515117285.csv history/1515117880.csv history/1515132836.csv history/1514876490.csv history/1514877179.csv history/1514951964.csv history/1514952601.csv history/1515030729.csv history/1515117867.csv history/1515117884.csv history/1515401198.csv history/1514877003.csv history/1514881060.csv history/1514952357.csv history/1514952994.csv history/1515042143.csv history/1515117875.csv history/1515118067.csv history/1515468514.csv


----------



## decent_espresso

Via tech support, I was asked a question today, that might be interesting to the group:



> After you make a shot, is it possible to save the pressure, flow, and temperature data as a function of time to a file? An ascii file in column format with time, presssure, flow, and temperature.


Yes: each espresso shot is automatically saved in the /de1plus/history directory.

There is a command line program that will convert each into a csv. Below are the commands, and the resulting excel file. I think this is pretty close to what you asked for. Use Android File Transfer to copy the directory to your computer.

Note that two kinds of flow are given: water into the group, vs weight increase into the cup (if you have our Bluetooth scale). And two kinds of temperature are given: water temp into the group, and water temp behind the shower shield (which approximates the puck slurry temp)

/d/admin/code/de1beta:*ls history/*.shot*

history/1514876463.shot history/1514877094.shot history/1514951917.shot history/1514952468.shot history/1514953498.shot history/1515117285.shot history/1515117880.shot history/1515132836.shot history/1514876490.shot history/1514877179.shot history/1514951964.shot history/1514952601.shot history/1515030729.shot history/1515117867.shot history/1515117884.shot history/1515401198.shot history/1514877003.shot history/1514881060.shot history/1514952357.shot history/1514952994.shot history/1515042143.shot history/1515117875.shot history/1515118067.shot history/1515468514.shot

/d/admin/code/de1beta:*./history_export.tcl*

Exporting........................done

/d/admin/code/de1beta:*ls history/*.csv*

history/1514876463.csv history/1514877094.csv history/1514951917.csv history/1514952468.csv history/1514953498.csv history/1515117285.csv history/1515117880.csv history/1515132836.csv history/1514876490.csv history/1514877179.csv history/1514951964.csv history/1514952601.csv history/1515030729.csv history/1515117867.csv history/1515117884.csv history/1515401198.csv history/1514877003.csv history/1514881060.csv history/1514952357.csv history/1514952994.csv history/1515042143.csv history/1515117875.csv history/1515118067.csv history/1515468514.csv


----------



## decent_espresso

The past 7 or so days for me have been about setting the included tablet to be as friendly and professional as I can make it. I've intentionally set things up different from a normal Android tablet normally arrives, so as to make the tablet experience a bit easier.

Here are a bunch of choices I've made, that I'm open to changing my mind on:

- the screen doesn't power off if the tablet is plugged in. That way, you can tap the tablet at any time to warm up the espresso machine

- all Google related icons have been removed from the main screen. If you want to run other apps, tap the ... icon on the center bottom

- a custom wallpaper is installed, with only one important icon, in the center.

- you push the power button to wake the tablet. No gesture needed. This is just to simplify usage.

- there is no requirement to have a Google Play Store account, nor to connect to wifi (though wifi is needed when/if you want to software update). Software updates are not automatic because you might feel that your machine is working perfectly well and that you don't want to change anything.

- the tablet will arrive to you pre-Bluetooth-paired to your machine.

- the tablet will arrive preconfigured (just power it on). At the moment, the tablets are set up to be in English, but eventually, I'd like to pre-set up the tablet to whatever language and time zone you used when ordering your machine from us.

- there is a self-standing "Decent Update" program icon, on the bottom left of the screen. This will update your software. This same feature is available in the app. However, I realized that if I accidentally sent out a totally broken version of my software, you would have no way to update to a non-broken one. So, I've made this alternate "Decent Update" for that (hopefully to never occur) eventuality.

- "show touch events on screen" is enabled, as I find it helpful to have little "ghost clouds" appear under my finger as I tap. If you disagree, you can change it.

- the tablet is pre-rooted with a recent free version of supersu, and the kernel is not locked down ("adb" runs in root mode). The tablet is "hacker friendly".

- the DE1 and DE1+ software is installed in /sdcard/de1 (or /sdcard/de1+) and not buried inside Android in a read-only location, in order to make it easy for you to find files and change things as you wish. Each tablet contains the full source code to the GUI.

- I decided to not have the DE1 app automatically launch when the tablet powers up, because it's not how people except a touch device to work. You do need to tap the espresso machine icon.

Things I'd like to improve:

- unfortunately, there is no way for me to remove the Google Search Bar from the main menu. Believe me, I've tried. If someone figures out how to do this, I will be indebted to them!

- I'd like a larger icon, but Android positively fights you over this. There is a way to do it that I know of, by writing self-standing Desktop Widget, and I'd love it if someone figure this out for me.


----------



## Dylan

At the moment, that home screen looks very bare - is it worth considering making an android 'widget' that looked a bit more substantial and could potentially hold 'at a glance information' on the home screen?

Not sure about the always on screen, but this is always something that can be changed by the user.

No auto updates means no auto security patches from Google does it not?... I feel like this may have been discussed before but having a non updated device attached to your home network is considered a risk.

Regarding the search bar a Google for "XDA remove google search bar" returns a few hit but they all seem very simple and essentially require disabling/uninstalling the Google search app - but this may only be an option in certain roms.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> Things I'd like to improve:
> 
> - unfortunately, there is no way for me to remove the Google Search Bar from the main menu. Believe me, I've tried. If someone figures out how to do this, I will be indebted to them!
> 
> - I'd like a larger icon, but Android positively fights you over this. There is a way to do it that I know of, by writing self-standing Desktop Widget, and I'd love it if someone figure this out for me.


I suspect both of these can be done by installing a different launcher.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> At the moment, that home screen looks very bare - is it worth considering making an android 'widget' that looked a bit more substantial and could potentially hold 'at a glance information' on the home screen?


Bare was kind of the goal, because that way there's not much to think about. There are three choices:

1) run the DE1 software

2) run some other software

3) update the DE1 software.



Dylan said:


> Not sure about the always on screen, but this is always something that can be changed by the user.


There is a physical power button on the tablet turns the screen on/off.

Here's how the tablet/espresso machine interaction works:

1) you can have the espresso machine go into low-power mode when the DE1 tablet software starts the screen saver (or if you cause that to happen by hitting the "power" icon on the tablet screen)

2) and for the espresso machine to warm up (high power mode) when the tablet is tapped to come out of screen saver mode

If you want to turn the tablet off, the typical work flow is:

1) make espresso

2) hit the "power" button on the tablet to turn on the screen saver

3) push the physical power button on the tablet's side, to turn the tablet screen off.

When you want to start the espresso machine you:

1) tap the physical power button on the tablet's side

2) tap the screen



Dylan said:


> No auto updates means no auto security patches from Google does it not?... I feel like this may have been discussed before but having a non updated device attached to your home network is considered a risk.


No, this is not the case. The android tablet's OS will auto-update with security patches, as this is a google licensed OS distribution, when you connect it to wifi.

By "no updates" I mean not updating the DE1 software, if you so choose. I personally find it irritating to have software that I like perfectly well, change under me without my consent.



Dylan said:


> Regarding the search bar a Google for "XDA remove google search bar" returns a few hit but they all seem very simple and essentially require disabling/uninstalling the Google search app - but this may only be an option in certain roms.


Yep, I've seen those same things, and unfortunately the documented option is not present in the Android version we have on the tablet. It's simply missing where it should be.

I expect that there is an XML file that can be edited, to make the search bar go away. However, google likes its branding, so they haven't made this an obvious feature to disable.

At any rate, I suspect that among the first batch of users there will be some Android savvy users who will have some improvements figured out that I can apply to the v1.1 releases.



roastini said:


> I suspect both of these can be done by installing a different launcher.


Yes, absolutely, but I considered that to be off the mission critical path of shipping a machine to make espresso, and thus preferred to stay with the Google-provided "launcher3".

My assumption is that in a few years, we'll be moving Decent to one of the recent Android (v8 or better) that now requires vendors to be compatible with the open source Android distribution. However, no affordable-to-us tablet is currently available for Android 8. In a few years.

-john


----------



## griff

Since you can't make the icon larger I would change the wallpaper so that it has a white circle where the app icon is to increase contrast. Right now it is hard to see with a mostly black icon on a black background.


----------



## gtjeffw

decent_espresso said:


> When I get new beans, I start with my standard profile:
> 
> ...
> 
> My opinion is that most of the taste variability between shots is currently due to puck prep, though bean aging is a constant that one needs to adjust to (personally, I do this by slightly increasing the dose by a few tenths of a gram).
> 
> ...


Thanks for your reply! I'd never thought of increasing dose for aging beans. Sounds like it will work well for DE1.



decent_espresso said:


> ...
> 
> 2) your puck will by muddier with too big a basket.
> 
> ...


The muddy puck issue has me wondering if you could implement a special "dry the puck" feature by going full heat to clear the last bit of water with some steam. I don't know if the current DE1 plumbing would even allow that, but maybe a future version you could valve such that steam can be redirected to the grouphead. One issue is that users would need to first remove their cup so the flavor wouldn't be ruined. Also, if the puck gets scorched it could give off some charred smells that mess with taste, but maybe just a few seconds of steam to clear the water before charring.

--

Jeff


----------



## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> The muddy puck issue has me wondering if you could implement a special "dry the puck" feature by going full heat to clear the last bit of water with some steam. I don't know if the current DE1 plumbing would even allow that, but maybe a future version you could valve such that steam can be redirected to the grouphead. One issue is that users would need to first remove their cup so the flavor wouldn't be ruined. Also, if the puck gets scorched it could give off some charred smells that mess with taste, but maybe just a few seconds of steam to clear the water before charring.


Honestly, I don't stress too much about muddy pucks. When I visited Simonelli, we were pulling good shots on their black eagle, but the pucks were muddy. They shrugged and said it didn't matter. I tend to concur: the drink is the result and is what matters. If I have to towel out the portafilter after a shot, but the drink was great, I'm ok with that.

-john


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> https://decentespresso.com/downloads


I played and looked around the DE1 version a little bit, and here are a few comments/questions:


The comment in the "default" skin reads


Code:


# during espresso we show the current state of things and a timer

 but only the state changes upon clicking on the icon(s)?

The files in "/profiles" neither contain a version number (e.g. v1 profile format) nor a HW tag (e.g. 1 = DE1 v1.0). Should probably be added.

Is "/history" only populated for the DE1+ (because it did not populate for me)?

Is {[de1plus]} the only variable a skin developer needs to pay attention to, to support both DE1 and DE1+?

Since the "Insight" skin was missing (only really makes sense for the DE1+), how would one display the last shot (preinfusion pressure, etc.)?

It would be nice to have a debug window that shows the state/variables


P.S. respect for calculating all the coordinates


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> I played and looked around the DE1 version a little bit, and here are a few comments/questions:


Thanks for digging deep into this. That's really useful and you're the first to do it.



patrickff said:


> The comment in the "default" skin reads
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> # during espresso we show the current state of things and a timer
> 
> but only the state changes upon clicking on the icon(s)?


The default skin was the first I did, two years ago, before the DE1+ existed, so that comment is now out of date. I've rewritten to read:



Code:


# during espresso we show the current state of things (heating, waiting, flushing, etc)




patrickff said:


> The files in "/profiles" neither contain a version number (e.g. v1 profile format) nor a HW tag (e.g. 1 = DE1 v1.0). Should probably be added.


Good point, I'll add a version number. But, not sure about a hardware tag as the way the DE1 works is that it scans the presets/ and only displays those for user-picking, which it has the hardware to do.

The current profile type is defined in the preset as:



Code:


settings_profile_type settings_2b

but I will change this to



Code:


settings_profile_type settings_flow

as the DE1 does not have flow profiling capabilities, it skips presets that request it.



patrickff said:


> Is "/history" only populated for the DE1+ (because it did not populate for me)?


yes



patrickff said:


> Is {[de1plus]} the only variable a skin developer needs to pay attention to, to support both DE1 and DE1+?


Yes, if you want to make a skin that works on both machines, you should use that "if" statement to insert features onscreen that require the DE1+

If you want to make a skin which requires the DE1+, add this to the top of the skin file and it will not be in the list of choices for DE1 users:



Code:


package require de1plus 1.0




patrickff said:


> Since the "Insight" skin was missing (only really makes sense for the DE1+), how would one display the last shot (preinfusion pressure, etc.)?
> 
> It would be nice to have a debug window that shows the state/variables


Take a look at the skins/Insight/skin.tcl and change the first two lines from 0 to 1:



Code:


set ::skindebug 0
set ::debugging 0

The "::skindebug" option will draw rectangles around each "tap area" and is useful to deciding what parts of the UI should be tappable. I always extend the "tap zone" as much as possible to allow people have sloppy finger habits. If you're making your own skin (not using the Insight skin) then you can either put that line in your skin file, or change



Code:


/skins/default/standard_includes.tcl

to enable the skin debug feature.

The "::debugging" flag will massively shrink the standard charts in the Insight skin, and give you a huge debug log onscreen. You can display things on it by adding "msg" commands to your skin. You can tap on the tiny charts and they will zoom to hide the debug log and show you the espresso charts, so you get the best of both worlds.

The data feed over bluetooth showing espresso info (pressure, flow, temp) is only provided on the DE1+. On the DE1, you ask the espresso machine to make the shot, and it does it, but there isn't the support for "introspection" (if that's the right word) about the shot you just made. Obviously, you can't see that fact with the DE1 simulation you currently have.

If you look at the at skins/Insight/skin.tcl and locate:



Code:


# data card displayed during espresso making

that's a fairly clean section of code that provides a "data card" of live numbers. The spacing and colors are fairly easily adjusted.

However, that Insight "data card" hadn't yet been transplanted into other skins, and I've only thus far had the time to do that work once (during the new year's break, and I also happened for fracture my foot, so I was coding rather than partying).

Take a look at skins/8-Bit/skin.tcl as that's a skin that works on both the DE1 and DE1+, and which brings enhancements onscreen if you have a DE1+. The section to look at is the 2nd



Code:


if {[de1plus]} {

where you'll see the data card (copy from "Insight" and a bit cleaned up to be more portable to other skins) as well as reskinnable and simplified DE1+ charts.



Code:


P.S. respect for calculating all the coordinates

Thanks! The Photoshop ruler is actually my friend for that, and it gets me about 10 pixels close by eyeballing the cross-hairs. Then, I twiddle the numbers back and forth to locate everything perfectly.

As you probably already surmised, everything is defined to a 2560x1600 tablet resolution, and then scaled down. It'll be a few years before a 320DPI resolution is considered "fuzzy", I hope.

Really appreciate this feedback, btw. Thoughtful and constructive.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Things are a busy here at Decent HQ, as we're all-hands-on-deck to build machines. You can't overnight hire 6 qualified people, so a lot of us are doing two jobs. I did hire 4 people two weeks ago, and two of them have worked out. We're just about to get into the Chinese New Year holiday here, so it's not easy to hire people. Immediately after the holidays, lots of people look for jobs.

I took this photo montage two days ago but haven't had a chance to write this post. So, there'll be another post in a few minutes with more recent news too.

- the cast aluminum drip tray covers saga is at last over! (center left and right photos) When I last reported about 6 weeks ago, they were nicely cast, but the finish was really ugly. Later, the company making them for us seemed to understand the concepts of "deburred" and also "polished" but both at the same time was never happening. We got two sets of samples over several weeks that were either or. Groan. This week we finally received 10 samples of polished, deburred drip tray covers, and boy they look great. Only negative: about 80% are slightly twisted by the drying process. Sigh. Good news: a little hand twisting for a few seconds and a check against a drip tray, and they're as close to perfect as we could hope for. And of course, the price has risen from $2.90 each to $5.50 each, because it's so much work for them to make them look this good. What can you do?

- ten samples of all the PC boards arrived (bottom left). A few real-world problems were found. For example, the thickness of the wire used on the flow sensor is slightly too thick for the small connector on the PCB. This is solvable with a custom-made cable. We don't like the white glob of insulation paint on one board: it's safety compliant but it makes repairing the board next to impossible. They'll change that in production to insulating tubes.

- Our biggest challenge is that we're having trouble finding someone to make the DC power cable quickly, as it's apparently not that common here (it's a Molex Nanofit http://www.molex.com/dpb/nanofit.html which we didn't think was unusual at all) and the cable makers want a lot of time to special order the parts and learn about it. We'll need to get the parts and make them ourselves, or else this'll delay things. In the past, we've just handmade the cables, in small quantities.

- Jennifer has graduated to making pump assemblies (top left). Because our pumps are "vibratory" (no giggling, please) they need to be suspended in air and vibration isolated or they'll make a lot of noise. We use a combination of springs and soft rubber parts to accomplish this.

- Bugs has emerged from her first government-required audit (it took 4 months!) and is pleased as punch to be away from Excel, now wielding power tools and making heater box assemblies. (bottom right photo)

-john


----------



## patrickff

Thanks for the detailed response.



decent_espresso said:


> The data feed over bluetooth showing espresso info (pressure, flow, temp) is only provided on the DE1+. On the DE1, you ask the espresso machine to make the shot, and it does it, but there isn't the support for "introspection" (if that's the right word) about the shot you just made.


So to re-iterate, the DE won't be able to show the current pressure (unlike a Breville or Rocket with its pressure gauge)? Would be a bummer, because I would like to see the parameters (pressure, time) I can set/influence.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> - . . . This week we finally received 10 samples of polished, deburred drip tray covers, and boy they look great. Only negative: about 80% are slightly twisted by the drying process. Sigh. Good news: a little hand twisting for a few seconds and a check against a drip tray, and they're as close to perfect as we could hope for.


Time will tell, but my concern is that the twisting reflects the most "relaxed" position for those drip trays, and that with time (and heat exposure) the hand-twisted trays will rewarp.


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> Thanks for the detailed response. So to re-iterate, the DE won't be able to show the current pressure (unlike a Breville or Rocket with its pressure gauge)? Would be a bummer, because I would like to see the parameters (pressure, time) I can set/influence.


At the moment, no, but I don't think that's all that different from the Rocket/Breville, because I'm guessing those pressure gauges are showing you pressure at the pump, and not pressure at the puck. As such, they're on limited use, other than to tell you that the machine is working as planned (ie, delivering 9 bar). The DE1+, the latest LM machines (such as the Strada EP, and the GS/3 with the manual gauge option) and of course any lever machine with a pressure gauge, show you pressure-at-the-puck.

My goal with the DE1 is to keep it simple, and to ask coffee hobbyists to please buy the DE1+ if they want more than "push button to make a very good espresso" functionality.



roastini said:


> Time will tell, but my concern is that the twisting reflects the most "relaxed" position for those drip trays, and that with time (and heat exposure) the hand-twisted trays will rewarp.


That's a good question, and as you say, time will tell. You can of course, retwist it. In my experience, aluminum tends to stay in whatever position you leave it in.

But really, the long term life and reliability of the drip tray cover is practically dead last in my list of worries (along with the ceramics) because they are not that expensive, and easily swapped out. If your drip tray cover looks terrible in a year and a half, we'll just post you a free replacement. It's not like a valve, or something internal, which is a bit more difficult to swap out.

-john


----------



## patrickff

(1)



decent_espresso said:


> At the moment, no, but I don't think that's all that different from the Rocket/Breville, because I'm guessing those pressure gauges are showing you pressure at the pump, and not pressure at the puck. As such, they're on limited use, other than to tell you that the machine is working as planned (ie, delivering 9 bar).


Very true. The machine's pressure should "just" (Ray's firmware is working hard) match the selected profile - in most cases this should be ok. In cases where something went wrong, however, the user won't be able to tell that a drop of pressure occurred (e.g. bad tamp) over the duration of the shot (ok, should will taste horrible) since there is no visual indication.

(2) It would be nice to have - if not already there - a shot/water timer variable that would be accessible by the template. This would allow to implement progress bar, and/or show the "indented" pressure. DE1 and DE1+.

(3) What hardware can the RedBear BLE module access? Also DE1, DE1+

(4) The DE1+ interface has a "Flush" tab. What is it for (I would use "Water" to heat up the ports filter)?


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> (1)Very true. The machine's pressure should "just" (Ray's firmware is working hard) match the selected profile - in most cases this should be ok. In cases where something went wrong, however, the user won't be able to tell that a drop of pressure occurred (e.g. bad tamp) over the duration of the shot (ok, should will taste horrible) since there is no visual indication.


Correct. As that's a quite nice feature (on pump based machines, only on a few high end pro machines) it's not on our least expensive model. Sorry.



patrickff said:


> (2) It would be nice to have - if not already there - a shot/water timer variable that would be accessible by the template. This would allow to implement progress bar, and/or show the "indented" pressure. DE1 and DE1+.


Sorry, not following you. How is this different than the "data card" on the right hand side, when you use the Insight skin? There's a timer there.

But there is no "progress bar", it's true. It would be hard to implement for all skins, because stages in DE1+ espresso making are not always time based. Preinfusion, for instance, typically exits when a set pressure is reached. Granted, some sort of approximation could be created, and might be useful. I have to think about it a bit more.



patrickff said:


> (3) What hardware can the RedBear BLE module access? Also DE1, DE1+


It sits on a serial link to the DE1/DE1+. However, I'm not sure how much we're going to promote it, because Red Bear has move from "version 1.5" to "version 2" of that module, and it's a totally different chip. We're likely to move to a different BLE module provider in the spring.



patrickff said:


> (4) The DE1+ interface has a "Flush" tab. What is it for (I would use "Water" to heat up the ports filter)?


Hot water comes instantly out of the group head. It's for cleaning the group, or quickly preheating a cup with hot water.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

On Friday, we met with Intertek for a few hours, to discuss their findings concerning their testing of our espresso machines for UL safety compliance (for USA and Canada).

There are 8 pages of "fails" which break up into 3 categories:

1) 2 pages of small things we need to change, such as (a) add an internal drainage hole (b) grounding wires need to be colored green/blue © our on-off rocker switches follow the wrong UL code and should follow a different one. A dozen other things, all doable within a few weeks.

2) 4 pages of disclaimer and warning text that we need to include in a printed manual with the machine. "For home use only", "Service only by a qualified technician", that sort of thing. No problem.

3) 2 pages of many new, quite annoying requirements because the reviewing engineering sees our tablet as a remote control. This is is our biggest stumbling block, and it is an interesting issue, so I will write more about it below.

---

The worry, from a safety perspective, is that you might turn steam on by using the tablet while far away from the machine. It would turn on and could potentially burn someone.

This issue was raised 2 years ago in a review we had with Intertek's consulting engineers, and they agreed that the ability to turn coffee/steam via wifi would not be allowed. However, the two Intertek engineers felt that Bluetooth, because it has a very short range, would be fine, and would not cause the tablet to be seen as a remote control. We could even decrease the Bluetooth signal strength, if needed, to limit the range to 6 feet (2 meters).

However, if the tablet is seen as a remote control, boy does this cause complications. Most significantly, there would have a to be an "I accept this remote command" button tap for every single operation "requested" on the tablet, even if the tablet were sitting on the espresso machine.

For other devices, such as (say) a smart oven, a "click to start" after uploading via a tablet makes a lot of sense. But for a coffee machine, where you do several things to make a coffee (make coffee, steam, purge) requiring an extra tap would not good. Imaging tapping "steam" on the tablet, and then tapping again on the machine "really" do that command.

It's a question of interpretation:

a) is a Bluetooth connection more like a short wire (then: ok, no problem)

b) or is a Bluetooth connection more like wifi (big problem)

Intertek's consulting engineers know that they have been telling us for two years that our design was fine. But now, the independent reviewer at Intertek disagrees.

Intertek also knows that if they reject our application, other companies will hear about it, and avoid using Intertek if they have Bluetooth. Other certifying companies (likely Intertek in other countries) have already approved other Bluetooth devices that act like ours.

I do respect that Intertek is in a difficult position. They don't want to be known as "pay us and you'll certainly get approved". At the same time, if they're overly strict, people won't use them.

---

Before you think this looks like a really terrible situation for us (well, it's not great), let me tell you what the next steps are:

1) Intertek management really wants this Bluetooth issue to not be a problem, and they're currently researching what other labs have done, and what Intertek have done elsewhere. Their goal is to present a technical argument to the reviewer that will convince him that Bluetooth is more like a wire. If this happens, there are no major UL problems left for us.

2) However, the reviewer might counter that Intertek has been inconsistent on this optic, and that a study and a corporate-wide decision needs to be made. That could take a long time. Until then, "Bluetooth is like wifi" to him.

---

Once we hear back from Intertek more-or-less definitively on this, we'll make a choice:

a) if Bluetooth is fine, great, we're on a clear path to getting approved

b) if Bluetooth is a problem at the moment, then we will glue some sort of proximity detector to the tablet (like a window alarm sensor) and require the tablet to be sitting on our espresso machine, in order to work. This is "suboptimal" but it does allow us to ship now. You would not be allowed to control the DE1 with your phone. If in the future Intertek changes their mind, we can remove the need for the proximity detector. Intertek management really hate this option, because it means (a) they gave bad advice (b) they are against Bluetooth.

Interesting issues, hopefully to be wrapped up in the next few weeks.

-john


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## Dylan

Whilst really interesting to read about such stumbling blocks (anyone who wonders why a kickstarter project gets delayed need only read this thread) I'm sorry to hear about them at the same time.

I'm assuming the proximity sensor is something the community could remove themselves with a bit of know how... Even if you have to deny official support or knowledge of such a process.


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## Nishimiya

decent_espresso said:


> b) if Bluetooth is a problem at the moment, then we will glue some sort of proximity detector to the tablet (like a window alarm sensor) and require the tablet to be sitting on our espresso machine, in order to work. This is "suboptimal" but it does allow us to ship now. You would not be allowed to control the DE1 with your phone. If in the future Intertek changes their mind, we can remove the need for the proximity detector. Intertek management really hate this option, because it means (a) they gave bad advice (b) they are against Bluetooth.
> 
> -john


Would Intertek accept using the back camera and a QR code sticker (or some other type of image recognition) as a dongle ?


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## decent_espresso

Nishimiya said:


> Would Intertek accept using the back camera and a QR code sticker (or some other type of image recognition) as a dongle ?


That's a really cool idea, but no, they wouldn't. That's because the safety mechanism would reside in software (code) and there's no way to safety-certify software. In general, safety mechanisms need to be implemented in hardware, so that they can be easily certified.



Dylan said:


> I'm assuming the proximity sensor is something the community could remove themselves with a bit of know how... Even if you have to deny official support or knowledge of such a process.


If we had to use a 'proximity detector' (again, this is our fallback, and not preferred route) it would need to be glued to our tablet. As to whether you could unglue it and simply set it on the espresso machine to permanently enable the proximity switch (so that yes, it would work as previously planned), I will leave for you to choose if you want to do. Such a move would likely invalidate the UL (and CE, too) rating of the device.

I did point out in my text above that this is all subject to change (improve) with time, and so it's possible that the 'proximity detector' would be in place for a few months and then a software update could be sent out that removes the need for it, if/when Intertek decided to go down the "all global Interteks need to agree on this" route.


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## jameswagner

Bummer on the bluetooth remote certification issue.

I have no idea if the selected tablet has NFC capability, but would that be an option to confirm proximity of the tablet to the machine?

Would having it tethered and charging be enough to confirm proximit?? Maybe some software method of confirming that the tablet is directly tethered to the DE1 motherboard and not just an AC charging dongle?

Best of luck.

JW


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## Andreugv

I know it is probably suboptimal, but if the tablet has a jack could you probably use that to send the confirmation that it is close to the machine? Probably the easiest to implement, and longer lasting than proximity sensors or NFC tags (although I doubt the tablet has NFC reading capabilities). On the other hand, I do not mind a 2-step verification for dangerous things, like turning on steam. Of course it will be annoying if it needs to be for everything. I guess you have some thinking to do!


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## gtjeffw

Andreugv said:


> I know it is probably suboptimal, but if the tablet has a jack could you probably use that to send the confirmation that it is close to the machine? Probably the easiest to implement, and longer lasting than proximity sensors or NFC tags (although I doubt the tablet has NFC reading capabilities). On the other hand, I do not mind a 2-step verification for dangerous things, like turning on steam. Of course it will be annoying if it needs to be for everything. I guess you have some thinking to do!


That's a neat idea to use the headphone jack. Like the Square credit card reader. It could possibly be as simple as a loopback from speaker-out to mic-in listening for a DTMF sequence (as well as software check for headphone in use).

If there was somehow an NFC reader in the tablet, is passive NFC likely to break? I have an NFC deadbolt that has worked for years. I think that could be more elegant and pretty simple (if available).

EDIT: reading through John's comments, it sounds like the proximity detection would need to exist in the espresso machine's hardware rather than the tablet. That unfortunately creates the need for at least some level of building new hardware.

--

Jeff


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## jwCrema

Given the history of automobile issues with starting and bad things ensuing this seems like engineers with nothing to do and a need to show just how clever they are. How could anyone approve remote starting of something that massively lethal?

Intertek -let our machines go!

I would be just as happy with USB-C - but I am completely ambivalent about Bluetooth and the options you offered.


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## decent_espresso

For the moment, we've been told that Intertek needs to have an internal discussion about this, and so we're moving forward by fixing everything else on the "fail" list.

Regarding the various ideas, thanks for the offer to help, but we did spend 3h with 4 engineers at Intertek exploring the options. Anything that uses software as a safety (NFC, USB charging requirement) is not acceptable. The safety has to be non-defeatable. Yes, gtjeffw is right that this means it would be inside the espresso machine, and be a fairly strong failsafe detecting that the tablet is on top of the machine.

Either way, this will be wrapped up in a few weeks and should not affect the shipping schedule, as we're still in the middle of building the not-UL compliant machines for the pre-release USA buyers.

Yesterday we standardized and documented the way the group head should be built, and we test that procedure out by having a totally mechanically untrained person (Jennifer) follow the directions.

We're moving through the stages of reducing competence needed to build something, but also then nailing down any variability, so that they're all built the same way.

Another example: we received 10 "sample boards" from our PCB vendors, and for the few mistakes they made (wrong connectors, mostly) we hand-fix them (desoldering/soldering) so that they are now identical to the production boards.









I was looking at how competitors wire up their group heads and thought you might be interested to see how they're different. The photo below is of a competing home-espresso machine.

What's interesting to me is that they've been allowed to get away with two thermostat (those are self-resetting overheating safety protectors) and only one thermal fuse (not auto-resetting). We were told we had to have two non-resetting safeties (thermal fuses) and that the thermostat, being resettable, was not acceptable. We put one in anyway, so that if there's an overheating, the thermostat safety occurs before the fuses, because if a thermal fuse blows, you have to send your machine in for repair :-( -- it's interesting to me to see the variability in what's allowed to pass through different safety certification authorities.

Also, the competitor uses black shrink tubing on the electrical connections, which is quite safe, but hard to repair. Because those are self-locking connectors, you have to cut off the shrink tubing to remove the connections. We've preferred to go with sliding insulating covers for that reason.

Correction: Jeffrey pointed out to me that this other group head is probably using the thermostat to stop pre-heating the group at a set temperature, so that no PID is needed. Like an oven.









-john


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## Dylan

John - I was wondering to myself today; why 'Decent Espresso'?

The word 'decent' is relative I guess, but I would think it to typically mean 'good' or 'better than average'. Considering that your machine makes the pursuit of exceptional espresso much easier, and gives the user control and feedback beyond anything previously possible where did the idea for the humble 'Decent' come from, and what made you stick with it?


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> John - I was wondering to myself today; why 'Decent Espresso'? The word 'decent' is relative I guess, but I would think it to typically mean 'good' or 'better than average'. Considering that your machine makes the pursuit of exceptional espresso much easier, and gives the user control and feedback beyond anything previously possible where did the idea for the humble 'Decent' come from, and what made you stick with it?


Here's Google's definition of "decent":

https://decentespresso.com/definition

A longer answer from me would use phrases such as "British understatement", "a sense of humor", "memorable", "very English, not at all Italian".

The genesis for the name came when I saw a sign for my local coffee roaster in small-town California, which read "possibly the best roast coffee in the world". I dislike that sort of arrogant statement, and prefer to aim for "decent" and let people decide for themselves if we're more-than-decent.

On a daily basis, I don't need "the best of everything", I prefer consistently decent.

And of course, the first thing you think of when traveling to a new town, is "where I can find a decent cup of coffee?" This used to literally be the example in google dictionary for "decent".

-john


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## decent_espresso

As we're building our first batch espresso machines (rather than one prototype at a time), we're paying close attention to tasks that are quite difficult, slow or error-prone. We'll then try different approaches, or sometimes we work on making tools to simplify or dummy-proof.

- the way electricity comes into the espresso machine is fairly complicated. Why? Because instead of the power switch directly turning electricity on, the way it works is that the power switch supplies voltage to the 24V converter, which then boots up the logic board, and then if the firmware is working correctly, it turns on a relay which then connects mains power. The idea behind this complicated wire up is that if the firmware "crashes" (it is software, after all) then the mains power is immediately cut off by the relay. One consequence of this wire-up (top left photo) is that in two places, we have two wires that combine into one spade connector. We tried 3 different ways to do this, and at the moment, we think that using our newly-purchased copper wire-wrap-crimper (the "green machine") is the best way (bottom left photo). If you've got an electrical background and know of a better way, please chime in.

- the insulating box around our heater is assembled by us by soldering several fiberglass boards together. It's been very time-consuming, about 30 minutes each, to make these. The biggest problem is that the box tumbles apart as you try to solder it. You're constantly using a lot of tape to temporarily hold it together. Clumsy. Johnny has been working on a routed plastic guide to hold the box together, and our EE student intern Stanley has been at it for two days (bottom right photo). We've cut the soldering time down to 10 minutes each. That's still 100 hours total to make the 600 boxes needed to ship 300 espresso machines, but a lot better than 300 hours previously. There's still about 10 minutes of wiring to do afterward on each heater, but that process lends itself to repeating small tasks, and thus speeds up with expertise gained. I've attached a not-yet-closed photo of the heater box and wiring, in case you're curious what's going on inside.









- there is a latch on the back that you lift up, to lift the water intake tube out of the water. Johnny had designed a cut-rubber piece that went around that latch, which makes it feel slightly smoother as you lift. However, he designed it a day after I declared "feature cut off" some months ago, so it's not making it into the first 100 machines. It may seem like a small thing, but I'm worried that (a) the glue might not stick permanently or (b) the rubber guide might not be mounted perfectly aligned, and thus be worse than nothing as it "gets in the way". You can see Johnny with his mounting-guide tool (also from routed plastic) to put the rubber piece in. You can also see the rubber piece on the espresso machine behind him. The glue is 3M supplied and appears sufficient, but the perfect-alignment issue is still to be solved. People often email me asking "what's going to be different between v1.0 and v1.1 of your machine" and this is the sort of small improvement that'll come over time.

- speaking of routed plastic, some months ago we bought an inexpensive open-source CNC machine, hoping we could use it to etch the serial number, model number, etc on the back panel. It turned out not to work for that purpose, because (a) for a drill bit to carve text, the thing being carved needs to be perfectly level, and that turned out to be really difficult and (b) the optional laser cannot "write" on the rear plastic panel. Happily, though, this low-quality CNC machine is perfect for routing out simple plastic shapes, and so it's been on nearly continuously for two weeks, creating tools for assembly. Photo attached of the little CNC machine that could.









-john


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## Andreugv

jwCrema said:


> Given the history of automobile issues with starting and bad things ensuing this seems like engineers with nothing to do and a need to show just how clever they are. How could anyone approve remote starting of something that massively lethal?
> 
> Intertek -let our machines go!
> 
> I would be just as happy with USB-C - but I am completely ambivalent about Bluetooth and the options you offered.


I know about at least one person, who happens to have a bigger, more powerful button that actually works. LOL


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## decent_espresso

Here's a large photo montage that shows all our progress. Busy busy!

Going from left-to-right, then top to bottom:

- 10 "espresso flush assemblies" (with the "slow down the water box"

- fully wired up 10 of our logic boards, with all probes, valves, sensors and connectors. Wrote a C++ firmware program to check everything. Fully tested 10 boards in this way. Documented the wiring and test process.

- received 300 coated-paper guides to help you put the tablet stand on centered, at the position you want

- wrote a manual on assembling the steam wand

- a manual on how to assemble our two mixing/sensor chambers.

- built 10 water-update assemblies

- assembled and quality-controlled 100 steam wands with a real water pressure test

- built 10 group heads

- second revision of wiring up the power switch, relay and PC boards

- a jig was successfully made and documented, to speed up soldering together our water heater insulation boxes

- 10 pump assemblies assembled (still need to write a manual for this)

- a jig for placing the under-the-case magnet arrived, and it was modified by a few millimeters as the magnet position was not perfect.

- an 8mm hole was hand-drilled into 10 chassis, to comply with Intertek's drainage-hole safety requirement.

- a color coding scheme for all the temperature sensors was decided upon

- 20 heater boxes almost finished (enough for 10 machines)

- detailed instructions for inserted a vital flow restrictor

To do this week:

- build the main mixing chambers, and write a manual about how to do this

- decide how we want to make the high voltage cables to the water heaters and group heads. We've made these by hand in the past and now need to really formalize the process.

- assemble one machine, see if it actually works (!) and then build the other 9 machines.

Still to do before we ship to customers:

- ship 6 machines to the "insiders" early beta users. These are my advisors for the past 3 years, who I first met when we were thinking about taking on the ZPM espresso machine project. They'll honestly tell me if we messed up somewhere.

- finish programming/testing some firmware/functionality. Firmware updating is coded, but not torture tested. Group head flushing and a cleaning cycle need to be coded. Final calibration (of flow and pressure sensors) numbers need to be moved to bluetooth and not hard-coded.

- get a final list from Intertek of their safety concerns regarding our construction. They gave us their report last week, but did not opine on our water heaters or group head, because they hadn't disassembled them. We sent them disassembled parts this week for their review.

- the Chinese New Year holiday season is coming up in February, with Mainland China closed for two weeks, and Hong Kong closed for a week. We're trying to get our machines to our beta testers before then so we can hit the ground running upon the end of the short holiday.

-john


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## decent_espresso

We've sent Intertek all the supplemental documentation and disassembled parts that asked for, and we're now waiting for the final results of their "construction review". Once received, we'll make two new espresso machines with the changes they requested, and then will move toward full review.

The "prerelease" buyers of our espresso machine will receive machines with all the changes Intertek has thus requested, but the machine will not yet be certified.

In other news, Intertek is still discussing internally whether our Bluetooth tablet is an external remote control or more like a short wire. The difference in interpretation is crucial to our moving forward.

However, in order not to further delay shipping, I have hand made a "tether" in the photo above, and proposed it to Intertek as a solution if they are adamant about the tablet being a remote. I believe that this tether should solve the problem, and I'm discussing it with them this week.

The end of this tether would have a torx screw, because Intertek considers flat-head and phillips-head screws to be "user removable" whereas removing a torx screw requires specialized tools. The other end is secured with a cable tie. If the user removed this cable, the machine would no longer be considered UL certified.

This is a question for you guys: how offensive do you find this solution?

Here is a more professional version of the same idea, sold for stores that have tablets and other devices on display.









-john


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## o2c

1) Can the Torx screw be mounted in the back (so if removed it won't be as noticeable)?

2) Does the fixed mounting affect the shipping methods?

3) Does this tether method mean you won't be able to use your own device?

4) My memory is fuzzy but I thought you had the user affixing the stand to the tablet (and then the tether to the stand). Does that affect certification? The tablet works when not on the stand, no?


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## embrya

I do not like this "tether" solution at all - destroys the harmony of the design. If you wanna go for this then put the screw on top just behind the tablet and not on the side of the machine.

I would prefer the previous solution with a proximity detector much more.

And the best would be that Intertek relys on what they told you at the beginning - it´s not a remote!


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## jwCrema

The tether solution works for me. Hopefully no one at Intertek will go to a hardware store until after they commit to this decision- Torx drivers are cheap and readily available. I own a full set of them right now to service my Dell laptop. The lid that holds the battery is secured with them. This set cost me less than $10.

I value having U/L certification. I discovered through an electrician friend of mine that some homeowners insurance policies do not endorse the use of non certified appliances. If it burns your house down they may not cover the loss.


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## Dylan

As if in this day and age a torx screw is still considered 'specialist equipment'.

Just shows how much BS their certification is, I get these things are needed to stop rogue companies making shitty products (just look at the Chinese 'hoverboard' fiasco) but doing things like designating the use of a torx screw, like that is going to prevent someone from removing it is so laughable its almost parody.


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## malling

Dylan said:


> As if in this day and age a torx screw is still considered 'specialist equipment'.
> 
> Just shows how much BS their certification is, I get these things are needed to stop rogue companies making shitty products (just look at the Chinese 'hoverboard' fiasco) but doing things like designating the use of a torx screw, like that is going to prevent someone from removing it is so laughable its almost parody.


Yep they still define it as a specialist equipment, although the vast majority who actually own a toolbox owns at least one set of torx screwdriver or bits set.

As you said it's laughable, but who am I to complain it makes it so much easier to remove it, so glad they haven't requested the use of torx security, torx plus or even worse pentalobe but even those you can get on Amazon


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## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> The other end is secured with a cable tie. If the user removed this cable, the machine would no longer be considered UL certified.
> 
> This is a question for you guys: how offensive do you find this solution?


I'm not offended by this solution. A few questions for you:

(1) The cable tie in back - are you talking about a fairly standard plastic cable tie, or something else? Can you take a close-up picture that shows the method of attachment?

(2) For the torx screw - will there be enough clearance in the machine for the screw to be screwed in all the way without the cable (i.e. if someone wants to live life on the edge, or if Intertek later changes its mind.)

(3) If a user removes the cable, and then later wants to reattach it (say, for an aftermarket sale), can this be easily done? (Really, this is just another way of asking (1).)

(4) I assume this means the tablet would come with the stand already affixed to the back?


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## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> - an 8mm hole was hand-drilled into 10 chassis, to comply with Intertek's drainage-hole safety requirement.


I assume that in normal operation there will be no drainage from the machine (i.e. the expectation is that the drainage hole in normal operation does nothing), but if there is an internal water leak that results in water out the drainage hole, where will it go? That is, what is directly below this drainage hole?

Is it the water supply tank? I hope not.


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## Dylan

As the hole is in the chassis, I imagined that the counter top is below the hole...


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## roastini

Dylan said:


> As the hole is in the chassis, I imagined that the counter top is below the hole...


But the water tank slides under the chassis, behind the drip tray. Here's a YouTube video showing older versions of the drip tray and the water supply tank, and where they go.


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## Dylan

roastini said:


> But the water tank slides under the chassis, behind the drip tray. Here's a YouTube video showing older versions of the drip tray and the water supply tank, and where they go.


Ahhh I'm with you. I forgot about this detail.


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## Andreugv

I don't like this option John. The cable going to the side panel on the machine completely destroys the design. No way it can go right into the support itself? Make it less obvious?


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## decent_espresso

Many thanks for all the feedback about the tether idea. I'm still waiting to hear back from Intertek as to whether we'll need to go that way.

My current understanding is that if we do need a tether, we will be able to supply it as a "some assembly required" step for the customer to do and an instruction sheet.

I've ordered a sample of a very nice "anti-theft cord" that plugs into the audio jack of the tablet, which would probably be my choice. It looks identical to what you find in an Apple Store to prevent theft. The other end is a small metal disc with 3M glue pre-applied behind some wax paper.

Some users, such as cafés, might be especially interested in the anti-theft tether so that nobody walks off with their DE1 tablet.

-john


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## decent_espresso

For the past 3 years, we've mostly lived in one 3000 sq ft space, where all our espresso machine R&D has taken place.

Now that we're moving into proper manufacturing, we're taking away two work tables to move them into the newly-rented factory space. The reclaimed space will now house ceramics, touch tablets and give us more warehouse space. It's amazing how much space the "components" that go into an espresso machine take, because of all the protective packaging around each part.

The custom-made cardboard shipping boxes arrived today.


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## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> I assume that in normal operation there will be no drainage from the machine (i.e. the expectation is that the drainage hole in normal operation does nothing), but if there is an internal water leak that results in water out the drainage hole, where will it go? That is, what is directly below this drainage hole?
> 
> Is it the water supply tank? I hope not.





Dylan said:


> As the hole is in the chassis, I imagined that the counter top is below the hole...


The drainage hole would never leak water unless there were a leak inside. Under normal operation, this should never happen. The leak needs to be immediately obvious to the user and cause them to send the machine in for repair.

The drainage hole is there is that if there is an internal leak, you have water on your countertop, instead of the water shorting out the electrical mains and potentially shocking you.

We already had "drainage slots" along the sides of the machine, about 2mm wide, running the length of the machine. However, these are not large enough according to the UL standard, which is why we've added the new 8mm drainage hole.

If an internal leak did occur, the upper metal box would drain onto the top of the legs, and would then pour out of the sides of the machine.









We did not want the leaking water to go into the water tank, because then you might not notice it. And yuck.

The 4mm gap between the top and bottom is also to provide ventilation.

Finally, we've designed this gap to be invisible from most standing angles, because it is in the shadows of the bent-round chassis. You can see that here (this is the older v2 machine I have in my machine [current rev is v5], so don't panic about the fact that parts of it are ugly <smile>)</smile>


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## ashcroc

decent_espresso said:


> The drainage hole would never leak water unless there were a leak inside. Under normal operation, this should never happen. The leak needs to be immediately obvious to the user and cause them to send the machine in for repair.
> 
> The drainage hole is there is that if there is an internal leak, you have water on your countertop, instead of the water shorting out the electrical mains and potentially shocking you.
> 
> We already had "drainage slots" along the sides of the machine, about 2mm wide, running the length of the machine. However, these are not large enough according to the UL standard, which is why we've added the new 8mm drainage hole.
> 
> If an internal leak did occur, the upper metal box would drain onto the top of the legs, and would then pour out of the sides of the machine.
> 
> View attachment 31753
> 
> 
> We did not want the leaking water to go into the water tank, because then you might not notice it. And yuck.
> 
> The 4mm gap between the top and bottom is also to provide ventilation.
> 
> Finally, we've designed this gap to be invisible from most standing angles, because it is in the shadows of the bent-round chassis. You can see that here (this is the older v2 machine I have in my machine [current rev is v5], so don't panic about the fact that parts of it are ugly <smile>)</smile>
> 
> View attachment 31754


My dishwasher has a polystyrene float inside that'll throw up an error code & stop the machine filling (much like a cistern ballcock). It might be an option for the future instead of relying on the user to spot a puddle.


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## xpresso

Readily available are 'Wet leaf' detectors and under another name a similar piece of kit for under domestic appliances to detect leaks afore damage can be done especially to wood/laminate flooring.

The 'Wet leaf' I refer to is used in automatic garden irrigation, left exposed to the weather it detects the presence of water (Rain) and eliminates the irrigation period.

They are inexpensive, small and take up very little space, well suited for this application, simply dry them off to re-set.

Jon-Willy


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## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> Readily available are 'Wet leaf' detectors and under another name a similar piece of kit for under domestic appliances to detect leaks afore damage can be done especially to wood/laminate flooring. The 'Wet leaf' I refer to is used in automatic garden irrigation, left exposed to the weather it detects the presence of water (Rain) and eliminates the irrigation period.
> 
> They are inexpensive, small and take up very little space, well suited for this application, simply dry them off to re-set. Jon-Willy





ashcroc said:


> My dishwasher has a polystyrene float inside that'll throw up an error code & stop the machine filling (much like a cistern ballcock). It might be an option for the future instead of relying on the user to spot a puddle.


For UL safety compliance (and probably CE) we cannot accumulate water, we have to drain it out. We aren't like a dishwasher, where water can be held inside.

So, we cannot use a "we detect a water leak because water is pooling up"

However, we could affix a low voltage "water short detector" on the bottom of the inside chassis, which would automatically turn power off if any water were detected near the drain hole. This wouldn't be done to satisfy any UL/CE safety requirements (because they wouldn't acknowledge it), but it would prevent a spill on the countertop if an internal leak developed. I'm going to add this idea for the next DE1 revision.


----------



## RobW

decent_espresso said:


> My current understanding is that if we do need a tether, we will be able to supply it as a "some assembly required" step for the customer to do and an instruction sheet.
> 
> I've ordered a sample of a very nice "anti-theft cord" that plugs into the audio jack of the tablet, which would probably be my choice. It looks identical to what you find in an Apple Store to prevent theft. The other end is a small metal disc with 3M glue pre-applied behind some wax paper.
> 
> Some users, such as cafés, might be especially interested in the anti-theft tether so that nobody walks off with their DE1 tablet.
> 
> -john


If the attachment point was at the back of the machine, and it was provided as something that the customer had to add as part of assembly, that seems like a winner. Like you say, cafes might choose to use it as a sensible security measure, but the majority of home users could simply not bother.

I'd not be keen to have a hole drilled in the side of the machine that I could see.


----------



## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> For UL safety compliance (and probably CE) we cannot accumulate water, we have to drain it out. We aren't like a dishwasher, where water can be held inside.
> 
> So, we cannot use a "we detect a water leak because water is pooling up"
> 
> However, we could affix a low voltage "water short detector" on the bottom of the inside chassis, which would automatically turn power off if any water were detected near the drain hole. This wouldn't be done to satisfy any UL/CE safety requirements (because they wouldn't acknowledge it), but it would prevent a spill on the countertop if an internal leak developed. I'm going to add this idea for the next DE1 revision.


My thoughts were that the passage of water would drip/directed over the detector and either alarm, cut off power supply well before it approached being a serious leak.

Jon-Willy


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> My current understanding is that if we do need a tether, we will be able to supply it as a "some assembly required" step for the customer to do and an instruction sheet.
> 
> I've ordered a sample of a very nice "anti-theft cord" that plugs into the audio jack of the tablet, which would probably be my choice. It looks identical to what you find in an Apple Store to prevent theft. The other end is a small metal disc with 3M glue pre-applied behind some wax paper.


This seems substantially uglier than something that glues to the back of the tablet, because it juts out so much. But if it can in fact be sent unassembled, that seems fine to me.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> The drainage hole would never leak water unless there were a leak inside. Under normal operation, this should never happen. The leak needs to be immediately obvious to the user and cause them to send the machine in for repair.
> 
> The drainage hole is there is that if there is an internal leak, you have water on your countertop, instead of the water shorting out the electrical mains and potentially shocking you.


Good. I'm glad it doesn't drain into the water supply. I'm not sure how immediately obvious the leak would be, especially if it was a small leak, but hopefully you're right and it would be obvious.


----------



## roastini

BTW, I just noticed that the Decent Espresso emulator download page has HTML headers copied from the Decent glassware page. Obviously no rush necessary to fix this, but it does make the page appear oddly in search results.


----------



## decent_espresso

The knockbox that Joao and I designed a year ago, is now finally shipping. Boxes are queued up today from the preorders, and we have another 370 in stock. https://decentespresso.com/knockbox

As I've documented here, there have been a number of manufacturing challenges because of the unusual shape and my choice to make it out of 3mm thick aluminum rather than molded plastic. It holds a fairly large capacity (about 25 pucks) because we make a lot of coffee in the office and nobody likes to empty the knockbox "compost" out.

Because the knockbox is black powder coated over a large surface, about half of our stock is cosmetically perfect. I've decided that if there is 1 imperfection, I'll discount it 30%. 2 or more imperfections means 50% off.

I've attached two photos showing the kind of imperfections we're seeing. Typically it's a scratch or a variation on the black color (a "blotch"). Sometimes there are some scratches on the knockbar because the hole was slightly too tight.









I know that some people advise only selling "absolutely perfect" products for "branding reasons", but (a) I dislike the waste and (b) some folks are happy for the discount and plan to bang the hell out of our products anyway, so they'll soon be imperfect in real use.

If you like buying things on sale, look here:

https://decentespresso.com/sale


----------



## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> My thoughts were that the passage of water would drip/directed over the detector and either alarm, cut off power supply well before it approached being a serious leak. Jon-Willy


Agreed, I understand that idea now, and thanks to this forum for coming up with the idea, which is now on a todo list for a future version.



roastini said:


> This seems substantially uglier than something that glues to the back of the tablet, because it juts out so much. But if it can in fact be sent unassembled, that seems fine to me.


Exactly: glue is not very removable, whereas the headphone plug wire is, with a phillips screwdriver (behind a plastic plug). And if I'm allowed to have it as part of "some assembly required" for UL compliance, then you won't have to remove it in the first place.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> BTW, I just noticed that the Decent Espresso emulator download page has HTML headers copied from the Decent glassware page. Obviously no rush necessary to fix this, but it does make the page appear oddly in search results.


Whoops! Thanks for noticing, as nobody ever reports the minor embarrassing stuff like that.

Fixed:

https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fdecentespresso.com%2Fdownloads


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## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> Whoops! Thanks for noticing, as nobody ever reports the minor embarrassing stuff like that.
> 
> Fixed:
> 
> https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fdecentespresso.com%2Fdownloads
> 
> View attachment 31777


And then you get the Odd Bods like me who refuse to subscribe to FaceBook.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

According to the UL safety standard, every machine assembled needs to be tested to make sure there is virtually no electrical leakage that could cause a shock. Wikipedia has an easy to read explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipot of this. A piece of specialized test equipment known as a "high pot tester" arrived this week http://www.chinarek.com/en/product.asp?ProdNum=490&zid=201506221149547888515&lv1=56









My three electrical engineers reading through UL's excellent essay on the theory and practice of this "dielectric voltage withstand test" https://library.ul.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2015/02/UL_WP_Final_The-Dielectric-Voltage-Withstand-Test_v5_HR.pdf

You can see Parry in the bottom right photo, with an absolutely enormous red plastic probe, gingerly approaching a DE1 to do the first test while Stanley stands safely back.

*CATERING KIT & DE1PRO*

On the top right photo, you can see Alex testing pumps for the "catering kit" that plugs into the DE1PRO models. I wanted to make sure that the pump was strong enough to lift was 2 meters up into DE1PRO to refill it. We use the Basecamp forum software to record all this, and Alex is making a video and timing the flow. In the end, this pump (that we'll likely use) lifted water 2 meters high, at a flow rate of 1 liter per minute.

*WATER MIXING ASSEMBLY*

On the bottom left photo, you can see us starting to put together the water mixing assembly. This is the most complicated part of the machine, with 4 valves, 9 temperature probes, and a pressure sensor. You can see a few of our color-coded temperature sensors on the left side of the photo. I'm not entirely happy with how the color-coded sheath is looking after cutting + melting with a heat gun. The ends are a bit messy looking. Yesterday I ordered a "hot wire knife" https://www.aliexpress.com/item/220V-NEW-Hot-Wire-Styrofoam-Cutter-Electric-Hot-Knife-Foam-Heat-Cutter-Fabric-Cloth-Rope-Cable/32721860906.html? which I believe is the correct tool for cutting the mesh, and hopefully will give us a cleaner result.









*ANTI-THEFT CABLE*

I received the "anti-theft cable" yesterday (middle right photo), and today wired it up in various ways. Just a reminder about this: it's both for cafes who don't want to have their tablet stolen, and as a backup solution if Intertek requires us to prevent removal of the Bluetooth tablet for safety compliance reasons.

This cable has a bit that fits into the headphone jack. It's tightened and removed with an included screwdriver with a square "inverse Allen wrench" end to it. I like that it's nondestructive, but I didn't like that it doesn't fit tightly. If you overtighten, the screen starts to push away from the chassis.

I like that the other end can be secured with a 3M glue pad or with bolts. The advantage of the bolts is that this could be secured non-destructively to the back panel (middle top photo). If you didn't want the cable, you'd take the chassis cover off and remove the bolt, with no lasting damage. However, there is a dangling cable with this approach.

If the 3M glue pad is used, a very short lock cable could be specified, and the lock becomes almost invisible (top left and middle bottom photos).

Since the tablet has a stand glued to the back of it, I'm thinking that this would be a more invisible place to tether a locking cable, instead of on the headphone jack, which is both visible and not tight fitting or all that secure.

That brings us back to the original tethering proposal I made a few days ago, but with the cable going straight back and into the chassis at the back left (where it is on the top row, middle photo). The advantage of this approach is that the cable is not mostly invisible from the user's stance in front of the machine. Also, the security cable can be completely removed with a pair of wire cutters (off the tablet stand) and from the inside of the chassis (with a Torx screwdriver to remove the cover).


----------



## decent_espresso

I've just now ordered 5 different styles of black chains to see which style we prefer. To comply with Intertek's request for a tether for safety compliance reasons, we could simply run the chain from the tablet stand to a torx screw on the back panel. It's my belief that a locking cable tie on the tablet stand would likely comply, as it's only removable with wire cutters.

Here's a photo of the concept, put together now.









We have a slight concern that taps on the tablet could cause metal-moving noise, but that didn't happen on the mockup we just did. But we'll watch for that.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Free-shipping-bracelet-necklace-material-DIY-accessories-Jewelry-parts-iron-chain-3-5-5MM-SMM1066/1016256_32463314658.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Free-shipping-bracelet-necklace-material-DIY-steel-chain-accessories-Jewelry-parts-brass-chain-round-3-3/1016256_32455287982.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Free-shipping-bracelet-necklace-material-DIY-steel-chain-accessories-Jewelry-parts-brass-chain-5-5-7/1016256_32458185495.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Free-shipping-bracelet-necklace-material-DIY-accessories-Jewelry-parts-steel-chain-4-4-5mm-silver-smb1087/1016256_32447546503.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Free-shipping-bracelet-necklace-material-DIY-steel-chain-accessories-Jewelry-parts-brass-chain-4-10mm-anti/1016256_32403846359.html


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> I've just now ordered 5 different styles of black chains to see which style we prefer.


I think a black vinyl coated narrow braided steel security cable, with eyelets on the ends, would look less tacky. But again, if this is a "user assembly required" item - or at least an item for which non-destructive user disassembly is straightforward using either included tools or easily available, inexpensive ones - I don't much care.


----------



## gtjeffw

decent_espresso said:


> I've just now ordered 5 different styles of black chains to see which style we prefer....
> 
> <snip></snip>


What if you bought your own spool of coated cable and crimped on eyelets? Also, what about drilling/tapping a hole for a security screw on the underside of the tablet stand arm?

One thing I've been wondering about the tablet stand, I'm interested in glueing a magnet to the stand instead of directly to the tablet (fully aware that defeats proposed security chain feature). Then I could glue a metal plate to the tablet similar to some automotive phone mount kits. This would allow removing the tablet, replacing with a new one, etc., without needing to buy a new tablet stand. Just curious if you have already explored that as a possibility.

Given the way the UL safety issues are going, I wonder if the next major design of your machine should just have 5 physical buttons buttons (shot, steam, hot water, flush, STOP) but still use the tablet for shot programming, machine config, and viz. Seems like the biggest issue would be the firmware would now need to run the entire brewing process independent of the tablet.

--

Jeff


----------



## xpresso

The coated 'Bowden' type cable sounds better than chains, the same as used for security with LapTops.

Jon.


----------



## roastini

gtjeffw said:


> Given the way the UL safety issues are going, I wonder if the next major design of your machine should just have 5 physical buttons buttons (shot, steam, hot water, flush, STOP) but still use the tablet for shot programming, machine config, and viz. Seems like the biggest issue would be the firmware would now need to run the entire brewing process independent of the tablet.


I had a similar thought, but I think only one button would be necessary. Essentially, it would be the "action" button. What action it signals would depend on what is on the tablet, but the key point is that the firmware would not be accept a call for steam or water unless the button is pressed. And if you hit the button when steam or water is running, the firmware would take that to mean "stop."


----------



## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> Also, what about drilling/tapping a hole for a security screw on the underside of the tablet stand arm?


That's in fact what I did for the first prototype. However, I got a "that looks like a grounding wire and may raise other issues" nervous response.



gtjeffw said:


> Also, what about drilling/tapping a hole for a security screw on the underside of the tablet stand arm?


I don't want to make any permanent modifications for the safety tether, so that people who choose to remove it can enjoy an unblemished product.



gtjeffw said:


> One thing I've been wondering about the tablet stand, I'm interested in glueing a magnet to the stand instead of directly to the tablet (fully aware that defeats proposed security chain feature). Then I could glue a metal plate to the tablet similar to some automotive phone mount kits. This would allow removing the tablet, replacing with a new one, etc., without needing to buy a new tablet stand. Just curious if you have already explored that as a possibility.


In fact we have things like this in stock. Like this:









Steelie Stands used to offer this for tablets, but they have stopped doing so, and now only offer it for phones. Steelie Stands are mostly used in cars, as you indicated.

The problem is that this just not that strong a way to connect a tablet to a stand. I've tested it and found that to be the case. I suspect that's why Steelie no longer offer this for tablets.

You're of course welcome to buy your own favorite tablet stand, if you find something you prefer to what we supply.



roastini said:


> I had a similar thought, but I think only one button would be necessary. Essentially, it would be the "action" button. What action it signals would depend on what is on the tablet, but the key point is that the firmware would not be accept a call for steam or water unless the button is pressed. And if you hit the button when steam or water is running, the firmware would take that to mean "stop."


For safety compliance, you're right that a single "accept" button is all that's needed.

However, I dislike adding this, or anything else counter-functional (five buttons would still be no better, and still require two taps for every operation).

Once we have done enough to have Intertek consider the tablet as not a remote control, which is absolutely the path we will take, then any physical controls on the DE1 will be made to optimize coffee making, not for compliance reasons.

I've posted before that we have industrial footpedals planned for the DE1CAFE. On the Kees machines, those are offered for steam control, and I think that's a nice idea.

But for me, the tablet really is a core part of the DE1's DNA, and I'm not focussing of design paths that remove it.


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> In fact we have things like this in stock. Like this:
> 
> View attachment 31816
> 
> 
> Steelie Stands used to offer this for tablets, but they have stopped doing so, and now only offer it for phones. Steelie Stands are mostly used in cars, as you indicated.
> 
> The problem is that this just not that strong a way to connect a tablet to a stand. I've tested it and found that to be the case. I suspect that's why Steelie no longer offer this for tablets.
> 
> You're of course welcome to buy your own favorite tablet stand, if you find something you prefer to what we supply.


I would guess that if you attached an opposite pole neodymium magnet under the top surface where the tablet stand is glued this would create a much stronger attachment - maybe something a user could mod if they wished.


----------



## decent_espresso

Just about to power up our first two machines, with everything built right. Both machines are "splayed open" so that we can poke around with oscilloscopes and multimeters to ensure everything is working as expected.

Next week, Ray can hopefully start work on final firmware calibrations now that all components are final-final.


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> For safety compliance, you're right that a single "accept" button is all that's needed.
> 
> However, I dislike adding this, or anything else counter-functional (five buttons would still be no better, and still require two taps for every operation).


Maybe the "action button" at the back of the machine to be only used if tablet not connected (wired) to machine?

Or is the software solution "IF tablet connected THEN omit action button ELSE use action button to confirm " not good enough/not allowed? Actually, thinking about this I might even like this as a safety feature.... since there are some young kids walking around here....


----------



## gtjeffw

decent_espresso said:


> That's in fact what I did for the first prototype. However, I got a "that looks like a grounding wire and may raise other issues" nervous response.
> 
> ...
> 
> Steelie Stands used to offer this for tablets, but they have stopped doing so, and now only offer it for phones. Steelie Stands are mostly used in cars, as you indicated.
> 
> The problem is that this just not that strong a way to connect a tablet to a stand. I've tested it and found that to be the case. I suspect that's why Steelie no longer offer this for tablets.
> 
> You're of course welcome to buy your own favorite tablet stand, if you find something you prefer to what we supply.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the info. I like the Steelie that you selected. So I may look into buying a neodymium magnet and some ferrous plates to see if I can come up with something with enough holding power to go on the end. When you get a chance, could you please provide the dimensions of the contacting part of the Steelie that glues to the tablet? Thanks!

Back to the security chain, one other thing to consider is a glue-on security cable restraint. This could be attached by the end user to the back side of the tablet. See the brackets in the images below, though there are lots of variations I've seen. You might also be able to use these with a chain instead of cable.









--

Jeff


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> For safety compliance, you're right that a single "accept" button is all that's needed.
> 
> However, I dislike adding this, or anything else counter-functional (five buttons would still be no better, and still require two taps for every operation).


The "action" button would not require an additional tap. Right now, to start a shot, you have to hit a big "START" button on the tablet. This UI element would be removed from the tablet interface, and to start you would instead hit the hardware "action" button. The same is true in each tab of the interface - there is always an on-screen "action" button, and this would simply be removed in favor of the hardware button. (Optionally, you could have a hardware button with a lit rim using an RGB LED, which would allow it to be lit green when hitting it will start an action, and red when hitting it will stop an action.)

Far from being counter-functional, this would emphasize when something is going to happen (action button) as opposed to when parameters are being adjusted or modes being switched (tablet UI). To my mind, it would in no way demote the centricity of the tablet. Instead, it would make clear the value proposition of the tablet, which is to provide information and allow detailed adjustments that are not easily adjustable on other machines.


----------



## decent_espresso

markant said:


> Or is the software solution "IF tablet connected THEN omit action button ELSE use action button to confirm " not good enough/not allowed? Actually, thinking about this I might even like this as a safety feature.... since there are some young kids walking around here....


Safety features implemented as software are not acceptable to Intertek/UL.

However, if you have children around and want to prevent them from using the coffee machine, I highly recommend turning the screen saver feature on the Android tablet, and enabling the tablet passcode. That'll make it more secure than any other kitchen appliance you have.











gtjeffw said:


> Thanks for the info. I like the Steelie that you selected. So I may look into buying a neodymium magnet and some ferrous plates to see if I can come up with something with enough holding power to go on the end. When you get a chance, could you please provide the dimensions of the contacting part of the Steelie that glues to the tablet?


Just measured, it's 4cm diameter.

Note that you might not need to hack anything together. The way the Steelie stand is supposed to be used is like this:









you can't see it very clearly, but the metal 4cm pad is glued to the tablet, and everything else is removable.

We have some of these in stock and I can sell you one if you like. Ours were made bespoke for us, in black rather than silver, and we didn't have the bottom plastic plate made for us, because we choose to invert the mounting relationship, with the magnet on the table, and the other end glued to the tablet. We did this because the standard Steelie way of doing it is not that stable. The tablet will move a little bit as you tap it. However, Steelie manages to sell plenty of these stands, so I suspect this doesn't bother everyone.



gtjeffw said:


> Back to the security chain, one other thing to consider is a glue-on security cable restraint. This could be attached by the end user to the back side of the tablet. See the brackets in the images below, though there are lots of variations I've seen. You might also be able to use these with a chain instead of cable.


I'm really against gluing anything on that most people will want to remove. I much prefer a torx-screwed on fixture, so that it can be removed fairly easily and without marring.


----------



## xpresso

The absence of seeing a mention using a suction mount suggests it would not secure and yet I have used them on a lesser ideal surface.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> The "action" button would not require an additional tap. Right now, to start a shot, you have to hit a big "START" button on the tablet. This UI element would be removed from the tablet interface, and to start you would instead hit the hardware "action" button. The same is true in each tab of the interface - there is always an on-screen "action" button, and this would simply be removed in favor of the hardware button. (Optionally, you could have a hardware button with a lit rim using an RGB LED, which would allow it to be lit green when hitting it will start an action, and red when hitting it will stop an action.)
> 
> Far from being counter-functional, this would emphasize when something is going to happen (action button) as opposed to when parameters are being adjusted or modes being switched (tablet UI). To my mind, it would in no way demote the centricity of the tablet. Instead, it would make clear the value proposition of the tablet, which is to provide information and allow detailed adjustments that are not easily adjustable on other machines.


Ah sorry, now I understand your point.

Yes, what you're suggesting is the most common way that bluetooth interacts with devices. In essence, the bluetooth device only provides "configuration".

From a UI standpoint, I still don't like this. Imagine hitting start on the coffee machine, and then watching the tablet, and then wanting to stop the shot. Do you use the tablet or the machine's hardware button? Both are permitted from a safety standpoint.

In order for gravimetric shots to work, the tablet has to be allowed to tell the coffee machine to stop. So I might as well put a STOP button on the tablet. Now I have mixed metaphors (where are the controls?).

Really, to me, the screen is the controller. Doing so allows multiple UIs to be made, as appropriate to the job.

Steam could track milk temperature with a bluetooth probe and chart the results, as well as shut-off at a certain point. Preinfusion could end when a drop is detected on the scale.

People have asked for live control (like a paddle) over flow and pressure, using the tablet to do so. This wouldn't be allowed if the tablet were a remote: each change would require an on-machine approval step.

For me, the future of most devices is in software because of its mutability. Moving to dedicated hardware buttons is a step backwards.

So, my plan is to ensure that the tablet remains the local controller, and that we ship with that approach intact. To do so, I believe a tether is all that is needed to be in compliance and that doesn't add any delays nor mean re-engineering or changing the product vision.

-john


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> Safety features implemented as software are not acceptable to Intertek/UL.


If you need the hardware button to proceed AND ONLY IF the tablet is connected you could *also* use the tablet to proceed, .. that is not exactly the same as a software safety mechanism... but let's hope no modification will be necessary


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> From a UI standpoint, I still don't like this. Imagine hitting start on the coffee machine, and then watching the tablet, and then wanting to stop the shot. Do you use the tablet or the machine's hardware button? Both are permitted from a safety standpoint.
> 
> In order for gravimetric shots to work, the tablet has to be allowed to tell the coffee machine to stop. So I might as well put a STOP button on the tablet. Now I have mixed metaphors (where are the controls?).


I doubt I will convince you, but here goes:

People are very, very used to looking at the stream leaving a portafilter while stopping the espresso shot with a button that is not directly before their eyes (that is, the switches on a standard espresso machine are usually several inches above the portafilter spout). Using a button that you are not looking at is not counterintuitive, especially when it's a hardware button. (This is true with the UI for so many devices. I don't need to look at my feet to know how to hit the brakes in my car; I can touch type; sharp shooters don't look at the trigger when firing a rifle; I walk without looking at my feet.) If the button is lit and changes color when an action starts, it becomes even more obvious - the button that just turned red when I started the shot is the thing I press to stop the shot.

As for your gravimetric shot example, fine, let the tablet end the shot. Ending a shot remotely is not a safety concern, so I assume Intertek would not be upset with it. (With a lit button, the button would change color when the tablet ends the shot, just as it would if you pressed the button to end the shot. This would give a visual indication that the shot has ended, in addition to any indications on the tablet.)

Your next point ("So I might as well put a STOP button on the tablet.") is a total non-sequitur. Nothing about having a gravimetric shot would be improved by adding an on-screen STOP button. You already have a stop button. It's the hardware button. Adding an on-screen button does nothing except confuse the UI. It is totally unnecessary, and thus because it creates, as you say, a mixed metaphor, it shouldn't be done. The fact that you could make a poor decision to muddy the UI is hardly a strong argument against having a hardware button.

You could even make the button mountable on the tablet by having the button (with a wired tether) have a magnet on the back. You could then either provide a ferrous disc with 3M adhesive backing that could be placed on the front of the tablet, or a ferrous "popsicle stick" that could be attached to the back, sticking out the top or side of the tablet, allowing the button to be mounted next to the tablet.


----------



## xpresso

On many of the Espresso and other forms of coffee vending machines in France, there's generally a screen displaying just that, the coffee being dispensed.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

Enough custom-made electrical cables for 350 espresso machines arrived today (yes, they're VERY late in their delivery). We've been making these cables by hand for machines so far, which is time-consuming and error-prone, so we're really happy to receive these.

Each power cable in our espresso machine has a different connector on it so that it's literally impossible to wire it up incorrectly. However, that means each cable is different and custom-made, too.

Clockwise from top-right:

- two pumps: hot and cold water

- one group head heater

- two heaters: espresso and steam

- centralized (8 pin) cable to turn all the valves on/off (water routing)

- small cable to engage the relay to give full AC power the machine, as controlled by the logic board


----------



## jwCrema

Great progress! What components are we waiting delivery on at this point?


----------



## decent_espresso

jwCrema said:


> Great progress! What components are we waiting delivery on at this point?


I have 3000 meters of a special run of "grounding wire" coming this week. This is 14AWG 200ºC green/yellow wire. This was one of our Intertek "fails" because it turns out that grounding wires must be colored yellow/green, and the reviewer told us that the yellow/green shrink tubing we put on the cable was not acceptable. Sigh. So, 3 kilometers of the stuff is coming, as this was a special run. Grounding wire is not usually this thick, nor this high temperature.

All the PCBs should be arriving in the next few days, as they were shipped on Saturday.

Chinese new year is a two week holiday in China starting this saturday, so we're hopefully receiving whatever we need to work during the new year. Here in Hong Kong, it's only a two day holiday.

We're also waiting for a few specialized tools, that will speed up some steps, such as a hot wire knife, for cutting the color coding nylon tubing. But, we can proceed without it.

-john


----------



## Nishimiya

decent_espresso said:


> People have asked for live control (like a paddle) over flow and pressure, using the tablet to do so. This wouldn't be allowed if the tablet were a remote: each change would require an on-machine approval step.
> 
> For me, the future of most devices is in software because of its mutability. Moving to dedicated hardware buttons is a step backwards.


Wouldn't an integrated paddle / SBC device be a (likely not inexpensive...) way to do this ?


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> Steam could track milk temperature with a bluetooth probe and chart the results, as well as shut-off at a certain point. Preinfusion could end when a drop is detected on the scale.
> 
> People have asked for live control (like a paddle) over flow and pressure, using the tablet to do so. This wouldn't be allowed if the tablet were a remote: each change would require an on-machine approval step.


I wonder whether Intertek would have a problem with either of these. If they do, I wonder whether they could be convinced otherwise. Safety-wise, I think there is a difference between allowing water to begin to flow via remote and allowing parameters to be adjusted (during flow) via remote. The former seems qualitatively more of a risk than the latter. So I wonder whether Intertek could at least be convinced that so long as a tethered control (e.g. a hardware button) is required to initiate steam/water, everything else is ok. If so, this would allow all of these scenarios for a machine with a single "action" hardware button.


----------



## decent_espresso

Intertek has asked for detailed information on exactly how our hot water heaters are built as part of their UL compliance review. Unfortunately, our manufacturer considers this information confidential and will only share some of the details. A bit of a stand-off now exists between the safety compliance reviewer and a desire to keep information secret by the hot water heater manufacturer so that they're not cloned. Both sides have a reasonable position, and we're negotiating in the middle to reach a compromise.

To move things forward, we sliced through one of our heaters in order to see what's really inside, as much as we can. We know that the water tubing is 304 stainless, and the insulating material around the heater coil is magnesium powder. We don't yet know what the heating element is (but it's probably nickel-chrome) and we're pressing to be confirmed that's the case, and at what diameter (though we can dig it out and measure it).


----------



## xpresso

A very interesting piece of kit, how does this compare with common HX fitted to popular machines.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

Mechanical Engineering Student Interns Tommy and Charlotte are today using our new tube-cutting machine to precisely cut lengths of silicone water tubing. This tubing is used to bring water into the flow meter and pumps, and at that point, there is only low pressure, which is why silicone tubing is used.

We just recently decided--down to the millimeter--how long these tubes should be, which is why they're cutting them now, in quantity, for 300 espresso machines.

The tube lengths aren't something you can simulate in software, you have to actually build a machine, try different lengths, and decide what's best. That's why it's being done now, just before building machines in quantity.

The students measured the tubes and found a 2mm error margin on a 200mm long tube: about a 1% tolerance. That's pretty accurate.


----------



## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> A very interesting piece of kit, how does this compare with common HX fitted to popular machines.


I've seen this technology in some Nespresso machines, though ours is larger than any I've seen elsewhere and has a long 1.2M water path.

An alternative technology is the thermoblock, where a block of metal (usually aluminum) is carved into a maze for the water to flow through. The downside here is water contact either aluminum, or a coating on the aluminum which eventually flakes off. It's also a much shorter water path. Our water contact is only with 304 stainless steel.

Here's a photo of a thermoblock from a Breville 800ESXL: http://siber-sonic.com/appliance/800thermalblock.html


----------



## decent_espresso

Also note that temperature accuracy with such heaters is NOT VERY GOOD, and this includes ours. This is because the amount of time water remains in contact with the heater is totally dependent on the flow rate, which is dependent on the coffee puck, which changes as it erodes during a shot.

Rather than aim for espresso-brewing-temperature with such a technology, we aim for 110ºC (we're under pressure and therefore can go >100ºC) and we then mix in room-temperature water to bring the water temperature down to where we want it.

Our approach only works because the computer controlled vibratory pumps are so low-latency, and because we have 0.1mm thick walls on our thermometer probes (which sit in the water flow), making them fairly low latency as well.


----------



## xpresso

I note the difficulty in Breville supplying/wanting to supply seals for that HX style, surface grinding is not an option either due the seal channel dimensions being eroded.

Without scrolling all the comments on this subject, what capacity is the tank and is it removed to replenish.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> Without scrolling all the comments on this subject, what capacity is the tank and is it removed to replenish.


Sorry Jon, are you asking about the Decent water heater or another one?

There is no concept of "capacity" to it, because it heats on demand. The "water tank" holds 2 liters, so that's the eventual limit, unless you're plumbed.

-john


----------



## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> Sorry Jon, are you asking about the Decent water heater or another one?
> 
> There is no concept of "capacity" to it, because it heats on demand. The "water tank" holds 2 liters, so that's the eventual limit, unless you're plumbed.
> 
> -john


Just wondered if there was any meat in considering a low wattage tank warmer so HX did not need to heat from ambient, however mains supply really rules that out.

My thoughts are perhaps prohibitive.

Jon.


----------



## Dylan

John - How does a machine like the Sage DTP or DB manage it's temperature after the Thermoblock? If it is as inaccurate as you say (which I dont doubt) I assume they must also be employing some kind of method to stabilise the temperature before it hits the puck?


----------



## xpresso

Dylan said:


> John - How does a machine like the Sage DTP or DB manage it's temperature after the Thermoblock? If it is as inaccurate as you say (which I dont doubt) I assume they must also be employing some kind of method to stabilise the temperature before it hits the puck?


A scaled down version of a thermostatic flow valve, pre-set, not dissimilar to you're shower mixer?.

Jon..


----------



## roastini

xpresso said:


> Just wondered if there was any meat in considering a low wattage tank warmer so HX did not need to heat from ambient, however mains supply really rules that out.


The water in the tank is heated to about 50°C (or at least that was the design as of some time ago).


----------



## xpresso

That being the case, when you plumb in direct, does the incoming water replenish the reservoir tank or by-pass it direct to the HX.

Jon.


----------



## roastini

xpresso said:


> That being the case, when you plumb in direct, does the incoming water replenish the reservoir tank or by-pass it direct to the HX.


I believe that on a plumbed machine (a DE1PRO+) when low water is sensed the incoming water replenishes the supply tank, which is then heated to 50°C. During the wait while the tank comes back to temp, I believe you cannot make espresso. I think this takes a matter of minutes.

The DE1 and the DE1+ do not have the capability to be plumbed in, so on those machines there would be a low water indicator, and the user refills the tank, which then needs to be heated prior to making espresso.


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## DavecUK

Heating a water tank to 50C is a really bad idea!


----------



## embrya

xpresso said:


> That being the case, when you plumb in direct, does the incoming water replenish the reservoir tank or by-pass it direct to the HX.
> 
> Jon.


It's via the tank also. Otherwise the concept wouldn't work!

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


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## roastini

DavecUK said:


> Heating a water tank to 50C is a really bad idea!


Why?

FYI, the tank is periodically heated to 70°C (or so was the plan a year ago) to sterilize.


----------



## xpresso

DavecUK said:


> Heating a water tank to 50C is a really bad idea!


Does it really need to be 50c ?, several degrees above ambient would reduce time taken for delivery temp or is there a bacteria issue ?.

Jon.


----------



## DavecUK

roastini said:


> Why?
> 
> FYI, the tank is periodically heated to 70°C (or so was the plan a year ago) to sterilize.


Is it definitely heated to 70C and how often?

Even if it is, there must be a reason autoclaves go to a much higher temperature.


----------



## pgarrish

isnt 50 degrees Legionaires disease territory? That's why Domestic HW should be at 60 I believe


----------



## Missy

pgarrish said:


> isnt 50 degrees Legionaires disease territory? That's why Domestic HW should be at 60 I believe


Yep. Warm buggy heaven.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/healthservices/legionella.htm


----------



## embrya

DavecUK said:


> Is it definitely heated to 70C and how often?
> 
> Even if it is, there must be a reason autoclaves go to a much higher temperature.


It's an espresso machine not a sterilizer. Come on, even if there would be some bacteria growing they will be dead arriving in the espresso. The tank is ceramics and very good to clean. So regular cleaning will help a lot for prevention!

Gesendet von iPad mit Tapatalk


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## Dylan

Not quite @embrya, sterilisation of bugs is 80deg+ for 5-10 minutes.

However - warm temps are not the only thing bugs needs to thrive - they also need oxygen, which I would guess there isn't much of in there, but I wouldn't want to guess at water safety in this regard - have to see if it's something @decent_espresso have thought of already.


----------



## bachamp

There was some discussion about this over at HB:

https://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-machine-now-available-t43925-290.html#p512870


----------



## decent_espresso

I was asked today about the status of our grinder https://decentespresso.com/pro_grinder which is in this photo below, taken at our coffee station here at Decent Headquarters.

These have been available for pre-order for a while, and I have a pallet of 50 grinders in stock. However, these grinders are then hand modified by us to have an X/Y/Z adjustable portafilter stand, as my focus with this grinder is getting the mound centered and also weighed. The scale stands were the last design for us to really nail down.

In the photo, if you look carefully, you'll see that the left hand side grinder is missing the thumb-screws that the right hand model has. We previously had height adjustment holes at set intervals, but I decided to move to thumb screws and continuous adjustment.

The sheet metal company suddenly wants an additional USD$680 to deliver these, which wasn't agreed to. I suspect this is a "get it before Chinese new year" negotiating tactic (sigh) so we might have to wait until they come back from their 2 week holiday to start assembling our grinders.

*BURRS*

I also wanted to sort out an upgrade (and replacement) path for the burrs. They are 64mm flat burrs, as the web page mentions. I need to totally redo the video as soon as we start shipping the grinders, which will be immediately after Chinese new year (about 2 weeks). In the video I incorrectly state that they're conical burrs, but they are in fact flat burrs.

We've been working Hansung https://www.instagram.com/SSP_grinding/ in Korea to use his burrs as an upgrade/replacement burr. The burr upgrade effectively increases the quality of the grinder from a Mazzer Super-Jolly level to a Mahlkonig K30 level, and this is guaranteed to be the case by SSP. The SSP burrs are much admired also by Socratic coffee https://www.instagram.com/Socraticcoffee/ and their testing has yielded some nice results.

We're also going to be selling the SSP burrs to people who want to upgrade their existing grinders, as I'm not sure there are any sources besides SSP in Korea at the moment, for them.

On Home Barista they've been talking about the SSP burr upgrade recently:

https://www.home-barista.com/grinders/mazzer-mini-e-to-k30-mod-t48458.html

with what appears to be good results.

￼


----------



## John Doe

If we buy a grinder through Decent, can you make the upgrade for us? If so, what would the final cost of that be? I'd rather just receive it ready to go!


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> John - How does a machine like the Sage DTP or DB manage it's temperature after the Thermoblock? If it is as inaccurate as you say (which I dont doubt) I assume they must also be employing some kind of method to stabilise the temperature before it hits the puck?


The Sage DB (also known as the BDB = Breville Double Boiler) uses a boiler (actually 2 boilers, one for steam, one for hot water), and my understanding is that it also electrically preheats its group head like we do. The reviews I've seen is that the Sage DB/Breville DB have quite good temperature accuracy.

The thermoblock photo I posted was for the less expensive Breville/Sage 800 model, which appears not to be boiler based, and likely has thus less accurate water temperature.

You get what you pay for, and Breville/Sage quite reasonably has a product line at different price points, with different quality of different prices.



roastini said:


> The water in the tank is heated to about 50°C (or at least that was the design as of some time ago).


This was true a year ago, but we no longer heat the water tank, unless it is under 15ºC, in which case we bring it up normal ambient temperature of 20ºC. This is to handle the case of someone using refrigerator water to refill our tank.

So, the discussion about problems that could occur with a hot water tank are no longer applicable. We now store enough heat in the metal of the water heater that we don't need to preheat the tank.



roastini said:


> I believe that on a plumbed machine (a DE1PRO+) when low water is sensed the incoming water replenishes the supply tank, which is then heated to 50°C. During the wait while the tank comes back to temp, I believe you cannot make espresso. I think this takes a matter of minutes. The DE1 and the DE1+ do not have the capability to be plumbed in, so on those machines there would be a low water indicator, and the user refills the tank, which then needs to be heated prior to making espresso.


Topping up the water tank is synchronous on the DE1PRO+ and occurs at a rate of 13ml/second. A typical espresso + steaming takes 100ml of water, so about an 8 second delay per espresso. The "refill point" can be set to be after every espresso, or once the tank gets low, so you can choose to wait a little bit after each shot, or less frequently but for a longer time. This is for the DE1PRO+.

On the DE1CAFE we use a bigger power supply, and so we're able to synchronously refill the tank, and thus no user delay.

Since we no longer heat the water tank, there is no delay after refilling before you can start using the water.

Note that the water tank does heat up a little bit with use, from the getting-the-system-up-to-temperature that occurs before each shot. This typically compensates for the 12ºC water that is coming in if you're plumbed.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

John Doe said:


> If we buy a grinder through Decent, can you make the upgrade for us? If so, what would the final cost of that be? I'd rather just receive it ready to go!


Yes, once we have stock of the SSP burrs (~6 weeks), we'll be offering a +~USD$200 option to have SSP burrs in the grinder, instead of the standard ItalMill burrs. For replacement-due-to-wear, we'll offer both the ItalMill and SSP burrs, at something like ~USD$100/USD$200.


----------



## decent_espresso

Our "first production machine" is now up and running, and we're working through the final problems before making a lot more identical machines.

Here's what we've found so far:

FLOW METER DIDN'T WORK

It turns out that which-wire-does-what changed between model numbers and so our flow meter cables need to have their pins re-arranged. This takes about 30s per cable, and Jennifer can be seen doing this on the top left.

CALIBRATING PRESSURE

Photos: left middle, top right.

Next, we got to test the calibration steps that I've written for the Android tablet. Why do we need to do this? Because: the specifications a manufacturer gives us for a part aren't necessarily what you actually get. The pressure sensor comes with a "magic number" to convert resistance to pressure, but physical variation means the "magic number" will be slightly off. To test the pressure, we use a Scace II portafilter, which is a $600 piece of test equipment that independent reports pressure and temperature. We then change the "magic number" in our pressure sensor so that our readings now agree with the Scace. 91PSI=6.27 bar, so we were 4.5% off until calibrating.

Incidentally, on the middle-left photo, you can see the cooling effect of the unheated stainless steel mass of the Scace 2. Our temperature probe is reading the effect of this cooling, and our water mixing technology tries to compensate for it by putting in hotter water. In this case, a -2.5ºC cooling effect was over-compensated for between seconds 10s->25s. Running a hot water shot or two, to preheat the Scace, would remove this temperature fluctuation at the puck.

CALIBRATING FLOW

Photos: bottom right and left.

Using the Bluetooth scale to measure flow rate into the cup, we can obtain an accurate flow measurement, based on weight rather than moving water. At lower speeds to water, the flow meter readings get quite noisy (see on the oscilloscope) and a bit of tweaking on the noise filter was needed to make this wor better. Here, the calibration was needed to correct a 4% to 8% error.


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 31978
> 
> 
> Our "first production machine" is now up and running, and we're working through the final problems before making a lot more identical machines.
> 
> Here's what we've found so far:
> 
> FLOW METER DIDN'T WORK
> 
> It turns out that which-wire-does-what changed between model numbers and so our flow meter cables need to have their pins re-arranged. This takes about 30s per cable, and Jennifer can be seen doing this on the top left.
> 
> CALIBRATING PRESSURE
> 
> Photos: left middle, top right.
> 
> Next, we got to test the calibration steps that I've written for the Android tablet. Why do we need to do this? Because: the specifications a manufacturer gives us for a part aren't necessarily what you actually get. The pressure sensor comes with a "magic number" to convert resistance to pressure, but physical variation means the "magic number" will be slightly off. To test the pressure, we use a Scace II portafilter, which is a $600 piece of test equipment that independent reports pressure and temperature. We then change the "magic number" in our pressure sensor so that our readings now agree with the Scace. 91PSI=6.27 bar, so we were 4.5% off until calibrating.
> 
> Incidentally, on the middle-left photo, you can see the cooling effect of the unheated stainless steel mass of the Scace 2. Our temperature probe is reading the effect of this cooling, and our water mixing technology tries to compensate for it by putting in hotter water. In this case, a -2.5ºC cooling effect was over-compensated for between seconds 10s->25s. Running a hot water shot or two, to preheat the Scace, would remove this temperature fluctuation at the puck.
> 
> CALIBRATING FLOW
> 
> Photos: bottom right and left.
> 
> Using the Bluetooth scale to measure flow rate into the cup, we can obtain an accurate flow measurement, based on weight rather than moving water. At lower speeds to water, the flow meter readings get quite noisy (see on the oscilloscope) and a bit of tweaking on the noise filter was needed to make this wor better. Here, the calibration was needed to correct a 4% to 8% error.


Really interestimg to read and exciting. You guys are so close now!

A couple of questions for you John:

1- Are you expecting any needs for self calibration after some time? I would assume the pressure sensors will not stay calibrated forever... And if so, how do you intend to do it?

2- How does water temperature affect the pressure reading and pump operation? Is the machine running "blind" until the water gets to the puck sensor and the starts adjusting from there?

Good luck for the upcoming weeks!


----------



## Mrboots2u

When are the first machines now due to people ? Not that I have ordered one, am just interested in where Decent are with this now.


----------



## decent_espresso

Mrboots2u said:


> When are the first machines now due to people ? Not that I have ordered one, am just interested in where Decent are with this now.


We'll be verifying the calibration this week, and stress testing the 10 machines for 7 days before sending them to anyone.

In about 2 weeks, we'll send 8 machines to my beta testers.

About 2 weeks after that, we'll start shipping machines to the ~100 USA buyers who indicated they wanted pre-UL certification.

So, about 5 weeks away.

There's a 50/50 chance that we'll have UL certification around then, so maybe the those first machines will be UL certified. As soon as we have UL certification, we'll start the CE (and worldwide) certification process, so that we can send out the final 100 non-USA machines.



Andreugv said:


> 1- Are you expecting any needs for self calibration after some time? I would assume the pressure sensors will not stay calibrated forever... And if so, how do you intend to do it?


Other than calcium buildup on the sensor itself, or moving to altitude, we don't know of anything that should make the calibration drift. I'm not saying it's not possible, just that we don't know of anything right now.

However, to directly answer your question, if you have access to a Scace portafilter, you'll be able to run a 6 bar shot, and through my tablet software, enter in "goal pressure vs measured pressure", to recalibrate.

However, a more likely need for recalibration is if a sensor breaks and is replaced with a non-identical sensor. Recalibration will then be essential.



Andreugv said:


> Is the machine running "blind" until the water gets to the puck sensor and the starts adjusting from there?


There are 9 temperature sensors on the DE1, so we do way before the puck what the water temperature is looking like. 3 of those measure "metal temperature" (group head, and the two water heaters).

There is only one pressure sensor, but because there is water present in all tubes at all times, any change in pressure anywhere is instantly registered on the pressure sensor. It's one big pressurized system. We do not do what most espresso machines do, which is measure pressure behind a flow constrictor, thus measuring only the pressure between the pump and the constrictor.



Andreugv said:


> 2- How does water temperature affect the pressure reading and pump operation?


I'm unsure just how "deep" a question you meant to ask here.









Because we're performing water mixing with two pumps (hot and cold) while simultaneously controlling pressure and overall (mixed) flow, the control system to do this is "non-trivial" and indeed is mostly what has taken about 2 years to figure out.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We are color coding all our wires and sensors in 11 different colors, using a colored fiber sleeve.

To make the colored sleeve, we've been using our automatic-tube-cutting machine, and then cleaning up the splayed mess (bring right tubes next to Josephine's left elbow) with a hot air gun (bottom left photo).

The resulting tube no longer splays (blue tube in the bottom right photo) but it looks sloppy and takes up precious space next to other connectors on the PC boards. I've not been happy with this, and have looked to improve it.

This week, a temperature controllable "hot wire knife" arrived, and the results (grey tube, bottom right photo) are so much better.

You can see Josephine in the photo redoing the already-cut tubes so that they have a clean, melted cut. I'm not super-happy with the safety aspects of this process, so we'll be soon making a plastic guard with a "cut slot" in it, to prevent an accident.

And speaking of accidents, many thanks to Jeff W on Coffee Forums UK for bringing to my attention the risks of loose hair in the shop, which he noticed in one of my recent photos. A humorous "hair on fire" poster now graces the shop wall, and we'll order a shop helmet after Chinese New Year.


----------



## decent_espresso

Our espresso machine factory is slowly starting to look a bit civilized, as we prepare to ramp up production (and hire more people) in about 5 weeks from now.


----------



## Mrboots2u

What about uk/eu orders whats the time frame for these?


----------



## decent_espresso

Mrboots2u said:


> What about uk/eu orders whats the time frame for these?


Mid-April is my guesstimate for starting to ship "the rest of the world", if I assume UL certification completes mid-March, and that CE/World compliance takes a month.

The two big variables are:

1) what hurdles remain to UL and CE compliance

2) how quickly can we ramp up machine production speed and manpower. It currently takes about 5h of manpower per machine.

*In March, Mat North will receive a DE1+ at his café in Bristol. *



*
He's been a key technical and coffee advisor for some time and while we still have some details to work out, the plan is that he'll be a showroom, training place and service center for Decent in the UK.*

*
*


----------



## xpresso

Good Luck with the BETA testers and every success with your venture, trust all goes well.

Regards Jon.


----------



## jwCrema

Many moons ago I told Roastini I figured my DE1+, which is the group of the first 300, would land in March 2018.

Getting a supply chain established is not as easy as it sounds.

Will it happen then? I'm thinking that's in the ball park, + 2 months.

Given the improvements to the product that have happened since then, I really don't care.


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> I'm unsure just how "deep" a question you meant to ask here.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Because we're performing water mixing with two pumps (hot and cold) while simultaneously controlling pressure and overall (mixed) flow, the control system to do this is "non-trivial" and indeed is mostly what has taken about 2 years to figure out.
> 
> -john


Well. It was kind of open. To me it makes sense that mixing different waters at different temperatures will have an effect on the pressure. I guess the pump works at N vibrations per minute at a given temp to achieve certain pressure. I can see how it will take 2 years to figure out all that. Just trying to understand a little bit more what the variables are when telling the machine what pressure I want and what it does to achieve it. No schematics needed though ?


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> Well. It was kind of open. To me it makes sense that mixing different waters at different temperatures will have an effect on the pressure. I guess the pump works at N vibrations per minute at a given temp to achieve certain pressure. I can see how it will take 2 years to figure out all that. Just trying to understand a little bit more what the variables are when telling the machine what pressure I want and what it does to achieve it. No schematics needed though 


Pressure is surprisingly easy, because the pressure sensor has a near instant response, so it's just a question of adjusting the pump strength. If we only had one pump, and used a boiler, then pressure profiling would not have been complicated (once we figured out how to control individual pump strokes).

What's more complicated is how the mixing of hot and cold water changes as pressure changes, because they mix differently at different flow rates.

Because espresso is made at close-to-boiling water temperature, and we can't go much above 100ºC in the hot water, most of the "work" is done by the hot water pump, which mixes 110ºC water down to the 88ºC->95ºC range of most espresso, with a small trickle of room temperature water.

But really, us figuring this out is what the customer pays us to do. There's a chart on the DE1+ showing how successful we were at hitting the desired temperatures. Other than warming up the portafilter a bit (by leaving it locked in or pulling a water-only shot) there's nothing you need to do to have accurate water temperature.

-john


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> But really, us figuring this out is what the customer pays us to do. There's a chart on the DE1+ showing how successful we were at hitting the desired temperatures. Other than warming up the portafilter a bit (by leaving it locked in or pulling a water-only shot) there's nothing you need to do to have accurate water temperature.
> 
> -john


And happy to do so. Thank you for the answer!


----------



## decent_espresso

I hadn't looked at how our final sales numbers broke down until last week, and I was surprised to find that 42% of our first 300 customers had opted for the PRO option, which allows you to "plumb" your Decent Espresso machine. Connecting "Water In" is something we solved two years ago, but we'd never finalized how dirty water would drain out.

Our intention was to either drill a hole in our existing drip trays, or to make new ones. My preference was to drill holes, but given that these are made out of porcelain "stoneware" that was never a sure thing.

Our hopes, a few weeks ago, were, shall we say, "shattered" <ahem> when we actually tried to drill holes in porcelain.</ahem>

A few days ago the right tool for the job, which is to say "diamond tipped drill bits", arrived. I fitted an 8mm bit onto our drill press, drilled whilst fully immersed (to keep the bit cool) and 1 minute later, a fairly clean hole emerged.

Unfortunately, the exit hole is not as clean as the entry hole, even though I'm using a wood block as a support under the tray (top right photo).

If you have experience drilling ceramic and have some "shop tips", please speak up!

As far as a fitting goes, we wanted:

- food safe, preferably brass for longevity

- nearly flush with the bottom of the drip tray

- nice looking

- sharp right angle bend, so that the drainage tube could be led to the back of the espresso machine

We tried boat draining parts, oil can drainage, and traditional plumbing. Nothing was quite right.

Then, amazingly, Ben found that there is a whole category of "tea tray draining" hardware, for when you spill tea and want it elegantly swept away. A silicone tube fits over the exit barb, and voila. We tried a rubber gasket, but in the end preferred plumber's Teflon tape, to get a good seal around the fitting.

As you say in the UK, I'm 'well chuffed" at how this turned out.


----------



## Dylan

I have zero expertise drilling ceramic, but is it possible to have a jig for the drip trays that would allow them to be flipped, you could then drill half way from each side to prevent the exit 'wound'.

Other things that spring to mind are a dab of glue left to dry over the point where the drill will exit.


----------



## Dylan

Oh - and one concern from the photos:

Does the drain point sit proud of the base of the drip tray? As this will mean that not all the water will drain, and much like in a non-drained drip tray if its left in there for a few days it will go a bit skanky. The little gaps around the exit point will also develop mould that will be a bit more difficult to clean out.

I imagine it would be more difficult to achieve but an exit point that was flush with the base would be more desirable... could something be glued on to the bottom that didnt poke through?


----------



## jdomg

Can you link the drill bit you are using? The picture is too low res to tell if it's a solid or core bit.

Additionally - there are a few guides on line for each, but I suspect you were using a solid bit and the chipping on the back end was due to applying just a bit too much pressure towards the end. One way I've avoided something like this (though I have no idea if it's a standard thing) in the past is to drill a super small pilot hole clean through which will have a little bit of chip and then "score" both sides with a core drill bit. Since you have a smaller pilot - you can setup a jig that aligns the drill press with the hole as coring bits that size usually don't have guide bits.

So... you pre-drill a small pilot, swap the bit for a core bit of the correct size, drop it in a little to score off the enamel and "break" the edges cleanly (but not all the way through) then flip the tray over and then drill clean through. This *usually* works pretty well for both sides being clean. You can also apply some masking tape to the drill area to help as well. Plus your wood block on the back should help minimize ugliness on the exit.


----------



## xpresso

What is required to prevent break out on drilling through the likes of ceramic is full surface support at the break out side, the ceramic surface will not be uniform or totally flat so timber would have a very limited success, apply a strong adhesive tape to the break out side area and place a piece of stiff rubber to help that support, we called that material 'insertion', it was bordering the same stiffness of a rubber tyre composition and has a woven reinforcement sandwiched within, we used a thickness of about 6/8mm and purchased in a roll.

I have used it successfully in the past to drill holes in plates for clock mechanisms, I even tried with success using a cataloy paste spread over the break out side and then laterally tap the residue off when finished, the latter is time consuming, the drills I used were the cheap diamond dusted ?? hollow drills from China.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I have zero expertise drilling ceramic, but is it possible to have a jig for the drip trays that would allow them to be flipped, you could then drill half way from each side to prevent the exit 'wound'.


The problem with a jig is that each ceramic piece has shrunk and warped ever so slightly differently, making hole alignment difficult. However, we're going to try a two step process, by first drilling a centering hole, so that we can then try flipping the drip tray around and doing what you suggest.



Dylan said:


> Does the drain point sit proud of the base of the drip tray? As this will mean that not all the water will drain, and much like in a non-drained drip tray if its left in there for a few days it will go a bit skanky. The little gaps around the exit point will also develop mould that will be a bit more difficult to clean out. I imagine it would be more difficult to achieve but an exit point that was flush with the base would be more desirable... could something be glued on to the bottom that didnt poke through?


It sits about 2mm proud. We've been trying to make it as level as possible, but it will nonetheless behave like a kitchen sink drain sieve, with gunk accumulating on the edges.

FWIW I've never seen an espresso drip tray, plumbed, that didn't need periodic cleaning. Even if the drain was totally flush, the problem is that if you throw espresso shots into the drip tray, the coffee particles will settle in place and slowly accumulate.

For me, the goal of a plumbed in drip tray is to make cleaning much less frequent, but it's not possible to remove the need for cleaning, given the muddy quality of coffee.

I've seen some pro machines with the tube intentionally lifted off the bottom, so that just water goes out the tube, and solids accumulate on the bottom. The reason for this, I assume, is to keep the tube from getting clogged with coffee mud.

With the two group E61 we have, the drain is flush, but we have to periodically disassemble the drain tube because mold eventually grows on the inside of the tube, feeding on the coffee deposits.



jdomg said:


> Can you link the drill bit you are using? The picture is too low res to tell if it's a solid or core bit.


here it is.











jdomg said:


> Additionally - there are a few guides on line for each, but I suspect you were using a solid bit and the chipping on the back end was due to applying just a bit too much pressure towards the end. One way I've avoided something like this (though I have no idea if it's a standard thing) in the past is to drill a super small pilot hole clean through which will have a little bit of chip and then "score" both sides with a core drill bit. Since you have a smaller pilot - you can setup a jig that aligns the drill press with the hole as coring bits that size usually don't have guide bits.


Someone else also suggested this approach, and I think it's a good idea. We're going to try it today.



jdomg said:


> So... you pre-drill a small pilot, swap the bit for a core bit of the correct size, drop it in a little to score off the enamel and "break" the edges cleanly (but not all the way through) then flip the tray over and then drill clean through. This *usually* works pretty well for both sides being clean. You can also apply some masking tape to the drill area to help as well. Plus your wood block on the back should help minimize ugliness on the exit.


Thanks for the more extensive tips, all very useful.



xpresso said:


> What is required to prevent break out on drilling through the likes of ceramic is full surface support at the break out side, the ceramic surface will not be uniform or totally flat so timber would have a very limited success, apply a strong adhesive tape to the break out side area and place a piece of stiff rubber to help that support, we called that material 'insertion', it was bordering the same stiffness of a rubber tyre composition and has a woven reinforcement sandwiched within, we used a thickness of about 6/8mm and purchased in a roll.


Great, will do. We have a variety of sheets of rubber and plastic here that I can try.



xpresso said:


> I have used it successfully in the past to drill holes in plates for clock mechanisms, I even tried with success using a cataloy paste spread over the break out side and then laterally tap the residue off when finished, the latter is time consuming, the drills I used were the cheap diamond dusted ?? hollow drills from China.


I suspect you were using the same bits we're using.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's a link to an "Advanced drilling tips" article that I found excellent, and some choice bits too:

http://www.diamondsure.com/Techniques.shtml#anchor150

diamond drill bits are specifically designed for use on very hard materials as shown in the materials section. The extremely hard nature of the materials requires that the diamond drill bits be used with proper drilling techniques. Improper use can overheat and damage the drill bit and may also cause heat fractures and material breakage.

When drilling in hard, abrasive materials such as limestone, sandstone, hard ceramic and porcelain tiles, marble or granite, it is critical to have lots of lubrication. With these hard materials, it is common to drill under water or to have a small amount of water constantly running over the drill bit and bore hole. In either case, the "pumping" technique described below is needed to assure water reaches the very tip of the bit.

Pumping Technique: No matter what lubrication method is used, a periodic "pumping" action will significantly improve lubrication at the drill tip. Because of the pressure on the drill tip, water has trouble reaching the very tip of the drill bit. A "pumping" technique allows lubrication to reach the very tip. While drilling, merely raise the drill up and down a fraction of an inch once in a while as you drill (maybe every 15 to 20 seconds or so). This assures that water enters the drill tip area completely and fully lubricates the very tip. Pumping the drill improves lubrication at the tip and will improve drill bit life considerably.

Drill Pressure

When using diamond drills, it is very important to have only light to medium pressure on the drill and to let the bit "drill at its own speed". Increasing pressure will not speed up the cutting noticeably, but it will increase the friction considerably and quickly cause the bit to overheat. This not only burns up the bit, but it also heats up the surrounding surface and can cause heat fractures or breakage to occur.


----------



## decent_espresso

Final touches were applied today to our "golden master" espresso machine, and it's now done. We've already built two of them, and we have 6 more almost finished.

Our "Decent Advisors" will soon get these machines, looking for any major "whoops!" that we missed. After that, machines will start shipping to our "early adopter" espresso machine buyers. So, my current estimate is early March for machines going to customers. We're not waiting for the beta testers feedback to keep building machine, and my hunch is that most problems they identify can be fixed with a software or firmware upload, over wifi.

Today we added two sets of insulation inside the group head of our "golden master" and made final decisions about the kind of insulation, its shape, and placement. The insulation inside the group head reduces the heat that leaks into the main chassis and also lowers overall power consumption. We've previously found a lot of hot air cascading from the group head into the main body, heating up the mirror-back panel, and thus wasting a lot of electricity. This insulation prevents that.

We're also insulating directly under the group head cover so that you'll never burn yourself by accidentally touching it. On traditional espresso machines, both the steam and group head are burning-temperature hot.

Two nights ago this "golden master" lived on our "shaking machine" overnight and we verified that no connections were loosened.

After the shaking test, we put temperature probes in multiple points inside and ran the machine for 4 hours making "espresso" at 98.5ºC (to create a worst-case scenario). The group head is sitting at 105ºF/41ºC: warm but not painful. With the PC Board fan disabled on purpose (again, worst case scenario) the PC Board area is hovering at 49ºC. As the previous machine sat at 51ºC with the fan on, and our goal was to stay under 60ºC, this is good news. The insulated group head is 41ºC to the touch, also good. Directly inside the group head, we're at 91º, which is good, as we want the heat to stay inside there.


----------



## decent_espresso

Our first espresso machine to leave Decent (or under my supervision when I've been on tour) went out the door today.

I believe this might be the first time I've photographed the final machine, and you've never seen the machine with the back panel attached, which cleans up the look a lot. Of course, as I'm writing this post, I noticed the silver screws on the back, which really need to be black. There's always one more thing!

Our CEO Bugs Harpley spent the past 3 weeks learning crochet to hand-make our lucky "year of the dog" mascot, using a pattern from the amazing web site Ravelry https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/chinese-new-year-dog

Our Christmas tree stays up all year long, with each year's hand-made mascot, as well as Chinese symbols of good fortune. We figure we can use all the luck we can get.


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## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 32104
> 
> 
> Our first espresso machine to leave Decent (or under my supervision when I've been on tour) went out the door today.
> 
> I believe this might be the first time I've photographed the final machine, and you've never seen the machine with the back panel attached, which cleans up the look a lot. Of course, as I'm writing this post, I noticed the silver screws on the back, which really need to be black. There's always one more thing!
> 
> Our CEO Bugs Harpley spent the past 3 weeks learning crochet to hand-make our lucky "year of the dog" mascot, using a pattern from the amazing web site Ravelry https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/chinese-new-year-dog
> 
> Our Christmas tree stays up all year long, with each year's hand-made mascot, as well as Chinese symbols of good fortune. We figure we can use all the luck we can get.


From the UK we do a fingers crossed for every success in this venture, The 'Year of the Dog' should have seen it enjoying the first brew.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

The Chinese New Year holiday starts today in Hong Kong, and so we're enjoying a 4-day mandatory pause from work. Our landlord is painting the common-area floors, so even Bugs and I have to not work.

We had a self-imposed deadline to get a final machine shipped before Chinese New Year, and the UPS man just took our little baby away.






Fabrice made "crêpes bretonne au Grand Marnier" for everyone before we close our doors for a few days' rest.


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## Dylan

Some might say leaving the Xmas tree up is in itself bad luck...

Not a believer in luck however, not in a changable way.


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## mm1854

What an achievement!!! Congratulations, and enjoy your break!


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## malling

Dylan said:


> Some might say leaving the Xmas tree up is in itself bad luck...
> 
> Not a believer in luck however, not in a changable way.


That is how it is done in Asia, they never take down the Christmas decorations, or not until a few months has passed.

In the Philippines you will see Christmas decorations hanging on the wall with the year of 2010 underneath it and in some places you will fine some Christmas's stuff older than that.

But congrats with the first shipment


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> Today we added two sets of insulation inside the group head of our "golden master" and made final decisions about the kind of insulation, its shape, and placement. The insulation inside the group head reduces the heat that leaks into the main chassis and also lowers overall power consumption. We've previously found a lot of hot air cascading from the group head into the main body, heating up the mirror-back panel, and thus wasting a lot of electricity. This insulation prevents that.


Have you performance tested actually making espresso with the insulation in place? I.e. done more than heat-stress-test? I would hope the only effect is that the heater is used less (due to less heat loss from the group head), and thus even better temperature stability. But if all of your temperature control algorithms were tuned without the insulation in place, it's possible this change to a complex system could have unexpected effects on the control loop.


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## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> Have you performance tested actually making espresso with the insulation in place? I.e. done more than heat-stress-test? I would hope the only effect is that the heater is used less (due to less heat loss from the group head), and thus even better temperature stability. But if all of your temperature control algorithms were tuned without the insulation in place, it's possible this change to a complex system could have unexpected effects on the control loop.


All our espresso machines for the past 3 years have always been insulated, and our control systems have assumed insulation. We didn't insulate this "golden master" machine until the last step, because the insulation will hide potential problems (water leaks, etc). Once the machine had been stress tested, and shaken overnight, the last step before boxing it was insulating, and then stress testing again with temperature probes in place.


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## Rob1

Had my fingers twitching over the vesuvius but it's really too big. I assume importing one of your machines would incur taxes and duty at the Hong Kong tariff? I've calculated them at £364.28 based on the USD price (which is currently £271.42 cheaper than the GBP price)...


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## decent_espresso

Our first-espresso-machine-out-the-door arrived safely in Seattle. We got a "post-mortem" on our boxing and packaging today.

While the espresso machine arrived unharmed, the same cannot be said of the cardboard.

The biggest problem is that we hadn't planned for the outer cardboard box to get rained on, thereby greatly weakening the cardboard's strength. Two hand-holds tore because of there, whereas here in Hong Kong, we hadn't had any worries about that.

We can also tell that the espresso machine was pushed on a floor, on at least 3 sides, on its journey to us, because those sides are really dirty.

There is a small amount of scratching damage to the inside cardboard box, which we didn't think was possible, but which appears to have occurred through the torn hand-hold.

To prevent this problem in future shipments, we've ordered plastic cling-film to wrap the entire outer box with. This should help minimize rain damage to the cardboard. It will also likely make it stick to the floor, making sliding difficult or impossible so that the box will need to be lifted rather than shoved.

As far as the espresso machine being shipped sideways or upside-down, that's of no consequence, as the machine design doesn't mind that.


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## decent_espresso

Rob1 said:


> Had my fingers twitching over the vesuvius but it's really too big. I assume importing one of your machines would incur taxes and duty at the Hong Kong tariff? I've calculated them at £364.28 based on the USD price (which is currently £271.42 cheaper than the GBP price)...


When you add one of our espresso machines to your shopping cart, VAT + duty + shipping is added to the bill, so that you'll receive the machine unmolested. You can't, however, test this at the moment as ordering is--at the moment--closed on our espresso machines. It should open up again in about 4 to 6 weeks.

There are no taxes on the Hong Kong side (we're a free port). The fees are UK in origin, as our prices are not VAT inclusive. Since we sell worldwide, those fees are calculated based on your shopping cart, where you also choose your shipping destination.


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## Rob1

decent_espresso said:


> About £4 of that US/GB £10.80 difference in price *is* attributable to currency fluctuation, the rest is the difference in postage costs.
> 
> I set the non-USD prices when the product arrives from the factory that made it for us. Typically, we restock on an item every 6 months, and the currency exchange rates get fixed at that time. Note that USD is how we set the "anchor" price, because virtually all our suppliers get paid in USD (except for some of the European suppliers). Yes, Chinese factories get paid in USD, and (ahem) typically to a Hong Kong bank.
> 
> Postage is paid locally in HKD (Hong Kong Dollars) but the HKD value is pegged by the government to the USD, so we're effectively paying postage in USD.
> 
> The GBP price for an item on our web site does not fluctuate daily with the currency currency exchange markets, as it would be very confusing if our prices changed daily.
> 
> In this case of the tamper, the pound has appreciated about 4% since July, when the latest round of tampers arrived in stock and the price was set. Note that if the pound had depreciated 4% since that time, Brits would be getting a better deal. If the markets become worried about Brexit and the GBP, and the pound comes down in value, our web site price will not change (until we restock again).
> 
> Here's the past year of USD/GBP currency rates:
> 
> http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=1Y
> 
> I do want to note that the lower price for the US is not due to some sort of Americo-centric view, but as my attempt to do my best within the complicated mess that is global commerce. I'm open to better options, but please don't suggest we should revalue the GBP/USD rate only when the GBP gets stronger, and not when it gets weaker.


Seems an odd way of doing things. Why be concerned with what people are paying you in their currency, surely it's better for you to set a price that reflects what you will actually receive. People should expect the price to fluctuate based on the current exchange rate, and I'm not so sure people would find it "confusing" when they know they're ordering from hong kong. You suggest "if the pound had depreciated by 4% Brits would be getting a better deal" and while that's true we also have control over when and how we spend our money. If my currency has depreciated in value by 4% I'm not placing an overseas order, I'm going to wait until it bounces back or appreciates in value. Can you not have the pricing responding automatically to current exchange rates?


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## Dylan

> I'm going to wait until it bounces back or appreciates in value. Can you not have the pricing responding automatically to current exchange rates?


This is likely exactly why he wouldn't want to do that. If customers are playing a constant game of when will the pound be stronger against the yen they may keep putting it off.

Knowing it will be the same price tomorrow or the next day removes this from the equation.

There aren't many shops that sell directly to the UK who have continuously fluctuating prices.


----------



## Rob1

Dylan said:


> This is likely exactly why he wouldn't want to do that. If customers are playing a constant game of when will the pound be stronger against the yen they may keep putting it off.
> 
> Knowing it will be the same price tomorrow or the next day removes this from the equation.


That doesn't make sense. At all. First of all the game just changes; instead of watching for the real exchange rate to fluctuate you wait until they update their prices to reflect a favourable exchange rate. I don't know when they'll update the prices just as I don't know in which way the currency will fluctuate in value from one week to the next but I do know they'll update the prices at some point and when they do it might be favourable, so I'll just wait and wait and wait and I'll check the price once every six months.

If people want to play the Forex market with their purchases that's their business. I suspect there won't be too many people putting off purchase for a significant period of time because they are so sure their currency is going to go up in value relative to the USD that they'll wait. Sure, sometimes the market is quite predictable (such as before elections and election results etc) but to wait long term for significant gains would require a crystal ball. People playing the waiting game for currency fluctuations is a non issue, however people playing the waiting game for him to update the exchange rate could be. Do people really buy things they don't NEED from abroad knowing their currency is weak (or represented to be)?

The GBP amount needs to be converted to USD at the current exchange rate for him. Failure to update the price to match the current exchange rate means sometimes he earns less and sometimes he earns more depending on the relative strength/weakness of X currency to USD. (I'm not sure how many countries he's shipping to at the moment but the amount he's going to earn is going to vary from one currency to the next).



> There aren't many shops that sell directly to the UK who have continuously fluctuating prices.


Not that you know of. I've paid in GBP in at least two different stores in the past that have fluctuated their prices based on the exchange rate.

Pretty much everything else I've purchased internationally has had a continuously fluctuating price (to me) because I've purchased it in the currency THEY use, which of course fluctuates in value relative to my currency.


----------



## Dylan

Rob1 said:


> That doesn't make sense. At all. First of all the game just changes; instead of watching for the real exchange rate to fluctuate you wait until they update their prices to reflect a favourable exchange rate. I don't know when they'll update the prices just as I don't know in which way the currency will fluctuate in value from one week to the next but I do know they'll update the prices at some point and when they do it might be favourable, so I'll just wait and wait and wait and I'll check the price once every six months.


But people don't actually do this, electronics manufacturers always account for fluctuating prices in their retail price and only when there are major changes (like those brought about by Brexit) do they then change the retail price - to a new fixed retail price.

What Decent do isn't directly equivalent as they don't hold stock in the UK, but nevertheless a price that constantly fluctuates means their price to overseas customers is constantly changing - you can calim that to be your preference if you like but it wouldn't be mine if I were trying to sell directly to a market. I would imagine most of Decent's customers will get their pricing info from the website and have little idea of the ups and downs effecting their bottom line John has alluded to here.



> Not that you know of. I've paid in GBP in at least two different stores in the past that have fluctuated their prices based on the exchange rate.


Which would fall pretty handily under a "not many" description.



> Pretty much everything else I've purchased internationally has had a continuously fluctuating price (to me) because I've purchased it in the currency THEY use, which of course fluctuates in value relative to my currency.


Well, obviously.

Again, Decents shop model is different here as it doesn't fit into the two obvious categories - it isn't a UK stockist setting prices against bulk imports and it isn't just a Chinese company prepared to ship to the UK. They are directly targeting and gaining proper certifications and such things for individual markets, but as they ship from China they are seeing a machine by machine fluctuation in price.

I would personally agree with the assessment that a constantly changing price isn't ideal, you obviously feel differently. There are companies I deal with in Europe who have an advertised list price, but who's products come from America - if the Euro is strong against the dollar it is often worth emailing them to see if they will pass on this saving, which they often do. They still have a fixed list price.


----------



## Rob1

A constantly changing list price isn't ideal. Nor is it ideal to make varying amounts of profit from each machine you sell depending on the relative strength and weakness of the different currencies you're doing business with.

An ideal would be a USD list price that stays solid and everybody just pays in USD. Or at least everybody could have the option to pay in USD.

EDIT:

Though I guess people would just choose whichever option is cheapest to them so probably wouldn't be able to give people the option to switch.


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## malling

An ideal would be one fixed currency, this would remove the possibility of someone speculation in currency exchange rates or switching to the cheapest one.


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## Dylan

malling said:


> An ideal would be one fixed currency, this would remove the possibility of someone speculation in currency exchange rates or switching to the cheapest one.


But there are different taxes and fees for each country it is sold to - costs are different in Europe than they are in America or China - selling an EU certified machine in dollars would be a confusing way of doing things.


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## Dayks

Dylan said:


> But there are different taxes and fees for each country it is sold to - costs are different in Europe than they are in America or China - selling an EU certified machine in dollars would be a confusing way of doing things.


The cost could still be calculated based on the country it is shipped to, it could still even default to the local currency but give the option to pay in dollars instead.


----------



## Dylan

That still produces a constantly fluctuating price, which is fine if that's what you want but I can see why you would want to advertise a static price to your visitors.


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## ashcroc

Dylan said:


> That still produces a constantly fluctuating price, which is fine if that's what you want but I can see why you would want to advertise a static price to your visitors.


Couldn't agree more. A static price means you can compare different products then go back in a few days to find it's the same as before.

It's no different than a retailer having branches in multiple countries really though their outlay is alot less doing it this way.


----------



## malling

Dylan said:


> But there are different taxes and fees for each country it is sold to - costs are different in Europe than they are in America or China - selling an EU certified machine in dollars would be a confusing way of doing things.


I understand your point, but it requires allot of time, effort and resources to figure out the correct price for every country.

It is not just a difference in exchange rates and taxation, but also living costs, insurance models, welfare systems and wages you'll need to take into account. I just don't see why this should be a company responsibility or problem.

If so they will earn less on a some customers.

For me they could just sell it in local currency, it doesn't have to be in USD nor Euros, I just don't see the benefit of charging in my local currency, I can get better exchange rate from my bank in 90% of the cases.


----------



## bachamp

But what about the country specific costs like certification? Many countries get by with CE and UL, but other countries have specific certification that comes at a cost.


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## Rob1

bachamp said:


> But what about the country specific costs like certification? Many countries get by with CE and UL, but other countries have specific certification that comes at a cost.


That has nothing at all to do with the currency you pay in. Extra charges can be added for transparency at the billing stage. There's no need to force exchanges to take place in different currencies or allow them to take place in any currency but the one desired by the seller.


----------



## decent_espresso

Another small "whoops" was realized by us today, after shipping our first DE1+ to Seattle.

We need to eliminate all water from inside the water tubes before shipping.

Why? Because it's theoretically possible for water to come out of the tube, roll down the bottom, have the machine flipped over again, and for that water to make its way onto the PC boards and cause a short.

It's very unlikely, but it's possible.

Last week, we ran the pumps for 20 seconds, with the water source disconnected, and that purged some of the water. However, some still remains visible between the flow meter and the water pumps.

We thought about this a while, and what we want is a precise temperature version of a hair-drier, hooked up to a tube, pushing hot air through the water intake tube.

I wasn't able to find exactly that, but we do have "hot air guns" here to shrink plastic tubing.

After a bit of surfing, I was able to find a heat gun that claims to be adjustable down to 30ºC. That's important, because the tubing from the water tank to the pumps is silicone, and doesn't want to go over 100ºC.

The plan is to fit this "hot air gun" with one of the accessory size adaptors so that a rubber tube can lead the not-too-hot air directly into the DE1's water intake.

The DE1 is wired such that when power is removed, all valves open. This is a safety measure, so that the unplugged, the system is not under pressure. This should also make it easier to dry the inside tubes out.

If you have a suggestion of other ways we might accomplish this drying task, please speak up.


----------



## decent_espresso

bachamp said:


> But what about the country specific costs like certification? Many countries get by with CE and UL, but other countries have specific certification that comes at a cost.


I had to stifle a giggle as I envisioned the email I'd receive if I added a line like this to your invoice:

- CE safety compliance fee: £70

and then, post Brexit, when this becomes:

- UK safety compliance fee: £120

Since post-Brexit we'll presumably have to submit our machine for a separate UK compliance test. Germany is already more-than-a-bit like this, as they have added lots of directives on top of the EU requirements.

I'm not sure that many people want this much transparency to think about. "Give me a price and I'll decide if I want to buy it".

We average out all these costs and then figure out what we need to charge in order to have a viable business.

-john


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## dlight

I can't believe there's a page full of posts on variable local currency / fixed source currency pricing. Wow!

Decent has established prices and a pricing strategy that's very clear. How about letting them focus on the issues in hand - getting a machine to market


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## Rob1

decent_espresso said:


> I had to stifle a giggle as I envisioned the email I'd receive if I added a line like this to your invoice:
> 
> - CE safety compliance fee: £70
> 
> and then, post Brexit, when this becomes:
> 
> - UK safety compliance fee: £120
> 
> Since post-Brexit we'll presumably have to submit our machine for a separate UK compliance test. Germany is already more-than-a-bit like this, as they have added lots of directives on top of the EU requirements.
> 
> I'm not sure that many people want this much transparency to think about. "Give me a price and I'll decide if I want to buy it".
> 
> We average out all these costs and then figure out what we need to charge in order to have a viable business.
> 
> -john


You'll have to forgive me for being slow. I'm don't know anything about this subject really. Do you pay that fee for testing each individual machine produced and shipped? I was under the impression it was a matter of gaining certification once and then ensuring continued compliance at no additional cost. I also thought every machine sold was built to the same specs so the machines you sell to the US have the same certification as the machines you sell to the EU (though I may have misread or imagined that).

I had assumed that it was the norm for businesses to define their operating costs including the cost of worldwide certification of their products and then to set a price that ensures a healthy and stable profit margin for each machine sold worldwide, rather than to apply a markup to products made to different specs to sell to different regions at varying profits based on the strength/weakness of their currency relative to the currency they use for business.

I understand why letting people pay in their local currency might make ordering more attractive as they don't get stung by exchange fees but banks offer credit cards that don't charge for foreign transactions. I was under the impression that currency fluctuates in value partially due to people buying/selling currency and conducting internationally business. I thought it was a fact that people make fewer purchases when their currency is devalued relative to other currencies regardless of the currency the conduct the transaction in, and that people statistically spend less when the economy is bad (unless they're buying lipstick).

I guess what I'm saying is I don't understand why you would deliberately value a currency at a lower rate during one period, and get less business as a result, and then later over value (presumably it will happen at some point as it's a 50/50) and receive more orders. It seems like you'd be making less profit overall that way. You might even restrict potential orders when you over value a currency if you consider the fact that for that to happen it has to actually decrease in value and cause them to tighten the purse strings. On small items it isn't much of an issue but on grinders and espresso machines under valuing a currency by 5-10% will significantly inflate the cost even before VAT and duty. You obviously have the right to run your business however you want and there's no need to explain or debate, I just don't get why you would accept fluctuating profits and fluctuating sales to allow people to pay in their local currency. If you charge USD you'll get more business when foreign currencies increase in value and maintain stable profits per sale (which is probably a good reason to do business internationally by itself). You will get less business when foreign currencies decrease in value, which will happen anyway regardless of how you try to get around it.

ONTO YOUR SILICONE:

I thought silicone could go much higher that 100c, to about 200-300c you see any effects. Are you using platinum cured silicone to avoid having contaminants leech into the water? I read an article recently that even in the case of platinum cured silicone there were still some contaminants remaining depending on the curing process when it was previously believed to be completely inert, so it might be something to look into especially if you're using it for hot water.

Is there a reason you can't just seal the end of the tubes by putting them into a small cylinder for those water treatment cartridges with a gasket. Maybe that'll be more expensive that drying them?


----------



## decent_espresso

Rob1 said:


> You'll have to forgive me for being slow. I'm don't know anything about this subject really. Do you pay that fee for testing each individual machine produced and shipped? I was under the impression it was a matter of gaining certification once and then ensuring continued compliance at no additional cost. I also thought every machine sold was built to the same specs so the machines you sell to the US have the same certification as the machines you sell to the EU (though I may have misread or imagined that).


Making a machine to EU specs is more expensive than to UL specs. We have triple safeties in place now, because thermal fuses are needed for EU, whereas thermostats are acceptable to UL. However, you're right, that we're building to one spec, so our machines currently cost us the same to build, regardless of where they ship.

The extra cost I'm referring to above ("UK compliance") is not the building cost, but the compliance testing cost. Every time we change a major component, we need to re-test in every jurisdiction.

For example, this summer we'll be changing to a new, custom made water heater. We'll have to pay Intertek to re-test for every jurisdiction that has its own standards.

Our compliance costs are roughly £8000 for UL, and about £10,000 for EU. Post-Brexit, we will likely need to pay an additional fee for a separate UK certification. This is what we have to do for Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, for instance. Those extra compliance costs mean we need to charge more for that market. A machine sold in Australian dollars is a bit more expensive than the machine sold to the US, because of this extra cost of compliance friction. Joining a single compliance standard, like the CE standard, makes products sell for less in your country.

Pre-certification, we also have no idea if (for instance) Taiwan will ask us to build our machines differently. Every jurisdiction has rules so complex that it's hard to know ahead full test if you comply. We hired Intertek's consulting (for the past two years) to help us navigate this, but they only have CE/UL experts here in HK.

For example, Japan's ultra-strict lead directive might mean we cannot use brass at all in our espresso machine, despite our material passing CE norms. This last example is not fictional: we've been warned already that it's very hard to pass Japan's standards, and we might need to CNC our parts from aluminum for the Japanese market, and then teflon coat them. We don't want to do that globally, though. We will need to add that extra cost (parts and labor and complexity for us) to the price of the Japanese espresso machines we sell.

As far as floating prices: it's certainly something we could do, but when I look at high tech items for sale in the UK (say, on the Apple store) I see prices in GBP, adjusted once in a while for large currency fluctuations.

What I've read about the psychology of decisions, suggests that the more variables someone has to consider in making a decision, the more likely they are to not make a decision. So, my personal opinion is that (say) 1% fluctuations of price would lead to lower sales.

I highly recommend this book, on this topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice

*The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less is a 2004 book by American psychologist Barry Schwartz. In the book, Schwartz argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers.*

HOWEVER, I think there's a good argument to be made for scheduled, regular new pricing. Since my plan is to offer a 3 times a year ordering period for our espresso machines, as each new revision is rolled out, the price will be adjusted 3x per year, to current exchange rates.



Rob1 said:


> ONTO YOUR SILICONE: I thought silicone could go much higher that 100c, to about 200-300c you see any effects. Are you using platinum cured silicone to avoid having contaminants leech into the water? I read an article recently that even in the case of platinum cured silicone there were still some contaminants remaining depending on the curing process when it was previously believed to be completely inert, so it might be something to look into especially if you're using it for hot water. Is there a reason you can't just seal the end of the tubes by putting them into a small cylinder for those water treatment cartridges with a gasket. Maybe that'll be more expensive that drying them?


Well spotted, and you are of course correct. However, our pumps are rated to 80ºC, and in general, I don't want to add a new variable (very hot air) to a machine right before I'm about to ship it. 100ºC air would probably be ok, but any change to the system at the very end, without a lot of testing, makes me nervous.

I don't know about platinum coated silicone, all I know is that our tubing is FDA certified as food safe.

We can't use plugs to stop all the water outlets, because there are 4 places where water can come out, and 3 of them are not very plugged.


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## markant

decent_espresso said:


> Since post-Brexit we'll presumably have to submit our machine for a separate UK compliance test.


Likely only if you change something in the machine.



decent_espresso said:


> Germany is already more-than-a-bit like this, as they have added lots of directives on top of the EU requirements.


That is not allowed! According to European law, acceptance in one country means it has to be accepted in all. (You can contact my lawyer for that).

M.


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## decent_espresso

markant said:


> That is not allowed! According to European law, acceptance in one country means it has to be accepted in all. (You can contact my lawyer for that)


I'm not expert on why this is allowed, but the way I read it, the directive states:

The directive requires all member states to take the necessary measures to ensure waste is recovered or disposed of without endangering human health or causing harm to the environment and includes permitting, registration and inspection requirements.

and then it's up to each EU nation to come up with its own laws, which can (and do) vary widely.

I've been told is that only Germany has created a situation where we are either required to use a local reseller (so they're liable), or else set up a trust in Germany in case we were to become insolvent:

"a "guarantee for the event of insolvency", together with a trusteeship, is needed. This financial reserve should ensure that the state doesn't have to pay for the recovery of the remaining WEEE of a bankrupt producer."

and that we have to set up "local collection points" in Germany in order to comply.

More info on the German version at:

http://elektrogesetz.com/

The UK implementation appears to be less difficult to comply with:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/waste-legislation-and-regulations

There are other things too.

We've had packages rejected at German customs because a german-language instruction sheet was not included in the package. No other country has rejected us for this reason.

I realize that all this consumer protection stuff makes for better products, but it does lead to higher costs, especially if the rules are not harmonized over larger markets.

-john


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## coffeechap

dlight said:


> I can't believe there's a page full of posts on variable local currency / fixed source currency pricing. Wow!
> 
> Decent has established prices and a pricing strategy that's very clear. How about letting them focus on the issues in hand - getting a machine to market


It's not like it's been that long yet !!!


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## decent_espresso

We're making good progress on making production versions of the "refill kit" for people who bought the DE1PRO+ and for the future DE1CAFE.

We've prototyped and tested it, designed the PC board and the real chassis received a single version of the chassis, received samples of the final pump and final valve. We're now waiting for the sample PCBs to arrive, so we can solder on components and do final testing before we order these in quantity.

Each DE1PRO+ customer will receive two of these boxes:

1) a "catering kit" has a pump in it, and is for sucking water out of a water source. In the photos above, I'm using a charcoal-filtered water jug as the source.

2) a "plumbing kit" which has a large valve in it, which opens to let water in. This is for connecting to pressurized "house water".

In both cases, the DE1PRO+ uses a water level sensor to top up its own internal tank, on an as-needed basis.

It's a bit geeky, but we decided to use the two built-in LEDs on an ethernet plug, to mean exactly what they do on an ethernet router (or switch). One light means "power" (plugged in) while the other light is "activity" (water is moving).

The box is heavy duty, made of 2mm thick aluminum, with the same feet as on the DE1. In fact, the goal is for the design to be a "mini-me" to the DE1.

The "final final" espresso machine is now running in our kitchen, all plumbed in (including waste water from the drip tray).


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> I'm not expert on why this is allowed, but the way I read it, the directive states:
> 
> The directive requires all member states to take the necessary measures to ensure waste is recovered or disposed of without endangering human health or causing harm to the environment and includes permitting, registration and inspection requirements.
> 
> and then it's up to each EU nation to come up with its own laws, which can (and do) vary widely.
> 
> I've been told is that only Germany has created a situation where we are either required to use a local reseller (so they're liable), or else set up a trust in Germany in case we were to become insolvent:
> 
> "a "guarantee for the event of insolvency", together with a trusteeship, is needed. This financial reserve should ensure that the state doesn't have to pay for the recovery of the remaining WEEE of a bankrupt producer."
> 
> and that we have to set up "local collection points" in Germany in order to comply.
> 
> More info on the German version at:
> 
> http://elektrogesetz.com/
> 
> The UK implementation appears to be less difficult to comply with:
> 
> https://www.gov.uk/guidance/waste-legislation-and-regulations
> 
> There are other things too.
> 
> We've had packages rejected at German customs because a german-language instruction sheet was not included in the package. No other country has rejected us for this reason.
> 
> I realize that all this consumer protection stuff makes for better products, but it does lead to higher costs, especially if the rules are not harmonized over larger markets.
> 
> -john


John, I will ask. But there is free trade between countries in EU: if you get your machines in one country and send them from there to Germany, there is no customs check anymore. So how can they ask for local collection points? or for a 'financial reserve'?? It beats me. When I know more, I will let you know.

M.


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## Dylan

markant said:


> John, I will ask. But there is free trade between countries in EU: if you get your machines in one country and send them from there to Germany, there is no customs check anymore. So how can they ask for local collection points? or for a 'financial reserve'?? It beats me. When I know more, I will let you know.
> 
> M.


At a guess - it would be the difference between a consumer choosing to import something from another EU country and a retailer (like Decent) selling directly to German consumers.

The former is unrestricted, the latter can have regulations - but as I said, thats a guess.

For example - out warranty laws are different to the rest of the EU - there was a time when they were much stronger (are they still?). This would have added increased costs for anyone selling with a UK registered company, even if they made their product elsewhere, but if you bought the product direct from another country the UK warranty laws would not apply to you.


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## decent_espresso

Now that we've made one "final final" machine, and just about finished with 10 machines for the beta testers, we're moving to doing building 100 espresso machines at once. Attached are some photos of the factory as we prep for that. You'll notice a lot more boxes as all parts now need to be available on the assembly floor in larger quantities.

*OUR PLAN FOR THE NEXT SEVEN MONTHS*

Our immediate goal is to achieve 2.5 machines shipped per day through March and April, so that we ship 100 espresso machines in those two months.

By May, I hope that we'll be able to achieve 5 machines shipped per day so that in May/June we'll have concluded building all 300 of the DE1 v1.0 machines (which have all been pre-ordered).

This will coincide with parts arriving in July for the next batch of espresso machines, in quantity=1000. In March, we'll be taking orders for that batch, which I hope will sell out.

We'll need to have sped up to 12 machines shipped per day, at that point. This should be achievable because about a third of the DE1 v1.1 assembly work will be done for us by our parts suppliers (that's what why we're working on manuals so assiduously) and we'll have hired about 10 more people to build machines.

If we manage to pull this all off, we'll be able to start shipping in larger quantities (20 machines per day, to equate 4000 espresso machines per year) starting in October. That assumes, of course, that we've received good reviews and that we have enough customers to warrant that level of production.

In about a month, the first reviews of our espresso machines will start being published, and we'll learn how people feel about what we've spent the past 3 years making.

-john


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## kennyboy993

Good luck with the reviews, looking forward to reading about you completely disrupting the market


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## coffeekidd

This is fantastic, John! Two quick follow-ups on the timeline:

[1] Will those first 100 machines shipped in March and April be the U.S. preorders? I believe I recall you mentioning they would be first because of various regulations.

[2] How long does shipping from China to the U.S. take for Decent? (I ask because I was just notified that a preorder from Fellow (the Stagg EKG) would take a month to get to the U.S. by boat, and then another week to get shipped to individual homes.)


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## Andreugv

coffeekidd said:


> This is fantastic, John! Two quick follow-ups on the timeline:
> 
> [1] Will those first 100 machines shipped in March and April be the U.S. preorders? I believe I recall you mentioning they would be first because of various regulations.
> 
> [2] How long does shipping from China to the U.S. take for Decent? (I ask because I was just notified that a preorder from Fellow (the Stagg EKG) would take a month to get to the U.S. by boat, and then another week to get shipped to individual homes.)


I can not speak for the machine as it is obviously bigger than any package I got from Decent, but all 3 shipments I received in the past arrived within 10 days of shipment.


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## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> I can not speak for the machine as it is obviously bigger than any package I got from Decent, but all 3 shipments I received in the past arrived within 10 days of shipment.


Because of the higher value and weight, we ship our espresso machines and grinders via a express courier (usually UPS) on 2 day delivery.

Our accessories are less expensive (and less fragile) as so they go Air Mail from Hong Kong (and then handed over to Royal Mail (in the UK)).

There's a special "standby" postal rate which we use, where our accessories packages go into the next available luggage hold space on a commercial airplane. That means that countries that have lots of flights to/from Hong Kong (that would be London) get there faster, but it also depends on the season, this standby rate has competitors (sort of like ADSL speeds)

To summarize: you should expect your espresso machine within 48h of when we ship from Hong Kong

ps: "Hong Kong is not China" https://coconuts.co/hongkong/news/graphics-showing-why-hong-kong-not-china-shared-widely/



coffeekidd said:


> [1] Will those first 100 machines shipped in March and April be the U.S. preorders? I believe I recall you mentioning they would be first because of various regulations.


Yes, those 100 will mostly be to the US and Canada. However, a smaller number of 220V machines will make their way to cafes and roasters worldwide, who have a technician on staff. Mat North in Bristol, will have one, for instance. Some others (ahem) in the UK will get them but won't necessarily want to grant public access to their machine. In ~8 weeks I should be able to tell you a few places where you can try one out yourself.

-john


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## decent_espresso

We're close to shipping our "own-brand" coffee grinder, and this week Alex made IKEA-style "wordless" assembly instructions. Since we have a global customer base, that's a clean approach, and I'm hoping we can avoid our instructions being as occasionally confusing as IKEA's instructions can be.

The reason for the instructions is that we've "modded" a well-made-but-boring grinder to have a 3-axis moveable portafilter stand and scale on it. The goal is both to weigh and to be able to center the grounds properly in the basket.

For our grinder and espresso machines, we'll also be making CGI-and-real-footage based Youtube video instructions, which will have English talking on them with subtitles for our major customer languages.

Personally, I think the videos are the way to go, as they're so much clearer and easier to follow than reading diagrams.

A comical aside: we had a lot of trouble modeling coffee beans in CGI, as most of our attempts looked more like "black bean soup". Each bean is a separate object, so we had to use particle-based software to model them somewhat realistically.

Our current priority is shipping the grinders out to our pre-order customers and gathering feedback from them.

I'm aware that many people see Decent as a "high tech, disruptive company" but that's not how I see us. I like to think of everything we do as "practical" and "focussed on drink quality".

A good quality grinder, at a reasonable price, with weighed doses and a well-centered coffee mound, is something I think needs to exist. You'll be able to choose the grind quality you like, from "Super Jolly" to "K30", depending on the burr set you choose.


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## markant

Dylan said:


> At a guess - it would be the difference between a consumer choosing to import something from another EU country and a retailer (like Decent) selling directly to German consumers.
> 
> The former is unrestricted, the latter can have regulations - but as I said, thats a guess.


And that was a good guess apparently.... actually John already wrote



> the directive states:
> 
> The directive requires all member states to take the necessary measures to ensure waste is recovered or disposed of without endangering human health or causing harm to the environment and includes permitting, registration and inspection requirements.
> 
> and then it's up to each EU nation to come up with its own laws, which can (and do) vary widely.


And indeed for firms there are other rules than for individuals.....


----------



## Rob1

decent_espresso said:


> As far as floating prices: it's certainly something we could do, but when I look at high tech items for sale in the UK (say, on the Apple store) I see prices in GBP, adjusted once in a while for large currency fluctuations.
> 
> What I've read about the psychology of decisions, suggests that the more variables someone has to consider in making a decision, the more likely they are to not make a decision. So, my personal opinion is that (say) 1% fluctuations of price would lead to lower sales.


Yes, that's common for stores restocking. I've seen Bella Barista, for example, updating prices when they receive new stock. I don't believe the points I've made RE buying/selling according to the value of a currency are conscious, but something that happens naturally as a result of exposure to news sources proclaiming doom/gloom or how much the economy is growing; it's something that can be felt even if ignorant to the reasons. In case of purchases especially with foreign transaction I don't think it's really a matter of decision making or choices, it's a matter of optimism and an appraisal of value. But anyway, I don't think there's really a need to continue discussing it. Updating the pricing three times a year, especially before taking orders for machines is a good idea -- but one that still leaves you open to losses in that time.



> I don't know about platinum coated silicone, all I know is that our tubing is FDA certified as food safe.


I was doing some reading because I wanted tubing that wouldn't leech anything out into distilled water at about 70c (straight out of the distiller). I bought some FDA food safe peroxide cured tubing from amazon for pennies and then found out it would leech VOCs into the water. I was afraid it would taint the flavour more than anything so switched to platinum cured with is supposed to be inert but if not heated and held at about 200c post cure it may have some VOCs left that can leech into substances. During my brief research I read a passage about how the EU restricted the use off various substances in the production of silicone and that the FDA allowed several chemicals that were not allowed within the EU. As I said, my research was brief and it wasn't something I was really looking for, but if you're thinking of using the same tubing in the EU version there might be potential to run into trouble.


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## decent_espresso

ROHS,SGS,FDA,REACH



Rob1 said:


> I was doing some reading because I wanted tubing that wouldn't leech anything out into distilled water at about 70c (straight out of the distiller). I bought some FDA food safe peroxide cured tubing from amazon for pennies and then found out it would leech VOCs into the water. I was afraid it would taint the flavour more than anything so switched to platinum cured with is supposed to be inert but if not heated and held at about 200c post cure it may have some VOCs left that can leech into substances. During my brief research I read a passage about how the EU restricted the use off various substances in the production of silicone and that the FDA allowed several chemicals that were not allowed within the EU. As I said, my research was brief and it wasn't something I was really looking for, but if you're thinking of using the same tubing in the EU version there might be potential to run into trouble.


As regards food safety, we have each material tested according to the government requirements for just about every jurisdiction we sell in. We don't take it upon ourselves to do more than what the cumulative requirements of every government test have required. Well, let me modify that last statement: we do avoid materials in the water path that are known to be food safe, but that alter the flavor. That's why we don't have any aluminum in the water path, even though that would be allowed. We also use ceramic for the drip tray, instead of plastic, to avoid contaminating that as well, since some people recycle that water, and use it in their gardens.

We do have to sell to the EU, so all our materials have to have the ROHS directive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substances_Directive

My understanding is that because this material is passing EU's ROHS certifications, that our tubing should not have the the VOC problem you indicate above.

Here is the silicone tubing we use:

http://www.gh-material.com/flexible-tube/silicone-tube/food-grade-silicone-tube/flexible-food-grade-transparent-hose-silicone.html

Here is a list of their safety: certifications: ROHS,SGS,FDA,REACH









and the tubing specs (more on their web page):









Is this information useful, regarding your tubing contamination worries?

-john


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## decent_espresso

Attached above is what I'm currently working on. Each DE1 and DE1+ needs to have its sensor calibrated by a separate device (typically a Scace 2 portafilter for pressure and temperature, and a 0.1g accurate scale for flow) so that manufacturing variations in the sensors we use are taken into account.

As a customer, you'll also have access to this page, via Settings->Machine->Calibrate.

To calibrate your machine, you'll run a shot and then enter in what your test equipment said actually happened. Then, rerun the shot and see how close the Decent espresso machine now is to the test equipment.

Separately, Ray and I are doing the final debugging of our "upgrade firmware over Bluetooth, using the tablet" process. In the past, upgrades have been done via a USB cable, which I don't think is great for customers. Ray has the firmware side (which receives the upgrade) of upgrading working, and he found a bug in my tablet code (which sends the upgrade), and I'll fix that when I'm back at the office on Monday.

After calibrating and firmware upgrading, Ray and I have a few remaining todos, which we hope to finish this week, so we can send the machines out to beta testers.

---

Still to do on the software side:

- the new flow profiling code which counts pumps strikes to measure flow, but which recalibrates itself regularly using the flow meter. This will give us very-low-latency flow measurements, which is useful both for more accurate flow profiling shots but also to be able to show you short live channeling defects in your espresso shots.

- noise: there are a few spots in making espresso where the two pumps are on 100% and in sync, and that causes a rattling noise.

- implement cleaning and descaling cycles

- implement the "flush water through the group head" button

None of the above are very time consuming, and we're pretty confident we'll have it wrapped up by the end of the week.


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## decent_espresso

Our first beta tester found a problem with our espresso machine, that we have replicated here.

Sometimes at the end of an espresso, the flushed water comes out briefly with enough force that it sprays out in a 120º cone (top left photo), with some of that water hitting the back of the mirrored lip, and then dripping between the drip tray and water tank, onto the table (top right photo).

Result: some water on your kitchen table.

This "flush burst" only happens for the first second of the flush. For the rest of the flush (about 5 seconds) the water fills up inside the metal box we call the "flush diffuser" (bottom photo) and then drains out at a slower speed.

This fast start to flushing "shouldn't be happening" based on our understanding of what's going on: obviously, our understanding of the first second of the flush is incomplete.

We should be able to improve the situation with a firmware change in the future, by ensuring that the flush path has little remaining water or pressure in it. But, that will take time to make sure we've correctly understood why there was pressure in the flush path in the first place, and that we've truly removed it.

So: I asked my engineers to develop a hardware fix for this problem. I'd rather fix it now "for certain", and then also plan on a later firmware revision to make the fix unnecessary.

By putting a small length of silicone tubing on the exit point, the burst of water comes out at 120º and then hits the walls of the tube, slowing down, and then draining into the drip tray (bottom photo).

You can pull the silicone tube off in a few months if it bothers you, once/if we fix this problem with a firmware update.

---

A Clue in Solving our Wet Puck Mystery?

A side note: after making an espresso, our pucks have always been a bit wetter than I like (wetter than other espresso machines).

As of today, I now suspect that the wet puck and the "flush begins with high force" might be linked.

Here's my theory: if the flush path had some resistance to it, that would hamper the force at which the group head decompresses, and thus allow a bit more water to remain on the puck. If that's true, this should be fixable by changing our valve timings in firmware.


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## decent_espresso

Her latte art might need a bit of practice, but she pulled a good espresso and made acceptable microfoam.


----------



## decent_espresso

We're finalizing our design for the Plumbing Kit, which allows you to plug a DE1PRO into your cities' water supply.

The valve that our suppliers offers for this is perfect, except that it only comes with "NPSM G3/4" threads, which don't seem to be widely used anywhere. So, we're going to CNC our own thread adaptor to BSPP G1/2, which seem more common.

*I'd like to hear from you about this:* what kind of fittings do you have in your country, for plumbing an appliance in (such as a dishwasher)? We'd like to make our own adaptors for the common standards, to make plumbed-in installation easier for you. In theory, what we have here in Hong Kong is following the UK standards, but what about any non-Brits on this forum?

5 custom PC Boards and their components came in today. We're hand-soldering the components on, in order to do a final test that we've not made any mistakes before we order 1000 PC boards to be made for us. We're building the pump-version today.









The same PC board is being used for our two Refill Kit variations: the Plumbing Kit (pressurized city water, using a valve) and the Catering Kit (water sucked out of a tank with a pump). The chassis is the same in both cases, but with different holes drilled into them.

I had an idea this week to try to make the chassis "latchable" onto either the DE1PRO and/or your table. The reason: at the Korea Coffee Show I twice had the Refill Kit fall off the table, eventually breaking one of the cable connectors. We're still finalizing how that latching mechanism will work. We've prototyped something ugly in our shop using bent sheet metal, and we'll be asking our prototyping company to make a not-ugly version for us shortly.

Attached below is a cross-section render of our Plumbing Kit, as well as the thread adaptor we're having made.


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## decent_espresso

Intertek has given me their final opinion, which is that our tablet will be considered a "remote control". Unfortunately, this goes against what Intertek's consultants have told us for the past two years (which was that Bluetooth would be treated as if it were a cable), and this is a bit of a frustrating turn.

From a safety compliance standpoint, if the tablet is a remote control, then every action has to be re-OKed on the device itself, which would not be a very nice user experience.

I had prepared for the worst news, and we've discussed here my planned counter-proposal, which is to physically tether the tablet to our espresso machine. I'm pretty sure that will meet their requirements.

Today, I sent Intertek the photo above as an example of this idea. The actual implementation will be more discrete, but I sent them this photo (bottom right) because the tethering idea is clear to see and understand.

In a past meeting, they indicated that a "Torx screw" was considered "not user-removable". Therefore, my intention is to connect the tablet stand to the DE1 via a cable, secured by a Torx screw.

We thus will ship our espresso machine in a UL compliant manner (tethered). If the end user removes the tether (using a Torx screwdriver and wire clippers), it is no longer UL compliant.

Another possibility for the future would be for us to do away with the Steelie stand, and instead, move to the custom-made bent-sheet metal stand that we drafted in an earlier incarnation of the DE1CAFE. (top photo)

I wonder if the Steampunk Coffee machine had the same compliance issue, as they encase and tether their included Android tablet. http://alphadominche.com/steampunk/ (bottom left photo)

For now, though, my focus is on shipping espresso machines that are UL and CE compliant. We can revisit this issue in 6 months when people haven't been waiting so long for machines from us.


----------



## rytopa

Thats great, i would assume after the Intertek Decision would remove the last remaining hurdle, giving a full clear go ahead towards full production for both the 220V/110V machines?


----------



## decent_espresso

rytopa said:


> Thats great, i would assume after the Intertek Decision would remove the last remaining hurdle, giving a full clear go ahead towards full production for both the 220V/110V machines?


It's progress, but it's not the last hurdle. They still haven't opined on the internals of our water heater and group head heater, and on how the group head is wired. They promised to close that out by tomorrow. That will conclude the "construction review".

We then will need to submit two machines to them, with all the requested changes, for a "final UL review". I got the feeling that this would not be onerous, but it ain't over 'til it's over.

Then, there'll be a CE review, which will also be in two phases (construction and full) with 6 machines submitted (and destroyed). Then, we'll find out if Intertek's CE consultant, who we've been seeing for the past two years, gave us good advice.

-john


----------



## Stanic

in Slovakia, the typical thread size for plumbing in is 3/4"


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> Unfortunately, this goes against what Intertek's consultants have told us for the past two years


Did Intertek express this in emails? If yes, then it would be hard to go back.


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## roastini

patrickff said:


> Did Intertek express this in emails? If yes, then it would be hard to go back.


The consultants so telling Decent were from a different arm of Intertek than the reviewing team, and the two parts of the company are separated for the very purpose of ensuring that the reviewers are independent. So the statements from the consultants were prognostications rather than commitments.


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## Andreugv

roastini said:


> The consultants so telling Decent were from a different arm of Intertek than the reviewing team, and the two parts of the company are separated for the very purpose of ensuring that the reviewers are independent. So the statements from the consultants were prognostications rather than commitments.


Feels bad it is like that... but I guess there is nothing else you can do now than just solve the problem they see the best way you can.

Hopefully they will give the OK to the internal design and then it is just solving the remote control


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## Onticoms

roastini said:


> The consultants so telling Decent were from a different arm of Intertek than the reviewing team, and the two parts of the company are separated for the very purpose of ensuring that the reviewers are independent. So the statements from the consultants were prognostications rather than commitments.


Hmm mm. I bet that wasn't in the pitch they used to sell you the consultancy service...

Seems like the extent to which the two positions differ is exactly the extent to which that service to you has been deficient.


----------



## decent_espresso

Now that we have learned that BLE was a method that would fail UL, it's possible that in a future version we'll move to using USB to control the machine. BLE could then be used for configure the espresso machine using your own device and a download app, but the app would not turn coffee/steam on. My understanding is that approach would be UL compliant.

I attach several mockups we made 18 months ago, of "tray warmer" concepts for the DE1CAFE, if we went with the tablet-attached approach. Since we thought BLE was OK, we went with a removable stand design for the tablet, where there is not enough space for cups.

I'm curious as to what you guys think of the cup stand idea.


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## MrShades

cup stand looks very nice... for some inexplicable reason I'm drawn more to the black one (with the rear support) than the other 'hanging' ones - but if my machine came with either then I'd be quite happy.


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## ashcroc

decent_espresso said:


> Now that we have learned that BLE was a method that would fail UL, it's possible that in a future version we'll move to using USB to control the machine. BLE could then be used for configure the espresso machine using your own device and a download app, but the app would not turn coffee/steam on. My understanding is that approach would be UL compliant.
> 
> I attach several mockups we made 18 months ago, of "tray warmer" concepts for the DE1CAFE, if we went with the tablet-attached approach. Since we thought BLE was OK, we went with a removable stand design for the tablet, where there is not enough space for cups.
> 
> I'm curious as to what you guys think of the cup stand idea.
> 
> View attachment 32534


Instead of having a fixed stand like in the photo, would a cradle with a switch that activates when the tablet is mounted work (could have it charging the tablet too)? That way you can still remove the tablet remotely switch on & play around with the pressure profiles etc.

Bluetooth being treated as a 'remote control' is a bit of a setback especially since you were previously advised it'd be ok but it's not the end of the world. You'll need to be infront of the maxhine to load the portafilter or steam milk anyway so mounting the tablet too is gonna keep it out of the way.


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## Rob1

I like the mounting idea. If it's a standard usb connection you could also use it to mount your phone and an adapter could be supplied for Ipad/phone connections.


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## matisse

decent_espresso said:


> Because of the higher value and weight, we ship our espresso machines and grinders via a express courier (usually UPS) on 2 day delivery.
> 
> Our accessories are less expensive (and less fragile) as so they go Air Mail from Hong Kong (and then handed over to Royal Mail (in the UK)).
> 
> There's a special "standby" postal rate which we use, where our accessories packages go into the next available luggage hold space on a commercial airplane. That means that countries that have lots of flights to/from Hong Kong (that would be London) get there faster, but it also depends on the season, this standby rate has competitors (sort of like ADSL speeds)
> 
> To summarize: you should expect your espresso machine within 48h of when we ship from Hong Kong
> 
> ps: "Hong Kong is not China" https://coconuts.co/hongkong/news/graphics-showing-why-hong-kong-not-china-shared-widely/
> 
> Yes, those 100 will mostly be to the US and Canada. However, a smaller number of 220V machines will make their way to cafes and roasters worldwide, who have a technician on staff. Mat North in Bristol, will have one, for instance. Some others (ahem) in the UK will get them but won't necessarily want to grant public access to their machine. In ~8 weeks I should be able to tell you a few places where you can try one out yourself.
> 
> -john


Hey all,

I'll have the machine at my shop to view in bristol, and will be taking it around the country in due course. once it arrives I'll set up a new thread here to take questions and layout how you can get hold of me to arrange a looksee.

Mat


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## rytopa

matisse said:


> Hey all,
> 
> I'll have the machine at my shop to view in bristol, and will be taking it around the country in due course. once it arrives I'll set up a new thread here to take questions and layout how you can get hold of me to arrange a looksee.
> 
> Mat


Please do update us as soon you have in on hand!! I am so crazily jealous of you right now..


----------



## decent_espresso

We noticed that the sound of the pumps on the production DE1 espresso machines was quite a bit louder than in our pre-production models. We didn't jump on it because we should this was likely caused by how we're driving the pumps now, and that we could fix this in software. We were also expecting a bit louder sound because we switched to more powerful pumps in August.

Last week, we brought the pump power down to 30%, the sound still remained, so we moved to assuming that the assembly was to blame.

Sometimes, you just need a weekend off, because we couldn't find the problem on Thursday and Friday last week. On Monday, within 10 minutes I'd figured it out, just by tapping around with my finger, inside an unplugged machine. A rubber pad behind the metal box which holds the pumps and the rattling noise went away.

I did want to formalize the audio level of the machine, so first we tried a decibel meter. The problem is that the machine very briefly has an 88db sound when the valve opens up to start espresso. So, peak dB wouldn't help.

Then, we compared a history of the sound levels between the before vs after machine, and while it was different, it wasn't substantially different.

The issue is that particular frequencies are much more annoying than others. Louder bass sounds are actually somewhat pleasing, whereas higher pitched sounds get annoying fast.

So, I switched to an FFT analysis program for iOS, which shows me a running 10 second average of the sound level of all the frequencies.

The result of that analysis is in the attached chart.

The bottom line is the room when it's quiet. The middle line is the "after" espresso machine, and the top line is the "before" (rattly) espresso machine.

Men's speaking voices are typically between 1.5k and 8k, and there you can see about an 8dB reduction from the introduction of the rubber pad. On some frequencies in that range, the reduction is as much as 12dB.

Most significant is the 14dB reduction in sound level, around 10.2dB. I'm guessing that's the annoying higher-pitched sound that we noticed.

A few caveats:

- our tests were conducted with the case off, and with the microphone placed 2cm from the pumps

- this sample was the noisiest time of the espresso when there is no backpressure and the pump flow is at full.

- we expect to be able to improve the sound profile of our espresso machine over time, with firmware upgrades, as long as we haven't missed an obvious piece of metal rattling away. <grin></grin>

-john


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## decent_espresso

SOFTWARE FLOW METER: Today's latest espresso firmware arrived on my desk this morning, addressing problems we've been seeing with our new "software flow meter". This new algorithm counts pump strokes (so that it's very low latency) and recalibrates itself using the flow meter (so it's accurate). It's the only piece of major new technology we have in this final build (as compared to the version Intertek received for testing in December).

PUCK TEMPERATURE: we've been interested to see if the temperature sensor that is directly above the coffee grounds is affected by a cool portafilter, now that we're in production. It should be, and in these tests, it was. The portafilter-cooling effect lessened as expected as the it heated up with use.

Here's what the photos tell us.

Photo #1: this is a real espresso shot with too high a pressure (because the grind was much too fine). Result: temp regulation is pretty good, and the two flow rate curves (water vs weight) line up well.￼ Flow is lower than the goal at 15s because the puck is "jammed" with grinds that are too fine. As the puck erodes with time, you can see the flow rate increasing and pressure decreasing.

Photo #2: a room temperature (not preheated) "sensor basket" reduced the puck temperature readings, as would be expected. This results in a "brew temperature" that is 4ºC cooler than desired, at the start of the shot. By 15 seconds into the shot, the hotter water the DE1+ has added has brought the brew temperature to the goal temperature of 88ºC. Flow control was quite good. However, there is too much flow rate data smoothing, causing a few seconds delay when we asked to drop the water flow from 4ml/s to 2 ml/s. Ignore the brown line here: I wasn't using a cup to hold the water.

￼

Photo #3: same as previous, but I used a cup to measure gravimetric flow rate. Happily, the brown vs blue lines line up well. The temperature drop at the start of the shot is now much less, as would be expected by the 2nd shot since the portafilter has been warmed by the previous shot. We'll decrease the smoothing tomorrow, which should decrease the delay. Note that coffee grounds are clogging the exit hole, causing erratic pressure, which also shows up as violence on the brown line (caused by a water spurt).

￼

Photo #4: after unclogging the sensor basket, it's cooled a bit from several minutes out, and the effect is noticeable at the start of the shot. Also, there's still some clogging going into the exit hole, which is why we're getting "interesting" pressure and violence on the brown line. Note the line-up between the blue/brown lines.

￼

Takeaways:

1) the puck temperature sensor is working well, and as expected, a warm portafilter makes a big difference to the first 15 seconds of the brew temperature

2) flow control is good, but is overly "smoothed" and thus has a 3-second lag when big flow rate changes are requested.

---

*MISCELLANY from today:*

FLUSH: this crucial missing feature (flushing the group head) is now implemented. You can use this to (a) rinse your portafilter (b) rinse out the previous shot's grime on the shower screen, and © preheat your cups.

INTERTEK: has confirmed that the "chained tablet" approach I proposed to them is acceptable. However, now they are now requiring our tablets to also be UL certified (when they were not attached, it didn't matter). Our current tablets are CE tested and certified (we have all the tests). I prefer to buy a UL approved tablet from someone and skip the expense and delay (Intertek prefers to $$$ for another test). I'm still negotiating with them about this.

CLEANING: We still need to implement a cleaning cycle for the group head and steam wand, test the "rattling pumps" fix some more, and then...

....7 machines go off to the beta testers (hopefully this week).


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## decent_espresso

I've cleaned up the set of default pressure and flow profiles that are included with the DE1 and DE1+. It would greatly help me if those of you with greater knowledge of coffee machine history were to check that what I've written is (a) true and (b) doesn't omit some important information.

In writing this post, I realized that we're very sparse on "volumetric" profiles because I've always used either a timer-based espresso machine (before I met Rao), or a scale (post-Rao). Volumetric profiles are definitely more consistent than timed ones, and not all of you will have a scale, so I'll do a bit of work this coming week to create some useful profiles.

For "boiler temperature" I've generally with the rule of "if it's Italian-style, it's hot (92ºC to 94ºC) whereas the other styles of espresso are in the cooler range (88ºC to 91ºC). I'm not sure this generallisation is entirely defensible.

ps: the DE1/DE1+ app downloads for Windows/Mac/Linux have all these profiles in them. Seeing the curves might help.

https://decentespresso.com/downloads

-john

-----

Best overall pressure profile

{We recommend this pressure profile as the most likely to produce a good espresso in the most varied number of cases. The decreasing pressure will help reduce acidity.}

Classic Italian espresso

{This will imitate the espresso style of the majority of cafes around the world. It uses a short preinfusion with a flat 9 bar pressure profile.}

Flow profile for milky drinks

{John Buckman, the founder of Decent Espresso, finds that this flow profile produces the best espresso shots for milky drinks in the widest variety of circumstances. It is especially tolerant of not-yet-very-good barista technique.}

Flow profile for straight espresso

{John Buckman, the founder of Decent Espresso, finds that this flow profile produces the best espresso shots for straight espresso drinks in the widest variety of circumstances. It is especially tolerant of not-yet-very-good barista technique.}

Gentle flat 2.5 ml per second

{Created by French barista Adrien Senac of "Cafeism", this innovative technique allowed Adrien to produce excellent shots from very aromatic, lightly roasted beans that he had never before managed to successfully pull.}

Gentle preinfusion flow profile

{Created by a famously innovative Seattle-based espresso machine manufacturer, this technique works well with aromatic, lightly roasted coffee beans.}

Gentler but still traditional 8.4 bar

{Professional baristas worldwide have found that slightly lowering the pressure from 9 bar down to 8.4 produces great espresso more often. The gentler pressure still produces traditional flavors but requires less perfect preparation skills from the barista.}

Hybrid pour over espresso

{Another approach created by a famously innovative Seattle-based espresso machine manufacturer, this technique requires you to grind your coffee very finely. Try this with very lightly roasted coffee beans. The resulting flavor is a blend of pour-over and espresso techniques.}

Innovative long preinfusion

{Another approach created by a famously innovative Seattle-based espresso machine manufacturer, this technique requires you to grind your coffee very finely. Try this with very lightly roasted coffee beans. The resulting flavor is more like a pour-over than espresso.}

Low pressure lever machine at 6 bar {Lever espresso machines are why we refer to "pulling an espresso." Your arm muscle pulls a long level to create pressure on the coffee puck. This 6 bar espresso is a classic Italian technique, and will result in a very sweet and gentle espresso.}

Preinfuse then 45ml of water

{A famous Australian barista champion suggested this technique to us. The idea is to fully saturate your puck, and then squeeze the brewed coffee out using a calculated water volume. This results in consistently brewed espresso without needing to use a scale.}

Traditional lever machine

{Lever espresso machines are why we refer to "pulling an espresso", because your arm muscle pulls on a large level to create pressure on the coffee puck. This 9 bar espresso is the most common type of classic lever espresso you'll have, and many fans consider lever shots to be the best espresso they've ever had.}

Trendy 6 bar low pressure shot

{Some lightly roasted espresso beans smell great but resist being well extracted into a drink. Sometimes, the solution can be to lower the pressure to 6 bar. Try this technique if you're having trouble with a particularly sophisticated lightly roasted bean. }

Two spring lever machine to 9 bar

{A final evolution of the classic lever machine style was to add a second spring. This helped work around a deficiency with single springs, namely that the top pressure gave was reduced almost immediately. The second spring required more arm muscle but is often considered the final perfection of the lever espresso style.}

default

{This profile is gentle on the coffee puck and not too demanding on the barista. Produces a very acceptable espresso in a wide variety of settings.}

e61 classic at 9 bar

{The E61 machine was invented by Faema in 1961 and is still the most classic and most copied espresso machine design. It is likely what most people mean when they say "Professional Italian Espresso Machine"}

e61 classic gently up to 10 bar

{A high tech variation on the classic E61 10 bar shot, this version brings more acidity out at the end with its increasing pressure. This makes it more appropriate to drink without milk. It will be quite thick, so adding water to make an Americano is recommended.}

e61 rocketing up to 10 bar

{With a technician's help, you could sometimes boost the pressure on the classic E61 machine to 10 bar. You will need to grind finer, and your espresso will very thick. Excellent for medium roasted beans mixed with whole milk.}

e61 with fast preinfusion to 9 bar

{E61 machines evolved with time, with some models adding an optional, manually controlled preinfusion step. In most cases, preinfusion will produce a more evenly extracted shot.}


----------



## embrya

Thanks - that's promising. Why did the Rao best Overall disappear? Or was it renamed?

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> INTERTEK: has confirmed that the "chained tablet" approach I proposed to them is acceptable.


 You should advertise it as a feature. At least in my household, this will prevent the tablet from disappearing (little hands take everything)


----------



## Dylan

Can you not ask your current tablet manufacturer to seek UL approval - might be worth it to them for the sales?

Why is it that the tablet does not need UL approval unless attached to the machine - what is it that requires the UL approval?


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## roastini

Dylan said:


> Why is it that the tablet does not need UL approval unless attached to the machine - what is it that requires the UL approval?


As far as I know, UL approval is not required by law anywhere. But if you want to certify a device (here, with the ETL symbol indicating that Intertek certifies the devices compliance with UL safety standards), the entire device is the relevant item that must pass certification.

If the tablet is not intended to be attached, then if it is not certified, the situation is simply that the espresso machine would be certified, but something shipped along with it is not. But if the tablet is intended to be attached, then it is part of the espresso machine, and if the machine is to be certified the tablet must be certified.

Or that's what I assume the situation is, anyway.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> INTERTEK: has confirmed that the "chained tablet" approach I proposed to them is acceptable. However, now they are now requiring our tablets to also be UL certified (when they were not attached, it didn't matter). Our current tablets are CE tested and certified (we have all the tests). I prefer to buy a UL approved tablet from someone and skip the expense and delay (Intertek prefers to $$$ for another test). I'm still negotiating with them about this.


So your plan is to ship with a different tablet? What tablet do you have in mind?

Would you then simply sell your stock of CE-certified tablets on the wholesale market?


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Thanks - that's promising. Why did the Rao best Overall disappear? Or was it renamed?


Rao's "best overall" was inspired by the recipe in the appendix to his espresso book, but was subjected to a fair amount of modification by me so it would work better on our machine.

Secifically:

1) using a pressure threshold to automatically exit preinfusion (instead of a timer)

2) allowing for more brew time (on the assumption that a scale would be used to stop the shot at the desired in-cup weight)

So.... the program now looks different from what's in Scott's book.

Scott asked me about this a few weeks ago, and I suggested that I would prefer to remove his name off the profile for now, until he has several months of time to create profiles that he thinks work best on the DE1 (and DE1+). My suspicion is that now that Scott will have access to more control, he'll want to tweak the "best overall" profile into a different direction.

*And to put the point clearly: I wanted the profile that bore his name to be his own judgement, not mine.*

But, it's not gone, because Scott's profile (with my tweaks) is in fact the "default" profile.

*GRAVIMETRIC vs VOLUMETRIC*

One thing I struggled with a bit in creating these is that I expect people to use a scale to initially decide how long to pull a shot for (25s to 40s, typically). If you don't, I'm not sure the recipes will work their best. The grind and dose in basket are massively important variables that the DE1+ can't compensate for (unless there's a BLE scale present).

Matt Perger suggested a preinfusion + 45ml brew volumetric program to me this past summer when he visited us here in HK. I realized yesterday that his suggestion--which is a volumetric program--was a good one that I should explore a bit more, as it is likely to work better than the others, when no scale is being used. I'll be leaving a DE1+ with Matt and the Barista Hustle team in 3 weeks (after the MICE conference) and I look forward to seeing what profiles they come up with.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Can you not ask your current tablet manufacturer to seek UL approval - might be worth it to them for the sales?


The manufacturer is not so interested, as this tablet is not a cutting edge model, but a two-year old one. Cutting edge tablets cost about half of what we're charging for the DE1. However, they probably have other tablet models that are already UL certified. If not, I can always go to another manufacturer that does.



Dylan said:


> Why is it that the tablet does not need UL approval unless attached to the machine - what is it that requires the UL approval?


Back when we were using Bluetooth, the tablet could be supplied by us, or the customer, and wasn't considered part of the espresso machine. Now that it's chained, it is part of what we have to certify, which also makes it more expensive for us to switch between tablet manufacturers. I had hoped to--each year--upgrade to the latest & greatest tablet on offer, but if I have to go through recertification each time, we'll upgrade the tablets less often.



roastini said:


> As far as I know, UL approval is not required by law anywhere. But if you want to certify a device (here, with the ETL symbol indicating that Intertek certifies the devices compliance with UL safety standards), the entire device is the relevant item that must pass certification.
> 
> If the tablet is not intended to be attached, then if it is not certified, the situation is simply that the espresso machine would be certified, but something shipped along with it is not. But if the tablet is intended to be attached, then it is part of the espresso machine, and if the machine is to be certified the tablet must be certified.
> 
> Or that's what I assume the situation is, anyway.


And you would be correct!



roastini said:


> So your plan is to ship with a different tablet? What tablet do you have in mind? Would you then simply sell your stock of CE-certified tablets on the wholesale market?


The 1000 CE certified tablets that I have in stock would go to all our customers who are not in the USA or Canada.

There's a possibility that the *motherboard* in our current tablet is UL certified, which is the direction we're pursuing at the moment. If so, that makes getting UL approval easier, and we could stay with a single tablet (which is preferable).

Either way, this is annoying but doesn't delay things too much. The non-UL 110V buyers can get this tablet, and once we have CE certification, we can use these tablets for the rest of the world.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Australian coffee roaster Ben Johnson explained to me that in Australia, the Italian baristas make a different style of espresso than they do back in Italy.

In Italy, the boiler is typically set to 102ºC, and by the time the water hits the coffee puck, it has cooled to about 95ºC/96ºC.

In Australia, the Italians use a lower brew temperature of around 90ºC. They still use their dark roasted beans, but the lower temperature helps avoid over extracting.

When I was in Italy this summer, I was brewing their beans down at an 88ºC puck temperature for the Italian roasters I met.

I would ask for their lightest roasts (typically medium roast, rather than dark) and this technique would cause the dark-chocolate flavors typical of Italian coffee to disappear, to be replaced with a layered chocolate set of flavors, more reminiscent of blended artisan chocolates such as Lindt.

Thanks to Ben, I now know that this approach is common in Australia's Italian barista community, and I've added "Italian Australian espresso" as a standard profile on the DE1/DE1+.


----------



## Nishimiya

> blended artisan chocolates such as Lindt.


Lindt ? *Artisan* chocolate ???!!!??? JOHN !!!


----------



## Andreugv

Nishimiya said:


> Lindt ? *Artisan* chocolate ???!!!??? JOHN !!!


Yeah I thought the same!









But hey it is a coffee forum!


----------



## runini

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 31111
> View attachment 31112
> 
> 
> I've bought a few of HM Digital's Coffee Refractometer to evaluate for possible integration into the DE1+ and as something we might also sell.
> 
> http://hmdigital.com/product/rcm-1000bt/
> 
> Does anyone reading this have any experience with this refractometer?
> 
> A Refractometer allows you to learn the percent amount of coffee you've extracted from your beans, and this is widely seen as an objective way to judge your drink quality. Better equipment and skills will bring your percentage up. Some cafes regularly measure their baristas to maintain consistency.
> 
> The DE1+ already lets you enter Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and Extraction Yield (EY), but you have to enter it in by hand.
> 
> My idea is that if the DE1+ app connected to the Coffee Refractometer directly, over Bluetooth, then you could simply use an eye dropper to periodically get a refractometer reading and the results would be automatically saved as part of your shot history database.
> 
> ps: their dedicated app (Android and iOS) is free, and the refractometer would cost in the range of USD$500, which makes it quite competitively priced. We at Decent would not charge for our app integration, either.


- from 5 Jan 2018 /page 128

John: Have you been able to calculate an approximation of the TDS of a completed shot using the BLE Scale reading of the shot mass and the calculated post preinfusion flow -- how does it compare with refractometry?

Ron


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## decent_espresso




----------



## decent_espresso

Here's what the inside of a beta DE1 espresso machine look like. With that many tubes, wires and sensors, you can see why I wanted to color code everything.


----------



## decent_espresso

I made a Big Executive Decision this weekend, which changes our shipping schedule.

Here's the short version of the decision:

1) None of the 200 machines (110V) we're building now will be UL certified

2) the 100 machines already purchased for 220V will start shipping in 2 weeks and will have CE markings.

3) If you're among the 91 people who have pre-paid for a UL-certified 110V machine, you'll have 3 choices: a) get a full refund b) receive a not-UL certified machine now or c) wait until our v1.1 machines ship in July.

So:

1) if you're in the 220V world, you're going to get your machine sooner than expected

2) there are no more delays in shipping the prerelease 110V machines

3) we'll get in touch with the 91 buyers of the "final release" 110V machines and see what they want to do.

-----

Why the change?

For the past 3 years, we've been told by Intertek's consultants that using a Bluetooth device to control our espresso machine was acceptable. Now, as we're being finally certified, they have changed their minds. We can continue to battle with them (tethering the tablet, using USB, etc) or we can surrender, and do what they want. After 4 months of battling them on this topic, we surrender.

What Intertek wants us to change isn't so awful: they want physical controls on the espresso machine itself, to start espresso, steam and hot water. The tablet can continue to do everything it currently does except for starting a "dangerous function". The tablet can still stop espresso based on weight, stop steam based on a timer, and more.

The advantages of this way forward are:

1) it's what virtually every "smart" home appliance does. We're no longer breaking new ground in "safety compliance interpretation".

2) you will be able to use our espresso machine completely without the tablet if you prefer.

3) the physical controls are likely to be longer-lasting than a tablet screen.

4) you can use your own Android device to run our software and talk to the espresso machine. We can also continue with our plans for full Windows, Mac, Linux, and iOS versions, which we otherwise would have to abandon.

5) we can continue to keep our tablet software "open source". The "tethered tablet" approach would have forced to go "closed".

-----

The New Controller?

I will be posting more info in a few days concerning our "controller". It will sit on the group head and have under-lit with 12 full-color LEDs in a clock-pattern. Tapping around "3 pm" will start/stop steam, and 9 pm will start/stop espresso, for instance. I've included a photo below.

The colored LEDs will help guide you to the correct action. If you tap START ESPRESSO on the tablet, with this new setup, the 3 color LEDs around the "9 pm position" will glow to indicate that is where you should tap to start espresso. Once you learn this, you won't need the hint, and will simply tap the group head directly. The tablet will follow the espresso machine's lead and show espresso making progress. STOP can happen on the tablet or the group head.

Our plan is to submit for "final UL safety compliance testing" at the end of April. A tablet will not be included as part of our compliance testing since it is no longer required to operate the machine. Ideally, we'll then swiftly pass UL and the v1.1 machines (due to be built in July) will be UL certified.

----

Regarding CE certification.

CE is different from UL because a "compliance certification company" does not need to authorize you.

Instead, a CE label is affixed to a device when the manufacturer believes that it was built in compliance with the CE standards.

We've had an Intertek CE expert at Decent audit our design for the past 18 months, and we really do believe that we're in compliance.

And finally, the UL testing that we have already been through ("construction testing") has tested the safety of our design in crucial areas. Therefore, we're proceeding with the manufacture of the 220V espresso machines this week.

-john


----------



## embrya

Wow! That's really a big executive decision!

So the Tablet will not be tethered but of course it will still be required to choose shot profiles !

I wonder that you can implement the new controller so fast including CE certification, but of course it's so good to get the DE1+ by April!

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## Dylan

Can I suggest an optional overlay sticker for the buttons. If you want to allow others to use the machine who haven't 'learnt' the process already or just want to make an espresso without touching the tablet then this would be very useful.


----------



## Andreugv

That is indeed a big decision. And I am torn apart... one part of me believes what you say about smart appliances having tablets and all... but then again if a hacker hacks your freezer you will potentially lose soom food. If they hack your coffee machine it could be something much worse... and on top of that if your kiddo hacks your tablet, lol... But yeah I loved the idea of doing everything through a tablet. Even the option to do it for my wife while away.

In any case, I think your idea of phisical control sounds pretty nice and can't wait to see first alpha or beta machine for this version. Just hope it doesn't push you guys back another year.

Good luck with the upcoming challenges.


----------



## jwCrema

Is the picture posted on the Big Executive Decision the one you intended? The email sent alludes to a photo, but none came through.


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## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> 3) If you're among the 91 people who have pre-paid for a UL-certified 110V machine, you'll have 3 choices: a) get a full refund b) receive a not-UL certified machine now or c) wait until our v1.1 machines ship in July.


A few questions:


Will the price stay stay the same for the ones who reordered an UL-certificated machine?

I assume the machine would still ship with the same non-UL tablet (does not matter since not a remote)?

Right now the hardware of the DE1 and DE+1 are the same (more expensive components even in the DE1; maybe possible to purchase upgrade to DE1+ later). Still the same components or not?




jwCrema said:


> Is the picture posted on the Big Executive Decision the one you intended? The email sent alludes to a photo, but none came through.


The picture at the beginning of John's post (#1532) shows the "touch"-able interface I believe. A little bit like an Apple Homepod.


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## jwCrema

patrickff said:


> The picture at the beginning of John's post (#1532) shows the "touch"-able interface I believe. A little bit like an Apple Homepod.


Here is the picture I see in my browser:


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## Dylan

jwCrema said:


> Here is the picture I see in my browser:
> 
> View attachment 32880


Thats what everyone is seeing, I think it may just be the simplified CAD drawing of the touch interface components in its very early stages.

I could be completely wrong, hopefully John will confirm.


----------



## decent_espresso

As I stepped out of my office, a ghastly sight awaited me.

A silver label screaming on the back of my pristine minimalist black metal cube of an espresso machine.

Hopefully, there's not some EU/UL rule requiring us to put the serial number on the back of the machine. I've moved the label just under the round bend of the leg. You can still read the serial number and other info, but it no longer Offends The Eye as much.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Can I suggest an optional overlay sticker for the buttons. If you want to allow others to use the machine who haven't 'learnt' the process already or just want to make an espresso without touching the tablet then this would be very useful.


What I showed in that photo is a first draft render of the controller. My intention is for the 4 icons on the DE1+ tablet to be laser etched into the 4 touch areas on the controller.











patrickff said:


> A few questions:
> 
> 
> Will the price stay stay the same for the ones who reordered an UL-certificated machine?
> 
> I assume the machine would still ship with the same non-UL tablet (does not matter since not a remote)?
> 
> Right now the hardware of the DE1 and DE+1 are the same (more expensive components even in the DE1; maybe possible to purchase upgrade to DE1+ later). Still the same components or not?
> 
> 
> The picture at the beginning of John's post (#1532) shows the "touch"-able interface I believe. A little bit like an Apple Homepod.


Yes, the controller we're proposing is similar in concept to this iPod circular controller. There will be 4 touch areas (like the iPod) and in the future, we might enable circular finger motions for some actions, perhaps (for instance) to allow real time control over flow or pressure.

The price is unchanged. There's a lot of design work behind this sort of controller, but parts-wise, it's less than USD$15 to build, so we'll suck it up. I do need to make clear, however, that I did not plan ahead for this path, and so the controller design is still very early stage. I've budgeted 4 months for us to figure this out.

I don't know about the future of the DE1 vs DE1+ hardware. At the moment, all the email I get is about buying a DE1+, DE1PRO+ and DE1CAFE models. We haven't figured out how to build machines at any speed here, so I don't want to add the additional complexity of more model variations. At least not not. We also haven't figured out how to make the DE1 inexpensively, and so we can't really afford to continue to sell it at a consumer-level price unless we do.











Dylan said:


> Can I suggest an optional overlay sticker for the buttons. If you want to allow others to use the machine who haven't 'learnt' the process already or just want to make an espresso without touching the tablet then this would be very useful.


We'll laser etch the icons, so that the circle is not "bafflingly minimalist". You shouldn't need to learn anything except "what does that icon mean?" and hopefully the icons are somewhat self-explanatory.

This is not so different than other espresso machines, such as Krupps and their icon buttons:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Krups-Automatic-Coffee-Machine-CappuccinoPlus/dp/B00INSX904


----------



## o2c

decent_espresso said:


> A silver label screaming on the back of my pristine minimalist black metal cube of an espresso machine.


Would a black label with silver lettering be less offensive?


----------



## decent_espresso

o2c said:


> Would a black label with silver lettering be less offensive?


The original idea was to engrave this info on the plastic back panel, but that turned out to be Difficult.

We're getting some samples of black metal plates, engraved so that the writing is "white on black" and doesn't have problems with water or heat.

There's always one more detail to iron out, it seems.


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## Dylan

> We also haven't figured out how to make the DE1 inexpensively, and so we can't really afford to continue to sell it at a consumer-level price unless we do.


Do you know the ballpark of where you expect the prices to land once you begin manufacturing your first complete revision?


----------



## embrya

I am confused John. You budgeted 4 months for the controller design but said that the 220 V machines will be shipped in 2 weeks. What do we get then as controller?

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## Andreugv

embrya said:


> I am confused John. You budgeted 4 months for the controller design but said that the 220 V machines will be shipped in 2 weeks. What do we get then as controller?
> 
> Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


A tablet? As I understand it the first 220 V machines will be v1.0, v1.1 will start to include the controller as it is required by UL standards. I don't know if there is a plan to sell 220V machines with the new controller though. This only affects 110V right now.


----------



## embrya

Andreugv said:


> A tablet? As I understand it the first 220 V machines will be v1.0, v1.1 will start to include the controller as it is required by UL standards. I don't know if there is a plan to sell 220V machines with the new controller though. This only affects 110V right now.


Didn't understand it this way - but sounds convincing. Just realize that UL is more demanding than CE - I always thought CE is the problem...

Hope you're right- I would appreciate to get the DE1+ without controller and tablet untethered (as I ordered it)!

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## patrickff

(Thanks for answering all our questions ...)



decent_espresso said:


> wait until our v1.1 machines ship in July.


Anything besides these items on the 1.1 wishlist?


Touch controller (req'd for NRTL)

Different heater insulation (not the PCB box)

Custom heater


(I probably could wait - still thinking about it. My contractors told me that the house remodel will take 2-3 mo.







)



decent_espresso said:


> We also haven't figured out how to make the DE1 inexpensively, and so we can't really afford to continue to sell it at a consumer-level price unless we do.


Understandable. If you don't then there wouldn't be a DE1 going forward?


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> Yes, the controller we're proposing is similar in concept to this iPod circular controller. There will be 4 touch areas (like the iPod) and in the future, we might enable circular finger motions for some actions, perhaps (for instance) to allow real time control over flow or pressure.


I trust that for any actions that can be done on the circular controller, there will be a means to do the same thing on the tablet for those who receive machines without a touch controller. Right?

Also, I would recommend that in addition to the option to "confirm" a "dangerous" action using the touch controller, that the user be able to directly start the action via the controller. That is, if the user is on the "espresso" tab of the tablet UI, any time that the "start" button on the tablet is ready to be tapped, the six o'clock icon on the controller should be lit up, and pressing that WITHOUT pressing the start button on the tablet should suffice to start the shot.


----------



## Rob1

roastini said:


> I trust that for any actions that can be done on the circular controller, there will be a means to do the same thing on the tablet for those who receive machines without a touch controller. Right?
> 
> Also, I would recommend that in addition to the option to "confirm" a "dangerous" action using the touch controller, that the user be able to directly start the action via the controller. That is, if the user is on the "espresso" tab of the tablet UI, any time that the "start" button on the tablet is ready to be tapped, the six o'clock icon on the controller should be lit up, and pressing that WITHOUT pressing the start button on the tablet should suffice to start the shot.


As I understand it the tablet automatically follows the function of the machine regardless of what state it's in. By the way it has been described it seems its used to change settings/profiles and any start actions need to be performed on the controller and if you attempt to start functions via the tablet the LEDs light up in the appropriate place as a prompt.


----------



## Nishimiya

embrya said:


> I am confused John. You budgeted 4 months for the controller design but said that the 220 V machines will be shipped in 2 weeks. What do we get then as controller?


I'm a 220V buyer, so I'd assume "what you ordered from @decent_espresso, which is a machine controlled by a tablet".

John, I can't imagine how busy you must be right now, but if and when you have a minute and you feel like it's the right time, could you clarify a couple of things that seem to have shifted around a bit as development went along ?

1) Is the understanding that the first 220V machines WON'T ship with the new grouphead touch controller correct ?

1a) If it is correct that there's no controller, do you expect it'll be possible to do a retrofit in the field ? (at the buyer's expense, of course, and no, I of course wouldn't expect you to be able to tell us how much it'd cost until you're ready to ship the 1.1 machines, it's more to know if it's part of what you're trying to do).

2) There's been a bit of uncertainty as to whether going from DE1 to DE1+ will be a possibility. IIRC, it used to be "yes", then it became "mmmmnope there's a couple of hardware differences", at which point it was "if you ordered a DE1 and want a + you need to let us know", and I'm genuinely confused as to where you're standing with that now. Care to remind us what the current policy is ?


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## roastini

Rob1 said:


> As I understand it the tablet automatically follows the function of the machine regardless of what state it's in. By the way it has been described it seems its used to change settings/profiles and any start actions need to be performed on the controller and if you attempt to start functions via the tablet the LEDs light up in the appropriate place as a prompt.


Yes, that will be true at launch. But John said:



decent_espresso said:


> in the future, we might enable circular finger motions for some actions, perhaps (for instance) to allow real time control over flow or pressure.


If such new features are added using the controller, I'm asking for confirmation that there will be some way to access the same features via the tablet.


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## patrickff

roastini said:


> If such new features are added using the controller, I'm asking for confirmation that there will be some way to access the same features via the tablet.


I personally think so since the firmware is ultimately executing the command (e.g. increase/decrease pressure). It wouldn't really matter whether the command came from the touch-controller or tablet (its just an API).


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## decent_espresso

Every espresso machine we build sits in our shaking machine overnight, before two hours of constant use testing. This finds any loose connections before we ship each machine to the customer.

This video shows our first four machines, and indeed one of them had a connection come loose from the shaking. Since we do "burn-in" testing after shaking, the loose connection is detected and fixed.

In this case, the loose connection comes from a small format 24V "spade connector", which due to its size, cannot have a locking feature. However, we can (and now have) squeeze the matching connector with pliers, so that the fit is now very tight. Back on the shaking machine overnight, the machine now has no issues.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Here's the latest draft of the group head controller concept, showing icons, sections, and LED effect. It's still early days on this, however, and we're rapidly iterating. This will give you a better idea of where we're going with this idea.


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## decent_espresso

Rob1 said:


> As I understand it the tablet automatically follows the function of the machine regardless of what state it's in. By the way it has been described it seems its used to change settings/profiles and any start actions need to be performed on the controller and if you attempt to start functions via the tablet the LEDs light up in the appropriate place as a prompt.


The tablet remains the main interface. The only thing we're changing is making the START button on the tablet instead be a START button on the group head. Nothing else changes. And it's possible that in the future, BOTH the tablet and the group head START buttons will be allowed, at least in some countries.



patrickff said:


> Anything besides these items on the 1.1 wishlist?
> 
> Touch controller (req'd for NRTL)
> 
> Different heater insulation (not the PCB box)
> 
> Custom heater
> 
> (I probably could wait - still thinking about it. My contractors told me that the house remodel will take 2-3 mo. )


Those are the "big 3" along with a dozen small internal things that will make assembly easier.



embrya said:


> I am confused John. You budgeted 4 months for the controller design but said that the 220 V machines will be shipped in 2 weeks. What do we get then as controller?


The 220V machines we are now building do not have a group head controller.



embrya said:


> Didn't understand it this way - but sounds convincing. Just realize that UL is more demanding than CE - I always thought CE is the problem...
> 
> Hope you're right- I would appreciate to get the DE1+ without controller and tablet untethered (as I ordered it)!


The nice thing about the group head controller approach is that the tablet remains untethered, and you can also run the DE1 software on other devices of your own choosing and talk to the DE1 via bluetooth. That direction was getting closed off to us by the restrictions Intertek was putting on us.

And also.... wifi, and cloud control (or a web based UI) were are forbidden to us by Intertek, with only bluetooth allowed. Now that we move "starting dangerous functions" away from remote control, all avenues of remote control of everything are now open to us. This is a big win.



embrya said:


> I trust that for any actions that can be done on the circular controller, there will be a means to do the same thing on the tablet for those who receive machines without a touch controller. Right?


The tablet will always be my preferred way to do things, and anything non-dangerous will be doable from the tablet. However, I do not know if Intertek would consider some future feature we want to put on the tablet to be "dangerous" and thus not allowed.



roastini said:


> Also, I would recommend that in addition to the option to "confirm" a "dangerous" action using the touch controller, that the user be able to directly start the action via the controller. That is, if the user is on the "espresso" tab of the tablet UI, any time that the "start" button on the tablet is ready to be tapped, the six o'clock icon on the controller should be lit up, and pressing that WITHOUT pressing the start button on the tablet should suffice to start the shot.


That is absolutely 100% my intention, with the proviso that you do not need to have tapped the correct tab on the DE1+ to be able to tap the group head and make espresso. At any time, you can tap the group head controller to start espresso, and the tablet will follow you there.



Nishimiya said:


> I'm a 220V buyer, so I'd assume "what you ordered from @decent_espresso, which is a machine controlled by a tablet".


Yes.



Nishimiya said:


> 1) Is the understanding that the first 220V machines WON'T ship with the new grouphead touch controller correct ?


Correct. We're (I have estimated) 4 months away from being able to ship a group head controller. Current machines (110V and 220V) are tablet-driven.



Nishimiya said:


> 1a) If it is correct that there's no controller, do you expect it'll be possible to do a retrofit in the field ? (at the buyer's expense, of course, and no, I of course wouldn't expect you to be able to tell us how much it'd cost until you're ready to ship the 1.1 machines, it's more to know if it's part of what you're trying to do).


Yes, a refit will be possible, but I have to add the caveat that it requires a "qualified technician" and that I cannot ask "the general public" to do this. This is Intertek safety compliance language I'm using. If you are, or know, a "qualified technician" then no problem.



Nishimiya said:


> 2) There's been a bit of uncertainty as to whether going from DE1 to DE1+ will be a possibility. IIRC, it used to be "yes", then it became "mmmmnope there's a couple of hardware differences", at which point it was "if you ordered a DE1 and want a + you need to let us know", and I'm genuinely confused as to where you're standing with that now. Care to remind us what the current policy is ?


At the moment we only have ~90 customers for the DE1, and it's a lot of technical work for us to be able to upgrade a DE1 to a DE1+ in the field. There is anti-piracy, anti-counterfeiting technology that we have to work around. Given the very small base of potential customers for a DE1->DE1+ upgrade, I don't know when, or if, we will ever offer this. If you want a DE1+, now would be the best time to chose, also because all our prices are planned to increase with each revision.

So no, while there is no hardware reason at the moment why a DE1 can't be upgraded to a DE1+, at the moment it would require you shipping the machine back to us, which is a ~£300 expense, and thus likely not attractive.

-john


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## embrya

Is the 220 V Version shipped soon now with tablet tethered or not? WiFi or not?

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## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Is the 220 V Version shipped soon now with tablet tethered or not? WiFi or not?


Untethered.

There are currently no plans to tether a tablet to the DE1.

I've learned that tethering the tablet brings a lot more safety regulation to bear, because it suddenly makes our espresso machine a computer, with dozens of new compliance requirements.

We are not currently using wifi, because I've found it to not be reliable in busy places like cafes. Bluetooth doesn't seem to mind thousands of competing signals (we know, from exhibiting at the Korea Coffee Show).

The plan for Wifi is for the tablet to connect to your wifi network, and for the tablet to thus act as a bridge from the Internet to your DE1. I'm not confident that this would be a good control mechanism (wifi is easily overwhelmed) but it should work well for downloading new profiles, and sending your usage history to the cloud, for instance.

-john


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## Dylan

> We also haven't figured out how to make the DE1 inexpensively, and so we can't really afford to continue to sell it at a consumer-level price unless we do.
> 
> 
> 
> Do you know the ballpark of where you expect the prices to land once you begin manufacturing your first complete revision?
Click to expand...

Not sure if you missed this John or just cant answer at this stage?

Also - regarding WiFi control - things like the WeMo plug do this, at least with on and off, but it is finickity and fails sometimes. Ironically you could make a WeMo plug much more dangerous than you machine depending on what was plugged in to it - and this can be controlled from 'anywhere'.


----------



## xpresso

Dylan said:


> Not sure if you missed this John or just cant answer at this stage?
> 
> Also - regarding WiFi control - things like the WeMo plug do this, at least with on and off, but it is finickity and fails sometimes. Ironically you could make a WeMo plug much more dangerous than you machine depending on what was plugged in to it - and this can be controlled from 'anywhere'.


I use a Lightwave unit for our 2400w rated machine without any issues as regard getting warm, functionality is like anything in electronics, should it hang up, switch it off and on, this is a very rare event bordering not worthy of mention and all these units do fail safe in regard of a power interruption.

Jon.


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## Dylan

xpresso said:


> I use a Lightwave unit for our 2400w rated machine without any issues as regard getting warm, functionality is like anything in electronics, should it hang up, switch it off and on, this is a very rare event bordering not worthy of mention and all these units do fail safe in regard of a power interruption.
> 
> Jon.


Not quite what I meant - I dont suppose the WeMo would get warm, it actually hadn't occurred to me - What I meant was Decent weren't allowed to use a 'wireless' device to start steam production as it could potentially be dangerous, although the WeMo in and of itself cant be dangerous if you were to plug anything like a fan heater or a fryer etc in to it it would then be much more dangerous than something like the Decent Espresso machine.


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## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> And it's possible that in the future, BOTH the tablet and the group head START buttons will be allowed, at least in some countries.


 I'm pretty sure UL would have a field day with a "[x] UL compliance (req' touch controller activation)" setting.

Why UL? For example, my employer does not allow non-UL to be used on campus.



decent_espresso said:


> Now that we move "starting dangerous functions" away from remote control, all avenues of remote control of everything are now open to us.


 But you would still have to confirm using the touch controller ..


----------



## xpresso

Dylan said:


> Not quite what I meant - I dont suppose the WeMo would get warm, it actually hadn't occurred to me - What I meant was Decent weren't allowed to use a 'wireless' device to start steam production as it could potentially be dangerous, although the WeMo in and of itself cant be dangerous if you were to plug anything like a fan heater or a fryer etc in to it it would then be much more dangerous than something like the Decent Espresso machine.


Hello D.

Yes you would be correct, I have watched with interest the journey of this unit and when it started to get intricate, being born and matured into a practical age as opposed to the second nature electronics many people now have, I bow to their/your ability and understanding and so it drifted well away from my understanding, (Have you heard of this thing Bluetooth!!!) I recoil at 'Contactless', I have difficulty getting my head around internet banking.

When the subscription popped up in my inbox 'Wemo' it struck a cord as I have a thread enquiring what people use if remotely powering their machines.

I'll keep watching and admiring the input here and the occasional oddball regulation that stands in the way of moving forward.

Jon.


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> At the moment we only have ~90 customers for the DE1, and it's a lot of technical work for us to be able to upgrade a DE1 to a DE1+ in the field. There is anti-piracy, anti-counterfeiting technology that we have to work around. Given the very small base of potential customers for a DE1->DE1+ upgrade, I don't know when, or if, we will ever offer this. If you want a DE1+, now would be the best time to chose, also because all our prices are planned to increase with each revision.
> 
> So no, while there is no hardware reason at the moment why a DE1 can't be upgraded to a DE1+, at the moment it would require you shipping the machine back to us, which is a ~£300 expense, and thus likely not attractive.


Ok. Too bad! I thought it would just be something simple as updating the BIOS of a computer....... In the end, I think, I want the DE1+ version so too bad I cannot experiment first with the simple DE1. On the other hand, experimenting with the DE1+ will be much more fun, so already asked for an order upgrade, YES!


----------



## rytopa

I also have put down an order for the DE1 previously and would like to upgrade to the DE1+ seeing all the cool features which comes with it.

Maybe John could help to clarify how much should we top up? Seeing that the current prices on the website seems to have increased considerably for some models compared to when we first placed the down payment.

Would the top up price be based on the current price on the website or the old pricing based on when we first ordered?


----------



## decent_espresso

It's a larger diameter now, and properly drawn for engineering, and nicely rendered.

I'm getting closer to being happy with it. Still a few more iterations to go, and then we'll build one to see how it really works.

-john


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## embrya

Thanks John for the information. I am happy to get my DE1+ without controller. I don't like to select the profile on the tablet first and then start the shot with the controller.

To do all on the tablet is better I think.

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## decent_espresso

[video=youtube;-gzCTZVE6S4]






I made this short video to walk people through the unboxing so that they can assemble their Decent Espresso machine.

My plan is to make videos like this for virtually all the questions we get. I find it much clearer than any sort of text ever could be. We'll also be subtitling these in English and other languages too.

Uh, yeah, we know it's not "1 minute long" despite what I say at the beginning.


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## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> [video=youtube;-gzCTZVE6S4]


It looks so nice! What are a few extra months now?

I have been thinking that before shipping machines you might want to add a questionaire and ship it out to the customers to order accesories and additional things. For example, I would probably add the newest 7 grams basket to have the complete collection, and the bluetooth scale to do gravimetric shots. Would be nice to get a big package from DE.


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## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> I made this short video to walk people through the unboxing so that they can assemble their Decent Espresso machine.


The video mentions a suitcase. Is that just something for the beta testers, or is everyone getting a suitcase with their machine? (I had thought the suitcase was a $400 add-on option.)


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> The video mentions a suitcase. Is that just something for the beta testers, or is everyone getting a suitcase with their machine? (I had thought the suitcase was a $400 add-on option.)


All 300 machines are being delivered inside our bespoke suitcase. It's a "thank you" gift for sticking with us for so long.

----------------------------------------------

Some other announcements:

- this next week, we're at the MICE conference in Melbourne, pulling shots at the St Ali / Barista Hustle booth. I'm also demoing Wednesday morning at "5 senses", and I'll be at a few of Scott Rao's presentations too. Scott and Matt will be pulling shots on our machine, as will Bugs and I.









and one piece of slightly bad news....

- one of our beta testers has reported that water in his locale (Seattle) has tarnished the polished aluminum drip tray cover. Photo below. We're working on a solution (either recasting the part in stainless steel, or electroplating, or anodizing). In 3 years of touring with the DE1, I've never seen this problem, but hey, that's life is sometimes.

Anyone who has this tarnishing problem will get a free replacement drip tray cover in the post.

For now, we're recommending that people hand-wash the drip tray, with water only, until we have replacements available (which will take about 10 weeks).


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## Rhaikh

decent_espresso said:


> All 300 machines are being delivered inside our bespoke suitcase. It's a "thank you" gift for sticking with us for so long.


Awesome, thank you!



decent_espresso said:


> - this next week, we're at the MICE conference in Melbourne, pulling shots at the St Ali / Barista Hustle booth. I'm also demoing Wednesday morning at "5 senses", and I'll be at a few of Scott Rao's presentations too. Scott and Matt will be pulling shots on our machine, as will Bugs and I.


Please make sure there are videos if you can!


----------



## jdomg

Cool! When does the communication go out for the UL-choices? Just want to make sure I didn't miss it!


----------



## decent_espresso

If you're new to making espresso, or just want to see how we do it, this video is a useful introduction.


----------



## decent_espresso

jdomg said:


> Cool! When does the communication go out for the UL-choices? Just want to make sure I didn't miss it!


We're building all 300 machines now, and as each Decent pre-buyer has a machine ready for them, we'll email that person and ask:

a) do you want this machine?

b) or do you want to wait?

c) or do you want a refund?

So: nothing needs to be done by current pre-buyers to get their machine as fast as possible.

-john


----------



## GingerBen

What's the retail £ on your base model?


----------



## billt

https://www.decentespresso.com/dem_buy says the base model is $1599. I'd expect that to increase when they actually get into production.


----------



## coffeechap

It also says this on the same page









So they have been building the next run for a month and will be delivering them in early spring! Finally they have picked their game up.


----------



## MTLexpress

coffeechap said:


> So they have been building the next run for a month and will be delivering them in early spring!


I believe the web page needs to be updated and that they are in the process of building the first batch of 300, which is indeed sold out. I'll let John confirm but in the meantime see post #1575


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> .. this video is a useful introduction.


Good job with the video - will be useful especially for new espresso 'makers'. Small notes:


Part of the video aren't relevant to the DE1 - only the DE1+, e.g. the DE1 does not (unfortunately) show the pressure

Unless one plans to make another shot, the porta filter should not be left locked in the group head - better for the gasket

I always use hot water from the machine to rinse out the coffee grounds out of the porta filter


----------



## decent_espresso

MTLexpress said:


> I believe the web page needs to be updated and that they are in the process of building the first batch of 300, which is indeed sold out. I'll let John confirm but in the meantime see post #1575


That's right, we're sold out of the 300, building now, and plan to ship them all by the end of June. The next batch will be quantity=1000, built between July and October, with order-taking in a few weeks.

The beta testers have reported only minor software bugs, and additional quality control issues that we need to be sure of (the group head cover being totally square when we tighten the screws down, adhesive to be removed off the mirror plate, and more which I'll explain in a bit.)

So, we're out of beta now and moving to shipping machines.

The first "machine for review" is going out on monday, and once we start to hear from him and other customers start to post their reviews, I'll open ordering up for the v1.1 batch.



patrickff said:


> Good job with the video - will be useful especially for new espresso 'makers'. Small notes:
> 
> 
> Part of the video aren't relevant to the DE1 - only the DE1+, e.g. the DE1 does not (unfortunately) show the pressure


That's right, I will need to make another video for the DE1 folks, but we haven't started shipping those yet.



patrickff said:


> Good job with the video - will be useful especially for new espresso 'makers'. Small notes:
> 
> 
> Unless one plans to make another shot, the porta filter should not be left locked in the group head - better for the gasket


You're undoubtedly right, that your advice would extend the gasket's life. However, you have to balance that with remembering to lock the portafilter back when you warm the machine back. Your call.



patrickff said:


> Good job with the video - will be useful especially for new espresso 'makers'. Small notes:
> 
> 
> I always use hot water from the machine to rinse out the coffee grounds out of the porta filter


You're absolutely right, and I realized that the day after I shot the video.









I don't have the habit of rinsing the portafilter out because we have't had a working "rinse the group head" feature until about 2 weeks ago. Before that, the hot water come out of the tea spout, which wasn't enough flow to rinse the portafilter, and didn't (obviously) clean the screen out.

So.... when I reshoot that video I will include the "flush" step at the beginning (to heat the cup and clean the screen) and at the end (to clean the screen).

-john


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> So.... when I reshoot that video I will include the "flush" step at the beginning (to heat the cup and clean the screen) and at the end (to clean the screen).


FWIW, my routine includes popping out the basket and wiping clean the bottom, which keeps coffee oils from building up. I expect this could be done with a bottomless portafilter without even needing to remove the basket. (Rinsing the basket out with the flush feature will remove much of the oils, but in my experience some will still cling to the bottom absent a wipe.)


----------



## BlueWater

John,

Regarding the new controller on the grouphead:

We had a similar need to detect finger presses in the range of 100-400 grams force with minimal deflection in an environment that would occasionally get wet and is part of a consumer home-use device. After many months, we gave up on force sensitive resistors because they were too variable part-to-part and showed calibration drift very quickly. A strain gauge solution met all of our requirements and has proven to be very reliable and cost-effective for the past five years, so much so that we created a custom part and have ordered over 100k pieces. One or more of the offerings from Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik might work for this application.


----------



## decent_espresso

In order to exhibit at MICE in Australia, an electrician needs to certify our Decent Espresso machines. I didn't really know how tough this might be, but we passed and now have ugly-but-necessary "certified" stickers all over our espresso machines and power cables.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## decent_espresso

Here's Matt Perger trying different puck preparation techniques, and watching the resulting shot on the DE1+. By making a constant flow show, he can see if different techniques are resulting in a better coffee puck (and thus a better shot). Higher pressure, and more gentle erosion (pressure decrease curve) are the goal.

Big surprise, both Matt and were yesterday finding that nutating (this is a slightly rotated tamping technique) consistently improved the puck

Note: the video contains some rude language.


----------



## jwCrema

decent_espresso said:


> Note: the video contains some rude language.


According to my Kiwi friends, only an Aussie would flip off an espresso machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

Damian Scisci took this lovely photo of an espresso bouncing off the built in mirror lip on his DE1+ espresso machine.

In separate news, Tom Chips of Home Barista has indicated that he'll be writing an extensive review in the future, but he's also posting his impressions as he goes.

As Home Barista is a forum, you'll find TomC's posts mixed with a wide variety of user comments (and rambles <smile>) </smile>

https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/review-of-beta-decent-espresso-de1pro-t51565.html


----------



## decent_espresso

At the MICE trade show in Australia, one of our two espresso machines sported a clear acrylic case. Quite a few people indicated they'd like their Decent machine to be clear too.

At the moment, this was done as a one-off, and the case was quite expensive. I'm looking into whether we can offer this as an option in the future.

For now, it's useful for explaining to people how the machine works.

-john


----------



## billt

> =decent_espresso;5
> 
> Quite a few people indicated they'd like their Decent machine to be clear too.


Which just goes to show that some people have no taste! It reminds me of the first translucent CRT iMacs, which also looked terrible because all you could see was consumer grade wiring.

With all respect to your design skills in other ways, the interior is a rat's nest mess which I wouldn't want to see. That's not meant as a criticism, it's just the way things are as a result of the constraints of size and assembly method.


----------



## WTell

It's not a matter of taste. Some people might just like to see what's going on although I suspect the novelty might wear off after a time for most people. Anyway, its only in the wind as a possible option which I will certainly consider.


----------



## xpresso

billt said:


> Which just goes to show that some people have no taste! It reminds me of the first translucent CRT iMacs, which also looked terrible because all you could see was consumer grade wiring.
> 
> With all respect to your design skills in other ways, the interior is a rat's nest mess which I wouldn't want to see. That's not meant as a criticism, it's just the way things are as a result of the constraints of size and assembly method.


I'd agree, unlike the neat routing of wires in the old 'Leak' amplifiers, corded off and lacquered.

Jon.


----------



## Andreugv

billt said:


> Which just goes to show that some people have no taste! It reminds me of the first translucent CRT iMacs, which also looked terrible because all you could see was consumer grade wiring.
> 
> With all respect to your design skills in other ways, the interior is a rat's nest mess which I wouldn't want to see. That's not meant as a criticism, it's just the way things are as a result of the constraints of size and assembly method.


Well, maybe John can think of not just making a clear casing and sending it out the door. Maybe he can do nice upgrades inside with beautiful wiring and parts to make a DE1+ Clear Deluxe.

In any case... something that you dislike might be appreciated by a ton of people.


----------



## gtjeffw

decent_espresso said:


> ....
> 
> The New Controller?
> 
> I will be posting more info in a few days concerning our "controller". It will sit on the group head and have under-lit with 12 full-color LEDs in a clock-pattern. Tapping around "3 pm" will start/stop steam, and 9 pm will start/stop espresso, for instance. I've included a photo below.
> 
> The colored LEDs will help guide you to the correct action. If you tap START ESPRESSO on the tablet, with this new setup, the 3 color LEDs around the "9 pm position" will glow to indicate that is where you should tap to start espresso. Once you learn this, you won't need the hint, and will simply tap the group head directly. The tablet will follow the espresso machine's lead and show espresso making progress. STOP can happen on the tablet or the group head.
> 
> Our plan is to submit for "final UL safety compliance testing" at the end of April. A tablet will not be included as part of our compliance testing since it is no longer required to operate the machine. Ideally, we'll then swiftly pass UL and the v1.1 machines (due to be built in July) will be UL certified.
> 
> ...
> 
> -john


Does the proposed new touch interface run completely independently of a connection to the tablet? For instance, will the tablet upload a complete profile to the embedded device so that the tablet isn't needed? If so, any concerns about storage, wear-leveling of SSD, etc?

Also, will later upgrading an early-release DE1 to add the touch interface result in the control directly from the tablet feature to be disabled?

Thanks,

Jeff


----------



## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> Does the proposed new touch interface run completely independently of a connection to the tablet? For instance, will the tablet upload a complete profile to the embedded device so that the tablet isn't needed?


Yes. Once a profile is uploaded to the DE1 using the app, the START button (on the tablet or the group head) merely tells the DE1 to run the currently stored program.

During espresso making, the tablet only functions as (a) a display of what's going on and (b) a remote STOP button.

This is very much by design, both for safety and reliability.



gtjeffw said:


> If so, any concerns about storage, wear-leveling of SSD, etc?


Not really, we're wear-leveling already, and the DE1 shot making is not write-intensive.



gtjeffw said:


> Also, will later upgrading an early-release DE1 to add the touch interface result in the control directly from the tablet feature to be disabled?


Good question, and the answer is "probably yes, if the group head controls are present, then the START button on the tablet will be disabled".

The group head button interface is there to comply with UL safety requirements, and so, once it's in place, the START button on the tablet will no longer start espresso. You'll need to touch the group head.

However, I don't yet know if this will be true globally, or just in the USA. Each jurisdiction has its own rules, and we'll slowly learn how each one feels about the tablet turning steam/espresso on.

So, as this is a UK-based forum, I'm hedging and saying "probably" but I really don't know for certain yet.

It's also possible that EU (and UK) safety compliance standards vis-a-vis BLE remote control might change, in which case we could change the behavior in a firmware update.

As my focus at the moment is to have fewer holdups and delays, it's safe to assume that I'll be initially going "hyper compliant" for now.

-john


----------



## jwCrema

decent_espresso said:


> it's safe to assume that I'll be initially going "hyper compliant" for now.
> 
> -john


Completely support this. We just need the blessed sticker for now.

One of the great things about the home user is the ingenuity they display to execute a "mod". With the architecture of an open source system at our fingers the possibilities are endless if I'm not talking to a lawyer.

And best of all, there is no "Voodoo Daddy" to pay a ransom to for the mod.


----------



## decent_espresso

In Melbourne, Matt Perger introduced me to Once Alike's https://www.instagram.com/oncealike/ Liam Wilkie https://www.instagram.com/cafeenergy/

They've built an automated espresso machine using industrial robots, a modified Robur grinder, and a LM Linea espresso machine.

Liam spent a spent some time pulling shots with the DE1+, and liked it, but Decent might be "too new" and Liam "too committed" to the Linea to make the switch now. For now, there's just "bro love" between us.


----------



## decent_espresso

During the time Bugs and I were away in Australia, my team back in Hong Kong got started with 20 machines at 220V, and they're all about 60% done now. Though there are Easter holidays coming up (a 4 day week) I hope we'll be able to ship some of these 220V machines next week, and the rest the week after.

If anyone else reading this is a 220V DE1+ (or DE1PRO+) buyer, and you'd like a machine from us now, send me a PM and I'll try to bump you up the queue.

In other news, there's a 220V DE1PRO+ on its way to Mat North http://www.fcpcoffee.com/ in Bristol. I'm sure he'll post here when/if he's able to receive visitors.

-john


----------



## malling

billt said:


> Which just goes to show that some people have no taste! It reminds me of the first translucent CRT iMacs, which also looked terrible because all you could see was consumer grade wiring.
> 
> With all respect to your design skills in other ways, the interior is a rat's nest mess which I wouldn't want to see. That's not meant as a criticism, it's just the way things are as a result of the constraints of size and assembly method.


At least it's not a birds nest ?*♂ , if you get the reference.

I had a machine that by any definition looked allot worse on the inside, that happened to be one of the most raved about E61DB on this forum.

But I agree with you that when the interior look like that, then a transparent exterior isn't the best design.


----------



## Kyle T

decent_espresso said:


> During the time Bugs and I were away in Australia, my team back in Hong Kong got started with 20 machines at 220V, and they're all about 60% done now. Though there are Easter holidays coming up (a 4 day week) I hope we'll be able to ship some of these 220V machines next week, and the rest the week after.
> 
> If anyone else reading this is a 220V DE1+ (or DE1PRO+) buyer, and you'd like a machine from us now, send me a PM and I'll try to bump you up the queue.
> 
> In other news, there's a 220V DE1PRO+ on its way to Mat North http://www.fcpcoffee.com/ in Bristol. I'm sure he'll post here when/if he's able to receive visitors.
> 
> -john


I'm probably far to late to the party but if anyone was to cancel a preorder of a DE1 I'd gladly take it! :-D


----------



## decent_espresso

A common tech support question we get is "how large is the DE1". It's actually a complicated question to answer, because do they mean "with the tablet or not?" and "with the portafilter or not?"

I asked Alex to make me a drawing that shows all the main dimensions. When seeing the machine the first time, people often exclaim that it's much smaller than they expected.

In unrelated news, today *we're shipping our Pro Grinder* to all pre-orders. It's in stock and shipping as orders come in. I will soon be adding an option to upgrade to SSP burrs (both coated and uncoated), as those arrived from South Korea while I was in Australia last week. https://decentespresso.com/pro_grinder

-john


----------



## SnotRocket

decent_espresso said:


> In unrelated news, today *we're shipping our Pro Grinder* to all pre-orders. It's in stock and shipping as orders come in. I will soon be adding an option to upgrade to SSP burrs (both coated and uncoated), as those arrived from South Korea while I was in Australia last week. https://decentespresso.com/pro_grinder
> 
> -john


Got my shipping notification this morning!


----------



## decent_espresso

Australian-living-in-Canada Ben Champion is taking photos while making espresso with his DE1+. He's got a knack for this, I'd say.


----------



## decent_espresso

News on the drip tray

(and avoiding potential aluminum tarnishing)









We received a sample of electroplated aluminum applied to our drip tray (left=electroplated, right=normal [after 3 months]).

I vigorously rubbed the bottom of a rough ceramic mug all over the plating, which did produce micro-scratches that were visible if you really, really, really looked for them. Seems pretty durable.

The downside is that the electroplating is not guaranteed to be food safe, so with this process, I can't recommend that people recycle the waste water from the drip tray onto their garden. There's always a compromise, it seems.

And, I don't yet have a price quote for what this electroplating process would cost.

-john


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> News on the drip tray
> 
> (and avoiding potential aluminum tarnishing)
> 
> View attachment 33294
> 
> 
> We received a sample of electroplated aluminum applied to our drip tray (left=electroplated, right=normal [after 3 months]).
> 
> I vigorously rubbed the bottom of a rough ceramic mug all over the plating, which did produce micro-scratches that were visible if you really, really, really looked for them. Seems pretty durable.
> 
> The downside is that the electroplating is not guaranteed to be food safe, so with this process, I can't recommend that people recycle the waste water from the drip tray onto their garden. There's always a compromise, it seems.
> 
> And, I don't yet have a price quote for what this electroplating process would cost.
> 
> -john


The improvement is for most people more important than the mentioned downside I guess.

Any chance to get one for the DE1+ being delivered soon?

Best

Stefan

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> The improvement is for most people more important than the mentioned downside I guess. Any chance to get one for the DE1+ being delivered soon?


Manufacturing is often a lot slower than people realize. For these parts, 3 months is a reasonable lead time, once we decide to go ahead with it. For a Stainless Steel version, 4 months is the quoted delay.

Since I don't want this seemingly trivial part to stop the entire shipping schedule, we'll proceed with the aluminum drip tray covers we already have made (plus, we paid USD$7 each for 1000 of them). Thus far, one beta tester of 6 has had tarnishing/blemishes appear, so the phenomena is not necessarily universal. We will replace any tarnished ones gratis, once we have a solution in stock.

If you were to look back at the extensive HB discussion about drip tray covers, you'd find that a lot of forum participants don't particularly like the current designs of drip tray covers.

It's also not a certain thing that this design will work in Stainless, because there was a lot of hand-work to clean up mold lines, something which will be more difficult on stainless than the softer aluminum. We don't want to hold up manufacturing for a few months due to this piece, so we're considering a few alternatives.

We're trying to solve those problems with a different design and approach, but there are bumps in the road.

-john


----------



## malling

Yeah I heard that many times before, mostly people complain about it of aesthetic reasons. But your grill inspired tray is in my experience the best design in regards to drainage and splutter, without looking cheep and disgusting like the wired net or the true grill.

I have tried many other with round holes, square or rectangular holes but these are just plain bad, you get spluttering everywhere and some drain so badly that you have a nice pool of water on top, I have even noticed this on pro equipment costing thousands of pounds!

I would definitely prefer stainless, I would gladly pay for it as an add on, as aluminium will most likely tarnish where I live.


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> Manufacturing is often a lot slower than people realize. For these parts, 3 months is a reasonable lead time, once we decide to go ahead with it. For a Stainless Steel version, 4 months is the quoted delay.
> 
> Since I don't want this seemingly trivial part to stop the entire shipping schedule, we'll proceed with the aluminum drip tray covers we already have made (plus, we paid USD$7 each for 1000 of them). Thus far, one beta tester of 6 has had tarnishing/blemishes appear, so the phenomena is not necessarily universal. We will replace any tarnished ones gratis, once we have a solution in stock.
> 
> If you were to look back at the extensive HB discussion about drip tray covers, you'd find that a lot of forum participants don't particularly like the current designs of drip tray covers.
> 
> It's also not a certain thing that this design will work in Stainless, because there was a lot of hand-work to clean up mold lines, something which will be more difficult on stainless than the softer aluminum. We don't want to hold up manufacturing for a few months due to this piece, so we're considering a few alternatives.
> 
> We're trying to solve those problems with a different design and approach, but there are bumps in the road.
> 
> -john


Completely understand and agree. Just looked much better, but I assume that with soft water I will also not have the tarnishing issue.

Thanks John!

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

malling said:


> I would definitely prefer stainless, I would gladly pay for it as an add on, as aluminium will most likely tarnish where I live.


My assumption is that we're going to end up with stainless steel with this, but:

1) it will likely take 4 to 6 months to move to stainless for this piece, because

2) we might have technical challenges with removing mold "parting lines" on our thin bars.

3) our thin bars might be too thin for stainless to flow evenly

4) we might have to change the design in a few ways, to accommodate this different material (crossbars, thicker lines, greater spacing) and the iteration cycle is very slow.

Various metal molding companies have called all these things out to us during the bidding process, and it took about 6 months for us to get the current-model aluminum trays to be acceptable (there's a log of previous iterations on this forum).

My engineer Fabrice is specifically a molding specialist (he used to work for a big mold consulting company in France) and he suggests that it typically takes a year to move a part successfully to molding. ODE told me it took them 2 years to get their pump molds perfect.

These real-world timelines, and my desire to actually ship machines in the meantime, suggest that I need to find acceptable compromises now, and slowly improve parts (and thus, the machine) over time.

-john


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> My assumption is that we're going to end up with stainless steel with this, but:
> 
> 1) it will likely take 4 to 6 months to move to stainless for this piece, because
> 
> 2) we might have technical challenges with removing mold "parting lines" on our thin bars.
> 
> 3) our thin bars might be too thin for stainless to flow evenly
> 
> 4) we might have to change the design in a few ways, to accommodate this different material (crossbars, thicker lines, greater spacing) and the iteration cycle is very slow.
> 
> Various metal molding companies have called all these things out to us during the bidding process, and it took about 6 months for us to get the current-model aluminum trays to be acceptable (there's a log of previous iterations on this forum).
> 
> My engineer Fabrice is specifically a molding specialist (he used to work for a big mold consulting company in France) and he suggests that it typically takes a year to move a part successfully to molding. ODE told me it took them 2 years to get their pump molds perfect.
> 
> These real-world timelines, and my desire to actually ship machines in the meantime, suggest that I need to find acceptable compromises now, and slowly improve parts (and thus, the machine) over time.
> 
> -john


My family used to own a mold company and I worked there summer vacations an stuff like that like growing up. I did really like to help my grandfather when I was a kid and when my grandfather passed, I was asked to take over the company as I had hands on training. In the end what made more sense was to sell the company and so I did, but one thing I learnt from working with all the big companies that used us for molding was: Forget engineers, design specialist and all. Get yourself a great mold technician and show him what you want to do. The 2 years turnaround will be 3 monts, specially with a simple part as grille. Also, he will be able to discuss different materials with real world experience.


----------



## Downunder55

Andreugv said:


> My family used to own a mold company and I worked there summer vacations an stuff like that like growing up. I did really like to help my grandfather when I was a kid and when my grandfather passed, I was asked to take over the company as I had hands on training. In the end what made more sense was to sell the company and so I did, but one thing I learnt from working with all the big companies that used us for molding was: Forget engineers, design specialist and all. Get yourself a great mold technician and show him what you want to do. The 2 years turnaround will be 3 monts, specially with a simple part as grille. Also, he will be able to discuss different materials with real world experience.


Sounds like we have a volunteer !


----------



## Andreugv

Downunder55 said:


> Sounds like we have a volunteer !


I wish I could do it but I am really talking about someone who's got 20-30 years of experience. I have seen it many times. X engineer from big car company would come by and bring CAD files and an experienced technician would say not going to work. This injector would blow or there would be no expansion there, or this mold needs this or that... I really feel it is an ability that you can only acquire working for a long time on the same. Also, you need to find someone who really specializes on the materials of interest. An expert on small plastic molds will not see the same things as an expert on heavy metal molds will see.


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> An expert on small plastic molds will not see the same things as an expert on heavy metal molds will see.


I 100% agree with you. Fabrice is a plastics mold expert, and he's learning what's important with metal molding. There is skills carry-over, but it's not 1:1.

One of the big reasons Bugs and I moved to Hong Kong, was so that we could hire local engineers, who could speak the same language as the specialist engineers at each parts manufacturer. It's pretty rare for anything to be simple, and most times, my engineers need to make changes to our products, to accommodate material and process realities.

With the drip tray cover, for instance, we added 0.5mm thickness around the outer frame to enable smoother flowing of aluminium during the mold injection step.

-john


----------



## matisse

Afternoon all,

I'll be taking the DE1+ Pro with me to the London Coffee Festival, specifically to Prufrock on the weds before the festival starts (I'm too.busy during the fours days itself)

There will be a 2 hour hands on demo slot in the training room late afternoon (4-6) and then another one upstairs in Prufrock from 7.30.

I'll start a new post about this , and other dates and venues for a decent UK tour later today.


----------



## Juba

matisse said:


> Afternoon all,
> 
> I'll be taking the DE1+ Pro with me to the London Coffee Festival, specifically to Prufrock on the weds before the festival starts (I'm too.busy during the fours days itself)
> 
> There will be a 2 hour hands on demo slot in the training room late afternoon (4-6) and then another one upstairs in Prufrock from 7.30.
> 
> I'll start a new post about this , and other dates and venues for a decent UK tour later today.


Hi @matisse do we need to RSVP?

Juba


----------



## matisse

yeah, tickets are free, info here:https://www.fcp.coffee/blog/post/a-decent-demo-a-day-and-evening-with-the


----------



## jlarkin

matisse said:


> Afternoon all,
> 
> specifically to Prufrock on the weds before the festival starts (I'm too.busy during the fours days itself)


 @matisse - on the Prufrock pages it shows as Thursday 12th - not sure that's intentional from what you said before.


----------



## matisse

Thanks, i' i'll check with them.


----------



## matisse

jlarkin said:


> @matisse - on the Prufrock pages it shows as Thursday 12th - not sure that's intentional from what you said before.


can confirm that the date is the `11th, the weds before the festival. Date has been changed on the prufrock site.


----------



## RoA19

matisse said:


> Afternoon all,
> 
> I'll be taking the DE1+ Pro with me to the London Coffee Festival, specifically to Prufrock on the weds before the festival starts (I'm too.busy during the fours days itself)
> 
> There will be a 2 hour hands on demo slot in the training room late afternoon (4-6) and then another one upstairs in Prufrock from 7.30.
> 
> I'll start a new post about this , and other dates and venues for a decent UK tour later today.


If you plan on being anywhere near Leamington Spa (Warwickshire) on your tour with the DE1+ Pro please let me know. Would love to see the machine in action close up!


----------



## ohms

Is there any update on the DE scales?


----------



## sra

I have to decide whether to upgrade a pre-order from the DE1 to the DE1+ and am trying to clarify the differences now that machines are shipping. I had thought these were the major additional features of the DE1+.

1. Ability to change flow-rate and exit conditions for pre-infusion while the DE1 has a fixed flow-rate and a fixed pressure as an exit condition.

2. Programming a shot based on flow-rate, not just pressure.

3. Ability to change the water temperature during the shot.

4. Programming additional steps, in addition to the three steps (preinfuse, rise and hold, decline) for the DE1.

After looking over the website, I'm not so sure.

In particular, a DE1-DE1+ comparison table says this for the DE1.

5. No "real-time pressure-in-the-puck reading". On the other hand, a video seems to imply that it does. Or does this mean that the real-time display of pressure (and flow-rate and temperature?) overlaying the "programmed" graph is not included in the DE1?

6. No "automatic pre-infusion end detection". Seems to disagree with my understanding of #1 and a DE video.


----------



## decent_espresso

sra said:


> 1. Ability to change flow-rate and exit conditions for pre-infusion while the DE1 has a fixed flow-rate and a fixed pressure as an exit condition.


Yes.[REFLIST][/REFLIST]



sra said:


> 2. Programming a shot based on flow-rate, not just pressure.


Yes.



sra said:


> 3. Ability to change the water temperature during the shot.


During a shot, yes.



sra said:


> 4. Programming additional steps, in addition to the three steps (preinfuse, rise and hold, decline) for the DE1.


Yes.



sra said:


> After looking over the website, I'm not so sure.


Two things you didn't mention that the DE1+ has are:

1) real time display of pressure, flow, temperature.

2) If you add our scale, you'll also get flow-rate-into the cup, and also shot-ends-at-weight (like the Black Eagle/Strada EP)



sra said:


> In particular, a DE1-DE1+ comparison table says this for the DE1.
> 
> 5. No "real-time pressure-in-the-puck reading". On the other hand, a video seems to imply that it does. Or does this mean that the real-time display of pressure (and flow-rate and temperature?) overlaying the "programmed" graph is not included in the DE1?


On the DE1, the tablet only displays start/stop buttons, and does not give any real-time information about the shot.



sra said:


> 6. No "automatic pre-infusion end detection". Seems to disagree with my understanding of #1 and a DE video.


he DE1 does in fact automatically end preinfusion at one of two events:

- a timer, you set up to 10 seconds

- if pressure goes over 4 bar (can't get user changed)

And lastly, not yet announced, but the lower-cost DE1 is being discontinued. These 150 pre-order machines are the only ones we'll make, and thus the DE1 software will also not be improved in the future, other than to fix bugs. All our future machines will have the same tablet software.

The lower price at which the DE1s that were pre-sold will be honored, but we lose money on each one. Our aim, 3 years ago, was to make a less-expensive alternative to the LM GS/3, but instead we've made an expensive-to-build, very high tech and advanced machine. Since people seem to actually prefer this direction, and we're not actually competent at building a good-machine-really-cheaply, the DE1+ is the focus (along with the PRO and CAFE variations of it).




ohms said:


> Is there any update on the DE scales?


Given that we're taking too long to make the espresso machines already on order, I can't justify any engineering time to move the scale project forward. All manpower is on shipping machines to customers faster.

-john


----------



## ohms

decent_espresso said:


> Given that we're taking too long to make the espresso machines already on order, I can't justify any engineering time to move the scale project forward. All manpower is on shipping machines to customers faster.
> 
> -john


The search for a decent, affordable scale goes on! Thanks for the reply, though.


----------



## sra

decent_espresso said:


> On the DE1, the tablet only displays start/stop buttons, and does not give any real-time information about the shot.
> 
> -john


Thanks for the clarification.

Just one more thing. Is the real-time display of numbers for pressure and temperature inside the "Espresso" button, as seen in one of the videos, still a feature of the DE1 or not?

PS. Perhaps I should go for the DE1 because of its confirmed rarity, and then sell it at some future point, like the Apple I (200 were made), to a DE museum.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> And lastly, not yet announced, but the lower-cost DE1 is being discontinued. These 150 pre-order machines are the only ones we'll make, and thus the DE1 software will also not be improved in the future, other than to fix bugs. All our future machines will have the same tablet software.



So will there be a UL certified DE1 (for pre-order)? (for example, I am not allowed to run non-UL equipment in my office)

The updates of the tablet software will continue to work on the DE1?

What improvements were originally planned for the DE1 and are not realized?




decent_espresso said:


> The lower price at which the DE1s that were pre-sold will be honored


What price would someone with a DE1 pre-order pay to get a DE1+?


----------



## markant

sra said:


> PS. Perhaps I should go for the DE1 because of its confirmed rarity, and then sell it at some future point, like the Apple I (200 were made), to a DE museum.


Doesn't make sense. Remember that in this first series the hardware for DE1 and DE1+ is the same....


----------



## WTell

patrickff said:


> So will there be a UL certified DE1 (for pre-order)? (for example, I am not allowed to run non-UL equipment in my office)
> 
> The updates of the tablet software will continue to work on the DE1?
> 
> What improvements were originally planned for the DE1 and are not realized?
> 
> 
> What price would someone with a DE1 pre-order pay to get a DE1+?


It would be double. ie, the same price again. So I was told..


----------



## decent_espresso

sra said:


> Just one more thing. Is the real-time display of numbers for pressure and temperature inside the "Espresso" button, as seen in one of the videos, still a feature of the DE1 or not?


No. The DE1 does not show any real time information while you make an espresso.



patrickff said:


> So will there be a UL certified DE1 (for pre-order)? (for example, I am not allowed to run non-UL equipment in my office


Yes, about 50 of the 150 ordered DE1s are for UL certified machines, and we will make that model for them, and then discontinue it.



patrickff said:


> The updates of the tablet software will continue to work on the DE1?


Other than bug fixes, no firmware or tablet updates are planned for the DE1.



patrickff said:


> What improvements were originally planned for the DE1 and are not realized?


The short answer is "none, the DE1 as shipped, does everything I planned it to do from about a year ago"

To answer your question at length, I'd have to dig into what "originally planned" meant. This espresso machine wasn't really "originally planned" in a traditional sense.

Rather, the emergence of what the Decent Espresso Machine would be was a cooperation between Ray (my physicist/inventor) Scott Rao, and myself (in the middle) to slowly explore what was possible (Ray), what was desired in coffee (Rao) and my translating between the worlds of coffee and physics (between Ray/Rao and in conversation with coffe forums).

For example: we hadn't originally planned on the DE1 having pressure profiling, or automatic preinfusion detection (based on a pressure threshold), but they're there now.

I hadn't planned on a DE1+ at all 3 years ago, but as we added features and possibilities to the DE1, it became clear that the goal of a making a "cheaper, smaller GS/3" was not where the road was taking us. Live insights on the tablet, flow profiling, gravimetric flow analysis, and temperature profiling, didn't have a place in an £899 consumer-focussed machine.

Once I made the decision to also make the DE1+, that opened up a lot more possibilities for research and features, because now we were trying to make the best machine we could, rather than one that hit a particular price point.

Summary:

As a company, we seem to be much better at making an espresso machine that is "not too expensive, but unfortunately not that cheap either" which has a fair amount of innovation and gets people excited. We're very clearly not good at designing an inexpensive-to-build-and-sell simple product for a lower priced audience. So, we're playing to our strengths.

That's a bit of a digression, but hopefully an insight into why we're doing what we're doing.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Mat North, the café owner of Full Court Press https://www.fcp.coffee/ in Bristol, UK, is now in possession of the first Decent Espresso machine in the UK.

He's going to lend his little baby (espresso machine) for a few days to Assembly Coffee https://www.assemblycoffee.co.uk/ who will have it at their booth during London Coffee Festival. Mat will also be giving two Decent demos at Prufrock on Wednesday https://www.fcp.coffee/blog/post/a-decent-demo-a-day-and-evening-with-the

Mat was our first machine sent to UK/EU, and thus by a different carrier than we normally use, where it received a different kind of abuse.

In the photos above, you can see that the cardboard box corners were pretty damaged. Thankfully, not so much as to actually tear the cardboard box open, nor to damage the suitcase inside. And the espresso machine itself is fine.

I suspect the issue here is that the suitcase has rounded corners, which creates a weak air gap on the cardboard corners.

Our next set of cardboard boxes are going to have duct taped corners, and we'll check in with the recipients to get photos and see if the box has survived better.

*Suitcases forever?*

We're considering permanently shipping all our espresso machines in suitcases, even after these 300 pre-sales are done.

The reasons for this are:

(1) the hard suitcase shell (with foam inside) has so far meant that not a single espresso machine we've shipped has been damaged in transit

(2) when we double boxed our espresso machine, the shipping cost rose from USD$120 to USD$400 (!!) because we were penalized for over-some-magic-size boundary and charged as if the package weighed 40kg (instead of 19kg).

(3) about half the people who thus far have received a DE1+, have taken it to local cafes and roasters, to show it off. That's really appreciated, and something we want to encourage.


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 33396
> 
> 
> Mat North, the café owner of Full Court Press https://www.fcp.coffee/ in Bristol, UK, is now in possession of the first Decent Espresso machine in the UK.
> 
> He's going to lend his little baby (espresso machine) for a few days to Assembly Coffee https://www.assemblycoffee.co.uk/ who will have it at their booth during London Coffee Festival. Mat will also be giving two Decent demos at Prufrock on Wednesday https://www.fcp.coffee/blog/post/a-decent-demo-a-day-and-evening-with-the
> 
> Mat was our first machine sent to UK/EU, and thus by a different carrier than we normally use, where it received a different kind of abuse.
> 
> In the photos above, you can see that the cardboard box corners were pretty damaged. Thankfully, not so much as to actually tear the cardboard box open, nor to damage the suitcase inside. And the espresso machine itself is fine.
> 
> I suspect the issue here is that the suitcase has rounded corners, which creates a weak air gap on the cardboard corners.
> 
> Our next set of cardboard boxes are going to have duct taped corners, and we'll check in with the recipients to get photos and see if the box has survived better.
> 
> *Suitcases forever?*
> 
> We're considering permanently shipping all our espresso machines in suitcases, even after these 300 pre-sales are done.
> 
> The reasons for this are:
> 
> (1) the hard suitcase shell (with foam inside) has so far meant that not a single espresso machine we've shipped has been damaged in transit
> 
> (2) when we double boxed our espresso machine, the shipping cost rose from USD$120 to USD$400 (!!) because we were penalized for over-some-magic-size boundary and charged as if the package weighed 40kg (instead of 19kg).
> 
> (3) about half the people who thus far have received a DE1+, have taken it to local cafes and roasters, to show it off. That's really appreciated, and something we want to encourage.


I am sure that would be really appreciated by everyone. I usually go down to the local coffee shop and pull some shots there with their beans and my beans. It would be great to have a means of transport included with the machine!


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> Yes, about 50 of the 150 ordered DE1s are for UL certified machines, and we will make that model for them, and then discontinue it.


How do you know it is 50? I, for example, was never asked UL/non-UL (did my spam filter eat anything?)



decent_espresso said:


> Other than bug fixes, no firmware or tablet updates are planned for the DE1.



There always the idea of having some kind of REST interface (hello IFTTT) to the machine. I guess this wouldn't make it into the DE1 - only DE1+

The profile will eventually be online and share. Not for the DE1?


That said, having the tablet software as Open Source will help.


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> Suitcases Forever?
> 
> The reasons for this are:
> 
> (1) the hard suitcase shell (with foam inside) has so far meant that not a single espresso machine we've shipped has been damaged in transit
> 
> (2) when we double boxed our espresso machine, the shipping cost rose from USD$120 to USD$400 (!!) because we were penalized for over-some-magic-size boundary and charged as if the package weighed 40kg (instead of 19kg).
> 
> (3) about half the people who thus far have received a DE1+, have taken it to local cafes and roasters, to show it off. That's really appreciated, and something we want to encourage.


My immediate reaction to this is that rather a lot of home owners would end up with a big chunk of waste plastic - something to be discouraged wherever possible. Cardboard boxes are much more easily recycled than a plastic formed suitcase.

Whilst your initial orders may be keen to take their machines around with them, this desire will surely drop off quite dramatically when they are shipped to the more typical consumer, and not the eager early adopter.


----------



## SurbitonBoy

I think the suitcase gives my DE1+ a lifetime beyond it's first use, as I could move it to my work location without major costs. Moving my 30in monitor from Angel in London to my home, cost a major percentage of it's value and it's was 800 pounds due to not being able to carry it far.


----------



## jwCrema

SurbitonBoy said:


> I think the suitcase gives my DE1+ a lifetime beyond it's first use, as I could move it to my work location without major costs. Moving my 30in monitor from Angel in London to my home, cost a major percentage of it's value and it's was 800 pounds due to not being able to carry it far.


I bought a 65" UHD 4K tv about 3 years ago, and it only weighed about ~30 kg. Did your 30" monitor use a cathode ray tube?


----------



## SurbitonBoy

Too big to carry on the tube and train to Surbiton, so needed a taxi to move it.


----------



## billt

patrickff said:


> How do you know it is 50? I, for example, was never asked UL/non-UL (did my spam filter eat anything?)


I think that there were 2 pre-order options; you could either choose an early machine which hadn't been certified, or wait a little longer and get a certified machine. Presumably the 50 certified machines were ordered by people who were prepared to wait.

UL certification is only relevant to US 110v machines anyway; shouldn't apply to EU machines.


----------



## decent_espresso

billt said:


> I think that there were 2 pre-order options; you could either choose an early machine which hadn't been certified, or wait a little longer and get a certified machine. Presumably the 50 certified machines were ordered by people who were prepared to wait. UL certification is only relevant to US 110v machines anyway; shouldn't apply to EU machines.


The pre-ordering numbers for the DE1 look like this:

About two-thirds the 300 ordered were 110V vs 220V (200 count vs 100 count)

And about half the 200 machines ordered at 110V were pre-UL/post-UL (100 count vs 100 count)

And thus far about 2/3rds of those who ordered a 110V/post UL machine, have changed their mind, and now want a pre-UL machine. But not everyone has spoken up, so I'm going with a 50/50 split assumption. (50 machines post-UL, 110V)

All 220V machines are shipping with CE certification markings.

About half (150) of the original orders were for the DE1 vs DE1+ (or others). However, again about 2/3rds of people are now opting to upgrade their order (before we ship) to the DE1+ or DE1PRO.

-john


----------



## o2c

decent_espresso said:


> About half (150) of the original orders were for the DE1 vs DE1+ (or others). However, again about 2/3rds of people are now opting to upgrade their order (before we ship) to the DE1+ or DE1PRO.


I think I've seen others post asking, but not seen a firm answer. What's the upgrade process and price?


----------



## roastini

o2c said:


> I think I've seen others post asking, but not seen a firm answer. What's the upgrade process and price?


John is talking about upgrading orders - i.e. changing what one wants. The process for that is to contact Decent, and to be prepared to pay the difference in price between the two models when the machine is ready.

If you want to buy a DE1 and later to upgrade the firmware to a DE1+, I wouldn't count on being able to do that. John has suggested that this would require some effort on the company's end for security reasons (I assume the issue is making sure the firmware updater isn't freely circulated to other DE1 owners). The market for this upgrade will be very small, so it might not make economic sense for Decent ever to do this.


----------



## jameswagner

o2c said:


> I think I've seen others post asking, but not seen a firm answer. What's the upgrade process and price?


I'm a DE1 pre-order, UL certified buyer and have decided to bump up to the DE1+.

I asked: ... original early adopter DE1 cost ($1300 CDN) and if I upgrade to DE1+ instead, what will the cost to me be?

Response from Decent: An upgrade costs USD 1,000 (price difference between the machines). The amount would be charged once the machine is ready for shipping.


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> John is talking about upgrading orders - i.e. changing what one wants. The process for that is to contact Decent, and to be prepared to pay the difference in price between the two models when the machine is ready.





o2c said:


> I think I've seen others post asking, but not seen a firm answer. What's the upgrade process and price?


The v1.0 DE1+ was twice the price of the DE1. In GBP, this was: £883 vs £1766.

For v1.1 the DE1+ will bump up slightly, and will also be adjusted for USD vs GBP currency changes.



roastini said:


> If you want to buy a DE1 and later to upgrade the firmware to a DE1+, I wouldn't count on being able to do that. John has suggested that this would require some effort on the company's end for security reasons (I assume the issue is making sure the firmware updater isn't freely circulated to other DE1 owners). The market for this upgrade will be very small, so it might not make economic sense for Decent ever to do this.


That's correct.

-john

[/QUOTE]


----------



## patrickff

billt said:


> I think that there were 2 pre-order options (..)


 Thank you - now that you're mentioning it, I am starting to remember. Of course, I don't remember what I've picked. The e-mail only contains the SKU: DE-RESDE110V15AV1-00092


----------



## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> Thank you - now that you're mentioning it, I am starting to remember. Of course, I don't remember what I've picked. The e-mail only contains the SKU: DE-RESDE110V15AV1-00092


That's a 50% deposit for a reservation for a DE1 at 110V.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

This morning, I came across these two videos, giving one (beta) user's thoughts:


----------



## matisse

So, had the machine for a few days now and I promise I will get round to updating you with some thoughts soon, I'm just deep into London Coffee Fest prep at the moment.


----------



## EddieP

Hadn't heard much about Decent Espresso before, will have to find out more next time I'm at FCP


----------



## Kilo

Nice unboxing video. I was amazed, the package had only one portafilter included. A naked. I would expect many people do want a double portafilter as well. Making two espressos with a naked portafilter is not very convenient.

Does every standard 58 mm portafilter fits in the machine?


----------



## red_hood

Hi,

I am new to this forum and I've got some technical questions regarding the DE1+/DE1+PRO:

1) What is the eletrical power of the steam heaters in each machine at 230V? I currently own a thermoblock machine with about 1kW heating power for steam, which I find quite slow to steam. I once measured the thermal steam output of a GS3 which was about 4kW. I do understand though that the temperature of the steam is higher, and therefore might need thermal power to achieve the same results. What would be eletrical power of the water heater?

2) Which method do you use to measure the water level in the water reservoir of the machines?

Thank you for all the information on this forum so far


----------



## embrya

Kilo said:


> Nice unboxing video. I was amazed, the package had only one portafilter included. A naked. I would expect many people do want a double portafilter as well. Making two espressos with a naked portafilter is not very convenient.
> 
> Does every standard 58 mm portafilter fits in the machine?


As far as I know most standard 58 mm portafilter will fit - I asked John for Rancilio specifically (as I have some of them) and he confirmed that they fit.

Gesendet von iPad mit Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

Kilo said:


> Nice unboxing video. I was amazed, the package had only one portafilter included. A naked. I would expect many people do want a double portafilter as well. Making two espressos with a naked portafilter is not very convenient. Does every standard 58 mm portafilter fits in the machine?


We sell a double-spouted portafilter, with a wood handle that matches our other wood handles. People can choose to buy that from us. https://decentespresso.com/portafilter

As to "every standard 58mm portafilter" working, there is sadly no such thing as a standard portafilter, I have found. A fitting problem often arises around the placement and shape of the "wings" on the sides.

We test with La Marzocco's own double spouted portafilter, and that absolutely works. It's also a great double spouted portafilter, being huuuuge and thus can take deep baskets, and has a nice (patented) tamping-level thingy welded on the front. There's also a good chance many other 58mm portafilters will work, but I wouldn't want to make any claim as to which those are. I will guarantee that LM and our own-brand portafilters fit.











red_hood said:


> Hi,
> 
> 1) What is the eletrical power of the steam heaters in each machine at 230V? I currently own a thermoblock machine with about 1kW heating power for steam, which I find quite slow to steam. I once measured the thermal steam output of a GS3 which was about 4kW. I do understand though that the temperature of the steam is higher, and therefore might need thermal power to achieve the same results. What would be eletrical power of the water heater?


The steam heater is currently 1350W at both 110V and 220V.

In August, on our DE1CAFE model, the steam power will increase to 2200W, as we are awaiting delivery of a bespoke design heater from a new supplier.

A 150ml (6 oz) drink should take about 35 seconds to steam from refrigerator temperature to 60ºC, on our current models. That should drop to 20 seconds on the DE1CAFE, if physics calculations end up matching reality. <cough cough></cough>

Note that I don't think direct comparisons between LM's 4kW and our 2.2kW steam power is possible, because they're using a boiler, whereas we heat steam on demand. Measurements of my GS/3 at home, show that it outputted about 2 ml/s at 218ºC, though the temperature did drop if I left steam on more than 60s (as the steam boiler emptied). Our calculations indicate that we should be able to match peak GS/3 steam output, with the upcoming steam heater. Whether we actually succeed at that is something that will be very easy for everyone to measure.



red_hood said:


> Hi,
> 
> 2) Which method do you use to measure the water level in the water reservoir of the machines?


I have attached a photo below showing the water uptake (blue line) and the water level assembly (yellow line)









The "uptake assembly" has two stainless steel tubes. One (larger) sucks water up into the flowmeter and pumps, whereas the 2nd tube (thinner) measures the pressure of the air column, with a tube going to a 2cm squared PC board, that has a (fairly expensive) digital air pressure sensor chip mounted on it (purple arrow). It's accurate enough at detecting changes in air column pressure changes that we've considered using it as a flowmeter







but at the moment, the pump vibrations cause enough rippling on the water level surface, that this isn't viable. In the most recent firmware release, in fact, we have greatly increased the data-smoothing that occurs while espresso is being made, so that the water level meter doesn't bounce around the GUI due to surface water rippling.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent and Assembly Coffee, all 4 days at London Coffee Festival*

James Wise of Assembly Coffee will have our DE1PRO+ at their stand at the London Coffee Festival. James is the 2017 coffee masters winner http://www.coffeemasters.org/james-wise-wins-coffee-masters-london-2017/ so we're really looking forward to hearing how he gets on with our machine.

Come by the Old Truman Brewery (FYI on Brick Lane) and find the Assembly Coffee stand (and their roastery "Volcano Coffee Works")

Here's the location:

https://www.londoncoffeefestival.com/VenueFAQ

You'll be able to pull your own shots on the Decent Espresso machine.









. . .

In other news, there are still some places available at Mat North's two demonstrations at *Prufrock in London, this Wednesday*:

Afternoon https://www.prufrockcoffee.com/booking/decent-espresso-afternoon/

Evening https://www.prufrockcoffee.com/booking/decent-espresso-evening/

Entry is gratis, but ticketed in advance. You will also be able to pull shots and play with the machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here is a technique we use to improve our espresso shots. Instead of dosing into a portafilter, we homogenize the grinds by dumping them into a milk jug, shaking, and then putting them into the portafilter.

. . . .

*Declumping Shot Comparison*

Some of the feedback from the beta testers, discussed on home barista, was that they were seeing more channeling than they were used to.

In my experience, channeling on our machines is usually caused by these 3 things (in order of importance):

1) your puck prep

2) making your shot at too high a pressure (the DE1+ goes up to 13 bar)

3) the quality of your grinder

The two shots below are identical, except that the one on the right had the milk-jug-declumping technique applied to it. You can see that the amount of spray on the sides of the cup is drastically reduced.

Both shots were 15.5g in, 30g out, in 30s, peaking at 10.5 bar. Flow profiling at 4 ml/s preinfusion, 2ml/s hold.


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> In August, on our DE1CAFE model, the steam power will increase to 2200W, as we are awaiting delivery of a bespoke design heater from a new supplier.
> 
> A 150ml (6 oz) drink should take about 35 seconds to steam from refrigerator temperature to 60ºC, on our current models. That should drop to 20 seconds on the DE1CAFE, if physics calculations end up matching reality. <cough cough></cough>


Hmmm, immediately tried on my Londinium 1.0 at 1,2 Bar boiler pressure; 2 sec steamwand purge; 150 grams 2% milk at 6 deg celsius to 60 deg celsius in....... 15 seconds !! Damn, 35 seconds doesn't make me happy...... around 20 seconds would be great.....

John, is there any chance that the 2200 watt steam power will be available in the DE1+ (later versions)?


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> Here is a technique we use to improve our espresso shots. Instead of dosing into a portafilter, we homogenize the grinds by dumping them into a milk jug, shaking, and then putting them into the portafilter.


Terrible for workflow.... If you need to to this, then grinding in the Blind Shaker or Blind Tumbler (+stirring with a mini whisk) works imo much better. (lynweber.com)


----------



## decent_espresso

markant said:


> Hmmm, immediately tried on my Londinium 1.0 at 1,2 Bar boiler pressure; 2 sec steamwand purge; 150 grams 2% milk at 6 deg celsius to 60 deg celsius in....... 15 seconds !! Damn, 35 seconds doesn't make me happy...... around 20 seconds would be great.....


Yep: the Londinium is known for particularly powerful steam. Are you able to make good microfoam at that speed? Pros can manage that level of power, but it does take skill.



markant said:


> John, is there any chance that the 2200 watt steam power will be available in the DE1+ (later versions)?


Never say never, but we are paying a small fortune that have this custom steam heater made for us, and that has to be paid for somehow, hence it planned to only be available in the upcoming DE1CAFE model, which will be 220V only. So, for now, if you want that level of steam power, it will only be available in our top end model. Note that despite what the photos show, the DE1CAFE does not have to be plumbed in, nor does it have to be countersunk. Quite a few pro-home users have expressed a desire to get this model for their home.



markant said:


> Terrible for workflow.... If you need to to this, then grinding in the Blind Shaker or Blind Tumbler (+stirring with a mini whisk) works imo much better. (lynweber.com)


I like the declumping and homogenizing that Lyn Weber's tool causes, but I don't like that the grounds pile up on the basket edges with it, forming an "inverse volcano" grounds shape.

I have an EG1 and the blind tumbler, and I do want to acknowledge my debt to Lyn Weber's (many) innovations, which is what led to my lower-tech approach.

-john


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> Yep: the Londinium is known for particularly powerful steam. Are you able to make good microfoam at that speed? Pros can manage that level of power, but it does take skill.


Yes, but I really have to be very attentive.

Lately I 've been a bit lazy,







, not holding the pitcher in my hands, putting the steam wand above the milk (~0,5 - 1 cm). When the Decent Digital Thermometer beeps at 57 deg C I switch of the steam. If I am careful with the height and the angle of the steam wand with the milk, I have good results.



> I like the declumping and homogenizing that Lyn Weber's tool causes, but I don't like that the grounds pile up on the basket edges with it, forming an "inverse volcano" grounds shape.


Yes. I Agree! So I use a cut-off plastic yoghurt cup as a portafilter funnel below the Blind Tumbler. (Talking about low-tech







). The Decent Funnel probably would be even better.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's what we're up to at Decent HQ in terms of getting espresso machines made.

Update: we found the cause of the HiPot failure, we've fixed the two machines that were failing it, and we're shipping those machines tomorrow after they get shaken overnight and then burned in for 2h.


----------



## chuffer75

Will be checking this out asap


----------



## decent_espresso

Leaving the topic of espresso machines for a moment...

Scott Rao really likes this new book about sourcing green coffee. Though Scott is the author of one of the two main books on coffee roasting, he feels that there is a lack of information about obtaining good beans for roasting. Scott also really liked the poster showing coffee processing methods and funded its printing. Stocking this item is a bit off-topic for what we do at Decent, but there is significant cross-over between our audience and people who roast coffee (for fun or for a living), so I'm giving it a punt.

A pallet of this new book (and 100 posters) arrived a few days ago, and perhaps some home (or commercial?) roasters on this forum might be interested.

https://decentespresso.com/books

-john


----------



## GlennV

I enjoyed playing with the machine at Prufrock yesterday, particularly the flow profiling modes. Thanks to @matisse for organising this. I was also impressed at how quiet it is, far quieter than any other vibe pump machine I've come across and not at all unpleasant to the ear.

Question: Do the DE1+ and DE1PRO+ have the same pressure and flow sensors?


----------



## jlarkin

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 33556
> View attachment 33557
> 
> 
> Leaving the topic of espresso machines for a moment...
> 
> Scott Rao really likes this new book about sourcing green coffee. Though Scott is the author of one of the two main books on coffee roasting, he feels that there is a lack of information about obtaining good beans for roasting. Scott also really liked the poster showing coffee processing methods and funded its printing. Stocking this item is a bit off-topic for what we do at Decent, but there is significant cross-over between our audience and people who roast coffee (for fun or for a living), so I'm giving it a punt.
> 
> A pallet of this new book (and 100 posters) arrived a few days ago, and perhaps some home (or commercial?) roasters on this forum might be interested.
> 
> https://decentespresso.com/books
> 
> -john


Might be worth while throwing it into a new thread? I can imagine their are people not reviewing this one now - so they'd miss it? Looks great, I'm tempted and not even roasting at the moment...Hmmm that and the scentone are tempting me


----------



## ncrc51

decent_espresso said:


>


Thanks for posting this video. It's encouraging to see production.


----------



## decent_espresso

GlennV said:


> I enjoyed playing with the machine at Prufrock yesterday, particularly the flow profiling modes. Thanks to @matisse for organising this. I was also impressed at how quiet it is, far quieter than any other vibe pump machine I've come across and not at all unpleasant to the ear.


Glad to hear it (groan)!

For reasons we don't quite understand, the 220V pumps are a lot quieter than the 110V pumps. They are, of course, slightly different models, but still, it's a bit of an enigma.



GlennV said:


> Question: Do the DE1+ and DE1PRO+ have the same pressure and flow sensors?


Yes, the same. The PRO model adds:

"longer wearing" material in the pumps and valves,

a longer warranty,

slightly higher powered steam (coming in a future firmware rev)

refill kits for both pressurized and unpressurized water.

-john


----------



## J_Fo

Hi @decent_espresso can I ask when you expect to be taking your next lot of pre orders & when you'd expect them to ship or is that a bit "how long is a bit of string" at the moment...?

Thanks


----------



## decent_espresso

Jon_Foster said:


> Hi @decent_espresso can I ask when you expect to be taking your next lot of pre orders & when you'd expect them to ship or is that a bit "how long is a bit of string" at the moment...? Thanks


At the moment my main focus is on shipping machines, and doing so at a faster pace than we've been doing.

We just wrapped up 5 machines at 110V, but these took two weeks to finish (somewhat also due to 5 days closed around easter and grave-sweeping-day).

Today we laid out 20 machines to build at once (photo below) and a few of you on this forum are due to receive one of these.

We've been in an interviewing frenzy, and in the past 48h I have extended four job offers.

My feeling is that the decent thing to do is not to take more money until:

a) we're a bit more competent at shipping machines out (more organized, but also more people at it)

b) the Home Barista review (or similar, extensive review) is published, so there is is/are independent sources of opinions about our machines.

So... soon, but I can't tell you how soon yet.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

The Coffee Compass today published a short interview with me.

https://www.thecoffeecompass.com/a-more-than-decent-espresso-machine-the-john-buckman-interview/


----------



## gtjeffw

John,

I'm curious about the nature of the pressure pulses from your vibratory pumps. I know the basics of how vibratory pumps work, but can you throttle how "hard" each individual pulse pushes the water? Or does each pulse push with the same force and you only control the rate of pulses?

Would there be any benefit to mechanical smoothing of pulses? Maybe something like a water hammer arrestor (T-junction in pressurized path leading to a dead end filled with compressible air). I assume there could already be some variable amount of air in the system (unless you are able to purge it) that provides some damping effects, as well as the stretchiness of various parts in the path.

Thanks!

--

Jeff


----------



## sra

decent_espresso said:


> On the DE1, the tablet only displays start/stop buttons, and does not give any real-time information about the shot.
> 
> -john


Fair enough, but a tough one. No temperature or pressure readout to assure that the machine is doing what was planned?

I guess that makes upgrading from a DE1 to a DE1+ almost inevitable.


----------



## Dylan

sra said:


> I guess that makes upgrading from a DE1 to a DE1+ almost inevitable.


That depends how much you want those features - plenty of people do without them on their machines. I think that was the idea of the DE1 - to appeal to folk who were put off by too much complexity.


----------



## decent_espresso

gtjeffw said:


> I'm curious about the nature of the pressure pulses from your vibratory pumps. I know the basics of how vibratory pumps work, but can you throttle how "hard" each individual pulse pushes the water? Or does each pulse push with the same force and you only control the rate of pulses? Would there be any benefit to mechanical smoothing of pulses? Maybe something like a water hammer arrestor (T-junction in pressurized path leading to a dead end filled with compressible air). I assume there could already be some variable amount of air in the system (unless you are able to purge it) that provides some damping effects, as well as the stretchiness of various parts in the path.


We used to have slightly stretchy tubing, which did smooth out the pulses, but it played havoc with the computer control, because the amount of stretchiness is very non-linear, and hard to computer model. Thus, our control over pressure-at-the-puck greatly suffered.

Perhaps more importantly, the vibe pumps are only "pulsey" at zero bar. Add a bit of pressure to them, and the amount of water flow goes waaaay down, and with it, the pulsiness of the pumps.

Thus, you'll see that the "americano water" feature on the DE1 is fairly pulsey at the moment, because there's no pressure. Bring the pressure to 4 bar, though and the flow is quite smooth.

If you make your americano a bit cooler (say, 75ºC instead of 90ºC) then the DE1 can use the cold water pump more, and interleave the cold water pump strokes with the hot water strokes, thereby removing much of the pulsing. We currently add "noise" to the pump driver (slightly randomizing the pump firings, so the two pumps are never in sync), which does this to some extent, but more programmatic interleaving is planned to smooth flow out better during americano water and preinfusion.

As to your first question, YES we can control the pump stroke strength. In a previous revision we were rectifying the AC voltage, so that we were driving the pumps at 100hz/120hz, but with shorter strokes. This made them quieter, less pulsey, but also they had less total water flow.

In a future DE iteration (the DE2?), we are going explore automatically alternating between 50hz/60hz pump driving (louder, less smooth, most powerful), and 100hz/120hz (quieter, smoother, less powerful). To do so requires a custom pump, and ODE has made 40 such pumps as prototypes for us.



Dylan said:


> That depends how much you want those features - plenty of people do without them on their machines. I think that was the idea of the DE1 - to appeal to folk who were put off by too much complexity.


Exactly, and people who were willing to trade the reduced features in exchange for a lower price.

Unfortunately for us, we found that we couldn't provide a good-enough-quality machine without all the tech inside, and that turned out to be expensive to build.

Expensive enough that we would lose money on each DE1 sold. We could either raise the price of the DE1 to almost the same as the DE1+, or just give up on the whole "strip out features we've already paid to develop" approach. That's why the DE1 is going away.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> That's why the DE1 is going away.


Have you thought about rebranding the DE1 as the DE1lite, and the DE1+ as the DE1? Otherwise you'll have an odd situation with the + but no DE1.


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> Have you thought about rebranding the DE1 as the DE1lite, and the DE1+ as the DE1? Otherwise you'll have an odd situation with the + but no DE1.


Yes, but I haven't come up with a clean solution, other than when we make the DE2 in a few years, for there to be no PLUS version at that point.

If we were to rebrand the DE1+ to be the DE1, and the DE1 to be DE1LITE, lots of people would be confused, in that they'd read positive reviews about the DE1+ and then not be able to buy it.

However, we're going to drop the + on DE1PRO+ right away and just label it DE1PRO.

So, shortly, there will be only:

DE1+

DE1PRO

DE1CAFE

What do you think?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Once in a while, someone writes us at tech support, asking for a "water flow diagram". Ben Champion redid our ugly-because-it's-for-internal-use diagram, into this accurate-and-attractive version.

Pressure and temperature sensors are also shown in this diagram. If you can understand this chart, you understand how our espresso machine works.


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 33603
> 
> 
> Once in a while, someone writes us at tech support, asking for a "water flow diagram". Ben Champion redid our ugly-because-it's-for-internal-use diagram, into this accurate-and-attractive version.
> 
> Pressure and temperature sensors are also shown in this diagram. If you can understand this chart, you understand how our espresso machine works.


Do you mind posting a slightly higher res version - maybe double this res but in a link if you don't want to appear as a massive post









Also - I feel like this may have been asked before, or something similar... but have you addressed the issue of hot water returning to the water tank and the higher temperature being a nice place for water bugs to develop? I'm sure regular tank emptying and cleaning should be a part of any routine but you are obviously going to get customers who rarely empty the tank - is the build up of old/mixed with new water going to ever cause an issue?

I think you naming conventions are fine as well - plenty of companies use a '+' or a 'pro' or whatever just to make their product sound good so I think the lack of a DE1 with no suffix isn't really an issue.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Do you mind posting a slightly higher res version - maybe double this res but in a link if you don't want to appear as a massive post


Sorry about that: this forum software (like many others) down-samples large images. Here are the originals:

https://decentespresso.com/img/water_flow_diagram.jpg

https://decentespresso.com/img/decent_water_flow.pdf



Dylan said:


> Also - I feel like this may have been asked before, or something similar... but have you addressed the issue of hot water returning to the water tank and the higher temperature being a nice place for water bugs to develop? I'm sure regular tank emptying and cleaning should be a part of any routine but you are obviously going to get customers who rarely empty the tank - is the build up of old/mixed with new water going to ever cause an issue?


I consulted a biologist on this topic, and many months ago we discussed it here at some length on this forum. The short answer, from the biologist, was that "bugs need food, and there isn't much food in tap water".

However, you're going to get algae in stagnant water if it comes out of the tap, so I personally recommend either using filtered water, or at least boiling water in a kettle, and then letting it cool down, before putting it in the DE1 water tank. I use the kettle technique and I don't get algae, and I'm a pretty lazy guy.

But the most important thing is this:

*- for the first 2 years of the DE1's progress, we were preheating the water tank. We no longer do this. *

- the water tank now stays at room temperature

- a small amount of hot water goes back to the water tank with use, but with the current generation machines this is

- as we get better at starting the shot up faster, even less water is going to be sent back to the tank

- currently, the only water that goes back in the tank is from the first few seconds after you hit START on an espresso, as the DE1 tries to hit the goal temperature within 1ºC. While the DE1 is trying to get there, the water that is too off-temp gets sent back to the water tank. This might up the entire tank by a few celsius. If my algebra is right, at 90º a shot would bring a 20ºC water tank up 3.5ºC, ie: "((20*19) + 90) /20 = 23.5ºC" (assuming 2L of water in the tank, and 50ml returned hot)

- if you are making a lot of espressos quickly, you're going to be adding cool water to the tank (either by hand, or via the Refill Kit), which will lower the overall tank temperature.

I would argue that you really should regularly clean any food appliance.

I can't think of any food device that never needs to be at least rinsed, and most need a bit of soap once in a while. Calcification is going precipitate in that water tank, and you should rinse it out, at least every 2 weeks, or your espressos are going to start tasting chalky.

-john


----------



## Dylan

Cheers John, I thought it has been discussed before but its a lengthly topic!

Like most things, it seems like you have thought it through. I had an girlfriend a while back who used to get very funny about leaving water out, where I had managed to stay alive with much more of a reckless abandon for the matter - glad to hear she was just being a bit of a nervous ninny.


----------



## xpresso

John.

The flow detailed diagram really simplifies the layout and prompts one to say 'What took you so long', but credit to you for being on top of everything and I wish you all the best and trust your investment is a huge success.

Jon.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> the water tank now stays at room temperature


The diagram is great stuff, but indicates that the water in the tank is between 50C and 70C. That looks like it maybe needs to be updated.


----------



## roastini

Oh, and I see now that there actually are three pumps in the machine - hot/cold for the water to the group, but also a separate pump for the steam path. Is that right?


----------



## xpresso

It certainly looks that way and possibly the reason for not employing the use of a rotary pump, unless a flow divider were to be considered. But credit to him, vibratory pumps are not a fortune and if they are all the same model ?.

Jon.


----------



## dlight

xpresso said:


> It certainly looks that way and possibly the reason for not employing the use of a rotary pump, unless a flow divider were to be considered. But credit to him, vibratory pumps are not a fortune and if they are all the same model ?.
> 
> Jon.


Decent is using vibratory pumps because they can control the pulses and therefore the flow rate. Rotary pumps are more complex to control the flow rate and 3 rotary pumps would be very expensive.


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> The diagram is great stuff, but indicates that the water in the tank is between 50C and 70C. That looks like it maybe needs to be updated.





roastini said:


> Oh, and I see now that there actually are three pumps in the machine - hot/cold for the water to the group, but also a separate pump for the steam path. Is that right?


<embarassed>It looks like I accidentally published the version of the water path for the upcoming DE1CAFE model, which features both a warmed water tank (for faster espresso startup) and a separate pump for steam, and also the Refill Kit for plumbing in. Because the cafe model is plumbed, and presumed to be used frequently, fresh water should be constantly coming into the water tank, and we thus don't expect a stagnant-hot-water issue.</embarassed>

So...kudos to you for reading the chart closer than I did.

Attached is the DE1 flow diagram, though it still labels the water tank as being heated. It's sunday, and I'm posting this from home, so on Monday I'll post a high res version of this. Ben is currently moving home, though, so I'm not sure he'll have the time to fix the temperature label on the water tank.

-john



xpresso said:


> The flow detailed diagram really simplifies the layout and prompts one to say 'What took you so long', but credit to you for being on top of everything


Alas, a simple solution is much harder to achieve than a complex one. Our current diagram is still more complicated than I'd like (too many temperature sensors, for instance) but it's getting there.

-john


----------



## Andreugv

I am sorry to dissapoint you, but she was not.

And I happen to disagree with the biologist that John discussed with. Bacteria do grow on all kinds of water. More importantly, they remain alive in water. They die in chlorinated water (some of them at least), but we know better than to use that on our DE1.

Food sources are sometimes things we don't even think about and can come from many places. I bet that the water tray of the espresso machine won't be as nasty as the sponge you use for washing the pots, but it should be cleaned, at least, weekly. Being ceramic I would suspect it will be dishwasher friendly? That would make it even easier for the lazy ones.

Another thing you could implement is a water tank sterilization program, and just return vlose to boiling water for 10-15 minutes to the tank. That will keep it clean for the ones that just rinse.


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> Bacteria do grow on all kinds of water. More importantly, they remain alive in water. They die in chlorinated water (some of them at least), but we know better than to use that on our DE1.
> 
> Food sources are sometimes things we don't even think about and can come from many places. I bet that the water tray of the espresso machine won't be as nasty as the sponge you use for washing the pots, but it should be cleaned, at least, weekly. Being ceramic I would suspect it will be dishwasher friendly? That would make it even easier for the lazy ones.


I agree with you, which is why I would recommend:

1) that you kettle boil the water you put into the DE1 water tank, so as to kill all bacteria (or even better, buy water that has been sterilized, for example via ultraviolet). Note that this is not specific to the DE1, I would recommend this to all Nespresso users too.

2) that you rinse out the water tank regularly

3) that you regularly put the water tank into the dishwasher. I roast pork belly in the spare water tanks I have, as a stress test, and then dishwash them. Porcelain was specifically chosen because it can be thoroughly cleaned in this way and does not leach under high water temperatures.



Andreugv said:


> Another thing you could implement is a water tank sterilization program, and just return vlose to boiling water for 10-15 minutes to the tank. That will keep it clean for the ones that just rinse.


The water pumps have a maximum operating temperature of 70ºC, so we can't raise the water tank to boiling.

However, the world of Sous Vide cooking has thoroughly delved into this topic, and you can find time-at-various-temperature pasteurization charts on the Internet. At 65ºC, pasteurization occurs within a minute.









On this forum, the "scheduled pasteurization of the water" was discussed many months ago, indeed, it could become a feature of our espresso machines.

However, people on this forum also indicated all sorts of objections to this feature, and given the Intertek UL objections to our bluetooth controller, I suspect that scheduled pasteurization might also be disallowed. In which case a manual start would be needed to do this feature.

At which point I would ask, "wouldn't be easier just to rinse the water tank out?"

-john


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> I agree with you, which is why I would recommend:
> 
> 1) that you kettle boil the water you put into the DE1 water tank, so as to kill all bacteria (or even better, buy water that has been sterilized, for example via ultraviolet). Note that this is not specific to the DE1, I would recommend this to all Nespresso users too.
> 
> 2) that you rinse out the water tank regularly
> 
> 3) that you regularly put the water tank into the dishwasher. I roast pork belly in the spare water tanks I have, as a stress test, and then dishwash them. Porcelain was specifically chosen because it can be thoroughly cleaned in this way and does not leach under high water temperatures.
> 
> The water pumps have a maximum operating temperature of 70ºC, so we can't raise the water tank to boiling.
> 
> However, the world of Sous Vide cooking has thoroughly delved into this topic, and you can find time-at-various-temperature pasteurization charts on the Internet. At 65ºC, pasteurization occurs within a minute.
> 
> View attachment 33624
> 
> 
> On this forum, the "scheduled pasteurization of the water" was discussed many months ago, indeed, it could become a feature of our espresso machines.
> 
> However, people on this forum also indicated all sorts of objections to this feature, and given the Intertek UL objections to our bluetooth controller, I suspect that scheduled pasteurization might also be disallowed. In which case a manual start would be needed to do this feature.
> 
> At which point I would ask, "wouldn't be easier just to rinse the water tank out?"
> 
> -john


I agree that just rinsing, even washing weekly, would be easier. There are a lot of lazy people out there though.

As per pasteurization recommendations, pasteurization for water won't be the same as to fish (it will actually be higher). In any case, the biggest problem would not be the microorganisms leaving on a water tank. Biggest problem you can have is toxins produced by those microorganisms, because a lot of toxins are stable at high temperatures, specially for short periods of times.

Obviously the chances of anything really bad happening are really low. I don't believe I know any case of a home user contamination (I do know about commercial ones). There was some time ago a paper published about bacteria in the wastewater tray and as you can imagine, you want to clean that compartment daily. I will try to find it and share it here for everyone to read what can grow out of those tiny flushes.


----------



## patrickff

sra said:


> No temperature or pressure readout to assure that the machine is doing what was planned?


Only thing that "bugs" me. I trust the DE to keep the temperature set in the profile, but would be nice to see the pressure (yes, visually it should be clear too - flow will speed up/slow down ... but I like numbers). [why no DE1+? ask the friendly contractors who I paid to redo our bathrooms







]


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> I agree with you, which is why I would recommend:
> 
> 1) that you kettle boil the water you put into the DE1 water tank, so as to kill all bacteria (or even better, buy water that has been sterilized, for example via ultraviolet). Note that this is not specific to the DE1, I would recommend this to all Nespresso users too.


As it happens I looked up the temp to make English breakfast tea the other day as I had always done it directly off the boil and figured this was unlikely to be best.

Related because one of the things pointed out was that it is beneficial to empty the kettle every time you make a cup, because the act of boiling reduces the oxygen content of the water making the flavour of the tea a bit lifeless.

I would have thought the same applies to water for coffee, and I'm not sure pre steralising would be good for flavour.


----------



## Andreugv

Dylan said:


> As it happens I looked up the temp to make English breakfast tea the other day as I had always done it directly off the boil and figured this was unlikely to be best.
> 
> Related because one of the things pointed out was that it is beneficial to empty the kettle every time you make a cup, because the act of boiling reduces the oxygen content of the water making the flavour of the tea a bit lifeless.
> 
> I would have thought the same applies to water for coffee, and I'm not sure pre steralising would be good for flavour.


That is Tea, and coffee as well, myth #1. Bringin water remotely close to boiling reduces the dissolved oxygen to almost 0. So basically boiling again will have no effect on DO. Do not waste your water and energy by getting rid of excess water in the kettle.


----------



## Rob1

Maybe just stick a UV light over the tank?


----------



## Dylan

Andreugv said:


> That is Tea, and coffee as well, myth #1. Bringin water remotely close to boiling reduces the dissolved oxygen to almost 0. So basically boiling again will have no effect on DO. Do not waste your water and energy by getting rid of excess water in the kettle.


That will teach me to get information from the Twinings website.

Interestingly however googling the subject provided the following result: http://hotwatermagic.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/destructive-myths-dissolved-oxygen.html

He refutes the 'DO' hypothesis much like yourself, but then goes on to point out that once returned to the temperature of his tap the boiling water did in fact taste different. But he also says he cant tell the difference between once boiled or multi-boiled water.

I suppose the only way to be sure if such a thing would affect coffee would be to test it out with fresh water and 'steralised' water - perhaps the Oxygen thing is a myth but that doesn't lead to the conclusion that boiled water will taste the same as unboiled once added to the espresso machine.


----------



## roastini

Dylan said:


> I suppose the only way to be sure if such a thing would affect coffee would be to test it out with fresh water and 'steralised' water - perhaps the Oxygen thing is a myth but that doesn't lead to the conclusion that boiled water will taste the same as unboiled once added to the espresso machine.


Keep in mind that if you fill the thank on a Decent machine, you start off with 2L of fresh water. After one shot, you have maybe 1900 mL of fresh water mixed with maybe 50 mL of once-heated water.

If you assume 100 mL water used per shot (50 mL to preheat, which is the heated water that goes back to the tank, plus around 30 mL in the shot, plus around 20 mL in the puck and steam), then after 20 shots you'll have a half full tank, and just under half of it (48.72%) will be water that was never heated.

In truth, it won't always being 50 mL of water that is sent back to the tank during the preheat process - if you just pulled a shot, for your second shot the water in the tubes will be almost at temp, so very little preheating will be needed. And if you pull shots in quick succession, the hot returned water will not fully and evenly mix with the rest of the water, so my numbers will be off for that reason, too. Finally, my assumptions on the other numbers are probably not right, either.

But my point is not the precise numbers, it's that you're not heating the entire tank for every shot, so the effect is relatively minor, even assuming there is an effect.


----------



## Dylan

roastini said:


> Keep in mind that if you fill the thank on a Decent machine, you start off with 2L of fresh water. After one shot, you have maybe 1900 mL of fresh water mixed with maybe 50 mL of once-heated water.
> 
> If you assume 100 mL water used per shot (50 mL to preheat, which is the heated water that goes back to the tank, plus around 30 mL in the shot, plus around 20 mL in the puck and steam), then after 20 shots you'll have a half full tank, and just under half of it (48.72%) will be water that was never heated.
> 
> In truth, it won't always being 50 mL of water that is sent back to the tank during the preheat process - if you just pulled a shot, for your second shot the water in the tubes will be almost at temp, so very little preheating will be needed. And if you pull shots in quick succession, the hot returned water will not fully and evenly mix with the rest of the water, so my numbers will be off for that reason, too. Finally, my assumptions on the other numbers are probably not right, either.
> 
> But my point is not the precise numbers, it's that you're not heating the entire tank for every shot, so the effect is relatively minor, even assuming there is an effect.


Indeed, John explained this I think in the previous page - that the returned water is a very small amount and will barely have an effect on the temperature of the water.

John also said that he recommends boil sterilising all water (and letting it cool ofc) before putting it in the machine despite there being a small change of bugs developing if you dont. So the question is if this boil sterilising can have a negative effect of the flavour of the water.


----------



## roastini

Dylan said:


> John also said that he recommends boil sterilising all water (and letting it cool ofc) before putting it in the machine despite there being a small change of bugs developing if you dont. So the question is if this boil sterilising can have a negative effect of the flavour of the water.


Ah, yes. I lost track of the thread. John's suggestion seems like overkill to me. Plus , the cooling process sends the water slowly through the 5C to 50C temp zone where bacteria multiply most quickly. I would think simply cleaning the tank when you refill might well be safer from a food safety perspective.


----------



## embrya

I have espresso machines with tank since years at home and in my office. Never had problems with algae (they need light, so they normally don't grow in closed tanks) or bacteria. And I didn't clean it every time I refilled - only about once a month!

So calm down and don't hyperventilate about this!

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## SurbitonBoy

Maybe one of those silver wire blocks used for humidifiers water tanks will stop the bacteria while turning your skin blue. I wonder what flavours Silver ion's extract over Calcium and Magnesium.


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> Attached is the DE1 flow diagram, though it still labels the water tank as being heated. It's sunday, and I'm posting this from home, so on Monday I'll post a high res version of this. Ben is currently moving home, though, so I'm not sure he'll have the time to fix the temperature label on the water tank.


Whenever you do (or Ben does) get around to fixing the water tank temp notation, I have one other nit: I think the three white filled-in triangles on the right side of the primary manifold should not be filled in. That is, they look like they are supposed to be half of the symbol for a two-way valve (top two) or a third of the symbol for a three-way valve (bottom one). Everywhere else on the diagram, a white filled-in triangle appears to be an indicator of the direction of water flow, but water should not flow to the left into the primary manifold.


----------



## bachamp

roastini said:


> Whenever you do (or Ben does) get around to fixing the water tank temp notation, I have one other nit: I think the three white filled-in triangles on the right side of the primary manifold should not be filled in. That is, they look like they are supposed to be half of the symbol for a two-way valve (top two) or a third of the symbol for a three-way valve (bottom one). Everywhere else on the diagram, a white filled-in triangle appears to be an indicator of the direction of water flow, but water should not flow to the left into the primary manifold.


2 way valves can be normally opened (no filled in triangle) or normally closed (one filled triangle).

The three way valve is normally opened so that flow goes to the tank. When it energizers flow is directed to the group. That's why the filled triangle is where it is.


----------



## decent_espresso

This new feature appeared in our espresso machines today.

When you pack your Decent Espresso Machine into its suitcase, it would be nice for all the water inside to be pushed out, so that it doesn't leak all over the inside of your suitcase.

So... first you slide your water tank forward in preparation. Then, the espresso machine closes the appropriate valves and runs the water pump through each section where water might be hiding. Because the pumps are "self priming", they're actually fairly good at blowing air forward as well. The whole process takes about 30 seconds.

My apologies for the amateurish photo-graphic that I used to implement this feature. João is rendering something attractive to replace it in the next tablet revision.


----------



## decent_espresso

Rob1 said:


> Maybe just stick a UV light over the tank?


We looked at this idea some time ago. The small UV lights that you seen on Brita competitors are not powerful enough to do anything. For the UV light be effective in the water tank, it would have to be quite strong, and then it is a hazard to human eyes, if there is any light leakage (which there would be).

Another approach would be to add UV sterilization into the water flow itself, but what's the point, since the water very shortly will be exposed to 1.2 meters of stainless steel at 110ºC to 180ºC of temperature, which is likely more effective at sterilization than the UV would be.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's an update on our progress in putting together a lean, mean, espresso building machine.


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## roastini

The machine has temperature sensors in (I think) eight spots: (1) secondary manifold, (2) water heater, (3) hot side of mixing manifold; (4) cold side of mixing manifold, (5) primary manifold, (6) steam heater, (7) group head, (8) right above the portafilter.

At times (between shots?) the UI lists two temperatures: goal and metal. While a shot is being pulled, the UI lists three temps: goal, coffee and water. What locations correspond to "metal," "coffee" and "water"? Are those, respectively, sensors 7, 8 and 5? And the goal, is that the goal for 8?


----------



## roastini

decent_espresso said:


> one of our beta testers has reported that water in his locale (Seattle) has tarnished the polished aluminum drip tray cover.
> View attachment 32964


Any further reports of tarnishing?


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> The machine has temperature sensors in (I think) eight spots: (1) secondary manifold, (2) water heater, (3) hot side of mixing manifold; (4) cold side of mixing manifold, (5) primary manifold, (6) steam heater, (7) group head, (8) right above the portafilter.
> 
> At times (between shots?) the UI lists two temperatures: goal and metal. While a shot is being pulled, the UI lists three temps: goal, coffee and water. What locations correspond to "metal," "coffee" and "water"? Are those, respectively, sensors 7, 8 and 5? And the goal, is that the goal for 8?


"metal" is the temperature of the metal on the group head brass itself (it, not water contact).

There are two sensors on the top of the group head. One is on the brass metal itself, and another is in the water path as water enters the top of the group. As this is a water path diagram, my memory is that the metal-temperature sensor is NOT on the diagram I posted, hence your confusion. My apologies if I got this wrong, I'm writing this on a laptop at home, but I think that's right. =:-O

As to the group water temperature sensor: in the past, we've used that to improve our mixing algorithm, but as of the current firmware, that sensor is not used.

The goal temperature displayed on the tablet is the "coffee" sensor, right above the portafilter. The upper group sensor might go away in a future version, but at the moment, it's really useful for us to see the effect on water temperature of various actions, every few centimeters as the water travels toward the coffee puck. If you take the screw off your shower screen (to clean it, for instance) of your about-to-arrive-to-you DE1+, you'll see the temperature probe poking in there.

I've put arrows on the 3 sensor, in the photo below. The two water temp sensors on the group differ by their depth in the group head.











roastini said:


> Any further reports of tarnishing?


A citric acid cleaning solution has been found to also tarnish the drip tray cover, so we're recommending that when you clean the DE1, you put the drip tray cover aside.

Except for tarnishing from acid contact, we haven't heard of new tarnishing reports.

That being said, we're still moving forward with a hard-to-tarnish replacement drip tray cover, for v1.1, and we'll replace gratis and v1.0 owner who has tarnishing. At the moment, nothing else is visibly tarnishing on any machine from any users.

-john


----------



## Dylan

Have you considered hard anodising the drip tray covers? Not sure it would help as anodising may well tarnish more easily that the alu itself... Just a thought is all.


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## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Have you considered hard anodising the drip tray covers? Not sure it would help as anodising may well tarnish more easily that the alu itself... Just a thought is all.


Yes, that was our first choice, as we use anodising on our tampers handles.

We were told that anodising had two issues:

1) the closely spaced bars of the drip tray would be difficult, and would tend to stick together

2) food safety cannot be guaranteed.

We have a really pretty electroplated sample here now, that has been holding up well to use. It is not guaranteed to be food safe either, but that might be a compromise we have to make for now, as we make the move to stainless steel.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

The "ADVANCED PROFILE" editor, which allows you to create virtually any espresso program you like, has been the big remaining unimplemented feature in our espresso machine.

As of today, it (mostly) works, as it's available as a free "app upgrade" inside the tablet software to the Decent Espresso Machine.

Advanced shots can do some interesting things:

- different goal temperatures at different steps in the espresso

- pauses, with no water flow (for preinfusion, or for making a pour-over coffee)

- espresso with more than 3 steps (which can be created in the easier-to-use Pressure and Flow profile editors)

- mixing flow and pressure control strategies, inside a single espresso

- a step in espresso making can conditionally move onto the next step when a certain flow or pressure "exit condition" is met.

I'm attaching some screen pictures of samples of my testing the DE1+ in different ways.

PS: I wrote "(mostly) works" because there are two aspects which aren't yet working, but should be next week:

1) ending an espresso step based on total volume (for now, use "seconds" to control a step)

2) setting the water at a constant temperature (not adapting to the puck temperature sensor) is not yet implemented.

Everything else about the Advanced Shots seems to work, though I do expect that there will be bugs for us to fix, as real users make espresso with this new technology.

-john


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 33740
> 
> 
> The "ADVANCED PROFILE" editor, which allows you to create virtually any espresso program you like, has been the big remaining unimplemented feature in our espresso machine.
> 
> As of today, it (mostly) works, as it's available as a free "app upgrade" inside the tablet software to the Decent Espresso Machine.
> 
> Advanced shots can do some interesting things:
> 
> - different goal temperatures at different steps in the espresso
> 
> - pauses, with no water flow (for preinfusion, or for making a pour-over coffee)
> 
> - espresso with more than 3 steps (which can be created in the easier-to-use Pressure and Flow profile editors)
> 
> - mixing flow and pressure control strategies, inside a single espresso
> 
> - a step in espresso making can conditionally move onto the next step when a certain flow or pressure "exit condition" is met.
> 
> I'm attaching some screen pictures of samples of my testing the DE1+ in different ways.
> 
> PS: I wrote "(mostly) works" because there are two aspects which aren't yet working, but should be next week:
> 
> 1) ending an espresso step based on total volume (for now, use "seconds" to control a step)
> 
> 2) setting the water at a constant temperature (not adapting to the puck temperature sensor) is not yet implemented.
> 
> Everything else about the Advanced Shots seems to work, though I do expect that there will be bugs for us to fix, as real users make espresso with this new technology.
> 
> -john


Perfect!

Will it be implemented in the 20 machines being shipped soon or shall we download it later?

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## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Will it be implemented in the 20 machines being shipped soon or shall we download it later?


The feature will be there.

We always update the tablet to the current software versions, before we ship any espresso machine.

However, that's not say that we produce software that has no bugs, so I expect that you will want to continue getting updates over wifi from us, as we improve things.

-john


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> The feature will be there.
> 
> We always update the tablet to the current software versions, before we ship any espresso machine.
> 
> However, that's not say that we produce software that has no bugs, so I expect that you will want to continue getting updates over wifi from us, as we improve things.
> 
> -john


Fine, of course I'll watch out for updates and assume that customers get informed by email once updates are available.

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## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Fine, of course I'll watch out for updates and assume that customers get informed by email once updates are available.


Yes, and I've also created a customer forum which you'll be invited to when your machine ships. The forum has more frequent news, as I don't like sending out email newsletters too often: people get upset easily about "spam".

-john


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## red_hood

Thank you for your very detailed answers!



decent_espresso said:


> The steam heater is currently 1350W at both 110V and 220V.
> 
> In August, on our DE1CAFE model, the steam power will increase to 2200W, as we are awaiting delivery of a bespoke design heater from a new supplier.
> 
> A 150ml (6 oz) drink should take about 35 seconds to steam from refrigerator temperature to 60ºC, on our current models. That should drop to 20 seconds on the DE1CAFE, if physics calculations end up matching reality. <cough cough></cough>
> 
> Note that I don't think direct comparisons between LM's 4kW and our 2.2kW steam power is possible, because they're using a boiler, whereas we heat steam on demand. Measurements of my GS/3 at home, show that it outputted about 2 ml/s at 218ºC, though the temperature did drop if I left steam on more than 60s (as the steam boiler emptied). Our calculations indicate that we should be able to match peak GS/3 steam output, with the upcoming steam heater. Whether we actually succeed at that is something that will be very easy for everyone to measure.
> 
> -john


This sounds promising. From the water path diagram you published a few posts later, I can see that the steam heater is actually behind the water heater. Do you combine both when producing steam, at least with the 220V models? (A standard 15A US outlet wouldn't provide enough power to use both heaters at the same time I assume.)



decent_espresso said:


> I have attached a photo below showing the water uptake (blue line) and the water level assembly (yellow line)
> 
> View attachment 33518
> 
> 
> The "uptake assembly" has two stainless steel tubes. One (larger) sucks water up into the flowmeter and pumps, whereas the 2nd tube (thinner) measures the pressure of the air column, with a tube going to a 2cm squared PC board, that has a (fairly expensive) digital air pressure sensor chip mounted on it (purple arrow). It's accurate enough at detecting changes in air column pressure changes that we've considered using it as a flowmeter
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> but at the moment, the pump vibrations cause enough rippling on the water level surface, that this isn't viable. In the most recent firmware release, in fact, we have greatly increased the data-smoothing that occurs while espresso is being made, so that the water level meter doesn't bounce around the GUI due to surface water rippling.
> 
> -john


That seems to be a very clever design, also avoiding to use eletrical current in the water, which I am a bit sceptical of. Could you probably use a cheaper capacitive measurement, e.g. using a PCB or foil attached to the water tank in a future iteration of the machine?


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## decent_espresso

red_hood said:


> This sounds promising. From the water path diagram you published a few posts later, I can see that the steam heater is actually behind the water heater. Do you combine both when producing steam, at least with the 220V models? (A standard 15A US outlet wouldn't provide enough power to use both heaters at the same time I assume.)


At 220V, on the DE1PRO, we plan on using both 1350W heaters when making steam. This will take some programming work, because we have to do this in a way that passes CE, because both heaters on full power at the same time would be a CE violation. But yes, this is planned and is why we indicate that the DE1PRO model has higher powered steam.



red_hood said:


> That seems to be a very clever design, also avoiding to use eletrical current in the water, which I am a bit sceptical of. Could you probably use a cheaper capacitive measurement, e.g. using a PCB or foil attached to the water tank in a future iteration of the machine?


We wanted the water tank to be dishwasher compatible, so we wouldn't go down that route.

Referring to electrical current: we tried that approach, but our calculations show that if we used DC, we would slowly electroplate one of the detectors. To avoid this, we'd need to use a low powered AC approach, and caused the idea to be more complicated. Also, we like being able to accurately indicate water level in the tank, which the air column approach enables.

-john


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## decent_espresso

A "pour over" using the new "advanced profile" editor.









hmmm... looks like this forum software doesn't support animated GIFs, nor does it let me delete this post.


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## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> A "pour over" using the new "advanced profile" editor.
> 
> View attachment 33755
> 
> 
> hmmm... looks like this forum software doesn't support animated GIFs, nor does it let me delete this post.


Appreciate that a lot! Mostly I drink espresso but it is wonderful to have a pour over option as I don't want more stuff in my office where I'll use the DE1+.

I suggest to offer it as a preset profile.

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## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Appreciate that a lot! Mostly I drink espresso but it is wonderful to have a pour over option as I don't want more stuff in my office where I'll use the DE1+.I suggest to offer it as a preset profile.


Yep, the "Pour Over" profile is one of the included defaults. At the moment, it's a "Best guess" recipe that Rao gave me, but next week Rao gets his DE1+ from us, and he's going to start refining the recipe, as he mostly drinks pour overs.

-john


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## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> Yep, the "Pour Over" profile is one of the included defaults. At the moment, it's a "Best guess" recipe that Rao gave me, but next week Rao gets his DE1+ from us, and he's going to start refining the recipe, as he mostly drinks pour overs.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 33756


Fine. It was not in the demo-software which I downloaded some weeks ago, thus my suggestion.

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## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Fine. It was not in the demo-software which I downloaded some weeks ago, thus my suggestion.


You're right, as I hadn't then finished programming it. If you do an app update (settings->machine->app update) you should get it now. I appear to have fixed the user interface bug that was remaining last night.


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## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> You're right, as I hadn't then finished programming it. If you do an app update (settings->machine->app update) you should get it now. I appear to have fixed the user interface bug that was remaining last night.












Produced an error...

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## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Produced an error...


This error is likely because you have not copied the Mac OSX DE1+ app to /Desktop or /Applications.

I am guessing this is the cause of your problem because I can see on your screen that the error says "read-only file system".

The app cannot update itself when OSX has "sandboxed" it to a read-only directory.

I will work on making this error prettier:yuk: and suggesting a solution when it happens.

-john


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## embrya

Yes, I didn't run it under applications. So after I did it worked!

Any update when the 20 machines in the pipe will be ready for shipping?

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## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Yes, I didn't run it under applications. So after I did it worked!


Great. This FYI is a new problem caused by the most recent version of OSX automatically keeping the ~/Downloads files in a read-only sandbox. You're not the first person to have this problem.



embrya said:


> Any update when the 20 machines in the pipe will be ready for shipping?


Yes: there's real progress to report this week.

3 new people started this week, and we pulled all the engineers away from their desks, so we could have 10 total people working on building machines. That's a big increase from 2 people in the factory previously.

We believe we will have all the "sub assemblies" for 20 machines built by the end of Friday (today), and on Monday we will start final assembly of them all. We should have shipped all 20 220V machines by the end of next week.

If so, that will represent a 4x increase in assembly speed (from 0.5 machines/day to 2 machines/day), but we think we should reach 3 to 4 machines a day very shortly, because quite a bit of the past 2 weeks has been us cleaning and organizing. That's mostly done now, and we can start to reap the benefits.

Attached are some photos I took today.

-john


----------



## patrickff

Some questions "fell under the bus" (there were a lot of questions at that time) ...

Regarding the DE1 only getting bugfix updates - no real updates:



patrickff said:


> No REST interface (IFTTT) - only DE1+ ?
> 
> The profile will eventually be online and share. Not for the DE1?


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## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> Some questions "fell under the bus" (there were a lot of questions at that time) ...
> 
> Regarding the DE1 only getting bugfix updates - no real updates:


The DE1 is being discontinued and there will be no feature updates for it. What you get when it is delivered is what it will stay as, except for updates to correct bugs. We're already losing money on each DE1 we ship, so we do not see the point of investing further R&D money into it.

We haven't shipped any DE1s yet, and people will have the option of cancelling, upgrading, or receiving the DE1 at the low price they ordered it at.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Shin (our man in Korea) was demoing to some serious baristas, who were unimpressed that the water coming out of the shower screen was so uneven. After a bit of head scratching, we found that taking out the shower screen and cleaning the coffee off of it fixed the problem.

(n.b.: this is an example of how we're planning on doing most tech support. A short video shows the problem, and the solution. Few words or language necessary. The next revision of this video will show the parts being cleaned. Great for our many customers for whom English is not so easy)


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## decent_espresso

Good progress today building 20 espresso machines


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## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> Good progress today building 20 espresso machines
> 
> View attachment 33812
> View attachment 33813


Thanks - wish you all the best!

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## coffeekidd

Hi John,

If I can make a humble request, it would be wonderful if you would create a production queue for the existing 300 orders, to give pre-orderers a sense of where they are in the manufacturing and shipping process. Denis Basaric does this with each of his production runs for his Kafatek grinders, with a simple list of order numbers (including what type of order) and status updates (e.g. - "In Assembly", "Testing", "Shipping"), and I know that his customers love him for it.

I request this because, despite spending several hours every week searching multiple forums and social media platforms, I still have no sense of whether I might realistically expect my order in the next few weeks or several months from now-and, I suspect I am not alone. That is, I have no sense of whether I'm in the current batch of 20 machines being assembled, or if I'm #299 of 300. Even if I learn that I'm at the back of the production line, at least then I will know not to expect my machine for a while, which will make for an overall much better experience in waiting.

To be clear: This is merely a request. I know you and your team are working like maniacs, and I'm thrilled to wait for my machine regardless. I simply believe a lot of people would appreciate this in the meantime.


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## decent_espresso

coffeekidd said:


> If I can make a humble request, it would be wonderful if you would create a production queue for the existing 300 orders, to give pre-orderers a sense of where they are in the manufacturing and shipping process. Denis Basaric does this with each of his production runs for his Kafatek grinders, with a simple list of order numbers (including what type of order) and status updates (e.g. - "In Assembly", "Testing", "Shipping"), and I know that his customers love him for it. To be clear: This is merely a request. I know you and your team are working like maniacs, and I'm thrilled to wait for my machine regardless. I simply believe a lot of people would appreciate this in the meantime.


This sort of thing is absolutely on my to-do list, along with being able to follow along with the progress, but it's not a piece of software I've written yet.

I'm hand maintaining a document that lists where people are in the queue, and we consult that when people write in asking (which they do frequently.







)

Can I ask you to send to send in an email at https://decentespresso.com/contact from the account you bought from, and we'll get back to you with your position in the queue? "coffeekid" (your forum handle) isn't enough for me to find you in my order list.

-john


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## decent_espresso

A challenge for home espresso machines is to decide when they're out of water. Some machines wait until the very last drop, but that might be in the middle of steaming or making an Americano when you least want this to happen. Drinkus interruptus.

With our espresso machine, we decided that once you started making your drink, we should let you use the last drop. However, if you haven't started your drink, we should try to anticipate the amount of water you might need and ask you to refill if we're worried you don't have enough for the drink you might make. The idea is to save you from yourself.

As of today, I've made "how much water is enough" configurable by you.

For example, the new "Pour Over" profile use a lot more water than espresso, so it's easy to run out mid-pour-over (whoops). We've also heard from some of you that you like a Big Americano, using more water than most other people do.

On the other hand, nothing seems to irritate people more than a machine that declares "out of water" when there's still plenty in the water tank, so there's a balance to be struck. You get to set the balance that works for you.

As of today, you can indicate how much water there needs to be in the tank (in terms of millimeters of water depth) before the espresso machine asks you to add more.

Those of you who have bought our PRO model will find that your espresso machine remains automatically topped up to whatever level you set using this new feature. It's the point at which the Refill Pump turns on.

-john


----------



## embrya

Awesome! I was always annoyed when my Rancilio S24 ran out of water during a shot (and there was still plenty of water in the tank...)

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## decent_espresso

We're doing the final assembly of 20 espresso machines at once. This is the first time we've done such a large batch. Because of its complexity and small size, this last step is a bit more fiddly than we'd like. It took us 7 day work days, starting at zero, to get to this point. There is probably another half day of work left to move these machines over to testing and burnin.


----------



## decent_espresso

Besides programming, my job is also to prepare Android tablets for use with an espresso machine. We hadn't expected it, but Shin's USB cable actually melted when he brought his machine home. We hadn't thought to test each cable.

Also, some beta testers found their tablets to be out of battery power so they couldn't make coffee right away with their new toy. Major Bummer.

After I update and load each tablet, I'm plugging each into a "smart USB charger" to keep it fully charged. This has the advantage of testing the USB cable that we'll be sending you. One cable (of 40) was defective today (the USB charger screen went blank when I plugged it in).

This new approach also lets me test each tablet's charging and battery, because the next morning, each tablet should be 100% topped up and no longer charging.

In the attached image, you can see that the tablet on port #6 is acting crazily. Sadly (sort of), the problem turned out to be the USB charger: the tablet, plugged into another port, was fine. Sigh.

I have enough chargers for 24 tablets "ready to ship", and just ordered enough chargers to up that to 80 tablets (make that 79, due to a defective port, argh)

Our goal is to plan for 40 machines made and shipped per week. That's 8 per day. We're currently at 2.5 machines made per day, but I think that our next batch will be at 4 machines made per day.

Between now and the end of June, we need to achieve 6 machines made and shipped per day, in order to hit our goal of shipping the remaining 265 machines people have already paid for.


----------



## xpresso

It's unfortunate that such a small yet important item in the chain fails, these cables are out sourced ?.

Jon.


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## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> It's unfortunate that such a small yet important item in the chain fails, these cables are out sourced ?.


Yep: custom made for us.

I wasn't able to find existing cables short enough for our use, so we had to get them made, or have lots of extra wire dangling in front.

Also: USB cables, if you look at them closely, are BIG and often have lots of visual complexity to them.

Here's an example:









Things like strain relief and a good signal-to-noise ratio aren't needed in our case, as the cable is only used for 3A charging.

Because we had the cable custom made, and the cable is up front where you'll see it, I also decided to rethink the connectors themselves. They're our own design, intended to blend in with the rest of the machine's design.

Ours:









And now we've learned that each cable (like every other component) needs us to test it.

-john


----------



## SurbitonBoy

I've added a 24g basket to my pre-order with a view to getting some automation on my morning filter coffee.

It's going to be amazing when more people have the machine and can make videos like this one.


----------



## decent_espresso

*20 espresso machines*

This was the first time we've built 20 machines at once (previous time was 5 at once). We were pretty excited to get them all done, and 3 new hires started last week, helping with this.

[video=youtube;tiQB-Obzvuw]






. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .











*
85% failure rate*

Our rejoicing at having built 20 espresso machines in 8 days didn't last long.

This morning, only 3 of the 20 machines passed the hipot safety tests: the other 17 failed. "hipot" runs 1700 volts (!!!) through the machine to make sure that the insulation is everywhere sufficient to prevent a potential electric shock. If any wires are too close, or not sufficient insulated, this test complains. Loudly. Literally: it's in the standard that the test gear should fail with a piercing sound.

I'm annoyed at myself because as I poked my head this morning to try to offer a helpful tip, I saw something that didn't look right to me, but I thought "no, that can't be it" and didn't speak up.

Four hours later, Johnny figured out the problem, and it indeed was what my hunch had told me.

On the 220V water heaters, one of the electrical connectors is soldered on by the factory at a different rotation than on the 110V water heaters. On 17 machines This caused the cable that plugged into it to push against the "flush diffuser" box.

Under normal 220V power, this probably wouldn't cause a problem. But at 1700V, even with the silicone insulation, electricity would jump through the insulation.

Thankfully, the solution is really simple and doesn't require us to take apart the machines. Some pliers inside the machine to bend the steam connection counter-clockwise, so it doesn't touch anything, and now the hipot test is happy.

Now I know why the safety standard requires every single machine to be hipot tested.

-john


----------



## patrickff

SurbitonBoy said:


> morning filter coffee


How does it compare to a Chemex/Kalita taste and sludge-wise? I am wondering, because the DE can obviously not emulate the circular or targeted ("oh a dark spot in the grounds") motions necessary to do a pour-over.


----------



## MWJB

patrickff said:


> How does it compare to a Chemex/Kalita taste and sludge-wise? I am wondering, because the DE can obviously not emulate the circular or targeted ("oh a dark spot in the grounds") motions necessary to do a pour-over.


You don't need to target specific areas to do a pourover, especially not if you have a shower screen, nor if you add all the water quickly in one go after bloom.


----------



## SurbitonBoy

patrickff said:


> How does it compare to a Chemex/Kalita taste and sludge-wise? I am wondering, because the DE can obviously not emulate the circular or targeted ("oh a dark spot in the grounds") motions necessary to do a pour-over.


A coffee shot as more like an Aeropress as the water is forced thru the coffee bed.

I've been wondering what a more open basket would be like, ie if the basket had holes similar to the size of the aeropress.

Still wouldn't like a V60 due to lack of headspace to generate the flow without extra pressure.


----------



## ashcroc

SurbitonBoy said:


> A coffee shot as more like an Aeropress as the water is forced thru the coffee bed.
> 
> I've been wondering what a more open basket would be like, ie if the basket had holes similar to the size of the aeropress.
> 
> Still wouldn't like a V60 due to lack of headspace to generate the flow without extra pressure.


Is this pure conjecture or have you tasted it?


----------



## SurbitonBoy

I haven't tasted the method with the aeropress filter in thr DE1 yet, but I do know that pressure increases the micro-fines which get past the paper filter in the aeropress. So I assume it won't be as clear as a gravity filter method.


----------



## MWJB

SurbitonBoy said:


> I haven't tasted the method with the aeropress filter in thr DE1 yet, but I do know that pressure increases the micro-fines which get past the paper filter in the aeropress. So I assume it won't be as clear as a gravity filter method.


You can have gravity percolation without paper, like a Swissgold or Kone brew.

Aeropress is an immersion method, with a tiny bit of percolation at the end. Espresso & drip/pourover/filter are percolation & produce a higher strength at the same brew ratio & extraction. This is why you might see a gadget to increase crema on an Aeropress to make it more 'espresso like' but it'll never be espresso if you have the entire brew water sit with the coffee dose like it does in an AP. You can make espresso at 12%TDS or more, you can't make Aeropress at more than half of that, whatever the ratio you use.


----------



## SurbitonBoy

MWJB said:


> You can have gravity percolation without paper, like a Swissgold or Kone brew.
> 
> Aeropress is an immersion method, with a tiny bit of percolation at the end. Espresso & drip/pourover/filter are percolation & produce a higher strength at the same brew ratio & extraction. This is why you might see a gadget to increase crema on an Aeropress to make it more 'espresso like' but it'll never be espresso if you have the entire brew water sit with the coffee dose like it does in an AP. You can make espresso at 12%TDS or more, you can't make Aeropress at more than half of that, whatever the ratio you use.


This is about a 1.35% TDS "coffee shot" with a paper filter versus a pour over at the same TDS. The big money question is can a reasonable approximation of a V60 be done by the DE1 with the advanced program.


----------



## Mrboots2u

SurbitonBoy said:


> This is about a 1.35% TDS "coffee shot" with a paper filter versus a pour over at the same TDS. The big money question is can a reasonable approximation of a V60 be done by the DE1 with the advanced program.


Not without a v60 paper....


----------



## MWJB

SurbitonBoy said:


> This is about a 1.35% TDS "coffee shot" with a paper filter versus a pour over at the same TDS. The big money question is can a reasonable approximation of a V60 be done by the DE1 with the advanced program.


This sounds over-extracted. Compared to V60 the target would be more like 1.11%TDS +/-0.15%.

Sure, you should be able to get a well extracted cup...don't know if it would taste exactly like 'a V60' as people make them differently, different filters (Dutch, Japanese, paper, wire mesh...).


----------



## SurbitonBoy

Jeremy at Prufock had the idea to use micron chemistry filter paper to get a better coffee at an AP competition. That paper was even more costly that the VST filters which are needed to measure the AP and espresso.


----------



## SurbitonBoy

MWJB said:


> This sounds over-extracted. Compared to V60 the target would be more like 1.11%TDS +/-0.15%.
> 
> Sure, you should be able to get a well extracted cup...don't know if it would taste exactly like 'a V60' as people make them differently, different filters (Dutch, Japanese, paper, wire mesh...).


I make my V60 at 1:16.7 at 1.38% TDS 30g:500g with an EK43 which is 21.4% extraction. 1.45% (22.5%) isn't bitter but some flavours over power the rest.


----------



## MWJB

SurbitonBoy said:


> I make my V60 at 1:16.7 at 1.38% TDS 30g:500g with an EK43 which is 21.4% extraction. 1.45% (22.5%) isn't bitter but some flavours over power the rest.


1:18 in the cup, as per the video, is more like a 1:20 V60 brew.


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## marcello

How often does one need to calibrate flow? What factors affect it?


----------



## decent_espresso

marcello said:


> How often does one need to calibrate flow? What factors affect it?


From what I know now, it looks like calibrating flow is a good idea for people running on 110V (ie the USA, Japan and Canada).

Here in Hong Kong, we calibrate the flow before we send you the machine. The frequency and quality of the electricity you have, is what affects the calibration value.

Our electricity here is the same as UK electricity (same plug, even) and so the calibration done here so far seems to hold true once the machine arrives in the UK. I expect there won't be any problems with the EU Continent either.

However, to calibrate our 110V machines here in Hong Kong, we have to use two transformers.

a) 220V->120V (a fairly standard converter, albeit high wattage)

b) 50hz->60hz (a fairly exotic converter, hand made in Korea)

the quality of the electricity we have here is not the same as in the USA. We're still trying to nail down in what way(s) ours is different. Our hunch is that our sine wave is less smooth than real US electricity, but there might be other issues too. For example, the frequency conversion here might might not be super stable.

At the moment, we haven't seen calibration drift, and we don't have a physics theory as to why it would. But, it might, so calibration is a handy thing to have.

I probably should have noted in the video that I had intentionally set the calibration "out of whack" so that I'd have something to show.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

"*It tasted better than coffee I've tasted on $20,000 or $30,000 espresso machines*" (40:20)

At this podcast:

https://anchor.fm/jonathon-sciola/episodes/27-Apr--2018-Episode-2-Interview-with-Liam-Wilkie-of-Once-Alike-Coffee-Automation-in-Melbourne-Coffee-Culture-e1cq54

Veteran coffee guru and robotic crusader Liam Wilkie is interviewed on the super interesting https://www.facebook.com/Jonathonsciolacom-356414814159/ Melbourne Coffee Culture podcast and opines extensively about Decent Espresso (starting at 34:20), as well as many other pro topics. Well enlightening and worth listening to the entire thing.

FWIW, we're using a 1.2 meter long stainless steel "thermocoil" to heat water.


----------



## dev

I'm more curious what kind of revolutionary pumps are you using that can sustain working with water at 50-70 degree Centigrade on a daily basis.

Quotes like the one you posted are meaningless taken out of context. Its just like photography, you can do a lousy job with medium format if you don't know what you're doing.


----------



## dlight

dev said:


> I'm more curious what kind of revolutionary pumps are you using that can sustain working with water at 50-70 degree Centigrade on a daily basis.
> 
> Quotes like the one you posted are meaningless taken out of context.


Quotes like what? You haven't quoted the quote you are referring to. If you're referring to the prior post, then your comment is out of context. Puzzled.


----------



## Dylan

I think he is referring to the quote in the post directly above his - which has the 'context' linked to directly below the quote itself...


----------



## dlight

In that case, what does "revolutionary pumps" have to do with the prior comment about great tasting coffee?


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> From what I know now, it looks like calibrating flow is a good idea for people running on 110V (ie the USA, Japan and Canada).
> 
> Here in Hong Kong, we calibrate the flow before we send you the machine. The frequency and quality of the electricity you have, is what affects the calibration value.
> 
> Our electricity here is the same as UK electricity (same plug, even) and so the calibration done here so far seems to hold true once the machine arrives in the UK. I expect there won't be any problems with the EU Continent either.
> 
> However, to calibrate our 110V machines here in Hong Kong, we have to use two transformers.
> 
> a) 220V->120V (a fairly standard converter, albeit high wattage)
> 
> b) 50hz->60hz (a fairly exotic converter, hand made in Korea)
> 
> the quality of the electricity we have here is not the same as in the USA. We're still trying to nail down in what way(s) ours is different. Our hunch is that our sine wave is less smooth than real US electricity, but there might be other issues too. For example, the frequency conversion here might might not be super stable.
> 
> At the moment, we haven't seen calibration drift, and we don't have a physics theory as to why it would. But, it might, so calibration is a handy thing to have.
> 
> I probably should have noted in the video that I had intentionally set the calibration "out of whack" so that I'd have something to show.
> 
> -john


I assume the vibration will be controlled by the frequency? I read a few weeks/months ago about all those problems with electricity running at a lower than usual frequency in europe that was messing with the clocks of domestic appliances (apparently the places where they buy the electricity from is not sending up to specs anymore). I guess that will mean flow recalibration for all those affected.

For the US, I am going to assume it will be highly dependent on local power companies. As the electricity market is so different from the one in most of all other places in the world. Almost every city has it's own electricity provider and one would assume that they work under federal regulations, but I bet there is some wiggle room on those.


----------



## dev

dlight said:


> In that case, what does "revolutionary pumps" have to do with the prior comment about great tasting coffee?


If you read the official diagram, you can see that the decent machine works with 50-70 C water in the tank. I believe that this is achieved through re-circulation every time you power the machine on, since the original, abandoned prototype, model featured a heated tank. Also an usual vibration pump works with water at a max of 35C.

A couple of concerns: how ok is it to re-heat the same water over and over, assuming one doesn't change water on a daily basis, and second what's the life expectancy of a vibration pump working at such high temperatures.


----------



## bachamp

dev said:


> I'm more curious what kind of revolutionary pumps are you using that can sustain working with water at 50-70 degree Centigrade on a daily basis.


Sorry the flow diagram is a bit old and I need to update it. We no longer heat the water in the tank so the pumps operate at room temperature.


----------



## Dylan

dev said:


> If you read the official diagram, you can see that the decent machine works with 50-70 C water in the tank. I believe that this is achieved through re-circulation every time you power the machine on, since the original, abandoned prototype, model featured a heated tank. Also an usual vibration pump works with water at a max of 35C.
> 
> A couple of concerns: how ok is it to re-heat the same water over and over, assuming one doesn't change water on a daily basis, and second what's the life expectancy of a vibration pump working at such high temperatures.


The same question has been asked and responded to just a page or two back.


----------



## o2c

And to the search challenged, here's the flow diagram: https://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?30500&p=590105#post590105


----------



## decent_espresso

dev said:


> If you read the official diagram, you can see that the decent machine works with 50-70 C water in the tank. I believe that this is achieved through re-circulation every time you power the machine on, since the original, abandoned prototype, model featured a heated tank. Also an usual vibration pump works with water at a max of 35C. A couple of concerns: how ok is it to re-heat the same water over and over, assuming one doesn't change water on a daily basis, and second what's the life expectancy of a vibration pump working at such high temperatures.


 @dev you're absolutely right that running vibe pumps constantly at those temperatures would cause degraded performance.

I think you missed the multiple comments from myself and Ben, that the diagram is out of date on this point. We no longer heat the water in the water tank, and have not for about a year. My apologies for the confusion this caused.

The additional heat we need to get through an espresso shot is now stored in the aluminum wrapped around the water heater, so that we can work with room temperature input water.

My lead mechanical engineer Ben made that chart, and we didn't notice it was out of date on this point until after I posted it. And he's very busy on much more pressing things at the moment (a refresh on the group head and a new water heater design, and moving to Australia) to work on the graphic.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Our man Shin in South Korea has been visiting cafés nonstop with his DE1+, and.... that means a cleaning of the group head parts is a good idea.

Coffee is food, after all, and cleaning out gunk will even out the flow from the shower screen, as well as keep old coffee flavors from intruding on your fresh coffee.

Shing made a quite hilarious, and useful English/Korean video of how he took everything apart and cleaned it.

I know quite a few cafés that do this every evening with their professional machines. If you're a home user, I recommend doing this when you notice that the water flowing out of the shower is uneven, which likely indicates coffee oil buildup.






Keen eyes will notice that the brass parts look a bit ugly due to brass tarnishing. I pointed this out to Shin. He bought some brass cleaner and was pleased to see the parts restored to their like-new glory:


----------



## embrya

Accidentally posted and thus deleted....


----------



## embrya

Thanks. Should the temperature probe also be cleaned or better not touched at all?

I made the experience with my Rancilio S24 and Epoca that regularly backflushing with coffee cleaner (like Pulycaff) cleans these parts also good (and the screws don't get worn...).

But surely some day the gasket of the grouphead needs to be changed and then one will have to do the same way I suppose.

Do you already have replacement gaskets?

Stefan

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


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## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Thanks. Should the temperature probe also be cleaned or better not touched at all?


If you see that it's dirty, then yes, you should clean it. The metal around that probe is 0.5mm thick stainless steel, for fast response, so obviously you shouldn't scrape at it with a screwdriver. An abrasive sponge and a cleaning product should be fine (it's not that delicate, owing to its strong shape).



embrya said:


> I made the experience with my Rancilio S24 and Epoca that regularly backflushing with coffee cleaner (like Pulycaff) cleans these parts also good (and the screws don't get worn...).


I look forward to learning more from our customers about what works, for cleaning and many other topics.



embrya said:


> But surely some day the gasket of the grouphead needs to be changed and then one will have to do the same way I suppose. Do you already have replacement gaskets?


Yes, we do sell our own gaskets, here:

https://decentespresso.com/cart?s=70008+1

note that the price is a bit more expensive than others, because shipping from HK has to be accounted for by us.

You're welcome to use any 8.5mm gaskets (NBR or Silicone, as you wish) from any source you like, as we are completely compatible with the standard. Before we made our own, we were using Simonelli NBR gaskets, and Cafelat silicone gaskets.

Note that one reason we put the group head handle on is to tempt people to not over-tighten the portafilter, which baristas often do by leaning into the handle with all their body weight. Less muscle when locking in the portafilter will greatly extend the life of your gasket.

-john


----------



## embrya

Thanks John - is yours rubber or silicone?

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


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## embrya

Scott Rao and Matt Perger wrote short and promising statements:

https://decentespresso.com/de1plus

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


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## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> If you see that it's dirty, then yes, you should clean it. The metal around that probe is 0.5mm thick stainless steel, for fast response, so obviously you shouldn't scrape at it with a screwdriver. An abrasive sponge and a cleaning product should be fine (it's not that delicate, owing to its strong shape).
> 
> I look forward to learning more from our customers about what works, for cleaning and many other topics.
> 
> Yes, we do sell our own gaskets, here:
> 
> https://decentespresso.com/cart?s=70008+1
> 
> note that the price is a bit more expensive than others, because shipping from HK has to be accounted for by us.
> 
> You're welcome to use any 8.5mm gaskets (NBR or Silicone, as you wish) from any source you like, as we are completely compatible with the standard. Before we made our own, we were using Simonelli NBR gaskets, and Cafelat silicone gaskets.
> 
> Note that one reason we put the group head handle on is to tempt people to not over-tighten the portafilter, which baristas often do by leaning into the handle with all their body weight. Less muscle when locking in the portafilter will greatly extend the life of your gasket.
> 
> -john


Great news! A year or so ago I ended up buying 20+ Cafelat 8.5 silicone gaskets. Excuse me for the off-topic.

Now for the real question. Do you have any idea of how many shots did this machine that Shin showed us had prepared? Have you tried other kinds of shower screens?

Also, if you change the shower screen to something more restricted (Like an IMS competition), will that affect flow rate?

Thank you John for all the information you keep posting.


----------



## Stanic

decent_espresso said:


> Note that one reason we put the group head handle on is to tempt people to not over-tighten the portafilter, which baristas often do by leaning into the handle with all their body weight. Less muscle when locking in the portafilter will greatly extend the life of your gasket.
> 
> -john












girls at work do this all the time


----------



## Andreugv

Stanic said:


> girls at work do this all the time


Just do as I did. Tell them to ask you to prepare their coffees. At least now I know how clean the machine is, I have the grinder correctly set up, etc... And the plus is you are the favourite of all those cuties LOL.


----------



## Stanic

Andreugv said:


> Just do as I did. Tell them to ask you to prepare their coffees. At least now I know how clean the machine is, I have the grinder correctly set up, etc... And the plus is you are the favourite of all those cuties LOL.


Lol you've got to be kidding me, they don't care and as the owner doesn't either, I don't care what they do with the machine and grinder at all







I grind my own beans with the Feldgrind, no crappy robusta miscela for me









They might be cute but actually are stupid as a boot as they say in polish...I've asked them on April the 30th what celebration day is it tomorrow, they didn't have a clue..blimey


----------



## hotmetal

Stanic said:


> I've asked them on April the 30th what celebration day is it tomorrow, they didn't have a clue..blimey


Sounds like they need help... Mayday!

_______

Eat, drink and be merry


----------



## Dylan

Stanic said:


> I've asked them on April the 30th what celebration day is it tomorrow, they didn't have a clue..blimey


I know there is such a thing as 'May Day' - but honestly if you asked me that question on the 30th I also would have given you a blank stare - it not exactly a notable date for me or anyone I know, even if it has some significance to some folks.


----------



## SurbitonBoy

Of course soon hopefully some of us will be explaining what DE day is and what an unboxing is to completely oblivious people.


----------



## Stanic

I don't expect everyone to know everything but if it is a bank holiday which is quite international I find it baffling that people who work in business affected by it don't know what's going on..I'm not sure what level of significance does it hold in the anglo-saxon world nowadays and of course you can ignore anything but still..blimey


----------



## Bob Stern

Cleaning group head:

1. After how many espressos do you expect a home user would be advised to clean the group head parts?

2. Have you evaluated the feasibility of smaller holes in either the lower or middle diffuser to reduce the amount of coffee grounds migrating upward? Minimizing migration to the top diffuser seems especially desirable since it requires 4 screws to remove.

Since the bottom diffuser is thin, perhaps it could have a larger number of smaller diameter holes, like a filter basket.

Perhaps the middle diffuser, being thicker, could have conical holes, with the narrow end down. The conical shape would permit a smaller diameter outlet to block coffee without proportionately increasing impedance to water flow - like the VST basket holes, but inverted.


----------



## embrya

@ Bob Stern:

You cannot avoid the group getting dirty as it is from coffee oils/fat mainly - not from particles moving up!

Cleaning interval was mentioned by John: once the water comes out uneven.

Best

Stefan

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


> Thanks John - is yours rubber or silicone?


The one we use is made NBR rubber, like all the Italian professional machines.



Andreugv said:


> Great news! A year or so ago I ended up buying 20+ Cafelat 8.5 silicone gaskets.


Those absolutely will work with our machine. I decided not to go with silicone because there's already enough about our machine that will provoke a "there's too much new here" emotional reaction. I preferred to ship our machine with a group head locking feel that was similar to Italian professional machines. However, I do recognize this is absolutely a matter of personal preference



Andreugv said:


> Now for the real question. Do you have any idea of how many shots did this machine that Shin showed us had prepared?


No, sorry, I don't know, but when he's demoing at the cafes he's often pulling shots for customers as they come in, so I'd expect it to be several hundred shots, at least. I wanted to clean the group after pulling 1000 shots on a DE1+ at the South Korea Coffee Show.



Andreugv said:


> Have you tried other kinds of shower screens?Also, if you change the shower screen to something more restricted (Like an IMS competition), will that affect flow rate?


Yes, as it happens our v2 DE1+ had the IMS competition shower screen on it. You're welcome to switch to it, if you prefer. We weren't able to justify the increased cost, and on homebarista, people discussing shower screens generally haven't been able to objectively tell if there's an improvement.

My feeling is that if the flow is uneven, it's too late for the shower screen to do anything about it. The problem needs to be addressed earlier in the group head water path.



Bob Stern said:


> Cleaning group head:
> 
> 1. After how many espressos do you expect a home user would be advised to clean the group head parts?


A professional barista would be more qualified to answer that, than I am. There's nothing especially different about our group head parts that would lead to a different cleaning schedule than other pro machines.

But generally, I clean my group head parts when I notice that the flow (without a portafilter) is uneven. When I take the shower screen off at that point, I invariable find coffee gunk all over the screen, and washing it evens the flow out again. I'm not sure if it's just oil, or fines as well. The shower screen does a good job of blocking coffee grind "boulders" but I expect that fines can mix around the inside of the group head.



Bob Stern said:


> 2. Have you evaluated the feasibility of smaller holes in either the lower or middle diffuser to reduce the amount of coffee grounds migrating upward? Minimizing migration to the top diffuser seems especially desirable since it requires 4 screws to remove. Since the bottom diffuser is thin, perhaps it could have a larger number of smaller diameter holes, like a filter basket.Perhaps the middle diffuser, being thicker, could have conical holes, with the narrow end down. The conical shape would permit a smaller diameter outlet to block coffee without proportionately increasing impedance to water flow - like the VST basket holes, but inverted.


The group head parts were subjected to a huge amount of R&D, using fluid dynamic simulations, to obtain even water distribution at a variety of flow rates. This was quite challenging to accomplish, and our fluid dynamic simulations found that existing holes-around-a-circle diffusers were quite bad at this (at lower flow rates)

As coffee drink quality is the main goal for these parts, I would move very slowly in changing anything in there at this point. We could look at fewer screws, to ease disassembly, but at the same time, "if it works, don't fix it".



embrya said:


> @ Bob Stern:
> 
> You cannot avoid the group getting dirty as it is from coffee oils/fat mainly - not from particles moving up!
> 
> Cleaning interval was mentioned by John: once the water comes out uneven.


Yes.


----------



## decent_espresso

Bad Day Coffee on the beautiful Eastern coast of Taiwan continues his amazing series of handmade Lego versions of classic espresso machines https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/166390560635924/bad-day-coffee/ with a LEGO DECENT ESPRESSO MACHINE.

His photos of classic machines he's made is amazing (I recommend browsing them as a great distraction from real work) and I'm so flattered to be part of his collection.


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> Bad Day Coffee on the beautiful Eastern coast of Taiwan continues his amazing series of handmade Lego versions of classic espresso machines https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/166390560635924/bad-day-coffee/ with a LEGO DECENT ESPRESSO MACHINE.
> 
> His photos of classic machines he's made is amazing (I recommend browsing them as a great distraction from real work) and I'm so flattered to be part of his collection.
> 
> View attachment 33946


One of the things I noticed by changing the shower screen (more than a better distribution) is how much clean everything is before the screen. I do not know if this is due to smaller hole size, having less holes or some other physical effect, but it is true. Also my NS got a better water distribution from it so I was really happy by that purchase.

Abouth the Silicone gaskets, again, I totally love them and never going back to rubber. The most important reason is that it is more sanitary. Then again there all those added perks. Easier to remove for a deeper cleaning, does not "bake", it is food safe, etc... A little bit too late for first release version, but I would encourage you to go that way on future revisions.


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> About the Silicone gaskets, again, I totally love them and never going back to rubber. The most important reason is that it is more sanitary. Then again there all those added perks. Easier to remove for a deeper cleaning, does not "bake", it is food safe, etc... A little bit too late for first release version, but I would encourage you to go that way on future revisions.


On one of my tours, I had a Cafelat silicone gasket in there, and I got a few comments like "what's wrong with your portafilter fit? It feels strangely mushy".

This feel was seen as a strong negative and really colored the person's opinion of our machine. If you're pro-silicone, great, it's a cheap and easy swap. However, I'm not likely to risk losing customers by making silicone the default. Hope you understand.

-john


----------



## Dylan

Stanic said:


> I don't expect everyone to know everything but if it is a bank holiday which is quite international I find it baffling that people who work in business affected by it don't know what's going on..I'm not sure what level of significance does it hold in the anglo-saxon world nowadays and of course you can ignore anything but still..blimey


I think it's almost easier for people in service to not know about bank holidays - it is after all worth remembering when you have a day off but worth forgetting when your day is just busier because everyone else is out enjoying themselves ^_^ - all depends on how much you enjoy your job of course.


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## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> On one of my tours, I had a Cafelat silicone gasket in there, and I got a few comments like "what's wrong with your portafilter fit? It feels strangely mushy".
> 
> This feel was seen as a strong negative and really colored the person's opinion of our machine. If you're pro-silicone, great, it's a cheap and easy swap. However, I'm not likely to risk losing customers by making silicone the default. Hope you understand.
> 
> -john


Oh yeah that makes sense. It was weird for me when I swaped it. I guess it is a matter of getting used to it!


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## embrya

My DE1+ arrived here in South of Germany and I'll show you some pictures:








































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## embrya

It is small and light, but quite deep. Good impression so far, but some not so nice marks on the frame:

















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## embrya

It was easy to start, but at first attempts pressure was too low. I used the Decent 7 g basket and default profile. With E61 profile it was better. Obviously I have to grind finer than for my previous Rancilio S24. Have to adopt to it...more next week.










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## Lozzer87

How easy is it to control the steam on one of these?


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## Lozzer87

embrya said:


> It is small and light, but quite deep. Good impression so far, but some not so nice marks on the frame:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


Have you asked them about the marks on your machine? Surely couldn't be caused in transit if in one of those cases for the machine?


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## embrya

Lozzer87 said:


> How easy is it to control the steam on one of these?


Cannot tell as I am only making espresso!

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## embrya

Lozzer87 said:


> Have you asked them about the marks on your machine? Surely couldn't be caused in transit if in one of those cases for the machine?


Yes I forwarded it to Decent Espresso but got no reply yet.

I agree that this was surely already present and is not a shipping damage - the machine is well protected in its suitcase!

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## embrya

John from DE excused this morning and I will get a new base (fixed with 4 screws to the body).

The scratches may be from German customs inspection as they opened the package since there was an invoice of 209€...

I have no glue why this invoice was issued as I paid of course more which I then had to show the customs officer via UPS.

Best

Stefan

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## Lozzer87

At least it's on the base and easily replaced


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## Paul Pratt

decent_espresso said:


> The one we use is made NBR rubber, like all the Italian professional machines.


No that is incorrect. Firstly the standard gaskets are most probably EPDM, secondly we have been supplying OEM gaskets and standard gaskets to at least 4 companies in Italy. I'm not so crass as to drop names, but one brand is the one it seems you like to mention almost everyday. Right now a few big companies are testing in special markets, the big sticky is the price since silicone is much more expensive to produce that epdm. Dalla Corte have used viton seals since they started.

Word on the street from meeting with machine manufacturers is that the EPDM seals are living on borrowed time as food contact regulations are being tightened in favour of cleaner materials. I am sure you have done all your independent food compliance tests on your seals (and other components that contact the water) and you will be aware that the testing procedure for EPDM seals is very expensive and complicated when compared with silicone. The same applies to brass and copper group and boiler parts which are being phased out in favour of cleaner stainless steel.



decent_espresso said:


> On one of my tours, I had a Cafelat silicone gasket in there, and I got a few comments like "what's wrong with your portafilter fit? It feels strangely mushy".


Yes that is the point, no need to crank the portafilter in. Easier on the wrist and on the seals. Also why use an 8.5mm from the get-go? What happens when the bayonet/group wears down? It is an issue on brass group machines and it looks like you are using aluminium??? so will wear down much faster. Start with an 8.0 and use the 8.5 for older machines. You will be making your own 9.0 and 9.5 gaskets soon.


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## decent_espresso

Paul Pratt said:


> No that is incorrect. Firstly the standard gaskets are most probably EPDM, secondly we have been supplying OEM gaskets and standard gaskets to at least 4 companies in Italy. I'm not so crass as to drop names, but one brand is the one it seems you like to mention almost everyday. Right now a few big companies are testing in special markets, the big sticky is the price since silicone is much more expensive to produce that epdm. Dalla Corte have used viton seals since they started.


Paul, you would know much more about what materials other companies are using, since you supply gaskets to them.

Naively perhaps, I believed NBR to be commonly used, as it is listed as the material from Italian parts suppliers when I searched online.

For instance:

https://www.devecchigiuseppesrl.com/e-commerce/cerca.asp?Cerca_Codice_Articolo=&CercaDescrizione=nbr+gasket

Lists NBR as the gasket material for Astoria, Cimbalia, Faema... (61 hits for "nbr gasket")

However, I'm happy to be wrong and for you to correct me on this.



Paul Pratt said:


> Word on the street from meeting with machine manufacturers is that the EPDM seals are living on borrowed time as food contact regulations are being tightened in favour of cleaner materials. I am sure you have done all your independent food compliance tests on your seals (and other components that contact the water) and you will be aware that the testing procedure for EPDM seals is very expensive and complicated when compared with silicone. The same applies to brass and copper group and boiler parts which are being phased out in favour of cleaner stainless steel.


 I get your point that EPDM is being phased out. Can you comment on any issues with NBR as a gasket material?



Paul Pratt said:


> Yes that is the point, no need to crank the portafilter in. Easier on the wrist and on the seals. Also why use an 8.5mm from the get-go? What happens when the bayonet/group wears down? It is an issue on brass group machines and it looks like you are using aluminium??? so will wear down much faster. Start with an 8.0 and use the 8.5 for older machines. You will be making your own 9.0 and 9.5 gaskets soon.


Good tip, thanks.

As it happens, we weren't certain that we'd "nail" these group head dimensions perfectly with our launch, so we designed the group to have a fiberglass spacer in between the brass parts, so that we could later decide to change things based both on experience and wear. We have spacers in stock at various thicknesses so that this can be adjusted by a repairman. 5 bolts come out, a new spacer is inserted, and the whole thing is re-tightened.

If wearing down turns out to be an an issue (as you suggest) what we were planning on doing is replacing the spacer with a slightly thicker one.









However, I like your suggestion of starting with 8.0mm, so that wear can be easily accommodated with a move to a thicker gasket, and will look into making that change for our v1.1 machines.

At any rate, I really like your gaskets, and readily concede that you know far, far more about this part than I.

Unfortunately, we haven't ended up doing business together but I'll continue to recommend your gaskets publicly for use in our machines.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Paul Pratt said:


> Also why use an 8.5mm from the get-go? What happens when the bayonet/group wears down? It is an issue on brass group machines and it looks like you are using aluminium??? so will wear down much faster. Start with an 8.0 and use the 8.5 for older machines. You will be making your own 9.0 and 9.5 gaskets soon.


My mechanical engineer Ben has corrected me. Our gaskets are in fact 8.0 and not 8.5mm, made with US FDA food-grade NBR, which we then had tested in HK. Drawing attached.


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## EdL

decent_espresso said:


> Our gaskets are in fact 8.0 and not 8.5mm. Drawing attached.
> 
> View attachment 33979


Cafelat E61 gaskets are 57mm ID and 73mm OD, whereas yours are 58/74. Does that 1mm difference affect compatibility?

http://www.cafelat.com/silicone-group-gaskets.html



*Save**Save*

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## decent_espresso

EdL said:


> Cafelat E61 gaskets are 57mm ID and 73mm OD, whereas yours are 58/74. Does that 1mm difference affect compatibility?
> 
> http://www.cafelat.com/silicone-group-gaskets.html


I never saw any leakage problems when using the cafelat 8.0mm silicone gasket on the v2 machine, which I took on a pretty extensive USA tour, probably making a thousand shots. It might be that the 1mm difference makes the Cafelat gasket slightly tighter to push in, but I can confirm that it does work well.

Our group head went through a lot of iterations (years ago) as we tried to build tolerance in for a millimeter here or there, so that lots of different portafilters would work with our machine. We've got a collection of weird portafilters in a box here, that were our test-pile, to make sure the design was as compatible as we could make it.

-john


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## decent_espresso

I was asked this question via tech support today, and I thought I'd share my answer.

This is a very advanced barista technique, so I don't expect most people to need it, but it emerged with my working 1:1 with Matt Perger, and it was the cleanest solution to a set of real coffee making problems, with a very particular technique in espresso making.

-john

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In sentence form, "rise" means "if time runs out on this preinfusion step, and we haven't hit the pressure indicated above, please add a short step after preinfusion, with the flow on max, in order to get pressure to this number. End this short step as soon as this pressure is reached".

Imagine a barista saying "I want preinfusion to compress the puck to at least 4 bar, but I also don't want preinfusion taking more than 20 seconds to do so". RISE guarantees 4 bar as the preinfusion steps end and the shot progresses.

I know, there's a lot of concepts packed into RISE.

ps: I find RISE to be hugely useful for preinfusion rates under 2 ml/s. It's pretty much impossible for me to pull those shots otherwise. With those slow preinfusion flow rates, virtually no pressure is created, and so I'm using time to end preinfusion, with a "slam flow to max" short step to compress the puck. I'm trying to automate what I've seen some baristas do with paddles.


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## decent_espresso

We've been shipping DE1PRO machines to customers, but without the plumbing kit, as we haven't quite nailed it yet. At the MICE conference, I was able to heavily stress our beta plumbing kit, and found issues with minor leaking, due to the tubing not being thick enough to prevent kinks.

I didn't want to delay the PRO users from getting their machines, so we've been sending them not-plumbed-in drip trays, and will follow up with a package of the parts they need to plumb in, once I'm confident of our design.

People want to supply their espresso machines two different ways: with pressurized water, and from a water tank. For this reason, we "externalized" the plumbing kit, providing two different versions. PRO users will receive both kits, to use the one appropriate for their situation.

Professional machines generally only plumb with pressurized water, and require a "flow jet" to be purchased if you're using a tank, to recreate the pressurized water situation.

At MICE, we witnessed one vendor completely burn their machine out in 24h when their flow jet failed, and they didn't notice (thereby burning their pump out).

No flow jet is required with our setup.

With the "Catering kit" (for water tanks) the DE1PRO sends power to the external pump to automatically top up our 2-liter water tank.

Two other reasons to keep this kit external:

- if your water is dirty, you'll jam the external pump, which is easily replaced. This happened to me 2 years ago, when I stayed at an AirBnb that had kittens, and cat hair got into my water source.

- if you burn out the external pump, it's easily replaced.

So.... photos below of the latest iteration of the plumbing kit. This version hopefully fixes the leaking and tube kinking issues, and also locks onto the back of the machine, so it can't fall off the table accidentally.

We'll be testing this new model extensively for 3 days while we pull hundreds of espressos at the HK trade show we're exhibiting at this week.

Trade shows are good that way, in that they force us to use our own stuff, in a high-pressure situation. We always break something, learn and improve.


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## decent_espresso

A little over 3 weeks ago, I reported that we'd jumped from making 5 espresso machines at once to 20 at once. It took us 8 days to do so, which was a big speedup. We also had just brought in 5 new employees to help build, where previously we had 2 people fulltime on building (and several engineers helping part-time).

Unfortunately, I soon learned that I had pushed too hard, to soon, to speed things up. We quickly discovered that 12 of the 20 machines (60%) had some sort of problem and had to be repaired.

That took us another 11 days so that it took us 21 days to build 20 machines, with the last machine being finally repaired today (that last one took two electrical engineers, 3 days to figure out).

If you're interested in the gory details, below I detail all the little things we've learned in building the past 20 machines.

One procedure change we're making is to have each person do fewer things so that we have less variation. One person=one assembly task, for now.

When I was given a tour of Nuova Simonelli's factory, I was told that the newest employees are placed at the start of the assembly line. The most experienced go at the end. Now I understand why.

Part of the problem was adding so many new people. Some of them did things in a new way, that caused a new problem.

Here are the gory details, for those who want to know:

(1) one person tightened the screws on a particular PC board much tighter than needed, causing microfractures in the PC board, which were exposed by our 1700 volt safety test. We now use soft plastic washers on the PC boards, never tighten by hand, and always use a verified torque setting on an electric screwdriver.

(2) on some machines, during assembly the power supply rubbed against the legs, scratching them. We now cut a piece of thick yellow electrical tape and place it on the leg to prevent scratching.

(3) the silicone o-rings that seal the water connections are quite vulnerable to tearing. If you use tweezers to insert them, unless you're really skilled, you can easily nick the o-ring, which shows up as a water leak under pressure. 40% of our "mixing chambers" had some sort of leak due to this.

(4) the metal clips that hold the water tubes in place are really convenient. However: we found a slight problem. Most other espresso machines use plastic connectors with these clips. I was worried about heat and longevity, so I had ours made of metal. Unfortunately, the reduced friction of "metal clip on metal connector" means that the clips now slide too easily, and can fall out, causing a water leak. We're designing our own new clips to fit tighter and bending them slightly to hold them in.

(5) if any wire is not tucked in and pulled tight, you run the risk of scrapping the insulation off the wire when you put the case on.

(6) the water level sensor has a cable with a double-locking connector. However, if you don't push it in far enough, only one side locks, and with each lift of the water lever, the cable comes slightly more out. This causes the machine to occasionally read "out of water" when it isn't. We now have a 2nd person check that this cable is pushed in and double locked.

(7) we decided to wire all machines to both pass UL and EU safety standards. That requires both thermal fuses and a thermostat. Unfortunately, that also means that electricity has 3 safety connections it has to pass through to drive the pump. That's 3 more opportunities for a loose connection. We're going to "cold crimp" the thermostats to the power cable using a special machine we've bought, instead of using an insulated spade connector. This will remove one extra "hop" of complexity.

Not quality related, but we're now spacing out each machine more on the tables, and putting each into a yellow nylon box. This allows us to rotate them easier, easing back strain. We're also putting an articulated light permanently above each machine so my staff can see in better.

*What's next?*

Instead of switching back to 220V machines, we're going to make another run of 110V machines after these are done (probably starting tomorrow). The idea is to "change less stuff". We're going to make 40 machines at a time so that each person becomes more expert at their job. We're expanding from 2 to 5 tables so that visibility is better.

With each iteration, we discover new ways to do things incorrectly. Hopefully, with time, we'll get less good at that.


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## xpresso

If I may touch on 1., verified torque setting on an electric screw driver, I trust it's not just a basic driver with end user able to adjust ?.

Many industries use a preset either manual or pneumatic operation, it requires being preset by someone other than the operator and I've seen them colour coded to apply to specific applications.

Jon.


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## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> If I may touch on 1., verified torque setting on an electric screw driver, I trust it's not just a basic driver with end user able to adjust ?.
> 
> Many industries use a preset either manual or pneumatic operation, it requires being preset by someone other than the operator and I've seen them colour coded to apply to specific applications.


We're using an industrial grade screwdriver, plug-in, with a torque adjustment that isn't easily user-set. Color coding is a GOOD IDEA, thanks for that.

-john


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## decent_espresso

For those of you who have bought a bluetooth "Skale" from us, your DE1+s can automatically stop your espresso making when a goal weight is reached.

However, you have probably noticed that the final weight of the shot is a few grams off from the weight you asked for.

The reason for this is that after the STOP button is "pressed for you", there is still residual pressure and water in the group, that continues to pour into the cup.

Exactly how much more goes into your cup after the STOP button depends on a number of factors:

- the pressure that was in place when the shot was stopped

- the flow rate at the time of stopping

- your dose weight and grind size

- some delay between water entering the group and eventually causing a weight increase on the scale

- basket size (and thus, hole size)

- uncertainty on the scale, due to espresso droplets causing "sensor noise" (or "jitter")

I had factory set the DE1+ to stop at 75% of the goal weight you set. I now think that's a few percentage points too soon, and have changed the default to 80%.

However, it's unlikely that this 80% number will be "just perfect" for you, so I now allow you to calibrate the "Stop at weight" feature to your liking.

To do so, go to Settings->Machine->Calibrate, and tap on the scroll bar. It allows a setting between 60% and 100%.

￼

The beta testers suggested an auto calibration approach, and that's a possibility for the future. However, as you change programs, doses, baskets, this auto-calibration will be off. It's not an easy problem to "solve", though I think I've seen a new pro machine which claims to have an "auto calibration" feature now.

This video from James Hoffmann, about calibrating this exact same thing on the Black Eagle, illustrates some of the issues. It's reassuring that this venerable machine has the same issue (though Simonelli decided to calibrate in grams, not percentage).

[video=youtube;xF4-lD_D3ks]






The new tablet software, that I will post shortly, has this feature.

-john


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## decent_espresso

So far, of the 45 machines we've sent out, we've been able to guide people with a problem back to a machine in good working condition without needing to send them a replacement machine.

Except in three cases.

Today, all three of these customers are getting free replacement machines from us. We'll pay to get those machines back to us and study them to figure out why they are anomalies.

The 3 different causes of failure are interesting stories, though.

- Michael's machine makes espresso about 5ºC hotter than the goal setting. We can't figure out why, but it's probably a defective temperature sensor (or bad connection) causing the control system to get confused. We thought that Michael must be "doing something weird" but have crossed out all the possibilities and now think "something is weird with his machine".

- Jack was using the "calibrate" page when he accidentally didn't enter a decimal point, thus entering a huge number in by accident (ie, 300 ml/second flow rate, instead of 3.00). This caused the firmware to crash whenever the DE1+ was booted. Whoops: we hadn't thought to create an emergency mechanism for clearing the calibration settings. The DIP switch settings should have put Jack into "safe mode" so he could upgrade his firmware, but didn't do their job right.

- Christian's machine had a retaining clip fall out during transport, so that steam was leaking. We resolved that with a video chat, but when he put the case back on, a pump wire wasn't tucked in enough, and the case scraped the insulation off as he closed it. This caused a short and blew a safety triac on one of our PC boards.

Each new type of failure teaches us something.

There is a positive side to our slowly ramping up our manufacturing speed: most of the big problems will have been solved by the time we can manage to ship machines at a reasonable pace.


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## decent_espresso

James Hoffmann posted today that he's making a series of videos about our DE1+ Decent espresso machine, and this is his first.


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## DoubleShot

Came here to post James Hoffman's new video about your machine but you've already beaten me to the punch!


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## SurbitonBoy

It's great the most likely supplier of my espresso is looking at the machine, would make getting some training from Square Mile more interesting if it's on the actual machine I will have in a couple of months time.


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## mm1854

Exciting with machines now being delivered, and the many HW and feature enhancements of the DE1+ as it's design matured for production.

Also catching up with the realization that the DE1 will be discontinued because developments have meant Decent would no longer be making money at the $999 price point. As someone who paid upfront for the DE1 I am both pleased with getting even more for my money due to all the improvements made to the design, but also somewhat less-than-pleased with the implications of a reduced user base and reduced attention incl. from Decent.

Could you please summarize what the DE1 will do?

My understanding is;

The DE1 allows some customization of the shot through customizing the target pressure profile, but not e.g. at the level of detail of the DE1+ nor choosing target flow profiles, target temperature profiles nor gravimetric shot completion. It will come with some predefined profiles for different types of espresso that will still produce great espresso and satisfy most. The idea was also to have the community share profile/settings recepies for the DE1, although that will likely be limited now in light of discontinuing the DE1.

The DE1 will not provide any real-time info. It is my understanding that a good indication of puck prep issues, e.g. too fine grounds and too compressed, is if the peak pressure is too high even in the context of pressure control which will have finite authority. Does that mean that we would have to rely solely on the final taste to diagnose possible bad puck preparation? Or will the DE1 provide some feed-back at the end of the shot, like peak pressure?

To be clear, I am confident us soon-to-be DE1 owners will be getting an outstanding machine/technology regardless, and even more so relative to the price. I just would like clarification on what it will and will not do, as that was becoming a bit lost on me as the attention shifted to the DE1+ for natural reasons. I realize that one has the option to upgrade to the DE1+, but other constraints naturally come into play.

Thanks!


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## embrya

DE provides an easy to find overview about the different versions

https://decentespresso.com/compare

As the DE1 is being discontinued I would seriously think about an upgrade

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## Nishimiya

mm1854 said:


> Could you please summarize what the DE1 will do?


If you'd like, and haven't tried yet, you can play with the software - https://decentespresso.com/downloads .


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## WTell

I upgraded to the DE1+ because, except for bug fixes, there will be no downloadable improvements or upgrades made available for the DE1. Also, I did not feel inclined to wait until the end of this year or later to get my machine. There were also financial considerations but the extra will be well spent, in my opinion anyway. Plus I felt sorry for John


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## Nishimiya

WTell said:


> I felt sorry for John


A bit of that here as well. And wanting DE to succeed, too, because John's transparency and attention to his customers is quite a welcome change, and bodes well for the future. I do hope he'll be able to bring the 1k-ish machine back at some point (maybe it'll be easier without the tablet or something, once the physical control situation is properly sorted)... I'd assume ZPM is a dirty word in these parts, and I don't mean to imply anything with this, but the concept of a disruptive, cheap machine for people just getting into espresso sounds like a great one (especially if it's upgradeable)...


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## dsc

decent_espresso said:


> Jack was using the "calibrate" page when he accidentally didn't enter a decimal point, thus entering a huge number in by accident (ie, 300 ml/second flow rate, instead of 3.00). This caused the firmware to crash whenever the DE1+ was booted. Whoops: we hadn't thought to create an emergency mechanism for clearing the calibration settings. The DIP switch settings should have put Jack into "safe mode" so he could upgrade his firmware, but didn't do their job right.
> 
> .


Why was 300 as the flow rate crashing the firmware?

T.


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## dlight

dsc said:


> Why was 300 as the flow rate crashing the firmware?
> 
> T.


Because that's about 100 times bigger than the actual flow rate. Not possible. The firmware wasn't programmed to deal with this. So it crashed.


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## dsc

Even with it being a 100 times bigger than expected, what goes so fundamentally wrong that it leads to a crash? I'm curious from a programming point of view, also curious whether it was a further-on equation leading to a crash or something else in the program flow that couldn't handle an outside-of-the-norm value. Normally you'd expect the pump for example to be ramped up to 100% and still not meeting the abnormal requirement, with the firmware carrying on regardless (and rewardless







)

T.


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## mm1854

Thanks for the link embrya. Yes, that does give detail as to the differences. Very helpful.

Thanks for the download link Nishimiya, will also give that a go.


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## decent_espresso

Some reviews of the DE1+ came out these past few days:

Home Barista:

https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/review-of-decent-espresso-de1-pro-t52582.html

CoffeeSnobs:

https://coffeesnobs.com.au/brewing-equipment-pointy-end-1500-3000/45425-decent-espresso-machines-de1-any-thoughts-26.html#post630590

Brian's coffee spot:

http://www.brian-coffee-spot.com/2018/05/19/decent-espresso/#more-15863

Baristas Quest:

http://www.baristasquest.com/lab-fascination/the-de1-pro-by-decent-first-look/

James Hoffmann:


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## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> Even with it being a 100 times bigger than expected, what goes so fundamentally wrong that it leads to a crash? I'm curious from a programming point of view, also curious whether it was a further-on equation leading to a crash or something else in the program flow that couldn't handle an outside-of-the-norm value. Normally you'd expect the pump for example to be ramped up to 100% and still not meeting the abnormal requirement, with the firmware carrying on regardless (and rewardless
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> )T.


We're using an ARM embedded CPU, and a real time operating system, to control the DE1+.

The sort of OSes and CPUs that run embedded devices tend to have little protection against "programming errors", in exchange for real time control over physical processes.

For example, a "divide by zero" will crash the CPU.

A off-by-100 calibration setting (300 ml/s for each tick, vs 3 ml/s) caused a number to round-to-zero, thus causing a divide by zero error.

Furthermore: for safety's sake, any unintended behavior by the software causes an immediate power cut internally. We err on the side of caution.

The firmware has since been updated to catch this, but it took one user doing it, for us to find this weakness.

-john


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## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> The firmware has since been updated to catch this, but it took one user doing it, for us to find this weakness.
> 
> -john


In my teenage years as a motor mechanic and the garage I worked at having a 'Rootes Group' agency, they produced a car the 'Hillman Imp', I attended a weeks course at Coventry to be familiarised with repairs and maintenance on this new model.

During the course we were shown a promotional film of all the pre availability tests and substantial mileage they put on the vehicle, driving under all conditions, below zero temps, to deserts, mountain roads and salt flats. They finished the showing with a statement that no one can test a car like the public.

Despite all this testing, within a very short space of time the fuel pump was modified five times before reverting to a tried an industry tested SU style, the operation of the accelerator was changed from pneumatic to cable and grease nipples re introduced to the king pins.

So yes, bench test - bench test till the cows come home but the public are the ones who really put machines through their paces.

Jon.


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## DavecUK

xpresso said:


> In my teenage years as a motor mechanic and the garage I worked at having a 'Rootes Group' agency, they produced a car the 'Hillman Imp', I attended a weeks course at Coventry to be familiarised with repairs and maintenance on this new model.
> 
> During the course we were shown a promotional film of all the pre availability tests and substantial mileage they put on the vehicle, driving under all conditions, below zero temps, to deserts, mountain roads and salt flats. They finished the showing with a statement that no one can test a car like the public.
> 
> Despite all this testing, within a very short space of time the fuel pump was modified five times before reverting to a tried an industry tested SU style, the operation of the accelerator was changed from pneumatic to cable and grease nipples re introduced to the king pins.
> 
> So yes, bench test - bench test till the cows come home but the public are the ones who really put machines through their paces.
> 
> Jon.


too true, I remember front wheels falling off when the kingpins failed. The all aluminium engine with steel wet liners was modern, but again prone to failure (cylinder heads - overheating)...the bloody gear linkage (damm thing). I had an Imp and an Imp super, my dad was a mechanic, so yes, I know the cars well. I liked it well enough, but they did have issues.


----------



## Dylan

xpresso said:


> greased nipples


( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


----------



## xpresso

DavecUK said:


> too true, I remember front wheels falling off when the kingpins failed. The all aluminium engine with steel wet liners was modern, but again prone to failure (cylinder heads - overheating)...the bloody gear linkage (damm thing). I had an Imp and an Imp super, my dad was a mechanic, so yes, I know the cars well. I liked it well enough, but they did have issues.


Engine derived from the Coventry Climax portable pump as I re-call, no gaskets between the gearbox and hypoid cases you only used HYLOMAR not a well know normal use sealant when pitted against your Hermatite red & brown products.

They really held their own cornering at high speed, but the extensive BMC mini range was always going to be a hard market to compete against.

I only recently sold some of the very limited special tools required for working on the IMP.

Jon.


----------



## RoA19

xpresso said:


> Engine derived from the Coventry Climax portable pump as I re-call, no gaskets between the gearbox and hypoid cases you only used HYLOMAR not a well know normal use sealant when pitted against your Hermatite red & brown products.
> 
> They really held their own cornering at high speed, but the extensive BMC mini range was always going to be a hard market to compete against.
> 
> I only recently sold some of the very limited special tools required for working on the IMP.
> 
> Jon.


Knew a few girls who liked a Coventry Climax


----------



## xpresso

RoA19 said:


> Knew a few girls who liked a Coventry Climax


'Dick' Emery would say 'O'h you are awful, but I like you'.....

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

My DE1+ wakes up at 6:30am, so that when I stumble in the kitchen at 7:00, the machine and portafilter are nice and hot. Despite the machine being able to pull shots in 4 minutes, I find that if you want absolutely-bang-on temperature from the very first second, it pays to preheat the machine (and especially the portafilter) for a bit longer. In 4 minutes, the first shot on the DE1+ will likely be a few ºC under, for the first few seconds, as the machine compensates for the cooler portafilter, with warmer water.

*15g->32g*

I pull a "best for milky drinks" flow profile shot, with 15 grams of coffee grounds, aiming for 32 grams out. My Bluetooth scale stops the shot so I can focus my limited wakefulness on pouring 350ml of milk into the milk jug, as I will be steaming two lattes at once.

*6 BARS*

I aim for 6 bar of pressure because I find that at this lower pressure, channeling completely disappears, and I get a much smoother tasting drink. Also, pressure remains just about constant throughout the shot, probably because the 6 bars are kinder on my imperfect barista skills. At 6 bars, I don't see the typical declining pressure that constant-flow shots usually produce (due to erosion and general puck degradation).

*MY GRINDER*

I use a Decent Pro Grinder, with 2 year old burrs in it. I know that conventional wisdom is that you should have fresh, sharp burrs in your grinder, but these old burrs give me very few clumps and better taste, than the newer burrs at the office.









*PREINFUSION*

This DE1+ profile automatically pre-infuses at 4ml/second, until the puck is fully saturated (at 4 bar). 4 ml/s is about the same as a commercial machine's "gicleur" flow rate. Espresso is only pouring into my cup for 15 seconds, while preinfusion took 13 seconds. That's much more preinfusion time, and less pouring time, than convention wisdom would tell you. Also, I tend to prefer the taste of my espressos right around 27 seconds of total shot time.

Looking at the brown line, which tracks espresso-into-the-cup, I can see that "water in" (blue line) equals "water out", almost immediately after the first drops. That tells me that preinfusion was very even, as any dry spots in the puck would have delayed the brown and blue lines meeting so rapidly. It's also interesting to note how much longer a fully successful preinfusion takes, than "common knowledge" usually states.









*TEMPERATURE*

Infusion temperature at the puck is quite stable, within 1ºC for the entire shot. My 2nd shot usually starts 2ºC lower for the first five seconds. I believe this is because I rinse my portafilter out with a bit of cold water. I should change my routine to use hot water to rinse the portafilter.

*STEAMING*

I use our 600ml decent milk jug, with a digital thermometer in it, aiming for 60ºC/140ºF. However, I know from experience that this takes 81 seconds, and I have the steam timer set to turn off then. When steaming starts, for about 5 seconds I quickly make a head of foam and then sit the milk jug on the drip tray. For 75 seconds, the steaming continues on its own. The milk foam quality is really perfect using this technique, probably because the foam bubbles had so much time to be "fined" by this approach.

While the milk is foaming, I knock out the puck, clean the portafilter, and turn off the Bluetooth scale.

Most mornings, I'm lazy and I pour both lattes from the same 600ml milk jug. However, this causes the first latte to be thicker than the 2nd. If I pour half the foamed milk into a 350ml jug, both lattes look good. I'm lazy, though, so I'm practicing various ideas to see if I can get away with making two lattes from one milk jug.

Then I take two lattes back to bed, while my girlfriend and I read the news, and slowly awake.


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> I know that conventional wisdom is that you should have fresh, sharp burrs in your grinder, but these old burrs give me very few clumps and better taste, than the newer burrs at the office.


I think conventional wisdom is a balance between a good cutting surface a burrs that are 'seasoned' - although I imagine you likely put more KG through in 2 years than your average Joe.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> Then I take two lattes back to bed, while my girlfriend and I read the news, and slowly awake.


 Latte in bed


----------



## NickR

My lever machine is from the other end of the spectrum to the DE1. I purchased it specifically for its simplicity. However, I'm becoming utterly fascinated by these graphs. Thank you for posting.


----------



## DavecUK

NickR said:


> My lever machine is from the other end of the spectrum to the DE1. I purchased it specifically for its simplicity. However, I'm becoming utterly fascinated by these graphs. Thank you for posting.


At some point Nick, there will be enough DE1+s around for some properly done blind taste testing against other types of machines with exactly the same coffee using the same grinder calibrated for each machine (e.g. a Niche, because it can easily be adjusted back and forth). That would be an interesting time. In fact I now have 4 different dual boiler machines, so it's something that could definitely be done and others have HX machines they can bring. Who knows, perhaps the lowly HX would win the day?


----------



## ashcroc

DavecUK said:


> At some point Nick, there will be enough DE1+s around for some properly done blind taste testing against other types of machines with exactly the same coffee using the same grinder calibrated for each machine (e.g. a Niche, because it can easily be adjusted back and forth). That would be an interesting time. In fact I now have 4 different dual boiler machines, so it's something that could definitely be done and others have HX machines they can bring. Who knows, perhaps the lowly HX would win the day?


Might as well throw a vintage la pav into the mix for gits & shiggles. 

Will definately be interesting to aee all the comparisons.


----------



## DavecUK

ashcroc said:


> Might as well throw a vintage la pav into the mix for gits & shiggles.
> 
> Will definately be interesting to aee all the comparisons.


For sure......because different people are going to prefer different things as well, which might mean there no such thing as a best machine....just a best machine for "you".


----------



## NickR

For me, a good extraction makes a far greater difference to the taste in the cup than the brew temperature (within sensible limits), which is why I've never been interested in dual boiler machines. However, this is just a theory, I'd love to be able to test it.


----------



## DavecUK

NickR said:


> For me, a good extraction makes a far greater difference to the taste in the cup than the brew temperature (within sensible limits), which is why I've never been interested in dual boiler machines. However, this is just a theory, I'd love to be able to test it.


I've tested so many machines now Nick that brew temperature is one of the more difficult things, most people unless they know exactly how to flush their HX machines will struggle to get it even close, then it does make a big difference. Just my experience from a lot of testing tasting and temperature testing in recent years. I'm not saying you can't get good brew temps without a dual boiler, but a *well set up dual*, just makes things easier.


----------



## Stanic

With the Portaspresso I've also discovered how important the temperature is in connection to roast level...2 degrees Celsius difference can make the (light-roast natural process beans) espresso undrinkable or excellent, other parameters being equal


----------



## John Doe

Is anyone aware of reviews of the decentespresso grinder posted anywhere? I'm getting my DE1+ on Thursday and I don't have an espresso grinder =P (oops...).


----------



## decent_espresso

In my previous posting about my "morning espresso" I indicated that my first espresso of the day had a more even infusion temperature than the 2nd one. The reason is that I currently rinse my portafilter out with cold water, and so my 2nd shot has a cooler portafilter than the first (which has been locked into the DE1+ for 30 minutes)

Attached above are photos of this 2nd espresso.

You can see that the shot starts about 1.5ºC under temperature. The DE1+ then tries to quickly compensate by putting in slightly-hotter-than-goal water. This causes the infusion temperature to 0.75ºC slightly over at 15 seconds into the shot, before it settles in at 0.3ºC over temperature for the last 7 seconds of the shot.

Obviously, still very good temperature results, just not as perfect as a fully warmed up portafilter.

A goal I have with this tablet software I've written, is to help you improve your barista skills, by seeing the effects of your actions.

For comparison purposes, here's the temperature line on my 1st espresso of the day.


----------



## xpresso

DavecUK said:


> At some point Nick, there will be enough DE1+s around for some properly done blind taste testing against other types of machines with exactly the same coffee using the same grinder calibrated for each machine (e.g. a Niche, because it can easily be adjusted back and forth). That would be an interesting time. In fact I now have 4 different dual boiler machines, so it's something that could definitely be done and others have HX machines they can bring. Who knows, perhaps the lowly HX would win the day?


Not forgetting a Puqpress.

Jon.


----------



## embrya

I had a HX machine before and I can get much more out of the coffee with my DE1+.

Just had a delicious lever shot with a range of aromas I couldn't get with my Rancilio S24....

















Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


----------



## Lav

xpresso said:


> Not forgetting a Puqpress.
> 
> Jon.


Count me in - I got both


----------



## RobW

Will the Decent machines work with any Bluetooth scale?


----------



## embrya

RobW said:


> Will the Decent machines work with any Bluetooth scale?


Yes, I use it with the Skale2 DE sells. See my screenshots above (brown line is weight). Their DE scale would be perfect but it is not available and not sure if it will ever be.

Acaia is not supported since they want special agreements from DE which runs against their open source approach (I fully understand)

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


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## RobW

embrya said:


> Yes, I use it with the Skale2 DE sells. See my screenshots above (brown line is weight). Their DE scale would be perfect but it is not available and not sure if it will ever be.
> 
> Acaia is not supported since they want special agreements from DE which runs against their open source approach (I fully understand)


That would be a shame, the Acaia Lunar would be the obvious match.


----------



## decent_espresso

RobW said:


> That would be a shame, the Acaia Lunar would be the obvious match.


It would be, and I own a Lunar, but Acaia have removed their API (it used to be available, but then they made it incompatible and never published a new one) and they do not allow 3rd party apps. That's why we don't work with Acaia.


----------



## decent_espresso

embrya said:


>


What's interesting to me about this shot is the huge pressure decrease he's using, mimicking a lever shot (from 9 bar to 4 bar in 20 seconds). By looking at the brown line (espresso flow into cup) you can see that Embrya's profile is effective at maintaining a steady flow rate into his cup.

I've seen leverheads create this steady espresso flow with exceptional Bicep Control







on their lever machines, and it makes for very smooth, thick espresso.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

7 of our espresso machines so far have arrived at their customer's house with a bent leg. Nothing else is broken: not the suitcase, not even the tablet or the ceramic parts. The legs are made of 2.5mm thick aluminum metal, and we cannot bend by hand. And it only happens occasionally.

What's going on?

Today, we think we finally figured it out.

Here's the scenario we're imagining...

First: UPS takes our espresso machine and tilts the box 90º in his truck, and then loads several boxes on top of it/

Next: the steady weight and consistent truck bouncing induce metal fatigue that can bend even a thick piece of metal.

Ok, yeah, I know: we should have put THIS SIDE UP on our cardboard boxes. I didn't bother to because I didn't think the delivery people would follow the directive. I figured we needed to determine how to have our protective packaging survive most scenarios.

5 of us engineers brainstormed for a long while on this, and tomorrow we're going to try out our idea.

By luck, the front feet have 3.5mm screw holes in them, for the rubber feet. We're going to cut a bar out of angled aluminum and bolt it onto the legs before shipping. Not only will this prevent the legs from moving, but the bar will be slightly wider than the DE1+ so that it bears the load.

Attached are two photos of a cardboard mockup of the idea.

ps: for the 7 customers who have suffered this problem, we've sent them a free leg replacement sent in the mail. It only takes removing 4 Phillips screws to swap the leg base out.

-john


----------



## ZappyAd

I've often wondered about this but could you use a sensor fitted to the packaging internally to help track down this problem? I think some kind of accelerometer linked to a recording device would be able to track the position/orientation of the box through transit. Probably something like a raspberry pi or arduino board would do the job for low cost (could also do things like temperature, stationary time, impacts etc).

I am not sure if there are rules about doing this but it has always struck me that given the horror stories about parcels that you hear about (and see on YouTube) , it would be useful to get some concrete data. Sure there would be a cost associated with doing this on every parcel but that could be weighed against the cost of replacement parts and reputational damage when things go wrong. If it would help track the problem down more quickly it might actually save money. It might also show which couriers actually look after your parcels and which don't.


----------



## SurbitonBoy

When I got a shipment from New Zealand of my Williams Warn Beer Brewer it had a whole set of tilt and shock sensors from http://www.drypak.com/shippingHandlingIndicators.html

The shipper had notes about if the package had been tilted more than 30 degrees that it would need to be returned as it would be damaged.


----------



## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 34514
> 
> 
> 7 of our espresso machines so far have arrived at their customer's house with a bent leg. Nothing else is broken: not the suitcase, not even the tablet or the ceramic parts. The legs are made of 2.5mm thick aluminum metal, and we cannot bend by hand. And it only happens occasionally.
> 
> What's going on?
> 
> Today, we think we finally figured it out.
> 
> Here's the scenario we're imagining...
> 
> First: UPS takes our espresso machine and tilts the box 90º in his truck, and then loads several boxes on top of it/
> 
> Next: the steady weight and consistent truck bouncing induce metal fatigue that can bend even a thick piece of metal.
> 
> Ok, yeah, I know: we should have put THIS SIDE UP on our cardboard boxes. I didn't bother to because I didn't think the delivery people would follow the directive. I figured we needed to determine how to have our protective packaging survive most scenarios.
> 
> 5 of us engineers brainstormed for a long while on this, and tomorrow we're going to try out our idea.
> 
> By luck, the front feet have 3.5mm screw holes in them, for the rubber feet. We're going to cut a bar out of angled aluminum and bolt it onto the legs before shipping. Not only will this prevent the legs from moving, but the bar will be slightly wider than the DE1+ so that it bears the load.
> 
> Attached are two photos of a cardboard mockup of the idea.
> 
> ps: for the 7 customers who have suffered this problem, we've sent them a free leg replacement sent in the mail. It only takes removing 4 Phillips screws to swap the leg base out.
> 
> -john


Would it be either simpler to deliver without legs attached ?.

OR

A block of polystyrene slightly thicker than the legs, but the same dimension of the machine base and cut neat holes to accommodate the legs.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

We today received the group head parts for v1.1 of our Decent Espresso Machine. These parts receive water into the top of the group head, and then evenly distribute the water onto the coffee.

With this new revision, our goals are:

1) to reduce the overall brass mass, so that the espresso machine heats up faster from cold-power on, and also so that temperature profiling during an espresso shot can be easier and faster accomplished (less thermal inertia to battle).

2) slightly better placement of temperature probes for faster and more accurate measurement (especially in quickly measuring the effect of the cartridge heater, that goes in the middle)

3) much easier wiring of the triple safeties (thermostat and two thermal fuses) around

4) use of a different brass material that is less likely to tarnish

5) drier pucks (less headspace above the basket)

6) black anodized aluminum parts, to lengthen life and impede tarnishing

7) a better thermal isolation design, so that the heated group head transfers less heat to the espresso machine. Lowers electrical use and improves espresso temperature stability between shots.

In a few weeks, we'll be opening up orders for 500 more Decent Espresso Machines, and they will be built with this design.









Useful to compare to current v1.0 brass parts (photo above). You can see the smaller size, but also the simplification in wiring this should bring.


----------



## decent_espresso

SurbitonBoy said:


> When I got a shipment from New Zealand of my Williams Warn Beer Brewer it had a whole set of tilt and shock sensors from http://www.drypak.com/shippingHandlingIndicators.html
> 
> The shipper had notes about if the package had been tilted more than 30 degrees that it would need to be returned as it would be damaged.


Wow, this stuff is the dog's bollocks. Love it. Following up now. Thank you!











xpresso said:


> Would it be either simpler to deliver without legs attached ?.
> 
> OR
> 
> A block of polystyrene slightly thicker than the legs, but the same dimension of the machine base and cut neat holes to accommodate the legs.
> 
> Jon.


The legs still need to get to the customer. Whether they're attached or not to the machine, they'd still get damaged if we don't figure out how to protect them.

FYI today we sent a machine out with a hand-made brace, that fits on the vulnerable feet, and protrudes a few millimeters wider than the machine. This brace should take the shock now instead of the espresso machine legs. I'm (obviously) in contact with the recipient-to-be, so that we can find out how it goes.


----------



## xpresso

Even marking parcels and packages either 'Fragile' or 'This way up' is a challenge for the couriers, the people handling the goods to actually do their worst.

Having an enclosed device recording the handling characteristics is fine but does not unfortunately solve the problem just apportions blame, if a financial penalty can be applied it would require being defined to which leg of the journey and proved to be at that point.

Not sure if using a named carrier does ensure they actually handle it from A to B, often items go to hubs that can involve input from other handlers as I've experienced in the past.

The very reason many people ask for collection only, not that it is possible in this instant.

Jon.


----------



## Andreugv

xpresso said:


> Even marking parcels and packages either 'Fragile' or 'This way up' is a challenge for the couriers, the people handling the goods to actually do their worst.
> 
> Having an enclosed device recording the handling characteristics is fine but does not unfortunately solve the problem just apportions blame, if a financial penalty can be applied it would require being defined to which leg of the journey and proved to be at that point.
> 
> Not sure if using a named carrier does ensure they actually handle it from A to B, often items go to hubs that can involve input from other handlers as I've experienced in the past.
> 
> The very reason many people ask for collection only, not that it is possible in this instant.
> 
> Jon.


The thing is, you are paying for a service to company A. Doesn't matter who they subcontract the service to, the service needs to be according to a defined terms and if it doesn't, they have insurances for that. I have been shipping over 200 packages daily for the last 10 years to all over the world and when you send highly sensible parts/equipment, you do want to use controls that tell the person on the other end that what they received has been treated the way it should, and if it doesn't, the customer does not accept the package.

John needs to decide which cost he wants to increase, the cost of making sure that whatever they do the machine will arrive in perfect conditions (believe me, they will always find a way of destroying something you thought could whistand a nuclear blast), or just spend on the use of those controls that will tell the customer, your package has been mistreated and changes are what is inside is not going to work. To go the second route though, you need to really know what will and what will not be "quasi fatal" for the machine.


----------



## malling

Why Elektra put their bigger machine on a pallet and nail the box to it and I believe Vesuvius and few other fragile pressures profile machine is also shipped this way in a addition of the wooden box.

This is basically the only time where it didn't look like the curriers where's using it as a football.

You don't just toss a woodbox around, the downside pretty impossible to get to anything over second floor and it makes shipping substantial more expensive.


----------



## xpresso

I've received some disasters through the post, the goods making for a good jigsaw puzzle, some deservedly owing to packaging, others just pure abuse, I agree you enter into a contract at the point of sale but you may end up with one person dealing with a seperate mound of paperwork dealing with claims and counterclaims.

One package of a full (Pre-owned) crockery service did arrive without any damage, I was very impressed with his method of packaging and not sure if it could be adopted in this instance (Maybe ECO reasons).

What he had done was to wrap the whole lot together enclosed in a very thin gauge large plastic bag, used a second large plastic bag to sit in the box, sat the goods inside on a small bit of styrene to ensure it was clear of the base and then filled with expanding foam.

At the time I thought it was a good idea as it ensured the goods were totally encased with all the voids filled and the foam taking any punishment and restricting movement in the box.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

Our "Decent" production speed getting a bit better.

Monday: 5 machines shipped

Tuesday: 7 machines shipped

Wednesday: 3 machines shipped

17 machines out of last week's batch of 20 (that we built at the same time) had no problems.

Problem espresso machines this week:

- One had a bad PC board (despite being tested before assembly)

- One had a gasket leak

- One had the cable break to a thermometer probe

Thus far, we have made and shipped 73 Decent Espresso machines. Shipping 15 machines in 3 days (21% of the total out in the world) is good progress.

And "this side up" is now on all our boxes, as we noticed that UPS was otherwise immediately putting the boxes on their sides, stacking and occasionally damaging them in shipping.


----------



## decent_espresso

We still have two to three months work in order to fulfill our existing espresso machine orders.

However, we've had a slight snag.

We've found that all our remaining "mirror panels" have slight scratches around the mounting holes. I don't want to ship machines to people who will immediately be disappointed by this fault.

However, if you're waiting to receive a machine from us, and you don't mind the scratches, I will build your machine right now, with one of these mirror panels, and you'll get your machine before anyone else.

If you'd like to "jump to the front of the line" please email us https://decentespresso.com/contact

Everyone else: we're going to be hit with a 15 day delay before we can get perfect mirror panels. I've ordered 100 to be made via laser cutting, from a rapid prototyping company that we use frequently. However, they will cost us $80 each, so ouch! this hurts, but it's the best solution I have on such short notice. We should have noticed this earlier, as people are generally quite fussy about the quality of the mirror panel.

Our existing mirror panel manufacturer doesn't want to make them for us anymore, because they think we're too fussy. Well... they'll make them if we switched to "brushed steel". We're getting samples made by two other companies, but that's going to take a month. Then our price drops to $20, which is a lot better.

Unfortunately, changing the mirror panel once the machine is fully assembled is really difficult, so the option of "ship out a perfect panel to customers later" is not a good one.


----------



## Obnic

Speaking as an Englishman, I think I'm about ready to declare 'Decent' to be an authentic bit of British understatement.

It seems to me that the machine can genuinely be regarded as both innovative, and disruptive of decades of 'me-too never mind the quality feel the weight' engineering.


----------



## iulianato

DavecUK said:


> too true, I remember front wheels falling off when the kingpins failed. The all aluminium engine with steel wet liners was modern, but again prone to failure (cylinder heads - overheating)...the bloody gear linkage (damm thing). I had an Imp and an Imp super, my dad was a mechanic, so yes, I know the cars well. I liked it well enough, but they did have issues.


Well, pfff. Customers reporting design flaws is the worst thing that can happen for a manufacturer. Havering quality issues is normal as long as the design is good. But design issues is not to be forgive.

Automotive, aviation and other linked industries are using some tools to mitigate faults, issues, that may occur during use of the product they design. One of those tools is called DFMEA, D stands for design (I'll let you Google for the rest) and it' starts at early stages of the design process, as soon as the high level functions are decided. It helps to define and mitigate the failure modes. While not perfect and not suficient, it helps mitigate most of design issues that might slept trough otherwise. But this is a proces that sould be followed through all the design phases and during development as well when any function of the product is changed so not many industries are happy to adopt it as it requires knowledge and and too much brain storming, brain squeezing and brain stretching so it is expensive in a way.


----------



## decent_espresso

This week, we received a small batch of "blind portafilter baskets" (a basket with no hole in it), but that we'd modified by having a very tiny hole precision cut in it.

Our goal is to be able to simulate a coffee puck's water resistance but without coffee. We want to do this for stress testing, and so we can calibrate under pressure.

The "Scace 2" is what we've used to do this in the past, but

1) it's very expensive

2) the hole in it is a bit larger than real espresso

3) it clogs very easily.

I'm wondering if anyone else would find these "espresso puck simulators" useful. They were quite expensive to make as one-offs but if people had their own uses for this, we could get them made in quantity, likely at a reasonable cost.

Ideally, these:

1) would not be expensive

2) would have realistic hole size(s) that mimic espresso pucks better

3) would clog less often, and if clogged, would be much easier to clean (a sewing needle should do it).

Any interest?


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 34779
> View attachment 34780
> 
> 
> This week, we received a small batch of "blind portafilter baskets" (a basket with no hole in it), but that we'd modified by having a very tiny hole precision cut in it.
> 
> Our goal is to be able to simulate a coffee puck's water resistance but without coffee. We want to do this for stress testing, and so we can calibrate under pressure.
> 
> The "Scace 2" is what we've used to do this in the past, but
> 
> 1) it's very expensive
> 
> 2) the hole in it is a bit larger than real espresso
> 
> 3) it clogs very easily.
> 
> I'm wondering if anyone else would find these "espresso puck simulators" useful. They were quite expensive to make as one-offs but if people had their own uses for this, we could get them made in quantity, likely at a reasonable cost.
> 
> Ideally, these:
> 
> 1) would not be expensive
> 
> 2) would have realistic hole size(s) that mimic espresso pucks better
> 
> 3) would clog less often, and if clogged, would be much easier to clean (a sewing needle should do it).
> 
> Any interest?


That will be similar to what Breville uses to clean their Espresso machines if I remember correctly (although it is plastic or silicone in their setup). I always thought that backflushing a machine can be really stressful for the pumps (but I have no scientific proof of that) and I am asking myself if that could be used for the same and hopefully be gentler on the machine. I am assuming it should be easy to test.

Now, I think you have a good opportunity for your machine here. You could theoretically use a calibrated pressure filter to calibrate the machine regularly, and it should be easier than the flow method, and more precise as you can wait for pump pressure stabilization. That will require some code writing and an engineer to think about the most precise way to do it, but I think it should be useful, and you get to sell us another little piece of accesory.


----------



## Dylan

Most machines have an opv which means when the brew path hits 9bar (or whatever it is set to) the excess water and pressure is diverted back to the reservoir.

Basically, back flushing should be no more stressful for the pump than pulling a shot, less so infact as you don't need to run a back flush for 25+ seconds.


----------



## jj-x-ray

I guess youd want to create a filter basket adapted to take various standard sizes of flow restrictor disc.....ie just pop in a new disc to represent a grind/volume of coffee. Better than having lots of filter baskets with precision holes of different sizes.


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## embrya

For calibration that would be a nice tool!

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## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> Now, I think you have a good opportunity for your machine here. You could theoretically use a calibrated pressure filter to calibrate the machine regularly, and it should be easier than the flow method, and more precise as you can wait for pump pressure stabilization. That will require some code writing and an engineer to think about the most precise way to do it, but I think it should be useful, and you get to sell us another little piece of accesory.


Spot on, that's exactly what we're planning. Not with these baskets though, because the tolerance is not tight enough.

Our plan for about-six-months-from-now is using a military grade (not joking, it's the only part we buy from the USA) flow restrictor and we can calibrate both pressure and flow with.



jj-x-ray said:


> I guess youd want to create a filter basket adapted to take various standard sizes of flow restrictor disc.....ie just pop in a new disc to represent a grind/volume of coffee. Better than having lots of filter baskets with precision holes of different sizes.


Yes, that's possible, but my problem with that is that flow restrictors are typically quite long and thus easy to jam up, and fussy to clean. For this use above, I wanted "easy to clean"

It's a totally different product, and not so cheap to make, but we have prototypes here of a "Sensor Basket" that takes calibrated flow restrictors, also has a temperature and pressure sensor, and this talks to a small computer that gives you digital flow, pressure, and temperature readings. A "super-Scace" of a sort. Picture below.

-john


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> Spot on, that's exactly what we're planning. Not with these baskets though, because the tolerance is not tight enough.
> 
> Our plan for about-six-months-from-now is using a military grade (not joking, it's the only part we buy from the USA) flow restrictor and we can calibrate both pressure and flow with.
> 
> Yes, that's possible, but my problem with that is that flow restrictors are typically quite long and thus easy to jam up, and fussy to clean. For this use above, I wanted "easy to clean"
> 
> It's a totally different product, and not so cheap to make, but we have prototypes here of a "Sensor Basket" that takes calibrated flow restrictors, also has a temperature and pressure sensor, and this talks to a small computer that gives you digital flow, pressure, and temperature readings. A "super-Scace" of a sort. Picture below.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 34783


Sweet! About the production tolerances, it would not really matter, I believe, as long as you could measure the whole extremely accurately and calculate the restricted flow that this hole will have. Isn't it you guys that use microscopes to ensure hole uniformity on the baskets? You could use the same approach.


----------



## jeebsy

decent_espresso said:


> It's a totally different product, and not so cheap to make, but we have prototypes here of a "Sensor Basket" that takes calibrated flow restrictors, also has a temperature and pressure sensor, and this talks to a small computer that gives you digital flow, pressure, and temperature readings. A "super-Scace" of a sort. Picture below.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 34783


Take my money


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> Sweet! About the production tolerances, it would not really matter, I believe, as long as you could measure the whole extremely accurately and calculate the restricted flow that this hole will have. Isn't it you guys that use microscopes to ensure hole uniformity on the baskets? You could use the same approach.


Each hole in our portafilter baskets can have an error of +/-.05mm. Over the many holes in a basket, the average error mostly cancels out (some ever so slightly larger, some ever so slightly smaller).

However, if a basket only has 1 hole, and we want to calibrate against it, we're looking for 4x better tolerance. This is quite hard to achieve, which is why calibrated orifices are expensive

http://www.theleeco.com/products/precision-microhydraulics/restrictors/ and made by very few companies. The best ones, that we use, are made for the US military, for jet fuel injection systems.

As to measuring "the actual hole size" with a microscope, I don't know of any practical way to do that. Every basket would have a different labelled hole size, it wouldn't be repeatable, and even this assumes that the hole is perfectly circular, which at these dimensions, isn't usually the case. Here's a photo example I took of a competitor's basket some time ago.


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> Each hole in our portafilter baskets can have an error of +/-.05mm. Over the many holes in a basket, the average error mostly cancels out (some ever so slightly larger, some ever so slightly smaller).
> 
> However, if a basket only has 1 hole, and we want to calibrate against it, we're looking for 4x better tolerance. This is quite hard to achieve, which is why calibrated orifices are expensive
> 
> http://www.theleeco.com/products/precision-microhydraulics/restrictors/ and made by very few companies. The best ones, that we use, are made for the US military, for jet fuel injection systems.
> 
> As to measuring "the actual hole size" with a microscope, I don't know of any practical way to do that. Every basket would have a different labelled hole size, it wouldn't be repeatable, and even this assumes that the hole is perfectly circular, which at these dimensions, isn't usually the case. Here's a photo example I took of a competitor's basket some time ago.
> 
> View attachment 34806


It is actually a pretty easy calculation given that you know: Pixel size of the microscope camera, total magnification (objective×lens(if any)×cam mount), also take into account if the software acquisition does binning (grouping of pixels, to reduce noise, pretty common on microscopes).

Plenty of image analysis softwares will be able to do that. When you know the actual hole size it should be an easy calculation, and definitely cheaper than going with calibrated flow restrictors. Only trouble I can think of will be artifacts on the image because of illumination on a smooth metal surface, but seems like you can already get a pretty nice image that should be usable.

Shoot me a PM if you want to know more, I don't want to be spamming this thread with random information!


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> It is actually a pretty easy calculation given that you know: Pixel size of the microscope camera, total magnification (objective×lens(if any)×cam mount), also take into account if the software acquisition does binning (grouping of pixels, to reduce noise, pretty common on microscopes).
> 
> Plenty of image analysis softwares will be able to do that. When you know the actual hole size it should be an easy calculation, and definitely cheaper than going with calibrated flow restrictors. Only trouble I can think of will be artifacts on the image because of illumination on a smooth metal surface, but seems like you can already get a pretty nice image that should be usable. Shoot me a PM if you want to know more, I don't want to be spamming this thread with random information!


What you're describing is in fact the software that John Weiss wrote for us, so that we can photographically check our baskets. The output of this program is the area of each hole as a CSV spreadsheet.

Photo below.

But I'm not too comfortable using this sort of thing for calibration. I prefer a repeatable, independently verified calibration source, and paying a bit more for my calibration tools to be better than what my own equipment is trying to achieve.


----------



## decent_espresso

We've been talking to our metal fabricator about the hairline cracks that some of our clients have on their espresso machine legs. These paint cracks are hidden by the drip tray, but still, I'd be happier if they weren't there.

The fabricator today provided a messy, but very useful, explanation of where and how they weld the leg pieces together. As it turns out, the hairline cracks are appearing exactly where no welding is indicating on their drawing.

I really appreciate this company's honesty and transparency. They indicated today to us that they believe they've found a new approach that would allow them to continuously weld, instead of spot welding. It's really not an easy task, because we intentionally designed the sheet metal pieces to close in on themselves. The goal was to give the visual impression that the legs were made of solid 3cm thick bars of metal.

We're also working on a design for the leg where the top front would have an added "lip" that bends 90º upwards for strength but is invisible (if we do it right) by being hidden under the mirror panel's lip.

For the next 200 machines, if a customer gets a damaged leg, I'm going to ask whether it's merely a cosmetic problem, or if it unbalances the machine. If it unbalances, I'll send them a new leg assembly right away. However, if it's merely cosmetic, I'll ask them if it's ok to have them wait 90 days so that we can send this reinforced leg design version to them instead.

I'm also hoping that the fractures happen less often, as they seem to be caused by UPS tilting our machine 90º and stacking heavy things on it. I'm 100% certain that our THIS WAY UP stickers will 100% solve this problem. Cough.

For those customers who have already received a machine from us. If they have hairline cracks that are merely cosmetic, I'd like to hold off on sending a replacement leg set, until we have this new, stronger design in stock.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

(clockwise by photo)

- I've received the waterproof, lit, push-button switches that I'm planning on putting on the front plate of our DE1CAFE model. This will let you put the machine in standby (bluetooth and USB charging on, heaters all off). If this works well on the cafe model, we'll add this feature to our other DE1 models too.

- samples from other companies making mirror panels are starting to come in. These are laser cut, and using transparent protective plastic lets us see the defects early. Oddly, our laser-etched logo comes out brown with this company--hopefully not a sign of rust.

- I've made a video





 showing how to assemble and adjust the grinder we sell https://decentespresso.com/pro_grinder - this is a fairly low-tech, low-feature, do-it-yourselfer-friendly product. Instead of made-from-scratch, we modify another company's grinder quite a bit.

- the company who makes our baskets for us has made us a prototype "puck simulator" with a 0.3mm hole (see posting earlier this week about this). What do you think of that product name for this?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

"It's a bit of understatement" to say that we :yuk:"didn't have our act together" several months ago when started manufacturing the espresso machine we'd been designing for the past 3.5 years.

If this photo is a bit underwhelming, that's good! This was just an ordinary day, and it took us 5.5 days to make this batch of 20 machines.

Just a month ago it was still taking us 2 days to make 1 machine.

I spent an hour myself checking about half the machines in detail for mistakes I've seen in the past and didn't find anything. We'll find out tomorrow if the 9 machines shaken tonight are all ready-to-go, or if we still have hard-to-spot mistakes creeping in in our process.









Two weeks ago I switched our conceptual metaphor to be that of a kitchen. Every day, everyone knows what to do when they walk in the door. No meetings necessary. We complete a batch of machines every 5 days and then start again. The only thing that changes is that (hopefully) this kitchen gets faster and able to feed more people every day. For now, I'm not applying much pressure, because the emphasis is on zero-defects. Once we start achieving that, we'll gently crank up the speed.


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## embrya

Puck sim sounds good!

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## MTLexpress

embrya said:


> Puck sim sounds good!


+1


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## Obnic

+1


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## Bob Stern

John: Are you installing the v1.1 group head on current production?


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## embrya

In Post 1852 John wrote that V1.1 will be implemented for the next batch of 500 machines. So not for the actual batch!

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## decent_espresso

As I reported a few days ago we're working on making the legs on our Decent espresso machine a whole lot stronger, because about 20% of our machines are arriving to customers with bent legs. We send them (free) new legs by separate post, but it's still embarrassing for us, and annoying for customers.

Our v1.1 espresso machines will feature a metal bend, at the front, which the effect of hugely increasing the rigidity and strength of this long sheet of metal. The customer's bends are especially happening near the mounting screws 5cm/2" from the ends, so we're extending this "stiff upper lip" all the way to the edge of the chassis, well past where the screws mount.

Besides this change, we're also taking a "brute force" approach of thickening the metal from 2mm to 3mm, with this revision. And our manufacturer says they can continuously weld both metal pieces, which should get rid of the hairline paint crack problem.

I've verified that this "stiff upper lip" is totally hidden by the outwards-bending mirror panel lip (which people usually refer to as a "shot mirror").

This new leg design is totally compatible with the v1.0 machines so I can send new legs (once they're in stock) to anyone who needs them, who was a v1.0 customer.

-john


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## decent_espresso

When you receive your DE1+, we invite you to join an owners-only forum. While this "Decent Diaspora" forum is for owners-only, the discussion there is not in any way meant to be secret. A recent review of the DE1+ https://coffeesnobs.com.au/brewing-equipment-pointy-end-1500-3000/45425-decent-espresso-machines-de1-any-thoughts-27.html#post632195 indicated that he was "blown away" buy a recent posting by DE1+ owner Ed Laufer. Ed did a series of experiments to better understand the impact of preinfusion flow rate on the resulting drink.

Because everyone on the Diaspora forum has the same espresso machine, and because that machine provides good control and visual feedback, we're finding that the DE1+ community is engaging in a very vigorous and rapid type of "coffee science experimentation", which isn't currently possible elsewhere.

This is a side-benefit of owning a DE1+, and it was my hope that this would happen. It's also one of the reasons why I didn't want to make a less-capable (cheaper) model, because that would be splitting the (Decent) community.

-john

-------------------------------------

From: Ed Laufer

(repost from "Decent Diaspora")

Following up on your puck compression info, I tried a little experiment. I've been pulling flow shots with moderately slow preinfusions of 2.5ml/s in order to allow the center of my puck to completely saturate, and extracting at 1.5ml/s, which comes out closer to 2ml/s in reality (19-20s to pull 35g). The shots have pulled very nicely and I'm getting some sweet flavors out. However I was struck by a few things. This is a roast I've used before (Redbird espresso - 'northern Italian roast') and flavorwise I previously was annoyed by the distinct slightly bitter roast flavors coming through. However these overtones were gone with this profile. I also am consistently peaking at around 4bar during the pour phase, and the ramp up to pressure is slow and takes about 22-24s to get there. I have timed out a few times and the 4bar bump was engaged, although I've been able to tweak the timer so that it barely gives a compression boost.

So based on your comments about the speed of compression, I decided to pull exactly the same shot, changing only the flow rate during preinfusion, to see if that compressed faster, and how it would alter the flavor. My first try I preinfused at 3.0ml/s. Unsurprisingly the puck saturated more quickly. The compression slope was also a bit steeper, and the compression bump was not needed. Strikingly my peak pressure jumped from 4 to almost 9bar! In the cup, those harsh roast overtones were back.

Reasoning that I might be able to control peak pressure simply by subtle preinfusion rate modulation, I next pulled a shot preinfusing at 2.7ml/s. I got the expected intermediate preinfusion/compression kinetics. This time pressure peaked at 5.5bar. The bitterness was still there, but much more subtle. I'm really surprised by how much this subtle change in only the preinfusion parameters has affected the execution of this flow profile. Certainly worth more experimentation.

Here is a composite of the charts for those three shots, arranged in preinfusion rate order. Interestingly I got that end of shot flow to zero bug again, on the 2.7ml/s shot. The actual end of the pour is indicated.


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## decent_espresso

Decent announcement: the next five hundred DE1PRO machines are up for sale now, as well as two hundred DE1CAFE machines.

https://decentespresso.com/


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## Xpenno

EDIT - Found the answer using search.... sorry I'll get my coat....

Can anyone in the UK who purchased a DE+ confirm the VAT/Tax situation. The website isn't clear. It looks like it's included but it's not totally clear... Also the $ to £ seems a bit off as for the Pro it's $3299 or £2884... current exchange rate says £2500ish...


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## coffeechap

Xpenno said:


> EDIT - Found the answer using search.... sorry I'll get my coat....
> 
> Can anyone in the UK who purchased a DE+ confirm the VAT/Tax situation. The website isn't clear. It looks like it's included but it's not totally clear... Also the $ to £ seems a bit off as for the Pro it's $3299 or £2884... current exchange rate says £2500ish...


He's alive ! welcome back dude


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## Xpenno

coffeechap said:


> He's alive ! welcome back dude


Haha, blame the little one and work taking all my time!! Still enjoying the coffee though!


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## RoA19

I wonder if there will be any more DE1+ in the pipeline? Wouldn't plan on plumbing the machine in so no real need for the Pro version.


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## decent_espresso

RoA19 said:


> I wonder if there will be any more DE1+ in the pipeline? Wouldn't plan on plumbing the machine in so no real need for the Pro version.


Yes: in January I plan to offer a batch of DE1+ machines for sale.



Xpenno said:


> Can anyone in the UK who purchased a DE+ confirm the VAT/Tax situation. The website isn't clear. It looks like it's included but it's not totally clear...


Yes: Shipping and VAT/Duty is included in your checkout price. Add a machine to your shopping cart, and then "view shopping cart" to see the totals.



Xpenno said:


> Also the $ to £ seems a bit off as for the Pro it's $3299 or £2884... current exchange rate says £2500ish...


UK/EU prices are 15% higher than USA prices. While your consumer protection (and environmental, and other) laws are great for an increased standard of living, they are quite expensive to comply with.

Currency exchange rates on the prices are accurate as of yesterday.

-john


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## billt

decent_espresso said:


> UK/EU prices are 15% higher than USA prices. While your consumer protection (and environmental, and other) laws are great for an increased standard of living, they are quite expensive to comply with.
> 
> -john


How odd that you can build CE models (self-certifying) but haven't yet been able to get UL certification for the US market.

I would have thought that you make one model for all jurisdictions, so there is no extra expense in building a different EU compliant model as there won't be one.

Your claims of worldwide support already exceed those demanded by EU laws; anyway, as a far east based company you can't be forced to comply with them.

Doesn't sound credible as a justification.


----------



## decent_espresso

billt said:


> How odd that you can build CE models (self-certifying) but haven't yet been able to get UL certification for the US market.


The Certification company we're using feels that bluetooth is not acceptable as a control mechanism for a coffee machine. Coffee machines have their own standard in the form of UL 1082. The CE standard doesn't call out coffee machines explicitly, and we don't see bluetooth control as an issue (many other devices are CE compliant with bluetooth using controllers).



billt said:


> I would have thought that you make one model for all jurisdictions, so there is no extra expense in building a different EU compliant model as there won't be one.


Correct, there is just one model.

However, we have to bear additional testing costs for these jurisdictions. There are RoHS compliance tests, materials certifications.

I'm not yet mentioning things like the government mandated return and repair policies, which are much greater than in the USA. Or the recycling directive. Hardly a month goes by without us learning about some new EU law we need to comply with.



billt said:


> Doesn't sound credible as a justification.


You're welcome to disagree, but I suspect that if you compare Amazon.com vs Amazon.co.uk prices for most technological goods, you'll rarely find price parity.

-john


----------



## Dylan

Anyone who has spent any time looking at products released here vs the US (that are likely to be regulated/governed by protective laws) should be well aware of price disparities. They are never just exchange rate+tax if the business is properly trading in both places.

As an example of the difference; I bought a HTC Vive when it was released directly from HTC. I also drop by the HTC Vive reddit from time to time. On any occasion there are usually 2-3 topics on the front page about appalling HTC customer service and returns are (delays of months repairing, having to pay $80 'consultancy fee' just to have a non-repaired controller returned etc). Virtually all of these are in the USA where HTC will not be held accountable for a large proportion of what they are doing. There are horror stories from the UK/Europe as well, but most of these are from ill informed consumers who let a lying CS rep walk all over them.

The USA is low regulation/low prices, 'look out for yourself' type economy. I'm usually happy to pay a bit more for the protection we get under law here, and I think John has done a pretty good job explaining exactly how his prices work which is a damn sight better than you get from most companies.


----------



## DavecUK

Dylan said:


> The USA is low regulation/low prices, 'look out for yourself' type economy. I'm usually happy to pay a bit more for the protection we get under law here, and I think John has done a pretty good job explaining exactly how his prices work which is a damn sight better than you get from most companies.


I didn't know you got protection under UK law when buying the DE machines from Hong Kong?


----------



## Dylan

DavecUK said:


> I didn't know you got protection under UK law when buying the DE machines from Hong Kong?


One for John to answer, but afaik if you sell directly to the UK market as Decent do then you are subject to their same laws regardless of where you ship from - but I dont know the exact ins and outs or at what point exactly you start having to abide by consumer protection.

Some more extensive Warranty terms would be a good thing for Decent to have, their site mentions their 2 year warranty and from the info John has posted here it looks as if he is looking after the first customers to a fault, but it would be good to have a proper T&C for each country they sell to.


----------



## DavecUK

Dylan said:


> One for John to answer, but afaik if you sell directly to the UK market as Decent do then you are subject to their same laws regardless of where you ship from - but I dont know the exact ins and outs or at what point exactly you start having to abide by consumer protection.
> 
> Some more extensive Warranty terms would be a good thing for Decent to have, their site mentions their 2 year warranty and from the info John has posted here it looks as if he is looking after the first customers to a fault, but it would be good to have a proper T&C for each country they sell to.


Interesting, normally on sites that sometimes even look like UK ones but are really based in HK, all their terms and conditions are based on HK law. I am not sure you are right about the law as it applies

https://districtwidget.com/pages/terms-and-conditions

That said, I have bought many products from countries outside the UK and never had a problem....even though I don't enjoy the same protections as I would under UK/EU law.

P.S. Perhaps it's "omniscience" at work again


----------



## Dylan

I do not know enough to speculate - it would be good to know from John or anyone else who is sure at what point you become subject to UK law. I had a feeling it was something like if you have to deal with duty/taxes yourself when it arrives in the country then you are the 'importer' but if the company you are buying from deal with this themselves then they are responsible for the item.

But I cannot find the right search syntax to confirm/deny this - it could as easily be that you need to buy something shipped from a UK company with a UK address which Decent obviously are not.


----------



## decent_espresso

DavecUK said:


> I didn't know you got protection under UK law when buying the DE machines from Hong Kong?


Most of the laws I'm aware of are very explicit about the fact that they do apply to foreign companies selling to the local market. The recycling directive, for instance, explicitly calls out the different ways that local vs remote companies must comply or face penalties.

From what I've been told, EU authorities grant a bit of leeway for very-very-small companies, as they get large enough to come into compliance, but "shipped from elsewhere" is not a solid reason to disregard EU rules. Eventually, if we didn't comply, it will catch up with us in ugly ways.

But regardless, we don't intend to be solely based in HK forever.

Both of us founders are UK born, and unless Brexit makes it unrealistic, my intention is *for the UK to be our EU base*.

A customer recently shipped a machine for repair from Germany to Mat North in Bristol, and the 48h shipping cost was under 40€ (!). If we're able to continue to move machines in/out of the EU for repairs tax-free (again, Brexit), we'll continue with this arrangement and grow it over time.



Dylan said:


> from the info John has posted here it looks as if he is looking after the first customers to a fault


That will absolutely continue, because over-the-top support of customers has been a lynchpin to the success of 3 previous businesses I've founded.

I can't see how we could effectively compete with LM, Simonelli and others (not to mention Amazon) if we didn't differentiate ourselves in several notable ways.

At the moment, there's a very simple policy in place: "Every DE1+ customer needs to make good coffee". We're deeply involved with customer's drinks, helping them dose, prep, grind, etc.... at least until they're making shots better (on average) than their local 3rd wave cafe. Some customers decide to continue in close contact with us, to become ever better at making coffee, whilst others are perfectly content with a decent cup in the morning.



Dylan said:


> Some more extensive Warranty terms would be a good thing for Decent to have, their site mentions their 2 year warranty but it would be good to have a proper T&C for each country they sell to.


I absolutely agree, and eventually you'll have more extensive Terms & Conditions. However, for now it actually benefits the consumer for us to simply write "2 year warranty", as T&C are usually all about the company reigning in those consumer rights.

In general, I dislike legalese, especially long T&C. When we get to write them, I'll do my best to keep it as short and sweet as possible. I don't want to simply copy some default "screw the consumer as much as legally allowed" that a lawyer would typically hand me.

I expect that any T&C that we do write will get micro-analyzed here and elsewhere, so we've got to do a fair job of it, or else suffer a high PR price.



Dylan said:


> I do not know enough to speculate - it would be good to know from John or anyone else who is sure at what point you become subject to UK law. I had a feeling it was something like if you have to deal with duty/taxes yourself when it arrives in the country then you are the 'importer' but if the company you are buying from deal with this themselves then they are responsible for the item.
> 
> But I cannot find the right search syntax to confirm/deny this - it could as easily be that you need to buy something shipped from a UK company with a UK address which Decent obviously are not.


Generally, my understanding is that you will come under domestic law if:

1) the country thinks you have a "place a business" in that country

2) or you're doing enough business in that country (remotely) that the govt notices you, and informs you that you need to become compliant. They have ways of making you want to "play nice" at that point.

For us, it's pretty simple, and shipping/duty costs are the main issue. Shipping individual machines from HK is only cost effective when we're not doing much business in a specific country. Shipping a pallet of machines and then doing final delivery locally is much more cost effective. Not to mention local sales, support and repairs, all of which self-reinforce to increase sales in that country.

We might also decide to send mostly-assembled machines to the UK as no-VAT (and reduced duty) applies unfinished goods, and do final assembly in the UK. We're contemplating doing this in the USA as well.

Again, though, these future plans do hinge on a tax-free border with the continent.

I've mentioned before that Tesla is my model. I like their local showroom/repair center approach.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We're becoming a bit more reliable at building espresso machines

So far, only one of last week's batch of 20 machines has had any problems, which is good news. The week before, it was 3 machines, and before that, 11 machines had issues.

The bad news is that I've only ever had one person (Tinny) on the "final assembly, clean up and pack up for shipping" job, and until recently that's been ... shall we say... "a part time job" (cough, cough).

Jennifer is now helping Tinny get this backlog of 9 perfectly-healthy machines out the door and out of the way.









In this second below, you can see our "hospital" where sick machines go to get healed. At the moment, the hospital only has one espresso machine in it. It's the one place in the factory where I'm happy to see nobody working.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

A few pieces of Decent News:

- shipping prices on DE1PRO were sometimes too high (whoops)

- DE1CAFE will be in 110V as well

- new Tamper v2 model coming

- brushed steel front panels?

- plumbing kit progress for DE1PRO

- v1.1 group head progress

- v1.3 group head controller progress report

- signed machine

---

*Shipping prices on DE1PRO sometimes too high*

*
*I made a mistake last week with the package dimensions when estimating shipping costs for the new DE1PRO v1.1 models. For the USA, the mistake didn't change the shipping price estimate, but for a few countries is caused a doubling (!). If you were scared off by the shipping prices, take a look again.

*DE1CAFE will be in 110V as well*

A few cafe owners who do catering/events/weddings have asked for a 110V version of the DE1CAFE model. There's no reason we can't make one, but I had previously assumed people absolutely had to have killer-fast steam in order to be interested in the cafe model. Well... if you're making espresso at a wedding, you don't have that option. So, I've added a 110V option for the DE1CAFE model, and changed the spec pages to explain the lower steam power. We will be able to get 11% more steam power with a custom heater, but that's all we can get out of 110V.

*New Tamper v2 model coming *

*
*I finalized the design on v2 of our tamper. This model adds a leveling plate, to ensure perfect 90º tamps. There's still calibrated pressure spring. Rao tells me he doesn't like it because he misses the feedback of traditional tamping. I like it because perfect tamps are really foolproof now. I'll write more about this tamper when it arrives in stock, in a few weeks.

*Brushed steel front panels*

*
*We're still struggling with making perfect mirror panels, but the latest samples are better. However, we also made a single brushed steel version, to see what we think. Photo attached.

*Plumbing kit progress*

*
*There's progress on the Plumbing Kits for DE1PRO customers. We're hand assembling a smaller set now, to do final testing before we make 1000 of these. We're going to try having these assembled for us, which we're all very nervous about since we currently do all our own product assembly. However, the assembly is fairly simple, we've developed tests for the assembler (using water, pressure, and leak testing equipment) and I prefer to not take my staff away from building espresso machines.

*v1.1 group head progress*

*
*The v1.1 group head design is almost done. For customers, the main notable difference will be less head space above the coffee puck. For repairmen and assemblers, the new design is hugely easier to work with. There's a photo of white 3D printed group head in the photos.

*1.3 group head controller progress report*

*
*A few people have asked about progress on the "group head controller". We've designed the PCB, but we haven't yet assembled a prototype. We've engineered this controller for flexibility, with 12 color LEDs around a circle, a dedicated CPU on the PCB to control animation, and a protocol for the controller to talk to the main DE1+ computer. This will allow us to improve the controller over time, via firmware updates, but it does make this more of a "project". Our plan is to introduce this in the DE1CAFE model first, and once it's debugged, bring it into the DE1+ v1.3 model, starting in 2019.

*Signed machine*

*
*And finally, super-fan Austin wanted us, the two founders, to sign the back of his DE1+ machine. It's a bit embarrassing, and we practiced for a while before marring his machine. I insisted on signing the (removable) back panel in case Austin regretted his decision.

-john


----------



## Nishimiya

decent_espresso said:


> *v1.1 group head progress*
> 
> *
> *The v1.1 group head design is almost done. For customers, the main notable difference will be less head space above the coffee puck. For repairmen and assemblers, the new design is hugely easier to work with. There's a photo of white 3D printed group head in the photos.
> 
> *1.3 group head controller progress report*
> 
> *
> *A few people have asked about progress on the "group head controller". We've designed the PCB, but we haven't yet assembled a prototype. We've engineered this controller for flexibility, with 12 color LEDs around a circle, a dedicated CPU on the PCB to control animation, and a protocol for the controller to talk to the main DE1+ computer. This will allow us to improve the controller over time, via firmware updates, but it does make this more of a "project". Our plan is to introduce this in the DE1CAFE model first, and once it's debugged, bring it into the DE1+ v1.3 model, starting in 2019.


Is the possibility of retrofitting the grouphead controller still in the books for version 1.0 grouphead machines ?

In terms of 1.1 grouphead, since you've mentioned before that the mass is different, wouldn't the difference in mass make updating / tweaking temp stability and other stuff on both 1.0 and 1.1 an issue ?


----------



## SurbitonBoy

decent_espresso said:


> *
> New Tamper v2 model coming *
> 
> *
> *I finalized the design on v2 of our tamper. This model adds a leveling plate, to ensure perfect 90º tamps. There's still calibrated pressure spring. Rao tells me he doesn't like it because he misses the feedback of traditional tamping. I like it because perfect tamps are really foolproof now. I'll write more about this tamper when it arrives in stock, in a few weeks.


I hope I get to make some espresso with my v1 tamper before it becomes out dated.


----------



## decent_espresso

Nishimiya said:


> Is the possibility of retrofitting the grouphead controller still in the books for version 1.0 grouphead machines ?


No, sadly not. The group head controller is now its own computer, with its own dedicated CPU, and a "animation communication protocol" between the main PCB and the group head PCB. All this requires some changes in our main PCB, including a new connector.

I initially thought the controller would be "just some switches" but as we got into it, we realized that for some people (such as cafes) it's likely that the controller would be their main (and possibly only) way of controlling the espresso machine. Thus, we need to provide fairly advanced visual feedback, if we're going to do a good job of it. Slapping some buttons on the group head would not be in keeping with the advanced nature of the rest of the project.



Nishimiya said:


> In terms of 1.1 grouphead, since you've mentioned before that the mass is different, wouldn't the difference in mass make updating / tweaking temp stability and other stuff on both 1.0 and 1.1 an issue ?


Yes, it would have required tweaking, but in theory, all that should be needed is expecting less latency from our sensors.

However, in the end, it turns out that the v1.1 group head brass parts are almost exactly the same weight as the v1.0 parts. The reason for this is that we've taken away 4mm of headspace over the basket, and in order to do this, we needed more brass material.

Today was the first day we put the v1.1 group into operation in the kitchen, and so far our pucks are indeed drier after this change.



SurbitonBoy said:


> I hope I get to make some espresso with my v1 tamper before it becomes out dated.


Despite the v1 versus v2 nomenclature, I don't see the new tamper as obsoleting the previous tamper.

Rather, the two tamper models reflect my changing opinion about what matters in tamping.

I used to think that a full tamp was essential to making good espresso. Now, I've both seen the literature (Socratic, and LM, and others) and tested it myself, and I'm leaning toward LM's finding that anything over 5lbs of tamping pressure is functionally equivalent. Espresso being made at 9 bar is 10x the pressure of a 30lb tamper, so I now think it's hard to argue that 15lb vs 25lbs makes all that much difference. *As long as the tamping pressure is evenly distributed*.

My current thinking is that even coffee ground distribution in the puck is all-important, and a level tamp is part of that.

I'm not necessarily saying that I'm right.









Everything "Decent" makes is exceedingly idiosyncratic, and reflects my current understanding of coffee. Rao and Perger influence me greatly, but there are people on the 4 forums I'm on who have equally influenced me.

-john


----------



## SurbitonBoy

I'm wondering when a distribution tool will use some form of vibration or





to evenly distribute the grinds in the portafiller.


----------



## jeebsy

Dylan said:


> I do not know enough to speculate - it would be good to know from John or anyone else who is sure at what point you become subject to UK law. I had a feeling it was something like if you have to deal with duty/taxes yourself when it arrives in the country then you are the 'importer' but if the company you are buying from deal with this themselves then they are responsible for the item.
> 
> But I cannot find the right search syntax to confirm/deny this - it could as easily be that you need to buy something shipped from a UK company with a UK address which Decent obviously are not.


https://www.mylawyer.co.uk/jurisdiction-when-trading-internationally-a-A76062D32729/


----------



## decent_espresso

SurbitonBoy said:


> I'm wondering when a distribution tool will use some form of vibration or


I've experimented with this, using a dental vibrator. Thus far, I've found that this:

a) tends to not distribute the grounds (ie, the mound stays in place)

b) tends to cause fines to migrate to the bottom of the basket.

In other words, not good.

-john


----------



## mathof

decent_espresso said:


> I used to think that a full tamp was essential to making good espresso. Now, I've both seen the literature (Socratic, and LM, and others) and tested it myself, and I'm leaning toward LM's finding that anything over 5lbs of tamping pressure is functionally equivalent. Espresso being made at 9 bar is 10x the pressure of a 30lb tamper, so I now think it's hard to argue that 15lb vs 25lbs makes all that much difference. *As long as the tamping pressure is evenly distributed*.


What seems to make tamping pressure equivalent above a few pounds is the ~6-9 bars of pressure that hit the puck from the shower screen flow - much more than any tamping provides. However, pre-infusion has a great effect on flow-rate, and PI happens at comparatively low water pressures. (In my case, 1.2bar max). Therefore, it seems to me, that you want a light tamp to allow the PI water to gently and fully infused the puck; while, after that, the high pressures involved in making espresso will compress the puck fully.

Matt


----------



## decent_espresso

mathof said:


> What seems to make tamping pressure equivalent above a few pounds is the ~6-9 bars of pressure that hit the puck from the shower screen flow - much more than any tamping provides. However, pre-infusion has a great effect on flow-rate, and PI happens at comparatively low water pressures. (In my case, 1.2bar max). Therefore, it seems to me, that you want a light tamp to allow the PI water to gently and fully infused the puck; while, after that, the high pressures involved in making espresso will compress the puck fully.


I've heard this theory discussed among some coffee experts, and I think it's quite a defensible theory.

I've heard the conversation then move to "tamping is an impediment to even extraction (since it impedes even wetting), which I also think is defensible.

However, espresso is "unusual" in that the coffee serves two function: flavor, and back-pressure. Without back-pressure, you don't extract the coffee material the same way.

So... that's a long way of me saying that I'm currently leaning toward "*light tamping, to promote fast and even PI, but not so little tamping that the pressure rise and hold is impacted*"

Matt, I suspect we're in "violent agreement"

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I've written about https://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?30500-Decent-espresso&p=604420#post604420the microfractures we're seeing on the legs of our espresso machines.

We recently discovered the cause. It's because there are only spot welds between the metal parts that make up the legs. Where there are no welds, the two metal parts move slightly, which causes the powder coat to crack a little bit.

The company that makes our legs for us has come up with a new process. They're now doing a continuous weld, and then grinding the extra material off to come back to a smooth texture. They're making a sample for us and sent us these photos today.









It looks promising, but I'll withhold final judgment until I see a powder coated completed sample.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

A big congratulations to Agnieszka Rojewska https://www.instagram.com/agarojewska/ the new World Barista Champion.

I was surprised and flattered to see her using the Decent Funnel that João Tomaz and I designed. https://decentespresso.com/funnel




__ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10155862862059069


----------



## decent_espresso

Our current drip tray covers are prone to getting slightly tarnished with use, and we're working on a solution. Once we figure it out, we'll send free replacements to customers who experienced any tarnishing.

I yesterday received a sample of our drip tray cover with an electroplating coating. It's very shiny!

Unfortunately, the electroplated drip tray cover could not withstand overnight in Urnex Rinza, a common steam wand cleaning product.

I put just the bottom centimeter in so I could see a line.

Interestingly, it appears that the submerged part is fine, it's the part that got splashed and exposed to air, that got tarnished.

The reason I did this test, is that I think when using our espresso machine's "clean" cycle, it's likely that people will have it run overnight, and let the cleaning product drip out of the group head (and steam wand) into the drip tray, thus splashing (and sitting) on the drip tray cover.

Nonetheless, the electroplated version is more robust than the raw aluminum. This was the undiluted cleaning product, after all.

As to the idea of remaking this part in stainless steel, I've been told that this design could not be cast in stainless; it would have to be made as a stamped piece. The thickness would then double, and all the rounded wires would become hard angles.

I've used machines with stamped drip tray covers (our prototypes used this type) and water beads tend to not roll off, due to surface tension created by the stamped "cuts". Thus, I really don't want to go to this different approach.

We sent photos of this staining to our manufacturer, and they have an idea for a different kind of plating, which they think could resist an acid bath.

-john


----------



## Dylan

jeebsy said:


> https://www.mylawyer.co.uk/jurisdiction-when-trading-internationally-a-A76062D32729/


Cheers Jeebsy,

That's kinda what I thought and this paragraph:

"This has been interpreted to mean that if the consumer can buy goods on a website accessed in the consumer's home country, the seller has directed their commercial activities to the consumer's country. Consumers are regarded as the weaker party, so they'll always have a right to bring their claim against the seller in their home court"

Is the kinda wafty understanding I had of how it works. I guess there is still some room for interpretation there, and websites like the one Dave posted are flaunting this accepted standard.


----------



## decent_espresso

I've been asked to give a presentation locally about our espresso machine workshop. So...I took a bunch of photos, and plan to tell a bit of a story about the various steps that go into making the Decent Espresso Machine.

*But first: why Hong Kong?*

Almost nobody builds anything in Hong Kong anymore: it's mostly a financial/legal center now. Manufacturing has moved to mainland China. Foreigners like us are welcome to own and run companies here, which is not so much the case in mainland China.

And... there are still a lot of talented engineers here, stranded from the not-so-distant manufacturing past. There are plenty of 40 to 60-year-olds who yearn to stay in their chosen careers. Salaries are reasonable (about USD$40k/year) for people of very high competency. There's the "free port" (no duty or taxes), so we can get parts hassle-free from all over the world (not just China). We have the world's busiest air-freight terminal, which helps with shipping costs.

---

So, with that preface, let me introduce Simon.

He knows it's completely mad, but he loves to solder, and he's crazy fast at it. He laughs at himself for liking to build the "heater boxes" so much.

Until Simon was hired (about a month ago) the heater boxes were a major problem, because our best person could make only one in 2 1/2 hours. This was holding up our entire assembly line, as each machine needs two heaters (hot water and steam) . Simon can make 10 in an 8h day, including lunch. He's on a diet, though, so lunch is shorter for him than most. As we're making 5 machines per day, that's working for us, for now. Our best student Intern from this summer, Stanley, just started on Monday and is helping Simon on the heater boxes.

These boxes are pieces of flat fiberglass, that are soldered together to hold the heater suspended inside. We push insulating mineral wool all around the gaps, and then before we seal it up, we put a temperature probe into a threaded hole in the heater, as well as two thermal safety fuses. Finally, a thermostat (3rd safety) gets screwed onto the top.

We're working on a new heater design that simplifies all this, for our v1.2 machines. Until then, I'm very glad that Simon is good at this, and enjoys doing it.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Just received this photo from our current mirror panel maker. We asked them to make a brushed steel sample for us. Another company we also use is also making a sample, and probably next week I'll make a decision.


----------



## markant

Well.....looks good, but no mirror ...... if you have to go this way, maybe a "click" on mirror on the angled part? removable, cleanable,replaceable, however: looks?? nah....


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> No, sadly not. The group head controller is now its own computer, with its own dedicated CPU, and a "animation communication protocol" between the main PCB and the group head PCB. All this requires some changes in our main PCB, including a new connector.


You are going to change the group head internals (retro-fittable?), and now this change (not retro-fittable)l. How are these changes going to effect the ability to exchange brewing profiles between users?? Well, especially for the first 300 with the rest of the community....... ??

I can imagine a roaster putting a QR code on his packages that could be read by the DE1+ tablet (or at least being fed into it -no camera!?) so the machine could get the roaster-suggested-brewing profile without the user having to set it up. Same question: will the changes limit this idea to same version DE1* users??


----------



## embrya

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 35185
> 
> 
> Just received this photo from our current mirror panel maker. We asked them to make a brushed steel sample for us. Another company we also use is also making a sample, and probably next week I'll make a decision.


Really no mirror. No alternative to the existing one which looks very good.

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


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## decent_espresso

markant said:


> Well.....looks good, but no mirror ...... if you have to go this way, maybe a "click" on mirror on the angled part? removable, cleanable,replaceable, however: looks?? nah....


Yeah, we discussed a decal-mirror, or a snap on mirror, and it would definitely work, but as you already guessed, it wouldn't look very good.



embrya said:


> Really no mirror. No alternative to the existing one which looks very good. Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


Embrya, sorry I don't understand what you mean here. Do you mean "the mirror is great" or "I like the brushed steel" ?



markant said:


> You are going to change the group head internals (retro-fittable?), and now this change (not retro-fittable)l. How are these changes going to effect the ability to exchange brewing profiles between users?? Well, especially for the first 300 with the rest of the community....... ??


The changes we're making to the brew head:

1) put a controller on it, which doesn't change the coffee process

2) reduces puck wetness during flush, which won't change the coffee recipe

3) will make temperature accuracy a bit more accurate

That's a long way of saying that "profiles will continue to be swappable among models", but it is the case that "the newer the machine, the more accurate it will be at following the profile".



markant said:


> I can imagine a roaster putting a QR code on his packages that could be read by the DE1+ tablet (or at least being fed into it -no camera!?) so the machine could get the roaster-suggested-brewing profile without the user having to set it up. Same question: will the changes limit this idea to same version DE1* users??


I've talked to a lot of roasters about this sort of idea, but the consensus is that a QR code is not the way to do it, instead human-readable directions are better. What I'd like to do is have the roaster's company name and roast name in our database, so that with the DE1+ you can search the db (as if you were searching amazon) and pull up the profile.

That being said, I've generally found that roasters are not very good at making espresso machine recipes that get the best out of their beans. I personally think that a community created recipe is likely to be better.

-john


----------



## embrya

Sorry - as I am German my English is probably wrong...

I meant that the mirror actually looks great as it is and the stainless steel version doesn't look like a mirror at all - thus I don't like it.

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


----------



## Higgins

Have you actually ever thought of a small camera from below (instead of a mirror) so that the picture can be projected on the tablet?


----------



## markant

decent_espresso said:


> The changes we're making to the brew head:


OK. I have understood that the controller is not retro-fittable; but what about the other new grouphead parts?? Since it seems that only these are necessary for "following more accurate the swappable profile".

About the WET PUCKS: maybe raising the temperature of the brewhead for some time after the shot might help?? Did you give this a try?



decent_espresso said:


> I've talked to a lot of roasters about this sort of idea, but the consensus is that a QR code is not the way to do it, instead human-readable directions are better. What I'd like to do is have the roaster's company name and roast name in our database, so that with the DE1+ you can search the db (as if you were searching amazon) and pull up the profile.
> 
> That being said, I've generally found that roasters are not very good at making espresso machine recipes that get the best out of their beans. I personally think that a community created recipe is likely to be better.


Funny. Completely counter-intuitive.... Anyway, "likely" these roasters you have talked to, haven't used a DE1 or at least can't have much experience with it... ) It seems to me that the analytical possibilities of the DE1 are exactly what a roaster would like to have to judge his/her results....!!

A roaster who is roasting for espresso being not very good at making an espresso recipe is something I cannot grasp: How the hell would they know how to roast their beans if they are not able to judge the outcome??


----------



## decent_espresso

markant said:


> what about the other new grouphead parts?? Since it seems that only these are necessary for "following more accurate the swappable profile".


Yes, the v1.1 group head works on the v1.0 machines: we made sure of that, so that we don't have to stock v1.0 group heads for eternity (for future repairs). However, it's a not-too-simple replacement to change the group head, about 3h of work with the current design. The v1.1 machines have some other design changes that cut that repair work time back a lot.

In fact, most of the v1.1 changes (there are about 70 in total) are about making life easier for us, to assemble and repair the machine, and they don't affect performance.



markant said:


> About the WET PUCKS: maybe raising the temperature of the brewhead for some time after the shot might help?? Did you give this a try?


People knock their pucks out a few seconds after the shot ends, so I don't see that working. Plus, I wouldn't want to risk the temperature stability of the next shot.



markant said:


> Funny. Completely counter-intuitive.... Anyway, "likely" these roasters you have talked to, haven't used a DE1 or at least can't have much experience with it... ) It seems to me that the analytical possibilities of the DE1 are exactly what a roaster would like to have to judge his/her results....!!
> 
> A roaster who is roasting for espresso being not very good at making an espresso recipe is something I cannot grasp: How the hell would they know how to roast their beans if they are not able to judge the outcome??


Oh, I completely agree.

Now.... cafes who roast are a different story. Because they deliver to clients, they're usually obsessive about the end product, and quite good at extraction.

In fact, it's occasionally the case that people bring cafe-roasted beans that *only* taste good at a flat-9-bar extraction profile, because they have tuned the roast to best fit the espresso machine (a traditional boiler) that they have.



Higgins said:


> Have you actually ever thought of a small camera from below (instead of a mirror) so that the picture can be projected on the tablet?


Yes, absolutely, it's something we're playing with. It'd be useful for us, helping people make better shots at home.



embrya said:


> Sorry - as I am German my English is probably wrong...
> 
> I meant that the mirror actually looks great as it is and the stainless steel version doesn't look like a mirror at all - thus I don't like


Jetzt verstehe ich dich!


----------



## decent_espresso

Strangely satisfying to watch...

This is from a new supplier who wants to make mirror panels for us. This is one of 20 samples they're making. I don't see any scratches on it, so I'm hopeful...

[video=youtube;AJ-BGrWPdOM]


----------



## nakedsnake

Just stumbled across this thread, and DecentEspresso, looks very interesting. A recent trip to europe has me very interested in getting a machine for at home in the next year or so, and I think DE might be a nice place to start.

That said, im trying to find comparisons to the DE1+ and the DE1PRO for at home use. It seems to me that the DE1+ may not be enough for home use, and the PRO is overkill? The DE1+ is rated for 10,000 shots as a life span on the website, and for $4k CDN, that's about 40 cents per shot at home and then you'll be looking at repair/replacement. The PRO is rated for 200,000 for $5k CDN, which is a much better value proposition to me, and not to mention it does everything else a bit better alongside that.

Maybe i'm misguided in my train of thought? Anyone have input on this?


----------



## decent_espresso

nakedsnake said:


> That said, im trying to find comparisons to the DE1+ and the DE1PRO for at home use. It seems to me that the DE1+ may not be enough for home use, and the PRO is overkill? The DE1+ is rated for 10,000 shots as a life span on the website, and for $4k CDN, that's about 40 cents per shot at home and then you'll be looking at repair/replacement. The PRO is rated for 200,000 for $5k CDN, which is a much better value proposition to me, and not to mention it does everything else a bit better alongside that. Maybe i'm misguided in my train of thought? Anyone have input on this?


I wouldn't assume that the machine will keel over dead after 10,000 shots. It's a warranty, and it's based on the "mean time between failures" that we've been quoted by our valve/pump maker, ODE.

However, those MTBF numbers are pessimistic, but perhaps more importantly, they assume full-throttle use. We drive our pumps very lightly, and there are two of them.

Worst case scenario, with a DE1+ you're looking at a $100 part to replace a valve or pump, and that's after the 2 year warranty.

The PRO is really if you need (a) to be plumbed in and (b) you need to make > 50 shots per day.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

New DE1+ owner Alastair Drong made this humorous video about his decent espresso machine arriving at his apartment.


----------



## decent_espresso

On their 2nd attempt to make a "perfect" mirror panel (we rejected their first attempted), a new vendor we're thinking about using has done a really good job. I could only find a not-very-deep 3mm scratch on one panel. All the rest were as close to perfect as I could hope for.

So.... it looks like we won't have to abandon the "mirror panel" feature after all. Phew!

We're going to convert the ~150 "slightly scratched" panels that we don't want to use, into a brushed steel version. For people who prefer the fingerprint resistance (and more durable) of brushed steel, they'll be able to ask us to put that on their machine instead.


----------



## Dylan

Can you have your new panel maker polish up just the 'barista mirror' part of the brushed ones? It seems like quite a valuable feature to give up in order to have a brushed steel facade.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Can you have your new panel maker polish up just the 'barista mirror' part of the brushed ones? It seems like quite a valuable feature to give up in order to have a brushed steel facade.


Poooooossibly. I'm having them make one sample. However, they have to heavily "mask" the mirror section to prevent the brushing process from scratching the mirror. Not so easy.

-john


----------



## Dylan

I would have thought just brushing the whole thing and then mirroring the bottom part only the easier way around... but I guess that would create an extra stage of work getting a mirror finish back again after brushing.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I would have thought just brushing the whole thing and then mirroring the bottom part only the easier way around... but I guess that would create an extra stage of work getting a mirror finish back again after brushing.


The mirror finish is part of the metal, when we receive it as sheet metal. We don't have the ability to turn a brushed surface into a mirror surface.

In fact, the entire "slightly scratched" problem is due to handling of the raw sheet metal before it gets made into a panel. It gets scratched, through the plastic protective coating, and the manufacturer later discovers the scratch, after they've done all this work.

So.... the trick, it turns out, is finding someone who has a source for pristine, well-cared-for mirrored sheet metal. And then being very careful with it.

-john


----------



## Dylan

That makes sense - I have spent some time polishing up badly scratched stainless, it is both a very laborious and very frustrating process, as the smallest bit of dust in the polishing wheel can immediately scratch the surface up as the polishing wheel spins. Getting a 'perfect' finish (one that has no scratches under any angle of light) is near impossible (in my experience) at home.


----------



## decent_espresso

On our customer forum, Ed rightfully pointed out:



> "One could make a similar argument about the way you report water in the tank. 3mm isn't useful measure of the amount of water, it just happens to be the depth you measure without applying the necessary conversion to get that to a true volume."


He's right. I can't really go criticizing other manufacturers for using measurement units (ie, "preinfuse at 3 bar") that aren't particularly helpful, and then go ahead do the same thing in my DE1+ app.

So today, I brought out the postal scale and measured the water level at each 100g increase in weight.

The caused the attached curve to appear. The spreadsheet can be downloaded at https://decentespresso.com/p/water_levels.xlsx

￼

My measurements are accurate more or less to a millimeter, as surface tension on my metal ruler was an issue.

I then went off to read google results about "find a function in excel that fits a curve". I failed out of mathematics in college, so I have no doubt someone else here can fit the curve better than I did.

Nonetheless, this function worked fairly well (average error = 3%), and it's what I've implemented in the DE1+ GUI for the moment:

> ml = mm * 22 + (mm ^ 1.52)

where ml = "millimeters of water in the tank"

and where mm = "millimeters measured"

￼

A side effect of my doing this was that I've now verified that the water tank really can take 2 liters of water. Our SolidWorks model said it could, but that's very much not reality (ie, ceramic shrinkage needs to be taken into account).

￼

If you "App Update" today, you'll get milliliters of water in your tank, as well as millimeters of water measured.

￼

I couldn't decide whether I should continue to display the millimeters of water depth number, or not. What do you think?


----------



## nakedsnake

decent_espresso said:


> I wouldn't assume that the machine will keel over dead after 10,000 shots. It's a warranty, and it's based on the "mean time between failures" that we've been quoted by our valve/pump maker, ODE.
> 
> However, those MTBF numbers are pessimistic, but perhaps more importantly, they assume full-throttle use. We drive our pumps very lightly, and there are two of them.
> 
> Worst case scenario, with a DE1+ you're looking at a $100 part to replace a valve or pump, and that's after the 2 year warranty.
> 
> The PRO is really if you need (a) to be plumbed in and (b) you need to make > 50 shots per day.
> 
> -john


John,

This is pretty much the exact answer I was looking for. I'm likely going to be making a double once or twice a day, tops. If I host, maybe a bit more, but under 25 a week for sure, likely 10. So it seems i'll be fine without going for the PRO (unless i've got cash to burn).

Thank you


----------



## mm1854

Like also having the (mm) as that is directly related to what you can see.


----------



## ess

Hi everyone,

I have been following this thread for a while. First of all a big thanks to John and his team for the innovative and great product they brought to market and the superb community engagement / customer service. Since almost a year I have been waiting to be able to (pre)order the DE1CAFE. It's available for a couple of weeks now, but I haven't pulled the trigger for one reason: price expectation. With the ability to order the machine the price got bumped up by about 1000EUR, which surprised me quite a bit. I am not saying the machine might not be worth the asking price. All I am saying is that the price increase was not expected and is what keeps me from ordering. As it seems not that many DE1CAFE have been sold in the last weeks, so this might be one reason why.


----------



## Dylan

ess said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have been following this thread for a while. First of all a big thanks to John and his team for the innovative and great product they brought to market and the superb community engagement / customer service. Since almost a year I have been waiting to be able to (pre)order the DE1CAFE. It's available for a couple of weeks now, but I haven't pulled the trigger for one reason: price expectation. With the ability to order the machine the price got bumped up by about 1000EUR, which surprised me quite a bit. I am not saying the machine might not be worth the asking price. All I am saying is that the price increase was not expected and is what keeps me from ordering. As it seems not that many DE1CAFE have been sold in the last weeks, so this might be one reason why.


John has gone over his reasons for price increases in these pages, although it is admittedly a lot to read through. I think perhaps his mistake was setting price expectations before he had fully completed production and knew how much it would end up costing him!

I agree its pricey, but as a business expense its not crazy money.


----------



## decent_espresso

ess said:


> As it seems not that many DE1CAFE have been sold in the last weeks, so this might be one reason why.


My feeling is that very few cafes are willing to bet their business moving to a model of an espresso machine that:

(a) no other cafe is currently using

(b) is not yet shipping

© has not yet had its R&D phase finished.

And I think they are wise.

Nonetheless, we're going to finish the R&D on the DE1CAFE, make 200 of them, and see who wants to take the plunge first.

I get a *TON* of emails about a cafe model (probably half my email) so I know there's plenty of interest.

I don't think price is the problem with the cafe model, because:

(a) per group head, we're less expensive than other commercial machines

(b) the emails I get

My preference for cafes, so that I can sleep well at night, is for them to buy one machine from us, and test it on the line, next to their regular machines. If it does well, then they can slowly increase the number of Decent group heads, until the day where they no longer need their traditional boiler machines.

The first 3 months of the DE1+ uncovered a lot of problems, now since fixed. I think that a cautious person could assume the same will be true of the upcoming cafe model.

Once a dozen cafes are running their business on nothing-but-Decent, and doing so successfully, I think we'll see purchases pick up.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We're not yet shipping the plumbing kits for our DE1PRO customers, because I haven't yet been satisfied with our designs. Here's an update.

*DRAINING THE MUCK*

For the past two years, we've been drilling a hole in our ceramic drip trays and attaching a fitting to drain the mucky water out. This has worked "fairly well". By that, I mean that it works, but the fitting tends to leak. The basic problem is that the fitting is above the bottom the of the drip tray, so there's always "standing water", which eventually seeps through the fitting.

Someone pointed me to this "drip pan" design, which seems to solve this problem. https://www.chriscoffee.com/Drain-Kit-Alex-p/adrkt.htm

The top two photos show our design to try this idea out. We'll still drill a hole into our ceramic tray, but there will be no fitting. Instead, the mucky water drains into a drip pan, which has a tube fitted to it. I do still have a concern about leaking on the new fitting leaking, but sealing metal-against-metal is a lot easier than sealing metal-against-ceramic.

*PLUMBING KIT TO GO*

A not insignificant number of DE1PRO users want to travel, and if they're cafes doing catering, they want to be able to "plumb in" when they get there. So... we're going to repurpose the Tamping Kit suitcases that we have way too many of and use that to ship the plumbing kits to customers.

That way, you'll have 3 suitcases you can bring everything in:

- your DE1PRO suitcase

- your Barista Kit suitcase

- your Plumbing Kit suitcase

The Tamping Kit https://decentespresso.com/tamper has been a bit of a dud because most people opt to pay a bit more and get the way-more-functional Barista Kit https://decentespresso.com/barista_kit ... So I have a warehouse full of tamping kit suitcases that I don't know what to do with. They'll now get repurposed as "Plumbing Kit To Go"

One note on the photo: we're including tubing made from surgical silicone. Clear tubing for the "clean water in" path, and black tubing for the "dirty water out". That way, while setting up your DE1PRO at a gig, you won't accidentally hook them up backward and dirty your clean water tank. But I've never made that mistake, of course. Cough.

-john


----------



## DavecUK

decent_espresso said:


> My feeling is that very few cafes are willing to bet their business moving to a model of an espresso machine that:
> 
> (a) no other cafe is currently using
> 
> (b) is not yet shipping
> 
> © has not yet had its R&D phase finished.
> 
> And I think they are wise.
> 
> Nonetheless, we're going to finish the R&D on the DE1CAFE, make 200 of them, and see who wants to take the plunge first.
> 
> I get a *TON* of emails about a cafe model (probably half my email) so I know there's plenty of interest.
> 
> I don't think price is the problem with the cafe model, because:
> 
> (a) per group head, we're less expensive than other commercial machines
> 
> (b) the emails I get
> 
> My preference for cafes, so that I can sleep well at night, is for them to buy one machine from us, and test it on the line, next to their regular machines. If it does well, then they can slowly increase the number of Decent group heads, until the day where they no longer need their traditional boiler machines.
> 
> The first 3 months of the DE1+ uncovered a lot of problems, now since fixed. I think that a cautious person could assume the same will be true of the upcoming cafe model.
> 
> Once a dozen cafes are running their business on nothing-but-Decent, and doing so successfully, I think we'll see purchases pick up.
> 
> -john


What is it you think Cafes are looking for out from an Espresso machine?


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> My feeling is that very few cafes are willing to bet their business moving to a model of an espresso machine that:
> 
> (a) no other cafe is currently using
> 
> (b) is not yet shipping
> 
> © has not yet had its R&D phase finished.
> 
> And I think they are wise.
> 
> Nonetheless, we're going to finish the R&D on the DE1CAFE, make 200 of them, and see who wants to take the plunge first.
> 
> I get a *TON* of emails about a cafe model (probably half my email) so I know there's plenty of interest.
> 
> I don't think price is the problem with the cafe model, because:
> 
> (a) per group head, we're less expensive than other commercial machines
> 
> (b) the emails I get
> 
> My preference for cafes, so that I can sleep well at night, is for them to buy one machine from us, and test it on the line, next to their regular machines. If it does well, then they can slowly increase the number of Decent group heads, until the day where they no longer need their traditional boiler machines.
> 
> The first 3 months of the DE1+ uncovered a lot of problems, now since fixed. I think that a cautious person could assume the same will be true of the upcoming cafe model.
> 
> Once a dozen cafes are running their business on nothing-but-Decent, and doing so successfully, I think we'll see purchases pick up.
> 
> -john


Have you thought about starting a DE ambassador program?

For example, we know that most cafes are open to outside baristas comin in and showcasing their products/abilities, and we also know the DE1 is quite portable. Maybe you could start a program for people who already preordered that have interest in helping you out in exchange for some benefit, ask them for their regional area, how many cafes they have close by, etc... Then they can go to their local or regional cafes and showcase your products. Kind of like having sales reps but taking advantage of something I believe is quite common in the coffee world?


----------



## decent_espresso

DavecUK said:


> What is it you think Cafes are looking for out from an Espresso machine?


PRIMARILY:

What gets mentioned the most by cafes is "making better tasting drinks" thanks to the feedback from the tablet (easier to dial in, easier to notice bad shots on-screen without tasting them) and either the pressure profiling (9 bar to 6 bar shots) or flow profiling (they've been following Perger or Hoffmann on flow).

SECONDARILY:

A year ago, cafes felt that my approach of not making 2 and 3 group machines was a problem, but suprisingly that never comes up now. Instead, a major benefit that gets mentioned a lot is the modularity of keeping each group totally separate. If one espresso machine breaks, you're down one group head, instead of completely down.

THIRDLY:

The price per group head is also popular (it's lower), and the ability to move each group where you want to optimize your cafes workflow. That flexibility is quite appealing, as cafes struggle to get the most drinks out during peak times, and the idea of adding more groups (4 or 5, even) if business warrants, is appealing.

FINALLY:

A much smaller number of cafes are driven by how it looks. There's a current trend in the industry to smaller machines (Mavam and Modbar) and Baristas having eye contact. I don't know if this is a long-lasting shift or if it will last a few years and then be just an interesting curiosity.





[/QUOTE]

As cafes put our DE1PRO machines out in public view, I will absolutely be promoting those cafes and trying to drive customers their way. Eventually, there will be a DECENT CAFÉ mobile phone app, to help you find those cafes. And yes, a few cafes have volunteered to be local ambassadors.

Not quite the same topic, but Mat North has two DE1PRO machines he's repairing, and once he's done with that, we've discussed lending them out in the UK (not just to cafes, but to anyone interested).

-john


----------



## DavecUK

Interesting, from what you say, it seems business requirements have changed completely in recent years. I must be a little out of touch with the commercial world now. Perhaps a few of those types of Cafes will open in places I regularly go. It looks like you are totally in tune with the needs of the commercial buyer and I imagine we will see these machines in most small independent coffee shops in a few years and in national chains once they catch up with the new thinking and ideas you have. I would imagine for inexperienced staff, the system can be as simple as grind it in this preset grinder and press this option....just like a super auto. However for those experienced staff especially when it's quiet, they will have time to play around with all the options to fine tune their shots, perhaps even one day on the fly for various customers (assuming you have an app).

It may even shift the focus from food for profit back to coffee, rather than coffee as the draw to come in and buy food, or drinks that are really desserts. Certainly many places I used to go in, it was dose the coffee into the portafilter...from a dosing grinder if you were lucky, bang it into the machine and press the button. Walk away do the next grind and shot and come back to yours, not having observed anything, fill it with hot water, or refoamed milk and then serve. I rarely if ever show a shot discarded or a grinder adjusted. I still occasionally flagellate myself with a coffee outside and generally get a similar disappointing experience.

Looks like you might be set to change all that....


----------



## xpresso

A suitable tablet attached to the rear of machines (Customers side) may in itself evoke further interest in today's electronic world as they watch the stages of the brew.

Jon.


----------



## DavecUK

xpresso said:


> A suitable tablet attached to the rear of machines (Customers side) may in itself evoke further interest in today's electronic world as they watch the stages of the brew.
> 
> Jon.


Perhaps they can even add the ability for the customer to control his own shot and then save those parameters under his own name (in the cloud)....when he goes in next time he enters his code and his preferred recipe comes up on the local DE machine, the Barista goes to the correct Decent grinder, it portions out the required dose and grind, said Barista simply locks it into the machine and the customer or Barista presses the on screen button. Then the stages of the brew you mention are recoded, with some Video of the shot. this can be transferred to the customers smartphone. This information and Video can then be shared on the same social media sites DE are thinking of using and optionally reviewed whilst enjoying your beverage. It may even be possible to fine tune the parameters on the phone to improve your shot next time you come in, by automatically updating your stored recipe.

If that coffee isn't available an alternative coffee, but still produced to the customers own exacting requirements can be offered. Coffee could become a new "experience" for the enlightened customer and eventually something like Coffeegram (similar to Instagram)..


----------



## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> A suitable tablet attached to the rear of machines (Customers side) may in itself evoke further interest in today's electronic world as they watch the stages of the brew..


We did some concept drawings in this direction, about a year ago.


----------



## decent_espresso

As promised two years ago, here are downloadable CAD files for our DE1+ and DE1PRO espresso machines.

https://decentespresso.com/de1plus#cad

What can you do with these files?

- you might want to "hot rod" or "accessorize" your Decent Espresso machine

- you're planning a cafe or kitchen, and want to decide where to put the machines

- you'd like to have the parts models so that you can CNC your own replacement parts

-to help you do your own future repairs

You can work with the model using the free web-based OnShape CAD software: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/85b89457f6b6e26d9ac28fe7/w/e1634fdd87d1c0bd3e297076/e/73896d3e7da4f513a8a6cbe1

The STEP file loads well into most CAD programs, including https://www.freecadweb.org/ and is probably better for most serious use.

-john


----------



## mikefish

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 35358
> 
> 
> As promised two years ago, here are downloadable CAD files for our DE1+ and DE1PRO espresso machines.
> 
> https://decentespresso.com/de1plus#cad
> 
> What can you do with these files?
> 
> - you might want to "hot rod" or "accessorize" your Decent Espresso machine
> 
> - you're planning a cafe or kitchen, and want to decide where to put the machines
> 
> - you'd like to have the parts models so that you can CNC your own replacement parts
> 
> -to help you do your own future repairs
> 
> You can work with the model using the free web-based OnShape CAD software: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/85b89457f6b6e26d9ac28fe7/w/e1634fdd87d1c0bd3e297076/e/73896d3e7da4f513a8a6cbe1
> 
> The STEP file loads well into most CAD programs, including https://www.freecadweb.org/ and is probably better for most serious use.
> 
> -john


What software does DE use internally for CAD?


----------



## decent_espresso

mikefish said:


> What software does DE use internally for CAD?


The mechanical engineers all use Solidworks, while Ray (the inventor and electrical engineer) uses FreeCAD and Onshape, but this is largely to draft ideas that then get redrawn precisely in Solidworks.


----------



## decent_espresso

A few 110V DE1+ machines, shipping today, at a $500 discount.

I have a half dozen DE1+ machines in stock, that I will sell at the early-adopter price of $1999 ($500 off the current price).

Here's the catch:

1) This offer is only for people who have helped us along this journey by posting to the forums. You must have previously posted something before we started shipping (February 2018) to our discussions on Home Barista, Coffee Forums UK, Coffee Snobs, our Instagram, or on the Facebook group.

2) these machines have a slight cosmetic defect, of a rounded scratch around the front panel mounting holes. Photo attached. You'll need to be OK with that.

---

If you'd like to take me up on this, send me a personal message and include a link to one of your pre-March postings. I'll follow up with you directly afterward.

Sorry.... no 220V machines available under this offer at the moment (stay tuned).

-john


----------



## Dylan

Can you make the UK price including taxes and shipping clear on these machines please John.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Can you make the UK price including taxes and shipping clear on these machines please John.


As these are 110V machines, I kind of intended them to be for USA users. I realize this is a .co.uk forum, but there are some Americans here.

But... if you wanted to buy yourself a 220V->110V converter, and run the machine, don't suppose I have a problem with that.

So, to answer your question:









But I am planning to have a few 220V machines available under the same offer. But I don't have any in stock at the moment.

-john


----------



## Dylan

Ah I see, I did read the last line of the initial post but somehow didn't click.


----------



## billt

decent_espresso said:


> As these are 110V machines, I kind of intended them to be for USA users. I realize this is a .co.uk forum, but there are some Americans here.
> 
> But... if you wanted to buy yourself a 220V->110V converter, and run the machine, don't suppose I have a problem with that.
> 
> So, to answer your question:
> 
> View attachment 35415
> 
> 
> But I am planning to have a few 220V machines available under the same offer. But I don't have any in stock at the moment.
> 
> -john


So you have a surplus stock of machines which you are selling off at a discount, but you haven't fulfilled your preorders at a much higher price (from April 2017 - scheduled for delivery in Oct 2018 + an unknown time).

Something isn't right here.


----------



## markant

billt said:


> Something isn't right here.


Maybe read again..... these are machines with cosmetic defaults.... so everything is more than fine....!


----------



## decent_espresso

markant said:


> Maybe read again..... these are machines with cosmetic defaults.... so everything is more than fine....!


And the price offered here is the same price as what the pre-order price was. Not cheaper.

It's a 2nd chance for people who helped me bring this project to life, to get a machine at the pre-order price, albeit with a cosmetic fault.

Four of the six machines I have like this have sold, only two left, and one said he's bank wiring tomorrow.

I also note I just found out that Bill's machine has not been sent to him due to a mix up. We had asked him some time ago, to confirm his postal address before we ship it. Because his address hadn't changed, he didn't write back "confirmed" and so we emailed him again, and he didn't confirm again. He didn't think he needed to, and didn't understand that we wouldn't ship until we heard back. So we hadn't sent his machine out yet. He wrote in yesterday to complain, the confusion has now been resolved and he'll be getting his machine soon.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

All the remaining DE1+ machines I had under the special offer are now sold out, and shipping today. 9 people took advantage of this, and I look forward to hearing from in the coming days, as you start pulling (hopefully decent) shots.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

This company makes the brass parts that go into the group head of our espresso machine. Every time you see brass in this video (and that's often) those are Decent Espresso parts. An interesting peek inside high-end Chinese manufacturing.

Some amusing moments:

- the ping pong tables and treadmill

- all the girls on the right side of the table, all the boys on the left side.

- nice matching shirts

- really, really nice CNC and testing equipment

- amazingly good English text-to-speech narrator (with a slightly Nordic accent?)

[video=youtube;fVsTg-XZJ7M]






-john


----------



## red_hood

Can you tell us more about the brass that you use in the machines? What is the amount of lead in it, and does it have any certification for usage in drinking water? Also, it would be interesting for me to know which other parts are made of brass besides the group head.

Are there any plans to do a NSF certification for the whole machine?


----------



## decent_espresso

red_hood said:


> Can you tell us more about the brass that you use in the machines? What is the amount of lead in it, and does it have any certification for usage in drinking water?


We had our own tests conducted, results below. We paid to have SGS Labs https://www.sgsgroup.com.hk/ test all our materials, separately from the supplier-provided certifications. I have previously posted all the PDFs here on this forum. Here is a JPG version of the brass tests from SGS.









Oh man, the forum software has downrezed these images so they're now unreadable.







Sorry about that.

I've uploaded the original PDF from SGS here:

https://decentespresso.com/p/sgs-brass.pdf



red_hood said:


> Also, it would be interesting for me to know which other parts are made of brass besides the group head.


Only the group head is made of brass. The stuff is damned expensive (USD$110 for the CNCed parts, for each DE1+) and I would love to have an alternative, but it's the best choice at the moment. Our water paths are calibrated and need to be precise, so they're not easily cast. We've thought about switching to Ultem, because then we'd have no thermal issues (no need to preheat the group) and no lead issues, but such a switch will need extensive testing.



red_hood said:


> Are there any plans to do a NSF certification for the whole machine?


Yes, for the DE1CAFE, we plan to go for NSF. We bought the NSF standard when we started, and Intertek have been advising us all along, so we've been making choices in the belief that we're going to be able to get the certification. It's on next year's schedule.

-john


----------



## Obnic

Sorry if this has already been posted (I've been out of the loop a while).

I (in all my humble amateur home-muppet glory) think this is the most useful jump in practical extraction science since brew ratios and refraction. https://www.scottrao.com/blog/2018/7/18/advanced-mode-on-the-de1 24% EY from a Baratza Forte.


----------



## MSM

I read that earlier today and it does look really interesting - the DE1+ being well outside my budget sadly but I think it looks great!


----------



## embrya

Obnic said:


> Sorry if this has already been posted (I've been out of the loop a while).
> 
> I (in all my humble amateur home-muppet glory) think this is the most useful jump in practical extraction science since brew ratios and refraction. https://www.scottrao.com/blog/2018/7/18/advanced-mode-on-the-de1 24% EY from a Baratza Forte.


Just tried this with a light roast from Ethiopia and though I had no pressure at the end it was wonderfully balanced and intense. Not too much acidity as before with a flow profile.

8g in, 45 g out!

With 18 or 22 g no pressure at the end as well.

Probably need to grind finer.

Best

Stefan



















Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


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## martyrdon

That is way too cool


----------



## Dayks

Obnic said:


> Sorry if this has already been posted (I've been out of the loop a while).
> 
> I (in all my humble amateur home-muppet glory) think this is the most useful jump in practical extraction science since brew ratios and refraction. https://www.scottrao.com/blog/2018/7/18/advanced-mode-on-the-de1 24% EY from a Baratza Forte.


That looks really interesting, wonder if it will work to some degree with my Sage as it has no 3 way valve.

I won't be able to do the flow profiling part of it but the bloom should be possible.


----------



## embrya

This will only work as intended with a DE1+.

Even if you try with another machine you'll never see what's going on...

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


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## roastini

Dayks said:


> That looks really interesting, wonder if it will work to some degree with my Sage as it has no 3 way valve.
> 
> I won't be able to do the flow profiling part of it but the bloom should be possible.


The bloom is an awesome step. I've been futzing with profiles with pauses after preinfusion for weeks now, and I think they make great shots.


----------



## decent_espresso

Bugs and I are in Manila for 9 days, going to highbrow cultural institutions https://www.upsidedown.com.ph/, drinking too much coffee and giving a few talks. Then density of serious coffee places within walking distance is pretty impressive. And clearly the local salesman for Kees van der Westen is making a very, very good living here.

In no particular order, here's a few visuals.


----------



## Stevebee

embrya said:


> Just tried this with a light roast from Ethiopia and though I had no pressure at the end it was wonderfully balanced and intense. Not too much acidity as before with a flow profile.
> 
> 8g in, 45 g out!
> 
> With 18 or 22 g no pressure at the end as well.
> 
> Probably need to grind finer.
> 
> Best
> 
> Stefan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


I think you definately need to grind finer. If it wasn't for the flow control on the DE1, with a standard 9 bar machine

this would be a gusher. Suprised it would have any extraction %. An Aeropress probably has more than 1 bar of pressure.

When Scott Rao posted his graph, after the bloom period his pull reached over 9bar tailing down lever style so would have

extracted as normal plus whatever the bloom added. Have seen a few graphs showing it controlled by flow where the pressure

didn't reach any real level. Those from the gurus all hit reasonable pressure of at least 6 bar.

With so many parameters to play with this machine is mind boggling. With the Vesuvius I've just got pressure and grind to

control the flow and that's complicated enough! Good luck with all the experiments - watching with interest


----------



## embrya

Thanks - this was too fine but tasted better than the previous!










Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


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## red_hood

The analysis of the brass looks good to me, so it seems there is no significant amount of lead in there. I am looking forward to the new batch of DE1+







. Are there currently any planned changes regarding the heating power for steam in the 220V version?


----------



## SurbitonBoy

I just unpacked my DE1+ and made the first acceptable americano of today (technically a lot longer)

20g of Square Mile Red Brick (I think local shop filled me a bag out of their hopper) 60g out + 60g hot water. It's very fruity but not sure if I taste the "Plums, Almond, Honey and Berries" mostly the berries.

Only three issues other than my Costa level barrista skills

1) spring clip on portafiller doesn't stay in place when swapping baskets

2) 20g basket leaves the shower curtain covered in grounds, swapping to 22g basket for 20g of coffee

3) I can't find the stop at weight option for advanced profiles, can see it on the Flow Profile tab


----------



## roastini

SurbitonBoy said:


> 1) spring clip on portafiller doesn't stay in place when swapping baskets


Known issue, though I'm surprised machines are still shipping with this problem. With safety goggles on, clip a few mm off of each end of the clip.



SurbitonBoy said:


> 3) I can't find the stop at weight option for advanced profiles, can see it on the Flow Profile tab


It's not there yet. On the to-do list.


----------



## decent_espresso

red_hood said:


> The analysis of the brass looks good to me, so it seems there is no significant amount of lead in there. I am looking forward to the new batch of DE1+
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> . Are there currently any planned changes regarding the heating power for steam in the 220V version?


We're currently working on a design for a new heater, which will be at 1500W (vs 1350W) for 110V and DE1+ users, and 2200W for DE1CAFE users. However, the design is not yet finished, and when it is, there will still be a 6 month wait before these arrive in sizable quantity to us. These new heaters are planned for the v1.3 espresso machines starting in early 2019.



roastini said:


> Known issue, though I'm surprised machines are still shipping with this problem. With safety goggles on, clip a few mm off of each end of the clip.


Yep, just noticed this myself at a demo in Manila, that this problem has "come back". I suspect the issue is that not all boxes of portafilters were checked to have the new spring. I'll get that resolved when I get back to HK next week.

The "take off a few mm" suggestion is correct, and is what I did here at the demo too.

-john


----------



## RoastGrindPull

I really appreciate the transparency Decent has demonstrated through the course of this project, which I've been tracking in another forum, and I'd love to see what all of the owners are saying. I can understand not wanting non-owners to distract in the Decent Diaspora forum, but can non-owners at least view the forum without interacting? I think that would really help in the wait until the next DE1+ batch currently planned for next year. Is there a way to observe this forum?


----------



## decent_espresso

RoastGrindPull said:



> I really appreciate the transparency Decent has demonstrated through the course of this project, which I've been tracking in another forum, and I'd love to see what all of the owners are saying. I can understand not wanting non-owners to distract in the Decent Diaspora forum, but can non-owners at least view the forum without interacting? I think that would really help in the wait until the next DE1+ batch currently planned for next year. Is there a way to observe this forum?


There's quite a lot of discussion on HB from both DE1+ owners and non-owners.

Two live ones at the moment:

This one has been going on for a few months:

https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/review-of-decent-espresso-de1-pro-t52582-60.html

and this new thread is 9 days old:

https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/my-take-on-decent-de1-t53471-20.html#p601073

the two most recent posts:



> DE1 has that super fast warm up and flexibility. I also think it is very attractive with it's minimalist design. It's much more countertop friendly and won't heat up the house. Honestly in 5 years they may take the home market if they can continue to evovle this 1.x machine.
> 
> I love seeing updates to the DE threads. Very few complaints and a LOT of praise!





> The de1+ is truely one of its kind...there is so much which we previously took as the norm in traditional espresso machine, ie long warm up time, cold/hot flushes, warming up of the environment , guess work (dependent on machine) that we had to live with. Suddenly with the de1 all these things are taken away, living just the pure espresso making process.
> 
> I am now in a predicament of buying a second espresso machine for personal office use. Currently using the de1 at home and I am thinking of getting a more traditional espresso machine but just the thought of going thru the above issues with the traditional machine again makes me seriously reconsider my options..
> 
> The de1 has really spoilt me, I feel like this whiney complaining brat whenever I use back a traditional espresso machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

Found out about the Hario Samantha "smart brewer" yesterday.

I was (somewhat) amused to see them make a proud feature of the very thing that Intertek forbid us to do for UL approval: control hot water starting over bluetooth.

Gotta love the arbitrary nature of UL rule enforcement.


----------



## RoastGrindPull

decent_espresso said:


> There's quite a lot of discussion on HB from both DE1+ owners and non-owners.
> 
> Two live ones at the moment:
> 
> This one has been going on for a few months:
> 
> https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/review-of-decent-espresso-de1-pro-t52582-60.html
> 
> and this new thread is 9 days old:
> 
> https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/my-take-on-decent-de1-t53471-20.html#p601073
> 
> the two most recent posts:


Yep, following those threads. Not really much out there from the owners, save a few. I guess that's a "no" on observing the owners forum. I wonder why you'd want to hide that from others? Seems like the only place the whole story lies and hiding it is inconsistent with the openness we've seen up until now. Hmmmm.....







Carry on!


----------



## RoastGrindPull

decent_espresso said:


> I was (somewhat) amused to see them make a proud feature of the very thing that Intertek forbid us to do for UL approval: control hot water starting over bluetooth.
> 
> Gotta love the arbitrary nature of UL rule enforcement.


That's got to be totally frustrating. Geez!


----------



## ashcroc

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 35727
> 
> 
> Found out about the Hario Samantha "smart brewer" yesterday.
> 
> I was (somewhat) amused to see them make a proud feature of the very thing that Intertek forbid us to do for UL approval: control hot water starting over bluetooth.
> 
> Gotta love the arbitrary nature of UL rule enforcement.


Might it be worth going back to them now this president has been set?


----------



## Dylan

ashcroc said:


> Might it be worth going back to them now this president has been set?


I think John went over the fact that they weren't consistent before, I think he already cited other examples of this inconsistency.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I think John went over the fact that they weren't consistent before, I think he already cited other examples of this inconsistency.


Yep. The reply is simply "just because other people are violating the rules doesn't mean we should let you violate them".

We're already quite far down the path of making a quite fancy built-in group head controller, so I'm not going to back away from that path.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

RoastGrindPull said:


> Yep, following those threads. Not really much out there from the owners, save a few. I guess that's a "no" on observing the owners forum. I wonder why you'd want to hide that from others? Seems like the only place the whole story lies and hiding it is inconsistent with the openness we've seen up until now. Hmmmm.....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Carry on!


It's not a quest of "hiding it" from people, it's:

1) access to the "Decent Diaspora" community is part of the benefits of buying our machines, along with other kinds of support, such as 1:1 contact between everyone (including the Decent engineers).

2) Owners want to have quite different conversations from Prospective Owners, and since there already exist forums (like this one) for prospective owners, I prefer to create something different.

3) And finally, the software I have chose to run it, called Basecamp, does not support read only, or anonymous viewing. It might be hard to get one's mind around it, but this "limitation" actually creates huge opportunities, because everyone on Diaspora is vetted and trusted. For example, the "documents" section is collaboratively written and organized. Anyone can create a "todo" for us, and be notified when it's done.

"Basecamp" is generally used by companies who are working closely with clients on a project.

I chose to treat each owner as a part of this "decent project" and that's created something quite different from a forum.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

The one-off prototype for the v1.1 legs and chassis arrived last week while I was in Manila, and a test machine is being built with it.

We'll do some stress testing next week. Assuming all looks good, this will become the new leg set for DE1+ owners, and will be what we send to people who have waited to receive leg replacements from us (in the cases where theirs got bent in shipping)

Also, the sides of the legs are now continuously welded, so paint fractures should be harder to cause.


----------



## CoffeeChris

I think I'm sold on getting the DE1+ is there a date yet for early next year? I'm guessing this batch will come with the new heater? That's talked about further up this thread? Thanks


----------



## decent_espresso

CoffeeChris said:


> I think I'm sold on getting the DE1+ is there a date yet for early next year? I'm guessing this batch will come with the new heater? That's talked about further up this thread? Thanks


The new design heater is still a long ways away: sometime in 2019. There's a 6 month lead time on it, once we finalize the design (which we haven't yet). There's nothing wrong with the current heater, it's just not bespoke.

We will likely have DE1PROs available in stock shortly, and I'm thinking of offering them at a lower price for those that don't need the plumbing kits.

-john


----------



## CoffeeChris

Thanks John. I would definitely be keen on the pro version without the plumb kit. Question regarding heater. What is the difference... Is it more powerful? Only just started following this thread.


----------



## decent_espresso

CoffeeChris said:


> Thanks John. I would definitely be keen on the pro version without the plumb kit. Question regarding heater. What is the difference... Is it more powerful? Only just started following this thread.


Yes, the bespoke heater will be more powerful, but it will only be offered on the cafe version, for those that need very powerful stream (to crank out "them lattes").

We're also working on another bespoke heater, for v1.3 DE1+ machines, that will boost us from 1350W (off the shelf, today's model) to 1500W (bespoke model), but that's only a 10% power boost in steam.

Home users have generally not been complaining about the steam power on the forums. It's cafes for whom high speed is so important.

-john


----------



## CoffeeChris

Thanks John. I'm guessing you will announce on the forums if you do decide to ship pro without plumbing kit? Last question.... Is there a list of the different versions and what is changed? E.g v1. 3 if pro model in Jan vs v1. 1 in September? Thanks


----------



## Firedancer

IF you decide to release the DE1PRO without the plumbing kit, will this be with the v1.1 chassis, group head, etc or the original v1.0 design?


----------



## decent_espresso

CoffeeChris said:


> Is there a list of the different versions and what is changed? E.g v1. 3 if pro model in Jan vs v1. 1 in September? Thanks


v1.0 : now shipping

v1.1 : 4mm less headspace above portafilter basket, stronger legs, shipping to start end of September

v1.2 : cafe model only, final specifications to be announced, but planned to be 2x stronger steam, group head controller, 20% larger, retina display tablet. Beta shipping to start in October

v1.3 : group head controller, DE1+ and DE1PRO both now available, shipping in January 2019. UL approved.



CoffeeChris said:


> Thanks John. I'm guessing you will announce on the forums if you do decide to ship pro without plumbing kit?


Yep.



Firedancer said:


> If you decide to release the DE1PRO without the plumbing kit, will this be with the v1.1 chassis, group head, etc or the original v1.0 design?


It'll be a permanent offering, with some DE1PRO (unplumbed) at v1.0 being available immediately.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's my technique for steaming milk without having to stand there babying it.


----------



## decent_espresso

Many tiny improvements in our v1.1 group head (left) as compared to our current v1.0 group head. This new design will be used starting in late September.


----------



## RoastGrindPull

decent_espresso said:


> Here's my technique for steaming milk without having to stand there babying it.


 That's cool!


----------



## decent_espresso

With a larger milk jug (600ml) I can easily steam hands-free using this technique. No stand required.

[video=youtube;v4-8acZpDpk]


----------



## decent_espresso

All our early customers now have a machine (or it's on their way to them via UPS)

A big push today has us sending the very last machines that were pre-ordered.

Next week, Mirjam and I will be offering v1.0 DE1PRO machines to the 70 people who have bought from us in the past few weeks. They'll have "first dibs" on these, or they can wait until the v1.1 model goes into production in about 2 months.

And so I also hope that in the next 2 to 3 weeks, I'll have a few dozen DE1PRO models (plumbed and not) in stock for immediate delivery, to whoever wants to buy one.

To all of you who bought a machine early from us, who put your confidence in Ray, me and the rest of my team: thank you! And a big apology to Mr Merhi, who had to wait the longest as he ordered so many machines from us (his is the big pallet).

-john


----------



## roastini

Congrats for finishing wave 1!


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 35797
> 
> 
> View attachment 35798
> 
> 
> All our early customers now have a machine (or it's on their way to them via UPS)
> 
> A big push today has us sending the very last machines that were pre-ordered.
> 
> Next week, Mirjam and I will be offering v1.0 DE1PRO machines to the 70 people who have bought from us in the past few weeks. They'll have "first dibs" on these, or they can wait until the v1.1 model goes into production in about 2 months.
> 
> And so I also hope that in the next 2 to 3 weeks, I'll have a few dozen DE1PRO models (plumbed and not) in stock for immediate delivery, to whoever wants to buy one.
> 
> To all of you who bought a machine early from us, who put your confidence in Ray, me and the rest of my team: thank you! And a big apology to Mr Merhi, who had to wait the longest as he ordered so many machines from us (his is the big pallet).
> 
> -john


Congrats! Hopefully UL certified machines will start goin out soon. Can't wait anymore for mine!


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> Congrats! Hopefully UL certified machines will start goin out soon. Can't wait anymore for mine!


I'll post news about that when I have it, but we're still quite a ways away from that. September/October will have us putting substantial time into the group head controller, and then there'll need to be testing time. And then we'll submit that to Intertek for UL approval. Christmas vacations will mean that approval should come in late January/early February.

The v1.3 machines will feature the group head controller, whether or not we have UL approval yet for it. They'll start getting made once we have made about 70% of this next batch of v1.1 machines.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

This post is about a change we've made to the v1.1 DE1+ pc board.

With the first 50 machines we built and sent to customers, quite a few of them had wires come lose during shipping.

It's a "major bummer" to order an espresso machine, that apparently "worked fine when it left the factory" only to find that it doesn't work when you receive it. It was also a huge "time suck" for me, as I got on video calls with each person, to resolve their issue.

We've gotten much better at locking things down since then, but it's still a concern. I have one client who has--very rarely--steam that doesn't function. We haven't been able to detect the cause yet.

So... with the version 1.1 espresso machines, I had challenged Ray to invent a way to detect "bad wiring", which can also be "intermittently or only occasionally bad wiring". Those sorts of problems are typically really hard to figure out.

The v1.1 PC board now threads the neutral electrical line through a transformer, so that--in software--we can now see if the electricity we sent to a component was actually consumed by that component.

For example, this will tell us whether a valve that we think is open, really is open and is using up the electricity we've sent it.

It's also possible that the valve is blocked (say, by dirt in the water) and we believe that we'll be able to detect that too, because the valves' consumption of electricity will look atypical in that situation.

We still have all the firmware to write to support this new idea, but in summary, we think we'll now be able to detect wiring that is disconnected, a partial (bad) connection, or even intermittent failures. We also think we can find when a component is consuming too much power, and thus know that something is wrong.

We've had 3 clients have USB cables short out and melt. We believe that we'll now be able to detect that short and cut the USB power if it does happen.

Ideally, a future iteration of the DE1+ will cycle through every electrical component (valves, heaters, pumps, USB charger) with a single cycle, at every power-up, and detect if anything is wrong. Because the detection happens early, this approach should also allow us to isolate the fault before it causes permanent damage (such as a spark and blowing a component).

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Beautiful slow motion video of water flowing from the Decent Espresso Machine at the Institute for Coffee Excellence


----------



## decent_espresso

I thought this bluetooth "smart mug" was pretty silly at first:

https://ember.com/products/ceramic-mug

but then I thought.... I do spend a lot of time thinking about the ideal beverage temperature.* What if I could make a drink that I served at 50ºC, and which stayed at 50ºC during its entire drinking experience?*

*
*

Would that be a good thing?

Or is the gradual cooling of a coffee drink an essential part of the experience?

Because technically, with this mug, I could likely change the DE1+ app to have a "beverage temperature" setting.

And that then seemed like an interesting idea.

Your thoughts?

￼￼-john


----------



## jlarkin

decent_espresso said:


> I thought this bluetooth "smart mug" was pretty silly at first:
> 
> https://ember.com/products/ceramic-mug
> 
> but then I thought.... I do spend a lot of time thinking about the ideal beverage temperature.* What if I could make a drink that I served at 50ºC, and which stayed at 50ºC during its entire drinking experience?*
> 
> *
> *
> 
> Would that be a good thing?
> 
> Or is the gradual cooling of a coffee drink an essential part of the experience?
> 
> Because technically, with this mug, I could likely change the DE1+ app to have a "beverage temperature" setting.
> 
> And that then seemed like an interesting idea.
> 
> Your thoughts?
> 
> ￼￼-john


I find that you can appreciate different properties of a filter coffee at different temperatures and that's part of the interest for me. To experience how it develops, if I manage to let it cool (I'm something of a gulper). I wonder if it would help for milk based drinks or espresso though - I don't particularly want my espresso to cool much.

p.s. I think this was the 2000th comment on this thread!


----------



## Dylan

A good thermos will keep your drink within a a few degrees of its original temp for a really long time.

I can see that it might be more pleasant to drink out of an open topped mug however - so something like that definitely has an appeal.


----------



## imwazn

IMO, room temp coffee is never good. Heating the mug above ambient, but not to the shot temperature may be the way to go.


----------



## phenyl

imwazn said:


> IMO, room temp coffee is never good. Heating the mug above ambient, but not to the shot temperature may be the way to go.


I propose it be tested for espresso AND relatively short time spans, but memories of the dark brown liquid out of a MrCoffee-type device with heated glass-pot at a place I worked at do haunt me. And the cleaning....


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent Espresso ❤ Espresso Forge

I've been a big fan of Andre's Espresso Forge https://www.facebook.com/espressoforge/ http://espressoforge.com/ project for some time https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/espresso-press-project-t34309.html and was very flattered when Andre bought a Decent Espresso Machine.

A few years ago I'd pulled shots on a forge, found that they were excellent, but better with our Decent Baskets. Andre agreed and now sells our baskets as an option for the forge.

The Forge can make some truly excellent shots, for two reasons. Firstly, it's a lever machine, so you have manual control of flow and pressure.






Secondly, because it takes pre-heated (kettle boiled water) it has a natural "temperature profiling" capability, with shots starting high and ending at a lower temperature. A number of coffee experts think that a declining temperature curve makes better coffee.

Indeed, Scott Rao's latest "blooming espresso" discovery on the DE1PRO makes use of a declining temperature curve. https://www.scottrao.com/blog/2018/7/18/advanced-mode-on-the-de1

Andre has developed two advanced profiles for his DE1+ that mimic the best technique he's developed on the Espresso Forge. His idea is that when at home (where he has electricity!) he and his wife can easily have the best espresso they've become used to.

And when they're on vacation or camping, they take their Espresso Forge and recreate this espresso by hand.

Andre's two profiles for the DE1+ take advantage of temperature profiles, low-pressure preinfusion, multiple stages with conditions, flow and pressure profiling. This is fancy stuff, but Andre knows his stuff.

Thankfully, he's created and tested this recipe, so the only thing the rest of us need to do is tap the preset and hit START.

These two profiles are now included by default to all our Decent Espresso customers, as a free "App Update"

-john


----------



## gac

I've been using the Espressoforge dark roast profile since it appeared on my DE1+ and have really appreciated the reduction in bitterness and richer flavour of my darker, locally grown roast. Temp drop isn't occurring as it should though and I don't know why. But it was really great to learn how to bring out flavour without bitterness in darker roasts


----------



## decent_espresso

gac said:


> Temp drop isn't occurring as it should though and I don't know why. But it was really great to learn how to bring out flavour without bitterness in darker roasts


My guess is that the slow flow rate, combined by the greater mass of our group, and the fact that we're electrically heating the group, means that the group head on the DE1+ cannot drop its temperature as rapidly as the Espresso Forge can.

If you coarsen up your grind a bit, the flow rate will speed up, and that will give the DE1+ a greater flow rate to work with, which it can use to cool down the shot faster. However... if that makes better tasting coffee or not, is for you to let us know.









-john


----------



## gac

Thanks John. I think your right because my flow is a bit slow 1.5ml-2.0ml. Will try it tomorrow am.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's interesting comment:



> with same grinder, water and coffee, I can get pretty much equivalent shots from my Flair and my Slayer. It is a bit easier with the Slayer, of course. Grinder and skills make a big difference here. Some coffees actually benefit from the declining temperature profile of a manual lever, which the Slayer cannot do.


From https://www.home-barista.com/levers/user-experience-flair-espresso-manual-lever-t44631-740.html#p601973


----------



## coffeechap

Jesus was that a straight blatant plug for something backed up by someone else who's only two posts are backing this up!


----------



## decent_espresso

coffeechap said:


> Jesus was that a straight blatant plug for something backed up by someone else who's only two posts are backing this up!


----------



## DavecUK

decent_espresso said:


> Here's interesting comment:
> 
> From https://www.home-barista.com/levers/user-experience-flair-espresso-manual-lever-t44631-740.html#p601973


I guess it clearly shows your machine is better than a Slayer (functionally I mean) an achievement you should rightly be proud of. The Slayer market isn't massive and anyone who wants a slayer is still going to buy a Slayer. However ordinary folk with a few thousand plus to spend can get that performance at a fraction of the price.


----------



## decent_espresso

DavecUK said:


> I guess it clearly shows your machine is better than a Slayer (functionally I mean) an achievement you should rightly be proud of. The Slayer market isn't massive and anyone who wants a slayer is still going to buy a Slayer. However ordinary folk with a few thousand plus to spend can get that performance at a fraction of the price.


I also read it to mean that if you have talent, you can use a fairly inexpensive lever machine and get fantastic results.

Related: one of the founders of the Flair Espresso maker just bought one of my espresso machines last week. I'm very interested to see how he gets on with it.

-john


----------



## DavecUK

decent_espresso said:


> I also read it to mean that if you have talent, you can use a fairly inexpensive lever machine and get fantastic results.
> 
> Related: one of the founders of the Flair Espresso maker just bought one of my espresso machines last week. I'm very interested to see how he gets on with it.
> 
> -john


You are probably correct, but as your machine can do things no other machine can do and share profiles, it effectively eliminates the requirement for talent. For the talented who use a DE1 (or DE1+?) the sky is the limit in terms of replicating any shot a machine can do or ever will be able to do. There is that old term that might apply to the Decent espresso machine "I think they've cracked it". It may be that over time, you will make all other machines obsolete in terms of capability and function. I suspect there will still be "retro users" who want to continue using old fashioned dual boiler and lever machines, or even out of date pressure profiling machines.

It will be interesting to read more in depth reviews from your customers.


----------



## gelious

Hi John,

I think you're bringing industry shift on the table with your espresso maker. Thanks to you and team!

As soon as you're not neglecting secondary attributes of espresso ritual (grinders, tempers, etc.) - I would be brave enough to suggest transparent portafilter for your consideration. Portafilter is terra incognita (visuality wise) at the moment, but that's where all the magic actually happens when water plus pressure meet the coffee puck. Opening that view to home enthusiasts, baristas and cafe clientele could have astonishing impact. Professionals would gain more visibility and control over their shots while coffee lovers could simply enjoy watching the process. I would even anticipate some establishments to mount small cameras on DE machine to enable live broadcast on large screens - so each client could watch his/her coffee being crafted.

When it comes to technology aspect of the transparent portafillter - I don't think this is something undoable for your company to R&D and deliver. Metal core with borosilicate glass ring inserted...


----------



## Jony

What no welcome^ and jump on this thread.


----------



## Dylan

gelious said:


> Hi John,
> 
> I think you're bringing industry shift on the table with your espresso maker. Thanks to you and team!
> 
> As soon as you're not neglecting secondary attributes of espresso ritual (grinders, tempers, etc.) - I would be brave enough to suggest transparent portafilter for your consideration. Portafilter is terra incognita (visuality wise) at the moment, but that's where all the magic actually happens when water plus pressure meet the coffee puck. Opening that view to home enthusiasts, baristas and cafe clientele could have astonishing impact. Professionals would gain more visibility and control over their shots while coffee lovers could simply enjoy watching the process. I would even anticipate some establishments to mount small cameras on DE machine to enable live broadcast on large screens - so each client could watch his/her coffee being crafted.
> 
> When it comes to technology aspect of the transparent portafillter - I don't think this is something undoable for your company to R&D and deliver. Metal core with borosilicate glass ring inserted...


The only company that has ever done this was La Marzocco I believe and it was purely for experiments not for actual shots.

You would have to have both a transparent PF as well as a transparent basket. The chances of anyone doing this in any kind of practical way for a tiny market of people who might want them is slim to none.


----------



## DavecUK

gelious said:


> Hi John,
> 
> I think you're bringing industry shift on the table with your espresso maker. Thanks to you and team!
> 
> As soon as you're not neglecting secondary attributes of espresso ritual (grinders, tempers, etc.) - I would be brave enough to suggest transparent portafilter for your consideration. Portafilter is terra incognita (visuality wise) at the moment, but that's where all the magic actually happens when water plus pressure meet the coffee puck. Opening that view to home enthusiasts, baristas and cafe clientele could have astonishing impact. Professionals would gain more visibility and control over their shots while coffee lovers could simply enjoy watching the process. I would even anticipate some establishments to mount small cameras on DE machine to enable live broadcast on large screens - so each client could watch his/her coffee being crafted.
> 
> When it comes to technology aspect of the transparent portafillter - I don't think this is something undoable for your company to R&D and deliver. Metal core with borosilicate glass ring inserted...


I love the term "industry shift", makes me feel old....I can imagine the oohs and ahhs as the customers bend over the counter to get a look at the transparent portafilter. Out with the phones to video and photograph. I admit the visibility and control aspect I am not so sure of, but you might be right, seeing what is going on may make it possible for the skilled to spring into action, fingers lightly brushing the tablet in a blur as they make fine adjustments to the shot in real time. Cameras mounted on the machine to video the shot, again it's great idea. I can imagine idly sipping my coffee and watching shot after glorious shot issuing forth from a transparent portafilter on the big screen.

That's a fantastic idea. The transparent aluminium (Aluminium Oxynitride ceramic) would easily be strong enough and space age enough to make it fitting for the DE1 or is it DE1+ (pro). In fact I am sure Scotty meant the ceramic. I put the link to the manufacturer of Alon in case DE take up the idea.

http://www.surmet.com/technology/alon-optical-ceramics/index.php


----------



## MWJB

Dylan said:


> The only company that has ever done this was La Marzocco I believe and it was purely for experiments not for actual shots.
> 
> You would have to have both a transparent PF as well as a transparent basket. The chances of anyone doing this in any kind of practical way for a tiny market of people who might want them is slim to none.


It was La Spaziale

[video=youtube;-Xmq8NqdUiM]


----------



## Dylan

MWJB said:


> It was La Spaziale
> 
> [video=youtube;-Xmq8NqdUiM]


I feel like I was close


----------



## DavecUK

Dylan said:


> I feel like I was close


you wouldn't want to get too close though....


----------



## gelious

DavecUK said:


> I love the term "industry shift", makes me feel old....I can imagine the oohs and ahhs as the customers bend over the counter to get a look at the transparent portafilter. Out with the phones to video and photograph. I admit the visibility and control aspect I am not so sure of, but you might be right, seeing what is going on may make it possible for the skilled to spring into action, fingers lightly brushing the tablet in a blur as they make fine adjustments to the shot in real time. Cameras mounted on the machine to video the shot, again it's great idea. I can imagine idly sipping my coffee and watching shot after glorious shot issuing forth from a transparent portafilter on the big screen.
> 
> That's a fantastic idea. The transparent aluminium (Aluminium Oxynitride ceramic) would easily be strong enough and space age enough to make it fitting for the DE1 or is it DE1+ (pro). In fact I am sure Scotty meant the ceramic. I put the link to the manufacturer of Alon in case DE take up the idea.
> 
> http://www.surmet.com/technology/alon-optical-ceramics/index.php


DavecUK - your suggestion on material takes the idea even further - if the whole thing could be made using this ceramic material (except basket and handle) - this would look stunning.


----------



## DavecUK

gelious said:


> DavecUK - your suggestion on material takes the idea even further - if the whole thing could be made using this ceramic material (except basket and handle) - this would look stunning.


Thank James Doohan (AKA Scotty), the best engineer I know.


----------



## ashcroc

gelious said:


> DavecUK - your suggestion on material takes the idea even further - if the whole thing could be made using this ceramic material (except basket and handle) - this would look stunning.


If the basket isn't see through too, it loses all purpose.


----------



## xpresso

ashcroc said:


> If the basket isn't see through too, it loses all purpose.


Not quite, it would require a different filter that no longer resembled a basket, more over a circular plate filter that sealed in the lower part of what would be basically a tube of see through material.

Jon.


----------



## ashcroc

xpresso said:


> Not quite, it would require a different filter that no longer resembled a basket, more over a circular plate filter that sealed in the lower part of what would be basically a tube of see through material.
> 
> Jon.


The post I was replying to *specifically* mentioned a basket.


----------



## xpresso

ashcroc said:


> The post I was replying to *specifically* mentioned a basket.


Bit abrupt for tendering a suggestion/alternative.


----------



## gac

Those videos of transparent PF were absolutely mesmerising....and instructive. Can really see what's happening with the puck. I didn't think it was possible. Loved it!


----------



## decent_espresso

Next week, we'll finish building the last of our v1.0 Espresso Machines. We'll have about a week pause, as we await the parts for the v1.1 design to start arriving. The new parts will be arriving over a 2 to 6 week period. We won't be able to ship any v1.1 machines until every last part has arrived, likely around the end of September. But we'll have done a lot of prep work, so they should flow out fairly rapidly then.

Making machines at an increasing speed and good quality has been our focus these past 6 months with v1.0. The pause gives us time to tidy up, document, rethink how we do some things, and (vitally) find space to store 2x as many parts as we've ever had.

I took these two panorama photos early this morning, as I was the 2nd one to arrive, and things were nice and quiet. You can see how our factory, warehouse, and engineering spaces look. That's the final set of v1.0 machines (all 110V) being built, on the main assembly table.

-john


----------



## imwazn

What about a fritted disc or something like a buchner funnel?


----------



## decent_espresso

It took 9 weeks, a lot of negotiating and paperwork, but I today have in my hand 20 precision filter screens by IMS. Made in Italy.

Some Decent customers have put these screens into their machines, and reporting more even water flow, as these screens resist getting "gunked up" better than our current screen. IMS screens will become what we use in the v1.1 models we're going to soon start building.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here are the results from testing both PVD and Electroplating coated drip tray covers, in full strength Rinza http://urnex.com/professional/product/rinza-acid-formulation-milk-frother-cleaner/

Note that this stuff is supposed to be 15x diluted, so this is a harsh test.

The PVD did not fare well.

￼

Some of the PVD dissolved in the acid, and when we washed it residue off, you can see where the PVD is gone, leaving shiny electroplating below:

Interestingly, there is no "boundary line" visible, where the air met the Rinza liquid.

With the electroplating, the fully submerged portion suffered no damage. However, a boundary line is clearly visible where the air meets the liquid. Is there a chemist in the room who can explain why?

￼

Of the two approaches, I think I prefer the Electroplating, but neither approach can withstand pure Rinza.

This weekend, for 2 days, we're soaking the samples in 4x diluted Rinza (aka "quadruple strength") as this is likely a more reasonable test than 15x strength pure Rinza.

￼

-john


----------



## Dylan

I cant really see what your talking about in that photo - can you upload a full res version?


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I cant really see what your talking about in that photo - can you upload a full res version?


from http://magnatune.com/p/acidtest.jpg


----------



## decent_espresso

*Don't go with the flow*

We've had a lot of trouble with our flowmeters. So much trouble, in fact, that we've invested months of dedicated R&D to work around its defects, and to try to invent our own hybrid flow meter. The new "method" will (theoretically) count pump strokes to be low latency and capable of tracking low flow rates, and then use the physical flow meter. I write "theoretically" because it's proving to be a hard problem to solve.

We're currently using a big-name Italian-made flow meter. You'll find this thing in most commercial machines. It's ok. Really. But it only delivers 90% accuracy. And its electrical pulses are noisy and need filtering. And sometimes it double-pulses. And other times it skips a pulse. All this means that we currently wait 6 seconds before we can trust the numbers its giving us.

I'm currently looking at a flow meter made by EPT. They make the same model in 98%, 97% and 95% accurate versions.

I asked them what the difference was, and the answer surprised me.

They're all the same.

But because small differences in tolerances have effects on the accuracy, they test each flow meter, and then sell them at 3 different prices based on how accurate that one was.

I asked them how they thought their flow meter might be better than the big-name Italian one we use today. Three people came to visit us to deliver the answer (the lead engineer, the Big Boss, and the salesperson). We found:

1) they're using higher grade nylon and a higher tolerance process. Even then, though, there's import variation between each flowmeter made.

2) their tines are curved slightly, rather than straight, which they feel reacts better to water flow

3) their magnets are larger, and deliver stronger, less noisy electrical pulses

4) their tines are slightly taller and closer to the edges, so less water can slip through the cracks.

I've been using EPT's flow meter in my own personal machine for a few weeks. It definitely works. Over the next few weeks we'll be testing 20 of them, to see if they are indeed better.

They're slightly more expensive, but if we can get a better flow meter, the additional cost will be very much worth it.

In the photo, you can see the old vs new flow meter models, and in the espresso machine profile photo, the flow meter can be seen in the top left.

-john


----------



## phenyl

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 35953
> 
> 
> *Don't go with the flow*
> 
> We've had a lot of trouble with our flowmeters. So much trouble, in fact, that we've invested months of dedicated R&D to work around its defects, and to try to invent our own hybrid flow meter. The new "method" will (theoretically) count pump strokes to be low latency and capable of tracking low flow rates, and then use the physical flow meter. I write "theoretically" because it's proving to be a hard problem to solve.
> 
> We're currently using a big-name Italian-made flow meter. You'll find this thing in most commercial machines. It's ok. Really. But it only delivers 90% accuracy. And its electrical pulses are noisy and need filtering. And sometimes it double-pulses. And other times it skips a pulse. All this means that we currently wait 6 seconds before we can trust the numbers its giving us.
> 
> I'm currently looking at a flow meter made by EPT. They make the same model in 98%, 97% and 95% accurate versions.
> 
> I asked them what the difference was, and the answer surprised me.
> 
> They're all the same.
> 
> But because small differences in tolerances have effects on the accuracy, they test each flow meter, and then sell them at 3 different prices based on how accurate that one was.
> 
> I asked them how they thought their flow meter might be better than the big-name Italian one we use today. Three people came to visit us to deliver the answer (the lead engineer, the Big Boss, and the salesperson). We found:
> 
> 1) they're using higher grade nylon and a higher tolerance process. Even then, though, there's import variation between each flowmeter made.
> 
> 2) their tines are curved slightly, rather than straight, which they feel reacts better to water flow
> 
> 3) their magnets are larger, and deliver stronger, less noisy electrical pulses
> 
> 4) their tines are slightly taller and closer to the edges, so less water can slip through the cracks.
> 
> I've been using EPT's flow meter in my own personal machine for a few weeks. It definitely works. Over the next few weeks we'll be testing 20 of them, to see if they are indeed better.
> 
> They're slightly more expensive, but if we can get a better flow meter, the additional cost will be very much worth it.
> 
> In the photo, you can see the old vs new flow meter models, and in the espresso machine profile photo, the flow meter can be seen in the top left.
> 
> -john


Hi John,

If you haven't come across them yet, check out the digmesa nano http://www.digmesa.com/nano-family/

Up to 50000 pulses/l

Exists in a PP, a brass and a stainless steel version.


----------



## DavecUK

I think it all depends on how much you spend....the cheaper flowmeters are not so good. I perused the catalogues the manufacturers use to buy bulk parts the machines they build. Big variations from very cheap, to quite expensive.


----------



## Bob Stern

John, two years ago you discussed on the Home-Barista forum that you were experimenting with a different flow sensing method in which you measured the pressure drop across a tube. What happened to that approach? I assume pressure sensors are much lower latency than rotating paddle flow meters. Was there a hysteresis problem when the flow inside the tube shifted from low flow laminar to high flow turbulent and then back again?

https://www.home-barista.com/knockbox/espresso-flow-meter-new-invention-t40536-10.html#p465251

(In the linked post, you referred to a calibrated "orifice". I hope you meant a tube of non-negligible length, not just an aperture.)


----------



## decent_espresso

The Decent Tamper v2....

... makes tamping exceedingly boring.






https://decentespresso.com/cart?s=200+1


----------



## decent_espresso

Bob Stern said:


> John, two years ago you discussed on the Home-Barista forum that you were experimenting with a different flow sensing method in which you measured the pressure drop across a tube. What happened to that approach? I assume pressure sensors are much lower latency than rotating paddle flow meters. Was there a hysteresis problem when the flow inside the tube shifted from low flow laminar to high flow turbulent and then back again? https://www.home-barista.com/knockbox/espresso-flow-meter-new-invention-t40536-10.html#p465251 (In the linked post, you referred to a calibrated "orifice". I hope you meant a tube of non-negligible length, not just an aperture.)


Wow, that was 2.5 years ago, and I wrote then:



> To hit the water set point, we're using two pumps: one heating water (on demand) slightly too hot, another dripping cold water in to bring the water back down to the desired temperature. In order to do this, we have calibrated orifices in line, as well as pressure sensors. We then measure differential pressure and we're able to measure water flow that way.


Honestly, I don't remember why we couldn't get this to work. This was a promising research direction, but ended up as an R&D dead end and we abandoned it.

In the end, we weren't able to make a better flow meter than what is available off the shelf. Humbled!



phenyl said:


> Hi John,
> 
> If you haven't come across them yet, check out the digmesa nano http://www.digmesa.com/nano-family/
> 
> Up to 50000 pulses/l
> 
> Exists in a PP, a brass and a stainless steel version.


Yes, I know them well. We had the digimesa nano in our earlier prototypes, and recently I was amused to see it inside the Mina as well, like seeing an old friend again.

It's a very good flow meter, but we found that it was susceptible to damage during transport because its parts were so low tolerance, small and delicate.

For the Mina, I doubt that's a major concern, but "catering a wedding" as well as "going on vacation with my espresso machine" are typical intended uses for our espresso machine, which is why we ended up not going with the digimesa. My digimesa based DE1+ that I took on tour, went unhappy fairly quickly.

We have long expected that our flow measuring needs could be satisfied mathematically by measuring vibe pump cycles, and then regularly calibrating to reality using the flow meter. That gives us both accuracy and low latency. However, the physical flow meter's defects means that we can only recalibrate our model after 6 seconds, which is a long time. If our model becomes good enough that we don't need frequently "reality checks" that won't matter as much.

We're finding that there's always "one more thing" that is making our physics model of the vibe pump not accord with reality. Just to give you an idea, most recently we've had to take into account the compressibility of the dissolved oxygen in the water, which is (of course) affected by the amount of oxygen in the water, which is affected by the water tank temperature.

At the moment, our physics model can be as much as 20% off from reality. With time (and firmware updates) we're hoping to improve that. And of course, better physical measurements (from better flowmeters) would make this job easier.

-john


----------



## jymbob

decent_espresso said:


> I'm currently looking at a flow meter made by EPT. They make the same model in 98%, 97% and 95% accurate versions.
> 
> I asked them what the difference was, and the answer surprised me.
> 
> They're all the same.
> 
> But because small differences in tolerances have effects on the accuracy, they test each flow meter, and then sell them at 3 different prices based on how accurate that one was.


This is very common in high end silicon manufacturing. The difference between a £500 graphics card and a £200 graphics card is down to imperfections in the substrate. It's why overclocking is possible - you're basically just tweaking the (relatively conservative) factory settings. It's interesting to hear of it in a completely different setting. Thanks!


----------



## decent_espresso

addresses this, for manual pour-overs.

The question is: can the optimum turbulence be mechanized with our pressure and flow controlled espresso machine, and a bit of specialized hardware? We don't know yet.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I realize this is a UK forum (ie, 220V), but there are some Americans (and from elsewhere too) on here too, so posting this here as well... apologies to the Brits here.

And on a more UK-focussed note: I'm making arrangements for *a Decent showing or two in London during the week of August 27th. *Details forthcoming.

-john









I have 27 espresso machines built that I can sell and ship immediately.

These are the last of the v1.0 line of DE1PRO machines. They have long-lived DE1PRO internals, but are offered without the plumbing kit (ie, you use the provided water tank). The plumbing kit can be purchased later if you so decide. The discounted price is halfway between a normal DE1PRO and a DE1+.

These machines are all 110V, so only appropriate for countries with 110V electricity (USA, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Columbia...)

Here's the direct link to buy this:

https://decentespresso.com/cart?s=158+1

The main difference between the current v1.0 and upcoming v1.1 machines is that the v1.1 will have 4mm less headspace above the coffee puck. There are other differences of course (documented in this forum) but they are minor.

The v1.0 and v1.1 are completely software compatible, and so all tablet and firmware updates will apply equally to both.

In about 6 weeks we will start shipping the v1.1 DE1PRO espresso machines in 110V and 220V.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I knew that it was possible to place the bluetooth scale we sell under the drip tray, but the fit wasn't right, and it didn't work that well. These problems seem to not have been resolved by the Decent user community.

The advantage of having the scale underneath is that you now have access to the entire drip tray, and you don't have worry about spilling coffee on your scale. It's invisible, and out of the way. You can now also USB power your scale, since the USB cable will not be in the way.

Decent customer Michel Wyss did the first draft of an idea, and shared his drawing as a STEP file. He replaced the top of the skale with his own design, which was a bit taller, and sized to fit the ceramic drip tray correctly.

Steffen Lav revised this design, printed it and posted this video today on youtube of it working:






Anyone with one of our "skales" and a decent espresso machine can download the shared STEP file and have it printed inexpensively, locally, with a service such as https://www.3dhubs.com/

I'll be testing this myself in a few days as well.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We're currently using off-the-shelf heaters (top left in the photo) at 1350W of power. We just found another supplier for this standard design, at both 1350W and 1500W, and we'll be trying that for v1.1. It'd only give us 9% more power, but why not take it...

Longer term, though, we want to switch to our own design. There are a few reasons: (1) we'd like to go to 2200W of steam power or possibly (2) two heaters at 1100W and (3) we'd like to simplify/speed up assembly/wiring/insulation of the heaters (3) make repairs easier.

Our current design takes an hour and a bit to assemble each heater, build its insulating box and wire it all up. There are two in each machine. Wouldn't mind cutting that time down some.

In the various photos attached, you can see our current heater, two different designs for an enclosure (snap lock vs cable tie) and our experiments using 3D printing to test these ideas out.

We still have a few iterations to go on this before we're happy. The mould fee to try this is USD$15,000 (!!!) and several months, so this is something that we are slooooowly approaching.

The intention is for these heaters to make their way into our v1.3 machines, but they'll also be backward-compatible with all previous models too.

-john


----------



## ashcroc

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 36036
> 
> 
> We're currently using off-the-shelf heaters (top left in the photo) at 1350W of power. We just found another supplier for this standard design, at both 1350W and 1500W, and we'll be trying that for v1.1. It'd only give us 9% more power, but why not take it...
> 
> Longer term, though, we want to switch to our own design. There are a few reasons: (1) we'd like to go to 2200W of steam power or possibly (2) two heaters at 1100W and (3) we'd like to simplify/speed up assembly/wiring/insulation of the heaters (3) make repairs easier.
> 
> Our current design takes an hour and a bit to assemble each heater, build its insulating box and wire it all up. There are two in each machine. Wouldn't mind cutting that time down some.
> 
> In the various photos attached, you can see our current heater, two different designs for an enclosure (snap lock vs cable tie) and our experiments using 3D printing to test these ideas out.
> 
> We still have a few iterations to go on this before we're happy. The mould fee to try this is USD$15,000 (!!!) and several months, so this is something that we are slooooowly approaching.
> 
> The intention is for these heaters to make their way into our v1.3 machines, but they'll also be backward-compatible with all previous models too.
> 
> -john


Backwarfs compatibility is excellent from an availability of spares P.O.V.


----------



## xpresso

Two X 1100w elements would be an advanced step offering further options, are you thinking two separate elements or one split element ?.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

ashcroc said:


> Backwarfs compatibility is excellent from an availability of spares P.O.V.


Given that warehouse space is expensive, and stocking lots of old parts is complicated, I much prefer to have forward compatibility with all our parts. Forward compatibility hugely reduces our inventory complexity and space needed. Also, forward compatibility means that whenever we swap out a part on an older espresso machine, it instantly gets the benefit of our little improvements.



xpresso said:


> Two X 1100w elements would be an advanced step offering further options, are you thinking two separate elements or one split element ?.


At the moment, the options we're researching are:

1) two 1100W heaters in series, or possibly in parallel

2) one 2200W heater

The tricky thing is that 220V is not the same everywhere. The UK as 13A whereas the Australians only have 10A. We want to take advantage of whatever is available. Still trying to figure out how to do that. And we're trying to get guidance from Intertek on how to do all this without having to repeatedly get full regulatory compliance testing on everything.

Conceivably, we could also run with two 1500W heaters, for people who have a 20A line.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> Two X 1100w elements would be an advanced step offering further options, are you thinking two separate elements or one split element ?.


Just to run with this a bit more....

It's not really clear yet if better steam will be accomplished with:

1) two heaters in parallel, each heating 20ºC->160ºC, at a 0.8 ml/s flow rate. Basically, two times the flow of what our current DE1+ heat does

2) or one heater going from 20ºC->110ºC (1.6 ml/s) and then sending that to a second heater, which brings it up 110ºC->160ºC.

The Slayer Steam pretty much does #2 (except that the meeting point is around 120ºC and the final temp is 180ºC). However, lots of people complain about the steam on that machine, so that makes me nervous.

-john


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> Just to run with this a bit more....
> 
> It's not really clear yet if better steam will be accomplished with:
> 
> 1) two heaters in parallel, each heating 20ºC->160ºC, at a 0.8 ml/s flow rate. Basically, two times the flow of what our current DE1+ heat does
> 
> 2) or one heater going from 20ºC->110ºC (1.6 ml/s) and then sending that to a second heater, which brings it up 110ºC->160ºC.
> 
> The Slayer Steam pretty much does #2 (except that the meeting point is around 120ºC and the final temp is 180ºC). However, lots of people complain about the steam on that machine, so that makes me nervous.
> 
> -john


In terms of steaming - I believe the Sage DB is one to look at in terms of easy steam without being uber powerful. If I remember correctly Gary did a small review of the machine, and said it was so easy to get steam with you could pretty much just shove the steam wand in the jug and leave it and you would get lovely steam - I think it take a tad longer than other machines but a worthy sacrifice for the home user. It may be steam tip design more than anything else, but worth looking at.


----------



## Firedancer

decent_espresso said:


> the intention is for these heaters to make their way into our v1.3 machines
> 
> -john


Can I pre-order a UL-approved v1.3 machine now?


----------



## decent_espresso

Firedancer said:


> Can I pre-order a UL-approved v1.3 machine now?


Not yet.

Getting UL approval by "such and such" date is by no means a sure thing.

I kind of would prefer to actually have UL approval first before taking your money and promising you a machine by a certain date.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I've been working on a new preset to recommend as "my first decent espresso" to people receiving an espresso machine from us.

Previously, I used to recommend the "best for milky drinks" program, because that's what I generally use every day. Rao argued that this was a difficult recipe to get your grind calibrated for, and the discussions here on Diaspora have generally agreed. It's a great recipe, but it takes careful grind and dose adjustments to make it work well.

We often find (on the Diaspora forum) that new users have too coarse a grind, and cannot reach much pressure. Or their shots channel badly. It'd be nice to have an easier first espresso.

So.... this new "gentle and sweet" recipe is my attempt at a "first time user" friendly espresso. I have been pulling it myself as my morning beverage these past 2 weeks, as it's a great shot to pull when you're only semi-coherent. It does not demand excellent puck prep. Flow rates between 0.5 ml/s to 2.5 ml/s out of this recipe, all taste good.

Here's my description for this preset:



> "This is a very easy espresso to successfully make and is suggested if you are having difficulty making good drinks. The pressure rises to only 6 bar and then slowly descends to 4 bar. The resulting espresso should be free of channeling, have low acidity and quite pleasant to drink straight or with milk."


A few people on the Diaspora forum have already tried this and reported good results.

￼

This new recipe "gentle and sweet" is now available in the DE1+ app. Use Settings->App Update to get it. Exit the app and relaunch.￼

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

==============================

INTRO: our "Decent owner's forum" was today discussing a new feature they want: a user-configurable sound that plays when the espresso machine is warm and ready. This also morphed into an "instant message notification service" to your mobile phone. That discussion prompted me to write the text below, to explain how I try to select and prioritize what makes it into the product.

==============================

Despite the whimsical title above, this is actually how I design products. I will eventually write something more elaborate, but here is the summary:


WOW : I love this feature, I would buy this product just because of this

WHOOPS: I love your machine, but there is no way I am going to buy it, because of this

WHATEVER: I am absolutely going to buy your machine, but I would like you to add these (non-WOW) features.


Thus:


Companies that ignore WOW tend to not have any sales. ("this product is not exciting")

Companies that ignore WHOOPS tend to have quite limited sales (only "true believers" can overlook the problems).

Companies that focus on WHATEVER tend to have declining sales. (no new WOWs = no new attention, and too much increasing complexity leads to "hard to use" and "buggy")


As the Decent Espresso Machine is still a young product, there are still WHOOPS items that we need to address.


On the upcoming cafe model, top of the list is steam-during-brew, and 2x stronger steam

On the current DE1+/DE1PRO models, the biggest whoops on my list is "my machine is damaged (or malfunctioning) likely due to shipping damage".

Bluetooth has been a whoops that is mostly fixed (it was very bad on Skale until a big software update recently). Android Tablets slowing down is also a whoops that is mostly fixed. There are still improvements to be made on these two topics, but I think we can all live with the current state of things, whereas previously it was fairly aggravating.

Flow reporting not being as accurate as we all want, is also a big whoops that has getting almost 50% of Ray's this year. There's progress on that front, but as this is a heavy-R&D task, timely success is not assured.


And once those addressed, Ray and I want to work on some new WOW features.

I don't want to pre-announce them, because they're


a LOT of work, and I don't have estimates for when we'll be able to ship them

partially R&D, and thus it is not certain that they are all even possible.


Once all the WOW and WHOOPS have been taken care of, you'll see more of the WHATEVER stuff being done. I will continue to spend time trying to keep the app modular so that the increasing feature capabilities don't result in bloatware for everyone.


----------



## decent_espresso

I'm in London next week, with a demo and roundtable discussion planned at Prufrock.

-john

----

At Prufrock (23-25 Leather Lane, London EC1N 7TE)

Saturday September 1st,

from 2:00pm -> 3:30pm "Decent Espresso Demo"

from 3:30pm -> 5:00pm "Advanced espresso roundtable discussion: what we've learned so far, what we're still very confused about."

These events will be no cost, but ticketed. I'll post the link to obtain tickets as soon as Prufrock puts that up.

You're welcome to come for 1, 2 or 0 of the events above, as your interest may be.

----

I might also make an appearance Assembly, but as it was holiday time, the arrangements are taking a bit more time, and it might be too late. In which case I might show up at Assembly at the end of October.


----------



## ttttt91

John

will these new wow features be hardware or software?


----------



## decent_espresso

ttttt91 said:


> will these new wow features be hardware or software?


I hope to offer features which you guys will rate as WOW for several more years to come, both in hardware and software.

Where possible, when in software, we'll offer them gratis to current owners.

My next post is a hardware one, but I don't know if it rises to the level of WOW or just "neat".

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We're working on the higher powered steam for the upcoming DE1CAFE model. Ray and Ben wanted to test applying the concept of cyclonic separation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclonic_separation to espresso steam. This idea is not new to the chemical industry but we haven't heard of anyone using this technique in an espresso machine.

The concept is that the inlet is on a tangent to the chamber, this spins the steam mixture. The dry steam being much less dense works its way to the center where it exits out the top. The hot water ends up on the outside and drains to the bottom.

Ben drew a model and 3D printed it at home. Happily, it did not melt. He then placed the DE1+'s steam wand in one end and put the whole thing on a scale.

The steam coming out was much dryer. There was a good 15mm of "invisible" steam coming out of the separator before it started to condense. Compared to no separator his hand would get wet in seconds and there was no "invisible" steam at the exit.

By weight, about 40% of the steam condensed inside the cyclonic separator. Some of this will be the result of steam cooling in the separator itself.

Happily, Ben and Ray have no invented and built a device which can measure the water content of espresso steam. We can no objectively tell if changes we are making are causing the steam to get drier.

In a few weeks, we'll be testing two steam heaters at the same time (in series and also in parallel) at various temperatures and flow rates. We'll be able to measure our improvements now.

And, we might end up using a cyclonic separator in our DE1CAFE model to produce totally dry steam.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Demo at 2pm: https://www.prufrockcoffee.com/booking/decent-espresso-masterclass-with-john-buckman-demo/

Roundtable at 3pm: https://www.prufrockcoffee.com/booking/decent-espresso-masterclass-with-john-buckman-roundtable/


----------



## decent_espresso

The BLE module vendor we used has "upgraded" their module and made it completely incompatible (v1 https://redbear.cc/ble-nano.html vs v2 https://redbear.cc/product/ble-nano-2.html).

And I've today learned that this company (RedBear labs) has been sold and is discontinuing even this v2 BLE module. https://redbear.cc/

This scenario is exactly why we kept the Bluetooth module separate, and easily replaced/upgraded.

Have no fear, as our BLE module uses a very well support BLE chip from a major vendor (Nordic Semi), that will be available for a long time.

And so we have "cloned" the RedBear labs module, and improved it. Our new version is completely compatible with the old one, but adds two LEDs, that we will use to display status. Here's what this looks like (the debug cable in this movie would not normally be there)






At the moment:

- blinking white = on but no tablet connected

- solid white = on and tablet connected

- red led = BLE command received

￼

This module is totally backward compatible with v1.0 hardware, and the new firmware auto-detects the presence of the new LEDs. I'm also much happier having taken control over the Bluetooth board, in terms of managing future risk. If any v1.0 users ever want this feature, this tiny "upgrade" will be available to you.

One reason we put this BLE board on a separate board is that we can make new versions of it in the future, to keep up with existing communications technologies.

We also now have software control over the BLE range, so that we can lower the distance the tablet is allowed to be from the espresso machine. We might want this for safety reasons (limit the distance to within a few meters, for instance).

This communications board is inexpensive, small, and easily replaced, without even needing to open the chassis up. Here's a photo of it, accessible once you remove the dark plastic back panel.

I own a treadmill that is 20 years old, works great, that has excellent Windows software that talks to a heart rate sensor. Unfortunately, the treadmill requires an RS232 port to talk to Windows, which I don't have on any computer, so I can't use the software any longer. Ugh. That expensive lesson is one I didn't want to repeat with Decent.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

In a few hours I fly to London for a demo and talk at Prufrock https://www.facebook.com/events/333104743900059/

A week later I'm in Italy, doing my yearly "show and tell" to some Big Fish in the coffee industry. It's good to stay on friendly terms. As of September 15th I'm in Southern France for 6 weeks of a "working vacation". I'm back in Hong Kong in early November.

I'll still be online, coding, and answering questions but.... I'll be trying to take some time off too. I kind of screwed my left arm up getting the latest big DE1+ Android app update shipped. It fixed a lot of remaining annoyances, but nearing 50 years of age, I can't abuse my body as much as I used to.

Ray is kind of in the same place I was in, with his big Firmware Update, but he's not quite yet finished with it. His update fixes a lot of remaining annoyances on his plate (fan noises in various circumstances, idle power consumption and more).

The factory has started working on the v1.1 machines with the partial stock of parts we have on hand. When the last parts arrive (ETA 1st week of October) they'll start pushing DE1PROs out the door. I'm confident they have that in hand, as I haven't had to babysit the factory operations for a few months now.

Once we're caught up on the DE1PRO back-orders, we'll start taking orders for DE1+ models and shipping them right away. I'm hoping we can do that before Christmas, as I expect some people would like to receive a DE1+ for Christmas, but we've got to be 100% sure we can deliver on time.

I'm working on moving Decent away from the "back-orders" concept, to one where we'll take money to ship product right away. We still have work to do there (UL compliance, DE1CAFE, but there's progress....)

-john


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> Unfortunately, the treadmill requires an RS232 port to talk to Windows


Have a nice break John, I have a feeling from this thread that its thoroughly deserved. If this thread has taught me anything its that I wouldn't ever be capable of doing what you do!

With regards to the above - I assume you tried a RS232 to USB adapter?


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> With regards to the above - I assume you tried a RS232 to USB adapter?


Haven't tried it yet, but about 14 different people suggested it after I posted about my problem.









-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Fabrice tells me that the samples of our ceramic drip trays, with a drainage hole built in, are now on their way to us.

DE1PRO buyers will receive both a non-draining, and draining version of the drip tray, so they can choose how they want to use their espresso machine (sometimes draining, sometimes not)

This new design avoids stagnant water.

Previously, our prototypes were made by drilling a hole into the ceramic. Unfortunately, the fitting meant that some water stagnated in the drip tray. This was kind of nasty, but also it meant that eventually there would be dripping around the seal.

We're not yet sure what kind of tubing arrangement we want under the drip tray. We'll likely use a 90º pre-bent silicone tube to attach to the ceramic drip tray. Afterward, either a reinforced tube or a longer silicone tube. Back in Hong Kong, they'll be testing these ideas.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Our steam wand manufacturer has made some titanium steam wand tips.

I'm not sure "why" titanium would be better.

I asked them, and they wrote:

"Compared with stainless steel, titanium has better performance in corrosion resistance, heatproof, longevity, and without metal flavor."

I'm buying 5 samples to test.

Does anyone here have any thoughts on this?

Maybe the titanium insulates better than stainless steel, and thus the milk is less likely to "cook" onto it, needing less clean up?

-john

￼


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> Our steam wand manufacturer has made some titanium steam wand tips.
> 
> I'm not sure "why" titanium would be better.
> 
> I asked them, and they wrote:
> 
> "Compared with stainless steel, titanium has better performance in corrosion resistance, heatproof, longevity, and without metal flavor."
> 
> I'm buying 5 samples to test.
> 
> Does anyone here have any thoughts on this?
> 
> Maybe the titanium insulates better than stainless steel, and thus the milk is less likely to "cook" onto it, needing less clean up?
> 
> -john
> 
> ￼
> View attachment 36242


I fail to see any reason why it should be better but I might be wrong. Is it pure Ti or some kind of alloy? I am guessing that would be expensive and in the end, the wand is still SS, so the water coming out of it will have "flavour". If one can even detect that flavour, that is not for me to duscuss.


----------



## DavecUK

I think it will be a complete waste of time...just stick with steel tips to go with the steel wand.


----------



## Dylan

I can't really see any of the reasons the manufacturer mentions being of benefit. SS steam tips don't really suffer from corrosion or short life, the heat proof nature is surely of no use and we both put our milk in SS jugs and as has been said the steam will already pass through SS.

So unless some magic benefit to the steam appears in testing (you never know, I wouldn't have been able to guess Ti coatings on burrs make a difference (likely due to finishing) ) then I'm in the 'unlikely to make a difference' camp.


----------



## jymbob

Why go Titanium when you could go Palladium? No benefit to the taste, but oh so shiny!


----------



## Mrboots2u

decent_espresso said:


> Our steam wand manufacturer has made some titanium steam wand tips.
> 
> I'm not sure "why" titanium would be better.
> 
> I asked them, and they wrote:
> 
> "Compared with stainless steel, titanium has better performance in corrosion resistance, heatproof, longevity, and without metal flavor."
> 
> I'm buying 5 samples to test.
> 
> Does anyone here have any thoughts on this?
> 
> Maybe the titanium insulates better than stainless steel, and thus the milk is less likely to "cook" onto it, needing less clean up?
> 
> -john
> 
> ￼
> View attachment 36242


Because they can charge a bigger mark up on titanium ?


----------



## WTell

^^Tough gig. As the rest of the machine is cutting edge 21st century espresso lets go with titanium.


----------



## Dylan

WTell said:


> ^^Tough gig. As the rest of the machine is cutting edge 21st century espresso lets go with titanium.


I personally think they should go with concrete.


----------



## ttttt91

Missing the point here guys. John just thinks outside the box and does not rashes to fast answers. He keeps an open mind and sometimes this leads indeed into a one-way street. But getting input from the community on minor things like a Ti tip shows how much he hunts for creative solutions....

offering my 2cents to the Ti debate.

Is there any chance it is easier to clean than steel?


----------



## Dylan

I don't think we are missing the point...

Thoughts were asked for, thoughts were offered. The only thing available beyond this is actual testing.


----------



## DavecUK

ttttt91 said:


> Missing the point here guys. John just thinks outside the box and does not rashes to fast answers. He keeps an open mind and sometimes this leads indeed into a one-way street. But getting input from the community on minor things like a Ti tip shows how much he hunts for creative solutions....


Your comment made me briefly think about it again because I know I dismissed it out of hand as a pointless change. I agree, the attention to detail is incredible (I wouldn't have the patience for it)..and I admire the creativity but I still think it's a complete waste of time. Better to keep the eye on the prize and deliver those machines whilst preventing anything that causes the price increase further.


----------



## o2c

I think going down the process of buying and trying out different components or processes on a small scale isn't a complete waste of time. The trick is to pick and make wise choices on those to test so that there isn't a negative effect on time or money.

For me, a Ti tip would be completely wasted as I take my shots straight and steam milk once every few years. If it doesn't affect my price, is offered as an upgrade that some users will get a benefit from and allows Decent Espresso to make a couple bucks on margin, why not?


----------



## DavecUK

o2c said:


> I think going down the process of buying and trying out different components or processes on a small scale isn't a complete waste of time. The trick is to pick and make wise choices on those to test so that there isn't a negative effect on time or money.
> 
> For me, a Ti tip would be completely wasted as I take my shots straight and steam milk once every few years. If it doesn't affect my price, is offered as an upgrade that some users will get a benefit from and allows Decent Espresso to make a couple bucks on margin, why not?


I agree, if it doesn't increase the cost at all....why not.


----------



## decent_espresso

On CoffeeSnobs, user "LyreBird" posted this about Titanium:



> You'll find titanium is easier to clean and keep clean than is stainless, the oxide layer is thicker and it reforms much faster when breached.
> 
> Re "metal flavour": stainless does allow metal ions to migrate into fluids in contact, that's the whole point of passivating with citric acid or similar, it preferentially dissolves the iron leaving an increased proportion of chromium and nickel. In the wine industry, where we care about such things, stainless is always passivated with citric after it has been cleaned with an alkaline cleaner.
> 
> There is no need to passivate Ti, it does it itself in an ordinary atmosphere.


Others chimed in that this tip would heat up as much, if not more, than our current stainless steel tip, so the phenomena of "milk cooking onto the tip" would be unchanged.

At this point, from all the feedback, I'm not sure what advantage this would have, other than adding USD$20 to my build price, and the other negative of potentially having two different metals doing ionic exchange.

We do have some experiments to continue (and conclude) on tip shapes, and we've made a bunch of them to test.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Back in Hong Kong, Fabrice and Alex are testing the prototype plumbable drip tray. They tried 3 different kinds of tubing, two kinds of fasteners. Everything to work OK. Quick flow, no blockage.

The only problem at the moment is the sharp 90º bend of the tube is slightly lifting the drip tray up. A few possible solutions: (1) pre-bent tubing, (2) a tube-bend-guide that fits over the tube and (3) connecting two segments.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

If you're bored on this sunny, beautiful London saturday, and would love nothing more than to spend a few hours in a London basement discussing coffee. Then...

There are still places available at my demo and roundtable at Prufrock today, starting in 2 hours, ending at 5pm today:

https://www.prufrockcoffee.com/special-events/


----------



## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> On CoffeeSnobs, user "LyreBird" posted this about Titanium:
> 
> Others chimed in that this tip would heat up as much, if not more, than our current stainless steel tip, so the phenomena of "milk cooking onto the tip" would be unchanged.
> 
> At this point, from all the feedback, I'm not sure what advantage this would have, other than adding USD$20 to my build price, and the other negative of potentially having two different metals doing ionic exchange.
> 
> We do have some experiments to continue (and conclude) on tip shapes, and we've made a bunch of them to test.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 36309


Bottom left has the appearance of an industrial pressure washer lance jet, usually exude a fanned style spray angle.

Jon.


----------



## RNAV

decent_espresso said:


> I'll post news about that when I have it, but we're still quite a ways away from that. September/October will have us putting substantial time into the group head controller, and then there'll need to be testing time. And then we'll submit that to Intertek for UL approval. Christmas vacations will mean that approval should come in late January/early February.
> 
> The v1.3 machines will feature the group head controller, whether or not we have UL approval yet for it. They'll start getting made once we have made about 70% of this next batch of v1.1 machines.
> 
> -john


John,

Do you have any preliminary pictures of the group head controller you can share? I'm trying to decide if I should wait for the v1.3 machine, and the group head controller is the reason why I'd wait (my wife doesn't like the "modern" design and I'm hoping the controller changes the look enough for her). Do you expect the price points to remain similar?


----------



## chopho

cannot wait


----------



## Jony

Still odd, two sign up and jump straight on this thread, and no welcome!!!


----------



## Dylan

Jony said:


> Still odd, two sign up and jump straight on this thread, and no welcome!!!


Its not really that unusual... I quite regularly seek advice from forums I have no intention of sticking around on, this and the HB thread are a main resource of info for the Decent Machine and a direct line of contact to the owner of the company, its unsurprising people who are interested in the machine but not really the forum as a community will post here.


----------



## xpresso

RNAV said:


> John,
> 
> Do you have any preliminary pictures of the group head controller you can share? I'm trying to decide if I should wait for the v1.3 machine, and the group head controller is the reason why I'd wait (my wife doesn't like the "modern" design and I'm hoping the controller changes the look enough for her). Do you expect the price points to remain similar?


Welcome.

Jon.


----------



## RNAV

Jony said:


> Still odd, two sign up and jump straight on this thread, and no welcome!!!


You got me! Reading this thread distracted me from posting in the welcome section. I'll rectify that.


----------



## xpresso

RNAV said:


> John,
> 
> Do you have any preliminary pictures of the group head controller you can share? I'm trying to decide if I should wait for the v1.3 machine, and the group head controller is the reason why I'd wait (my wife doesn't like the "modern" design and I'm hoping the controller changes the look enough for her). Do you expect the price points to remain similar?


Do you not feel that even with this machine, which I've enjoyed keeping an eye on since joining this forum and admire the openness and response that 'John' endeavours to keep up and respond to at every point in time when a query, suggestion, observation crops up, this machine is a drift away from the traditional appearance, the use, which I believe is a first, of a tablet to control almost every aspect of producing a brew.

Also we see the introduction of a new grinder, the 'Niche' that again is a move away from a traditional appearance to something that represents possibly a typical kitchen accessory, yes I know it is, but as grinders go.

Jon.


----------



## RNAV

xpresso said:


> Do you not feel that even with this machine, which I've enjoyed keeping an eye on since joining this forum and admire the openness and response that 'John' endeavours to keep up and respond to at every point in time when a query, suggestion, observation crops up, this machine is a drift away from the traditional appearance, the use, which I believe is a first, of a tablet to control almost every aspect of producing a brew.
> 
> Also we see the introduction of a new grinder, the 'Niche' that again is a move away from a traditional appearance to something that represents possibly a typical kitchen accessory, yes I know it is, but as grinders go.
> 
> Jon.


To be clear, I like the design. My wife does not. It is my hope that the yet-to-be-seen group head controller on the v1.3 machine will change the aesthetic enough to sway my wife.


----------



## xpresso

RNAV said:


> To be clear, I like the design. My wife does not. It is my hope that the yet-to-be-seen group head controller on the v1.3 machine will change the aesthetic enough to sway my wife.


Good Luck with your train of thought and diplomacy, I hope there's a compromise sufficient to keep both parties happy







.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

RNAV said:


> Do you have any preliminary pictures of the group head controller you can share? I'm trying to decide if I should wait for the v1.3 machine, and the group head controller is the reason why I'd wait (my wife doesn't like the "modern" design and I'm hoping the controller changes the look enough for her). Do you expect the price points to remain similar?


Here you go, and at the moment, the price is not changing.

-john


----------



## RNAV

decent_espresso said:


> Here you go, and at the moment, the price is not changing.
> 
> -john


Thank you very much for sharing! It looks nice!


----------



## decent_espresso

Scott Rao was able to achieve a 24.5% extraction yield with his 1:3 espressos, and a relatively inexpensive Baratza grinder.

Now, new Decent customer Rasmus Oxholm is using Rao's "Blooming Espresso" technique on his DE1PRO + an EK with SSP burrs with a 1:2.5 shot, and achieving a 27 extraction.

Interesting developments, for those of us who track refractometer results.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I was optimistic to start making v1.1 espresso machines at the end of September, but 3 suppliers have notified us of delays on their end. The mixing chambers, which have valves molded into them, are 3 weeks delayed, as are all the CNC manufactured parts. That puts is "parts complete" in mid-October, if everyone delivers according to their current promises. So, the first v1.1 machines should start to ship to customers toward the end of October.

Some back story:

Our v1.0 machines were really "from scratch" by us, whereas for v1.1 we're trying to have a few other companies do a bit of prep work for us.

All our cables were hand-made by us for v1.0. I bought the specialist equipment and all the parts. But, it's very time to consuming, especially if a dedicated company can make a cable with even more expensive specialist equipment (or maybe robotically). And, we don't have the same kind of test equipment (or test knowledge) that a specialist would have.

For example, we've had a lot of issues getting all our cables to stay tight (not shake loose) during shipping and that's been the leading cause of "dead on arrival" espresso machines for customers. Luckily, this is usually quickly resolved by opening the case and the customer seeing a disconnected cable, but that's still far from ideal.

With v1.1, we're working with BMA https://www.bma-tech.com/ to make all our cables, but it's taking more time than we'd like. With the samples they made for us, we found a number of issues, from too-short insulation on certain connectors to easy-to-pull-of on others. So, they've made a 2nd attempt, and now a 3rd attempt.

In the meantime, if it turns out that we have everything we need to ship v1.1 espresso machines, we'll simply revert to making small batches of the cables ourselves.

Attached is our GANNT chart, that Fabrice maintains, in order to track all the dependencies.

-john


----------



## xpresso

Cables coming adrift does suggest some very harsh handling, spade connectors do normally partially latch on, whilst easily remedied, it is a distraction and not something a customer wants to encounter.

I marvel how you do keep your hand firmly on the tiller and full credit to you.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> Cables coming adrift does suggest some very harsh handling, spade connectors do normally partially latch on, whilst easily remedied, it is a distraction and not something a customer wants to encounter. I marvel how you do keep your hand firmly on the tiller and full credit to you.Jon.


The spade connectors have been the main source of "dead-on-arrival" machines, itself about 5% of the total we've sent.

The connectors we have used for own home-made cables do have a spring and a dimple on them, which is a pretty reasonable lock, but still about 5% of machines have a spade connector come off.

The new spade connector cables we're making have a latch, so that it's impossible for the connector to be removed without getting a small screwdriver and pushing a pin in while you pull.

It's rather a waste of everyone's time for me be skyping with a new customer, having them dig inside the machine to find a loose connection. Not to mention the huge emotional let-down for the customer. I'm highly motivated to sort this out!

One thing we're still fighting, that perhaps you can comment on...

Spade connectors come in two sizes, and whilst we have the larger size on virtually everything, the smaller size exists on the AC power switch (sigh), and we haven't yet found a guaranteed-never-to-come-off connector for those smaller spades. Still looking... If you have any tips, please do share.

-john


----------



## xpresso

Wish I could help John, I believe there are three sizes, on occasions I come into contact with some equipment (Not much nowadays) some spades that take a lot of effort to separate, so somewhere there exists terminals that once pushed together, effort is necessary to pull apart.

Jon.


----------



## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> Scott Rao was able to achieve a 24.5% extraction yield with his 1:3 espressos, and a relatively inexpensive Baratza grinder.
> 
> Now, new Decent customer Rasmus Oxholm is using Rao's "Blooming Espresso" technique on his DE1PRO + an EK with SSP burrs with a 1:2.5 shot, and achieving a 27 extraction.
> 
> Interesting developments, for those of us who track refractometer results.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 36535


What does EY27% taste like?


----------



## dsc

23-24% are fairly easily doable with 3:1 ratios on most kit, going above seems to be hard. Much depends on the coffees you use, lighter roasts tend to bottom out at 23%, darker allow around 26%. This is on an L1 lever, so when you are locked in to a single pressure profile, would be nice to try it out on a DE one day.

26% with a dark roast wasn't very tasty, curious what 27% was like on a DE + EK.

T.


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> What does EY27% taste like?


According to Rasmus:



> I've been using "blooming espresso", with the EK.
> 
> 1-2,5/3 AMAZING .
> 
> Still with clarity, acidity and distinctive notes.
> 
> It's still pretty new(both EK and DE1). And I am also still getting to know them.


----------



## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> According to Rasmus:


I can achieve something like 'blooming' with a Vesuvius. (I use a Ceado E92 conical grinder.)

I use a 15 second 2 bar preinfusion then drop the lever half way, which keeps the pressure in the group without building on it. After 20 or so seconds I start the pump again on a declining pressure profile. My distribution is good enough not to show any obvious uneven pour or channeling defects with a naked PF and VST basket.

My result is not measured with refractometry yet but it is a higher than normal yield which in the past I've measured at between 19 and 22%. I definitely start to get flavours that are not so good: roasty, old musty leather, sweaty....

I'm not sure what to make of this. Is Rasmus' experience further proof of the superiority of very large flat burrs?


----------



## dsc

Obnic said:


> I can achieve something like 'blooming' with a Vesuvius. (I use a Ceado E92 conical grinder.)
> 
> I use a 15 second 2 bar preinfusion then drop the lever half way, which keeps the pressure in the group without building on it. After 20 or so seconds I start the pump again on a declining pressure profile. My distribution is good enough not to show any obvious uneven pour or channeling defects with a naked PF and VST basket.
> 
> My result is not measured with refractometry yet but it is a higher than normal yield which in the past I've measured at between 19 and 22%. I definitely start to get flavours that are not so good: roasty, old musty leather, sweaty....
> 
> I'm not sure what to make of this. Is Rasmus' experience further proof of the superiority of very large flat burrs?


Imho EKs are going to extract differently for whatever reason and higher EYs with EKs still taste good, whereas this is not necessarily true for conicals. Perhaps if you were to compare both with darker roasts conics might be better, but for lighter stuff I think anything above 22% on the conic is not going to be uber tasty.

We are probably getting slightly out of topic here, but I'll just quickly add that if you want to bump EY even more you can single dose the E92 and very very slowly feed beans which will allow you to grind way finer.

T.


----------



## Obnic

dsc said:


> Imho EKs are going to extract differently for whatever reason and higher EYs with EKs still taste good, whereas this is not necessarily true for conicals. Perhaps if you were to compare both with darker roasts conics might be better, but for lighter stuff I think anything above 22% on the conic is not going to be uber tasty.
> 
> We are probably getting slightly out of topic here, but I'll just quickly add that if you want to bump EY even more you can single dose the E92 and very very slowly feed beans which will allow you to grind way finer.
> 
> T.


That certainly resonates with my recent attempts.

Need someone with a monolith and a DE1 Pro to run some tests


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent customer Brandon posted a message a few days ago that the GFI interrupter on his electric plug was tripping. He noticed a little bit of water coming out the left side of the espresso machine.

I'm glad the GFI was tripping, because that's exactly what the safety systems are supposed to do when there is a leak.

Brandon then opened up the espresso machine, saw that the water drip was due to a small leak when the machine was under pressure, and he followed the water trail through a hole on the bottom of the chassis. That hole is there as part of UL safety compliance.

We specifically made the machine drip water out the sides, instead of on the bottom, so that any water leak like this would be very noticeable by customers. When something fails, a good design is one where it fails extremely visibly.

At any rate, we know what the cause of the problem is. The majority of the machines we have shipped include a 3D printed 180° bend reinforcement. However, I had argued that this was no longer needed because the Teflon tubes, once they have been bent for a long time, stay in shape. My engineer Johnny was not in agreement. A few machines went out without this reinforcement, and one has leaked now. So, Johnny was right.

We are sending Brandon a free replacement assembly, complete with tube, reinforcement and O-rings (photo of care package below). My engineers also extracted the relevant sections from our in-house assembly manual and I posted that to the discussion.

FYI All this discussion happened publicly on our owner's forum, with all 300 other decent espresso customers being able to read everything. The hope is that by being transparent about problems and how we deal with them, that people will have greater trust in us.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Because our espresso machine design has an extra handle on the group head, for me it's really important that the portafilter lines juuuuuust right on the group head, once it's locked in.

I'm obviously not the only one who notices this, as photos of this alignment appear frequently on social media (two examples below).

Getting this fit right is really finicky, because it's down to tenths-of-a-millimeter tolerances, as you're slowly tightening something against a rubber gasket.

The way we accomplish this perfect alignment is by using precision cut fiberglass insulators. We order them in a variety of thicknesses, and then we figure out-by actually assembling them- which works best. A computer CAD model can't do the job.

Our v1.1 group head parts have changed, because we removed 4mm of headspace above the basket in an effort to dry the puck to help make it easy to knock out, after an espresso.

So&#8230;. in the photo below, you can see the steps my engineers have taken over the past week, to get the alignment just right, again, with this latest espresso machine version that we're about to ship.

-john


----------



## tohenk2

Hmm. I bought alle basket sizes Descent offers (2 sets, 1 for myself, 1 for my daughter) with some analog thermometers.

The thermometers are nice, the shape prevent them from rolling away







.

At present I can get good ristrettos from other baskets (IMS, IMS the Single, IMS precision, VST and La Marzocco) and I find I need to grind way finer for this with the Descent 10gram basket.

Should be no problem ... I have plenty room to go finer at my Macap M4D. But! <third world luxury problem> I'm single dosing the M4D and if I go much finer the beans start backing up in stead of going through. Since I'm also waiting for the Niche Zero I don't want to put the hopper back on.</third>

One other thing - is a 58.4mm tamper ideal for these baskets?


----------



## decent_espresso

> One other thing - is a 58.4mm tamper ideal for these baskets?


For the 10 g basket, I definitely recommend a 58.4 mm tamper, not larger. For 15 g and larger baskets you can get away with a 58.5 mm tamper.

Our version two tampers average at ~58.45 mm, and I am measuring samples here as being between 58.42 mm and 58.47 mm.

I heard from a client a few days ago that their VST 58.5 mm tamper was jamming in our 10 g basket. The smaller size of that basket means the taper starts earlier and that can cause a problem.

- John


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## decent_espresso

A few weeks ago I put a new system in place for keeping track of each customer who had a problem with one of their espresso machines.

Quite a few people at Decent Espresso get involved when a customer has a problem, so I decided to use the basecamp forum software to manage it. We now make each new customer problem into a Basecamp to-do item, which only gets completed once everything is okay with that customer.

Two recent events precipitated my formalizing how we handle repairs:

1) we now have a special low-cost return rate with UPS, so that we can organize for an espresso machine pick up from the customer's location and send it back to Hong Kong for our cost of only $70. Since we offer a two-year warranty, we pay for this.

2) Back in Hong Kong, We keep a stock of refurbished machines and we send one of these to a customer immediately when there is a problem that requires a repair. It usually takes 48 hours for the replacement machine to arrive with the customer. This way, we don't make the customer wait while the repair happens: ideally, they don't go without caffeine for more than a few days. 

For those that are curious, here is a PDF of the complete conversation about Lars' problem and how we resolved it.

http://magnatune.com/p/lars.pdf

In this particular case, a capacitor on the AC power board blew. Ray worried that there might be a design flaw in his schematic, so some extra conversation around that ensued with Parry who had done the repair. In the end, we didn't see a design flaw, and as this is the first time this particular problem has occurred, we will log it and watch to see if it recurs.

There are two positive outcomes to this new approach we are taking to repairs:

1) no matter where you are in the world, we now have an efficient way to swap the machine out and get you a replacement very quickly. We no longer need you to post your machine to a repairman in your country.

2) Each problem that a customer has is now discussed among all of us, including the engineers responsible for the design so that the possibility of improving our design to prevent problems is greatly facilitated. If the same problem occurs several times, that should be very visible to us.

-john


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## o2c

You ended it with a cliffhanger. Did the cleaning cycle sufficiently restore the parts?


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## decent_espresso

o2c said:


> You ended it with a cliffhanger. Did the cleaning cycle sufficiently restore the parts?


The stainless steel comes out perfect, but even with Cafiza, once coffee starts being made using our brass parts, they will always end up being slightly discolored, even after cleaning.

Here's what Lars' brass and stainless steel parts look like after 24 hours in Cafiza:









Obviously, the brass no longer looks new, but to me this is acceptable as a refurbished machine.

We've had long discussions about our brass alloys, including with a metallurgist who is DE1+ customer. Given that we CNC our brass parts, we don't think we can do better with the guaranteed food safety that we require.

-john


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## decent_espresso

A few months ago, decent espresso users with a talent for CAD made a replacement stand for the Bluetooth scale we sell, enabling the scale to fit under the drip tray.

This has a number of benefits:

- the scale is no longer in the way when you are making an espresso shot

- you don't have to worry about getting water on the scale

- you gain about an extra 2 1/2 cm (1") of cup height clearance by not having the scale on the tray

- you don't have to look at the "not very pretty" Atomax Skale as it is now mostly hidden 

- you can plug the scale into USB power and the cable doesn't get in the way. No more (re)pairing with the Bluetooth scale each morning, since you powered it off to save the batteries.

I've been working with a friend of Scott Rao named Dan Elis, who owns a small 3D printing business near Scott. Dan has redesigned the scale stand that my customers created so that it is much more economical to produce. It significantly less plastic now. It should also be much less susceptible to warping from heat.

Currently, I've been asking people who want to weigh-under-the-drip tray to download the free CAD file and arrange to have it 3D printed locally to them.

I am making arrangements with Dan to have him print 20 of these, so that I can simply sell them to people who want to do this.

Of course, people who want to do this themselves are welcome to use the free CAD model. As Dan has put a bunch of CAD work into his version, he'd like to charge a little bit for his.

More news soon&#8230;

- John


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## decent_espresso

and we're now re-labeling the serial number on those repaired machines to indicate they were refurbished.


----------



## decent_espresso

Roger's two problems

I've received a few emails from people saying they're "quite interested" to hear "how things go wrong" with an espresso machine, so I'm continuing this series of articles.

---

Decent customer Roger reported he had two problems at once: occasionally out of water and occasional terrible pump noises.

Here's his tech support log:

http://magnatune.com/p/roger.pdf

I decided that we should immediately swap his machine.

Parry indicated that we had no machines ready to send, just two machines in our "hospital". I asked him to pull parts from one bad machine to make another whole. One machine only problem is a sheared screw on the front mirror panel, but it's (sadly) impossible to fix without cosmetic damage.

Powering up Roger's machine, the debug logs showed "0" on two different numbers. Parry concluded that two pins on an internal data cable had an intermittent connection. Replaced the cable, all ok.

For all the v1.0 machines, we've hand-made all cables ourselves. With our v1.1 espresso machines, we're switching to a professional cable manufacturer http://www.bma-tech.com - they've got much more advanced tech than we have, and each cable has been CAD drawn, and had its specs scrutinized. More expensive cable ends are being used now for almost all cables.

Coming soon, this debug log feature will be also available inside the DE1+ Android tablet app. At the moment, a special cable is needed. This will help us diagnose problems remotely, more effectively. Customer will then have the choice of receiving just the replacement part, or a swapped machine.

-john


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## ttttt91

wow, John

while making a decent cup became a totally unexpected experience for me by engaging with your tools, among other things, I just started roasting myself....the whole experience for you must be quite "interesting", as you expand in areas and acquire knowledge in new topics you probably never anticipated. Quite a journey you take and fascinating to watch...


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## tohenk2

decent_espresso said:


> Coming soon, this debug log feature will be also available inside the DE1+ Android tablet app. At the moment, a special cable is needed. This will help us diagnose problems remotely, more effectively. Customer will then have the choice of receiving just the replacement part, or a swapped machine.
> 
> -john


Now that is a very good idea!


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## decent_espresso

Long before we started manufacturing, my plan was to diverge the Pro and plus models, so as to achieve cost savings. However, diving into this further I found that the increased complexity of having two models actually cost more than the cost savings of divergence.

So, in the end, all the espresso machines that we have made are identical except that the pro models have longer life pumps and valves in them. The functionality is identical.

Every machine we have sold is capable of being plumbed in.

We are about to take delivery of the catering kits, which will automatically refill the water tank from an unpressurized water source such as a 10 L water jug.

We are still working out the exact fittings for a plumbed drip tray, but we have finalized the ceramic design and received samples, so that is going to manufacturing shortly. It will take about two months for us to receive the ceramic drip trays that have the built-in plumbing.

The plumbing kits, which will automatically refill the water tank from a pressurized water source, are still being finalized. We are sourcing the correct fittings (photo below)so that they will work both in Europe and America, ideally so that customers will have a quick connect and not need to talk to a plumber at all.

These three parts will all be available to plus customers, to purchase if they want. Pro customers will receive these three parts in the mail as soon as we have them in stock. These three parts are what we collectively referred to as the "refill kit"

The prices will be (USD$):

- plumbing kit $400

- catering kit $400

- plumbed drip tray and tubing $200

as stated above, Pro customers will receive these items at no additional cost soon.

The design of all this is such that you can choose to be plumbed in or not and switch back-and-forth at any time.

You will have a plumbed drip tray and a normal one. And the refill kits can be attached or not as you wish.

You can also do whatever hybrid you prefer, such as having the water tank automatically refill but not plumbing in the drip tray. You might want to do this if you want the scale to sit underneath the drip tray but still get most of the benefits of being plumbed in.

-john


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## _HH_

Sounds great John!

I'm thinking of upgrading to one of your lovely machines in the future once my Breville Dual Boiler conks out. Seeing how much innovation is going on behind the scenes, and the regular upgrades to both software and firmware has really impressed me, and makes me confident in my decision that a Decent machine is going to be the right fit for me.

Thanks for bringing such a great machine to fruition.

Henry


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## decent_espresso

_HH_ said:


> I'm thinking of upgrading to one of your lovely machines...


Nice thread on this topic "Is everybody happy with their DE1+/pros? " on HB over past few days:

https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/review-of-decent-espresso-de1-pro-t52582-160.html#p613141


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## decent_espresso

With our DE1+/DE1PRO espresso machines, we know precisely how much energy is going into the steam.

So, it should be a straightforward calculation for the tablet app to know when the steam should stop: no thermometer required.

We will need to know:

- the starting temperature (presumably out of the refrigerator, so fairly constant)

- the desired end temperature

- the amount of milk

I made a simple Excel spreadsheet to test this out and found that the numbers it yielded were correct when I actually tried to steam these volumes of milk. http://magnatune.com/p/milk_calcs.xlsx

I also mocked up a GUI with quick buttons for goal temperatures and milk volumes. The idea being that a café would be making a few different kinds of milky drinks in a definite range of temperatures. I would probably need to make these buttons configurable to different volumes and temperatures.

This feature is fairly straightforward for me to implement as a calculator button on the tablet app. Tap it to calculate the steam timeout that is appropriate.

This feature becomes a little bit more complicated in about six months when we start having 8% more powerful steam heaters in our standard machines (1350W vs 1500W), and a lot more complicated in our café model which will have variable power steam.

- The first problem is fairly easily solved with a serial number indicating the power of these steam heater.

- The second problem is solvable if instead of calculating a steam timeout, I tell the espresso machine how many joules of power is desired, and this becomes something the espresso machine calculates and uses to stop the steam as appropriate.

Attached below are two screen mockups I did in Excel.

I very much like the idea of being able to steam to a known goal temperature without needing to use a thermometer.

-john


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## decent_espresso

I have made a world map of half our customers.

You can see that most of our clients are in America, German-speaking Europe, and Australia.

I occasionally get requests from people asking if there is a decent espresso machine at a home near where they live. I'm not willing to disclose anyone's address without their permission. However, we're going to trial an idea I have of emailing the existing customer personally to see if they are interested in making contact with the other person. If it turns out that people find this annoying, we'll stop. 

Why only half our customers?

About half the customers would not import, due to https://www.mapcustomizer.com not recognizing the address. I could not figure out what the problem was. Here are two typical addresses that would not import even though they appear perfectly normal and can be read by Google maps, in case you can advise me as to what the problem is.

6205 Martha Oak Lane, Knoxville TN, 37918, US

1030 S Trenton Ave, Pittsburgh PA, 15221

-john


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## decent_espresso

Ben Champion was able to get all our customers imported into Google maps (unlike me, who only managed 50% of them), so these three maps below are an accurate representation of our decent customers worldwide as of today.


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## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 36978
> View attachment 36979
> View attachment 36980
> View attachment 36981
> 
> 
> Ben Champion was able to get all our customers imported into Google maps (unlike me, who only managed 50% of them), so these three maps below are an accurate representation of our decent customers worldwide as of today.


Noticeable to my eye's is France (Which does not surprise me) and Italy, perhaps a difficult market area to break into, but best of Luck in moving forward.

Jon.


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## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> Noticeable to my eye's is France (Which does not surprise me) and Italy, perhaps a difficult market area to break into, but best of Luck in moving forward.


My feeling about Italy is that people there largely go to cafés to get their espresso, they don't make espresso at home unless they just use a moka pot. And because espresso is a high-volume, low margin business in Italy (€1 is the standard shot price), and the public is happy with the current product, there is not much drive for innovation.

I am friends with the main players in third wave coffee in France, and it's a difficult slog for them. Bordeaux, Paris and Lyon are the centers of coffee progress in France, but really in Bordeaux and Lyon you're talking about one shop. In Paris there's lots of good coffee, and perhaps next year we'll see some decent espresso machines there. Nonetheless, most French people view coffee as a strong drink that you pound quickly at the end of the meal as a kind of drug.

"C'est bon, mais ce n'est pas du café" is something I frequently hear.

I've always found the German speaking countries to be focused on quality over quantity, so that the few things they have in their house are quite nice. I've also had a nice reception on the German coffee forum, and quite a few people are very knowledgeable there. It also helps that so many of them have strong English ability and can read forums such as these.


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## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> My feeling about Italy is that people there largely go to cafés to get their espresso, they don't make espresso at home unless they just use a moka pot. And because espresso is a high-volume, low margin business in Italy (€1 is the standard shot price), and the public is happy with the current product, there is not much drive for innovation.
> 
> I am friends with the main players in third wave coffee in France, and it's a difficult slog for them. Bordeaux, Paris and Lyon are the centers of coffee progress in France, but really in Bordeaux and Lyon you're talking about one shop. In Paris there's lots of good coffee, and perhaps next year we'll see some decent espresso machines there. Nonetheless, most French people view coffee as a strong drink that you pound quickly at the end of the meal as a kind of drug.
> 
> "C'est bon, mais ce n'est pas du café" is something I frequently hear.
> 
> I've always found the German speaking countries to be focused on quality over quantity, so that the few things they have in their house are quite nice. I've also had a nice reception on the German coffee forum, and quite a few people are very knowledgeable there. It also helps that so many of them have strong English ability and can read forums such as these.


In France the larger supermarkets sell Coffee grains (Beans) the smaller popular super markets are well stocked with a wide choice of 'Dosettes' and no grains. The larger supermarkets also tend to function as wholesalers for individual cafe's and restaurants. Unlike the UK which have a wide range of wholesalers and suppliers specifically for business.

Who would have thought years ago that bread machines would be popular in France.

Jon.


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## decent_espresso

We are currently working on the design of the chassis for the café version of our decent espresso machine.

We need to make it larger in order to enable steam during brew, as well as twice as powerful steaming. We also want a little bit more space inside to make it easier to repair in commercial environments.

The café version will be capable of sitting on a countertop or going into an inset bracket, where it becomes flush with the countertop. I quite like the inset look, but I don't want to require it of people since it requires a much larger cut into their work surface.

With the café version, the tubing goes directly downwards in the back has a second panel which hides all electrical and water connections. That way the back can face the public.

I'm also moving to a significantly higher-end Android tablet, this one featuring an 11" screen (vs 8") and 2560x1600 resolution (four times the normal tablet we use). The screen is made by Toshiba and is really clear.

The steam wand has also been redesigned, specifically to enable faster in/out movements, and also to make steam 1 Liter easier. And this should all support hands-free steaming, too.

The cafe model needs to be able to work unplumbed, plumbed to water tanks, or plumbed to a pressurized water source.

Our next challenge is trying to suspend the drip tray cover on four load cells so that we can invisibly weigh espresso and not require a scale. I'm not sure yet how to do this in a way that isn't ugly. There might need to be a modification to the aesthetics of the side view.

This model will be 220V only.

Attached to this message are several renders of the current design in progress, compared to the current DE1 models.

-john


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## decent_espresso

As (pessimistically) expected, a few of our suppliers have asked for a bit more time. We have not yet restarted our espresso machine production line.

There are 200 components in the machine, and all have to be here in order for us to ship one machine. That's a lot of dependencies!

At the moment, the last parts are expected to arrive by October 30.

However, we've also encountered three issues that we need to solve in order to get our factory shipping completed espresso machines again:

1) the first 200 leg bases arrived with a slight twist in the front (left photos). The company that made them for us says they can be twisted by hand, without damaging the paint. We'll see.

2) On the group head parts made of brass, three small holes that were supposed to be tapped to allow a threaded screw, were instead tapped all the way through to the other side (top right photo). That makes for a very leaky group head! Thankfully, the CNC manufacturer agreed that this is their mistake, because the sample parts they sent us did not have this flaw. They have agreed to remake these at their cost.

3) There is a slight leak in the group brass part when under pressure, around the two water temperature probes (bottom right photo). We're not yet sure why, as this has not appreciably changed since version 1.0 (no leaks there). We think that a slightly thicker silicone O-ring will solve this. We have one group head that is tested and not leaking, and now need to test 30 more to make sure this approach works.

Of course, the 14 people in our little espresso machine factory are busy assembling all the other parts that will go into the espresso machine.

I still expect that we will be able to ship out the 100 already sold Pro machines by the end of December, so that we can start taking orders for the Plus machines in January, and shipping very quickly as the orders come in.

-john


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## jf12

John , i understand that de1pro v1.1 customers will get the new grouphead,flow meter,board that can diagnose problems and new +9% heater.

as far a i can tell from your posts , de1pro v1.3 will add UL certification and physical buttons. I think that i've also saw a post for a new tablet.

I'm trying to figure out if it is worth the wait , am i missing any other improvements?

What is the current estimation for de1pro v1.3 order and delivery?


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## decent_espresso

We've sold an espresso-making accessory (tamper, milk thermometer, basket, etc) to 2834 different people worldwide. Here's where they are in the world.

It's a similar map to our "espresso machine customers" map, but a bit more diverse.

Higher res version: http://magnatune.com/p/acc-labelled.jpg

-john


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## decent_espresso

jf12 said:


> John , i understand that de1pro v1.1 customers will get the new grouphead,flow meter,board that can diagnose problems and new +9% heater.
> 
> as far a i can tell from your posts , de1pro v1.3 will add UL certification and physical buttons. I think that i've also saw a post for a new tablet.
> 
> I'm trying to figure out if it is worth the wait , am i missing any other improvements?
> 
> What is the current estimation for de1pro v1.3 order and delivery?


That's right, except that version 1.1 is the same heater as version 1.0

It won't be until version 1.3 that we have the slightly more powerful water heaters, as they are a brand-new design and will take six months to manufacture once we finalize the design.

Version 1.3 is slated to have the new heater, the group head controller, and UL approval. It's also likely that they will have android seven on the tablet, instead of android 5.1. Twice as much memory and about 30% faster CPU on the tablet as well.

However, the absolute earliest that version could happen is June. We first have to sell out of the version 1.1 machines, and we also have a six month delay on the heaters, and we have to pass through months of likely delays for UL.

At the moment, nothing is planned after version 1.3. We want to keep our engineering resources free to focus on what we hear back from our customers.

The first version of our Café model should enter proper production in June, and will feature the new heaters. However the heaters in that model will be twice as powerful as the plus and Pro models, and the café model will require 220 V.

- John


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## Dylan

Are there more price increases anticipated as you move on to 1.3 next year? I might end up getting one of your machines eventually, but there are many other things in my life which need paying for first!


----------



## jf12

decent_espresso said:


> That's right, except that version 1.1 is the same heater as version 1.0
> 
> Version 1.3 is slated to have the new heater, the group head controller, and UL approval. It's also likely that they will have android seven on the tablet, instead of android 5.1. Twice as much memory and about 30% faster CPU on the tablet as well.
> 
> - John


-i guess that a v1.1 owner can replace the tablet in case a future version of the DE1 software causes sluggishness and a more powerful tablet is required.

-I also recall the the newer heaters can be retrofitted into the v1.1 machine , is that still accurate?


----------



## decent_espresso

jf12 said:


> -i guess that a v1.1 owner can replace the tablet in case a future version of the DE1 software causes sluggishness and a more powerful tablet is required.
> 
> -I also recall the the newer heaters can be retrofitted into the v1.1 machine , is that still accurate?


Wherever possible, we're making our newer parts compatible with older models of our espresso machines.

So, for example, that's why our tablet is not fully integrated into the machine. The technology in an android tablet becomes obsolete much faster than an espresso machine. Some people, I expect, will want to upgrade the android tablet every few years to whatever is the latest thing. Since the tablet sits on top of our espresso machine, that's easily done.

As to the heaters, they will work, but it's likely that the mountings will be a little bit of DIY. This is because we did not anticipate today in version 1.0 machines what the mountings would be in our 1.3 version machine. This isn't a big deal, it just means that some cable ties will probably be used instead of a very tidy mounting solution.

Same thing for the new, stronger legs in version 1.1, as well as the new flowmeters. Both work on version 1.0 and version 1.1 hardware.



Dylan said:


> Are there more price increases anticipated as you move on to 1.3 next year? I might end up getting one of your machines eventually, but there are many other things in my life which need paying for first!


Unfortunately, I can't really comment as to what I will do with our prices in a year. They might go up, or they might go down. Sorry!

-john


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## jf12

Thanks john for all the detailed answers , one last question : when is the decent scale going to be available?


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## decent_espresso

jf12 said:


> when is the decent scale going to be available?


There was some progress on that recently, in that the scale company I am working with to manufacture our design has almost all the molds manufactured. I attach a photo of what I received from my technical contact there, this past thursday.

However, they haven't yet started coding the firmware, nor have I gotten my hands on a working sample from them. So&#8230; I really can't give us time estimate at the moment, other than very roughly saying 3 to 9 months, depending on how things go.

The reason this is taking a long time is that I went fairly far with another company to develop the decent scale, using their firmware but modifying it to my specifications. I had four working samples made, CAD files, basically everything. However, then they came back with a price of USD$88 to manufacture each scale at quantity=1000. Since we wanted to sell these at USD$99, that left me at a bit of an impasse.

So, I've had to start from scratch with another manufacturer, having given them one of my working prototypes.

On the positive side, they are willing to make them for USD$30 each, which is much more reasonable. Also, this new company doing the product development is also the manufacturer (and they only makes scales, nothing else).

Previously I was working with a product development company, that outsources the manufacturing. More steps and more intermediaries means more likely to have a higher cost and more likely to have problems too.

As Acaia has set a rather high bar for quality, rushing something to market would be unwise.

- John


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> There was some progress on that recently, in that the scale company I am working with to manufacture our design has almost all the molds manufactured. I attach a photo of what I received from my technical contact there, this past thursday.
> 
> However, they haven't yet started coding the firmware, nor have I gotten my hands on a working sample from them. So&#8230; I really can't give us time estimate at the moment, other than very roughly saying 3 to 9 months, depending on how things go.
> 
> The reason this is taking a long time is that I went fairly far with another company to develop the decent scale, using their firmware but modifying it to my specifications. I had four working samples made, CAD files, basically everything. However, then they came back with a price of USD$88 to manufacture each scale at quantity=1000. Since we wanted to sell these at USD$99, that left me at a bit of an impasse.
> 
> So, I've had to start from scratch with another manufacturer, having given them one of my working prototypes.
> 
> On the positive side, they are willing to make them for USD$30 each, which is much more reasonable. Also, this new company doing the product development is also the manufacturer (and they only makes scales, nothing else).
> 
> Previously I was working with a product development company, that outsources the manufacturing. More steps and more intermediaries means more likely to have a higher cost and more likely to have problems too.
> 
> As Acaia has set a rather high bar for quality, rushing something to market would be unwise.
> 
> - John
> 
> View attachment 37110


I'm hoping to pick up one of these when they do eventually land - if they are as well thought out as all your other products I'm sure they will be great - and if they do come in under £100 then a bit of an easier price to swallow than the Acaia.


----------



## decent_espresso

￼

We today received a dozen handbuilt plumbing kits, for us to fully test before 500 more of these are assembled for us.

These are for connecting a decent espresso machine to a pressurized water source. A special-purpose valve is inside the box and which does several things:

- lets water flow into the espresso machine when the water tank gets low, and stops automatically when the water level is acceptable again. There is a 30-second timeout mechanism to prevent overflowing in the unhappy case where the water level sensor failed. This timeout can also happen if the tap has been manually shut off and no water is entering. In either case, the user is asked to confirm and tap on the screen to restart another refill attempt.

- The valve has a flow constrictor which lowers the pressure and flow, because "city" water can be much higher pressure than we want

- has a safety mechanism in it which absolutely guarantees that water cannot circulate back into the tap. This is required as part of the EU compliance.

As part of our design, we wanted all the electronics on one side of the box and all the water connectors on the other. To do this, we needed a specially designed U-bend tube. This wasn't something that we could simply buy and we had to have it molded. The top right photo shows a six cavity mold that we had made to create this tube. Since it was made for us, it even as our name on the tube. :-D

The bottom left photo shows you the tubing that we will be including with this. There is a quick connect that automatically clicks onto the back, and fittings are included for both European and English/American taps.

Just a bit of nomenclature to clarify something:

- the box that connects to pressurized water is called the "plumbing kit"

- the box that connects to a tank of water is called the "catering kit"

- these two things together, along with a plumbed drip tray, is what we call the "refill kit" and will shortly be supplied to all these Decent espresso machine pro customers.

The whole box is made of metal, with rubber feet identical to the decent espresso machine there is a bracket which allows it to be firmly attached to the back of the espresso machine, or hung on a wall.

We've given the go-ahead to have the rest of these made now for us. In the past, we have hand build everything ourselves, but for these refill kits, we are experimenting with having someone else do the assembly for us. It's much more time-consuming on the startup side, but once everything is in place it's great to have someone else do this work for us so we can focus on espresso machines, which are much more difficult to build than this part

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent Milk Jugs Around the World

Big version: http://magnatune.com/p/milljugs2.jpg

I thought I'd collect photos from Instagram of people using our milk jug.

Once I started searching, I was really surprised (and flattered) by these photos, many of which are funny, clever or artistic.

The story behind the milk jug is this:

- I was slowly improving my coffee-making skills and found that the taste of milky drinks was extremely sensitive to dilution. I started weighing my milk, and my girlfriend liked about 10% more milk than I did.

- I also found it easier to regularly get the same latte art, if the milk quantity in the jug was also regular. The end of the latte art pour is where all the action is, and it's over in just a few seconds. That last foam needs to be reliable.

- and milk waste in cafes is terrible. Rao did an experiment weighing the total wasted milk in a day, at his Montreal cafe. I think I remember him saying it was around 20%.

- and I was trying to get precision lines in my art. Jessica Rice helped me get a private forum together of latte art competitors, to advise on the design. They all wanted the pointed tip, which is how that came about.

-john


----------



## ttttt91

I drove recently through Amarillo, TX and while I did not make any good pic to share, the 3rd wave coffee shop there used Decent jugs. At least to me it was a surprise to see Decent stuff in the "desert"... ;-)


----------



## decent_espresso

I'm working with Lisbon-based Joao Tomas recently to create short movies of our espresso machine and accessories. Here's a short one of our knockbox. He's the reason that everything we do has a very European, modern aesthetic. https://decentespresso.com/knockbox






The knockbox design was a particularly difficult challenge, because a knockbox is basically a trash can with a bar across it. How to make that attractive?

I ended up stealing a page out of the book "steal like an artist" https://austinkleon.com/steal/ and nicking the Moet Chandon champagne bucket designs, but modified to be wider, stronger (for banging on), and cut out more in front.


----------



## decent_espresso

A week ago, I reported that 200 espresso machine legs arrived here, for our version 1.1 machines, with an outward bend to them. https://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?30500-Decent-espresso&p=631984#post631984

To fix this, they made this jig for us, that allows careful re-bending so that they're straight. They're sending this jig to us, and they made this video for us, showing us how to use it.

It's a bit of work, but it'll allow us to avoid delays in getting our v1.1 production started again.

The next 550 legs they're making for us, shouldn't have this issue (I hope).

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Skale Stands now for sale*

https://decentespresso.com/scale

As I previously reported https://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?30500-Decent-espresso&p=630143#post630143 I have been working with a friend of Scott Rao's, namely Dan Eils https://www.instagram.com/dan_eils/ to 3D print the scale stands for us, allowing you to make weighed espressos with the scale underneath the drip tray.

Dan has also put a lot of computer time in redesigning the stand to prevent warping and to make it lighter. He has sent me two prototypes that I've tested for him.

I don't really have a good feel for how many people want this, so I have put the stand up for sale here: https://decentespresso.com/scale

In a few days, I will ask Dan to 3D print some quantity of these stands to match the order quantity and then some.

I'm estimating that it will take a few weeks for them to get 3D printed in Los Angeles, sent to us in Hong Kong, and then sent out to people who have bought them.

-john


----------



## WEJ

A Decent Espresso Demo in Manchester was mentioned in the Cup North thread, I thought it might be useful to post details here as well:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/decent-espresso-demo-tickets-51503979790


----------



## Beanedict

WEJ said:


> A Decent Espresso Demo in Manchester was mentioned in the Cup North thread, I thought it might be useful to post details here as well:
> 
> https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/decent-espresso-demo-tickets-51503979790


yep, I am going. Book yours whilst places available. it starts just when Cup North finishes. I'm hoping to be mesmerised


----------



## WEJ

Booked before posting... ;-)

Looking forwards to it as well.


----------



## decent_espresso

The plastic molds for our Decent Scale https://decentespresso.com/scale are now complete. We're working on the PCB and firmware now.

In the middle-left photo you can see what the scale will look like in the end. White plastic is used in this prototype model instead.

Detail photos show:

- the USB charge port, which I put underneath the scale, to protect it from water from above/sides

- the single piece of plastic that covers the entire scale from all sides, except from the bottom. The aim is perfect waterproofness from everywhere except below

- there are no physical buttons: a proximity sensor behind the cover senses your finger near the O and [] buttons

This scale will be BLE capable, sell for £84, be 0.1g accurate, and 2kg capable. The BLE spec will be published and open so that other apps can work with it.

Over time, my intention is to write a variety of apps for this scale. Initially, these will be for Android (same as the DE1+) but with time, they'll work on Linux and eventually iOS.

Use of this scale when not BLE connected is very simple:

- O button tares weight

- [] button starts/pauses/restarts the timer

More fancy "wizard" functions, like those that Brewista and Acaia do on the scale itself, will here be transferred to the app.

From reviews (and my personal use) it's my opinion that multi-step operations (such as pour-overs) would be easier to follow (and configure) on an app.

I'm also thinking of having a "Tablet + Decent Scale" more expensive combination package for sale, where all the apps are pre-installed and the scale is pre-paired. Much like our espresso machine. I could then include a LOT of interesting weight-based functionality.

What do you think?

-john


----------



## Dylan

I said this just a few posts above. But for me your scale is hitting all the right notes. I will overwhelmingly just use the scale and timer function, but to have this in a quality scale from a 'decent' company is a seemingly hard task - once upon a time I hoped this would be the Brewista, but they seemingly had a high fault rate and then the second iteration sailed past the £100 mark so i went back to £10 Amazon scales.

If I ever get one of your machines down the line the bluetooth integration with your machine will also be a great feature.


----------



## BarDar

I think that gravimetric shot stop is awesome! It's a great way for automatically stop shots at the exact desired ratio and it'd be a great addition to the machine capability. I must admit I love live graphs







, and an additional graph the shows true gravimetric data on the cup is more accurate then just the volumetric data that is influenced by the coffee puck size and absorption unique characteristics.

About waterproofing the bottom- since the scale sits above the drip tray, will it get splashed by the 3way solenoid? If the driptray is partly full the pressure released at the end of the shot might cause the water to splash...


----------



## decent_espresso

BarDar said:


> I think that gravimetric shot stop is awesome! It's a great way for automatically stop shots at the exact desired ratio and it'd be a great addition to the machine capability.


FYI we've had gravimetric shot stopping since launching, with the Atomax Skale 2, which we currently sell.

















However, the Skale is meant for baking, and consequently is a bit large, and not good at water resistance. That's why we're making our own scale.



BarDar said:


> About waterproofing the bottom- since the scale sits above the drip tray, will it get splashed by the 3way solenoid? If the driptray is partly full the pressure released at the end of the shot might cause the water to splash...


Yes, that's been a worry of mine with this design, but so far, this hasn't been a problem in the 2 years of testing with the 4 hand built Decent Scales I have. The bottom does have sides that come up vertically to try to prevent this problem.

I'm actually more worried about the flush water causing the scale bottom to warp from exposure to heat. Acaia reportedly suffers from this problem, and as I really respect their build quality, it's a concern for me too. It can likely be mitigated with specific choices for the plastic we use.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

One of the more annoying problems we had with our v1.0 espresso machine came from an unlikely place: our short USB charging cable had a tendency to melt.

About 20% of our customers had this problem. It turns out that the attractive and unusual design I chose for our USB connector had a failure-prone internal design.









In retrospect, that's not surprising, as this USB connector design was exceptional slim.

We ended up building a custom high-amperage USB circuit, to stress test our cables, and weed out the iffy ones. About 40% of our existing cables failed this test.

This was a somewhat expensive problem for us because besides replacing the cables, we also replaced the tablets when the cable melting also melted a bit of the tablet chassis.

We tried to get the internal design improved with our existing supplier, by adding additional insulation around the connections. In the end, though, I lost confidence in them, and I decided to find a new supplier who had a problem-free design.

There was also a slight other problem, that the insulation on the USB-A side was a bit thicker than we wanted, and so the USB cable didn't plug in solidly to the espresso machine. It was prone to falling out if you moved the tablet a bit.









In the attached photo you can see the new cable. The connector to the tablet is more traditional. We cut back the insulation and were pleased to see large, well-isolated terminal points. All of the samples we've received have passed our home-made stress test.

On the USB-A side of this cable, the insulation stops about 2mm earlier, allowing a secure, solid connection to the espresso machine.

I went with a fabric mesh cable because it bends elegantly. Normal insulated USB cables looked like ski accident victims, with awkward bends in this position.

I've also added 5mm to the length, to allow a bit more tablet maneuverability, without the cable protruding too much in an ugly way.

I'm preparing an "update pack" that will be sent to all existing v1.0 customs. Among other things (such as an electroplated drip tray cover), it will have this new cable. And all v1.1 espresso machine customers will have this new cable.

I would have loved for the v1.0 machines to be problem free, but so far I'm thankful that the problems we've found have been with easily replaced, external components.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Some Decent Espresso customers have asked if it's possible to have the steam wand I designed for the upcoming DE1CAFE model, but on the DE1+ or DE1PRO machine.

I had our steam wand supplier make a short run of these, and they're now available for sale:

https://decentespresso.com/de1plus#prowand

We'll be making a video and instructions for existing Decent clients to retrofit their machines. All they'll need is two wrenches. For new clients that buy a machine from us, we'll pre-install the steam wand if they buy it at the same time.

I priced this at USD$179, as compared to the equivalent concept for the La Marzocco GS/3 which costs USD$263 (47% more expensive) and which is not "cool touch" as ours is. They write "Once you have switched to the Pro Steam Wand, remember that the metal on the steam wand will get extremely hot." https://home.lamarzoccousa.com/product/pro-steam-wand-conversion-kit/

-john


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## dsc

@decent_espresso John, when are you planning a live DE session in the London area?

T.


----------



## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> @decent_espresso John, when are you planning a live DE session in the London area?


Possibly in December, but I haven't scheduled anything yet.


----------



## dsc

decent_espresso said:


> Possibly in December, but I haven't scheduled anything yet.


I reckon it's not really possible to get a loaner machine for a short period?

T.


----------



## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> I reckon it's not really possible to get a loaner machine for a short period?


Actually, it might be. Mat North in Bristol has a loaner that is doing the rounds. I will private message you his email address.

- John


----------



## decent_espresso

This fascinating article by the New Yorker discusses what happens when a formerly low-tech discipline (medicine) becomes computerized.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/12/why-doctors-hate-their-computers

The title is misleading (the original published titled was "The Upgrade"), because the direction of the article is much more nuanced. Much of this article spoke directly to what we are trying to do in the world of espresso.

A few takeaways from this article:


When you computerize medecine, you suddenly have many more things you can accomplish. The original goal of servicing doctor's needs is no longer the single goal.

Better care, avoiding mistakes, cost management, and transparency all become doable.

All these new goals are compelling and virtually everyone wants them to happen.

However, all these new goals depend on good data, well entered into the system.

This expansion of what the doctors visit becomes, suddenly causes more work for doctors.

The impact (on many fronts) of that doctor's visit are now significantly greater.

Initially, all this new data is overwhelming to the doctor, and the tools need to evolve quickly to assist. If they don't, the new data becomes noise quickly and the computerized system self-destructs.

Data entry needs to be made as easy as possible. Unclean data is worse then useless: it obstructs.

"evolution" and "selection", at the same time, as the key to success.


Here's how I think this applies to the decent espresso project:


decent is computerizing an old occupation that has been low data, low-tech for a long time

The goals are all things people want: a better average espresso, your worst espresso being still very good, and occasionally the best espresso of your life. Some people have specialized goals, such as getting good extractions from very difficult ultralight roasts. Or very high percentage extractions to use less coffee and save costs.

The current decent tablet software gives you a lot of data, but I've tried to balance that because I have a fear of information overload for the barista.

However, the current software falls more on the "too much information" side than the "not enough information" side.

I've made this choice, as the interface designer, because experts don't yet know how to interpret all the data in a way that makes better coffee.

As human beings start to understand what this data means, I will start to program these insights into the software, and reduce the amount of data shown to users.

Sometimes, the computer can act on behalf of the barista to solve problems without them needing to intervene. Automatic "channel healing", For example.

Another example: because our temperature regulation has been getting significantly better this past year, I will soon not show by default the temperature of your espresso as it progresses. It will be available as a tap but not as default information that you have to visually screen out.

The article calls out "evolution" and "selection" as the keys. Evolution, in the Decent project, is a combination of my being heavily involved with users, and also open sourcing the software so I can get out of the way. Selection is through feedback on the forum, but also by implementing features as optional "skins" so that people can select what they want.


Toward the end, there is a bit of a case study of the same technical situation in the construction industry, where many of the same insights emerge.

A really thought-provoking article.

￼


----------



## _HH_

Hey John - this article really resonated with me. I spend at least as much time typing notes as I do seeing patients, and it was really interesting to read others' experiences, albeit slightly depressing!! Thanks for sharing the link!


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## coffeechap

Seriously!


----------



## DavecUK

We need more of these valuable tech tips....just the sort of thing people struggle with. Perhaps one showing how to clean a portafilter basket, or how to change out a double for a a single basket/blind filter.

I can see some people might be "triggered" by this though.....


----------



## decent_espresso

Here are photos comparing the two screens. In my experience, both filter screens perform identically when clean and new.









However, the IMS screen, because it is a single thin layer, tends to remain clean much longer. It also gets cleaner automatically with the "clean" cycle and a Cafiza tablet in a blank portafilter.

We ordered custom Phillips screws, with an especially sharp angle on the head, so that the head of the screw would be flush with the screen. You can see the screw in the photo.







￼

That custom screw will be included automatically if you order the IMS shower screen from us.

Here is a video of IMS' manufacturing process:

[video=youtube;4-J6IPe81c8]






I now have these IMS filter screens in stock for v1.0 machines. The DE1PRO v1.1 machines will all be built with these IMS filter screens. The upcoming v1.1 DE1+ machines will continue to use the mesh style screens.

Scroll down to the bottom of this page for more info: https://decentespresso.com/de1plus

or here's a direct shopping cart link: https://decentespresso.com/cart?s=73345+1


----------



## Obnic

In my experience IMS screens are fragile. I've had two fail the Pallo grouphead brush regime. If they perform identically, I reckon the traditional mesh screen is a more resilient solution.


----------



## dlight

Obnic said:


> In my experience IMS screens are fragile. I've had two fail the Pallo grouphead brush regime. If they perform identically, I reckon the traditional mesh screen is a more resilient solution.


Why are you using a brush of any sort on the IMS screen. I've had one in daily use for over 3 years. It's like new. Yes, I clean it fortnightly and it remains in pristine condition.


----------



## decent_espresso

We are down to just 3 remaining issues before we can start production of our v1.1 espresso machines:

1) new firmware needs to work on new PC boards, confirm that the new PC board design has no flaws

2) 2-week delay then to get stock of new PC boards.

3) final resolution on the occasionally leaky group head

Our new PC boards have a few new features:

1) an electrician's "clamp" is built in, so that we can now measure the power consumption of each component. That will allow us to detect calcium scale buildup, loose wires, and most other causes of failure. Sometimes, before the problem becomes serious.

2) support for a different design/simpler water level sensor.

3) support for the upcoming group head controller

*STATUS:*

Ray (in Seattle) has finished the firmware. Parry (in Hong Kong) was testing it and it was failing. It turns out that the 2 sample PC boards that Parry had, had a CPU soldered 180º in the wrong direction. All of Ray's sample boards were correct. Today, after hand-resoldering the CPU, the firmware is testing ok in HK. Tomorrow we will complete the tests and should be able to tell the PCB manufacturer to proceed.

About 20% of our group heads have been leaking ever so slightly. We're talking about two drops, in 2 hours of being under 19 bar of pressure. Still, not acceptable. Different O-Ring materials and thicknesses have resolved the problem, but we're not comfortable with this, as we aren't sure they won't leak in a year. Our v1.0 group heads never leaked under our 19 bar/2h test. We now think the problem is a 0.5mm change in design, and on Tuesday we'll receive 20 new brass parts that revert this change back to what was in v1.0.

Once these final issues are resolved, machines will start to ship out of our factory at a fairly fast pace, as many of the sub-assemblies have been made, awaiting everything to come together.

Just a few more weeks now to wait...

-john


----------



## Obnic

dlight said:


> Why are you using a brush of any sort on the IMS screen. I've had one in daily use for over 3 years. It's like new. Yes, I clean it fortnightly and it remains in pristine condition.


My machine is used every day for the whole morning. If I cleaned my screen once a fortnight the build up of oils would be enormous and the coffee would taste awful. My screen gets rinsed between shots and both it and the basket go through the dishwasher every evening.

In defence of the pallo brush: it is a purpose-built shower screen tool, ideal for removing wet grinds and debris following a shot. It's bristles however seem to be a similar size to the holes in an IMS 200 screen so it can tear them.

I should say also that whilst I got a measurable and consistentt improvement in taste and EY by making sure my group was perfectly level (all hail @ronsil for that wisdom), I could discern no improvement whatever from IMS screens vs the standard mesh (mine does not have a blind spot). Believers can cry 'heretic' if they please. I'm open to refractometric evidence.


----------



## Andreugv

Obnic said:


> My machine is used every day for the whole morning. If I cleaned my screen once a fortnight the build up of oils would be enormous and the coffee would taste awful. My screen gets rinsed between shots and both it and the basket go through the dishwasher every evening.
> 
> In defence of the pallo brush: it is a purpose-built shower screen tool, ideal for removing wet grinds and debris following a shot. It's bristles however seem to be a similar size to the holes in an IMS 200 screen so it can tear them.
> 
> I should say also that whilst I got a measurable and consistentt improvement in taste and EY by making sure my group was perfectly level (all hail @ronsil for that wisdom), I could discern no improvement whatever from IMS screens vs the standard mesh (mine does not have a blind spot). Believers can cry 'heretic' if they please. I'm open to refractometric evidence.


I have been using IMS Comp screens and Pallo tool for over 2 years, daily, and I clean with brush after each use, and chemical clean each night. No signs of any damage so I do not know what cleaning procedure you use, but maybe you are too hard on your screen?


----------



## Obnic

Andreugv said:


> I have been using IMS Comp screens and Pallo tool for over 2 years, daily, and I clean with brush after each use, and chemical clean each night. No signs of any damage so I do not know what cleaning procedure you use, but maybe you are too hard on your screen?


Damage wasn't drastic. What I noticed was that one or two of the holes in the metal had 'joined up'.

After the second time I reverted to my traditional mesh screen because I really couldn't *prove* any benefit to EY deriving from the IMS screens that justified the purchase.

Sorry Jon bit off topic. I'll leave it there.


----------



## decent_espresso

A lot of people have asked for a "start to end" video showing how I make a drink with my Decent Espresso Machine.

Here's my morning routine. Me just out of bed: girlfriend still asleep.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I had 100 brushed steel back panels made, as some people's comments indicated they preferred it. It's definitely much more finger print and scratch resistant. You'll not have the "shot mirror" feature, though.

If you're buying (or awaiting) a DE1+ or DE1PRO from us, and you prefer this, please get in contact. It's a no-cost choice on your part. https://decentespresso.com/contact

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I get a lot of questions about my new tamper, which is philosophically quite different from the first tampers I designed.

In this video, I explain my change in thinking, and why I'm continuing to make both types of tampers.

One note: we're currently out of stock of the "v1 grooved tamper" (aka the "calibrated tamper") but it should come back into stock shortly. Any back-orders will be sent automatically when it comes into our warehouse.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

This video was meant to be a quick tour of the Decent Espresso machine, and give you some idea of how I tweak presets to achieve a better taste.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I pull the same 15g espresso shot using several different profiles, commenting on the results as I go along. A useful introduction as understanding the Decent's charts.

-john


----------



## DavecUK

Thanks John, keep sharing.


----------



## decent_espresso

Over on the German-language espresso forum, someone asked if there was a video showing the Decent's steaming capabilities. There isn't such a video, so I made one.

https://www.kaffee-netz.de/threads/decent-espresso-maschinenbesprechung.109753/page-37#post-1592341

-john


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## DavecUK

This Video I am not such a fan of....it's doesn't actually show people what they need to know with respect to steaming..I think it probably needs to be revisited and shown quite differently.


----------



## Jony

Like being in a sauna.


----------



## decent_espresso

DavecUK said:


> This Video I am not such a fan of....it's doesn't actually show people what they need to know with respect to steaming..I think it probably needs to be revisited and shown quite differently.


Thing is, the German forum user specifically asked to see the steam feature when it was NOT steaming milk. I know that's a bit unusual.

I have a bunch of videos already online showing me steaming milk with the Decent.

Here's a quite old one from a year and a half ago:






@DavecUK if that doesn't tell you what you'd like to know, can you tell me what you *are* looking for? I can then either make a video addressing that, or find an existing one that already does.

-john


----------



## BarDar

I like this video.

I must say I was a bit worried regarding steam power. I make several milk drinks on a daily basis and great espresso is not enough for me.

My current machine has great steaming power, I actually had to block one of the four holes of the steam wand to make it usable for small amounts...

John constant explanations regarding the dry/extra hot steam the DE1Pro provides did not set my mind at ease, in fact it made even more worried







I had my doubts regarding the potential of a non boiler machine to produce sufficient pressure (not temp') to achieve the circulation needed to make the microfoam.

After watching carefully several milk steaming videos, I still was not completely sure it had a lot of power, but sure enough it can steam small amounts sufficiently.

I ordered the DE1Pro, and after seeing this video it looks like I made the right choice, this looks like a powerful steaming machine


----------



## Jony

Most steam DB boilers run at 1.5 so more then enough, doesn't make me want me to buy this because of the Steam power!


----------



## BarDar

I did not buy it for it's steam power. I bought it for it's versatility. I almost went for the Londonium lever machine, but the DE1 ability to mimick many high-end machines won me over. Why settle for just the Londonium when I can get the GS3 as well?

My point is that I wouldn't have bought it if it had weak steaming, it's part of my minimal requirements...


----------



## Jony

Well I have a Vesuvius which is a Pressure profile machine. And I often use the Lever profile I have set on it.


----------



## DavecUK

I have seen the other video, to be honest the way i classify steaming I would class the Decent machine as a weak to moderate (at best) steamer, none of the Videos give any detail. In the one you show it looks like that's 170ml or less of milk @ 12C heated to 65C in around 30 seconds but it's all guesswork....and the pressure of steam is of course unknown.

Induce a 53C temp rise in 568ml of water and see how it goes....


----------



## decent_espresso

A knockbox is basically a garbage can for coffee. How could you make it Decent?


----------



## DavecUK

I hate to say it, but for the average persons coffee consumption 25 pucks could be almost 2 weeks (mould), someone would normally empty a knock box at the end of each day. For domestic counter-top Knock boxes, *small is beautiful*. I empty my knock box every day and give it a quick rinse...job done. It's a Grindenstien I was given as a present and has served me faithfully for over 10 years. I think you had the feedback before that the Decent knock box was too large for normal domestic use....or is it more a commercial knockbox? If it is commercial, perhaps a smaller 6-8 puck sized domestic version would be popular?


----------



## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> A knockbox is basically a garbage can for coffee. How could you make it Decent?


That's a good quality booze shelf you have there Jon. Cocktails at yours later?


----------



## decent_espresso

Obnic said:


> That's a good quality booze shelf you have there Jon. Cocktails at yours later?


Nightly! My girlfriend is British and seems genetically predisposed to mix booze in an agreeable manner.

My unimpressive contribution to the art is the occasional "passion fruit gin & tonic":











DavecUK said:


> I hate to say it, but for the average persons coffee consumption 25 pucks could be almost 2 weeks (mould), someone would normally empty a knock box at the end of each day. For domestic counter-top Knock boxes, *small is beautiful*. I empty my knock box every day and give it a quick rinse...job done. It's a Grindenstien I was given as a present and has served me faithfully for over 10 years. I think you had the feedback before that the Decent knock box was too large for normal domestic use....or is it more a commercial knockbox? If it is commercial, perhaps a smaller 6-8 puck sized domestic version would be popular?


We typically have 3 espressos a day (1 each in the morning, 1 shared in the afternoon), so my knockbox holds a week's worth of pucks.

I have a Grindenstein as well, and honestly, I don't think I could improve on it. If you want a tiny knockbox, it's a great choice.

But I didn't see any larger sized knockboxes on the market, and I personally found the existing choices too small for my use. To each his own.

-john


----------



## DavecUK

decent_espresso said:


> We typically have 3 espressos a day (1 each in the morning, 1 shared in the afternoon), so my knockbox holds a week's worth of pucks.
> 
> I have a Grindenstein as well, and honestly, I don't think I could improve on it. If you want a tiny knockbox, it's a great choice.
> 
> But I didn't see any larger sized knockboxes on the market, and I personally found the existing choices too small for my use. To each his own.
> 
> -john


John,

If you are happy to have a weeks worth of pucks sitting in an open knock box on the counter I can understand why you feel the need for a larger box.....I think most people prefer to empty the counter-top Grindenstien type knock box at the end of each day (domestic usage).... . The bigger the box and the longer the pucks are in it simply creates problems as there is an increased chance of retained moisture in the deeper bed of spent pucks, so mould is inevitable if consumption of coffee is sufficient. If someone only has a couple of coffees a day it will probably stay quite dry and they may not have a problem with mould after a week..but then they didn't need such a large box.

I like the shape, I just think the mistake was in making it way too big for most people.


----------



## Dylan

I think perhaps you are actually cleaner than most Dave. Or at least its worth noting there is quite a range of cleanliness amongst a user base.

Whatever I'm using for a knockbox at the time can easily go a week without being emptied, in fact mould is usually what prompts me to empty out my pucks.

Saying that the decent knockbox is definitely too large for my needs, although I very much like the design.


----------



## DavecUK

Dylan said:


> I think perhaps you are actually cleaner than most Dave. Or at least its worth noting there is quite a range of cleanliness amongst a user base.
> 
> Whatever I'm using for a knockbox at the time can easily go a week without being emptied, in fact mould is usually what prompts me to empty out my pucks.
> 
> Saying that the decent knockbox is definitely too large for my needs, although I very much like the design.


I think you perfectly show the importance of the word most (especially on forums). There is always 1 or more people who don't do what most prefer. For a manufacturer, they need to cater for "most" unless they are a specialist, then they can cater for the exceptions, but of course they have to charge more to do that. If It's mould that prompts you to clean out your pucks, then I am not sure I am cleaner than most....you might find to your horror, that most prefer their knock boxes to be cleaned out before they get mouldy....dunno I could be wrong.


----------



## decent_espresso

DavecUK said:


> John, If you are happy to have a weeks worth of pucks sitting in an open knock box on the counter I can understand why you feel the need for a larger box.....I think most people prefer to empty the counter-top Grindenstien type knock box at the end of each day (domestic usage).... . The bigger the box and the longer the pucks are in it simply creates problems as there is an increased chance of retained moisture in the deeper bed of spent pucks, so mould is inevitable if consumption of coffee is sufficient. If someone only has a couple of coffees a day it will probably stay quite dry and they may not have a problem with mould after a week..but then they didn't need such a large box. I like the shape, I just think the mistake was in making it way too big for most people.


As it happens, I had a mini version of the same design CNCed as a prototype and that's what I use in Hong Kong, where my kitchen is tiny: enough space only for one person to stand. Here's a photo of it compared to the standard size:









Hong Kong is heaven for mold, and every few months I boil water in a kettle and completely sterilize the knockbox by letting boiling water sit in it. I'm not sure you could get away with doing that with a plastic knockbox, it would likely warp from the heat.

The sterilization procedure keeps mold at bay for a few months.



Dylan said:


> I think perhaps you are actually cleaner than most Dave. Or at least its worth noting there is quite a range of cleanliness amongst a user base.
> 
> Whatever I'm using for a knockbox at the time can easily go a week without being emptied, in fact mould is usually what prompts me to empty out my pucks.
> 
> Saying that the decent knockbox is definitely too large for my needs, although I very much like the design.


I find that this tiny knockbox does work when space is extremely at a premium, but it's a little bit too small for me. I will probably eventually make another prototype that is halfway larger to the normal size, and see if I prefer that.

Despite the fact that we have a lot of coffee accessories that I have designed, each one often goes through a year or two of iterations before I make it. A midsized knockbox version might be in the cards for the future.

-john


----------



## ashcroc

decent_espresso said:


> As it happens, I had a mini version of the same design CNCed as a prototype and that's what I use in Hong Kong, where my kitchen is tiny: enough space only for one person to stand. Here's a photo of it compared to the standard size:
> 
> View attachment 37578
> 
> 
> Hong Kong is heaven for mold, and every few months I boil water in a kettle and completely sterilize the knockbox by letting boiling water sit in it. I'm not sure you could get away with doing that with a plastic knockbox, it would likely warp from the heat.
> 
> The sterilization procedure keeps mold at bay for a few months.
> 
> I find that this tiny knockbox does work when space is extremely at a premium, but it's a little bit too small for me. I will probably eventually make another prototype that is halfway larger to the normal size, and see if I prefer that.
> 
> Despite the fact that we have a lot of coffee accessories that I have designed, each one often goes through a year or two of iterations before I make it. A midsized knockbox version might be in the cards for the future.
> 
> -john


RE: Sterilization, Would a length of silicon tube (maybe with a nozzle at the end) attached to the steam arm of your espresso machine do the trick without the need for soaking in boiling water?

Definitely like the idea of a midsized option.


----------



## decent_espresso

ashcroc said:


> RE: Sterilization, Would a length of silicon tube (maybe with a nozzle at the end) attached to the steam arm of your espresso machine do the trick without the need for soaking in boiling water?


I doubt it. I can put my hand a few centimeters from the steam and not get burnt, because our steam is so dry. I don't expect that it'd sterilize anything.

If you own a plastic knockbox, I should think that a soak in dilute bleach would sterilize it safely.

-john


----------



## DavecUK

Polycarbonate won't warp with heat from a kettle and you can always use hot water, detergent and antibacterial spray if you want. They really are not a problem to keep clean.....


----------



## decent_espresso

DavecUK said:


> Polycarbonate won't warp with heat from a kettle and you can always use hot water, detergent and antibacterial spray if you want. They really are not a problem to keep clean.....


The Grindenstein is made from ABS, and wikipedia reports:



> Generally ABS would have useful characteristics within a temperature range from −20 to 80 °C (−4 to 176 °F).[3]. Fibers (usually glass fibers) and additives can be mixed in the resin pellets to make the final product strong and raise the maximum operating temperature as high as 80 °C (176 °F).


fyi from

https://dreamfarm.com/grindenstein/


Materials: ABS plastic, Santoprene rubber coated steel bar

So I wouldn't recommend soaking it in boiling water.


----------



## DavecUK

decent_espresso said:


> The Grindenstein is made from ABS, and wikipedia reports:
> 
> fyi from
> 
> https://dreamfarm.com/grindenstein/
> 
> 
> Materials: ABS plastic, Santoprene rubber coated steel bar
> 
> So I wouldn't recommend soaking it in boiling water.


John I have had one for 10+ years the reversal glass transition point for ABS is 105C, so I have rinsed it from water from my water boiler (like you have em in HK for tea) many times with no ill effects. Boiling water is 95C within seconds of getting it out of a kettle. I think only a special kind of person washes things in boiling water, or even soaks them in boiling water. You would use a detergent weekly and a *hot* water rinse and perhaps an antibac spray if you only gave it a quick rinse. Remember the thing would be emptied every 1 or 2 days at most and wouldn't get mouldy (the beauty of a smaller knock box). You can invent a requirement and then have to have a material to match it...but ABS is perfectly OK for the Grindenstien.

I understand the need to be different, but really it's been done and it's been done well. You can bring style to the game and matching with the decent brand for sure....but it's just a knock box....And yours could do with either being smaller, or you should make a smaller one. They don't need to withstand immersion in boiling water for sterilisation, or being shut in an autoclave. I will have to buy another knock box eventually and when I do it will be either a Grindenstien or similar that is the same size as a Grindenstien., if they are ABS I really won't have a problem with that. i would never buy the champagne bucket that is the decent knock box, it's simply too large.


----------



## decent_espresso

DavecUK said:


> I understand the need to be different, but really it's been done and it's been done well. You can bring style to the game and matching with the decent brand for sure....but it's just a knock box....And yours could do with either being smaller, or you should make a smaller one. They don't need to withstand immersion in boiling water for sterilisation, or being shut in an autoclave. I will have to buy another knock box eventually and when I do it will be either a Grindenstien or similar that is the same size as a Grindenstien., if they are ABS I really won't have a problem with that. i would never buy the champagne bucket that is the decent knock box, it's simply too large.


And I've got no problem with that. As I mentioned above, I also own a Grindenstein and I don't see that I could improve on it. If you want small, it's a great knockbox.

And as I mentioned on the video, hopefully with a bit of humor, we're talking about a "garbage can for coffee" here. I am not bothered if you disagree with my choices.

-john


----------



## xpresso

Grindenstein ?. My terracotta's are just fine, despite my apprehension as to how long they would last, they have stood the test of time without even a crack.










The large 8" x 6" for using at base and the smaller 6" x 4" for travelling and both rinse out really well, you are correct of course Dave the bottom one's do show signs of an alien life form but take no cleaning at all and there's no bad aroma.

Jon.


----------



## DavecUK

wait until a tree grows out of that portafilter...


----------



## decent_espresso

DavecUK said:


> wait until a tree grows out of that portafilter...


On that topic, has anyone tried https://grocycle.com/

and grown oyster mushrooms from their spent grounds?

Apparently 30,000 people have tried this.. ?


----------



## xpresso

DavecUK said:


> wait until a tree grows out of that portafilter...


What do thinks holding it in place











decent_espresso said:


> On that topic, has anyone tried https://grocycle.com/
> 
> and grown oyster mushrooms from their spent grounds?
> 
> Apparently 30,000 people have tried this.. ?


Strangely enough someone a mile down the lane from us did after installing five tunnels, not from grounds but a special medium, I never found out the results of the court case owing to the lack of success.

Jon.


----------



## DavecUK

decent_espresso said:


> On that topic, has anyone tried https://grocycle.com/
> 
> and grown oyster mushrooms from their spent grounds?
> 
> Apparently 30,000 people have tried this.. ?


Just don't do a video where you start growing decent mushrooms, from the decent grounds in the decent garbage box, or I could get Mildly triggered....especially if I see a pack of decent mushroom spores that you just place in the decent knockbox after a week or so....to grow 1kg of shrooms.


----------



## decent_espresso

DavecUK said:


> Just don't do a video where you start growing decent mushrooms, from the decent grounds in the decent garbage box, or I could get Mildly triggered....especially if I see a pack of decent mushroom spores that you just place in the decent knockbox after a week or so....to grow 1kg of shrooms.


Well..... that was in fact my connection with Grocycle. I had several calls with them, and designs exchanged, two years ago.

We were working together to make a knockbox for pros that:

- could hold special sleeves to hold the pucks,

- and had a compressed oyster mushroom spore tube in the knockbar

- so that each knocked puck caused a light dusting of spores onto the spent pucks below.

- but we had some problems with the spores being killed by the still-too-hot pucks.

- and I wasn't sure this was a worthwhile distraction

I do feel like spent pucks are a fertile resource that shouldn't be discarded. The question is how to easily collect them and present them for reuse.

Something like this...


----------



## DavecUK

<triggered>....</triggered>


----------



## decent_espresso

The story behind why we created our own double-walled, classically shaped espresso drinking glasses.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

My team here are still working through our understanding of how to properly clean a machine that has been using tap water, but speaking to baristas, I would like to recommend that nobody with a decent espresso machine use unmodified tap water.

James Hoffmann's video, for example, specifically calls out that he is careful about the kind of water he puts in any espresso machine.






I have been using tap water in HK for some time and decalcifying, and it has been okay.

However, here in France, I have found that my steam performance would worsen every two weeks and I needed to decalcify. About a month ago I switched to using Volvic water in 8 Liter jugs (cost: €1.80) and in a month, the steam wand performance has not changed.

It's so cheap to buy good water at the grocery store. I think this needs to be our recommendation. It's insane to risk a piece of expensive equipment like the decent espresso machine in order to save maybe £10 per year.

We have now repaired four machines which all failed during decalcifying. Bits were dislodged and then jammed when the aperture in the water flow got smaller.

I'm not sure that we will permanently be covering under warranty, damage caused to our espresso machine by debris in the water.

-john


----------



## MWJB

decent_espresso said:


> James Hoffmann's video, for example, specifically calls out that he is careful about the kind of water he puts in any espresso machine.


This is obviously an important issue, so really you need to specify what 'being careful' & 'good water' are, in terms that the user can relate directly to the labels on the bottles.


----------



## Dylan

For some of us we know our tap water is soft - my tap water in Manchester, England is softer than most bottled water. It is not necessarily ideal for flavour but it isn't going to clog up a machine.

I think good advice is "We always recommend you use bottled water with a Ca below 'X' (as you get some hard bottled waters) but tap water can be ok if you know you live in a soft water area. A good way to tell is by looking in your kettle, if you see calcium build up your water is probably a bit too hard, if not your probably ok."

At least, it's a very broad way of telling if you should be being careful, I dont know how accurate a piece of advice it is. I can tell you that I never see calcium build up in Kettles around here, even after years.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> A good way to tell is by looking in your kettle, if you see calcium build up your water is probably a bit too hard, if not your probably ok


I really like this advice, because virtually everyone owns a kettle, and this is a very low tech approach, thus likely to actually work.

I was lulled to a false sense of security because the water in Hong Kong never seems to calcify.

Upon my arrival to France, with horror I find my kettle looks like this:









and indeed ("quelle coincidence!") my steam wand clogs within two weeks in France.


----------



## MWJB

Dylan said:


> I think good advice is "We always recommend you use bottled water with a Ca below 'X' (as you get some hard bottled waters) but tap water can be ok if you know you live in a soft water area. A good way to tell is by looking in your kettle, if you see calcium build up your water is probably a bit too hard, if not your probably ok."
> 
> At least, it's a very broad way of telling if you should be being careful, I dont know how accurate a piece of advice it is. I can tell you that I never see calcium build up in Kettles around here, even after years.


It's not great advice because some areas have high magnesium (Mg).

If you do have scale in the kettle, then what do you do? Most bottled water is hard too. Just to throw a spanner in the works, my parent's kettle is clean but they have 100mg/L Ca and nearly 300mg/L bicarbonate (hard).

Basically, assuming your water is reasonably normal, the bicarbonate/alkalinity is a better guide. It's on bottled water labels & can also be supplied by the local water authority:

50-75mg/L as bicarbonate (as per bottled water label).

40-60mg/L alkalinity as CaCO3.

...would be a good target.


----------



## xpresso

It is a good indicator regard water in France when you see the amount of stock on the shelves in stores of numerous suppliers of bottled water, there are not many areas that boast of mains water supplies being of good quality, this can be seen as either water companies having little confidence in the water they supply OR the same companies have a vested interest in the profit from bottled water and involved somewhere along the chain.










This is the Volvic ever popular bottled water in the 8ltr self seal top, I think Mark commented it was slightly lacking and needed something adding to bring it into the range of being the ideal.

Jon.

Jon.


----------



## MWJB

xpresso said:


> This is the Volvic ever popular bottled water in the 8ltr self seal top, I think Mark commented it was slightly lacking and needed something adding to bring it into the range of being the ideal.
> 
> Jon.
> 
> Jon.


74mg/L Bicarbonate is in the healthy range. Volvic is one of the very few single bottle options.


----------



## decent_espresso

I've made a video to explain this product I designed and to show how it's used.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

And yet another new video.

This one is about our digital milk thermometer: how it works, the interaction with our milk jug, and more.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Would it be more appropriate for me to remove these accessories videos from this discussion thread (which is mostly about our espresso machine) and keep accessory discussions to this forum?

https://coffeeforums.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?10-Grinders-Machines-Accessories

-john


----------



## DavecUK

John, you should simply post a link to the Youtube page, then we could all subscribe and we would get notifications every time you post a new Video. *Just pop the link and some text in your signature and then every-time you post, we will see the link.* As you post a lot, your link will always be on display to new members, whereas these valuable and informative videos simply get buried under the sheer weight of posts that no reasonable person will ever read through.



decent_espresso said:


> Would it be more appropriate for me to remove these accessories videos from this discussion thread (which is mostly about our espresso machine) and keep accessory discussions to this forum?
> 
> https://coffeeforums.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?10-Grinders-Machines-Accessories
> 
> -john


Just saw the above after I had posted.....I'm not sure starting another huge thread is the way John, really dilutes the message and looks a bit spammy.


----------



## decent_espresso

I've previously posted about the troubles we had with the USB charging cable that we ship with our espresso machine (see bottom right photo). This was caused by my choosing a very cool looking "boxy" and low profile connector (right photo) but it turned out to not always have enough space to reliably keep the wires isolated under charging loads.

Yesterday, finally, a complete set of USB cables arrived here. In the end, we switched to a new manufacturer and the look of the cable changed a bit.

All cables were then tested using a circuit that we made for this (middle left photo) which puts 5A through the cable and intentionally creates as much heat as we can (notice the fan). All cables passed this test.

We also cut open a few cables, to inspect the soldering. A comparison of old vs new cables is on the middle bottom photo.

One slight negative with this manufacturer is that the lengths varied by about 5mm. We saw this in the 20 samples we bought (top right photo).

So, I added 5mm to our spec. We're going to sort cables into two piles. Some customers have indicated a preference for a longer cable, so I'll give them those from that box.

All v1.0 customers will be receiving a free "upgrade pack" from us, hopefully in January, and this cable will be part of that. And naturally, all v1.1 machines are now shipping with this cable.



DavecUK said:


> John, you should simply post a link to the Youtube page, then we could all subscribe and we would get notifications every time you post a new Video. *Just pop the link and some text in your signature and then every-time you post, we will see the link.* As you post a lot, your link will always be on display to new members, whereas these valuable and informative videos simply get buried under the sheer weight of posts that no reasonable person will ever read through..


Hi Dave, I edited those two posts to remove the embedded-video and to hopefully make those posts less loud. I didn't see a way to delete them.

As I'm currently making videos for already-existing products, I think I'll simply refrain from mentioning them here as I make them. It's not really news.

-john


----------



## DavecUK

John, I think you missed my point. There is a signature function on the forum, that puts text and stuff in every time you post. Look at my signature, *I just changed it so you can see what I mean, I will change it back later to my usual one after you have seen it (because it's a dynamic change, not a per post thing)..*



*
*Having a link to your youtube page and getting subscribers, has to be a better way for you. Once forum members subscribe, they will get alerted every time you do a new video. Then on here occasionally you just have to say there are x new videos up on the page and people should have a look. Or you can refer to them in discussions. I just think it's a super efficient way to do it and those that subscribe are really interested to read the message, those that don't do not have posts getting in the way in a thread.....that is very long and won't necessarily get the message across in the way you want.


----------



## Dylan

I don't think the videos are doing any harm in this thread, embedded or otherwise, and I don't tend to sub to anything on YouTube so it's the best place for them for me.

I can see that they will quickly get lost however. It may be worth having an 'instrictional video' section on your website.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> I don't tend to sub to anything on YouTube


My feeling is that the social media features of YouTube are quite weak, and very few people that I deal with are interested in subscribing to YouTube.

So, I'm unlikely to put a YouTube channel URL in my signature on this forum.

Besides, I think it's even more spammy to repeat the same URLs over and over in every message.

If anyone is wondering if we have any videos, a quick Google search https://www.google.com/search?q=decent+espresso puts them at the top of the search results, because of course Google owns YouTube.



Dylan said:


> I can see that they will quickly get lost however. It may be worth having an 'instrictional video' section on your website.


The product centric videos are ending up on the products own webpages, ie https://decentespresso.com/portafilter

My goal is for each product to have at least one video explaining it. Some products will have multiple videos, perhaps offering tips (such as changing the batteries on a thermometer).

If there are any third-party reviews of our products on YouTube, I tend to add those to the playlist as well. Here is an example: https://decentespresso.com/de1plus Since most people read third-party reviews before buying, I thought this was helpful.

However, there are tons of other videos that are essentially tech support for existing customers, and not all that interesting to noncustomers. Those are organized into playlists on YouTube, but they are also embedded in the private tech support documents that we offer to our clients. The reason those documents are private is because there is usually a long conversation that ensues following the video, and I want to restrict that to only people who have actually purchased the product. I prefer to keep sales and support separate.

Here is an example of that sort of conversation, from a video I posted yesterday. People were worried that their machines were suddenly making noise, now that winter had arrived. The video was the best way to demonstrate that this was expected and what the sound was like.









-john


----------



## decent_espresso

[video=youtube;O-FMahnrmEY]






A few of our espresso machines are being used by "coffee carts" to make coffee to the public.

I'm a bit nervous about the power cable coming loose either by accident or on purpose. Perhaps a troublesome teen having a bit of fun and seeing if the cable will pull out.

Also, I've found that some people have partially dislodged their power cables in their kitchens when they have pushed their Decent machine all the way back against a wall.

That can lead to a loose connection, which can cause either intermittent problems, an electric fizzing sound, or in the worst case, arcing, heat, and a real failure.

So.... I've ordered samples made of our cables.

These take a little bit of a push to plug in. But once in, they won't come out unless you push the red button as you pull.

We'll continue testing these, but this looks like a potentially useful part tweak for the future.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I have two new accessories currently in development:

1) a "pour over basket", to help you make V60-style pour-overs with your espresso machine. I'm working with Scott Rao on this. The goal is to create the right spray angle, and the right amount of turbulence. Our current prototype has 11 calibrated holes in a blank portafilter basket.

2) a puck simulator (essentially, a blind basket with a calibrated laser-cut hole)

And I'll post news about them here, when I've made progress on them. The "puck simulator" is ready to go, but I don't expect it'll be a "big seller", so I'm waiting until Rao is happy with the "pour over basket" and will make the two of them at the same time, since they're variations on each other.

-john









On a separate topic...

I have wrapped up all the videos I needed to make to describe every espresso accessory I've made in the past 3 years. It's a bit strange that I put all this energy into making a new product, and then don't find the time to explain it. Glad to have this done now.

Funnel:


----------



## jymbob

decent_espresso said:


> [video=youtube;O-FMahnrmEY]


Did you look into right angled IECs at all? I have a few bits of IT equipment that use them to make it possible to fit the cable on the bottom or back of the device without it fouling the floor/wall. In general they tend to stay in better, simply because a straight pull on the cable isn't pulling in the same plane as the connector.


----------



## decent_espresso

jymbob said:


> Did you look into right angled IECs at all? I have a few bits of IT equipment that use them to make it possible to fit the cable on the bottom or back of the device without it fouling the floor/wall. In general they tend to stay in better, simply because a straight pull on the cable isn't pulling in the same plane as the connector.


As it happens--yes-- and I had a sample made from this company, but whoops, got the direction of the angle wrong (blush). They're making another for me this week.


----------



## decent_espresso

jymbob said:


> Did you look into right angled IECs at all? I have a few bits of IT equipment that use them to make it possible to fit the cable on the bottom or back of the device without it fouling the floor/wall. In general they tend to stay in better, simply because a straight pull on the cable isn't pulling in the same plane as the connector.


Ah, but I forgot to mention that IEC-downfacing will cause an interference problem with our refill kits, which optionally latch to the back of the machine.

-john


----------



## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> As it happens--yes-- and I had a sample made from this company, but whoops, got the direction of the angle wrong (blush). They're making another for me this week.
> 
> View attachment 37736


Could have turned the switch around ..... but then again maybe not...

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> Could have turned the switch around ..... but then again maybe not...Jon.


I like the look of this sort of cable that angles away from the power switch. But there are very few manufacturers (only found 1 so far) and the prices I've seen have been very high (5x normal). Still looking&#8230;


----------



## decent_espresso

With the firmware we released a few weeks ago, we've managed to shorten the warmup time to just under 4 minutes.

This improvement is available to everyone, including our 300 v1.0 existing customers, and is the same on both 110V and 220V machines.

-john


----------



## the_partisan

decent_espresso said:


> I have two new accessories currently in development:
> 
> 1) a "pour over basket", to help you make V60-style pour-overs with your espresso machine. I'm working with Scott Rao on this. The goal is to create the right spray angle, and the right amount of turbulence. Our current prototype has 11 calibrated holes in a blank portafilter basket.


Any plans to make a normal/auto coffee brewer at some point?


----------



## Lav

the_partisan said:


> Any plans to make a normal/auto coffee brewer at some point?


A concept is in the works already, but John would better explain himself....


----------



## decent_espresso

the_partisan said:


> Any plans to make a normal/auto coffee brewer at some point?


There's already a "pour over" advanced profile included with the DE1, but it doesn't make great coffee because:

1) the water dispersion pattern is too narrow (pours out of group head)

2) the grounds agitation caused by this water pattern is "very suboptimal"

I posted above

https://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?30500-Decent-espresso&p=643576#post643576

about how I'm working with Rao to hopefully resolve those two problems, with a special-purpose basket. By varying the flow rate, you can vary the amount of grounds agitation caused. And the spray pattern will be optimized for a V60.

Temperature profiling appears to be extremely useful when making a V60 in this way.

I don't have any plans to "take away" the espresso functionality so that we'd only be left with V60 pour over functionality.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Lav said:


> A concept is in the works already, but John would better explain himself....


FWIW, Rao posted yesterday this:


__
http://instagr.am/p/BrF8KrIlIV2/

About one of the "spray head" prototype baskets that I made for him, for making V60 pour-overs with the Decent. Apparently he's in love. I'd like to do a few more revisions, to see what improvement is still possible.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Next week, we receive quantity=1000 of our ceramic drip trays that are meant to be plumbed into, so they drain dirty water away. There's a light curve to the bottom and a drainage hole. Like a sink, this design should mean that the water drains out cleanly. And that's unlike our previous designs (and those of other companies) where a fitting forms a lip where wastewater collects.

Under the drain, there will be a custom molded 90º silicon tube, which will be black. Black, so that it's not easily visible as you walk up to the machine.

This then connects to a long black tube that you connect to a waste outlet. This tube is also black so that it blends in with the DE1 espresso machine and is fairly invisible.

But also black so that sunlight doesn't feed algae in your tube, and cause this problem: https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/la-marzocco-linea-mini-hose-algae-t54584.html

And finally, also black so that from the back, you can reason "white tube = clean water" and "black tube = dirty water" and not accidentally connect the lines to the wrong place.

This drip tray will be part of our DE1PRO, and people who buy that machine get two drip trays. One plumbed in, and one normal. That way, they can run their espresso machine whichever way they want, or even switch as needed.

People who already bought a DE1PRO will receive this for free soon from us (January or February) along with some other things (refill kits and more).

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

￼

Today, we are ordering parts to make one prototype of what I'm calling the DE1CS espresso machine. The goal here is to make a no-cables-visible and more minimalist version of our espresso machine.

This is a variation on our DE1PRO machine, but with the following changes:

1) all the cabling goes downwards rather than out the back.

The chassis is 45 mm deeper to hide this cabling.

2) the rear panel is now completely clean and mounted with four magnets.

3) the tablet can be optionally mounted with a new stand we have designed, or with our traditional steelie stand

4) a stainless steel countersunk bracket, kind of like a sink, holds the machine

5) the countersunk bracket has its own drain, in case any water were to overflow into it, so that your floor can never get flooded

6) an additional on/off power button (lit) is mounted directly under the USB plug. Both the rear and front panel power switches must be enabled for the machine to be on.

7) the metal for the legs have been thickened further, and made slightly taller as well, to increase strength.

8) the machine can be lifted out and used tabletop. Or if it is needing repair, we can pick it up from your location via UPS.

9) Note that this model can still be used tabletop: the bracket is optional. In that case, though, I would recommend that a hole is cut into your tabletop for the cabling to disappear into.

As this model only requires sheet-metal changes and no internal changes, I'm hoping to put it into beta testing in January, with some customers working with us to beta test it.

I don't know that DE1CS will be the final product name for this, but that's what I'm using for now.

Would love to hear your feedback on these ideas.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Today we received a dozen samples of our espresso machine plumbing kit. This is an external box which automatically tops up the water tank as needed. We provide adapters for both European and American connector standards.

We tested the dozen that we received both for aesthetic perfection  and also that they function correctly. All good, so I've given the go-ahead to build the remaining 500.

There is a huge EU-approved valve inside that is a bit expensive because it has to have a double safety to absolutely, positively never allow water back into the city water system. And it has to be certified as such.

We've recently modified the firmware in our espresso machines so that the valve automatically shuts off after 30 seconds if the water level detector has not indicated the tank is now full. This is to prevent overflow cases where some electrical problem is fooling the circuitry. Perhaps the valve is bust, or the ethernet cable is loose, or the water level sensor is malfunctioning. No matter: no more than 30 seconds of water will flow. After 30 seconds, the user has to tap on the tablet to try again.

About 20% of the catering kits we received have minor scratches on them. These are indicated with a little sticker, and we will be discounting these at 25%. Since this kit is usually hidden behind the machine or under a table, I'm not sure people will really care about the little scratches, and I've received a lot of email asking about the availability of discounted versions of this part.

We have already received 500 catering kits, which is similar to the plumbing kit, but for water tanks where there is no pressure and the water must be sucked up.

We've been trying all sorts of different tubing, including silicone and PVC. Today I decided to go with the much more expensive black silicone tubing (dirty water) and white silicone tubing (clean water) with a USDA food safety certification (our cost: about USD$2/meter). It is completely odor free whereas the PVC tubing was not.

I'm hoping to have all this stuff in stock in early January. This is the last remaining piece in the DE1PRO puzzle, which is currently holding up our sending the update pack (with this, and other stuff too) to those customers.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Decent customer Damian Brakel has made his own user interface skin. It features an all-on-one-page design, as well as 3 "favorites" programs that you can easily switch between. There are lots of other interesting ideas here as well.

This is a great example of the benefits of the open-source nature of the Decent Espresso tablet software, as well as the community that is developing around our espresso machine.

-john


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## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> Decent customer Damian Brakel has made his own user interface skin. It features an all-on-one-page design, as well as 3 "favorites" programs that you can easily switch between. There are lots of other interesting ideas here as well.
> 
> This is a great example of the benefits of the open-source nature of the Decent Espresso tablet software, as well as the community that is developing around our espresso machine.
> 
> -john


Not a big fan of the skin colors but definitely like the idea. It is encouraging seeing people bringing their little touches to the DE1, building a community. Please send mine soon ?, I cannot wait to start playing with it, and it would be a neat Xmas present.


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## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> Not a big fan of the skin colors but definitely like the idea. It is encouraging seeing people bringing their little touches to the DE1, building a community. Please send mine soon , I cannot wait to start playing with it, and it would be a neat Xmas present.


I would agree that his color choices are definitely an acquired taste, but this being open source, I'm hoping that artistically talented owners of the decent espresso machine will step forward and make better graphics. These are just 2560x1600 JPEG files, so anyone with Photoshop can make them.

The last two vital parts to make the new version 1.1 machines finally arrived yesterday afternoon.

It's Saturday here, the factory is empty except for Bugs and I. I took the opportunity to walk through the factory and make about 20 minutes of footage of my explaining each component and how the factory puts everything together. I am editing that video today.

Were making our first 20 v1.1 machines this week and so I expect to be able to fulfill all existing orders by the end of February.

- John


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## markant

decent_espresso said:


> Decent customer Damian Brakel


Damn! (jealous)! You are soooo lucky to have only decent customers......


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## Andreugv

Hi John,

Are you aware of anyone doing EKDEpresso (lol). I cam across an EK43 and I recently sold the Ceado E37s and I would like to know if anyone is using one and how do they like it with the DE1, before buying.


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## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> Are you aware of anyone doing EKDEpresso (lol). I cam across an EK43 and I recently sold the Ceado E37s and I would like to know if anyone is using one and how do they like it with the DE1, before buying.


Yes, on our diaspora users group there are a few people with EK 43 grinders. I know that Scott Rao is especially interested. My engineer Ben in Australia has an EK as well.

As the decent espresso machines are engineered to give very high extractions with a focus on clarity of flavor, I think the decent/EK 43 marriage is a perfect one.

My only caveat is that EK buurs are often misaligned. When that happens, they are almost useless for espresso. If you buy an EK, you will also need to get some sort of alignment kit.

- John


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## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> Yes, on our diaspora users group there are a few people with EK 43 grinders. I know that Scott Rao is especially interested. My engineer Ben in Australia has an EK as well.
> 
> As the decent espresso machines are engineered to give very high extractions with a focus on clarity of flavor, I think the decent/EK 43 marriage is a perfect one.
> 
> My only caveat is that EK buurs are often misaligned. When that happens, they are almost useless for espresso. If you buy an EK, you will also need to get some sort of alignment kit.
> 
> - John


Exactly what I thought but wanted to know for sure if others were already trying.

The seller has the titus tool, and it comes with Tungsten Carbide SSPs so I should be set. Thank you.


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## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> Exactly what I thought but wanted to know for sure if others were already trying.
> 
> The seller has the titus tool, and it comes with Tungsten Carbide SSPs so I should be set. Thank you.


Drool.


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## decent_espresso

This Saturday, when the factory was closed, I made this video showing you how our espresso machine gets built.

-john


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## jlarkin

Andreugv said:


> Exactly what I thought but wanted to know for sure if others were already trying.
> 
> The seller has the titus tool, and it comes with Tungsten Carbide SSPs so I should be set. Thank you.


Damn you're going to have a heck of a set-up between that and a DE machine!


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## Lav

Andreugv said:


> Exactly what I thought but wanted to know for sure if others were already trying.
> 
> The seller has the titus tool, and it comes with Tungsten Carbide SSPs so I should be set. Thank you.


We are two DE1PRO users in Denmark that also have an EK43 with the RedSpeed SSP burrs and aligned Titus burr carrier.

You won't regret it @Andreugv


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## Andreugv

Lav said:


> We are two DE1PRO users in Denmark that also have an EK43 with the RedSpeed SSP burrs and aligned Titus burr carrier.
> 
> You won't regret it @Andreugv


Thank you. Only thing left is agree on a price with the owner of the EK43. I have really been looking forward to one.


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## Rhys

Lav said:


> We are two DE1PRO users in Denmark that also have an EK43 with the RedSpeed SSP burrs and aligned Titus burr carrier.
> 
> You won't regret it @Andreugv


----------



## decent_espresso

That's Hannifa in the Youtube preview, building a machine at the end. She asked me to upload a more friendly photo as she says she usually isn't so cross seeming.









-john


----------



## Dylan

My brain just assumed your slightly older employee at the end was just sitting there doing her knitting. I realise she was probably sorting tubing or the like, but it looks like she is knitting ^_^


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## o2c

decent_espresso said:


> That's Hannifa in the Youtube preview, building a machine at the end. She asked me to upload a more friendly photo as she says she usually isn't so cross seeming.


You used an interesting phrase when you wrote that "*she* *says* she isn't so cross seeming." Did she seem cross when she saw how cross she seemed?

I'm kidding of course; she seems lovely.


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## decent_espresso

o2c said:


> Did she seem cross when she saw how cross she seemed?


Very much so!



Dylan said:


> My brain just assumed your slightly older employee at the end was just sitting there doing her knitting. I realise she was probably sorting tubing or the like, but it looks like she is knitting ^_^


That's Josephine, and when we hired her three years ago, she only had the use of one arm. She was still taking cancer medications and one arm was very badly swollen. She and I were jointly doing all the cooking for the staff lunch, or rather she was buying the stuff that required Chinese language ability and I was buying the other stuff, and she was washing everything for me, and washing up.

That's why there is a sign for "JoJo's café" in our kitchen:









Thankfully, she's become much healthier these past three years and has switched from part-time to full-time, and now works in the factory. She mostly does things that are easier on the body.

Indeed, she was sorting through water tubes (her left arm is still a bit swollen):









A bit of back story....

We work with the Hong Kong government to try to find "Decent" jobs for people coming out of the hospital, working very much part time. The Hong Kong government pays 80% of their salary for six months. If they work out, we then assume their full salary. This has worked out well for us, as we are able to occasionally get very talented people.

Ricky, electric engineer, circuit designer and programmer, works here three days a week. He's a few months out of the hospital for cancer and still on a liquid diet. He tends to design circuits and Arduino setups that make assembly, testing and repair easier. It's quite gratifying to see his health returning and I hope he'll be able to eventually be full-time.

-john


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## decent_espresso

The scale firmware has been written. Now we are waiting for black plastic versions of the parts to test for appropriate transparency, heat resistance, and quality. We still need to write the Bluetooth implementation and then go through beta testing. A few more months' work still, sorry!

-john


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## decent_espresso

It occurred to me that some people who have our standard Espresso machine might want to countersink it.

This is simply a "sink" that is perfectly shaped for our espresso machine so that the legs, tank, and drip tray disappear below the level of your countertop.

If you want to go on holiday with your espresso machine, no problem, just lift it out and place it in the suitcase it arrived in.

Ben and I had a bit of a disagreement about how the cables and tubes should be tidied.

Ben prefers a simple rectangular bracket for the espresso machine and a separate simple circular bracket for the electrical cables and tubes. In the left-hand photo, that's the actual 50mm hole he cut in his table and his tubing.

I prefer cutting a more complicated shape which incorporates cable management into the single bracket.

Ben has drawn up both approaches and we are making two samples out of stainless steel of both models. We've also ordered off-the-shelf brackets for round holes, for Ben's preferred approach. I'm going to use a jigsaw to mount both these approaches into a pallet and will post photos here once I've done that.

Which do you prefer? Two brackets or one?

-john


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## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 38076
> 
> 
> It occurred to me that some people who have our standard Espresso machine might want to countersink it.
> 
> This is simply a "sink" that is perfectly shaped for our espresso machine so that the legs, tank, and drip tray disappear below the level of your countertop.
> 
> If you want to go on holiday with your espresso machine, no problem, just lift it out and place it in the suitcase it arrived in.
> 
> Ben and I had a bit of a disagreement about how the cables and tubes should be tidied.
> 
> Ben prefers a simple rectangular bracket for the espresso machine and a separate simple circular bracket for the electrical cables and tubes. In the left-hand photo, that's the actual 50mm hole he cut in his table and his tubing.
> 
> I prefer cutting a more complicated shape which incorporates cable management into the single bracket.
> 
> Ben has drawn up both approaches and we are making two samples out of stainless steel of both models. We've also ordered off-the-shelf brackets for round holes, for Ben's preferred approach. I'm going to use a jigsaw to mount both these approaches into a pallet and will post photos here once I've done that.
> 
> Which do you prefer? Two brackets or one?
> 
> -john


John, first off, congratulations on being a compassionate and brave employer. Even with the government's help, hiring people in recovery might be challenging, both for the company and the employees. I am glad that it is working for DE, as this can create lifelong company loyalty for your employees, and wish them a quick and complete recovery.

On a side note, this round bracket looks like an 18-gram bottomless filter!


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> Even with the government's help, hiring people in recovery might be challenging, both for the company and the employees.


Indeed, we used to try to hire people recovering from serious mental illness, but after three failed attempts to make it work, we had to give up.

The worst case was a clinical paranoiac electric engineer, who stopped taking his medicine a few weeks into his job, because things were going well here.

He became convinced that the (real world) soap opera star who owns the roastery next door was the actual (hidden) owner of decent espresso and was invisibly calling all the shots, as part of an evil subplot from this soap opera TV show. This guy's character is kind of evil on the show, and it's weird that he is also in coffee, so close by, so I kind of understand how he got there.









-john


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## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> Indeed, we used to try to hire people recovering from serious mental illness, but after three failed attempts to make it work, we had to give up.
> 
> The worst case was a clinical paranoiac electric engineer, who stopped taking his medicine a few weeks into his job, because things were going well here.
> 
> He became convinced that the (real world) soap opera star who owns the roastery next door was the actual (hidden) owner of decent espresso and was invisibly calling all the shots, as part of an evil subplot from this soap opera TV show. This guy's character is kind of evil on the show, and it's weird that he is also in coffee, so close by, so I kind of understand how he got there.
> 
> View attachment 38082
> View attachment 38083
> 
> 
> -john


I feel bad for him, but it is actually a funny story. Thanks for sharing.


----------



## decent_espresso

It's been my intention to eventually make it easy to make an Americano with one button push.

The way I make Americanos at home is that I first put the water in, then the espresso goes on top. Typically about 2x as much water as espresso, at 60ºC.

Here is a mockup I did in Photoshop of how I might change the "Hot water" tab to enable automating this. A new third icon appears in the left settings panel.







￼

In "Americano mode" after the hot water has been dispensed, the tablet software automatically switches to the espresso tab and starts the espresso.

You would tap the coffee icon to switch between the two modes ("water only" vs "Americano" mode).









￼

I understand this approach doesn't support automation for people who want to put water after the espresso. This is of course still possible manually just not automated.

Would you use this feature? Do you like this implementation or would you like something different?

-john


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## decent_espresso

After watching a review of the ROK espresso machine by James Hoffmann I got in touch with Patrick, the founder.

I would love to see the Rok work with the Bluetooth pressure transducer from Kávékalmár so that people can move espresso profiles back and forth between a Decent Espresso machine and a Rok (using the Smart Espresso Profiler app). Perhaps you want to use the Decent every day at home, and then take the Rok on holiday with you, and copy your favorite shot by hand?

Or maybe you managed an outstanding shot on the Rok and would like the Decent to try to copy it? I'm happy to report that I've introduced Patrick and Gabor to each other, and they're working on it now.

James indicated he was impressed by the Rok's hand-grinder, and I'm interested to test it out with the Decent. Its price and quiet operation, if it makes acceptable shots, would make it something I'd very much recommend. I like how it looks next to the Decent too.

I'd also like to call out the Rok's exceptionally clearly written, wonderfully short, generous warranty statement.

-john


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## decent_espresso

God shots are now named and saved permanently to disk. This also means they can be shared between people (for now: via file copying, eventually through a cloud service).

This new feature allows you to store a number of approaches to different espressos ("God shots") that have worked for you in the past.

I am working with the decent community and Scott Rao to collect a library of well-executed shots that used the built-in presets.

My thinking is that if we provide a preset, as well as a trace of a well-executed shot that will greatly help people correctly pull that espresso profile. A common question often arises as to what the grind should be for a given profile. With a God shot to follow, you should adjust the grind until you are able to match the God shot.

In a future tablet release, God shots for the most popular profiles will be included by default, to help you dial in your shots even further.

Another way to use this feature is to save good expressions of an espresso extraction, and then be able to visually compare them.

-john


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 38124
> 
> 
> After watching a review of the ROK espresso machine by James Hoffmann I got in touch with Patrick, the founder.
> 
> I would love to see the Rok work with the Bluetooth pressure transducer from Kávékalmár so that people can move espresso profiles back and forth between a Decent Espresso machine and a Rok (using the Smart Espresso Profiler app). Perhaps you want to use the Decent every day at home, and then take the Rok on holiday with you, and copy your favorite shot by hand?
> 
> Or maybe you managed an outstanding shot on the Rok and would like the Decent to try to copy it? I'm happy to report that I've introduced Patrick and Gabor to each other, and they're working on it now.
> 
> James indicated he was impressed by the Rok's hand-grinder, and I'm interested to test it out with the Decent. Its price and quiet operation, if it makes acceptable shots, would make it something I'd very much recommend. I like how it looks next to the Decent too.
> 
> I'd also like to call out the Rok's exceptionally clearly written, wonderfully short, generous warranty statement.
> 
> -john


A bit of off-topic, but the other day I saw the La Cimbali Grinders that include BLE comms to "talk" to their BLE-able machines and those are supposed to tell the grinder to make small corrections, and I was wondering if it could be, somewhat, implemeted to work with the DE1.

Of course I do not know what small tweaks it can do, if it is only timing to add more grounds, or if it actually has an electronic grinding adjustment to go finer or coarser.

Anyway here is the one:

http://www.cimbali.com/products/grinder-dosers/elective

As for the previous post (Americanos), I might do five to ten a year, but when I do, I prefer coffee first, water later. Probably for no reason other than being used to doing it like that.


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> A bit of off-topic, but the other day I saw the La Cimbali Grinders that include BLE comms to "talk" to their BLE-able machines and those are supposed to tell the grinder to make small corrections, and I was wondering if it could be, somewhat, implemeted to work with the DE1.
> 
> Of course I do not know what small tweaks it can do, if it is only timing to add more grounds, or if it actually has an electronic grinding adjustment to go finer or coarser.Anyway here is the one: http://www.cimbali.com/products/grinder-dosers/elective


I followed their link, to what was supposed to describe their PGS technology:

http://www.cimbali.com/innovation/user/perfect-grinding-system

and it says absolutely nothing.



> When for environmental reasons, a new coffee load, machine wear or other reasons the volume of coffee varies from the ideal, the machine instructs the grinder-doser to* make a necessary correction* in order to ensure optimal dispensing. As a result, baristas using traditional machines no longer need to make corrections manually.


 I can't see that this grinder has any innovations other than a touchscreen to replace traditional start buttons (an anti-innovation, for me). It appears to be timer based, not weigh and it's unclear what Bluetooth does for it.

Maybe they have a humidity sensor that then changes the timer slightly? Who knows.

I'm not impressed by the grounds distribution into the basket, in their marketing photograph:









Apologies for sounding snarky, but there are other people doing much more interesting things in grinding.

- John


----------



## decent_espresso

You can see that the shot ended about 7 seconds earlier than desired. The drink reached the requested final "in cup weight" sooner, due to the water dripping around the gasket, bypassing the portafilter. Yummy.


----------



## decent_espresso

In March, we plan to have shipped 200 v1.1 espresso machines, and with the 300 v1.0 machines already shipped, that will have used up all 500 suitcases that we originally had made 18 months ago.

I'm taking the opportunity to make some improvements to the decent espresso suitcase which comes with our espresso machines.

The biggest change will be moving from compressible foam to Styrofoam in the outer walls.

The goal is to avoid damage to the legs which has been a problem throughout the version 1.0 manufacturing run. The most common cause of this problem is UPS tilting the machine 90° and then stacking a lot of weight on top. The foam we have been using compresses fully in this scenario and shock is transmitted to the legs. Eventually, metal fatigue occurs and the legs bend.

We think that with Styrofoam, which will only slightly compress under load and continue to absorb shock, that we can avoid this sort of damage.

Since we're making this change before the suitcases are made, we can get the Styrofoam cut to measure and inserted underneath the fabric. That way a 4cm (1.5") thick piece of Styrofoam will be hidden between the fabric and the suitcase walls. In the photos below, we have sliced open the fabric in order to test out various scenarios.

For aesthetics, we are also changing the fabric to black.

The middle layers will continue to be molded EVA foam, spandex covered, with hand-sewn trim on the edges. This has worked well to hold things in place while still being quite light and odor free. The spandex is easy to clean and does not absorb coffee grounds easily.

If we get the timing right, the new suitcases should arrive the first week of March, just as we need them. They take so much space that we kind of need them to arrive at the last moment or else we won't have enough storage space here.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We have now built 20 V 1.1 espresso machines and are working on the next 20. I expect to send all 40 out next week. That will be 29% of our order backlog taken care of.

We've been scratching our heads for about a week because all our 220 V machines have all been acting strangely, but our 110 V machines have been fine. We worried that we had overlooked something crucial (and expensive to fix. Perhaps the circuit boards were not up to the higher voltage because someone had swapped a component? I didn't want to ship any machines until this problem was solved, even if the problem didn't appear on the 110V machines.

In order to trace down this problem, we spent the past days greatly enhanced the debug logging that comes out of the espresso machine's built-in computer. This is now more like an interactive debugging tool for figuring problems out, as you can tap certain keys to get different info. At the moment this info is only available with a special cable, but in the next few months, this functionality will also be available over Bluetooth in the tablet software.

We finally figured out the problem today.

The logs clearly showed that something was wrong with the hot water temperature sensor. It turns out that two temperature sensors were swapped position (hot water output and mixed water temperature). One person here had done all the 110V machines' sensors while another person had done the 220V machines. That's why the error was so regular. It turns out the voltage was a false clue which really derailed us.

In my final checking, though, I noticed that the first 20 machines did not have the much more expensive IMS filter screens installed. Instead. the "standard" filter screen that we use for our DE1+ v1.1 machines were used. I've now hidden those less good filter screens, and the 20 finished DE1PRO machines will get upgraded this week before we ship them out.

We will all be pulling lots of espressos on Wednesday and Thursday to test these 40 machines out, and then hopefully shipping on Friday or Monday.

-john


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> I followed their link, to what was supposed to describe their PGS technology:
> 
> http://www.cimbali.com/innovation/user/perfect-grinding-system
> 
> and it says absolutely nothing.
> 
> I can't see that this grinder has any innovations other than a touchscreen to replace traditional start buttons (an anti-innovation, for me). It appears to be timer based, not weigh and it's unclear what Bluetooth does for it.
> 
> Maybe they have a humidity sensor that then changes the timer slightly? Who knows.
> 
> I'm not impressed by the grounds distribution into the basket, in their marketing photograph:
> 
> View attachment 38197
> 
> 
> Apologies for sounding snarky, but there are other people doing much more interesting things in grinding.
> 
> - John


Oh, you don't sound it at all. I agree there are a lot better grinders out there. I was just curious about the technology, as they do not say much on how it works. If it was something like Mazzer's ZM, where you get actual micrometers and the machine could adjust grind size depending on how the previous shot was, that would be amazing.


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> Oh, you don't sound it at all. I agree there are a lot better grinders out there. I was just curious about the technology, as they do not say much on how it works. If it was something like Mazzer's ZM, where you get actual micrometers and the machine could adjust grind size depending on how the previous shot was, that would be amazing.


That would be the Revo 3:

https://www.baristamagazine.com/host-milano-2/

And I have one on order. John Gordon assures me that I'm at the front of the queue. 

It looks extremely impressive.

-john


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> That would be the Revo 3:
> 
> https://www.baristamagazine.com/host-milano-2/
> 
> And I have one on order. John Gordon assures me that I'm at the front of the queue.
> 
> It looks extremely impressive.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 38308


Oh yeah... The San Remo has been on my watchlist for a while now. I kind of keep forgetting about it because, like so many other interesting grinders, it is still impossible to get. Flat Max, EtzMax, etc... And the E37Z, but that one would be out of my reality realm unless I get a new wife!

Anyway I settled with the EK43S and a Helor Stance manual to give the titan conical a go (I haven't had a conical for the last 10 years).


----------



## decent_espresso

Here Decent customer Damian designs a replacement scale battery tray, so as to lock the scale into exactly the right position. He then replaces the drip tray cover so that it connects directly to the scale, for perfect, easy espresso shot weighing.


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


>


That on looks really nice. Will he offer the blueprints for people to print it?


----------



## Mrboots2u

decent_espresso said:


> That would be the Revo 3:
> 
> https://www.baristamagazine.com/host-milano-2/
> 
> And I have one on order. John Gordon assures me that I'm at the front of the queue.
> 
> It looks extremely impressive.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 38308


Its over tho year's since that was at Host ......I remember talking to a San Remo rep about it 2 years ago too.

What on earth is the hold up with it? Patents?


----------



## decent_espresso

Andreugv said:


> That on looks really nice. Will he offer the blueprints for people to print it?


There are number of people on the decent owner's forum trying different approaches and they are all sharing their 3D files. Here are three alternatives recently posted. Some people have their own 3D printer while others get it printed locally with a service such as https://www.3dhubs.com/









We made our own derivative version and 3D printed some, for people who prefer to just buy something. Here is what ours looks like:









I am hoping that we can collaboratively figure out a way to make this idea work with plumbed drip trays, which we will be finally shipping in a few weeks. I much prefer having the scale far away from water.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's what the first v1.1 Decent Espresso Machines look like from above. I feel like we're getting tidier.

This weekend, we're putting the final touches on the firmware for automatic refilling, then we're ready to start shipping this new model.

40 machines for USA/Canada are shipping next week.

The week after, we'll be busy making 40 machines at 220V for the rest of the world.

-john


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 38378
> 
> 
> Here's what the first v1.1 Decent Espresso Machines look like from above. I feel like we're getting tidier.
> 
> This weekend, we're putting the final touches on the firmware for automatic refilling, then we're ready to start shipping this new model.
> 
> 40 machines for USA/Canada are shipping next week.
> 
> The week after, we'll be busy making 40 machines at 220V for the rest of the world.
> 
> -john


Hey John, how can I know if mine will go out with those first 40 for USA/Canada? I also will like to add a couple more items to my order before it ships.

Neat looking internals!

PM me if you can.


----------



## ttttt91

I would write to [email protected]

Had just the best experience dealing with her!!


----------



## Andreugv

ttttt91 said:


> I would write to [email protected]
> 
> Had just the best experience dealing with her!!


She did actually contact me today to check my address is still correct, so I guess I will have a new DE1PRO real soon.

And I agree, they are always really nice to deal with.


----------



## jameswagner

Yes, excellent customer service from mirjam at Decent Espresso.

My address has been validated too. Soon.


----------



## decent_espresso

We are finalizing the firmware for the 220V/240V v1.1 espresso machines, and one thing we still need to do is calibrate our flow calculations for different power around the world.

What makes this difficult is that the electromagnets in the pumps move a different amount of water at different pressures based on how much electricity (voltage & frequency) is being fed to them.

We've previously centered our calculations around a 230V average, but now we're trying to do better.

The animated graphic is the same pressure test program at 220V, 230V, and 240V. You can see the theoretical flow rate that the machine thinks is coming out, and compare that to the brown line which is the real amount of water coming out. At 230V our calculations are pretty good, but they get worse (especially at higher pressures) at 220V and 240V.

Over the next few days, we're hoping to be able to automatically detect voltage for each machine, regardless of where it is in the world, by comparing the power consumption of our group head heater at startup against what we know it should be at 240V. That should allow us to get calibrate against the measured performance of the pumps at different voltages.

Hopefully, we'll reach the precision we currently have at 230V, but at 220V and 240V as well.

Note: this issue doesn't occur with our American/Canadian machines, because 120V is a standard that doesn't vary much, except <sigh> in Japan, which runs at 100V. That's why we were able to start shipping the American/Canadian machines this week, before having resolved this flow calculation issue. </sigh>

-john


----------



## Lenin

Hi,

I'm normally wrting in the German Kaffeenetz, but don't find somebody with DE1Cafe experiences. Coming from a Dalla Core Supermini, the DE1+ and Pro are looking a little bit to tiny for me. Also noise and speed is an issue, at least for me. The Cafe looks a little bit more solid to me. I know it's much more expensive and an overkill for a normal kitchen. But better to have something instead of need something.

Is here somebody in the forum who already bought the DE1Cafe adn like to share her/his experiences? Also I don't finde videos about the Cafe besides this 41s kitchen video.


----------



## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


>


Have you considered having the voltage checked at the socket with random customers (Ability and equipment accepted), or is it within the realms of your current monitoring to dedicate a small window on the tablet displaying the voltage to the machine ?.

Some years ago I did some work at a property (Not in the UK) and noticed any tools I used and equipment seemed under powered, checking the supply at the socket it was ridiculously low, even on other sockets in the area, turns out one phase in the lane was well down due to an imbalance in sharing the phases.

How many times have you witnessed the lights dimming when the freezer or the fridge kicks in, or any other appliance.

Every house can vary tremendously especially at peak times.

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> How many times have you witnessed the lights dimming when the freezer or the fridge kicks in, or any other appliance.
> 
> Every house can vary tremendously especially at peak times.


We're dedicating this week to having voltage autosensing at startup. Our approach is to measure the current draw on the cartridge heater in the group head, as that has a known resistance and is manufactured to tight tolerances. Also, that will be measuring voltage under load, when the espresso machine is heating up, which is very similar to the circumstances it will be in when making espresso.

Note that variance in voltage will not affect the performance of the machine, PID is going to automatically adjust for that. Instead, this voltage question is only for calibrating flow measurements. And if you're making shots with pressure profiling, the only effect you'll see is that your flow measurements may not be entirely accurate, perhaps as much as 10% off, but your coffee will taste just as good.

The main issue with the flow measurements being 10% off is if you are using a flow profiling recipe from someone else, and your flow measurements are off, then you will need to slightly adjust the recipe. If we can get the voltage auto sensing to work, then the same flow profiles should perform the same worldwide.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Today I posted a video about dialing your grind in. I find this is something a lot of people new to home espresso making struggle with.

I tried to keep this simple width:

1) what it looks like when you have too fine a grind

2) what it looks like when you have too coarse a grind

3) how to make small adjustments in flow by varying your dose instead of changing the grind

4) how to read the decent espresso charts to try to understand how you should change your grind or dose

Would love feedback on how you think I could help people dial their grinding easier or faster.

-john


----------



## Andreugv

decent_espresso said:


> Today I posted a video about dialing your grind in. I find this is something a lot of people new to home espresso making struggle with.
> 
> I tried to keep this simple width:
> 
> 1) what it looks like when you have too fine a grind
> 
> 2) what it looks like when you have too coarse a grind
> 
> 3) how to make small adjustments in flow by varying your dose instead of changing the grind
> 
> 4) how to read the decent espresso charts to try to understand how you should change your grind or dose
> 
> Would love feedback on how you think I could help people dial their grinding easier or faster.
> 
> -john


What I always do at the beginning is grind 3 beans at a time, and check the texture manually. With this you can feel two things, your grind coarsness and the moisture of the beans. With enough experience you can get a close enough grind, but for a beginner, going for the ground pepper feeling is always a good start point, and you don't spend as much "precious" coffee as grinding a full 18 grams.


----------



## decent_espresso

The first manufacturing prototype of the decent scale arrived on Friday.

I am mostly quite happy though of course, I have about 20 defects and mistakes I cataloged for our manufacturing partner. Not least of which is the red numeric LED (!!!!???!!!).

Most importantly, the really hard things they nailed ( The plastic is high quality, doesn't smell, and the mold errors are tiny and repairable), and their attitude to my change list was very positive, so in a few weeks, I should have the second iteration. And I should also get Bluetooth functionality so I can program my tablet to talk to it.











You can also see the shiny new electroplated drip tray covers, which all of you will be soon receiving.

-john


----------



## dsc

Got my demo unit over the weekend, very much looking forward to trying it out with the ZR, should make for a nice combo.

Massive thanks to Mat North for arranging everything!

T.


----------



## decent_espresso

After nine months of work, we finally have the three components of our refill kit finished and in stock. I made a video yesterday showing how it all works together.

About half our current customers have purchased the Pro version of our Espresso machine and have been very patient in waiting for us to finally ship these three parts which will allow them to fully plumb their machines in. I'm hoping to start contact next week with all those Pro customers, verifying their current postal address, and also talk to them about the free update pack they should be receiving (of things we've improved since releasing our version 1.0 machine).

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> Got my demo unit over the weekend, very much looking forward to trying it out with the ZR, should make for a nice combo. Massive thanks to Mat North for arranging everything!


Feel free to ask me any questions, if you have any. In my experience so far, our espresso machine is so different from traditional ones that it takes a few days for baristas to wrap their heads around it and start to pull great shots.

For example, it's often the first time baristas have seen pressure at the puck as opposed to pressure at the pump. This means that if your ground is too coarse you will get zero pressure on the Decent, whereas on a traditional machine you would still be told you have nine bar. Some baristas then mistakenly assume that the Decent machine is broken.

I am made a new video a few days ago for people who receive their espresso machine from us. Since you got a loaner from Matt, you likely haven't seen this:






Might be a good place to start.

-john


----------



## dsc

> Feel free to ask me any questions, if you have any. In my experience so far, our espresso machine is so different from traditional ones that it takes a few days for baristas to wrap their heads around it and start to pull great shots.
> 
> For example, it's often the first time baristas have seen pressure at the puck as opposed to pressure at the pump. This means that if your ground is too coarse you will get zero pressure on the Decent, whereas on a traditional machine you would still be told you have nine bar. Some baristas then mistakenly assume that the Decent machine is broken.
> 
> I am made a new video a few days ago for people who receive their espresso machine from us. Since you got a loaner from Matt, you likely haven't seen this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which shows a fairly big flow drop when pressure increases. Scott mentioned this on his blog and said something along the lines of "we prefered shots which didn't have this", is this even possible when brewing at 9bar? surely there needs to be a flow drop coming after preinfusion as otherwise there would be no puck resistance and in effect no pressure?
> 
> T.


----------



## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> - is there a mode which allows the user to start / stop preinfusion at a press of a button? for example, tap to start preinfusion, another tap to start normal brewing? from what I've seen it seems that the transition from preinfusion to brewing is done on either flow or pressure, but I think it would be handy having a way to do this manually (like on a lever).*


There currently is not: your preinfusion ends after a certain amount of time, or water volume, or pressure is reached. In the future, I will also add a preinfusion exit when the Bluetooth scale detects the first drip.

There are plans afoot to allow skipping to the next step manually while the espresso is occurring. That feature will likely come over the next 12 months as a free firmware/tablet download.

We are working on a group head controller that will give you real-time control over flow and pressure, by touching the group head and moving your finger. Much like an original iPod. All this real-time control stuff will be our focus at the same time, so that's when you'll see your skip ahead feature appear as well.



dsc said:


> - what type of pressure / flow / temperature transducers / sensors are you using? curious what accuracies are achiavable, if thermocouples are used how cold junction compensation is done etc. Just wondering how close the trends are to the real world


Our thermal probes have 0.1 mm thick walls and we calibrate each machine against a Scace before we ship it. Note also that the thermal probes are actually in the water flow, not behind group head metal. We tend to see subsecond responsiveness and accuracy within 0.2ºC.



dsc said:


> - as for baristas seeing pressure at the puck, are we talking professional folk or beginner home baristas (asking as this is a rather basic concept)? several years ago I've had a heavily modified Elektra T1 which had a PT on the group to monitor group pressure, so the idea isn't new to me


Anyone who has used lever machines is likely to understand the concept of pressure at the puck. And La Marzocco recently offered kit to put an analog pressure gauge on the group head, so that's helping.

However, the vast majority of machines will read nine bar of pressure without a portafilter. Most people I meet don't understand that this is not especially useful information.

I've routinely seen people pull shots on our machine with very coarse grounds, which told them nine bar was not attained, and then complained that their professional machine is able to attain nine bars with this grind. It's not, they just don't know it.

Rao had this problem recently in Montréal, where he had calibrated an EK shot so it worked well. He then left the machine. When people coarsened up the ground and shots were then zero bar, I am told there was general consensus that the decent espresso machine was defective.

The new Astoria Storm has a small display which gives you flow and real pressure.

https://astoria.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/storm-barista-attitude_controllo_totale_erogazione.jpg

I think this is a really cool feature, but Astoria doesn't seem to be promoting this aspect of the machine much. The Storm has beautiful aesthetics, more than a little bit inspired by Slayer, and likely that's easier to pitch than espresso information displays. 

I think it's the Linea PB that shows real pressure digitally. Most LM models don't. It'd be great if all machines showed real pressure.

ps: this is one reason I'm working with these folks: https://www.naked-portafilter.com/smart-espresso-profiler/

because you can use the SEP to refit a traditional machine to give you real pressure measurements, and capture them digitally.



dsc said:


> Which shows a fairly big flow drop when pressure increases. Scott mentioned this on his blog and said something along the lines of "we prefered shots which didn't have this", is this even possible when brewing at 9bar? surely there needs to be a flow drop coming after preinfusion as otherwise there would be no puck resistance and in effect no pressure?T.


I agree with you, and what you're seeing is absolutely normal for espresso.









The decreased flow occurred due to puck compression, and then the flow increased as the puck eroded. That's how espresso works, it's called a "slow to develop shot".

What I think Rao means when he says this is not desirable is that generally if the flow rate increases over the course of the shot you are seeing increased acidity that can result. However your puck did not disintegrate and flow did not ramp quickly out of control, so I would have expected the shot to taste balanced.

What Rao might prefer you do in this shot is have a shorter "hold" (the middle section) and more quickly ramp pressure down, so that your flow is more constant through the entire espresso. Does that make sense?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> - what type of pressure / flow / temperature transducers / sensors are you using? curious what accuracies are achiavable, if thermocouples are used how cold junction compensation is done etc. Just wondering how close the trends are to the real world


I wasn't sure at what engineering depth your question was. Attached are three pages of specifications of the water temperature sensors we use.

We used to build our own using these beads https://www.digikey.hk/product-detail/en/murata-electronics-north-america/NXFT15WF104FA2B100/490-5633-ND/2533824 but found that it was very difficult to get very thin walls made. That's why we switched to using probes from a specialist manufacturer.

The images below are a bit too low-resolution to read, so I uploaded a PDF here: http://magnatune.com/p/tempprobes.pdf

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Before we ship an espresso machine to a customer, we always calibrate temperature and pressure at the puck, uniquely for that machine.

Small physical variation in pressure sensors and temperature sensors are a real thing, which is why we use a Scace 2 https://www.espressoparts.com/scace-2-espresso-machine-thermofilter-temperature-pressure-device to verify that our puck measurements are correct to within 0.1ºC.

I asked Parry to keep track of the calibration numbers that he puts into the firmware for the first 19 machines we shipped of our v1.1 model. I've charted and attached the data here.

You can see that our pressure sensors don't have much variation, whereas the temperature sensors do need typically 1/2°C of calibration from each other.

Also note that all temperature and pressure sensors are slightly not as the manufacturer has stated (~1.69ºC for temperature, and 1.23 bar for pressure), which is why we calibrated to the Scace.

I prefer to never trust a manufacturer's specification sheet when we can measure against a known accurate benchmark.

-john


----------



## Dylan

Hey John,

Is March still your ETA on the scales? I would have thought it would take you longer than this to get it finalised and production ramped up but just checking as thats the date on your delivery page.

It also says "coming 2018" on the product page









If I place an order for the scales will it put me on the first production run?


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Hey John,
> 
> Is March still your ETA on the scales? I would have thought it would take you longer than this to get it finalised and production ramped up but just checking as thats the date on your delivery page.
> 
> It also says "coming 2018" on the product page
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If I place an order for the scales will it put me on the first production run?


Oh man, it has been a long journey!

Back in December 2016 we had already finished the industrial design and hired the engineering company that was going to modify the Skale 2, to be the decent scale. I just looked through our Basecamp forum archives and found this:









Nine months later, I had five handmade prototypes, completely ready to manufacture. You may have seen them in my videos.

However, the engineering company we had been working with insisted we work with their manufacturer and that company wanted USD$92 to manufacture each scale, at a quantity of 1000. Since we were planning on selling them at USD$99 this was not a brilliant business proposition. My suspicion is that I had been such a pain in the ass during the past nine months (I'm very OCD about my products) that I had cost the engineering company a lot more than they had planned, and they needed to make it up by overcharging for the scale.

Many months of negotiating continued at which point I simply gave up on this project as unmanufacturable.

Eventually, as people really fell in love with the Bluetooth weighing features of the decent espresso machine, I realized I couldn't avoid this problem.

So, about nine months ago I went searching for existing high-end scale manufacturers, approaching them, to see if they would be interested in building this for us. I had all the CAD files, so the mechanical issues were all done, but the firmware would have to be written from scratch.

Before I could choose somebody to make the scale for me, we had to negotiate to see if they would be interested, discuss pricing, and then I received samples of a variety of their scale models, so I could inspect the quality of their work. I did this separately for three different companies.

I now have in my hand a working scale, but no Bluetooth yet. Big surprise, the existingmanufacturer hasn't actually made a Bluetooth scale of this complexity and has now turned around and asked for more money. There been two months of negotiations on that, and we just finally came to an agreement last week, once I received the physical samples and could verify that the product was otherwise going well.

So&#8230; Long story short, making a new 0.1g accurate bluetooth scale is tremendously difficult. There's a reason why only one company (Acaia) seems to have done it, they charge a lot for it, and they have been rewarded by the marketplace for having done it.

The "chinese knockoff" (Felicita) of Acaia isn't much less expensive:

https://felicitascale.com/shop-now?olsPage=products%2Farc-scale

I think we're still three or four months away from having stock of our scale. In February, I should be able to give final approval for manufacturing and that will likely take 60 days. So, April is more likely the delivery date now.

That was probably way more information than you wanted. 

Yes, if you place an order now, you'll get shipped as soon as they arrive. But we are making a thousand of them, so once they arrive, I expect to have them in stock for a while. And it should only be 60 days to make new ones if we start to get low stock.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent engineer Ben Champion shows us a tour of his working setup.

He's aiming to increase the power, control the dry/wet mix and controllability of steam for our upcoming DE1CAFE espresso machine.


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> scale info...


I knew bits of this from these pages, but thanks for the detailed run down. I do remember the scales being planned for a lot earlier and your dissapointment at the quote you got for manufacturing 1000.

Considering how much I am moving at the moment it may be sensible for me to wait on the order. If you find yourself having to increase the price beyond $99 at any point then do let me know so I can sneak in at the lower price ��.


----------



## dsc

decent_espresso said:


> There currently is not: your preinfusion ends after a certain amount of time, or water volume, or pressure is reached. In the future, I will also add a preinfusion exit when the Bluetooth scale detects the first drip.
> 
> There are plans afoot to allow skipping to the next step manually while the espresso is occurring. That feature will likely come over the next 12 months as a free firmware/tablet download.*
> 
> We are working on a group head controller that will give you real-time control over flow and pressure, by touching the group head and moving your finger. Much like an original iPod. All this real-time control stuff will be our focus at the same time, so that's when you'll see your skip ahead feature appear as well.


Coming from a lever and pump driven machines before this I could really use a manual mode, especially when dialing in a bean. Two times now I've picked a profile which ended with less than 10g in the cup as the grind was too fine. If I could manually carry on brewing, I would've had a drinkable shot, whereas without a way to manually pick a stop point, both shots ended up in the sink. Yes I can modify the profile to extend the brew time, but this is not your typical shot and something that only really happens when you go too fine with the grind setting, so it is a perfect scenario for on-the-fly adjustments. Also just as an overall observation (re touch controls as you've mentioned on the group head controller) I don't really like the touch screen sliders when making profile adjustments, quite often it's very tricky picking a specific number and it would be 10 times easier if the was a +/-1 , +/-0.1 next to the parameter for modifications.*



> Rao had this problem recently in Montréal, where he had calibrated an EK shot so it worked well. He then left the machine. When people coarsened up the ground and shots were then zero bar, I am told there was general consensus that the decent espresso machine was defective.


This seems mad if it was a professional cafe. Why did they coarsen the grind?



> ps: this is one reason I'm working with these folks:*https://www.naked-portafilter.com/smart-espresso-profiler/
> 
> because you can use the SEP to refit a traditional machine to give you real pressure measurements, and capture them digitally.


I'm not bashing the product as I've not used it, but why do companies add "smart" to the names of their products? It's a personal pet peeve of mine, if the thing in question cannot think it's not smart, end of. Adding a few sensors which collect data is far from smart.



> What I think Rao means when he says this is not desirable is that generally if the flow rate increases over the course of the shot you are seeing increased acidity that can result. However your puck did not disintegrate and flow did not ramp quickly out of control, so I would have expected the shot to taste balanced.
> 
> What Rao might prefer you do in this shot is have a shorter "hold" (the middle section) and more quickly ramp pressure down, so that your flow is more constant through the entire espresso. Does that make sense?


Yes it does indeed make more sense that he was referring to a flat section, past the drop in flow. Most shots that I've done so far have a slight increase in the flow, which is understandable of course as the puck gets easier to flow through, but having compared the pressure profile to a steady 2ml flow profile it shows that I'd have to have a very shot 9 bar peak with a rather steep declining pressure to get steady flow in the second part of the brew.

So far I've tried a few profiles: best profile, low flow at 2ml, typical lever (although I wouldn't necessarily say this is a typical lever, at least not compared to an L1) and a few different beans (light / medium / dark) and there's two things that bother me the most:

- group temperatures - this is something that I've checked today using a copper pad thermocouple and some Kapton tape after noticing that the portafilter isn't really getting very hot to the touch even after leaving it in the group for a long time. The highest reading I got was around 65degC, this was with the shot temp set to 92degC. I do understand that the design here is different and that there's no boiling water circulating through the group, but if the group is at 65degC, then the PF will be at around 65degC, the basket will most likely be a bit cooler, so when the 92degC water hits it, the heat will go towards the basket, thus cooling the brewing water. Is this not a concern?

- general lack of espresso "feel" - all the shots that I've had so far just don't really feel like espresso I've had before, crema is very thin and the shots lack body heavily, they just feel like slightly thicker V60 brews. Fair enough, I mostly pull 3:1 or 2.5:1 ratio shots, but even those were "gluppier" on the L1, I'm just not getting the same vibe on the DE. I've seen a few members mention that to get "standard" espresso on the DE you need to lower the flow to something between 0.5ml - 1.0ml, which seems a bit mad as those are very low flows. Any ideas on what to try? just wanted to add that I'm hitting 21-22% EYs on all shots and easily hitting 9 bar , so it's not like I'm grinding too course and not producing enough resistance.*

T.


----------



## dsc

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 38631
> 
> 
> Before we ship an espresso machine to a customer, we always calibrate temperature and pressure at the puck, uniquely for that machine.
> 
> Small physical variation in pressure sensors and temperature sensors are a real thing, which is why we use a Scace 2 https://www.espressoparts.com/scace-2-espresso-machine-thermofilter-temperature-pressure-device to verify that our puck measurements are correct to within 0.1ºC.
> 
> I asked Parry to keep track of the calibration numbers that he puts into the firmware for the first 19 machines we shipped of our v1.1 model. I've charted and attached the data here.
> 
> You can see that our pressure sensors don't have much variation, whereas the temperature sensors do need typically 1/2°C of calibration from each other.
> 
> Also note that all temperature and pressure sensors are slightly not as the manufacturer has stated (~1.69ºC for temperature, and 1.23 bar for pressure), which is why we calibrated to the Scace.
> 
> I prefer to never trust a manufacturer's specification sheet when we can measure against a known accurate benchmark.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 38632


Does the Scace come with calibration certs? If not, how do you know it's accurate?

I was assuming that calibration on NTC sensors is done in water / oil baths of known temperature. Similar thing with pressure sensors where you mount them in a calibration rig and apply known pressure to do comparisons.

T.


----------



## jameswagner

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 38631
> 
> 
> I asked Parry to keep track of the calibration numbers that he puts into the firmware for the first 19 machines we shipped of our v1.1 model. I've charted and attached the data here.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 38632


Fun. I see my machine's calibration listed there


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> Considering how much I am moving at the moment it may be sensible for me to wait on the order. If you find yourself having to increase the price beyond $99 at any point then do let me know so I can sneak in at the lower price ��.


I don't have any plans to sell our decent scale more expensively. Instead, my hope is to convince a whole bunch of app developers to support it, so that it quickly becomes the open standard. Keeping the price low should help make that happen.

- John


----------



## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> Does the Scace come with calibration certs? If not, how do you know it's accurate? I was assuming that calibration on NTC sensors is done in water / oil baths of known temperature. Similar thing with pressure sensors where you mount them in a calibration rig and apply known pressure to do comparisons.


For temperature, we have checked the calibration against a chemists water bath, that has its own calibrated temperature sensor and a whirling pool of water.

For pressure, we are trusting the fact that all 3 Scaces we have, read the same pressure.

So, there might be some amount of error, but at least all our machines are identical.  Plus, Scace is what product reviewers will use to test our accuracy, so that's what we have to be accurate to.

Note also that this calibration page is available to users, so if you have your own calibration equipment you are welcome to recalibrate.

- John


----------



## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> Coming from a lever and pump driven machines before this I could really use a manual mode, especially when dialing in a bean. Two times now I've picked a profile which ended with less than 10g in the cup as the grind was too fine. If I could manually carry on brewing, I would've had a drinkable shot, whereas without a way to manually pick a stop point, both shots ended up in the sink. Yes I can modify the profile to extend the brew time, but this is not your typical shot and something that only really happens when you go too fine with the grind setting, so it is a perfect scenario for on-the-fly adjustments.


Understood, and it looks like you understand the issues too. You could have made a longer profile and simply manually stopped it.



dsc said:


> Also just as an overall observation (re touch controls as you've mentioned on the group head controller) I don't really like the touch screen sliders when making profile adjustments, quite often it's very tricky picking a specific number and it would be 10 times easier if the was a +/-1 , +/-0.1 next to the parameter for modifications.*


Did you know that you can tap above and below the slider control in order to do tiny increments? If you hadn't realized that, I can see where that would be frustrating.











dsc said:


> - group temperatures - this is something that I've checked today using a copper pad thermocouple and some Kapton tape after noticing that the portafilter isn't really getting very hot to the touch even after leaving it in the group for a long time. The highest reading I got was around 65degC, this was with the shot temp set to 92degC. I do understand that the design here is different and that there's no boiling water circulating through the group, but if the group is at 65degC, then the PF will be at around 65degC, the basket will most likely be a bit cooler, so when the 92degC water hits it, the heat will go towards the basket, thus cooling the brewing water. Is this not a concern?


 This is not something we've measured and I can't say it's been something I've focused on. I've been most interested on the temperature of the slurry. That being said, my portafilter is burning hot in the morning after my machine has preheated itself at 7 AM.

But in general, we're going for low thermal mass so that we have more control over temperature. People have recently been doing more and more temperature profiling and thermal mass gets in the way of that. What have your temperature charts looked like?



dsc said:


> - general lack of espresso "feel" - all the shots that I've had so far just don't really feel like espresso I've had before, crema is very thin and the shots lack body heavily, they just feel like slightly thicker V60 brews. Fair enough, I mostly pull 3:1 or 2.5:1 ratio shots, but even those were "gluppier" on the L1, I'm just not getting the same vibe on the DE. I've seen a few members mention that to get "standard" espresso on the DE you need to lower the flow to something between 0.5ml - 1.0ml, which seems a bit mad as those are very low flows. Any ideas on what to try? just wanted to add that I'm hitting 21-22% EYs on all shots and easily hitting 9 bar , so it's not like I'm grinding too course and not producing enough resistance.*


I'm surprised you're getting very little crema as I tend to get tons. If you would like more, I would suggest bringing your pressure up, as generally crema output is directly correlated to pressure.

I wouldn't suggest getting your flow rate down to .5ml/s but my shots generally are between 1ml/s (start) and 2ml/s (2nd), and pretty heavy on the crema.

The other factor affecting body is the hole size on the baskets. If you go to the larger whole baskets you should get more body because the whole size increases, and then more fines will make their way into your drink and increase the thickness.

Also, can you post photos of your shot charts? That REALLY helps diagnose what's going on.

-john


----------



## dsc

decent_espresso said:


> Understood, and it looks like you understand the issues too. You could have made a longer profile and simply manually stopped it.
> 
> Did you know that you can tap above and below the slider control in order to do tiny increments? If you hadn't realized that, I can see where that would be frustrating.
> 
> View attachment 38710
> 
> 
> This is not something we've measured and I can't say it's been something I've focused on. I've been most interested on the temperature of the slurry. That being said, my portafilter is burning hot in the morning after my machine has preheated itself at 7 AM.
> 
> But in general, we're going for low thermal mass so that we have more control over temperature. People have recently been doing more and more temperature profiling and thermal mass gets in the way of that. What have your temperature charts looked like?
> 
> I'm surprised you're getting very little crema as I tend to get tons. If you would like more, I would suggest bringing your pressure up, as generally crema output is directly correlated to pressure.
> 
> I wouldn't suggest getting your flow rate down to .5ml/s but my shots generally are between 1ml/s (start) and 2ml/s (2nd), and pretty heavy on the crema.
> 
> The other factor affecting body is the hole size on the baskets. If you go to the larger whole baskets you should get more body because the whole size increases, and then more fines will make their way into your drink and increase the thickness.
> 
> Also, can you post photos of your shot charts? That REALLY helps diagnose what's going on.
> 
> -john


Thanks for your replies John, had no idea about tap adjustments, that's a life saver for sure.

When you say burning hot, what sort of temperatures are we talking? Would you be able to measure it? I couldn't get the group above 65degC, will double check what the PF is doing today.

What's the reason for not recommending a 0.5ml/s flow? Looking at an Ulka flow chart it pushes around 4ml/s at 9bar and higher at lower pressures, any technical reason for suggesting 1-2ml/s or is it just best tastewise in your opinion?

I tend to stick to a 15g VST and had no issues with crema on my L1 using it, so I'm a bit surprised. I've used a low flow profile two days ago and that only pushes the pressure up to 9bar for a few seconds, producing a hump pressure profile, so I sort of get why the crema isn't there.

More flow / pressure curves to follow.

T.


----------



## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> When you say burning hot, what sort of temperatures are we talking? Would you be able to measure it? I couldn't get the group above 65degC, will double check what the PF is doing today.


 I'm not entirely clear what you're measuring.

Are you saying that the tablet is reporting a 65°C group had temperature? Usually this temperature should be the same as your espresso goal temperature.









Note that this temperature is measured directly on the brass of the group head, so I'm fairly sure that if the tablet says that the group is at that temperature, that it is.









Or is your concern that we are not bleeding much heat off into the portafilter? I can try to measure that, but an infrared thermometer won't measure well off polished steel, and the contact thermometer against the bottom of the portafilter won't measure that accurately either.

I guess I'm not really sure this is going, since we measure each machine's temperature with a temperature probe behind the shower screen, and we get the same results that a Space gives.



dsc said:


> What's the reason for not recommending a 0.5ml/s flow? Looking at an Ulka flow chart it pushes around 4ml/s at 9bar and higher at lower pressures, any technical reason for suggesting 1-2ml/s or is it just best tastewise in your opinion?


Purely taste. Beyond 3 mL per second I find the extraction to be quite sour. Below 1 L per second the TDS is so high that it's quite hard to drink straight. However, for milky drinks or Americano, high TDS in your initial espresso is no problem. For Rao, he prefers around 2.5 ml/s and longer extractions, usually 3:1.

But if your goal is to imitate a slow lever shot and to get a thick mouth feel, you definitely will want a high TDS, which you should be able to produce with a higher pressure and slower output flow rate. Personally, I'd aim for 10 bar, and a 40 to 50 second total extraction time, 2:1 ratio, to get a very thick shot.



dsc said:


> I tend to stick to a 15g VST and had no issues with crema on my L1 using it, so I'm a bit surprised. I've used a low flow profile two days ago and that only pushes the pressure up to 9bar for a few seconds, producing a hump pressure profile, so I sort of get why the crema isn't there.


Definitely, if you're using the same basket on both, you should be able to produce similar results. Perhaps try a simple pressure profile that then more closely mimics traditional espresso.

And photos of the tablet charts always help (nudge, nudge).

- John


----------



## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> When you say burning hot, what sort of temperatures are we talking? Would you be able to measure it? I couldn't get the group above 65degC, will double check what the PF is


I gave this a little bit more thought, and I think the issue is that our design goals are different from what you are expecting. Most espresso machines go for high thermal mass for temperature stability. We aim for low thermal mass for faster control.

Our goal is having a stable temperature at the slurry, and we see the mass of the portafilter as being the enemy. Thus, we directly heat the water path but then we use both fiberglass and rubber to isolate the impact of the portafilter on the infusion temperature. Here's a photograph of the group head, cover and insulation off:









The cartridge heater in the center of that brass is heating the entire brast section to the espresso goal temperature. Water arrives in via the brown colored tube and exits via the black colored tube.

This entire brass section is thermally isolated from the aluminum group head with a black colored fiberglass board. We are aiming to not heat the group head parts that are unrelated to the water path.

Only the aluminum group had has physical contact with the portafilter. Thus, it's natural that the portafilter wouldn't get burning hot since it's thermally isolated.

Besides the benefit of not wasting electricity heating things that are likely to burn you (group head, portafilter) this low thermal mass allows us to quickly change the water temperature in response to what we sense is the slurry temperature.

If you do a quick (five seconds) FLUSH and then towel dry, before dosing your portafilter, you should have sufficiently preheated the coffee contact points. The room temperature grounds will continue to have a cooling effect on the slurry, which we will try to compensate for automatically with variable water temperature.

Keep in mind also that the portafilter is barely in contact with the basket, so the heat mass of those two should not be interacting too much, hopefully.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

All v1.0 espresso machine owners are entitled to an update kit with parts that we improved over our 1st year. In this video you'll learn what we got wrong with our v1.0 espresso machines and how we are upgrading those owners with better stuff.


----------



## dsc

decent_espresso said:


> I'm not entirely clear what you're measuring.
> 
> Are you saying that the tablet is reporting a 65°C group had temperature? Usually this temperature should be the same as your espresso goal temperature.
> 
> View attachment 38725
> 
> 
> Note that this temperature is measured directly on the brass of the group head, so I'm fairly sure that if the tablet says that the group is at that temperature, that it is.
> 
> View attachment 38724
> 
> 
> Or is your concern that we are not bleeding much heat off into the portafilter? I can try to measure that, but an infrared thermometer won't measure well off polished steel, and the contact thermometer against the bottom of the portafilter won't measure that accurately either.
> 
> I guess I'm not really sure this is going, since we measure each machine's temperature with a temperature probe behind the shower screen, and we get the same results that a Space gives.
> 
> Purely taste. Beyond 3 mL per second I find the extraction to be quite sour. Below 1 L per second the TDS is so high that it's quite hard to drink straight. However, for milky drinks or Americano, high TDS in your initial espresso is no problem. For Rao, he prefers around 2.5 ml/s and longer extractions, usually 3:1.
> 
> But if your goal is to imitate a slow lever shot and to get a thick mouth feel, you definitely will want a high TDS, which you should be able to produce with a higher pressure and slower output flow rate. Personally, I'd aim for 10 bar, and a 40 to 50 second total extraction time, 2:1 ratio, to get a very thick shot.
> 
> Definitely, if you're using the same basket on both, you should be able to produce similar results. Perhaps try a simple pressure profile that then more closely mimics traditional espresso.
> 
> And photos of the tablet charts always help (nudge, nudge).
> 
> - John


I've got a pad thermocouple which I've stuck to the bottom side of the grouphead using Kapton tape, see attachment.

I agree that an IR thermometer would just bounce off the shiny PF surface and it doesn't really work well on the group either (I've got one with three different levels of EMS for different type of materials and the closest reading I got from it was still 10degC off what the TC was reading).

The basket won't heat up much indeed as the contact surface is very small, but it eventually gets uber hot on standard machines. On DE I was worried that it might bring the brew temps down, but I still haven't tested this yet (planning to stick a TC under the basket and measure stream temps).

I've done a quick profile with a fast flow preinfusion and a slow decline from 9bar. It did overshoot quite a bit on pressure and wasn't very stable temp wise but it was the first shot of the day and the flow was low which makes it harder for temp control. EY on this shot was 23% but the bean I'm using isn't so great so tastewise it wasn't very delicious. Will post curves as soon as I figure out how to share single photos from google albums.

T.


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## dsc

Here's a simple profile I've mentioned above.

T.


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## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> Coming from a lever and pump driven machines before this I could really use a manual mode, especially when dialing in a bean. Two times now I've picked a profile which ended with less than 10g in the cup as the grind was too fine.


Here is a photoshop version of the group head controller we are working on, planning to be available as of August.

It is similar to the original iPod controller. However, it also has RGB LEDs in a full circle under the edge.

This allows us to display:

1) what is the current operation (in white: espresso)

2) current water flow rate (blue dot)

3) current pressure (green dot)

The controller will be able to control in real time the flow or pressure of your espresso. Touch the group head and move your finger clockwise to increase flow or pressure. You choose to affect pressure by putting your finger down near the green light and then moving your finger. Or you can change flow by putting your finger near the blue LED and moving your finger.

Tapping in the center will move your espresso to the next step (for example, from preinfusion, to the hold stage).

-john


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## dsc

I've checked the basket temps yesterday using the same method ie. pad TC + Kapton tape. After a 5sec flush the temp goes up to ~75*C, same thing after a shot, sadly I've not paid much attention to it during a shot, but based on the previous readings I can see it going to around 5*C less than brew temp and gradually getting to the same temperature.

Anyways the above means that the basket heats up rather quickly so flush to warm up, pack basket and pull shot.

I do have a question regarding temp stability at the start of the shot, I've attached a curve from yesterday. As you can see for the first 8sec or so the temp isn't really were it should be. Fair enough it's the first shot after turning the machine on and waiting 20min for warm up, but it's the machine that decides it's ready to brew, so imho that decision was premature. Is this normal?

T.


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## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> I do have a question regarding temp stability at the start of the shot, I've attached a curve from yesterday. As you can see for the first 8sec or so the temp isn't really were it should be. Fair enough it's the first shot after turning the machine on and waiting 20min for warm up, but it's the machine that decides it's ready to brew, so imho that decision was premature. Is this normal?


To my eyes, that temperature curve is outstanding. No other machine can replicate that slurry temperature chart.

Bear in mind that the temperature being charted is the *actual* infusion (slurry) temperature, *not the input* temperature.

When hot water was added to the puck, the fact that the coffee was room temperature caused the slurry temperature to drop. That's what is charted in the first few seconds, a 3.5ºC cooler slurry than goal.

Within five seconds your slurry was now within 1 centigrade of goal. Then the entire shot's slurry temperature, from about seven seconds until 42 seconds, was within 1ºC of goal. The reason it only took ~5 seconds to get the slurry to the goal is that the espresso machine very quickly adjusted the input water temperature in the first few seconds to raise the slurry temperature near the goal.

Again, it bears repeating: this is *not the boiler temperature being measured, this is the actual temperature of your infusion*. The Decent espresso machine automatically corrected the input water temperature to get the slurry to your goal extremely quickly. A traditional machine would have taken much longer, since traditional machines cannot quickly and briefly adjust the input water temperature.

On boiler based machines, the input water temperature is constant, and a shot typically starts between 6°C and 8°C under the input water temperature. That's the cooling effect of the grounds, basket and portafilter. This cooling effect is the reason that baristas are trained to work quickly to dose a portafilter, so as to maintain a warm receptacle and thus have a less severe temperature gradient during the shot.

This cooling effect is the rationale behind why the mythos grinder preheats the grounds, so as to mitigate the cooling effect at the beginning of the shot. In my experience the mythos improved the cooling effect by about 2 centigrade.

With a very hot portafilter, on a traditional machine, using a heated mythos, the best I have seen is a 4°C drop at the beginning, with a linear temperature rise toward goal over (at best) 10 seconds. The only way to see this is to handbuild your own "Scace" that can actually make a shot. Synesso has that, and showed it to me when I visited them.

=============

"DIY Coffee Guy" has an article on this topic of slurry temperature variation over a shot:

http://www.diycoffeeguy.com/espresso-extraction-temperature/









Other people have also discussed this topic, but I wouldn't say that this reality is generally understood by baristas.

==============

So, to summarize.

Far from seeing any problems in your chart, I see it as a good example of best-currently-possible temperature regulation. My goal with the decent espresso machine is for the infusion temperature to be as close to constant as possible, not for the boiler temperature to be as constant as possible. Your shot looks great. You had:

1) a mild 3.5ºC cooling effect due to grounds/portafilter

2) within 7 seconds you were +/- 1ºC of goal, for the duration of the shot

The current best available temperature stability with boilers is +/- 1ºC input water temperature (from the GS/3). We can achieve that accuracy at the puck for most of your shot, which is a much more difficult thing.

=====

Note that in an effort to be able to emulate traditional machines, in the advanced shot editor it is possible to specify that the boiler temperature is your goal. In that case, you do not wish to have the decent espresso machine compensate for the cooling effect of the puck/portafilter. Here is where that setting is:









but I don't know anyone who bothers using that feature, since the coffee produced by that approach tastes less good.

-john


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## decent_espresso

We're finally shipping out the necessary bits to plumb a decent espresso machine. I made this video explaining how it all works.

-john






Connect your Decent espresso machine to plumbed water, a water tank, or a dirty water bucket (or drain).

This video explains the "Refill Kit", which has 3 parts:

1) the drain kit, to make dirty water go away

2) the catering kit, to refill automatically using a water tank

3) the plumbing kit, to refill automatically using a pressurized water source


----------



## BrooklynCawfee

dsc said:


> I've got a pad thermocouple which I've stuck to the bottom side of the grouphead using Kapton tape, see attachment.
> 
> T.


Hey CZR, DE owner in Brooklyn NY here. Just wanted to give a quick run down on temp sensor placement that you have pictured. Where your sensor is attached is actually an Alu carrier for the group itself, and is insulated from the group with a hard insulative spacing washer fashioned from the same material as PCU board. I have some pics as I've got my DE down to the chassis for a customizing project. Similarly, sensors affixed to the basket and PF will trail well behind the machines sensors as it is insulated from the group by the rubber group gasket as well at the coffee bed itself, so it will only catch up once the bed is saturated and extracting, and even then will lag considerably behind the temp incoming to the coffee slurry. If you remove the PF, and the shower screen (1 screw) you can see a shiny SS probe in the brass group, which is the coffee bed temp prob, so it is reading the temp of the water at the coffee slurry. Pics below:









This is the top of the group carrier with the black cover cover and insulation removed, and most of the sensors and probes, as well as the water lines, removed. In the center of the brass you can see the tube that the cartridge group heater slides into. On either side of that you can see two holes that lead into the group, these are where the temp probes for the group are attached.









Here you see the group carrier with the group removed. Note the insulative spacing washer that sits on top of the group carrier, between the brass group and the Alu carrier. This is what is causing the massive temp lag you're seeing on your thermocouple mounted to the Alu carrier.









Group top view, removed from carrier









Fully assembled group bottom view, shower screen removed. The group is composed of three separate brasses, the main, and two water labyrinths to achieve even water delivery @ the shower. Here, the central hole is for shower screen mounting screw. Hole above that is for the coffee bed temp probe. Final hole above the temp probe hole is the outlet for the forward flush valve.









Group with bottom labyrinth removed and inverted. Notice on the main group you can still see the shower screen mounting screw hole, temp probe hole, and flush outlet hole. New are the 2 small holes left and right of the screw mounting hole between it and the temp probe, as well as 4 larger holes toward the edges. The 2 small holes are alignment holes for the first labyrinth, and you can see the corresponding pins on the inverted face. The 4 larger holes are screw holes that affix the second labyrinth (the "apple") to the main brass of the group. I'll have to continue in next reply, only 5 pics allowed to be attached, and there are a couple more.


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## BrooklynCawfee

Group with second labyrinth (now you can see why I say "Apple") removed and inverted. The top of the "stem" of the "apple" is where water would enter the group from the water line leading into the main brass from the top. Where the "stem" connects to the apple is where the upper temp probe sits and takes its readings. Water continues past it and around the circumference of the apple and into the small outlets that lead to the "T's" on the surface of the apple to the holes at each terminal end that lead through to the bottom brass labyrinth and through it's 6 triangular stepped chambers, then through to the shower screen and to the coffee puck.

If you look at the main brass in this pic the central hole is the threaded hole for the bottom labyrinth and shower screen mounting screw. The 4 holes around that in a rectangle are the threaded holes for the middle "Apple" labyrinth mounting screws. The hole just above the center hole is for the temp probe that goes all the way through to the bottom brass. The second hole above the center hole is for the flush valve outlet. The hole just below the center hole is for the upper temp probe. The second hole below the center hole is the water inlet hole into the group.

I hope the pics and explanations (hopefully clear, please ask for any clarifications you need) help to explain your divergent readings on your thermocouples to what you're seeing on the screen on the app. I also hope that it gives you some comfort that those readings on the app are about as accurate as one could possibly hope, given the placement of the sensors. I honestly wouldn't worry too much about verifying those with external probes as we would have to with an old schools machine with no probes or measurement instruments in place. Instead, do continue along your line of what is the thought and theory behind the temps you ARE seeing reported by the inboard probes, and the current possibilities and limitations as the group, heaters, and delivery system, as currently constituted, allow. John alludes to this above pretty directly, and that's the marvel of this machine, is that even though it is capable of doing things no other machine could before, and offers insight we've only guessed at, it's still in its infancy and John, Ray, Ben, and the rest designers at Decent know this and are improving its accuracy and usability every day as a result of the data being gathered and shared by the initial owners on the group. I think questions like yours here have been the some of the most interesting in the owners group, as we're all learning how to decipher the data we're seeing after being in the dark so long and having to hypothesize about so much of what goes on above the puck during an extraction. Cheers man, glad you have the opportunity to work and play with one of the 1.0 machines, and certainly looking forward to more discussion!









Last pic, all the group and carrier parts spread out in one place, in case you have any other questions.


----------



## BrooklynCawfee

Now that the stuff about how the water moves through the group as well as how, and where, the probes are gathering their data, I just wanted to take a sec to interpret the chart you left here, bearing those things in mind. The first temp you see is goal temp, as the first water that hits the probe is the on goal incoming water headed to the coffee bed. As soon as it hits the bed and creates the coffee slurry, which is itself at best only slightly above room temp from the friction of the grinder and maybe a preheated PF, the temp plummets near vertically hitting its nadir @ 3.5c below goal. The group cartridge heater and incoming water adjusts accordingly and within 6-7 seconds the slurry has reached goal temp and then stays within 1c of goal for the rest of the chart. That's actually pretty extraordinary considering that in a conventional machine it would take longer for the slurry to come up to temp, because the only heating of the slurry is accomplished by new water coming into the slurry (with possibly a bit of radiant heating by the group if you're on a good E61 and flush heated it before the pull) so it would take longer to reach the goal temp, and could not change dynamically from there even if you desired it to. Here the group and the incoming water work in tandem to get the slurry to temp as quickly as possible and maintain that temp throughout. Thoughts?

*Just saw John's response to the chart above, and now see that my response simply echoes that. Apologies for the redundancy, should've looked at his. Still interested in discussing it, though!


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## dsc

Can the drop in temp at the start not be mitigated by allowing hotter water into the basket? That is what I had in mind in my last post saying that the decision to start brewing was premature.

As for basket temps, from what I've measured it sits at 60*C when idle, goes to around 75-80*C after flushing, but doesn't go above 80*C when brewing which is rather interesting. Pad TC is stuck to the side of the basket, see attached photo.

John have you done any experiments with a TC stuck through a basket (SCACE like embedded in a coffee puck) and compared those to the readings from the above-shower probe?

T.


----------



## BrooklynCawfee

dsc said:


> Can the drop in temp at the start not be mitigated by allowing hotter water into the basket? That is what I had in mind in my last post saying that the decision to start brewing was premature.
> 
> 
> 
> *
> I think you'd need to input bean temp and dose at that point, so that the machine would be able to calculate how much hotter the water should be to achieve quicker goal temps, otherwise any temp increase would be arbitrary. Maybe an equation could be added to anticipate an "average" dose (though from discussion in owners group folks are dosing 10g all the way to 24) of say maybe 18g @ normal indoor temp, and adjust the temp accordingly, but this wouldn't be perfect because it's be over on lower doses and still under on higher doses. â€‹*
> 
> As for basket temps, from what I've measured it sits at 60*C when idle, goes to around 75-80*C after flushing, but doesn't go above 80*C when brewing which is rather interesting. Pad TC is stuck to the side of the basket, see attached photo
> 
> *
> â€‹ Nice thermocouple hacking! I still think you're not going to get basket temps approaching the goal temps of the puck because of the insulation of the insulation the group gasket provides and the thermal mass difference between the coffee grounds and the metal of the basket.*


----------



## BrooklynCawfee

John have you done any experiments with a TC stuck through a basket (SCACE like embedded in a coffee puck) and compared those to the readings from the above-shower probe?

*
â€‹ FWIW I'd love to see this test on pretty much every machine ever! We'd learn so much!*


----------



## dev

dsc said:


> Can the drop in temp at the start not be mitigated by allowing hotter water into the basket? That is what I had in mind in my last post saying that the decision to start brewing was premature.
> 
> As for basket temps, from what I've measured it sits at 60*C when idle, goes to around 75-80*C after flushing, but doesn't go above 80*C when brewing which is rather interesting. Pad TC is stuck to the side of the basket, see attached photo.
> 
> John have you done any experiments with a TC stuck through a basket (SCACE like embedded in a coffee puck) and compared those to the readings from the above-shower probe?
> 
> T.


Why would it go above 80 since you're not measuring the water temperature?

Might as well stick it to the outside of the bottom of the basket if you want to get an idea about the temperature of the coffee.

+/- 1 degree Celsius stability isn't something amazing since LM or Dalla Corte are claiming less. And there are folks that swear they can taste the difference in an extraction at a degree level.

Even a lowly Lelit PL92T is pretty good:


----------



## dsc

BrooklynCawfee said:


> dsc said:
> 
> 
> 
> Can the drop in temp at the start not be mitigated by allowing hotter water into the basket? That is what I had in mind in my last post saying that the decision to start brewing was premature.
> 
> 
> 
> *
> I think you'd need to input bean temp and dose at that point, so that the machine would be able to calculate how much hotter the water should be to achieve quicker goal temps, otherwise any temp increase would be arbitrary. Maybe an equation could be added to anticipate an "average" dose (though from discussion in owners group folks are dosing 10g all the way to 24) of say maybe 18g @ normal indoor temp, and adjust the temp accordingly, but this wouldn't be perfect because it's be over on lower doses and still under on higher doses. â€‹*
> 
> As for basket temps, from what I've measured it sits at 60*C when idle, goes to around 75-80*C after flushing, but doesn't go above 80*C when brewing which is rather interesting. Pad TC is stuck to the side of the basket, see attached photo
> 
> *
> â€‹ Nice thermocouple hacking! I still think you're not going to get basket temps approaching the goal temps of the puck because of the insulation of the insulation the group gasket provides and the thermal mass difference between the coffee grounds and the metal of the basket.*
> 
> 
> 
> Most of the time puck temp will be at room temp, one can assume 15g as a starting point and experiment further.
> 
> Basket temps at idle won't get very high, but whilst brewing they should match what's inside the basket ie. Slurry temp. At least that was my assumption, but I guess it was wrong. I'll stick a TC in a basket and epoxy it in place for future testing.
> 
> T.
Click to expand...


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## BrooklynCawfee

dev said:


> Why would it go above 80 since you're not measuring the water temperature?
> 
> Might as well stick it to the outside of the bottom of the basket if you want to get an idea about the temperature of the coffee
> 
> *
> â€‹ I agree, maybe a probe on bottom of basket would give a better idea of whether the basket just isn't coming to the temp. I suppose I'd have to ask DSC why the fundamental mistrust of the temp probe just above the puck? Or just trying to verify the values it is reporting?*
> 
> +/- 1 degree Celsius stability isn't something amazing since LM or Dalla Corte are claiming less. And there are folks that swear they can taste the difference in an extraction at a degree level of +/- 1c
> 
> *
> â€‹ for an apples to apples correlation here you have to remember that LM and DC are measuring the stability of the water being delivered from the boiler, and have no way of measuring what is happening at the puck. If one switches to the water temp probe located in the main mixing manifold of a DE, ie the water being delivered as with LM and DC, you'll find temp stability around +/- .1c. What we're seeing in the temp line on the chart attached by DSC, however, is the temp of the water at the coffee puck, and how quickly it can stabilize to within 1c of the goal, which is a much more difficult goal. As John said, Synesso's own measurements taken in this area show that the DE is about 30% faster to goal, and more stable around once the goal is reached. *
> 
> 
> 
> *
> Does it matter? As you say, some folks **â€‹say**â€‹ that they can taste a 1c change. However, unless those same folks are acing double blinds to back those claims I think one has to assume it's subjective assessment, at best, and take it with a grain of salt. However, it is nice to remove another variable, of at least have definitive insight into the behavior of that variable, one of so many, but one that is particularly important to the brewing process, while trying to get the most out of a particular bean for a particular drink or preparation. *


----------



## decent_espresso

I reported previously https://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?30500-Decent-espresso&p=645907#post645907 that we were making prototypes of 3 different designs for countersinking our espresso machines.

Yesterday, the 3 samples arrived. Two of the designs are for countersinking our existing DE1+/DE1PRO models, and one is for a future (slightly longer) DE1XL model that looks like this:






1) Ben's straightforward rectangle design, where the cables and would go into a separate round hole

2) My more complicated design with a ben in the back, for the cables and tubes to thread through to

3) a longer, rectangular design, that can be used both for the DE1+/DE1PRO models (but with a gap), as well as for a longer "DE1XL" model we're working on (photos soon) that has a clean (no connectors) back-panel.

Fabrice is using a jigsaw to cut into various pallets, in order to test these out.

Our goal is have a 1 meter wide "table" that can fit on a pallet, and which has everything a cafe would need, preinstalled (espresso machine, pitcher rinser, knockbox, grinder, cups and accessories).

We'll use this "cafe on a pallet" ourselves at trade shows, and if we manage to refine it enough so it's "nice", we might offer it as a ready-made "cafe on a pallet"

As far as the countersunk brackets go, for using with the DE1+/DE1PRO, my preference so far is for my odd-shaped one, but I'm not yet sure how hard it will be for an installer to jigsaw the slightly odd shape.

Which one do you prefer?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

This video does a much better job of showing the 3 different countersink ideas:


----------



## RandomCrap

Many kitchen sinks have irregular outlines. They come with a full-size paper template that can be stuck to the counter material and used to create the holes using a router. My granite countertops were done that way with no problems; I would bet that any outline can be done if you supply a template.


----------



## dsc

BrooklynCawfee said:


> I suppose I'd have to ask DSC why the fundamental mistrust of the temp probe just above the puck? Or just trying to verify the values it is reporting?


I come from a control engineering background, so it's always interesting to measure more stuff







that plus the fact that I think the basket is a big heat dissipation source, so I'm expecting to see a difference between the top of the shower screen a the very bottom of the basket.

T.


----------



## o2c

decent_espresso said:


> This video does a much better job of showing the 3 different countersink ideas:


Unfortunately that video raises more pressing questions. Namely what did your landlord get you for Chinese New Year?


----------



## decent_espresso

o2c said:


> Unfortunately that video raises more pressing questions. Namely what did your landlord get you for Chinese New Year?


Fish flavored cookies. I kid you not. Anchovy, squid, scallop. And powdered lobster in a tin that you eat with a spoon.

I thought this might be a east vs west thing, but my Cantonese employees were confused too. :-D

Our landlord is lovely, a big fan of espresso, and bought one of our machines. Rent is a very fair £1.15 per sq foot/month and she helps us get temporary warehouse space when we get a big delivery (a container of suitcases, for instance)..

Just found it online:

https://blesscuit.com/en/product/glamour

GLAMOUR COOKIE GIFT BOX

Saint-Jacques Abalone Cookie x 7 pieces

Blue Lobster Cookie x 7 pieces

Foie Gras Paste Cookie x 7 pieces

Morel & Wild Mushrooms Cookie x 3 pieces

Squid Ink Paprika Cookie (3 pcs)

Truffle Cookie x 3 pieces

Coffee Cookie x 3 pieces

Anchovy Cookie x 3 pieces

Chocolate Cookie x 3 pieces

Total: 39 pieces


----------



## BarDar

OMG John

Now you'll have to send one of these cookie boxes with my machine. The least you can do is to add it to the site's shop


----------



## decent_espresso

I'm working with Scott Rao and Ray Heasman￼ on various approaches to give us longer periods of high temperature for people who want to make pour overs.

At the moment, the maximum flow rate that the Decent can sustain boiling temperatures is 4 mL per second. At 4.5 mL per second the machine starts to drop the temperature after three minutes.

Because our pumps can handle input water up to 65°C, I suggested to Scott that he try a 50°C water tank, with a pour over program that previously wasn't quite able to keep temperature up.

The results are encouraging.

We could conceivably have this as an option, with the DE1 warming your water tank to 50° (or 60°) when you powered up.

If you want to tinker with this idea, use a teakettle to warm the water tank water to 50°C.

*Note that this is not at all needed for the flow rates used for espresso. Only people doing pour overs on the Decent might want to tinker with this idea.*

￼

I haven't yet tested input water temperature at 60°C, which would be the highest I would be comfortable with operating our pumps out. The interesting thing about 60°C is that is the recommended safe water temperature for killing bacteria.

The pump's specifications indicate a maximum input water temperature of 65°C, so it should be okay.

I'll report back in a few weeks with what we find out.

-john

￼

￼


----------



## dsc

@decent_espresso John can you confirm what the UK price is for the DE+? Is it a simple $ to £ conversion or is there any additional charges due to tax etc.?

T.


----------



## Dylan

dsc said:


> @decent_espresso John can you confirm what the UK price is for the DE+? Is it a simple $ to £ conversion or is there any additional charges due to tax etc.?
> 
> T.


If you go to 'shopping' it takes you to the cart, change the currency to GBP then go back to the DE1+ product page and you'll have the UK price.

John - A 'currency' drop down on your site would make this a little more obvious as I think the question has cropped up a few times now.


----------



## decent_espresso

Juuuuust about finished. I intend to announce it next month.

This model is intended for coffee carts, cafes, designer kitchens: anywhere you would want cables and tubing to be hidden from sight.

Internally, this model is the same as the DE1PRO, except that:

- it has our Pro steam wand,

- totally different chassis (legs/cover/back/tablet stand)

- a countersunk bracket (optional).

Yes, your DE1+ and DE1PRO models can be retrofitted, if you buy all the changed parts.

This "DE1XL" model will cost about 20% more than the DE1PRO.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I was wondering if there was much interest out there in an all-white DE1XL ?

-john


----------



## jlarkin

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 38858
> 
> 
> I was wondering if there was much interest out there in an all-white DE1XL ?
> 
> -john


I think it looks very smart. Unfortunately

I run a small mobile coffee company for events and am trying to target weddings. I setup on tables, so that I can be inside or outside and the DE1+/XL would be very nice for this kind of stuff...

I'm probably quite far away from being able to purchase but would definitely consider white if it were available, when I was able to consider it.


----------



## decent_espresso

jlarkin said:


> II run a small mobile coffee company for events and am trying to target weddings.


Do you always set up on other people's tables, or would it be conceivable to bring your own table, on wheels?

I asked, because I'm currently prototyping a "coffee cart on a pallet". You just need to fill the water container, and plug it in. Here's a photo of it:









I found that cleaning the portafilter of bits of spent puck when you don't have a sink nearby is a real pain. We go through a lot of paper towels.

Today brought a little bit of progress on this, as I have bought a Sous Vide, connected to a Flojet, and connected that to the pitcher rinser.

I'm using the pitcher rinser to clean portafilters and so far it's working well.

The idea behind the sous vide is to preheat the pitcher rinser water to 60°C so that when you rinse the portafilter out you don't cool it off too much.

-john


----------



## jlarkin

decent_espresso said:


> Do you always set up on other people's tables, or would it be conceivable to bring your own table, on wheels?
> 
> I asked, because I'm currently prototyping a "coffee cart on a pallet". You just need to fill the water container, and plug it in. Here's a photo of it:
> 
> View attachment 38859
> 
> 
> I found that cleaning the portafilter of bits of spent puck when you don't have a sink nearby is a real pain. We go through a lot of paper towels.
> 
> Today brought a little bit of progress on this, as I have bought a Sous Vide, connected to a Flojet, and connected that to the pitcher rinser.
> 
> I'm using the pitcher rinser to clean portafilters and so far it's working well.
> 
> The idea behind the sous vide is to preheat the pitcher rinser water to 60°C so that when you rinse the portafilter out you don't cool it off too much.
> 
> -john


I bring my own table the majority of the time, because I have an old Fracino 2 group that's heavy. So setting on others tables was a pain and worrying when they start wobbling etc.

One on wheels would be good. I've seen a roastery near me that has a table with wheels and seemed to work well. Mine is a bit like a market table really but I hide it with a big coffee sack cloth.

Ha, the sous vide portafilter rinser sounds very innovative - which I should expect from you. I use one cloth more like microfiber for the portafilter wipe out and only use it for that.

I like the pallet idea, gives you a handy gap to feed pipes etc I guess as well


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> The idea behind the sous vide is to preheat the pitcher rinser water to 60°C so that when you rinse the portafilter out you don't cool it off too much.
> 
> -john


You can also cook yourself a nice steak whilst your at work. Win win.


----------



## mikefish

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 38858
> 
> 
> I was wondering if there was much interest out there in an all-white DE1XL ?
> 
> -john


Looks really, really sweet - I think it would do well in the consumer market as well.


----------



## gelious

Hi John,

Any intentions to consider Modbar-alike undercounter modular design? Txs.


----------



## decent_espresso

gelious said:


> Any intentions to consider Modbar-alike undercounter modular design? Txs.


The countersunk model (like the photo above) is already partially in the counter, but the short answer is no. Our machine is often smaller than people realize. I'll try to get a photo of it at MICE for you, with people around.

But from a reliability standpoint, I'm not heard good things about separating the machine's group far from the machine body. I'd prefer to keep everything together.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

gelious said:


> Any intentions to consider Modbar-alike undercounter modular design? Txs.


Here's a short clip from MICE, where you can see the relative size of the countersunk model.


----------



## Flatlander

decent_espresso said:


> I was wondering if there was much interest out there in an all-white DE1XL ?


I would *love* an all-white DE1+ (the base model so to speak)

Speaking of which, when will it be available again? Website says February, but February 29 will be a looong wait


----------



## mikefish

I'm not sure if you've considered this idea before: but would showerscreen/milk wand rags be a decent small merch product for you guys?


----------



## decent_espresso

mikefish said:


> I'm not sure if you've considered this idea before: but would showerscreen/milk wand rags be a decent small merch product for you guys?


I'm not a fan of making merchandize just to push our brand. Unless I can genuinely improve an object, I don't want to make it. I'm not seeing any major problems with the current cleaning rags out there.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Flatlander said:


> I would *love* an all-white DE1+ (the base model so to speak)


I don't have any plans at the moment to make an all-white DE1+. The all white option I'm considering is only for our more expensive upcoming DE1XL model. I'm having a white prototype made next week.

Speaking of which, here's a 300º video I took yesterday of that model:





[/QUOTE]

It's going to be March or April for the DE1+, maybe..... We will start making DE1+ models once the DE1PRO backlog is completely taken care of, and we have a bit of stock. So, DE1+ availability depends on how many DE1PRO orders keep coming in. Currently, at a rate of about 10/week, and we can make 20/week, so we're getting through the backlog.

Also, we'll soon be offering the DE1PRO without a refill kit, at a lower price than the current DE1PRO+refill kit combo.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Would you have any interest in a countersunk pitcher rinser?

I've sourced one I quite like, and with a "flojet" like device, use it to rinse my portafilter after each shot. It's hugely cut down my time to make each espresso, especially since our high-extraction Decent shots tend to create sloppy pucks. The pitcher rinser solves that.

At the MICE trade show, I used a sous vide heater to warm the pitcher rinser water to 60ºC, so that this technique didn't much cool down my portafilter.

Here's a view of the setup from MICE, alongside the new DE1XL model.

And regarding the DE1XL:

- it will be priced at USD$3999 (and other currencies)

- however, an upgrade kit will be available to all current DE1+/DE1PRO users, at the discounted price of $3999 minus "whatever you already paid" (ie, the price difference).

- You'll need 15 minutes, a Torx T10 and Phillips screwdriver, to do the conversion.

- Countersinking is optional.

- I'll start taking orders in a few weeks for the DE1XL. Not sure if it'll only be in black, or also possibly in white.

New leg design on DE1XL:￼









FYI: XL means "extra long"

Here is what it looks like NOT countersunk.









You can hide the cables/tubing without countersinking, if you have a small hole in countertop.￼￼


----------



## dsc

Why would you rinse the PF using a pitcher rinser and not the group? I personally can't see this being a practical solution for a cafe, especially considering that on any other machine you just use groups to rinse shower screens / baskets.

T.


----------



## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> Why would you rinse the PF using a pitcher rinser and not the group? I personally can't see this being a practical solution for a cafe, especially considering that on any other machine you just use groups to rinse shower screens / baskets.


First: many cafes already have a pitcher rinser.

Secondly: rinsing with the group is slooooow. A few seconds, usually. 1/2 a second on the pitcher rinser blasts it clean.


----------



## dsc

decent_espresso said:


> First: many cafes already have a pitcher rinser.
> 
> Secondly: rinsing with the group is slooooow. A few seconds, usually. 1/2 a second on the pitcher rinser blasts it clean.


They do but no one uses them for PFs as they use cold water, it's much easier to use the group which dispenses hot water and rinses the shower, basket, gasket etc. if you do the PF wiggle.

It's definitely slow on the DE, not on any other machine I've used in the past though. On the L1 for example it's a quick lever dip and all is clean.

T.


----------



## decent_espresso

dsc said:


> They do but no one uses them for PFs as they use cold water, it's much easier to use the group which dispenses hot water and rinses the shower, basket, gasket etc. if you do the PF wiggle.It's definitely slow on the DE, not on any other machine I've used in the past though. On the L1 for example it's a quick lever dip and all is clean.T.


The "purge group head" feature on the DE is one of the only things it's actually fast at, though the water debit is likely less than a commercial machine.

The point I was trying to make is that the pressurized shot of water from a pitcher rinser did a better job -- for me -- of cleaning the basket out, than rinsing does.

But I'm not in the pitcher rinser business, and you're absolutely free to disagree. I'm not trying to change your mind.









-john


----------



## decent_espresso

"Smart Espresso Profiler's" Gabor is also a film-maker (and a lever machine maker), and his "Roasted" movies are some of my favorite short films about coffee:


----------



## decent_espresso

I've been giving some thought about how God shots and profiles should be tied together. I frequently make several god shot references of the same profile, as I'm dialing-in the grind and dose on each one, each named like this:


Gentle and Sweet

Gentle and Sweet 2

Gentle and Sweet 3

Gentle and Sweet 4

etc&#8230;


What I'm thinking of doing, is making it so that if a God shot exists with exactly the same name as a profile, that when you load the profile, the corresponding god shot reference is automatically loaded.

The thinking behind this is:


the current three color line on the chart, shows what the machine will do (ie the profile)

the god shot reference shows what the puck should do


in an ideal world, they should be the same, we all know that the coffee puck calls the shots. 

The upside of my doing this feature is that the god shot reference would give you a real reference line to follow, in trying to dialing in this new profile you just loaded.

The downside is that you would have more lines on the page, and that can cause confusion. You need to be able to understand or ignore all those lines.

The eventual goal I have is to ship the decent espresso machine with god shot references for all of the factory included profiles. I think that would greatly assist people in changing the grind and dose as appropriate for each recipe.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this idea.&#8230;

- John


----------



## decent_espresso

Yesterday I enabled a new experimental feature in the Decent tablet software, showing you the change in flow rate. In other words, the Delta or the first derivative of the flow rate. At the moment, you need to be technical enough to edit the config text file, to enable this feature.

A new line, thin and blue, will now appear on the bottom of your chart.

If a channel opens up in your puck, and gets repaired, you should see this as a spike on this thin blue line.

This is a feature I had about two years ago in the software, but I disabled it because our flow measurements became too slow and smooth as part of Algorithmic changes, to notice fast changes in flow.

However, since Ray has revisited and completely reconceived how we measure flow, I believe the measurements are now fast and responsive enough to track flow changes meaningfully.

Note that this line does not appear:

- when flow changes are negative, such as when you transition from preinfusion to infusion and the puck is compressed.

- During preinfusion at all, since the puck is absorbing all water, flow changes would be meaningless.

- That's why in the chart above the line only starts at around 15 seconds.

- If this turns out to be a useful feature, I can certainly enable as a checkbox for people, so you don't have to be technical to turn it on.

-john


----------



## garyslaw

It's going to be March or April for the DE1+, maybe..... We will start making DE1+ models once the DE1PRO backlog is completely taken care of, and we have a bit of stock. So, DE1+ availability depends on how many DE1PRO orders keep coming in. Currently, at a rate of about 10/week, and we can make 20/week, so we're getting through the backlog.

Also, we'll soon be offering the DE1PRO without a refill kit, at a lower price than the current DE1PRO+refill kit combo.

-john

Since you said before that you don't want to have plus on back order anymore and actually have them ready to ship when order is placed. Since there is a huge backorder of pro versions (i dont understand as said there is 330 available on the website) and you are making new models and cafe and still pushing the tech. Then realistically the wait for actually buying a de1+ is more likely 6 months to a year? I feel we are getting pushed to buy the pro especially since you are saying you will sell without catering kit

I am just frustrated as i am dying on a decent coffee and i have checked the website multiple times per day, every day and it just seems like this model is not gonna happen anytime soon


----------



## decent_espresso

garyslaw said:


> Since you said before that you don't want to have plus on back order anymore and actually have them ready to ship when order is placed. Since there is a huge backorder of pro versions (i dont understand as said there is 330 available on the website) and you are making new models and cafe and still pushing the tech. Then realistically the wait for actually buying a de1+ is more likely 6 months to a year? I feel we are getting pushed to buy the pro especially since you are saying you will sell without catering kit
> 
> I am just frustrated as i am dying on a decent coffee and i have checked the website multiple times per day, every day and it just seems like this model is not gonna happen anytime soon


Unfortunately, we are a strange company that actually builds things ourselves, so we don't suddenly have 300 machines in stock arriving in a container from China.

We make 20 machines ourselves each week, and those go out to people who have paid.

When the website announced that we had 500 DE1PRO machines "available" this meant that we had purchased parts to be able to build 500 machines. We then went about building them, shipping them to people who had bought DE1PRO machines already. We have sold 170 DE1PRO machine so far, and shipped 140 of them. Thus, our backlog is only 30 machines and I expect that we will be having inventory of DE1PRO machines in about two weeks, so that people who order a DE1PRO get one right away.

Next week, I will be offering a lower cost DE1PRO (£2535 vs £2884 [vs £2185 for the DE1+] ), for those who do not need the refill kit. That it is basically a DE1+ but with improved internals, IMS filter screen, and a mirrored backsplash panel.

I will also be offering the DE1XL model at that time, but that's more expensive, so probably not interesting to you.

Depending on how successful (or not) this lower-priced DE1PRO model is, the DE1+ will go up for sale as soon as possible if we are keeping up with orders as they come in.

The good news is that once the DE1+ is available for buying on our website, it will ship immediately. You won't have to wait like everyone else has had to before you.

- John


----------



## garyslaw

Thanks. I replied properly on fb


----------



## ttttt91

Hi folks

just wanted to add my 2 cents regarding owning a DE1pro for 4 weeks now.

First thing first, the company as a whole is amazing to deal with. Just outstanding customer service in every respect!! (I work myself in this area and know how difficult this is).

Regarding the machine itself:

I am really not a very experienced barista and re-starting the hobby on a Silvia last year was a very interesting learning curve. The DE1 makes it SO MUCH MORE pleasurable and successful than working with the Silvia. Better, faster, easier. What should I say. Its a great product made by phenomenal people.

I can't compare to a E61 or so. But one thing I can say for sure. The heat-up time is so much shorter. So its very economical and still fast and easy to make a high-end espresso. Keeping a traditional machine running just to have one shot after dinner?? hmmm....

Yes, Im a fan boy now as the whole concept just delivered on the promises. And improvements are made as we speak as firmware and hardware gets constantly improved.

Go, get one









Best regards

Tom


----------



## jzexport

Hi, John,

I have a few questions about the DE1+ and your plans/vision. I fully understand that you must sell what you have today, not futures, and do not mean to create hesitation on potential customer plans.

Regarding the V1.3 grouphead. I believe it will be retrofittable on the V1.1 units currently being shipped. Correct?

I am most curious about manual control of the DE1+ while the shot is underway. In all that I have read, I am confused as to if and when this will be possible and how. Right now, I believe it is not possible. Correct? If not now, to you expect to implement that capability via the control software and/or the V1.3 grouphead? If via the V1.3 grouphead, do you invision flow control and/or pressure control?

Right now for my purchase decision I see a choice between manual control during the shot ala the Lelit Bianca or the flexibility and precision of the preprogrammed shot ala the DE1+. If the DE1+ were to offer manual control, it would offer the best of both worlds. That's not to say there are not many plusses as is.

Finally, does the DE1+ (not PRO) now allow for the plumbing kit connection?

Thanks.

Josh


----------



## decent_espresso

jzexport said:


> Regarding the V1.3 grouphead. I believe it will be retrofittable on the V1.1 units currently being shipped. Correct?


At the moment, I donÂ't yet know whether earlier machines will be upgradable to the group head controller or not. We're still working on it, and certainly we will try, but it might be that we have to make a modification to the current PC boards in the end.



jzexport said:


> I am most curious about manual control of the DE1+ while the shot is underway. In all that I have read, I am confused as to if and when this will be possible and how. Right now, I believe it is not possible. Correct? If not now, to you expect to implement that capability via the control software and/or the V1.3 grouphead? If via the V1.3 grouphead, do you invision flow control and/or pressure control?


Manual control of espresso is not currently possible. The way it will work once the group head controller is available is that you will see a green LED indicating the pressure, and a blue LED indicating the flow rate. The scale is 0->12, as in on a clock face.

You put your finger down within 1 cm of the blue or green LED, and the machine will automatically drop out of program mode and instead now move to either flow or pressure control, depending on where you put your finger. You will be able to tap or glide your finger to change flow or pressure in real time. The charts on screen will simply show what the new goals are based on what you are doing to the group head controller.



jzexport said:


> Right now for my purchase decision I see a choice between manual control during the shot ala the Lelit Bianca or the flexibility and precision of the preprogrammed shot ala the DE1+. If the DE1+ were to offer manual control, it would offer the best of both worlds. That's not to say there are not many plusses as is.


If you are trying to decide between manual and automatic control, I would recommend you wait for the group head controller in August. It will give you more real time control than the Bianca has, as well as all the automatic control currently available.



jzexport said:


> Finally, does the DE1+ (not PRO) now allow for the plumbing kit connection?


Yes, all our models have the expansion port on the back, which can connect to a catering kit or a plumbing kit. These can be purchased on our website, and you don't have to buy the full bundle.

I'm currently working on a simplified new presentation of all the options for our website, and I hope to be able to announce it toward the end of this week.

-john


----------



## jzexport

decent_espresso said:


> At the moment, I donÂ't yet know whether earlier machines will be upgradable to the group head controller or not. We're still working on it, and certainly we will try, but it might be that we have to make a modification to the current PC boards in the end.
> 
> Manual control of espresso is not currently possible. The way it will work once the group head controller is available is that you will see a green LED indicating the pressure, and a blue LED indicating the flow rate. The scale is 0->12, as in on a clock face.
> 
> You put your finger down within 1 cm of the blue or green LED, and the machine will automatically drop out of program mode and instead now move to either flow or pressure control, depending on where you put your finger. You will be able to tap or glide your finger to change flow or pressure in real time. The charts on screen will simply show what the new goals are based on what you are doing to the group head controller.
> 
> If you are trying to decide between manual and automatic control, I would recommend you wait for the group head controller in August. It will give you more real time control than the Bianca has, as well as all the automatic control currently available.
> 
> Yes, all our models have the expansion port on the back, which can connect to a catering kit or a plumbing kit. These can be purchased on our website, and you don't have to buy the full bundle.
> 
> I'm currently working on a simplified new presentation of all the options for our website, and I hope to be able to announce it toward the end of this week.
> 
> -john


Thanks, John, for your usual thorough answer.

I don't mean to drag you into selling futures. I know how important it is to sell what you have today.

Things have to be reasonably far down the path, if you are to deliver V1.3 in August. Do you know yet how responsive the manual controls will be, e.g., sub one second?


----------



## decent_espresso

jzexport said:


> Things have to be reasonably far down the path, if you are to deliver V1.3 in August.


Yes, we're reasonably certain will be able to offer a group head controller upgrade, but we will need to charge for it, it won't be free, as the parts are quite expensive. But I don't want to promise that we can do it, until I'm certain we can. The v1.1 Machines have the PCB changes that we believe we need for the group head controller to work. However, until we have all the work done, we don't yet know that we have forward upgrade compatibility as something we can offer.

Note that the group head controller is its own computer, with its own chip and operating system. There is a communications protocol between the mainboard and the controller. There are 12 circular mounted full-color LEDs that will have a "display language" so that animations can be created without placing CPU load on the main computer. There's quite a lot going on for us to do the group head controller in a way that we would be proud of.



jzexport said:


> Do you know yet how responsive the manual controls will be, e.g., sub one second?


I don't want to promise anything at the moment. Not until we have a fully working system.

But I would like to note that on home barista it has been noted that the Lelit Bianca, which is held up as the best current representation of real-time control, apparently has a two second latency, when making changes with the paddle. I believe we can at least match that, but naturally we will aim to do better.

However, if the Bianca has such a "high" latency, I suspect that there are difficulties in making low latency real-time espresso controllers, that we are not yet aware of. It would be foolish of me to say that we can do better than the Bianca until I'm certain we can.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We are prototyping various ideas for countersinking this new Decent espresso model.

This latest attempt has us cutting holes in a pallet and putting that on an IKEA table. The pallet on the ground is to raise the height to compensate for the additional table height of the pallet.

We now realize we'd rather put the grinder on the other end of the table, away from where people would approach from the right.

We're going to iterate a few times with a pallet before we cut into the nice bamboo surface. 

We're also working on a version of this where two DE1XL machines fit on one 1.2m long IKEA table, along with a grinder, knockbox, pitcher rinser.

Our goal is to have a handy coffee cart that we can wheel into a tradeshow, for a local roaster to pull shots at the show, demonstrating their coffee.

Here is yesterday's version of the countersunk bracket. This new version has the drip tray drain directly into a single hole so that the drip tray can be removed and cleaned without having to remove tubing.

In about 10 days we should have a new version of the bracket, as well as our first iteration of an all-white chassis.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Just got this photo a few minutes ago of the white DE1XL chassis being painted









I'm curious to see how close it ends up looking to the renders we did two years ago....


----------



## jzexport

decent_espresso said:


> Yes, we're reasonably certain will be able to offer a group head controller upgrade, but we will need to charge for it, it won't be free, as the parts are quite expensive. But I don't want to promise that we can do it, until I'm certain we can. The v1.1 Machines have the PCB changes that we believe we need for the group head controller to work. However, until we have all the work done, we don't yet know that we have forward upgrade compatibility as something we can offer.
> 
> Note that the group head controller is its own computer, with its own chip and operating system. There is a communications protocol between the mainboard and the controller. There are 12 circular mounted full-color LEDs that will have a "display language" so that animations can be created without placing CPU load on the main computer. There's quite a lot going on for us to do the group head controller in a way that we would be proud of.
> 
> I don't want to promise anything at the moment. Not until we have a fully working system.
> 
> But I would like to note that on home barista it has been noted that the Lelit Bianca, which is held up as the best current representation of real-time control, apparently has a two second latency, when making changes with the paddle. I believe we can at least match that, but naturally we will aim to do better.
> 
> However, if the Bianca has such a "high" latency, I suspect that there are difficulties in making low latency real-time espresso controllers, that we are not yet aware of. It would be foolish of me to say that we can do better than the Bianca until I'm certain we can.
> 
> -john


I've been assuming that the current operation is under feedback control for both pressure and flow profiling. Correct? If so, what are the feedback time constants?


----------



## decent_espresso

jzexport said:


> I've been assuming that the current operation is under feedback control for both pressure and flow profiling. Correct? If so, what are the feedback time constants?


You are absolutely correct, and currently the feedback loop is at 10,000hz (ie: extremely fast). That's how we are able to control the vibe pumps to "heal channels", typically well under one second. Each pump cycle is an individually controlled single AC pulse of electricity. Accurate water mixing really needs a very fast feedback loop. We've also used very thin tubing (1.2mm inside diameter) so as to minimize the amount of water inside the tubes, to decrease latency when making temperature changes.

As I wrote above, I expect that we will be able to have low latency, but seeing that the Bianca has a two second latency, I would prefer to be cautious and assume that there is something we don't know yet that caused their latency. Perhaps, because of our different approach, we won't have the same latency they have. For example, I believe the Bianca has a rotary pump, which is a much higher latency pump than the vibratory ones that we use.

So, while I can make predictions about the latency we expect during real-time control, I don't want to make promises until I know we can deliver.

And perhaps we will learn something in the coming months and find that low latency real-time espresso control is harder than we think.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Because the DE1XL (and upcoming DE1CAFE) hide the back power switch behind a magnetized plastic panel, we need to have a power cut off button accessible from the front.

In the photo, you can see Fabrice holding a chassis we modified yesterday to have this feature.

The way that electricity works on the Decent espresso machine is that mains power is converted to 24V, which first feeds our computer. Then, if the computer decides that the machine should be warmed, the 24V is fed to a relay which then engages mains power. This is how we are able to completely disable mains power when the machine is asleep, yet still maintain a Bluetooth connection and USB charging.

This new power button switch will sit between the computer and the relay, to definitively turn off mains electricity if you want to. 24V stays engaged, but all "hot operations" stop immediately. The switch is waterproof and features a colored LED, so you can also see if the machine is "warming or warm".

We will start to debut this switch as a modification to the DE1PRO machines that we send immediately to people who by the DE1XL. Their deeper chassis and countersunk bracket will be sent separately afterward.

My intention is for the v1.3 machines, which should start being produced in August, to all feature a front panel pushbutton switch.

-john


----------



## jlarkin

Do you have any plans for a Decent machine to be at the London Coffee Festival?


----------



## jzexport

decent_espresso said:


> You are absolutely correct, and currently the feedback loop is at 10,000hz (ie: extremely fast). That's how we are able to control the vibe pumps to "heal channels", typically well under one second. Each pump cycle is an individually controlled single AC pulse of electricity. Accurate water mixing really needs a very fast feedback loop. We've also used very thin tubing (1.2mm inside diameter) so as to minimize the amount of water inside the tubes, to decrease latency when making temperature changes.
> 
> As I wrote above, I expect that we will be able to have low latency, but seeing that the Bianca has a two second latency, I would prefer to be cautious and assume that there is something we don't know yet that caused their latency. Perhaps, because of our different approach, we won't have the same latency they have. For example, I believe the Bianca has a rotary pump, which is a much higher latency pump than the vibratory ones that we use.
> 
> So, while I can make predictions about the latency we expect during real-time control, I don't want to make promises until I know we can deliver.
> 
> And perhaps we will learn something in the coming months and find that low latency real-time espresso control is harder than we think.
> 
> -john


Of course, sampling time does not equal feedback cycle time. When you talk about healing channels, I've seen the graphs where this is shown. Don't know the time involved, but what matters I suppose is if overextraction affecting the taste is halted in time. I've read where some people are sceptical of this. I don't have any clue, but can believe from the graphs, that shots can be saved.

Why can't manual control be done via the existing software? There should be no need for the V1.3 group head.


----------



## decent_espresso

jlarkin said:


> Do you have any plans for a Decent machine to be at the London Coffee Festival?


Unfortunately not. I'll be in Berlin in early June for SCAE there. And then in London afterwards, and will likely do a demo or two in London, at cafes.

Next year we'll likely be at London Coffee Festival, as I'm hoping to have the factory in ship-shape and be able to let things run w/o me, so that Bugs and I can get out to customers more.



jzexport said:


> Why can't manual control be done via the existing software? There should be no need for the V1.3 group head.


It could, but tablet control would have more latency. Bluetooth 4.0 is a slow protocol (something like 12 bytes per message, 10 messages per second, is the max), and the bluetooth connection is already saturated getting real time chart data.

Also, we're moving toward all our machines being UL safety compliant, and the main reason we aren't now is that they do not allow "remote operation of dangerous operations". The testing lab changed their mind: previously they were ok with bluetooth, then they decided no.

In light of this, we're moving all control over hot water and steam to the group head controller, in order to be compliant with that rule. I think it's a good idea anyway, because hardware buttons can take more abuse than a tablet, are low latency, and the user's physical presence in front of the machine is guaranteed.

Also, then the tablet will be optional. A common worry I hear from café owners is that their baristas will play with the tablet app. Some cafe owners want to set the coffee programs with the tablet, and then lock the tablet away from their employees.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

jzexport said:


> Of course, sampling time does not equal feedback cycle time.


Agreed. We're rectifying the AC signal (which is either at 60hz or 50hz), and our pumps run on the rectified pulses that we control at the single-pulse level, so the fastest we can effect things is in 1/120th of a second.

-john


----------



## RandomCrap

decent_espresso said:


> We will start to debut this switch as a modification to the DE1PRO machines that we send immediately to people who by the DE1XL. Their deeper chassis and countersunk bracket will be sent separately afterward.


John, I don't quite follow this. If someone orders a DE1PRO today, will it come with that switch? The next batch of DE1+ machines, due Some Day, will have it, or not?

Also, you talk about the 1.3 machine beginning production in August. Is it safe to presume that there will be a new batch of DE1+ before then? Or, are we waiting for the 1.3 version before there will be any more DE1+ machines made?

Thanks,

- confused from espresso shortage


----------



## RandomCrap

While I'm bugging you, what you said last week implied that you were close to caught up on the backlog of DE1PRO orders. What's the projected lead time for a new order now?


----------



## decent_espresso

RandomCrap said:


> While I'm bugging you, what you said last week implied that you were close to caught up on the backlog of DE1PRO orders. What's the projected lead time for a new order now?


Was just about to announce this next week.

Hoooooopefully, new web site section for espresso machines, will come out in the next 24h.

and...

110V machines are in stock as of this yesterday

220V machines will be in stock as of ~Wednesday.

And by "in stock" I mean "ships within 24h", unless we get more than 20 orders in a week.

DE1PRO orders will get precedence, but if we're keeping on top of orders, then DE1+ orders will ship immediately too.

Either way, I think we'll be able to ship new orders within 10 days, even if we get slightly backed up.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Using a 130mm "drill bit"


----------



## Flatlander

Is it my memory that is fading, or the price tag on the DE1PRO? I seem to remember the difference between the Plus and Pro was ~ 800 euro and now it's 400? (maybe I should have hit "buy" first and asked later







)

Btw clicking on the image of the DE1PRO links to https://decentespresso.com/de1xl which does not exist.


----------



## cdnpaul

decent_espresso said:


> Their deeper chassis and countersunk bracket will be sent separately afterward.


John, I have a few XL questions:

Will the XL fit in the current suitcase? If not, what is the plan for those that order the XL as soon as it is available to order and are shipped the DE1PRO in the current suitcase?

Also, for those that order the white XL will you ship the black DE1PRO initially or will we have to wait until you get all the white pieces in stock?

Will there be a white ceramic drip tray included with the white XL?


----------



## jzexport

John,

Can you read the tea leaves and say anything about pricing on V1.3?


----------



## decent_espresso

We've now shipped machines to our entire backlog, and we have a small number of machines on-hand, which we can ship right away.

This also means that:

1) the lower cost DE1+ model is now once again available.

2) the DE1PRO is now available "a la carte" at a lower price, because you can now choose to not have it plumbed.

3) I'm hoping that we can keep up with orders, since we've been able to keep making 20 machines a week, for 9 weeks now. 9 months ago, we were only managing to make 6 machines per week.

The http://DecentEspresso.com web site has had a huge facelift.

I've written a "choose a model" wizard (photo attached) to help people answer a few questions to get a model recommendation. And about a half dozen new pages going into various decent topics.









For the past 4 years, the web site has been morphing into whatever we need at that moment. I hadn't made the time for a big rethink about how I present our espresso machine (and its variations) to people.

The decent web site sections covering our espresso machine has not been something I've been proud of, whereas the accessories pages were much better).

So: I'd love feedback on what I've done. Are you able to understand the Decent offerings better? Do you have questions you felt should have been answered? Is it still too confusing?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Flatlander said:


> Is it my memory that is fading, or the price tag on the DE1PRO? I seem to remember the difference between the Plus and Pro was ~ 800 euro and now it's 400? (maybe I should have hit "buy" first and asked later )


Hopefully this new page I put up today will do a good job answering the question:

https://decentespresso.com/model

If not, please let me know.



Flatlander said:


> Btw clicking on the image of the DE1PRO links to https://decentespresso.com/de1xl which does not exist.


The past three weeks have had me working on and off on the website, as I could steal time. Unfortunately a few pages went live before everything was finished. Sorry about the broken link.

Hopefully, you won't find any broken links now.



cdnpaul said:


> Will the XL fit in the current suitcase? If not, what is the plan for those that order the XL as soon as it is available to order and are shipped the DE1PRO in the current suitcase?


This new page that went up today answers that question:https://decentespresso.com/de1xl

Specifically:



> "If you order the DE1XL now, we will ship you a DE1PRO immediately. We will later send you the DE1XL conversion kit, along with the necessary tools. The conversion is quite easy, and will take about 30 minutes. You can also convert your DE1XL back into a DE1PRO, if you want to travel with it. We expect to ship the DE1XL conversion kit in May 2019. "





cdnpaul said:


> Also, for those that order the white XL will you ship the black DE1PRO initially or will we have to wait until you get all the white pieces in stock?


We will ship the black DE1PRO immediately, and in a few months all the white pieces will be shipped to you. The conversion takes about 30 minutes and will supply you with all the tools necessary. It's just screwdrivers and wrenches.



cdnpaul said:


> Will there be a white ceramic drip tray included with the white XL?


Not at the moment, no. Good question though. I would have to order 1000 of them, as that's the minimum order quantity from the ceramic company.

However, if I ever do get to a point where I can order white drip trays, and possibly even white water tanks, I'd be happy to replace those pieces for free for anyone who bought a white DE1XL.

As I think about it some more, there might be a possibility of my getting just a few hundred white ceramic pieces with the next ceramic order I do in August, since just the glazing would be different.



jzexport said:


> Can you read the tea leaves and say anything about pricing on V1.3?


If you're asking me to peer into the future and squint, I would guess that the group head controller is going to add about £300 to the sale price. That's based on what I know now.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I've put up for sale, the kit that will convert your DE1PRO/DE1+ into a DE1XL.

You can buy it here:

https://decentespresso.com/de1xl

It's available in black or white.

We're still finalizing everything on it, so if you order now, we'll ship it as soon as it arrives.

If you already own a DE1PRO or DE1+, you previously didn't have the option of buying this model. So: I will discount the conversion kit to be the difference in price between what you previously bought and the DE1XL. Contact me if you'd like that special price.

We're going to be including all the tools you'll need to do the conversion. We're finalizing the design for our own custom wrenches, to make swapping the steam wand easy, and we'll include the appropriate Torx T10 screwdrivers too.

The most recent revision has "locking screws" in the back of the countersunk bracket. That's so a cafe can choose to lock down their espresso machines to make them quite difficult to steal.

Note that you don't need to countersink the DE1XL. If you already have a small hole in your counter, you can table-mount the espresso machine and simply slide the tubes through your existing hole.

-john


----------



## Flatlander

Does the DE1 have a standby mode? Meaning main switch on, but not keeping things at temperature? And can the tablet wake the machine at a programmed time to heat up? Lastly, if it does all that, how much power does it draw in standby (trying to be balance eco-friendliness here with convenience







)

Btw John, I love what you did with the shopping cart; never seen one that forwards you to a bookmarkable url of the cart, very clever!


----------



## decent_espresso

Flatlander said:


> Does the DE1 have a standby mode? Meaning main switch on, but not keeping things at temperature?


Yes: when the power switch on the back is turned on, electricity is fed to the Meanwell 24V power supply, which keeps the onboard computer fed with electricity. That keeps the Bluetooth connection going too.

The onboard computer can choose to send 24V to a relay which then engages full mains power, heating and/or remaining at temperature.

When you press the "power" button on the tablet, this turns off mains power and a screensaver is displayed on the tablet. When you tap the tablet screen, it comes out of sleep, and engages mains power on the espresso machine. It then warms up and stays warm until you tap the tablet's power button or the scheduler tells the machine to go to sleep.











Flatlander said:


> And can the tablet wake the machine at a programmed time to heat up?


Yes, there is a scheduler for turning the machine on and off, here's a screen picture









Note that there is also a timed screensaver which will put the machine to sleep if you haven't used it, again activating the screensaver.











Flatlander said:


> Lastly, if it does all that, how much power does it draw in standby (trying to be balance eco-friendliness here with convenience )


It consumes about 0.3 A in this standby mode, I believe that's what our customers measured the consumption at independently.



Flatlander said:


> Btw John, I love what you did with the shopping cart; never seen one that forwards you to a bookmarkable url of the cart, very clever!


Thanks: I really like all the intelligence of a page being in the URL, and short enough that it can be pasted in an email without wrapping.

If you're interested in the gory details, the numbers on the URLs are pairs, which indicate:

1) the significant digits of a part number (removing the preceding zeros)

2) the quantity

ie this:

https://decentespresso.com/c?s=20+2+106+1

Becomes this:


----------



## decent_espresso

We couldn't make our mind up between two different shades of white, for the upcoming DE1XL model, so I had one sample of each made. The whiter one is also a tad glossier.

What are your thoughts?

-john


----------



## RandomCrap

The glossier, brighter one is better, I think.


----------



## ashcroc

RandomCrap said:


> The glossier, brighter one is better, I think.


I agree. If you're gonna go white, you may as well go the whitest white you can white. The other one looks a touch dirty in comparison.


----------



## Saltydog

Gloss White definitely has the edge looks more quality


----------



## Flatlander

It's always difficult to judge colours on a computer screen but the one on the left appears grayish; I would vote for the one on the right. The XL won't fit on my table top, but maybe you'll offer white panels for the regular size in the future?



decent_espresso said:


> It consumes about 0.3 A in this standby mode, I believe that's what our customers measured the consumption at independently.


Is that 0.3A at 24V (7W, highish but acceptable) or measured at the outlet at 230V? The latter would defeat the purpose as this means (with 24x365 standby) a consumption of ~ 600Kwh or 120 euro / year. To put that in perspective: that's more than 25% of my current yearly electricity bill, and equals roughly 4kg of single-origin beans









I already "reverse engineered" the URL of the shopping cart


----------



## Carman

I prefer the white over the gray-ish


----------



## decent_espresso

Flatlander said:


> Is that 0.3A at 24V (7W, highish but acceptable) or measured at the outlet at 230V? The latter would defeat the purpose as this means (with 24x365 standby) a consumption of ~ 600Kwh or 120 euro / year. To put that in perspective: that's more than 25% of my current yearly electricity bill, and equals roughly 4kg of single-origin beans


It's 0.3A at 110V, not sure at 220V. EU regs require less than 0.5A to qualify as "low power mode".

Bear in mind that the Android tablet is also being charged during this time.

But, if this is too much power usage for you, put it on your own timed-power-switch, and set up your own Android charging solution.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

It's hard for me to change everything on the machine to white, all at the same time, with the low quantity of machines that we are planning.

Thus, for now, the group head handle and the portafilter handle and the tablet and the power cable will all still be black. As I reorder and change suppliers, if I am later able to get white versions I will upgrade white DE1XL customers to those whitened components over for free.

A few minutes ago, we just ordered a sample of white silicone outer tubing for the steam wand. We'll see how it looks.

Here's a render of the current "whiteness" of the machine.

ps: thanks everyone for your feedback. We're going the the "whiter white" color, that was on the right.

-john


----------



## RandomCrap

John, if I understand the site now, the increments are, DE1+ is $2499 (US). Adding $400 gets you the DE1PRO with upgraded components, but no fill capacity. Another $400 gets you the ability to fill from water under pressure or in a container. Yes? Will there be an option at some point to just add the fill kit to a DE1+?


----------



## decent_espresso

RandomCrap said:


> John, if I understand the site now, the increments are, DE1+ is $2499 (US). Adding $400 gets you the DE1PRO with upgraded components, but no fill capacity. Another $400 gets you the ability to fill from water under pressure or in a container.


100% correct.

Small addition: a plumbed in drip tray is also included with that last option.



RandomCrap said:


> Yes? Will there be an option at some point to just add the fill kit to a DE1+?


Yes: you can buy each component of the refill kit separately, at any time. They work with all our machines, but it's more expensive than buying a bundle.

More info here:

https://decentespresso.com/refill

-john


----------



## bachamp

Flatlander said:


> Is that 0.3A at 24V (7W, highish but acceptable) or measured at the outlet at 230V? The latter would defeat the purpose as this means (with 24x365 standby) a consumption of ~ 600Kwh or 120 euro / year. To put that in perspective: that's more than 25% of my current yearly electricity bill


7W is 60.8Kwh per year so not as bad as your calculations.


----------



## Flatlander

0.3A at 230V would yield 600Kwh / year. But as John replied, actual "standby" power is 0.3A at 110V -> 33W or 289Kwh / year. So using an external timer seems prudent (assuming you want an automatic start at a scheduled time).


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent Engineer Ben Champion used sandpaper to remove the black paint on our handles. This revealed the quite beautiful bubinga wood underneath. He oiled the wood, and here's the result.

Might look very nice on the white DE1XL, but it doesn't look bad on the black chassis either.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I've been working closely with Lisbon, Portugal based designer João Tomaz on every product Decent do.

That's why we have such a strongly consistent design aesthetic, which comes out of the tradition of European Modernism (hello Bauhaus!).

In this video, Joao shows a bit of his drawing and design skills.

As our products are now designed, optimized, and shipping, Joao is now part-time with us, as I don't have enough work to keep his fertile mind fully occupied. If you need a bit of design help on your project, you couldn't do better than Joao.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

During quiet periods, Ben Champion took a few photos at the MICE 2019 coffee trade show in Melbourne, Australia.

It's funny: everything looks so calm and quiet in those photos. That was actually true: when Ben could find a pause to take his camera out, things were quiet. Mostly, all 3 Decent locations at MICE were steadily busy. Ben spent all 3 days answering Decent questions at the Zest Specialty Coffee Roasters stand.

A big thank you to Luca, who isn't a Decent Employee, for helping out on our stand at Veneziano Coffee Roasters. He wanted to get some quality time with the machine to learn about it, taste Scott Rao's roasts, try his hand with our upcoming pour-over basket, and attend Rao's roasting master class.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I have put the order in with our wood handle supplier, to make a small quantity (250 each) of the portafilter and group head handles, in natural wood finish. The wood used is ash.

It will take approximately 60 days for these to arrive, but they should look very similar to what Ben made by sanding the paint off and oiling the wood himself.

If you'd like to order them, you can do so on this new "accessories" page and we will send them out to you when they come in stock.

https://decentespresso.com/accessories

These natural wood handles will be standard on the white DE1XL. But anyone can buy them for their machine, if they prefer this look.

This is not meant to take away from the very creative work that some decent owners are doing in creating custom wood handles. Some photos attached.


----------



## icarlson1234

Any idea if a paddle actuator is still in the works? Could it make it onto v1.3?


----------



## decent_espresso

icarlson1234 said:


> Any idea if a paddle actuator is still in the works? Could it make it onto v1.3?


v1.3 Will have a touchpad, which functions a bit like the original iPod (tap, and optionally change with circular motion).

It will display pressure and flow as green and blue LEDs, in real time. It will allow you to take over the espresso shot and control either pressure or flow in real time by gliding your finger along the touchpad.

I'm sure that someone could add a physical paddle on top of that, which touches the touchpad for you (as a 3D printed accessory, maybe), but that will not be part of our design.

We did quite a lot of studies of the paddle idea, and could not make it work. I really like that one controller can now take over pressure *or* flow, something which no other machine can do. We couldn't make a paddle do that. A paddle also interfered with the real-time display of flow/pressure, that we had in mind.

Here's what it will look like:


----------



## icarlson1234

decent_espresso said:


> v1.3 Will have a touchpad, which functions a bit like the original iPod (tap, and optionally change with circular motion).
> 
> It will display pressure and flow as green and blue LEDs, in real time. It will allow you to take over the espresso shot and control either pressure or flow in real time by gliding your finger along the touchpad.
> 
> I'm sure that someone could add a physical paddle on top of that, which touches the touchpad for you (as a 3D printed accessory, maybe), but that will not be part of our design.
> 
> We did quite a lot of studies of the paddle idea, and could not make it work. I really like that one controller can now take over pressure *or* flow, something which no other machine can do. We couldn't make a paddle do that. A paddle also interfered with the real-time display of flow/pressure, that we had in mind.
> 
> Here's what it will look like:
> 
> View attachment 39576


Much appreciated, thanks for the info! From what I've read previously, I believe v1.3 was anticipated for an August release. Is that still the general timeframe? I realize you do need to sell the current model, just curious since i'm saving up and not ready to purchase right away.


----------



## decent_espresso

icarlson1234 said:


> Much appreciated, thanks for the info! From what I've read previously, I believe v1.3 was anticipated for an August release. Is that still the general timeframe? I realize you do need to sell the current model, just curious since i'm saving up and not ready to purchase right away.


Yes, we're on track for that. Here's the maths.

At 20 machines/week, that's 80 a month, ie 6 months = ~500 machines. We've made 200 already, of this batch of 700.

So... in September, we will run out of the v1.1 product line. Give ourselves 1 month's latitude (and also assume that some of our 700 parts will have a % defect rate) that means.... August.

We're currently preparing to order the v1.3 parts, by the end of April. That gives us 4 months for all the parts to arrive. Vendors *claim* 2 months, but our experience is that 4 months is the reality.

In the next few weeks we'll have a "working prototype" of the group head controller. We soldered together "alpha v2" pcb last week, and at least one more revision is anticipated.

A slight price increase going to v1.3 is also anticipated.

-john


----------



## roastini

Flatlander said:


> 0.3A at 230V would yield 600Kwh / year. But as John replied, actual "standby" power is 0.3A at 110V -> 33W or 289Kwh / year. So using an external timer seems prudent (assuming you want an automatic start at a scheduled time).


But John is misremembering, or is using a different definition of "standby" than you probably intend. When the machine is "asleep" - screen off, heaters off - it draws about 4-5 watts (not amps).


----------



## Flatlander

We'll see, my DE1 is scheduled to ship next week


----------



## decent_espresso

roastini said:


> But John is misremembering, or is using a different definition of "standby" than you probably intend. When the machine is "asleep" - screen off, heaters off - it draws about 4-5 watts (not amps).


Yes, I might be misremembering. There was a thread on decent diaspora where a few people had devices for measuring actual power consumption, as opposed to what we as the engineers think is supposed to happen, in theory. However, there's so much activity on decent diaspora, that my searching for it didn't bring the thread up, so I can't quote the numbers that they gave.

So @Flatlander if you're able to measure actual current draw, please do post what you find.

Also, I should note that our idle current draw dropped quite a bit after a big firmware change this past autumn. The big change was that we now cut AC power off completely when the machine is idle, using a relay. Previously, some of the valves stayed engaged even during idle, and possibly a few other things that we had forgotten about. It's surprising how much those things can consume. Better to simply turn the "lights off" mains switch off, which is what we now do, except for the 24V power supply feeding the 24V on board computer and bluetooth.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I just received this photo of the varnished ash that my woodturning company will be using for the natural-wood handles I've asked them to make (for the portafilter and group head). They're posting me this sample for approval.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

As the DE1XL has a screwed-down tablet stand, it occured to me recently that I could replace the screws with 40mm standoffs, and then use a stainless steel bent wire to hold the cups in place.

Two years ago, Joao and I made some studies of this idea, but at the time we didn't see how to attach the wires securely, so I didn't make progress on the idea.

Here is my favorite wire design looked like:

﻿









﻿

Here is a rough prototype of the idea, obviously with not the "real" wire shape we'd use. Also, we'd change the standoffs to be round (not hexagonal) and probably chromed.

[video=youtube;YOhXGp-loIY]






It's likely that the wire would bounce a bit as you touched it, but in my quick tests, it came back to rest in its correct location, so this idea might be ok.

One (whoops!) thing I noticed is that our screws are in a triangle pattern which puts the standoffs further away from the tablet. So, we're going to rotate 180º the 3-hole-pattern of the screws, so that two of the standoffs are directly behind the tablet. That will give us more cup space.

﻿









﻿

I'm able to place 4 of the SCA-official specs loveramics latte glasses https://www.loveramics.com/products/egg-200ml-cappuccino-cup-saucer onto the top. Stacking, I could likely get 8 total. More would be risky.

﻿









-john

﻿


----------



## woodhouse

decent_espresso said:


> v1.3 Will have a touchpad, which functions a bit like the original iPod (tap, and optionally change with circular motion).


that is so cool. i was wondering how you were going to incorporate physical buttons and a paddle. expectations exceeded.

are there any anticipated delays with the UL certification? or is this touchpad the last thing that needs to be certified? or have i missed the mark? i vaguely remember a few posts saying that UL were happy with it but demanded physical buttons to control the business functions.


----------



## decent_espresso

woodhouse said:


> are there any anticipated delays with the UL certification? or is this touchpad the last thing that needs to be certified? or have i missed the mark? i vaguely remember a few posts saying that UL were happy with it but demanded physical buttons to control the business functions.


Always expect delays when it comes to certification.

They might decide that our approach to buttons doesn't pass rule 1450, S43a.2.1 (I made that up). You do your best, you pay for their advice ahead of time, and then you hope that the "independent examiner" agrees with the consultants from the same company.

We're going to make v1.3 whether or not Intertek certifies it by August. With a 4 month lead time for parts, we have no choice. We'll be giving Intertek two v1.3 samples in May, and hopefully by August, when we start making this model, we'll have their blessing. Or, changes to make.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

At https://decentespresso.com/queue you can now see a real-time list of our espresso machine order backlog.

"How long would I have to wait if I ordered now?" is now estimated live.

And.... if you have ordered a machine from us, a







smiley face appears next to your position in the queue.

You can reach this "queue" page from the DE1 Overview page https://decentespresso.com/overview

Until today, we've been managing our order queue by hand. I've also made an internal-use version of this report so that we now automate how we handle the backlog.

And.... this means no more queue jumping! Sorry!

-john


----------



## Flatlander

I like the queue page! Suggestion: ad a "last updated on <date>" line at the top, and maybe something along the line of "Normally we finish 20 machines a week".</date>


----------



## decent_espresso

*John﻿ Weiss' review has now been fully published on Home Barista:*

https://www.home-barista.com/reviews/decent-espresso-de1-review-t57610.html

As it's an official review, read and vetted by Dan and the admins, it's now on the home page. Given the speed at which HB does these big reviews. I'm hoping that the review will stay on the HB home page for at least a year before being bumped off.

Public discussion of the review are kept separate, on a different thread on The Bench, here: https://www.home-barista.com/reviews/comments-on-decent-espresso-de1-review-t57611.html

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Here is a short movie showing the current White DE1XL prototype.






Still to do:

- Ashwood handles for both portafilter and group head

- Opaque white back panel (should not see through at all)

- White/silver Android tablet

The handles and back panel should arrive in the next few weeks. For now, the drip tray water tank is going to stay black. In August, we'll have some white versions of those made, as part of the v1.3 ceramics order. I'll swap White DE1XL customers out for free at that point.

Our tablet manufacturer can offer us a white/brushed cover, that we'll receive in August as part of the v1.3 tablet order as well. I'll swap White XL customers out with that too if I decide this looks better.









Do you guys see anything else that needs doing? Maybe a white USB cable?


----------



## o2c

The white tablet is a must I think. Do you have a cheap White TPU case you might be able to throw on the tablet to see?

The USB cable is what jumped out at me. Maybe white steam wand protector? Though if both stayed black it might work. I don't know if the opaque / non-translucent back is a must.


----------



## ronsil

I am wondering if there is any way of linking an Acaia Lunar Scale into the DE1+ system?

Or maybe this is something planned for the future


----------



## decent_espresso

ronsil said:


> I am wondering if there is any way of linking an Acaia Lunar Scale into the DE1+ system?
> 
> Or maybe this is something planned for the future


No, never. They previously destroyed a product I'd developed (weighed grinding for Mazzer grinders) when they changed from open to closed.

They only have a somewhat open API on iPhone and nothing at all open on Android.

We will be selling our own scale shortly, and continuing to support Atomax's Skale. Both will continue to be open.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*500th Decent Espresso Machine Shipped!*

Thanks to Darin Epstein, visiting from Minneapolis, for bringing us a 500th-anniversary cake.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Two prototypes (beta 2) arrived yesterday. These thankfully fix all the physical problems I had with beta 1. And, there's mostly-working BLE on these (and some bugs).

One thing we learned is that if you tightly wrap a scale in bubble wrap and then masking tape, that you'll decalibrate the load cell from that insistent pressure on it.

So, I learned how to calibrate the scale, and made a video showing how it's done.






At the moment, all the problems I see are firmware based.

For instance, if you drop a object (a binder clip, in my case) on the scale, the Decent Scale firmware is currently too fast at deciding on the "final" weight, and the object is still causing vibrations on the platform. This speediness makes the "final" weight fluctuate a bit (by about 1/2 a gram). The brewista scale I'm comparing it to waits about a 1/2 of second longer for the weight to settle before deciding on the final weight, and gives the same weight every time.

We're going to work on the boxing/packaging next. Not from a marketing perspective, but from a "protect the scale and its calibration" perspective, and how to do so with the least material waste possible. It'll likely all be cleverly folded cardboard.


----------



## decent_espresso

I did a bit of Photoshopping with our "diner" tablet app skin, to turn it into a wrapper for our little IKEA conversion project. Each foam board is held in place with 4 magnets.

This idea provides a bit of advertising for who-ever might have this stand out, and also hides the tubing and clean/dirty water tanks.

You might also notice our tinkering with a back-illuminated panel for the DE1XL.

There's an ultra-bright LED in there, under software control (BLINK BLINK BLINK YOU WILL BUY COFFEE) for a "Manchurian Candidate" effect.

I don't like how the mounting features on the back panel are visible, though, so this idea still needs more work. My goal is for customers to be able to specify their own back-lit logo for their white DE1XL.

Another improvement to make would be for the front-facing foam board to be a little wider so that it covers up the white edges of the side panels. Also, thinner magnets would help the side panels sit under the bamboo ledge, instead of protruding slightly.

What do you think of the menu I made: espresso, latte, tea&#8230;. advice. :-D

-john


----------



## Saltydog

The Menu looks delicious I'll have everything please


----------



## decent_espresso

A bit over two years ago, I took the plunge and ordered 550 suitcases to use in shipping our espresso machines. A year later we finally started shipping, and now, we've finally used up all those suitcases.

So, it's time to order another 500 suitcases. And since I'm at it, I want to make some improvements.

I've written here about how our v1.0 espresso machines sometimes were damaged in shipping. A common problem was the shipper dropping the box on its corner. You can see that in one of the photos. In the new suitcase revision, we've added 1cm to each side so we can slide in a shock absorbing styrofoam corner.

Inside the suitcase, we've installed a zipper in the fabric. And behind that, a large and thick sheet of styrofoam (same stuff as in bicycle helmets) is put in with double sided tape.

I'm pretty sure that one flaw with the v1.0 suitcases was that the extensible handle could transmit impacts (since it's metal) directly to the espresso machine. Now, we have foam that is thicker and higher than the handles, to keep that from happening.

The 4 wheels were also a problem with the old design, as they caught corner-impacts and transferred the shock to the machine. We've now made styrofoam "socks" that fit over each wheel and then nestle into each corner, to try to avoid that.

Where-ever possible, I've replaced everything with black, black black, and no more silver fabric. I couldn't convince the manufacturer of the telescoping handle to make the telescoping part in black (it's still silver) but on my next order, I'm pretty sure I can wear their resistance down and get everything in black. <grin></grin>

These slightly improved suitcases will arrive here at our factory in about 10 days, and there'll be a brief couple-of-days pause in shipping as we finish the last 25 v1.0 suitcases we still have here and await their replacements.

-john


----------



## Saltydog

I like your attention to detail









Inspires confidence.


----------



## ronsil

Perfect arrival within two days.

Many thanks to you & your team.


----------



## decent_espresso

Bugs and I are going to be in London for about 6 weeks, from May 20th to July 10th. Are any CFUK events occurring during that time, or that might occur? I'd be up for hoping on a train to meet some of you, and pull shots until we feel weak-kneed.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

In February, for the first time ever, we had espresso machines stolen during shipment. All with UPS: two in the USA, one in Canada.

In the end, UPS paid us back for what we'd insured the machines at (USD$100) and even reimbursed the shipping after some more nudging. The loss rate would have to exceed 1 in 15 shipments, for it to be worth insuring at full value, which is why we only insure at $100.

Our shipper advised us to not put "espresso" on our boxes.

They said that thieves could easily "google us" and see that it's a high-value item. I'm dubious of that logic. We're required to include an invoice with each shipment, stating its value, and that's included in the little plastic pouch with each box. I think it's easier for a thief to look at the invoice in the pouch than it is to google us.

But, no matter.... our new boxes now just say DECENT on them. "Espresso" has been banished. Sigh.

Next, we have been putting stickers on all our espresso machines, indicating "this side up" and "fragile". Those icons are now pre-printed on the box as well.

However, given this photo I was just sent of the boxes being loaded up in our container, I'm not sure "this side up" is going to have any effect whatsoever. <grin> Not a single box in this photo is right-side-up. Now, they're just empty suitcases, so maybe this guy doing the loading knows that the direction doesn't matter at the moment.</grin>

We're down to just 8 suitcases here, so I'm happy to see the truck being loaded up with replacements.

-john


----------



## Bolta

Sorry to hear that John.


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> In February, for th first time ever, we had espresso machines stolen during shipment. All with UPS: two in the USA, one in Canada.


What about "targeted" bricking the stolen machines with a firmware update?

(This assumes you know the MAC / BT identifiers of these machines).

Also an idea: Require that a machine is initially unlocked. Original purchaser just gets a code via e-mail.


----------



## Carman

/\ /\ Great idea!


----------



## Lefteye

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 39706
> 
> 
> Looking at the light up back I think it could look more professional if you could make the panel fully opaque but have the decent illuminated. This would really stand out.


----------



## decent_espresso

Lefteye said:


> decent_espresso said:
> 
> 
> 
> Looking at the light up back I think it could look more professional if you could make the panel fully opaque but have the decent illuminated. This would really stand out.
> 
> 
> 
> Totally agree, and that's a planned project for the future. That was the reason for the ultrabright LED being added into the v1.1 machine design.
> 
> For now, we'll move to opaque white, until someday when we have the time to play around with Light Pipes.
Click to expand...


----------



## decent_espresso

Just got the Clutchit from Amazon and tried it out today on our espresso machine case, instead of the Steelie Stand we usually use.

It's USD$25 at Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/ClutchIt-Original-Magnetic-Movable-Holder/dp/B06XSY13CC

It's a drop in replacement for our Steelie stand. Even uses the same 3M backed steel plates.

It does manage to hold the tablet up in mid-air, but the magnetic link is not that strong. If you glue the 3M metal pad on the top of the DE1, it works perfectly, but then it's ugly.

There are small neatness issues with their approach, namely that the magnets and metal plates don't line up perfectly unless you really fuss at it.

On the other hand, it's nice to have the tablet angle be adjustable.

-john


----------



## ronsil

In the midst of all the wonderful coffee 'pros' I'm currently enjoying from my DE1+ I've found a couple of 'cons'.

1 - The water level indicator seems completely inaccurate, have to keep checking manually. I think its being well discussed on the DE Forum but that area is far too 'geeky' for me.

2 - I purchased the Skale v2 as my Acaia Lunar would not be recognised by the DE. The Skale is nowhere the quality of the Lunar. Currently it needs calibrating (indicating 1.02 grams out using my certified 500 gram weight). Cannot see anywhere how to calibrate it. Checked their website & that says nothing about calibration..

Yes it is recognised by the DE & I was hoping to be able to terminate a profile at a certain weight so unless it can do that it'll be a waste of money for me.

Just two little niggles that in no way spoils the enjoyment of the output.


----------



## coffeechap

ronsil said:


> In the midst of all the wonderful coffee 'pros' I'm currently enjoying from my DE1+ I've found a couple of 'cons'.
> 
> 1 - The water level indicator seems completely inaccurate, have to keep checking manually. I think its being well discussed on the DE Forum but that area is far too 'geeky' for me.
> 
> 2 - I purchased the Skale v2 as my Acaia Lunar would not be recognised by the DE. The Skale is nowhere the quality of the Lunar. Currently it needs calibrating (indicating 1.02 grams out using my certified 500 gram weight). Cannot see anywhere how to calibrate it. Checked their website & that says nothing about calibration..
> 
> Yes it is recognised by the DE & I was hoping to be able to terminate a profile at a certain weight so unless it can do that it'll be a waste of money for me.
> 
> Just two little niggles that in no way spoils the enjoyment of the output.


Nice to see honest thoughts


----------



## decent_espresso

ronsil said:


> 1 - The water level indicator seems completely inaccurate, have to keep checking manually. I think its being well discussed on the DE Forum but that area is far too 'geeky' for me.


I'm not really sure what you mean by "inaccurate", so I haven't been able to help you. I believe I've asked you for a video to explain what inaccurate means to you (perhaps showing the water level sensor behaving oddly?), as I don't yet have enough information from you to try to help.



ronsil said:


> 2 - I purchased the Skale v2 as my Acaia Lunar would not be recognised by the DE. The Skale is nowhere the quality of the Lunar. Currently it needs calibrating (indicating 1.02 grams out using my certified 500 gram weight). Cannot see anywhere how to calibrate it. Checked their website & that says nothing about calibration..
> 
> I replied to you about this in tech support, and I indicated that a 1.02 gram error over 500g represents a 0.2% error, which is teeny tiny. For a 30g coffee, this represents a .06g error.
> 
> Moreover, we don't make the Skale, and I don't know of any way to recalibrate it. The Acaia is also 2.6x more expensive than the Skale (USD$99 vs USD$260), so I think it's reasonable that it not be as nicely built at such a lower price.
> 
> 
> 
> ronsil said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes it is recognised by the DE & I was hoping to be able to terminate a profile at a certain weight so unless it can do that it'll be a waste of money for me..
> 
> 
> 
> You haven't yet given me a chance to try to help you via private tech support, and I asked you there to please provide more information. It could be your grind, your profile settings, the timers, lots of things would cause you to not get your desired shot weight.
> 
> At any rate, you can set the desired stop weight, here:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> but if (for instance) your grind is too fine, or your total shot time not enough, then you won't get the shot weight you desired.
> 
> -john
Click to expand...


----------



## ronsil

Thank you John - yes I got your reply in 'tech support'. Thank you for showing me the stop at weight marker.

The App indicates 'Water empty' when in fact it is half full. I have the water indicator set to:

Refill at : 70 ml (3mm) Now: 537 ml (20mm).

The screen indicating water required comes up from time to time when there is well over 70 mls in the container.

I'll keep my general queries to DE tech support.

However our Members on here are keen to know how I, a very non-tech person, am finding the DE1+ in daily use.

Up to now its brilliant & IMO well worth the money.


----------



## decent_espresso

ronsil said:


> The App indicates 'Water empty' when in fact it is half full. I have the water indicator set to:
> 
> Refill at : 70 ml (3mm) Now: 537 ml (20mm). The screen indicating water required comes up from time to time when there is well over 70 mls in the container.


Ok I understand now.









The machine is extremely pessimistic about how much water you might need, and absolutely never, ever wants you to run out of water when you're making a drink. Cuz that's sad.

So... we estimate how much water you might need to make a drink, and we ask you to refill sooner than you might think you need to. My GS/3 doesn't do this, and I found it very annoying to have to fill water up when I was in the middle of making a drink.

Also, as the water level gets low, turbulence around the uptake impedes pump suction, which then causes the pumps to drive less water than predicted, which makes the flow estimate calculations false, and which makes bad coffee.

So.... that's why we tell you "out of water" earlier than you'd like.



ronsil said:


> However our Members on here are keen to know how I, a very non-tech person, am finding the DE1+ in daily use.
> 
> Up to now its brilliant & IMO well worth the money.


Yeah, absolutely, that's a useful conversation to have.

Just FYI, there's always the "throw money at it" solution, which is to buy our catering kit, which will auto-refill your tank for you.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I've been working with my designer João Tomaz on a (hopefully) elegant (and optional) cup-holding wire for the DE1XL model. Here are yesterday's renders: I think we're making progress.

-john


----------



## MetaCoffee

My first post on the forum. My first question: any chance of making the white chassis available for the D1+?


----------



## decent_espresso

MetaCoffee said:


> My first post on the forum. My first question: any chance of making the white chassis available for the D1+?


Sorry, no. Only the DE1XL is in white.

We're still a very small company, selling just a few machine per day, so we don't have the kind of quantity business to be able to offer color options. Maybe someday.

-john


----------



## willardcw4

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 39817
> 
> 
> I've been working with my designer João Tomaz on a (hopefully) elegant (and optional) cup-holding wire for the DE1XL model. Here are yesterday's renders: I think we're making progress.
> 
> -john


Even though the capacity would be less (e.g. two of the 200ml cups plus maybe some 80ml), can you also work on a similar wire/implementation for the PRO/+ form factor? Would love this...


----------



## decent_espresso

willardcw4 said:


> Even though the capacity would be less (e.g. two of the 200ml cups plus maybe some 80ml), can you also work on a similar wire/implementation for the PRO/+ form factor? Would love this...


The DE1XL has 3 holes in the top case, with bolts welded to the underside. This is how the new tablet stand attaches. It also gives us a really solid anchor for a 4cm standoff, into which the wire can be inserted.

On the DE1PRO, I opted for a hole-free top, and a magnet (hidden) on the underside to hold a steelie stand in place. The idea with this design was to allow any tablet stand for home users, since people have lots of tastes.

With the DE1XL, cafes indicated they worried the tablet could be stolen, so that's why we have screw holes, and the tablet is anchored down.

So... there's no current strong anchor point currently on the DE1PRO, to fix this wire to.

-john


----------



## Tanax

John, could you please include dimensions of each machine in the comparison chart? I couldn't find the dimensions anywhere. Preferably in metric system if possible


----------



## decent_espresso

Tanax said:


> John, could you please include dimensions of each machine in the comparison chart? I couldn't find the dimensions anywhere. Preferably in metric system if possible


Dimensions are a complicated topic, because it depends on what you want to measure.

So, I prefer to give drawings.

On the OVERVIEW page there's a DE1+/DE1PRO drawing:

https://decentespresso.com/img/de1plus_dimensions.png

and on the DE1XL page there's a drawing for that model:

https://decentespresso.com/img/de1xl_dimensions.png

Does that give you what you need ?

-john


----------



## Tanax

decent_espresso said:


> Dimensions are a complicated topic, because it depends on what you want to measure.
> 
> So, I prefer to give drawings.
> 
> On the OVERVIEW page there's a DE1+/DE1PRO drawing:
> 
> https://decentespresso.com/img/de1plus_dimensions.png
> 
> and on the DE1XL page there's a drawing for that model:
> 
> https://decentespresso.com/img/de1xl_dimensions.png
> 
> Does that give you what you need ?
> 
> -john


Awesome, thanks!

What is it that makes the XL around 37 mm longer, 520 vs 483? Is it only the hiding of cables or are the other (larger) components inside as well?


----------



## decent_espresso

Tanax said:


> Awesome, thanks!
> 
> What is it that makes the XL around 37 mm longer, 520 vs 483? Is it only the hiding of cables or are the other (larger) components inside as well?


Only the tube hiding, but to do this nicely, we extend the legs and the chassis by 4cm, and put a magnetized false-back to tidy it up.

Here's a still from a video that should clarify:









and more clarity even with the entire video:

[video=youtube;C3NEo-m3dJI]


----------



## decent_espresso

An interesting report from a coffee enthusiast's meetup in Oregon. Tasting comparison between a Slayer a DE1, and looooots of different coffees.

Read more at:

https://www.home-barista.com/cafes/coos-bay-southern-or-meet-up-after-action-report-t58096.html


----------



## decent_espresso

Shin and his team are exhibiting in Seoul, South Korea, this week.

And Shin is in big trouble: he didn't tell me he repainted one of his machines into shocking pink! ?


----------



## ashcroc

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 39892
> 
> 
> Shin and his team are exhibiting in Seoul, South Korea, this week.
> 
> And Shin is in big trouble: he didn't tell me he repainted one of his machines into shocking pink!


It's certainly eye catching amoungst all the black on the stand.


----------



## decent_espresso

"Question: All DEs have their temperature offset individually set before being shipped, is that correct?"

Yes.

Parry (pictured here) personally burns, tests, safety tests, and calibrates every machine. He's no "test monkey", he's a proper electrical engineer. Every machine we ship goes through Parry.

This checklist accompanies every machine until the last moment when it's boxed.

Whoops, looks like we forgot to checkbox "cleaning" on Martin's machine. ?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Super delighted and surprised to see 2x Canadian Barista Champion Cole Torode using our milk jugs at today's World Barista Championship, and scoring #3 in the world.

That's last year's WBC champion Agnieszka Rojewska peeking in the photo. She used our Decent Funnel in her winning performance.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We're just about to submit our upcoming v1.3 espresso machine to Intertek, to finally get UL certification. Obviously, I'm a bit nervous about it

So when the local boss at Intertek asked me to "please attend a cocktail reception" for the "Intertek Group CEO" who is coming to town, I thought it'd be a wise precaution to play nice and attend.

The invitation arrives in my inbox, and I see these dreaded words: "Dress code: business formal."

Sigh.

I pull my only suit out of the back of the closet and pack it in a bag. I plan to change in the bathroom at the factory at the end of the day.

A worry: when I google "business formal" it's clear that a tie is part of the definition. I hope I'll get in despite not owning one, as that would be embarrassing. When someone goes to the trouble to type "dress code", I assume they're serious about it.

Bugs and I arrive at the reception. Lots of blue suits.

I have an odd feeling that my left toe is dragging on something.

I look down: notice a coffee stain on my right cuff.

Then I lift my left foot. My well-worn-out dress shoes have completely fallen apart. Whoops.

For the next hour, I affect a gammy leg, as if an old war injury required me to slide my foot forward, instead of lifting it with each step, like a normal person.

Bugs is wearing heels, so that allows us to walk slowly around the evening, with me feigning a gentlemanly tolerance for the lady's footwear choice.

I return home and read an email from Intertek:

"After reviewing your design with our engineers, we generally agree that the current design is close to cETLus requirement."

Nice.

-john


----------



## willardcw4

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 39991
> 
> 
> We're just about to submit our upcoming v1.3 espresso machine to Intertek, to finally get UL certification. Obviously, I'm a bit nervous about it
> 
> So when the local boss at Intertek asked me to "please attend a cocktail reception" for the "Intertek Group CEO" who is coming to town, I thought it'd be a wise precaution to play nice and attend.
> 
> The invitation arrives in my inbox, and I see these dreaded words: "Dress code: business formal."
> 
> Sigh.
> 
> I pull my only suit out of the back of the closet and pack it in a bag. I plan to change in the bathroom at the factory at the end of the day.
> 
> A worry: when I google "business formal" it's clear that a tie is part of the definition. I hope I'll get in despite not owning one, as that would be embarrassing. When someone goes to the trouble to type "dress code", I assume they're serious about it.
> 
> Bugs and I arrive at the reception. Lots of blue suits.
> 
> I have an odd feeling that my left toe is dragging on something.
> 
> I look down: notice a coffee stain on my right cuff.
> 
> Then I lift my left foot. My well-worn-out dress shoes have completely fallen apart. Whoops.
> 
> For the next hour, I affect a gammy leg, as if an old war injury required me to slide my foot forward, instead of lifting it with each step, like a normal person.
> 
> Bugs is wearing heels, so that allows us to walk slowly around the evening, with me feigning a gentlemanly tolerance for the lady's footwear choice.
> 
> I return home and read an email from Intertek:
> 
> "After reviewing your design with our engineers, we generally agree that the current design is close to cETLus requirement."
> 
> Nice.
> 
> -john


That's a stellar story... and GREAT WORK! I assuming "... close to cETULus requirement." is a good thing...?

Looking forward to the v1.3; if this is a favorable sign, then I might just wait for v1.3 after all....


----------



## decent_espresso

For years, Decent has had a big problem: our machines have been much discussed, but unavailable.

In Korea they even created a slogan about us that was much used in Korea social media: "the genius machine that no-one can buy".

So.... Bugs and I decided that the focus from January to June was to get our act together and learn how to reliably ship machines at a pace of 1000 machines per year (20/week, 80/month).

But we're not there yet.

Below is how many machines we've shipper per month, since inception. We're on track to have shipped 267 machines at the end of April, which is 67 machines per month.

We're still running a backlog (19 machines, at the moment, about a week's work), whereas I'd hoped we'd have machines in stock by now.

So... this is the big reason we weren't at the Boston SCA show.

We're still attracting orders faster than we can make machines. It would be irresponsible for us to focus on marketing before we improve our ability to deliver.

Once this situation reverses, you'll start seeing Bugs, Shin, Hannifa and myself exhibiting at trade shows around the world.

-john


----------



## woodhouse

john, quick question which i think i've read different answers for - what is the highest flow rate that the decent can manage?


----------



## decent_espresso

woodhouse said:


> john, quick question which i think i've read different answers for - what is the highest flow rate that the decent can manage?


6 ml/s, we can always do, and maintain accurate temperature.

8 ml/s, we can do for about 10 seconds without a temperature drop. That should be plenty for any espresso pre-infusion, but this rate cannot be sustained at the moment if you want to make a pour-over.

At the moment, this is with a room-temperature water tank, with a cold-to-warmup time of about 5 minutes.

We're going to add an option to create a shot profile which pre-heats the water tank, up to 60ºC. That will mean a longer cold-to-warmup time, but I expect we'll be able to do 12 ml/s, and maintain temperature. That's as fast a flow as I've seen on any espresso machine.

Essentially, this upcoming feature lets you trade off "faster warmup time" for "faster flow rate".

From memory, each of our two pumps can do something around 15 ml/s each, when there's no pressure. The constraint is temperature accuracy, and that's largely determined by how much current we have available, and how much heat we need to add to the water. Going from 20ºC -> 90ºC is very different from 60ºC->90ºC. You can see that we can more than double the flow if our water is "sous vide" style preheated to 60ºC.

-john


----------



## rallakias

How do you recommend using the skale? Can it be used with the drip tray on it premanently?

Putting the skale with the stand under the drip tray would not damage the load cell if left with the drip tray on it for a period of time?Should the drip tray be unloaded every time after extractions complete?Does the skale have a bluetooth auto tare when extraction begins or something like that or you have to do it manually after adding the cup on the tray ?

If you put the skale on the tray will it not hide the mirror view of the bottomless pf ?


----------



## decent_espresso

This is the "beta 0.2" version I've got in my hands. Getting closer to something I'll be happy with. Probably still another 3 months to go, until I have saleable quantities of this new product.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

rallakias said:


> How do you recommend using the skale? Can it be used with the drip tray on it premanently?
> 
> Putting the skale with the stand under the drip tray would not damage the load cell if left with the drip tray on it for a period of time?Should the drip tray be unloaded every time after extractions complete?Does the skale have a bluetooth auto tare when extraction begins or something like that or you have to do it manually after adding the cup on the tray ? If you put the skale on the tray will it not hide the mirror view of the bottomless pf ?


The Atomax Skale 2, which is the only bluetooth scale that works with Decent at the moment (and is shipping) works best under the drip tray.

Yes, it auto-tares on shot start. You do not need to empty the drip tray after each shot. I empty it when the water tank goes empty (after about 20 espressos).

I haven't seen any damage to the load cell. We've sold about 200 of these for under-drip tray use.

And yes, a scale on TOP of the drip tray hides the mirror. Underneath is soooo muchhhh better.


----------



## willardcw4

decent_espresso said:


> This is the "beta 0.2" version I've got in my hands. Getting closer to something I'll be happy with. Probably still another 3 months to go, until I have saleable quantities of this new product.
> 
> -john


3 months?!


----------



## woodhouse

decent_espresso said:


> And yes, a scale on TOP of the drip tray hides the mirror. Underneath is soooo muchhhh better.


is this an intended function of the new decent scale? or is it more of a 'on top of drip tray' thing, like you had at MICE a couple of months ago?


----------



## Dylan

It strikes me that whilst the Skales display is pointing up, and thus good for reading and operating whilst the scale is under the drip tray the Decent Scale looks like it would be difficult to read and operate in this position.

What are your thoughts on this John?


----------



## ronsil

The Skale can be operated & seen from within at least one of the availiable skins.


----------



## Dylan

ronsil said:


> The Skale can be operated & seen from within at least one of the availiable skins.


I thought this may be it - so once the the Decent scale or Skale is in place, there isn'y much need to look/touch it?


----------



## ronsil

That's what I'm hoping...


----------



## woodhouse

yeah wouldn't be overly concerned about not being able to read the scale once it's under the drip tray, given that you can see the finish weight of the shot on the tablet.


----------



## decent_espresso

woodhouse said:


> is this an intended function of the new decent scale? or is it more of a 'on top of drip tray' thing, like you had at MICE a couple of months ago?


The Decent Scale is prettier than the Atomax Skale, and much more water resistant. It's meant to be a general purpose scale, not just for use with our espresso machine.

At a fairly low price of USD$99, an open API, I'm hoping lots of app developers will support it, as there currently doesn't exist an open-api 0.1g food-grade scale.

The Decent Scale does work underneath the drip tray (see photo) but for this use, I think the Atomax Skale's tilted display is better in this case. However, the Skale is not very water resistant, so it's a judgement call, which you prefer.

I'll continue to support (and sell) both the Skale and the Decent Scale, for the indefinite future. Choice is good.



willardcw4 said:


> 3 months?!


Yep: two months to make 1000 of these, once the bugs are ironed out. AT LEAST another month to iron out all the bugs. So, at least 3 months. I don't want to "go fast" and make 1000 scales that aren't very good.



Dylan said:


> It strikes me that whilst the Skales display is pointing up, and thus good for reading and operating whilst the scale is under the drip tray the Decent Scale looks like it would be difficult to read and operate in this position. What are your thoughts on this John?


You can judge for yourself (photos below) but as written above, I generally agree with you.











Dylan said:


> I thought this may be it - so once the the Decent scale or Skale is in place, there isn'y much need to look/touch it?


Correct: if you're using the Decent Scale on the Decent Espresso machine. Or with an app, which will likely also re-display the weight.



woodhouse said:


> yeah wouldn't be overly concerned about not being able to read the scale once it's under the drip tray, given that you can see the finish weight of the shot on the tablet.


yep

-john


----------



## willardcw4

John - will your s/w support the Felicita scale?


----------



## woodhouse

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 40035


that looks awesome. is the scale tall enough to support the drip tray? or does it need something like the skale stand to boost its height?


----------



## decent_espresso

woodhouse said:


> that looks awesome. is the scale tall enough to support the drip tray? or does it need something like the skale stand to boost its height?


There will need to be something 3D printed between the scale and the drip tray. We're working on it now.



willardcw4 said:


> John - will your s/w support the Felicita scale?


No. I consider that scale to be a blatant knockoff of the Acaia, and so I would not want to support it.

I agree with James on this topic.






Even if Acaia are not necessarily my friends: they've innovated and made a good product and that should be respected.


----------



## Dylan

I think fortunately for you John, your product is so complex it would be difficult for anyone to copy much more than the basic design, which there is little incentive to copy as it is not the design that makes it unique (although it is a unique design).

In some cases you can see why someone might be compelled to buy a cheap Chinese knock off. In cases like Push they launched an extremely premium product, arguably neccessery for a niche market. The Chinese knock offs (and German) that quickly followed were inevitable as the majority of the coffee market struggle to comprehend spending £140+ on a tamper, no matter how well engineered. It would be interesting to know how much market share Push truly loose in the wealthier high end buyers market.

In the case of Felicitia I find it hard to comprehend, the scale is still well into the high end price bracket for a scale and not that much cheaper than an Acaia. At least they managed to design their own scale I guess...


----------



## rallakias

In this video you are using a ''Damian's Skale Caddy'' .






Do you know if it can be combined with the drain kit ?










Does the skale fit under the tray with the drain kit when using this printed mod?


----------



## decent_espresso

rallakias said:


> In this video you are using a ''Damian's Skale Caddy'' .


Damian's design will not work with a scale underneath, if the drip tray is plumbed. The problem is that the plumbing pulls on the weighing platform and prevents the espresso from being weighed.

With a plumbed in drip tray, the workaround is to connect the drip tray cover directly to the scale. A few decent espresso customers on the owners forum have made 3D designs that do this. It's a variation on the same idea as ONA's STEM, except integrated into the scale directly. https://onacoffee.com.au/product/stem/

We're also working on our own design to do this, but honestly, the effort is very much distributed among many people, and were all trying to create something that will work.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dylan said:


> In some cases you can see why someone might be compelled to buy a cheap Chinese knock off. In cases like Push they launched an extremely premium product, arguably neccessery for a niche market. The Chinese knock offs (and German) that quickly followed were inevitable as the majority of the coffee market struggle to comprehend spending £140+ on a tamper, no matter how well engineered. It would be interesting to know how much market share Push truly loose in the wealthier high end buyers market.


My personal preference is that if someone invents something that is really awesome but they price it out of my range, I do without it. I don't look for a knockoff.

For me, as somebody who invests a lot of time and emotion and a little bit of money into creating an object, I feel like the person who did that has the absolute right to decide who should get the object and at what cost. If they make a bad decision and charge too much, the market will react and they won't sell much. Maybe they'll change their mind and lower their prices. They might make a bad choice, but it's their right to make that bad choice, not ours. If we don't act in this ethical manner, we disincentivize people to create wonderful new things.

You are of course free to have your own opinion 

This opinion of mine comes from having worked in the music business for a long time. I sometimes found absolutely brilliant musicians who were control freaks about how their music might be released, with the final effect that nobody ever heard of them. I disagreed, tried to convince them, but ultimately it's their right to self-destruct.



Dylan said:


> In some cases you can see why someone might be compelled to buy a cheap Chinese knock off. In cases like Push they launched an extremely premium product, arguably neccessery for a niche market. The Chinese knock offs (and German) that quickly followed were inevitable as the majority of the coffee market struggle to comprehend spending £140+ on a tamper, no matter how well engineered. It would be interesting to know how much market share Push truly loose in the wealthier high end buyers market.


The Acaia is definitely an expensive product to manufacture, and that's probably why the Felicita is also expensive.

As it happens, someone in Shanghai posted a few days ago that they will sell a knockoff of our machine. Their offering price is only USD$100 less than what we charge, which gives you an idea of our build cost, if a knockoff can't be made much cheaper. This company has successfully knocked off La Marzocco and Slayer in the past, at a much lower price than the real thing. At any rate, I'm not too concerned, because it's fueling a lot of discussion among coffee fans in China, and as soon as we get our "made in Hong Kong" certification, we will be able to import to China, and that won't be good news for the knockoff company. I've also heard through the grapevine that their engineers are unable to believe that we can control flow to the accuracy that we do. They don't understand understand how it's possible.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

More than a few Decent customers are crafty and do things like 3D printing, wood turning, and painting.

I have an idea that will help the painters among them flex their creative muscles, and in the process, I can get rid of some cosmetically-imperfect parts which are gathering dust.

Chassis parts that have a defect in their paint can't be used. But, they're perfect if you want to paint your own chassis.

I have a few boxes of this stuff, so I'm selling it at 60% to 80% off to people who want to repaint them. Some of the leg bases need a bit of (re)bending, which causes cracks in the paint. No problem, if you're planning on repainting anyway.

As part of this effort, anyone who wants to "commercialize" their artistic brilliance is encouraged to open a store on Etsy.com. I've started a list https://www.etsy.com/hk-en/people/sgsmm8ci/favorites/decent-espresso-mods and will be adding to it as Decent mods appear on Etsy. My intention is to promote these artists to future and current customers, as it helps everyone out.

As an aside, I've recently had 100 right-angled cables made for us, for the DE1XL model. However, they're also potentially useful to DE1+/DE1PRO users who want to push their espresso machine as far back against their kitchen wall as possible.

All the above are available at this growing "Accessories" page: https://decentespresso.com/accessories

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I've been working with Scott Rao @whereisscottrao for quite a long time, to develop a V60 portafilter basket.


__
http://instagr.am/p/BtHXGdml-6f/

This upcoming basket converts our espresso machine in an automated pour-over machine. One which has control over the grounds agitation created, and that's pretty interesting.

The controlled water pressure creates vortex *just* deep enough to circulate, but not so deep that the water channels through filter. The spacing of each water stream is calibrated to be just the width of each separate coffee ground vortex.

The end result is low-channeling/high-extraction-rate pour over coffees, totally automated and dependable. With an espresso machine.

Today I received what I hope is the final iteration of our work together. We're trying to decide on 0.4mm or 0.5mm holes, 11 or 12 of them, and two different inside hole distances. I'm UPSing them right now to Scott in California for evaluation.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Just arrived in our repair shop: an ultrasonic cleaner, which we've filled with "Cafiza" espresso machine cleaning liquid.

When customers send their machines to us for repair, as part of the process we'll put all removable brass and metal parts into this bath for 24h.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We're just about finished building two variations on the same coffee cart: a two grinder/one DE1XL table (you've seen that one already in my posts) and a one grinder/two DE1XL table. Both use a $450 bamboo table from IKEA.

I've filmed Fabrice during the measuring, cutting and building of these carts, and we'll soon have a video series of all the steps, along with 2D drawings and templates, so you can do this yourself (or get a local handyman to do it).

I've also recorded a bunch of footage explaining the DE1XL model, used both countersunk or tabletop. That's what you can see in the photo above.

The DE1XL model is just about ready to start shipping and will be our latest model. We're expecting the metal parts to arrive in the next two weeks. The only final details we're still nailing down is the opacity and material of the white model's back cover.

As I find time to do some video editing, these movies will get posted, hopefully over the next 2 weeks.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Here is a render of the new DE1XL model we've been working on, when you use it as a tabletop machine.

Ben has made a lot of subtle changes here, enlarging some things, which changes the proportions of the shapes. I feel like these add up to a profile that has good visual integrity.

Here's a quite summary:

- the legs are a bit taller, and the thin section of the legs is quite a bit thicker. This hides the water tank much more than the DE1+/DE1PRO does.

- the legs are 6cm longer, to hide the tubing and wiring

- the tablet has a bespoke stand (João Tomaz's work), which moves the tablet forward and floating in the air.

Up until recently, I've only been showing the DE1XL when it's countersunk, but I think it looks acceptable on a table as well, which was my hope.

-john


----------



## ethysive

decent_espresso said:


> Here is a render of the new DE1XL model we've been working on, when you use it as a tabletop machine.


Is that a hint of blue LED a la group head controller, or a trick of light and wishful thinking?


----------



## decent_espresso

ethysive said:


> Is that a hint of blue LED a la group head controller, or a trick of light and wishful thinking?


Well spotted!

Indeed, we're working on renders for the v1.3 version of the DE1XL with the new group head controller, coming in September. There will also be a user-installable upgrade kit for any v1.1 DE1XL owners who want it (at the cost difference).

Here's what that looks like:


----------



## Mesmer

decent_espresso said:


> I've also heard through the grapevine that their engineers are unable to believe that we can control flow to the accuracy that we do. They don't understand understand how it's possible.


Is the decent using only pump control in order to set the flow? Or are there also other parts at play?


----------



## Dylan

Mesmer said:


> Is the decent using only pump control in order to set the flow? Or are there also other parts at play?


CHINESE SPY ALERT!


----------



## rallakias

I have a question/proposal.

All other machines that can do programmed and repeatable pressure/flow profiling (vesuvius/rocket r60/dallacorte mina etc) ,do it *time-based*.You can split the extraction in max of 5 sections and choose a pressure/flow preset for each one.So can decent do, however it is not limited to just 5 sections and it can also be triggered to the next step by a pressure or flow limit exceeded.

This feature is mainly for those who use a certain coffee for a long time.If you are changing grind/weight/coffee beans (as many home users do) you cannot use it.

So why don't you add a *weight-based trigger* in the advanced mode when using a skale ,so one can easily split an extraction -let's say in 3 parts according to the rule of thirds- and follow the same pattern of pressure/flow/temperature stages independently of the extraction time.

Why not take full advantage of the gravimetric features in the ''advanced mode'' since it is ''only'' the software that has to be modified but use the scale for just the ending of the extraction?


----------



## decent_espresso

rallakias said:


> So why don't you add a *weight-based trigger* in the advanced mode when using a skale ,so one can easily split an extraction -let's say in 3 parts according to the rule of thirds- and follow the same pattern of pressure/flow/temperature stages independently of the extraction time. Why not take full advantage of the gravimetric features in the ''advanced mode'' since it is ''only'' the software that has to be modified but use the scale for just the ending of the extraction?


Indeed, it's in our plans, but currently (for safety and reliability reasons) once you hit START the espresso machine runs the shot. Not the tablet.

The bluetooth scale talks to the tablet, not the espresso machine. Thus, the scale cannot direct the shot.

My plan is to eventually have a hard-wired scale, which then will enable exactly what you're describing. Also, being hard wired, we can hit the reliability and safety concerns I have.

For now, the bluetooth scale only stops shots, and displays flow rate into the cup. That's not bad for £84 though, compared to £10k plus for "gravimetric stop" from Simonelli or LM. But we don't have the reliability they have, being as they have hard-wired scales, so it's reasonable that we should be less expensive.

-john

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Mesmer said:


> Is the decent using only pump control in order to set the flow? Or are there also other parts at play?


Only pump control.

Vibe pumps (with a rectified AC signal) give us 100 to 120 pump strokes per second to play with. We control each pump stroke individually

We use a physics model (calibrated against the flow meter) to understand how much water (at a given pressure) each pump stroke will cause. This physics model is further complicated by the fact that there are two pumps (hot and cold) mixing, to achieve a goal temperature.

It wasn't an easy problem to solve.

We still have room for improvement, and the next firmware revision will try to understand the difference in water movement caused inside a 220V to 240V variance. The higher voltages can move a bit more water when under higher pressures. At lower pressures, the voltage difference has a negligible effect. The goal is for every "espresso profile" to behave identically worldwide, regardless of voltage (100V to 240V variance). We're not there yet: Rao's "Blooming espresso" program behaves a bit differently in the USA than in the rest of the world, due to differences in electromagnets at different voltages. A little bit of profile tweaking is required. But we're getting better.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

My engineer Fabrice has just finished making a two-group DE1XL tablet, on a 1.2-meter long bamboo IKEA table.

We did a lot of modeling of scenarios of this in Solidworks, to try to get a good workflow.

This design tries to minimize left/right-hand movement. Because portafilters lock-in from the left side, there is a lot of left-hand movement.

Here's the coffee making workflow:

1) you lock the portafilter in with your left hand,

2) after the shot completes, remove it with your left hand again.

3) Knock the puck out (still with your left hand)

4) put the portafilter into the pitcher rinser to clean out any remaining coffee grounds

5) then put the portafilter (still left hand) onto the portafilter stand of the grinder

6) and then use your right hand to put the funnel on and turn the grinder on.

7) remove the portafilter from the grinder with your left hand

8) tap (or groom) the grounds with your right hand

9) and tamp the portafilter, using your right hand to hold the portafilter

10) lock the portafilter back into the (left side) group, with your left hand

11) tap the START button with your right hand

If making a milk drink:

1) pour milk into a Decent milk jug, to 200ml (for a typical "cap")

2) use the right-side group to steam milk, while your shot is being made

3) keep a small cloth, wet with the pitcher rinser, to wipe down your steam wand

Yes, I know this is an obsessive analysis. But a coffee cart is going to do this 500 times a day, so I think this analysis needs doing.

I found the middle steam wand to be a bit cramped. It's not in constant use, but it'd be nice if it were easier to access. Locking the portafilter into the right side group tends to bang into the left side portafilter.

To help relieve the "crammed in middle steam wand" issue, I have now:

1) swapped the portafilter handles with the smaller group head hands, thus making shorter portafilters

2) will be swapping out the middle steam wand from our large "pro" DE1XL steam wand to our smaller DE1+/DE1PRO steam wand

This "coffee cart" is going into live testing on Monday, as it will be pulling shots at the "HOFEX" trade show http://hofex.com at Australian/Hong-Kong Redback Coffee roasters https://redbackcoffee.com.hk

My lead barista Hannifa will make hundreds of drinks over a few days' time at the Redback stand. Afterward, we'll then have a better understanding of how to improve this stand design further.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

A few people wrote to me that they were shocked and appalled that I had suggested a left-hand-focussed workflow in my previous posting.

They worried that I was about to make a terrible blunder, and release a coffee cart product that nobody would want to use.

Just to be clear: WE ARE NOT MAKING COFFEE CARTS.

Here in Hong Kong, we're buying IKEA tables, and experimenting with our own ideas for workflow. You can make your own coffee cart workflow.

We have no plans to make coffee carts. We want to sell espresso machines. The IKEA cart is an example of one setup. We'll be posting videos of what we've done, and I'm hoping others will post what they end up doing.

My assumption is that everyone "knows best" what works best for them, and will organize Decent Espresso machines, grinders, tamping areas, pitchers rinsers, towels, all as they see fit. This is one of the great advantages of a single-group head, modular approach. Set up your workflow as you like.

In the attached render, we've removed the group head handles (they unscrew, so you can remove them too) and used a pitcher rinser to space each machine. This is just another idea: you should lay out out Decent Workflow however you like.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's the final coffee cart, with workflow explained.

Now with a smaller central steam wand.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Hofex Coffee Cart









Here's what our coffee cart looks like, actually running at the Hotel Expo (HOFEX) monster-large trade show in Hong Kong.

Basically, we're making free coffee, with beans and milk courtesy of Australian/Hk based roaster Redback.Here's what our coffee cart looks like, actually running at the Hotel Expo (HOFEX) monster-large trade show in Hong Kong.

Basically, we're making free coffee, with beans and milk courtesy of Australian/Hk based roaster Redback.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I was asked if we had plans for a "point of sale" system.

Yes, that's exactly where we're headed.

- The DE1XL metal tablet stand can hold the tablet, secured to the table, customer facing. We've left space in front of each DE1 for this.

- One customer-facing tablet sits in front of each DE1.

- You can then order, and the order is sent to a queue.

- The barista sees the queue and at the end of each drink, taps on the queue items they will now make

- If a site needs more coffees/hour capacity, they buy more coffee stations, and the queue is automatically shared by all DE1s at the site

- So: you can order from any station, and your coffee will be made wherever it can be made most efficiently.

- For example: if you order an unusual coffee (decaf, or an expensive bean) you might have your order made at one of the two-grinder/one-DE1 stations. But the majority of the stations will be "caffeinated, house blend" two-group/one-grinder.

Other topic...

"Private cafés" are a big concept I'm running with.

Here in HK, the big law firms/finance firms don't want their staff having business conversations at the local Starbucks. So, they install a "company cafe" in their office lobby. That means free rent for the roaster, who operates it, bills the client, and we supply the equipment.

I suspect most large companies of office workers, would be interested in the private café approach.

Plus, it's a nice perq to use to recruit staff.

I'm using HK to proof out this idea, debug it, and then will start pitching it to roasters in other cities.

-john


----------



## mikefish

decent_espresso said:


> Here's what our coffee cart looks like, actually running at the Hotel Expo (HOFEX) monster-large trade show in Hong Kong.
> 
> Basically, we're making free coffee, with beans and milk courtesy of Australian/Hk based roaster Redback.Here's what our coffee cart looks like, actually running at the Hotel Expo (HOFEX) monster-large trade show in Hong Kong.
> 
> Basically, we're making free coffee, with beans and milk courtesy of Australian/Hk based roaster Redback.


It sounds like you've had a fair bit of coffee yourself


----------



## decent_espresso

I just finished making this video explaining the differences between this new model and the existing Decent espresso machine models.

One thing I realized afterward, is that I never talk about the actual functionality of the machine in this video. It's the same functionality as for our other models, so I'm expecting people to watch those other videos if they want to know about how we make coffee. Seem reasonable?

All the parts for this new model are supposed to arrive in about two weeks.

We've been having a bit of trouble getting an opaque white back panel that laser etches nicely. The current white panels are a bit translucent.

The problem is that most plastics bubble in an unsightly way with laser etching, and I don't like screening because it wears off with time. We're hoping to finally have a solution to that this week, just about the same time when all the rest of the parts come in. The black panels were never a problem.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Here is Hannifa using two DE1XL espresso machines at the same time. You can see her steaming while making the espresso, and her overall workflow around the IKEA coffee cart.


----------



## mikefish

decent_espresso said:


>


Can you use a clear panel and double-silkscreen the reverse side? First coat with the mirrored logo in a dark color and then an opaque white layer? That way the clear panel will wear on the front surface but the actual logo/background won't.


----------



## o2c

decent_espresso said:


> Here is Hannifa using two DE1XL espresso machines at the same time. You can see her steaming while making the espresso, and her overall workflow around the IKEA coffee cart.


You should should make a mounting spot on the tamping cradle for whatever she's using to stir those grinds. Sell / include it even.


----------



## johnbudding

I don't know if it has been mentioned, but there is a new shop in Frome, Somerset, called Frāmā. I went in over the weekend and was amazed to see a Decent DE1 sitting next to an EK43S and various other bits and bobs. Great coffee from Colonna and nice to see a DE1 in the flesh. The barista is awaiting the commercial version, but was blown away by the machine he has.


----------



## decent_espresso

o2c said:


> You should should make a mounting spot on the tamping cradle for whatever she's using to stir those grinds. Sell / include it even.


That's the La Pavoni "WDT tool" she's using. You can buy it for USD$15 online.

It's fantastic: perfect. I don't want to try to compete with it, because at that low a price, there's no point. They've nailed it.


----------



## ashcroc

decent_espresso said:


> That's the La Pavoni "WDT tool" she's using. You can buy it for USD$15 online.
> 
> It's fantastic: perfect. I don't want to try to compete with it, because at that low a price, there's no point. They've nailed it.


Looks like it's made by/for bplus in Taiwan under licence (think they're the Asian La Pav distributers). Considering they're claiming 'no more production', I don't think you'd have much competition if you created your own one with Decent branding to match the machine.


----------



## PPapa

ashcroc said:


> Looks like it's made by/for bplus in Taiwan under licence (think they're the Asian La Pav distributers). Considering they're claiming 'no more production', I don't think you'd have much competition if you created your own one with Decent branding to match the machine.


Londinium is the only other option AFAIK.

I think I bought the last silver Bplus WDT tool the other day. It showed up as sold out straight after me ordering one. Sorry!


----------



## igm45

PPapa said:


> Londinium is the only other option AFAIK.
> 
> I think I bought the last silver Bplus WDT tool the other day. It showed up as sold out straight after me ordering one. Sorry!


Yep

No more production either:

https://www.bplus.biz/products/the-stirrer-for-la-pavoni-machine-bplus


----------



## ashcroc

PPapa said:


> Londinium is the only other option AFAIK.
> 
> I think I bought the last silver Bplus WDT tool the other day. It showed up as sold out straight after me ordering one. Sorry!


If I wasn't so satisfied with my (cutlery draw find) fruit fork, I might be disappointed!


----------



## decent_espresso

My lead barista Hannifa spent 4 days last week making hundreds of drinks a the monster-large HOFEX trade show in Hong Kong.






The coffee cart had some issues.

Here's what we learned:

1) the 3M double-sided tape that we used to mount the Android tablets to our own-design tablet stands, didn't hold up to heavy use. We need to find a stronger adhesive (bottom right photo)

2) the magnets used to hold the printed signage allowed the signage to sag with time. We had to stack magnets at the bottom of the sign, making a magnetic ledge, to hold the signage in place. That was a bit of a hack.

3) the many magnets holding the fake-drawers in place on the IKEA table, also allowed sagging. The drawer fell at one point on Hannifa's foot (ouch!).

4) Don't assume that a pallet jack will be available. Two people showed up with small 4-wheeled trolleys and pushed the table FAST through the show floor. At one point, the table fell off the wheels, but surprisingly (for IKEA quality) the table held and didn't break. Big wheels mounted to the table would be been better.

Otherwise, things held up well.

-john


----------



## MetaCoffee

I use a stainless steel olive pick for stirring the coffee grounds before tamping. Do a "stainless steel olive picks" search on amazon.



igm45 said:


> Yep
> 
> No more production either:
> 
> https://www.bplus.biz/products/the-stirrer-for-la-pavoni-machine-bplus


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> My lead barista Hannifa spent 4 days last week making hundreds of drinks a the monster-large HOFEX trade show in Hong Kong.


Not sure if it would work as it adds a good 10mm of depth but 2m dual lock is rock solid and you can take the item on and off.


----------



## Power Freak

MetaCoffee said:


> I use a stainless steel olive pick for stirring the coffee grounds before tamping. Do a "stainless steel olive picks" search on amazon.


Before the tool that came with my londinium I used a small matcha whisk - they have the "hoops" like the Londinium one which help create homogeneity in my experience. If I lose/destroy the Londinium one I'd go back to a matcha whisk.


----------



## decent_espresso

We're a few weeks out from receiving the parts to be able to ship the DE1XL models, and I'm getting more questions about "what's different about it?". Same goes for the DE+ model. So, I made a video


----------



## decent_espresso

Unfortunately, about 20 machines last week got sent without a power cable.

I'm the one who screwed up.

Here's the backstory: our overall order volume has gone up 50% in the past three months, and my staff is having trouble keeping up. I decided to help do boxing for a few weeks. So: I changed the way in which these suitcases were made up.

With the new method, they were all done ahead of time, 10 at a time (instead of one at a time), and then, whoops, in changing the process, I forgot to put the power cable in. My bad, and my apologies again. I'm UPSing out cables to people where I screwed up.









Note that you can use a normal computer cable with your espresso machine for now, so at least you can make coffee while you wait for the better cable to arrive.

Here is a short film about how we used to box each machine, one at a time. It took 30 minutes for each.






My new way reduced this to 6 minutes per machine, though obviously there are some "bugs in the process" that need to be worked out. The power cable (which is unique for each order, based on destination country) was supposed to be included right before shipping. We have a checklist, but because I'd changed the process, I didn't use it. Lesson learned.

-john


----------



## Firedancer

I know you're selling the upgraded group head for v1 to v1.3, but is it feasible to make the upgrade from v1.0 to v1.3 for all internal part changes on a DE1Pro model? And if so, at what cost?


----------



## decent_espresso

Firedancer said:


> I know you're selling the upgraded group head for v1 to v1.3, but is it feasible to make the upgrade from v1.0 to v1.3 for all internal part changes on a DE1Pro model? And if so, at what cost?


 Unfortunately, it's not doable at a reasonable cost. The PC Boards on v1.0 don't have the communications ports needed, we added them in v1.1, so it's a BIG upgrade. It's cheaper and less wasteful to sell the v1.0 and buy a new machine, than to gut a v1.0.


----------



## decent_espresso

Natural wood handles, beta 1

4 samples of the pale-wood group and portafilter handles just arrived form our wood-turning supplier. These are for the DE1XL model, or as an optional accessory for everyone else.

The finish is virtually invisible, which I like, and they got the shape right. However, the company appears to have used a too-aggressive buffing wheel, and 90º scratches appear on the handles. You can see these scratches at 1:01 in the video.

I'm really fussy, and I also do the tech support here (with help from others) and in 3 months I'd rather not be apologizing for these scratches. So, I'm asking them to try again.

Except for this issue, the handles look great to me.

-john


----------



## Nicknak

> 1 hour ago, decent_espresso said:
> 
> Natural wood handles, beta 1
> 
> 4 samples of the pale-wood group and portafilter handles just arrived form our wood-turning supplier. These are for the DE1XL model, or as an optional accessory for everyone else.
> 
> The finish is virtually invisible, which I like, and they got the shape right. However, the company appears to have used a too-aggressive buffing wheel, and 90º scratches appear on the handles. You can see these scratches at 1:01 in the video.
> 
> I'm really fussy, and I also do the tech support here (with help from others) and in 3 months I'd rather not be apologizing for these scratches. So, I'm asking them to try again.
> 
> Except for this issue, the handles look great to me.
> 
> -john


 No Thuya Burr or Snakewood then ?


----------



## decent_espresso

Nicknak said:


> No Thuya Burr or Snakewood then ?


 Nope, it's ash wood.


----------



## Nicknak

decent_espresso said:


> Nope, it's ash wood.


 Yes I guessed that ..

Very nice shape to be fair ..

I was having a bit of fun , there has been another thread recently about Thuya burr and Snakewood handles which got a little out of hand in a fun way..


----------



## coffeechap

Nicknak said:


> Yes I guessed that ..
> 
> Very nice shape to be fair ..
> 
> I was having a bit of fun , there has been another thread recently about Thuya burr and Snakewood handles which got a little out of hand in a fun way..


 Sometimes our humour is lost on folk


----------



## decent_espresso

Shin, who works as my representative in South Korea, wrote up his experiences from exhibiting at a recent trade show. More importantly, he made this video explaining everything he told people about my machine. It's in Korean (with English subs) but I think it's pretty comprehensive.

Here's Shin's post to our internal discussion:

-john

----

There were a lot of visitors came to Decent booth and seen the Demo.

And I read some reviews about the show, and people were saying about our booth like "The machine was quite novel and they explained in detail and pretty well"

So here's the Demo.

And it's quite too long video so I'll upload it in two videos
--------------------------------------

This video is also helpful for new users to understand how to deal with profile and graph. Enjoy!
The video is in Korean and I put subtitle below






00:21 Decent booth setting at Coffee expo 
01:05 : Introduction
02:09 Appearance
03:13 making Profile
04:11 Pressure Profile
07:07 What bluetooth scale : SKALE2 does
09:24 How to get slower flow rate
10:52 What Catering kit does
11:09 Flow Profile


----------



## decent_espresso

*Backlog be gone*

We've managed to speed up building espresso machines, and order backlog is now mostly fulfilled.

We have a few DE1+ and DE1PRO in stock (120V and 230V), so that new orders get their machines shipped right away.

Assuming we can continue building at this pace, I'm hoping we can continue to have "no waiting time" for new customers. After paying a few thousand for an espresso machine, it's nice to receive it in a few days.

The DE1XL model is still not available. We're shipping people a DE1PRO right away, with the "XL conversion kit" to follow a few weeks later. I'll post here once all our models are in stock, which hopefully will be in a few weeks.

https://decentespresso.com/model

-john


----------



## Tanax

> 13 hours ago, decent_espresso said:
> 
> Shin, who works as my representative in South Korea, wrote up his experiences from exhibiting at a recent trade show. More importantly, he made this video explaining everything he told people about my machine. It's in Korean (with English subs) but I think it's pretty comprehensive.
> 
> Here's Shin's post to our internal discussion:
> 
> -john
> 
> ----
> 
> There were a lot of visitors came to Decent booth and seen the Demo.
> 
> And I read some reviews about the show, and people were saying about our booth like "The machine was quite novel and they explained in detail and pretty well"
> 
> So here's the Demo.
> 
> And it's quite too long video so I'll upload it in two videos
> --------------------------------------
> 
> This video is also helpful for new users to understand how to deal with profile and graph. Enjoy!
> The video is in Korean and I put subtitle below


 대단하다! 감사합니다 

Slightly off topic: Super interested in Korean culture and currently studying Korean. Planning on going there next year. Any chance of being able to visit you, if you're still located there?


----------



## decent_espresso

Tanax said:


> 대단하다! 감사합니다
> 
> Slightly off topic: Super interested in Korean culture and currently studying Korean. Planning on going there next year. Any chance of being able to visit you, if you're still located there?


 I'm only in Korea for the big coffee show, but Shin lives there, and can show you the Decent Stuff.


----------



## mazi

@decent_espresso Can you outline the differences between v1.1 PRO and v1.3 except "manual" group head control?


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## Dylan

Your customer is actually Magneto.


----------



## decent_espresso

mazi said:


> @decent_espresso Can you outline the differences between v1.1 PRO and v1.3 except "manual" group head control?


 That's the main difference, and I'll be offering a paid upgrade kit for version.1.1 users, so they can upgrade their group head to the same one on version 1.3 machines. The cost of the upgrade for version 1.1 customers will be identical to the price increase, so as to not give people a good reason to wait. ?

The tablet will also be upgraded from android 5.1 to android 8, but will continue to be a single-purpose tablet, not meant for general use. The specifications on the tablet will be more or less the same, but with a bit more memory on board to handle android 8's increased needs.

The position of the USB plug on the front panel will move by about 2 cm, and that's about it for exciting changes coming in version 1.3.

-john


----------



## xpresso

Static....

Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Café in a suitcase*

Here is a sneak peak at what we're going to show at the SCAE show in Berlin next week.

We've modified our suitcase to be a fully plumbed in DE1XL + pitcher rinser.

Shipping the IKEA table between HK and Berlin was going to cost €4000 (!!!).

And I reasoned that if we wanted an "easy to ship, popup high volume cafe" that there might be others who want this too.

The DE1XL goes in one suitcase, and the pitcher rinser/countersunk bracket goes in the another.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Free WoC tickets*​
​
As an exhibitor, we have 10 free tickets we can give out. If you'd like one, please message me.​
​
Hoping to see some of you in Berlin next week.​
​
This will be the first time my Industrial designer João Tomaz and I meet in person, after working together closely for 4 years from across the world (Hong Kong and Lisbon)​
​
Decent espresso owner Stefan will be joining us at the stand, so that we can have good coffee conversations in German.​
​
Scott Rao will also be with us, making hopefully amazing coffee with his Blooming Espresso recipe, and his new double-filter paper technique.​
​
-john​


----------



## Abecker

decent_espresso said:


> That's the main difference, and I'll be offering a paid upgrade kit for version.1.1 users, so they can upgrade their group head to the same one on version 1.3 machines. The cost of the upgrade for version 1.1 customers will be identical to the price increase, so as to not give people a good reason to wait. ?
> 
> The tablet will also be upgraded from android 5.1 to android 8, but will continue to be a single-purpose tablet, not meant for general use. The specifications on the tablet will be more or less the same, but with a bit more memory on board to handle android 8's increased needs.
> 
> The position of the USB plug on the front panel will move by about 2 cm, and that's about it for exciting changes coming in version 1.3.
> 
> -john


 Will the tablet be part of the paid upgrade?


----------



## decent_espresso

Scott Rao (and myself, with my Decent) will at Prufrock in London at 7:30pm tonight.

Tickets still available, at: https://www.prufrockcoffee.com/booking/coffee-tip-of-the-day/

---

And yesterday, a new video from James Hoffmann about Rao's latest experiment with filter papered espresso:






-john


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> And yesterday, a new video from James Hoffmann about Rao's latest experiment with filter papered espresso:


 A paper filter at the bottom, another filter (= barrier) at the top, a blooming phase, then 2 bar - sounds like an Aeropress to me


----------



## Mrboots2u

patrickff said:


> A paper filter at the bottom, another filter (= barrier) at the top, a blooming phase, then 2 bar - sounds like an Aeropress to me


 There is an espresso basket in there too and the decent is controlling the flow a little more consistently i suspect . The grind i think will be alot finer than anyone uses in a aeropress .

I do a blooming shot ( not decent , bianca )

2 bar pre , 20 seconds bloom then 6-7 bar after , currently no paper involved .


----------



## MWJB

patrickff said:


> A paper filter at the bottom, another filter (= barrier) at the top, a blooming phase, then 2 bar - sounds like an Aeropress to me


 60lb of plunge pressure?


----------



## Zephyp

> The AeroPress filter is 2.5 inches in diameter so the area of the filter is 4.9 square inches. If you press down firmly on a scale, it is relatively easy to get the scale up to 25 pounds and then if you press hard on the scale, you can certainly get it up to 50 pounds. Therefore if you press similarly hard on your AeroPress while brewing coffee, the firm pressing will be at 5.1 psi (25 lbs/4.9 sq in) and the harder pressing will be at 10.2 psi (50 lbs/4.9 sq in). Since a bar of pressure is 14.7 psi, the former is .35 bar and the latter is .70 bar. We have done taste comparisons between minimal and maximum pressure on an AeroPress and our taste buds can't tell the difference.


 If you get 2 bar with the Aeropress, you must be jumping on it.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Smart Espresso Profiler (SEP) & Decent*

I was in Berlin last week at the world of coffee tradeshow, where I finally got to meet Gabor, the genius behind my favorite coffee related films https://vimeo.com/306859922, who also happens to be (along with Miklos) behind the smart espresso profiler https://www.naked-portafilter.com/smart-espresso-profiler/

I pulled a wonderfully sweet and interesting lever shot using SEP, though I decided not to follow the existing trace, and instead tried to use a declining pressure profile by hand to maintain stable flow. Their software has a nice feature where your shot along with a photograph gets emailed to you, so let me duly comply with their social media strategy and post it here.﻿

I can also report back at the SEP software can now export traces, which can then be imported into "God Shot" traces on the decent espresso machine. You can import them into the android version of the decent espresso software, as well as the Windows, Macintosh or Linux version.

To import an SEP shot, copy the CSV into this directory where your decent espresso software runs:
/de1plus/godshots/import/common

The next time you run the decent espresso app, the traces will be imported. You can find them by tapping the "heart" icon in the decent espresso app. In this case this was espresso #181:
﻿
And when imported it caused a trace to appear in the decent espresso app.
﻿
I just tested it, and it worked fairly well.

If you look at the debug log when my app runs, this is the information that appears, which gives quite a bit of detail. It looks like I have a small error parsing the date.

Also, I apparently am converting the flow information into volumetric flow (blue line) in my software, where's it should be charted as gravimetric flow (brown line).

However, these are very small things, that I can fix tomorrow. It basically works already, quite nicely.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

A very brief view of Decent Espresso at the World of Coffee show.

Very, very busy for 3 days, as Scott Rao was pulling his 28% extraction shots. Lots of coffee celebrities (and the "little people" too) came by to taste.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent ♥ Niche

I'm today a proud owner of a Niche Grinder https://nichecoffee.co.uk which I'll be using when I'm "on the road" and away from home. I love my Lynn Weber EG-1, but at 30kg, it's a lot to lug around, and the Niche does a very capable job of producing tasty espresso with the Decent about 1/5th the carrying weight. At 1/5th the price of the EG-1, it's nonetheless a very competent grinder, and my recommendation for all home purchasers of the Decent espresso machines.

A recent survey of Decent owners found the Niche to be the most popular grinder among them, with 17% of Decent owners, also having a Niche.

Two weeks ago, Bugs and I visited Martin (inventor/founder/owner) of Niche, and greatly enjoyed two British pub meals, and a detailed audit of the Decent internals by super-experienced home-appliance engineer Martin.

I love the clarity of Martin's vision for the Niche, and how cleanly and successfully he's executed on that.

-john


----------



## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> Decent ♥ Niche
> 
> I'm today a proud owner of a Niche Grinder https://nichecoffee.co.uk which I'll be using when I'm "on the road" and away from home. I love my Lynn Weber EG-1, but at 30kg, it's a lot to lug around, and the Niche does a very capable job of producing tasty espresso with the Decent about 1/5th the carrying weight. At 1/5th the price of the EG-1, it's nonetheless a very competent grinder, and my recommendation for all home purchasers of the Decent espresso machines.
> 
> A recent survey of Decent owners found the Niche to be the most popular grinder among them, with 17% of Decent owners, also having a Niche.
> 
> Two weeks ago, Bugs and I visited Martin (inventor/founder/owner) of Niche, and greatly enjoyed two British pub meals, and a detailed audit of the Decent internals by super-experienced home-appliance engineer Martin.
> 
> I love the clarity of Martin's vision for the Niche, and how cleanly and successfully he's executed on that.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 30141


 I can't help but envy you over the EG-1 ...........

Jon.


----------



## Planter

The eg1 always looks nice. Never knew it weighed so much though.


----------



## decent_espresso

Planter said:


> The eg1 always looks nice. Never knew it weighed so much though.


 The base is a wide square sheet of solid metal, about 1cm thick, painted back, so that it can suspend the grinder in mid air. Like a square tripod, but with sand-bags built in.

Beautiful and works well once on the counter top, but really heavy to lift.

Note that 29.5kg was the packed-in-a-case weight, and I'm sure the suitcase added some weight.


----------



## Planter

decent_espresso said:


> The base is a wide square sheet of solid metal, about 1cm thick, painted back, so that it can suspend the grinder in mid air. Like a square tripod, but with sand-bags built in.
> Beautiful and works well once on the counter top, but really heavy to lift.
> Note that 29.5kg was the packed-in-a-case weight, and I'm sure the suitcase added some weight.


That makes sense. Beautiful looking grinder though. And as ever with LW, well engineered I'm sure. Have never had the joy of trying one


----------



## Jony

After your L.R fiasco, you should stay right away from it.?


----------



## Planter

Jony said:


> After your L.R fiasco, you should stay right away from it.


 Give everything a try atleast once.


----------



## decent_espresso

*The upcoming "group head controller" *

Starting in November, the Decent Espresso machines will have this circular, glass-covered controller on the group head, sitting on top of a circle of full color LEDs.

You'll be able to start/stop all functions (espresso, steam, etc) and you'll also have real-time "tap and drag" finger control over either pressure or flow (whichever you tap closest to). The tablet's charts follow you, showing what you're requesting (the dotted lines) and showing you what's actually occuring to your shot.

Green (pressure) and blue (flow) leds on the white ring will give you real-time readings of pressure and flow.

The price for our machines will go up by $300 for this feature, starting in November. And.... customers who have our v1.1 espresso machines (that's what we're currently making, since January 2019) will be able to install this upgrade on this machines, for the same price ($300).

Attached is a photo of our "manufacturing prototype". We're still nailing down the final issues, such as how to align the icons perfectly, guarantee water tightness, testing insulation and heating over heavy use.

This new controller is key to a few new things:



real time control over flow and pressure


UL approval (we'll be submitting this model for approval, and we think it'll pass).


heavy duty use (ie a café), that a tablet could probably not withstand


the tablet becomes optional, for cases (especially cafes) where a tablet might not be wanted


-john


----------



## Planter

decent_espresso said:


> *The upcoming "group head controller" *
> Starting in November, the Decent Espresso machines will have this circular, glass-covered controller on the group head, sitting on top of a circle of full color LEDs.
> You'll be able to start/stop all functions (espresso, steam, etc) and you'll also have real-time "tap and drag" finger control over either pressure or flow (whichever you tap closest to). The tablet's charts follow you, showing what you're requesting (the dotted lines) and showing you what's actually occuring to your shot.
> Green (pressure) and blue (flow) leds on the white ring will give you real-time readings of pressure and flow.
> The price for our machines will go up by $300 for this feature, starting in November. And.... customers who have our v1.1 espresso machines (that's what we're currently making, since January 2019) will be able to install this upgrade on this machines, for the same price ($300).
> Attached is a photo of our "manufacturing prototype". We're still nailing down the final issues, such as how to align the icons perfectly, guarantee water tightness, testing insulation and heating over heavy use.
> This new controller is key to a few new things:
> 
> real time control over flow and pressure
> UL approval (we'll be submitting this model for approval, and we think it'll pass).
> heavy duty use (ie a café), that a tablet could probably not withstand
> the tablet becomes optional, for cases (especially cafes) where a tablet might not be wanted
> -john
> [IMG alt="64656404_1083221375206707_9097116834624176128_o.thumb.jpg.416eb4122e36df186e3212fdb41c88df.jpg" data-fileid="30180"]https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk//coffeeforums.co.uk/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" data-src="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2019_06/64656404_1083221375206707_9097116834624176128_o.thumb.jpg.416eb4122e36df186e3212fdb41c88df.jpg[/IMG]


I like the look of that. Gives an easier span of control if you want it. Nice that it's upgradeable too.


----------



## decent_espresso

"*A business run out of a suitcase*"

Here is a more detailed photograph showing the white DE1XL and pitcher rinser, built into a suitcase.

I was waiting for someone to tell the joke about how we were a "business run out of a suitcase" (that's an English-language expression meaning "they are such a small business, that they have no office")

I'll be making a short video soon, about the suicase, how it went, and also showing the wiring from behind.﻿

One unexpected benefit was how the suitcase lifted the machine up to a better height.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*A Coffee Cart, in a Suitcase*

For our trade show stand, we modified one of our Decent suitcases to hold a pitcher rinser and espresso machine, with all the plumbing built in. Makes for a clean setup with a very fest setup and tear down.


----------



## martinierius

decent_espresso said:


> *A Coffee Cart, in a Suitcase*
> For our trade show stand, we modified one of our Decent suitcases to hold a pitcher rinser and espresso machine, with all the plumbing built in. Makes for a clean setup with a very fest setup and tear down.


How do you move the niche grinder? In it's original box or is there a suitcase for that too?


----------



## ronsil

I believe that by reorganising the foam & putting a couple of items in the Machine they can get the Niche into the suitcase. Great - ingenious.


----------



## MrShades

I've been watching this since day dot, and was just looking around on the Decent website - still contemplating a possible purchase - and I noticed that one of the previously interesting and useful design features (the angled lower front panel section) is effectively removed from the DE1+ because of the brushed finish all over the front, including the angled mirror section. If I want a mirrored section to easily gaze at my extraction, then it appears that my only option is to go for a PRO or higher model - or I now have to comtemplate the addition of an adhesive mirror strip... seems odd that the angled section isn't a polished mirror finish on the DE1+.

To help me in my decision making - will ALL features of the forthcoming 1.3 be available as upgrade parts to the current model, at the price delta - or is the touchcontrol group cover the only one? (so will current model + $300 upgrade = v1.3 spec, or will there be other differences).


----------



## Bolta

The mirrored panel can be purchased separately.....https://decentespresso.com/cart?show=all


----------



## decent_espresso

martinierius said:


> decent_espresso said:
> 
> 
> 
> *A Coffee Cart, in a Suitcase*
> For our trade show stand, we modified one of our Decent suitcases to hold a pitcher rinser and espresso machine, with all the plumbing built in. Makes for a clean setup with a very fest setup and tear down.
> 
> 
> 
> How do you move the niche grinder? In it's original box or is there a suitcase for that too?
Click to expand...

 At the moment, I'm carrying it in its original suitcase.

However, if I put the ceramic water tank and drip tray under the machine when I pack it, there's enough space for the Niche in the same suitcase.

However, I'm unsure if the ceramic will break in that configuration, and I don't have a spare ceramics set with me here in the UK, so I haven't experimented yet. But I'll be giving that a try shortly, as a "one suitcase" espresso setup is a bit too seductive an idea not to try to make it work.

-john


----------



## MrShades

Bolta said:


> The mirrored panel can be purchased separately.....https://decentespresso.com/cart?show=all


 For $99, granted. or £2 for a thin (1mm thick) piece of mirrored acrylic and a few blobs of superglue.


----------



## decent_espresso

Bolta said:


> The mirrored panel can be purchased separately.....https://decentespresso.com/cart?show=all


 Yes, all parts for all our models can be purchased separately.

However, it's a good 2 hours of work to replace the mirror panel by hand. There's a video in our docs on how to do it, but it's a lengthy job, and you need to be unintimidated by taking apart a machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

MrShades said:


> For $99, granted. or £2 for a thin (1mm thick) piece of mirrored acrylic and a few blobs of superglue.


 It's made from pre-mirrored stainless steel which we import from Korea. It's 2mm thick, and we get about a 40% quality-control failure rate on it, as they tend to get scratched up before we even receive them. It's one of the most frustrating parts for us to make. I posted extensively about it last year, as we were (at the time) paying USD$40 each (at quantity) to have them CNCed for us by a specialist. We tried 3 different Chinese suppliers of mirrored stainless, and found them all to be scratched. The Korean stuff is way more expensive, but much less likely to suffer scratches.

The 40% that are quality-control failed (minor scratches when we peel off the protetive film), we then send to another company in HK, who brush-steel treats the front face, thus removing the mirror finish, and therefore getting it into a state that we can use it. That way we don't waste any.

So that's why it's an expensive part, and also why the brushed steel appears on the lower-priced DE1+ model. Really nicely mirrored stainless, that's bent and cut, is hard to do.

-john


----------



## AndyZap

I am also thinking about DE1 and which model to go for. I prefer to get a cheaper version provided that it could be upgraded when needed (a kind of a Gaggia Classic route when you can add PID, etc later).

It is a great idea to add a mirror strip to DE1+. Another option which I do not like on DE1+ is the mesh shower screen. I have both for my Gaggia (IMS mesh and "competition"), and seems the competition "taste" better. This is probably because it restricts the water flow less, given that the vibration pump does not provide good flow in the first place.


----------



## MrShades

decent_espresso said:


> It's made from pre-mirrored stainless steel which we import from Korea. It's 2mm thick, and we get about a 40% quality-control failure rate on it, as they tend to get scratched up before we even receive them. It's one of the most frustrating parts for us to make. I posted extensively about it last year, as we were (at the time) paying USD$40 each (at quantity) to have them CNCed for us by a specialist. We tried 3 different Chinese suppliers of mirrored stainless, and found them all to be scratched. The Korean stuff is way more expensive, but much less likely to suffer scratches.
> 
> The 40% that are quality-control failed (minor scratches when we peel off the protetive film), we then send to another company in HK, who brush-steel treats the front face, thus removing the mirror finish, and therefore getting it into a state that we can use it. That way we don't waste any.
> 
> So that's why it's an expensive part, and also why the brushed steel appears on the lower-priced DE1+ model. Really nicely mirrored stainless, that's bent and cut, is hard to do.
> 
> -john


 Thanks for the explanation John.... can't they leave the angled piece alone - and brush finish just the flat surface, leaving the angled piece as a mirror?


----------



## decent_espresso

MrShades said:


> seems odd that the angled section isn't a polished mirror finish on the DE1+.


 We tried to do this, but the "parting line" between the brushed and mirrored sections looked terrible.

Note that Lyn Weber just came out with a shot mirror:

https://lynweber.com/product/looking-glass/











MrShades said:


> To help me in my decision making - will ALL features of the forthcoming 1.3 be available as upgrade parts to the current model, at the price delta - or is the touchcontrol group cover the only one? (so will current model + $300 upgrade = v1.3 spec, or will there be other differences).


 The Android 5.1 tablet is about to go out of stock in six weeks, to be replaced with an identical-looking Android 8.1 tablet. That'll also be available on the web site as a separate purchase, if you want it.


----------



## decent_espresso

AndyZap said:


> I am also thinking about DE1 and which model to go for. I prefer to get a cheaper version provided that it could be upgraded when needed (a kind of a Gaggia Classic route when you can add PID, etc later).


 The only "permanent" difference would be the longer warranty (10,000 shots vs 200,000 shots) which really only comes into play if you're making 10+ espressos per day.



AndyZap said:


> It is a great idea to add a mirror strip to DE1+.


 Someone on the user forum did use a "mirror paint" on the bottom brushed lip of their DE1+, and it looked quite good.



AndyZap said:


> It is a great idea to add a mirror strip to DE1+. Another option which I do not like on DE1+ is the mesh shower screen. I have both for my Gaggia (IMS mesh and "competition"), and seems the competition "taste" better. This is probably because it restricts the water flow less, given that the vibration pump does not provide good flow in the first place.


 You're welcome to swap out the filter screen, but my own tests finds no difference in espresso quality between the mesh filter screen, and the IMS screen, *when they are both spotlessly clean*. However, the IMS screen is significantly easier to keep clean.

I would disagree with your assessment of vibe pumps not providing good flow. That's likely true with a single pump, at full throttle, but we have two pumps, mixing, and mathematically controlled to run at lower pulse intervals out of phase with each other. And teflon tubing throughout that is ever so slightly stretchy.

And besides, Home Barista users have had extensive tests on drink quality of different pump types, and didn't find any quality differences (not just for Decent, that applies for other machines too).


----------



## decent_espresso

*Wire Cup Holder*

Two years ago, João Tomaz and I worked on wire cup holder designs for our Decent Espresso machine. We're now trying to make it work "in the real world"

The standoffs are a bit too tall in this prototype; we'll fix that shortly. And there's a bit of movement back-and-forth on the wire, as there's nothing in this design to prevent that.

However, I like the minimalist "wings" aesthetic in Joao's drawings, and so I'm tempted to sacrifice a bit of functionality for beauty.

On idea I have to increase the strength is to put a standoff at the middle-end of the machine, as that would definitely secure everything. We'll be trying that too, and I'll post photos of what that looks like when we've done it.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Color and reflection matching*

I've ordered 1000 new tablets, all running Android 8.1. They'll start shipping with our machines in about 8 weeks.

I'm making 200 of them in white, to match the white DE1XL model. I was toying with a black front, white back, but decided all-white looked best.

My tablet manufacturer sent me various whites, with different textures (plastic, textured plastic, textured rubber). In the end, the textured "oil plastic" is matte, has a nice feel, and color matches well (reflectivity is hard to match).

Also, I don't have the worries about long term durability which rubber brings (it tends to turn sticky with age).

I have to order 1000 of these white components (sigh) and store them for future orders, even though we're just ordering 200 white tablets for now.

-john


----------



## yohncurry

Is there any benefit to waiting to purchase until these new tablets ship?


----------



## AndyZap

decent_espresso said:


> You're welcome to swap out the filter screen, but my own tests finds no difference in espresso quality between the mesh filter screen, and the IMS screen, *when they are both spotlessly clean*. However, the IMS screen is significantly easier to keep clean.
> 
> I would disagree with your assessment of vibe pumps not providing good flow. That's likely true with a single pump, at full throttle, but we have two pumps, mixing, and mathematically controlled to run at lower pulse intervals out of phase with each other. And teflon tubing throughout that is ever so slightly stretchy.
> 
> And besides, Home Barista users have had extensive tests on drink quality of different pump types, and didn't find any quality differences (not just for Decent, that applies for other machines too).


 Agree. BTW, very impressed by your solution to use two pumps running out of phase.

I guess we both agree that the IMS screen will not do any harm for DE1+. Would it be better/easier for you to have a single version of the screen for all DE1 versions and simply increase the price of DE1+ by the price difference?


----------



## MrShades

AndyZap said:


> Agree. BTW, very impressed by your solution to use two pumps running out of phase.
> 
> I guess we both agree that the IMS screen will not do any harm for DE1+. Would it be better/easier for you to have a single version of the screen for all DE1 versions and simply increase the price of DE1+ by the price difference?


 https://www.theespressoshop.co.uk/en/IMS-Integrated-Shower-Screen-515mm---CI200IM/m-1999.aspx


----------



## decent_espresso

AndyZap said:


> Agree. BTW, very impressed by your solution to use two pumps running out of phase.
> 
> I guess we both agree that the IMS screen will not do any harm for DE1+. Would it be better/easier for you to have a single version of the screen for all DE1 versions and simply increase the price of DE1+ by the price difference?


 You're welcome to buy the IMS screen from us, or someone else if they're less expensive. But if you get it from us, we do provide a slightly shorter (and different head) screw, that works better with the IMS than the stock screw, which was tailored for the mesh screen.

And yes, we both agree, the IMS is better.


----------



## decent_espresso

​
​





​
​
Decent engineer Ben Champion has pimped up his DE1PRO with a few changes:​
- white chassis​
- white ceramic drip tray​
- craquelure group head​
Personally, I think the craquelure looks great, and would love to see it on the entire body too.​
In November, we'll have a limited quantity of white drip trays, as part of our new ceramics order, and people with the white DE1XL will get that with their machines (and we'll send them to those who already received theirs).​
A white tablet would also look better here, and that's been ordered too, coming in August (and we'll ship those to white DE1XL customers too).​
-john​


----------



## AndyZap

While browsing through all Decent products https://decentespresso.com/cart?show=all I have come across a refractormeter. Could not find any info on the web site. How does it compare to VST? Would it be a good alternative for a careful home user?


----------



## Mrboots2u

AndyZap said:


> While browsing through all Decent products https://decentespresso.com/cart?show=all I have come across a refractormeter. Could not find any info on the web site. How does it compare to VST? Would it be a good alternative for a careful home user?


 Its this one

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HM-Digital-RCM-1000BT-Refractometer-Bluetooth/dp/B07BFJD2MZ


----------



## AndyZap

Mrboots2u said:


> Its this one
> 
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/HM-Digital-RCM-1000BT-Refractometer-Bluetooth/dp/B07BFJD2MZ


 Thanks for the link! Has anyone compared it to VST? I guess the important question: does it gives the same results?


----------



## Mrboots2u

AndyZap said:


> Thanks for the link! Has anyone compared it to VST? I guess the important question: does it gives the same results?


 No idea, cant work out if it's calibrated or not from the manufacturer . How it is designed to work, for espresso i still am off the opinion that you need to filter the coffee , if you are coopering like for like results with people . @mwjb come across this one?


----------



## MWJB

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/index.php?app=core&module=system&controller=embed&url=https://www.instagram.com/p/Bh_eHO_DohP/?hl=en

Whilst they don't actually know whether the VST "undershot" the TDS readings (moisture balance used was no more precise than the VST refractometer & there was no dehydration datum for accuracy), the HM had the widest spread of readings & average was different to VST & Atago by a fair margin.


----------



## Mrboots2u

The methodology and conclusion on the socratic post look shonky to say the least ( and not for the first time ) . Reading of instant coffee to benchmark setting in different refractomereter .


----------



## MWJB

Well, they filtered the instant, probably safer than them brewing it.


----------



## decent_espresso

Mrboots2u said:


> Its this one
> 
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/HM-Digital-RCM-1000BT-Refractometer-Bluetooth/dp/B07BFJD2MZ


 I bought 4 of those HM Digital refractometer, as they were kind enough to share their Bluetooth spec with me, and give me permission to integrate the DE1+ app with their refractometer. The idea is for refractometry readings to be as easy as possible to be data-entered with your shot data.

However, I've had other tasks grabbing my attention, and have sold the few samples I bought to other people. I'm not sure when I'll have the time to do the refractometry integration, as it doesn't seem to be at the top of anyone's wishlist.

As far as the quality goes, the price is VERY good (a fraction of the VST) and it's what Rao used at the Berlin SCA show. He told me the readings were very consistent, so he didn't have any worries about it.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

"Turn Junk Into Art" Sighting: Walnut and Green paint

Decent owner Chris applied a walnut veneer to his espresso machine body and tablet, and painted his machine green. He also chose a custom skin on the tablet to match better.
Beautiful, or hideous?

Chris did this with the 80% discounted body part "cosmetic rejects" I'm selling. I was hoping people would re-paint these and thus bring them back to life.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*DE1XL Conversion Kit - Just about ready to ship*

We have all the parts in to ship the kit that lets people change their DE1PRO espresso machines into DE1XL models.

I've made a video, showing the process (it took me 14 minutes to do the conversion, babbling away all the time). We provide the Torx T10 screwdriver (for the chassis conversion) and two wrenches (for the steam wand conversion)

Because there are lots of parts involved, I asked Fabrice to make an IKEA style drawing of the parts, their name, and the quantity they should have.

I'm hoping that in the next 48h we'll get everything right (3rd draft, at the moment) and ship out the black DE1XL kits. About 10 days later, we should be able to ship the white DE1XL kits.

I negotiated to have the wood-turning company redo the "natural wood" handles with sharper tooling, so as to avoid the (light, but still visible) scratches they had on their first run. That's caused a bit of a delay in shipping the white kit, but we're almost there.

-john


----------



## rimblas

I also had one of the "cosmetic rejects" painted. I took the body and group head covers to a body shop and the painted the parts with clear coat treatment and all. I'm very happy with the results. The red matches the red tiles and accents in my kitchen


----------



## decent_espresso

*Change the Steam Wand *






-john


----------



## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> "Turn Junk Into Art" Sighting: Walnut and Green paint
> 
> Decent owner Chris applied a walnut veneer to his espresso machine body and tablet, and painted his machine green. He also chose a custom skin on the tablet to match better.
> Beautiful, or hideous?


 Hideous. Absolutely hideous.


----------



## decent_espresso

William from Loveramics was kind enough to give us a set of his new Dale Harris signature mugs. In the photo that's Scott Rao making James Hoffmann one of his recently-invented 28% extraction coffees, footage of which ended up in James' video






Bugs and I have fallen in love with these 150ml mugs, which are perfectly sized for a potent latte or flat white (a bit less milk). It's been our new morning mug since coming back from Berlin.

More info on these mugs:
https://www.loveramics.com/collections/dale-harris

Loveramics, like us, is based on Hong Kong. We're mutual fans of each other's work, and always chatting about doing some interesting work together. Maybe you'll see the fruits of those talks next year&#8230;

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

This nice photo on Instagram

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/index.php?app=core&module=system&controller=embed&url=https://www.instagram.com/p/Bznleg7JHsb/

My "Decent" affogato approach:

For espresso on ice cream, I pull the shot onto some ice, and then shake it into a cocktail shaker, usually with half a teaspoon of simple syrup. That dilutes the espresso a bit, and also prevents the whole mix from being a "cream soup" from the hot coffee melting the ice cream.

I make my own ice cream for this, simply by mixing (in a blender) half-and-half (this is a 10%ish liquid cream) with vanilla extract and sugar, in a blender. I've recently tried adding two eggs, and sous-vide cooking it to 60ºC, to create an egg custard. In that case, less milk fat is needed or it's too thick.

Do you do anything special when you make an affogato?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Cracking up*

Now that cafes have been starting to use our espresso machines in heavy use situations, we're now able to tell what components are up to the task.

About six months ago, Charles Temkey came on board. He's an engineer specialized in the longevity of marine equipment. He completely took apart his DE1PRO, after making several thousand shots with it, to find what was wearing. He identified two weaknesses, which we addressed with the v1.1 launch in January.

A month ago, a customer developed a leak in the mixing chamber of their Decent espresso machine. This is where hot and cold water comes together with temperature sensors and flow constrictors, so that we can dynamically change the espresso water temperature.

We found cracking around the inserted flow constrictors. (see photo)

We've identified two causes of this: (1) the flow constrictors are inserted under too much pressure, putting the Ultem resin under strain, and (2) the semi-transparent Ultem we're using allows cracks to propagate.

We're currently testing a variant material called Ultem 2100F, which mixes 10% glass fibers into the resin, for hugely increased crack resistance. It's no longer translucent. This material is what we're going to use in the v1.3 machines, which we'll start building in November.

Since these cracks would fall (in my opinion) under the class of "manufacturer's mistake" Decent will repair any Ultem (v1.0 and v1.1 machines) that had cracks and leaked, forever, and for free.

Note that we've only seen cracks so far in a few machines (I think it's less than 5) but that's also probably because cafes have been cautiously (and slowly) ramping up how close they put Decent espresso machines in their main line.

We've also made a jig to insert the flow constrictors, which puts less strain on the Ultem, once the constrictor has been inserted, and started using that right away.

One reason we've been slow to put out a DE1CAFE model, is that we want to learn everything we can about our DE1PRO line, how it can fail, and how to avoid that, before we make a model that we claim is ready for any use.

It's largely a question of getting our machines out there, in real use, getting extremely involved when there is a failure, and repeatedly addressing each area of failure.

I suspect that the process will take about another year, and we'll continue to hugely support the cafes kind and brave enough to trust our new company with their business.

-john


----------



## Bolta

John, how did the leak present itself to your customer? What were the signs?


----------



## decent_espresso

Bolta said:


> John, how did the leak present itself to your customer? What were the signs?


 Since this is the main mixing chamber, it means:

1) you can't make much pressure during espresso

2) water leaks out the left and right sides, as designed. There is an air gap under the machine, and there are UL-mandated drain holes inside the chassis, to drain into that. From standing height, this air gap isn't visible, as it's in shadows.

Photo (and arrow) below shows where water comes out, in the event of a leak.

Note that while I might complain about Intertek's waffling on Bluetooth acceptability, we did hire them as consultants all through our 3 year R&D phase, and their many safety suggestions were all implemented, and I felt they were all worthwhile. Some amount of failure is inevitable, the trick is to cope with it gracefully.


----------



## LostCreekSooner

Just spent the entire weekend reading this entire thread from the beginning - wew - kind of sad to be done!!!

Recently purchased a Niche Zero Grinder and love it. No longer have to argue with the wife over which coffee to buy. She gets what she likes and I get my favorite beans. Awesome zero retention grinder!

Having a real grinder improved our espresso enough using the Breville Barista - I've now got the OK to purchase a DE1Pro. Happy days ahead!

Question: I know the future version 1.3 will cost an additional $300, which will be available to swap out if I purchase the 1.1 now. (Thank you!!!). Another difference is the Ultem cracking, but seems like the jig apparatus on the current build likely helps with that problem - plus that's also been recognized as a design flaw with lifelong warranty. (Again thanks for sharing)

Few small questions regarding the tablets. Looks like there is a new updated tablet with updated Android OS, faster cpu, and more memory on the near horizon. Is the screen any different and does it 'feel faster' when using the app? Ie any reason to wait? Also, is the tablet on the DE1Pro supported by the bracket with 2 holes in the case - or is it using the magnetic holder? Which brings me to final question. It looks like the tablet can be optional in the future. I haven't seen much discussion on this topic? Is the thought process that most people will continue to keep their tablet as is currently?


----------



## decent_espresso

LostCreekSooner said:


> Question: I know the future version 1.3 will cost an additional $300, which will be available to swap out if I purchase the 1.1 now. (Thank you!!!). Another difference is the Ultem cracking, but seems like the jig apparatus on the current build likely helps with that problem - plus that's also been recognized as a design flaw with lifelong warranty. (Again thanks for sharing)


 I wouldn't call it a "design flaw", what I'd call it is "a component that will fail earlier than the other components".

Eventually, everything breaks at some point. For the ultem-made mixin chamber, it appears that if you combine "too tight a flow constrictor" with "commercial use" with "cold water clean daily", then you can cause this material to break before the other components have started to fail.

Now that we've extended the lifetime of 3 components that would fail first, we're now waiting to find the next component on the list, that will fail before the others.



LostCreekSooner said:


> Few small questions regarding the tablets. Looks like there is a new updated tablet with updated Android OS, faster cpu, and more memory on the near horizon. Is the screen any different and does it 'feel faster' when using the app? Ie any reason to wait? Also, is the tablet on the DE1Pro supported by the bracket with 2 holes in the case - or is it using the magnetic holder? Which brings me to final question. It looks like the tablet can be optional in the future. I haven't seen much discussion on this topic? Is the thought process that most people will continue to keep their tablet as is currently?


 Screen is identical, same resolution and brightness. App speed feels identical. However, more memory and faster CPU was needed to run a newer Android version (8.1 vs 5.1) at the same perceived speed, so that's why the newer tablet is beefier. However, this also means that the newer tablet, being more modern, is able to run non-coffee-related software much better than the current tablet. If that's what you want to do with it (up to you), then the newer tablet is better for you.

The DE1PRO is staying with the magnetic Steelie stand.

A tablet will be optional for daily use (making drinks), but essential for creating profiles, seeing the charts, etc... The "no tablet" crowd is very likely to only be cafes, who don't want their employees to fiddle, and they want to lock down the recipe used.

-john


----------



## Cooffe

decent_espresso said:


> *Cracking up*
> 
> Now that cafes have been starting to use our espresso machines in heavy use situations, we're now able to tell what components are up to the task.
> 
> About six months ago, Charles Temkey came on board. He's an engineer specialized in the longevity of marine equipment. He completely took apart his DE1PRO, after making several thousand shots with it, to find what was wearing. He identified two weaknesses, which we addressed with the v1.1 launch in January.
> 
> A month ago, a customer developed a leak in the mixing chamber of their Decent espresso machine. This is where hot and cold water comes together with temperature sensors and flow constrictors, so that we can dynamically change the espresso water temperature.
> 
> We found cracking around the inserted flow constrictors. (see photo)
> 
> We've identified two causes of this: (1) the flow constrictors are inserted under too much pressure, putting the Ultem resin under strain, and (2) the semi-transparent Ultem we're using allows cracks to propagate.
> 
> We're currently testing a variant material called Ultem 2100F, which mixes 10% glass fibers into the resin, for hugely increased crack resistance. It's no longer translucent. This material is what we're going to use in the v1.3 machines, which we'll start building in November.
> 
> Since these cracks would fall (in my opinion) under the class of "manufacturer's mistake" Decent will repair any Ultem (v1.0 and v1.1 machines) that had cracks and leaked, forever, and for free.
> 
> Note that we've only seen cracks so far in a few machines (I think it's less than 5) but that's also probably because cafes have been cautiously (and slowly) ramping up how close they put Decent espresso machines in their main line.
> 
> We've also made a jig to insert the flow constrictors, which puts less strain on the Ultem, once the constrictor has been inserted, and started using that right away.
> 
> One reason we've been slow to put out a DE1CAFE model, is that we want to learn everything we can about our DE1PRO line, how it can fail, and how to avoid that, before we make a model that we claim is ready for any use.
> 
> It's largely a question of getting our machines out there, in real use, getting extremely involved when there is a failure, and repeatedly addressing each area of failure.
> 
> I suspect that the process will take about another year, and we'll continue to hugely support the cafes kind and brave enough to trust our new company with their business.
> 
> -john


 Hi John,

Would buying a reinforced grade of plastic (PEI is used I assume because of temperature limits) be any use to prevent propagation of cracks? I just ask as we have had a similar work-related issue with nylon's cracking *specifically high glass-filled content - it becomes very brittle*, and one of the solutions was to use a rubberised grade. It has exactly the same capabilities, but the rubber in it prevented crack propagation.

Furthermore - why PEI? Would something like a PA66 not also be suitable for similar temp. ranges?

Sorry, I know they're nerdy questions - just querying the choice.

Cheers.


----------



## decent_espresso

Cooffe said:


> Hi John,
> 
> Would buying a reinforced grade of plastic (PEI is used I assume because of temperature limits) be any use to prevent propagation of cracks? I just ask as we have had a similar work-related issue with nylon's cracking *specifically high glass-filled content - it becomes very brittle*, and one of the solutions was to use a rubberised grade. It has exactly the same capabilities, but the rubber in it prevented crack propagation.
> 
> Furthermore - why PEI? Would something like a PA66﻿ not also be suitable for similar temp. ranges?


 Looking at the PA66 you recommend, I don't see it it being used in any food situations:

http://www.performance-plastics.co.uk/product/classification/nylon-66-pa66/

As to why PEI/Ultem, we're using it because it's extremely unlikely to taint water flavor (it's commonly used medically), very high temperature, can handle high pressures, and is fairly tough.

If PA66 has a food-grade variant, I'd very much like to know about it.

As to Ultem, once our designs stabilize, we'll be investing in molds, rather than CNC carving out of blocks, and then the cost comes way down, as we will then be wasting far less material.


----------



## Cooffe

decent_espresso said:


> Looking at the PA66 you recommend, I don't see it it being used in any food situations:
> 
> http://www.performance-plastics.co.uk/product/classification/nylon-66-pa66/
> 
> As to why PEI/Ultem, we're using it because it's extremely unlikely to taint water flavor (it's commonly used medically), very high temperature, can handle high pressures, and is fairly tough.
> 
> If PA66 has a food-grade variant, I'd very much lik﻿e to know about it.
> 
> ﻿ As to Ultem, once our designs stabilize, we'll be investing in molds, rather than CNC carving out of blocks, and then the cost comes way down, as we will then be wasting far less material.


 Hi John,

Have done a bit of looking into this. As I understand most Nylons are food safe, but the colourant used isn't, so as long as it is in its "Natural" colour (not black/white etc.) it should be OK. I know that the PEI you use is quite expensive (we've used it for certain applications within my workplace), however very geometrically stable under temperature, also it is temperature resistant. I'll PM you the grade of PA66 that I am thinking of. The PA66 may be more cost efficient when bought in bulk. I'd also argue that when tooling the part, the toolmakers will be more familiar with PA66 and be able to better suit the mould for shrinkage/warpage.

I can also see that the part your referencing looks to be fairly thick (>3mm), it may be that when you move this from CNC to an injection moulding, you'll need to work on the productionisation of the part (however I'm sure you know this) to prevent sink marks/warpage. Not sure on the quantities, but you can get Aluminium moulds that are fairly cheap, and coat them, and will last for 200k+ shots, which might be a better alternative to steel if you don't need a high clamp force (which is possible with the PA66).

Cheers,


----------



## decent_espresso

Cooffe said:


> Have done a bit of looking into this. As I understand most Nylons are food safe, but the colourant used isn't, so as long as it is in its "Natural" colour (not black/white etc.) it should be OK. I know that the PEI you use is quite expensive (we've used it for certain applications within my workplace), however very geometrically stable under temperature, also it is temperature resistant. I'll PM you the grade of PA66 that I am thinking of. The PA66 may be more cost efficient when bought in bulk. I'd also argue that when tooling the part, the toolmakers will be more familiar with PA66 and be able to better suit the mould for shrinkage/warpage.
> 
> I can also see that the part your referencing looks to be fairly thick (>3mm), it may be that when you move this from CNC to an injection moulding, you'll need to work on the productionisation of the part (however I'm sure you know this) to prevent sink marks/warpage. Not sure on the quantities, but you can get Aluminium moulds that are fairly cheap, and coat them, and will last for 200k+ shots, which might be a better alternative to steel if you don't need a high clamp force (which is possible with the PA66).


 This is all *incredibly* helpful, thank you. Looking forward to your PM with more details.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Opaque Mixing*

We've been testing the new glass-fiber mixing chambers this week. This new material will prevent cracks from propagating. So far, we can't find any performance difference, which is good. You can see the current material, as it's amber-colored and fairly transparent.
In the photos, you can see us testing externally, separately, under a 19bar testing jig, and finally integrated into a machine.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Drawings for DIY IKEA Coffee Cart*

Here are the drawings (and renders) for our coffee cart, using IKEA's "Rimforsa" https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60399412/ table.

We've made two versions so far: for one or two espresso machines.

The bamboo top is thick enough to hide much of the countersinking (of the machine and of the pitcher rinser). However, even though it looks hollow, there are vertical ribs every 20cm, which greatly complicate cutting and placement. Our drawings show the ribs, to help you measure more exactly.

I'm also looking at the "Bror" cart from IKEA, as it comes with wheels. It's smaller, but simpler and cheaper too. Going to IKEA later today to check it out, and my jigsaw should arrive from Amazon this weekend. I'm going to try to make my own cart, and hopefully get the OK to run a coffee cart at our local sunday farmer's market.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Brilliant Advice*

My train-ride reading this week was Colin Harmon's book "What I know about running coffee shops" https://whatiknowaboutrunningcoffeeshops.com/

It's one of those "experience human does brain-dump of his life's knowledge". I agree wholeheartedly with virtually all of it, but when something new-to-me comes along, it's then totally in line with how I think and so it immediately changes my thinking in a deep way.

Here's a great example of an insight about to how to help your customers feel better about waiting for their coffee:



> "Another thing to do is to give customers strangely specific wait times. In a busy queue, I'd often go down the line with the first three customers and tell them:
> 1st customer: I have yours here
> 2nd customer: Yours is a cappuccino?
> 3rd customer: Yours is going to be about 70 seconds"


 The explanation of why this works is the paragraph following, and you should buy the book to read it, and the ~20 other gems of brilliance scattered around the pages.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Conference Presentation: Coffee Without Java*

A conference talk I gave, directed toward programmers and IT people, about the Decent Espresso machine. It especially covers the tablet app, which is written in Tcl/Tk https://androwish.org/

Fairly long but hopefully interesting to open source folk, open hardware, tinkerers, and Makers.
I'm hoping that my way of explaining myself will be (mostly) clear to non-programmers, as long as you're fairly familiar with technology.


----------



## decent_espresso

Some progress with my $99 IKEA coffee cart ... looks like everything will actually fit.


----------



## Dylan

decent_espresso said:


> Here's a great example of an insight about to how to help your customers feel better about waiting for their coffee:
> 
> The explanation of why this works is the paragraph following, and you should buy the book to read it, and the ~20 other gems of brilliance scattered around the pages.
> 
> -john


 You tease ?


----------



## decent_espresso

*Finger me not*

One of the golden rules of products in today's age is "thou shalt make products that look good on Instagram"

Thus, when I saw what Ben's prototype group head controller looked like in a photo he took (top left photo, below), I knew we had a problem on our hands (har har).



Today we received a set of parts for revisions on all the parts for our upcoming group head controller. Among the fine tuning we're trying to accomplish in this pass:


4 different coatings, though I'm betting that the dual "anti reflective" and then "anti fingerprint" on top of that, will be the winner (bottom left image)


a light-diffusing ring, to make the LEDs bleed into each other (top right photo)


a spongy custom-cut gasket, so that slight non-flatness on the metal group head cover, doesn't permit small unsightly gaps to appear


custom die cut insulation to keep the group head touch controller very much heat isolated from the 90º pre-heated water path below it.


﻿-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Coffee Cart with a Niche Coffee Grinder*

In the continuing saga of my turning a $99 IKEA table into a coffee cart, I've now put my Niche grinder in place, alongside a scale (for weighing the coffee beans), as well as empty milk jugs for waste water.

My "waste water solution" is very much "sub-optimal" and so I'll be working on finding larger, and appropriate-height, plastic containers for my espresso and pitcher rinser dirty water.

I also found that my full-size kitchen towels are much too large for such a small cart. I'll go looking for small brown-colored ones that I've used in Hong Kong.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Ben continues his quest to "pimp his DE1", this time with a craquelure red/black paint that looks like some sort of demonic lizard skin.


----------



## decent_espresso

*John's group head controller prototype*

Fabrice built me a prototype group head controller, so I can start programming its interaction with the tablet app. The reflectivity is much improved with this latest revision, though the "light show" is really awfully tacky and gaudy. That'll get fixed before we ship!

And there's a surprise at the end.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Scale beta, solving more niggles*

Previous beta versions of our scale have had two problems: they tend to turn on by accident (such as when you lift it out of a drawer) and they took a loooong time to go from power-up HELLO to "ready to weigh".

When weighing, we've had two different (opposite) problems: either too fast to "settle" on a weight, in which case the weight is not really accurate. Or too slow to settle, in which case the weight moves disconcertingly +/- 0.1g as you watch it.

All 0.1g (or better) scales have a point where they "ignore small changes" in order to stop the display from constantly changing. The tricky bit is getting the settings to the right balance between competing demands.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Coffee Cart Wired Up & Cleaned Up*

Latest changes:
- A german-made power bar installed, cabling cleaned up
- Combined dirty water vessels for DE1 and pitcher rinser
- Jettisoned tamping cradle for lack of space
- Bottomless portafilter stand modified to fit Niche grinder
- Much more working space now, much less crowded.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Minor New Accessories*

I've recently been working on my coffee cart, and I'm about to upgrade to the white DE1XL. I've needed some new stuff to make it all work, and can now make those parts available to you.

I've added the "natural wood" portafilter (both bottomless and double spouted) to our web site today. And also the rubber ring that allows you to countersink our knockbox.

https://decentespresso.com/new

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*We're sorry about your drip tray cover*

As of today, espresso machines that we're shipping out will have this message printed out, attached to the drip tray cover.

I'll explain how this came to happen, in a separate posting.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*No options?*

Three months ago, we ordered 1000 new drip tray covers to be made, by our regular manufacturer. These are a quite expensive part (about $12/each) and (we believe) very profitable business for this company.

We've also had to pay $20,000 for an aluminum casting mould. That makes us "pregnant" with this supplier (that's the actual "term of art" for this situation)

Two months after taking our money, this supplier told us that they would cancel our order, if we didn't triple our order quantity to 3000 pieces. They offered us a 5% price discount.

Given that we've only made 850 espresso machines in 18 months, that represents 5 years worth of stock.

And, since they've waited so long to do this to us, they know that if we refuse, we'll run out of this part, and maybe have to stop shipping espresso machines. CNCing this part costs us $80/each, so that's not an option.

They've got us right where they want us.

Which is why I walked away. Because: if we say OK to them this time, they know that they own us, and could demand any terms they want.

More news on this tomorrow...

-john


----------



## ashcroc

decent_espresso said:


> <img alt="head_gun_2.thumb.jpg.7aebfdf0f7bd5f1925b427f8bf00ff2a.jpg" data-fileid="31451" data-src="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2019_08/head_gun_2.thumb.jpg.7aebfdf0f7bd5f1925b427f8bf00ff2a.jpg" src="https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">
> *No options?*
> Three months ago, we ordered 1000 new drip tray covers to be made, by our regular manufacturer. These are a quite expensive part (about $12/each) and (we believe) very profitable business for this company.
> We've also had to pay $20,000 for an aluminum casting mould. That makes us "pregnant" with this supplier (that's the actual "term of art" for this situation)
> Two months after taking our money, this supplier told us that they would cancel our order, if we didn't triple our order quantity to 3000 pieces. They offered us a 5% price discount.
> Given that we've only made 850 espresso machines in 18 months, that represents 5 years worth of stock.
> And, since they've waited so long to do this to us, they know that if we refuse, we'll run out of this part, and maybe have to stop shipping espresso machines. CNCing this part costs us $80/each, so that's not an option.
> They've got us right where they want us.
> Which is why I walked away. Because: if we say OK to them this time, they know that they own us, and could demand any terms they want.
> More news on this tomorrow...
> -john


Since you've had to pay for the casting mould, could you not just take it elsewhere to a business that won't try to shaft you?


----------



## decent_espresso

ashcroc said:


> Since you've had to pay for the casting mould, could you not just take it elsewhere to a business that won't try to shaft you?


 In theory, yes. However, in practice the previous supplier always drags their heels in sending you the mold, and it's often the case that the mold worked with the equipment of your previous supplier, but not with the new supplier's equipment.

More relevant in this case, is that we've had a really hard time finding a supplier who was willing to make this part at all, so it would be difficult to find another one quickly.

More info on this tomorrow.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Welcome to the Stainless Era™️*

I've been wanting to move off of aluminum for this part, for a long time, and go to stainless steel. We're applying two coatings to the aluminum, and twice polishing it (before and after coating), which is what's making this so expensive to make.

Two years ago, four companies each told us that our design was impossible in stainless steel. The wires were too thin, too long, and there would be warping issues.

Nonetheless, Ben went searching 3 weeks ago, for stainless steel casting companies who would have an engineering discussion with us. We're willing to change our design, but we need to do in tandem with a metal casting engineer, telling us what's doable.

In the end, we succeeded. We're moving to stainless steel for the drip tray cover. The new design is only slightly different at the engineering level, and visually almost identical.

Ben specified very tight warpage tolerances. The new manufacturer replied that this was possible, if they made an "aging machine" that repeatedly stamping the drip trays over and over to the flat shape, for **several weeks**. We've agreed and have paid to make this machine. It does add to the deliver time, but it should solve the warping problem endemic to stainless steel.

The bad news is that it will take 3 months to get this part, which is still 2 months' away.

More tomorrow...

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Keeping the engine running*

In order to avoid having this "drip tray cover kerfuffle" stop our daily shipping of machines, I'm sending machines out now with "quality control failed" drip tray covers.

That will cover us for only 2 weeks, because we have 40 pieces of "qc failed" drip tray covers.

I have called on all v1.0 DE1 espresso machine customers for help!

All our DE1 v1.0 customers received a free "update pack", which contained a replacement drip tray cover, among other things that we had improved from DE1 v1.0 to v1.1.

If a customer received one of these, and they still have it, I'm asking them to post it back to us. I have addresses in the USA, UK, Australia and Hong Kong, to help save on postage.

We make 20 machines a week, and I have to hold out for 6 weeks more (after we run out of our own stock). That means that I have a shortage of 120 drip tray covers.

What I'm offering to all our v1.0 customers is: in exchange for their helping me out of this tight spot:



In 2 months, when I have the new stainless cover, I'll post it to them


And I will also include a free digital thermometer or milk jug (size of their choice) for free, in that shipment.


I've now sent out 223 emails, and 93 of you have replied within 24h, to say you're sending your tray back to us. Hoorah!! We might just make it&#8230;

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Tools of the Coffee Cart*

Previous photos have shown a "naked" coffee cart, without all the tools you need to actually make coffee.

Here's an annotated set of photos, showing what I actually use.

















One note: the grooming tool I use is from https://www.bplus.biz/products?query=stirrer but is unfortunately no longer being produced.








It's *excellent* because of its super-thin 0.4mm thick wires that don't cause clumping as you work. A metal handle and rounded (not sharp) wire ends are nice touches.

I talked to them about their making a set for Decent to sell. Unfortunately, I found out that they were selling them *at cost* at $15 each, as a promotional tool. For me, that effectively has destroyed the market, because now people expect to pay $15 for this item, whereas that's my actual cost, thus a bad business proposition for me.

That's also why "Bplus" is no longer making/selling these. With shipping (both to and from us), QC testing, a defect rate (typically 20%), and labor, I'd have to charge $45 to not lose money, and I don't think people buy at that price. So... that's why I've not been selling this tools even though I myself use it.

Here's a video of that distribution tool in action:


----------



## decent_espresso

*Rolling out the coffee*

My coffee cart is now completely built, and I am rolling it around my home.

The Niche power cable goes through a 6.5mm hole I drilled in the wood. I had to take apart the Niche to make that happen.

And 5mm thick "Forex" PVC printed signage arrived. This material is so thick and strong, I decided to bolt the signage on, as it acts more like wood than fiberboard. I used the Italian company https://pixartprinting.fr and total cost (delivered) was just €60, with 7 days time from order-to-receipt. It'd be better with black bolts (these are M6x20) but I couldn't buy any locally, so I made do with chrome until I do.

I had a few guests today for lunch, so I moved it to the main room, that way I could talk to them while making coffee, and not disappear into the kitchen.

Eventually, I'll swap the black DE1XL chassis for a while DE1XL chassis, so that it matches better with the white Niche grinder.

And yes, that's how they spell it in France.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*All White *

We're working on the final bits of the DE1XL model that is optionally in white. These are renders to visualize our decisions.

We think we've finally found reliable USB cables (made for us) and we're going to order them in white as well.

And 200pcs of our tablet, in white matte silicone, are arriving in about a month.

For people who already bought the white DE1XL, they'll get these updated parts for free, and will have benefitted from the lower price, and having bought from us early.

-john


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> And yes, that's how they spell it in France.


 An "X" in espresso just feels wrong (now about the "U" in color...?)

No Chinese company wants to clone the BPlus stirrer?


----------



## Obnic

decent_espresso said:


> <img alt="all_white.thumb.jpg.db029878862d64127f87c8d995d20170.jpg" data-fileid="31629" data-src="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2019_08/all_white.thumb.jpg.db029878862d64127f87c8d995d20170.jpg" src="https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">
> *All White *
> We're working on the final bits of the DE1XL model that is optionally in white. These are renders to visualize our decisions.
> We think we've finally found reliable USB cables (made for us) and we're going to order them in white as well.
> And 200pcs of our tablet, in white matte silicone, are arriving in about a month.
> For people who already bought the white DE1XL, they'll get these updated parts for free, and will have benefitted from the lower price, and having bought from us early.
> -john


That is really starting to look like a thing my wife would sanction. Almost clinical it's so sharp. Like it.


----------



## webdoc

White is the new black and people not realizing it. It look great with the wooden handles.


----------



## ronsil

IMO Wooden handles are much better with the white machine.

Don't like them on the black (mine)


----------



## Bacms

ronsil said:


> IMO Wooden handles are much better with the white machine.
> 
> Don't like them on the black (mine)


 Wouldn't that depend on the wood used on the handles though? I agree this lighter wood (not sure on the species but reminds me of pine or other softwood) looks better on this machine. For black something like zebrano, walnut or even maple may look good


----------



## decent_espresso

*DE1XL White, on a Tabletop *

Because I'm always promoting countersinking the DE1XL model, many people aren't aware that it's designed to sit on a table. It doesn't need to be countersunk.

To help clarify this, we've made some renders, so you can compare.

I personally prefer the dimensions of the XL model, as the additional 6cm depth, and 1cm height, seem to harmonize better in the overall shape.

One small thing on this model: by enlarging the legs, we also increased the spacing between the drip tray and the match, so as to make it easier to put a scale under the drip tray. With the DE1PRO, we hadn't anticipated that "clever hack" and you have to be quite careful to get the scale/drip tray to not touch the legs, if you want the weight to be accurate.

I have a few prototype 3D printed "Skale stands" for the DE1XL in front of me, which I'll be testing next week. They should permit weighing from below the drip tray, more reliably than currently is possible with the DE1PRO.

Note that some DE1PRO users have 3D printed their own solutions for weighing, and I'll post more info about that shortly.

-john



Bacms said:


> Wouldn't that depend on the wood used on the handles though? I agree this lighter wood (not sure on the species but reminds me of pine or other softwood) looks better on this machine. For black something like zebrano, walnut or even maple may look good


 We use ash wood for all our handles, and paint the black ones.


----------



## decent_espresso

Group Head Controller

Here's a render of the new "group head controller" that will appear on version 1.3 Decent Espresso Machines. Pictured here is our white DE1XL model.



This new controller will enable real time control over flow or pressure, during espresso making.


The current flow rate (blue) and pressure (green) will be displayed on the light ring in real time during espresso making, as a moving colored dot.


You'll be able to "drag" to a new value by keeping your finger down.


And you will also be able to make small +/- 0.1 incremental changes to flow or pressure, by tapping *near* the current pressure (or flow) values. Each quick tap will cause a precise 0.1 change.


Both "tap" (small precise changes) and "finger down" (drag to new value) will be supported.


This group head controller will be available to all v1.1 Decent customers (at a modest price), and will also ship by default with all v1.3 machines. Shipping is to start in January 2020.


-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*How to Make a Drip Tray Cover*

The first photos arrived today from the company casting our drip tray cover in stainless steel. Most companies said they couldn't do it, as those long wires are too delicate to cast regularly, without warping or defects.

But one company used a very different approach to casting stainless steel, and I want describe for you here, how that works.

First, they make a mold out of aluminum. This is fast and cheap, because aluminum is soft and inexpensive. Traditional stainless steel molds are slow and expensive to make, because the mold material has to be harder than stainless steel.

Next, the aluminum mold makes our part out of wax. It looks perfect, but it's very fragile.

Then, a dozen wax-made drip tray covers are attached to a pole, and dipped in a thin coat of very fine, wet sand. And then hung to dry slowly.

Over the course of several weeks, the wax drip trays are repeatedly dipped in the fine, wet sand and left to dry. This slowly builds up into a thick layer around the wax.

After several weeks of this, the sand-covered object is baked in a kiln, and becomes hard like concrete (or plaster, or glass). The wax melts out.

Hot, liquid stainless steel is then poured into the space where the wax was.

The stainless steel is then left to slowly cool, inside the mold. This is a crucial difference between regular casting, where most cooling happens outside the mold. This slow cooling the mold hugely helps prevent warping.

Once the object in sand is cool, then sand is chipped off, cleaned, and polished.

I haven't yet seen the "steel aging machine" they've built for us, to repeatedly re-stamp the drip tray covers to ensure they stay flat. I'll post photos of that when I have them.

We're currently still in the "covering the wax with sand" step.

What's interesting about this process, is how similar it is to the "lost wax" approach that has existed for centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost-wax_casting

It's not a really good process for mass quantity manufacturing, as it's too slow, which is why I think we hadn't found companies who did it. However, it's pretty ideal for the kinds of quantities we want, as we get to avoid paying for a very expensive mold, and can hopefully avoid warpage thanks to the slow cooling.
-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*DESIRE Working Demo*

Decent hacker Reed Taylor has wired his DE1 espresso machine directly into a small Raspberry Pi computer, which then makes his espresso machine available over TCP/IP. He then modified my open-source DE1+ tablet app, so that when it's running on his Mac, it works using TCP/IP instead of Bluetooth.

This working demo opens up all sorts of new possibilities:



the Mac, Windows, Linux versions of my DE1+ app are now fully functional


Wired control (over TCP/IP, and soon, USB) of the espresso machine is both faster, and more reliable


The DE1+ app can already run in a web browser, but Bluetooth was an issue. Now, a full DE1+ app can run on this little Raspberry Pi, and anyone with a web browser can now use the DE1+. This means that iPad users will now be able to control their Decent without needing an Android tablet.


3 Robotics companies have Decent machines, and have been wanting a more reliable way to control the espresso making process.


a "REST API" can now be offered to Javascript (and other) programmers, so you can talk directly to the Decent using your favorite programming language.


A very nice step forward, this.

-john


----------



## oscar-b

decent_espresso said:


> *DESIRE Working Demo*
> 
> Decent hacker Reed Taylor has wired his DE1 espresso machine directly into a small Raspberry Pi computer, which then makes his espresso machine available over TCP/IP. He then modified my open-source DE1+ tablet app, so that when it's running on his Mac, it works using TCP/IP instead of Bluetooth.


 Cool! Would make sense to use something simpler and smaller than a Pi though, such as an ESP32.


----------



## decent_espresso

oscar-b said:


> Cool! Would make sense to use something simpler and smaller than a Pi though, such as an ESP32﻿.


 Currently, this approach above requires a computer that run Linux. I don't see that the ESP32 can.

However, I believe that the ESP32 is likely compatible with our Bluetooth module pinout, since they are both Arduino modules. Thus, it should be possible for us in the future to offer a Wifi TCP/IP port control directly in the DE1 itself, simply by swapping out our Bluetooth module for one that has Wi-Fi on it.

That would let you run my DE1+ app on Windows/OSX/Linux and talk to the espresso machine over wifi, and that would be very nice. However, it would not give you a web browser interface to the espresso machine, as you still need a computer to run the DE1+ and then since the GUI over wifi to your web browser.


----------



## oscar-b

decent_espresso said:


> Currently, this approach above requires a computer that run Linux. I don't see that the ESP32 can.
> 
> However, I believe that the ESP32 is likely compatible with our Bluetooth module pinout, since they are both Arduino modules. Thus, it should be possible for us in the future to offer a Wifi TCP/IP port control directly in the DE1 itself, simply by swapping out our Bluetooth module for one that has Wi-Fi on it.
> 
> That would let you run my DE1+ app on Windows/OSX/Linux and talk to the espresso machine over wifi, and that would be very nice. However, it would not give you a web browser interface to the espresso machine, as you still need a computer to run the DE1+ and then since the GUI over wifi to your web browser.


 Yeah I was thinking more along the lines of using WiFi instead of Bluetooth for the connectivity, and having the REST endpoint on the ESP32 proxying serial commands. They are surprisingly capable. Having a web app on the device makes little sense, there's no point in serving them from the ESP32, it can be hosted anywhere.


----------



## decent_espresso

oscar-b said:


> Yeah I was thinking more along the lines of using WiFi instead of Bluetooth for the connectivity, and having the REST endpoint on the ESP32 proxying serial commands. They are surprisingly capable.


 Yep, exactly my current intention.

However, this was something that was declared "not allowed" 4 years ago, for UL certification, because it allowed "remote control", whereas Bluetooth was nearby and thus OK. That's why we went with bluetooth only, and not wifi.

Bluetooth control was not allowed either, for turning on "dangerous functions".

So... as of January we'll have a physical "start espresso" button on the DE1, and the app can do everything else (including stop shots), over Bluetooth, and TCP/IP.



oscar-b said:


> Having a web app on the device makes little sense, there's no point in serving them from the ESP32, it can be hosted anywhere.


 Well, I think it'd be nice to be able to fire up any web browser, such as an iPad or Android, and have a full features app inside the browser. I get a lot of requests for an iPad app, and this is a clean way to implement that, with no additional hardware needed by the user.


----------



## oscar-b

decent_espresso said:


> Well, I think it'd be nice to be able to fire up any web browser, such as an iPad or Android, and have a full features app inside the browser. I get a lot of requests for an iPad app, and this is a clean way to implement that, with no additional hardware needed by the user.


 Not necessarily, you could host a PWA web app on decentespresso.com, and the user searches for their machine on the local network/bluetooth the first launch to set the IP-address. The app itself caches itself and is available offline. You get the added benefits of the web echosystems when it comes to deploying and pushing updates, for instance. Thinking this might be out of scope for the forum though, you know where to reach me


----------



## catpuccino

Might be one of the few practical uses for a PWA at the moment...

*ducks to avoid incoming rocks*

But on a serious note, opening the platform up for tinkering would be a real selling point for me just as a way to bridge hobbies.


----------



## decent_espresso

catpuccino said:


> But on a serious note, opening the platform up for tinkering would be a real selling point for me just as a way to bridge hobbies.


 It's been open from the beginning, but it takes time to build momentum, interest the right people, and for them to have time to do great work.

I have a few other "community contributions" posts to make over the next few days. Suddenly, things are moving.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

oscar-b said:


> Not necessarily, you could host a PWA web app ﻿on decentespresso.com, and the user searches for their machine on the local network/bluetooth the first launch to set the IP-address. The app itself caches itself and is available offline. You get the added benefits of the web echosystems when it comes to deploying and pushing updates, for instance. Thinking this might be out of scope for the forum though, you know where to reach me


 Just to be clear, the current full-featured DE1+ app was written in Tcl/Tk, and runs full-featured on Android. Because it's open source and interpreted, people can re-skin, and extend it fairly easily.

There's an opengl driver for Tk, which runs inside a web server, and automatically allows a kind of "virtual control" of the app, through a web browser. It's pretty neat, as it means my "native app" suddenly becomes a full-featured browser app too.


----------



## decent_espresso

Shin from Decent Espresso Korea has started creating "Coffee Shin TV" episodes. They're far, far more fun than my videos, and better shot and more informational.

Damn!

Here's his video, on how to convert the DE1PRO model into a DE1XL, along with how to countersink it.


----------



## decent_espresso

*NEW USB CABLES 4 U*
We've now receive 100pcs of a new USB cable, that we hope fixes the reliability issues that have plagued us.
Here is what it looks like.









I am contacting our customers to see if they're willing to test this new cable, to help us determine if it's really reliable, so we can finally "put this problem to bed" !
My intention is to eventually have a "v1.1 and v1.0 update pack" that will include a new stainless steel drip tray covers, and a new USB cable. That will be sent to all existing clients who would like these. That will happen in about 2 months.

*THE SAGA OF OUR USB CABLE HELL*
Our v1.0 USB cables would occasionally melt.







and sometimes the USB-A side would fit too tightly:









Those were replaced in January 2019 with a new vendor, and while cables never melted (progress!) they did occasionally fail for some people: perhaps about 20% of clients. Worse yet, these cables all worked perfectly for in Hong Kong, and we were never able to devise a test that correctly forecasted whether that cable would be reliable or not. We *think* the problem was due to a USB-A pin being a bit bent inside the connector. Our test gear didn't mind this, but apparently some of our espresso machines did.

So&#8230;. now with our 3rd attempt to solve the reliability issues with this part. I decided to stay with major brands only, and ordered a bunch of off the shelf cables first. We took them apart, measured the electrical resistance, the wire thickness, and in peeling back the plastic cases, checked out the overall design and engineering. The cable we liked the most from an electrical perspective happened to also be the most attractive.

We're sending free cables out to owners now, who have a bad v1.1 cable, to see if this cable works reliably for them.

It's sad, really. A multi-thousand dollar machine, made unreliable by a $2 part.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Bigger BROR !*

I've made a 2nd coffee cart for myself, using the slightly longer (110cm vs 80cm) BROR table from IKEA https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30333286/ combined with the legs that have roller wheels, from the shorter, cheaper BROR table which happens to be compatible https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60333850/

The extra 30cm is a lot of space, and lets me choose between having "room to play" or putting two DE1XL machines on one cart.

As Colin Harmon https://www.instagram.com/colinharmon/ writes in his book about running cafes, 2 groups is the "sweet spot", with only a 17% increase in output when you add a 3rd group. Hence, my interest in making a compact little two group coffee cart, for USD$250 worth of furniture from IKEA, and the rest coming from Decent Espresso.

As I'm going to use this cart for making "how to" videos for customers, I'm going to stick with 1 DE1XL. That way, too, the camera can see me better (I'm not hidden behind a lot of gear).

In the image above, I show two possible configurations for the cart. Which do you prefer?

-john


----------



## ashcroc

decent_espresso said:


> <img alt="IMG_0823.gif.64bcde2929abe084dee9f8875f35e28d.gif" data-fileid="31872" data-src="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2019_08/IMG_0823.gif.64bcde2929abe084dee9f8875f35e28d.gif" src="https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">
> 
> *Bigger BROR !*
> 
> I've made a 2nd coffee cart for myself, using the slightly longer (110cm vs 80cm) BROR table from IKEA https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30333286/ combined with the legs that have roller wheels, from the shorter, cheaper BROR table which happens to be compatible https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60333850/
> 
> The extra 30cm is a lot of space, and lets me choose between having "room to play" or putting two DE1XL machines on one cart.
> 
> As Colin Harmon https://www.instagram.com/colinharmon/ writes in his book about running cafes, 2 groups is the "sweet spot", with only a 17% increase in output when you add a 3rd group. Hence, my interest in making a compact little two group coffee cart, for USD$250 worth of furniture from IKEA, and the rest coming from Decent Espresso.
> 
> As I'm going to use this cart for making "how to" videos for customers, I'm going to stick with 1 DE1XL. That way, too, the camera can see me better (I'm not hidden behind a lot of gear).
> 
> In the image above, I show two possible configurations for the cart. Which do you prefer?
> 
> -john


Niche on the end of you want to highlight the ability to mount a 2nd DE1XL. Otherwise, I think having it next to the machine is neater.

How about having a top down image of a 2nd DE1XL next to the first?


----------



## ronsil

I much prefer the Niche on the outer left side of the trolley.
Improves valuble working space adjacent to the DE1XL.

When we move House end October I have in mind to put my Decent & Niche on a trolley.


----------



## filthynines

I look forward to seeing that. It might be my next equipment move.



ronsil said:


> I much prefer the Niche on the outer left side of the trolley.
> Improves valuble working space adjacent to the DE1XL.
> 
> When we move House end October I have in mind to put my Decent & Niche on a trolley.


----------



## decent_espresso

ashcroc said:


> How about having a top down image of a 2nd DE1XL next to the first?


 Good idea, will move things around and get that photo taken.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Two new espresso baskets*

Today we sent off to our basket manufacturer, two new products:



After a year of R&D with Scott Rao and 5 iterations, we're finally happy with our "pour over basket" for espresso machines. This converts your espresso machine into a pour-over shower head, with each hole spaced and calibrated so that the entire coffee bed is evenly turbulent. Naturally, this works best of our espresso machine, where you can control flow and pressure, but this basket can also be used on traditional machines, which follow the 58mm standard.


We have made dozens of these Puck Simulator baskets for our own use over the past 4 years. We use them in testing, burning in machines, and calibration. There's a single hole at 0.3mm, which gives a similar flow rate to espresso, at 9 bar of pressure.


Both these items will be shipping in a few months, but are available for pre-order now. You can find them on our NEW page, off our home page. https://decentespresso.com/new

-john


----------



## catpuccino

Very interested to see the results people get with the pour over basket.


----------



## decent_espresso

*They said it couldn't be done.... *​
*.... and they were right?*​
​
The first casts of our stainless steel drip tray cover have come out. The other casting vendors said our design couldn't be done. But one company said their lost-wax casting process could do it.​
The upper photo is the unpolished part. You can ignore the finish (it would polish up shiny) but the non-straight wires, are a big problem. They're going to try again, with a cooler metal cast, but they aren't optimistic.​
So... the solution here is to reinforce the design to prevent the warpage.​
Years ago, we tried a grid of wires on the top, but I didn't like how it looked from above.​
Now, I'm suggesting going back to the grid idea, but putting the 90º rotated wires below the main level, so that they'll be much less visible. These intersections will cause coffee to catch and be a bit hard to clean, but I think it'll not be too bad (should rinse off, usually).​
Thankfully, our customers have enthusiastically responded to my idea and have sent in about 5 weeks worth of unused drip tray covers. That gives us a bit of time to solve this problem, and still keep shipping machines.​
More news on this pressing topic, as the situation evolves.​
-john​


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## decent_espresso

*Other approaches to the drip tray cover*

Since our recent setback in stainless steel molding our drip tray cover design, we're trying two other designs, while we try to debug the original approach.

Both new approach to this part retain the main advantage of using rounded wires to avoid water retention.

The main difference here is that we're building up the drip tray cover by welding wire together, and this is is a well known technology.

We're having the prototypes made now, should have them in hand within 2 weeks.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Ben ﻿ has drawn up a few different alternative drip tray design ideas. The first two could be done with the existing molding technology we are trying, while the last one could be stamped or molded.​


----------



## MrShades

I much prefer the first one, for what it's worth.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Saltydog

Yeah 1st one looks best, cleaner looking suit the machine better.

?


----------



## Planter

Agreed. 1st is nicer on the eyes and looks less cluttered.

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

*Drip tray bar = a cup centering guide*

After debating various ideas for a revised drip tray cover, we came up with the attached design.

This design has a nice (almost invisible) feature:



the leftmost bar is directly under the center of the group head


thus giving you an easy guide to follow, to center your cups


we slightly altered the spacing on the outside, to cause this effect, but I think the spacing change is hard to see as a "defect", and instead looks like a "happy accident" that the bar lines up in this way


there might still be a slight deformation in the bars after molding, even with 3 bars, but the company feels that their correction tool can repair those.


the casting company told us that it's hard to get liquid stainless steel to flow into crossbars, and that 3 or for 4 bars was ideal. More bars would be problematic to cast.


So... we're wax casting this revised design now.

-john


----------



## AndyZap

John - are all your machines v1.1 now? When I looked at the build queue on your site, it had some DE1+ v1.0 listed...


----------



## decent_espresso

AndyZap said:


> John - are all your machines v1.1 now? When I looked at the build queue on your site, it had some DE1+ v1.0 listed...


 All new machines are v1.1 as of January 2019.

However, we do have some v1.0 machines that we repair, and that's probably what you're seeing the shipping queue.

That's transparency.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Coffee Cart with Wood Effect Paneling*

This is IKEA's larger BROR table ($150) at 110cm x 55cm (with the $99 BROR wheels on it), with one white DE1XL on it. I photographed a section of the wood I'd varnished, and had foam panels printed up of the wood top, but for use as side panels. The effect is quite nice, and makes for a good coffee cart for the home. Two DE1XL espresso machines would fit on this table, if I wanted to make this a high-volume setup.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Casting a wide net*​
While we wait for our new design for a cast drip tray covers to be prepared, we're also asking for samples of alternative approaches.​
Prototypes of 3 alternatives arrived in my inbox today.​
Uhm.... not quite acceptable, I'd say.​
The search continues!​
-john​


----------



## Netanel

Hi John,

Couple of question regarding the new Group Head Controller.
I saw that any new machine starting from Jan will be shipped with the new group head controller and it will also be available for existing machine.

Will the price of the machine is going to change from Jan?
Do you know what will be the cost of upgrading to the new controller?


----------



## decent_espresso

Netanel said:


> I saw that any new machine starting from Jan will be shipped with the new group head controller and it will also be available for existing machine. Will the price of the machine is going to change from Jan? Do you know what will be the cost of upgrading to the new controller?


 The price increase will be about USD$300/£300, and it'll be same price to upgrade your v1.1 machine to the new group head controller, if you want to do that.

-john


----------



## Netanel

decent_espresso said:


> The price increase will be about USD$300/£300, and it'll be same price to upgrade your v1.1 machine to the new group head controller, if you want to do that.
> 
> -john


 I still don't have a machine  
I mainly asked to see if there is a reason to wait with my order to Jan or I can just order a machine those days.

The group controller head is the only difference between v1.1 and v1.3, right?


----------



## decent_espresso

Netanel said:


> I still don't have a machine
> I mainly asked to see if there is a reason to wait with my order to Jan or I can just order a machine those days.
> 
> The group controller head is the only difference between v1.1 and v1.3, right?


 The tablets also get a bump up to Android 8.1 (from Android 5.1)


----------



## decent_espresso

*First look: group head shows pressure and flow in real time*

This will be available on Decent machines starting in January 2020, and will also be available as a low cost upgrade for all Decent machines built after January 2019.

This is our first working attempt at this feature. There are still more improvements to come, which I'll be posting here as they happen.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Coffee Cart Underbelly*​
People seem to doubt that 5L water bottles fit in this small 80x55cm coffee cart. In this video you can see both 5L bottles, and an 8L Volvic water bottle as well. And there's a layer for coffee mug storage.​
-john​


----------



## decent_espresso

*The Joys of Thermal Cycling*

Espresso machines turning on and off makes them heat up, and cool down. This "thermal cycling" causes metal to expand and contract. On traditional boiler based machines, this often causes welds to crack with time.

There is a long history of discussion of this topic, and many many manufacturers recommend leaving their boiler based espresso machines on 24h a day:
https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/leaving-espresso-machine-on-24-7-vs-turning-it-on-off-4-times-day-t44924.html

With the Decent Espresso machine, we use a clip-connection system which can withstand thermal cycling, as the seal is made by a rubber o-ring under pressure, instead of a weld. As the machine cools, the seal loosens and allows movement.

However, there are some parts of the Decent that are susceptible to thermal cycling. This is especially a problem where different materials are in close contact, because each material will expand/contract differently to temperature.

A few customers, in the past 2 years, have had the temperature bead "squeezed out" of our steam waters. This is caused by thermal cycling causing the epoxy that holds the temperature bead, to slowly push outward, and thus upward.

We spoke to our temperature probe manufacturer about this, and showed them customer photos. It turns out that they had already spotted this potential flaw, and fixed it in the design that we started to use in January 2019. That explains why only Decent v1.0 customers had this problem.

They've now put a deep channel in, and threaded it, so that the epoxy sticks to the threads, and cannot push itself up as it expands/contracts.

We were pleasantly surprised today, to discover this. As the change was inside the epoxied part, we never knew it. We had in fact sawn temperature probes in half, to discover the source of this problem, and were going to propose much the same modification!

Naturally, this problem falls in the realm of "manufacturer's defect" and we'll replace this part and fix the machine--for life and for free, any machines that exhibit this problem.

We're seeing more of our machines in commercial, high volume use these days. This means that the ways the Decent might break are coming to light, and we're able to address each one as it appears. I think that in two years we'll be really rock solid, but in the meantime we'll work closely with anyone who does have a problem, and address it for free and hopefully quickly.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*A Decent Manual*

We've organized all the accumulated documentation pages (and videos) into a Decent Manual.









We'll continue to increase the size of scope of the manual, both with text and videos, as this is a "living" set of documents.

A key difference between a normal manual and the Decent Manual, is that each exists on a web page where you can ask questions and discuss, with other users as well as the page's author.

This is the main reason why the manual is currently only available to owners.

I've always been impressed by the PHP Manual, ie:

https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.json-decode.php

which breaks each function into a page, gives a concise official manual page, and then evolves over time in the conversation below.

I'm trying to do the same with Decent, though I also create a lot of videos, as I find them often clearer than any text could be.

Attached is an example of a page with a video and a short conversation:









-john


----------



## Nicknak

@decent_espresso I don't have your machine and likely never will , but the level of support is impressive .


----------



## decent_espresso

*Head over to Daily Coffee News*​
https://dailycoffeenews.com/2019/09/18/decent-espresso-launching-portafilter-basket-for-pourover-conversions/​
for a long article about our upcoming Pour Over basket.​
-john​


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Scale News*​
Cleared my schedule for a few days to punch through on the Decent Scale. Sorry for the delay, guys.​
I got my bluetooth implementation somewhat working (TARE/LED off/on, weight) and then totally rewrote the weighing code in the tablet app to support a different kind of scale. Now, my tablet app is very broken, and I have a few days to get it working again.​
However, I now have placed two new feature requests with the firmware programmer we've hired:​


flow rate measuring built into the scale : this would be wonderful, because it won't depend on bluetooth messages arriving reliably at 10x/second. It would be much more accurate to have the scale calculate flow and weight, and send both via BLE. No bluetooth scale currently does this, I believe.​

an ultra-low-power mode, with the scale off, except for BLE. This would address the Atomax Skale issue people have raised, where even with LEDs off, the Atomax Skale batteries go dead in a few days. When the DE1 were asleep, the Decent Scale would also be really, really asleep.​

Separately, I've also identified that bluetooth control over the Decent Scale's timer, isn't working, so that's for him to fix.​
We're also going to paint on a O and [] symbol on the plastic cover, as it's too hard to see at the moment. That'll also give a bit more tactile feedback.​
-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Do shower screen spacers cause better espresso?*

John Weiss' extensive review of the DE1+ in Home Barista was quite positive, but did call out a difference in style between his classic La Spaziale machine, and the Decent:



> "DE1 shots feature cleaner taste, greater clarity, and improved flavor separation, whereas body/mouthfeel is noticeably enhanced on the Spaziale. With lighter roasts, where a long preinfusion is practically essential, the DE1 produced obviously superior extractions." https://www.home-barista.com/reviews/decent-espresso-de1-review-t57610.html


 Since our espresso machines are "open for tinkering" and the (almost 1000 now) Decent customer base has a lot of tinkerers, for the past 2 years there has been a furious amount of theorizing and experimentation, to figure out *just why* would mouth-feel be different?

Yes, many people like the "clarity" of Decent espresso shots, but others want to recreate the classic thick mouthfeel. It *should* be possible with the Decent, if one could isolate the important variables.

Damian was one of the first to create a variety of different spacers which pushed the shower screen down only the coffee puck. He experienced greater shot consistency, increased drink quality, and greater mouthfeel.

From there, Sheldon machine his own spacers from stainless steel, and experienced similar results.

Now, Sheldon has produced his own run of stainless steel spacers for v1.0 and v1.1 Decent customers, and is selling them at $50 (or so). There are different heights available.

The goal here is to determine if thicker mouth-feel is directly causable by having a shower screen pressed against the coffee puck. Initial results indicate "yes", and now the community is moving to a much larger test, with dozens of people participating.

We want to learn if the spacer change is "better" in "all cases" or just "in some cases". Is there a clarity vs mouth-feel tradeoff?

Over the next few weeks, we're going to learn a lot...

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*A different kind of relationship*

Dimitri, the owner of Oven Heaven https://www.instagram.com/ovenheavencoffeeroasters/ cafe/bakery in Bordeaux, France, sent me a package.

I had screwed up, and accidentally sent him an extra bluetooth scale. This had happened because we ran out of stock just as he ordered. He had to wait for his scale, and then I messed up the invoicing and accidentally sent him a 2nd one.

So, Dimitri then offers to send it back to me, and to include some free coffee beans. At his cost.

That's not a normal commercial relationship. How does this sort of thing happen?

When Dimitri received his white DE1XL for his café, he was a little but disappointed that we didn't offer a "natural wood" version of our double-spouted portafilter. We sell very few of these (most people use the bottomless) and I have a ton of stock of the black double-spouted portafilter, so I hadn't planned to order 1000 natural wood double-spouted portafilters, and have them sit around my warehouse for a few years.

Nonetheless, I thought he was right to be disappointed. We'd missed an important aesthetic detail.

So, I tried to sort something out.

I contacted the wood turner that had made the handles, to see if they could make a short run for us. It turned out that they'd made 10% extra, 6 months ago, assuming a 10% defect rate, and they had 32 handles "just sitting there", waiting for our next order. I offered to buy those 32 handles, and sent one (for free) with a double spouted head, to Dimitri.

I'm writing the tale above, just to give you an idea of what our daily customer interaction is like.

Because of how I and the rest fo the Decent staff interact with people, we find that we can call on their help. They want us to succeed.

That's why, when I recently emailed 230 customers asking if (at their cost) they'd mail in their unused drip tray covers to help keep our factory running, 96 of them actually did. That's a 41.7% response rate. Amazing.

And I think this is also why dozens of customers are now working together to understand the relationship between basket head space, and espresso mouthfeel. We're in this together.

How many companies do you know, have such great customers?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Coffee cart DIY kit*

My Decent team is working on converting my hand-made IKEA BROR cart into a "coffee cart do-it-yourself" kit, which we'd sell. It'd only require a screwdriver to assemble, and would take about 2 hours of your time. Here's the idea. You would buy (on your own):​


an IKEA BROR 85x55cm table


3 water bottles (5 liters, or 10 gallons)


Niche grinder (or other)


You would buy from us:​


pre-cut and varnished IKEA BROR table top


DE1XL


Knockbox


Rinser/flow jet matched pair


Other coffee accessories (optional)


You'll only need a screwdriver to follow the videos I'm making, and I estimate that your total build time will be 2 hours. We're working with a local CNC shop to pre-cut and varnish the table top for you. We're working on different two cart models:​


1 DE1XL model: uses 1 IKEA BROR 85x55cm table


2 DE1XL model: uses 1 IKEA BROR 110x55cm table


I will provide the Photoshop files for you to order locally, your own printed foam boards to wrap around your cart. It costs me $60 to print locally.

*Coffee Carts for Rent?*

Starting in March, we're doubling the size of our factory. We will then have more espresso machines being produced per month, and can start to contemplate other ways to them out to people.

We're thinking of building complete coffee carts ourselves having them available for rent on a daily/monthly basis in a few cities where Decent has its own people. For now, that'd be New York, Seoul, and Hong Kong. Next, possibly San Francisco, Seattle, Montreal. We'll start slow, and build out as we see what demand there is, and how it goes for people.

My goal is to provide a no-financial-risk coffee cart for people. We take on all the responsibility of making, maintaining, repairing and insuring they're fit-for-service.

-john​


----------



## jlarkin

decent_espresso said:


> I will provide the Photoshop files for you to order locally, your own printed foam boards to wrap around your cart. It costs me $60 to print locally.
> 
> *Coffee Carts for Rent?*
> 
> Starting in March, we're doubling the size of our factory. We will then have more espresso machines being produced per month, and can start to contemplate other ways to them out to people.
> 
> We're thinking of building complete coffee carts ourselves having them available for rent on a daily/monthly basis in a few cities where Decent has its own people. For now, that'd be New York, Seoul, and Hong Kong. Next, possibly San Francisco, Seattle, Montreal. We'll start slow, and build out as we see what demand there is, and how it goes for people.
> 
> My goal is to provide a no-financial-risk coffee cart for people. We take on all the responsibility of making, maintaining, repairing and insuring they're fit-for-service.
> 
> -john​


 I love all of this. Was contemplating setting up a BROR table inspired by your cart anyway, though I think the DE1XL is too much of a stretch for me financially right now so rental or other options sounds like a great idea to add in future.

If you'd be interested to have any support from UK I'd love to talk about what might work. Either if there was a way to collaborate on a test run of that cart and shipping or anything else, even if longer term I could assist with some of the logistics if you wanted to add London to the list (I'm not in London but about an hour or so West of it).

I run Cupper Joe a mobile coffee business and currently when I do an event I set-up a market type table and everything else (either using a Londinium L1 for quieter events or La Spaz 2 group compact for bigger ones).


----------



## decent_espresso

jlarkin said:


> I love all of this. Was contemplating setting up a BROR table inspired by your cart anyway, though I think the DE1XL is too much of a stretch for me financially right now so rental or other options sounds like a great idea to add in future.
> 
> If you'd be interested to have any support from UK I'd love to talk about what might work. Either if there was a way to collaborate on a test run of that cart and shipping or anything else, even if longer term I could assist with some of the logistics if you wanted to add London to the list (I'm not in London but about an hour or so West of it).
> 
> I run Cupper Joe a mobile coffee business and currently when I do an event I set-up a market type table and everything else (either using a Londinium L1 for quieter events or La Spaz 2 group compact for bigger ones).


 That's a sweet setup you've got there!

The Londinium looks great, and with your Mythos and/or Niche, I'm sure you're already pulling very nice shots.

I'd love to meet up with you the next time I'm in London, which is typically every few months. I usually mention my passing through London here on this forum.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Comparing USB cables*

We're really in the nitty gritty details here! We're trying to make the "perfect" USB cable for our espresso machine. This latest version uses a silicone rubber insulator, so that it's more flexible, than its stiffer predecessor. We're trying to avoid a small problem with the previous stiff cable, where it pushed the tablet slightly, as the tablet sat on the machine. Details details!

It's also 1cm longer, for a bit more tolerance for those people who position their tablet at a slightly location than I do.

I just received this cable, and so far, it looks like it's "the one". In a few days I'll pull the trigger and by 3 kilometers of this wire material (that's the "minimum order quantity" !) as the sample I have has a slightly thinner metal wire than its predecessor. We preferred the thicker wire as it had the highest conductivity tests of all USB cables we tried.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*ShinTV: going to the SSP burr factory*

In this episode, ﻿Shin visits﻿ Hansung Lee ﻿, the CEO/engineer/mastermind behind SSP burrs, gets a tour of the factory, the burrs, and sees how Hansung uses his DE1 to test burrs and grinders out.

These burrs have emerged in the past two years as "one of the top 3 in the world" and many feel they are simply the best.
Interestingly, Hansung's only complaint (the USB cable) happens to be the subject of my previous post today.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Announcing DAYBREAK*​
Decent Owner Reed Taylor is working on DAYBREAK, an accessory for Decent Espresso Machines.​
DAYBREAK plugs into our standard communications port, replacing the bluetooth module that's placed there by us. The bluetooth module then plugs into his board.​
Here is what DAYBREAK does for you:​


it is a full featured Linux computer, that can fully control the Decent Espresso Machine


It runs a Javascript API, and a web server, so that people can remotely control their espresso machine from their own apps.


It can run the tablet app I've written, and present it as a full-featured web app. This allows you to run what is now the "Android tablet app" on any computer (iPad, Windows, Mac) from your web browser.


There is a USB port on Daybreak, so you can plug your own computer in. A number of robotics projects are underway with the Decent, and wired-control is much preferred over Bluetooth for reliability.


My tablet app becomes fully functional on Mac, Windows and Linux, thanks to the USB connection. Previously, it was mostly functional, but lacking the Bluetooth functionality to actually make coffee.


The USB interface is *much* *much* faster than bluetooth, and can access all the internal sensors and data, at much more useful speeds than bluetooth could.


Reed's plan is for his DAYBREAK board to be something you can simply buy and plug into your espresso machine. You won't have to be a tech genius to use it.


A tablet app update release I made a few weeks ago, solved the outstanding bugs with this approach.


Reed still has problems to work through before it's ready, but his progress has been steady and impressive.​
​
- john​
​





​


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## decent_espresso

you need to run the tablet app on a computer (windows/mac/linux), which then broadcasts the app through a built in web page. So... you need a computer around.


at the moment, running the app on a computer means it doesn't use bluetooth.... which means it can't yet actually control the espresso machine. That's getting addressed in two ways: future bluetooth support in the app on windows/mac/linux, and USB support via Reed Taylor's DESIRE accessory


I'm fairly sure that by using Jasonelle https://jasonelle.com I will be able to make a native app on iOS that automatically launches the Decent app on your iPad. See https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-turn-your-website-into-a-mobile-app-with-7-lines-of-json-631c9c9895f5/ - that will be a little bit more convenient than loading a web page in Safari.


Typing on iPad does not work right. Typing does work from a computer or from Chrome on Android, but not on iOS. This is the only major bug I observed.


A minor issue is that the web app is a bit dimmer than when run natively. I'm working on both those issues, but neither is a deal-breaker.


----------



## decent_espresso

DE1XL Suitcase Prototype

I just received my DE1XL in some hand-cut foam to see if it could travel well in our suitcase. My goal is to make the slightly-larger and more capable DE1XL model as transportable as our DE1PRO and DE1+ models.

Here, we're also trying new protective corners, made out of hard plastic.

And a new, more opaque back panel for the white model, so that the magnets don't show through.

If we can pull this off, we'll be able to use the same suitcase, but with different foam, for all our espresso machine models. And I'll be happy to send (for free) the updated foam to those of you who already bought our DE1XL model. FYI, the DE1XL (launched in March 2019) now represents 18% of our machines sold, almost 1 in 5.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Testing at the source*

One of the things we've discovered, as we've learned "how manufacturing works" is that if you've ordered something custom-made, once it's in your hands, it's your problem if it doesn't work. All contracts stipulate that responsibility ends as soon as the item gets loaded on a truck.

For the past two years, we've had our PC boards made by a company in Shenzhen, where almost all mobile phones in the world are made. We've experienced defect rates between 15% (the AC board) to 30% (the DC board, aka the "computer"). At $50 each (approximate), that's (150pcs x $50) + (300pcs x $50 = $7,500 + $15,000 = $22,500. Ouch. This high defect rate forces us to over-order each part, so that after quality-checking, we have enough parts to make our goal quantity of espresso machines.

Part of the cause of the high defect rate, is that our quantities are considered small. Anything under 20,000 pieces is small in Shenzhen. We're ordering 300 to 750 pieces, so we're "real small". These small order quantities mean that it's easier to do a lot of the work by hand, instead of by robot. And by hand, means lots of variation, and a high error rate.

For our upcoming v1.3 espresso machines we've changed to a Hong Kong based company called PDSTE, who is based in "Science Park", an incubator for tiny high tech companies. For PDSTE, we're a huuuuge client, which is a nice change! And... everything they do is 100% by robot, because in Hong Kong, labor is not cheap: about the same as in the USA or EU. It's either Robotic or it's not Made in Hong Kong (well, except for our Decent Espresso Machines).

So... as part of moving to a local supplier, we've built a "testing computer" that is essentially everything the espresso machine is, but as a single board computer that does nothing but run the tests.

We're building a few dozen of these test boards, so that PDSTE can test our "espresso computer" before they deliver it to us. Crucially, any board that fails at PDSTE, before it is delivered to us, is *their* problem, not ours. So, it's in our interests to make this test as thorough as possible.

For each board to test, all the sensors, pumps, valves and more are connected to the board that needs testing, and then the test board connects to that. Then.... all the lights go GREEN or they don't. If they don't, they can't be shipped to us.

This also highly motivates the manufacturer to reduce their defect rate, as they feel the pain of each defective board, to the tune of about $35 in parts that they just lost, not to mention their labor cost.

When we started down this path almost 5 years ago, we knew nothing. We're slowly learning.

-john


----------



## Cooffe

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 32667
> 
> 
> *Testing at the source*
> 
> One of the things we've discovered, as we've learned "how manufacturing works" is that if you've ordered something custom-made, once it's in your hands, it's your problem if it doesn't work. All contracts stipulate that responsibility ends as soon as the item gets loaded on a truck.
> 
> For the past two years, we've had our PC boards made by a company in Shenzhen, where almost all mobile phones in the world are made. We've experienced defect rates between 15% (the AC board) to 30% (the DC board, aka the "computer"). At $50 each (approximate), that's (150pcs x $50) + (300pcs x $50 = $7,500 + $15,000 = $22,500. Ouch. This high defect rate forces us to over-order each part, so that after quality-checking, we have enough parts to make our goal quantity of espresso machines.
> 
> Part of the cause of the high defect rate, is that our quantities are considered small. Anything under 20,000 pieces is small in Shenzhen. We're ordering 300 to 750 pieces, so we're "real small". These small order quantities mean that it's easier to do a lot of the work by hand, instead of by robot. And by hand, means lots of variation, and a high error rate.
> 
> For our upcoming v1.3 espresso machines we've changed to a Hong Kong based company called PDSTE, who is based in "Science Park", an incubator for tiny high tech companies. For PDSTE, we're a huuuuge client, which is a nice change! And... everything they do is 100% by robot, because in Hong Kong, labor is not cheap: about the same as in the USA or EU. It's either Robotic or it's not Made in Hong Kong (well, except for our Decent Espresso Machines).
> 
> So... as part of moving to a local supplier, we've built a "testing computer" that is essentially everything the espresso machine is, but as a single board computer that does nothing but run the tests.
> 
> We're building a few dozen of these test boards, so that PDSTE can test our "espresso computer" before they deliver it to us. Crucially, any board that fails at PDSTE, before it is delivered to us, is *their* problem, not ours. So, it's in our interests to make this test as thorough as possible.
> 
> For each board to test, all the sensors, pumps, valves and more are connected to the board that needs testing, and then the test board connects to that. Then.... all the lights go GREEN or they don't. If they don't, they can't be shipped to us.
> 
> This also highly motivates the manufacturer to reduce their defect rate, as they feel the pain of each defective board, to the tune of about $35 in parts that they just lost, not to mention their labor cost.
> 
> When we started down this path almost 5 years ago, we knew nothing. We're slowly learning.
> 
> -john


 That's a ridiculous fallout rate. Why did you not implement statistical control/batch sampling after even the first 10 failures? Was it to cut costs? Cutting quality costs never saves money in the long run...


----------



## decent_espresso

Cooffe said:


> That's a ridiculous fallout rate. Why did you not implement statistical control/batch sampling after even the first 10 failures? Was it to cut costs? Cutting quality costs never saves money in the long run...


 I'm not really sure what you're suggesting. Our entire order of (say) 750pcs is delivered to us, all at once. Once delivered, failed PCB are our problem.

In order to avoid this, the PCBs need to be tested before they leave the supplier's warehouse.


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent Espresso on Telegram​
Matt Perger recently announced https://twitter.com/mattperger that he was moving to Telegram https://telegram.org/ the secure instant messaging alternative that has recently been quite in the news.​
Never to miss a trend ?, I decided to start a Decent Espresso Channel https://t.me/decentespresso on Telegram.​
Some other channels I can recommend:​


The Matt Perger Channel https://t.me/pergfect


Coffee Ad Astra by Jonathan Gagné https://t.me/coffeeadastra


Raw Materials Channel https://t.me/raw_material_coffee


You can also message me directly on Telegram at https://t.me/johnbuckman


----------



## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> I'm not really sure what you're suggesting. Our entire order of (say) 750pcs is delivered to us, all at once. Once delivered, failed PCB are our problem.
> 
> In order to avoid this, the PCBs need to be tested before they leave the supplier's warehouse.


 This was super clear from your post. I find the idea of cutting quality costs to be the antithesis of everything you've done to date.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> This was super clear from your post. I find the idea of cutting quality costs to be the antithesis of everything you've done to date.


 Sorry, I don't understand your comment. How is what I wrote above, reducing quality?


----------



## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> Sorry, I don't understand your comment. How is what I wrote above, reducing quality?


 It isn't - I was supporting you.


----------



## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> Sorry, I don't understand your comment. How is what I wrote above, reducing quality?


 It isn't - I was supporting you.


----------



## Cooffe

filthynines said:


> This was super clear from your post. I find the idea of cutting quality costs to be the antithesis of everything you've done to date.





decent_espresso said:


> Sorry, I don't understand your comment. How is what I wrote above, reducing quality?


 Normally suppliers would sample parts post production. With numbers as small as this I would expect a 100% inspection rate even to be feasible. What John has said was that 750 parts were delivered, some worked, some didn't. The cost is then on them, as they accepted bad batches - a bad miss from DE as it's costed nearly $22,5k.

What I was saying is that normally when agreements/contracts are written, a check at the end (often not just a "Visual" check) of processing is required. Would be considered PV testing (Product verification). This is completed in batches/samples that allow issues to be picked up. When negotiating, suppliers will want to check less parts, normally buyers will want to check more parts. However, more checks cost money, but less checks also cost money due to bad quality and bad parts being passed from supplier to buyer. Look up Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) graphs, there's plenty on it, and worth getting yourself versed in it for quality control, in any aspect of manufacturing.

I was basically saying that it seems as if none of this checking process was done post-processing, or even in the agreement between supplier and buyer, and if it were, you could seek to recuperate costs from the supplier. Often times, though, this is very overlooked and ends up more costly with parts that fail, than what the cost of the extra process/checking jig would have been to initially implement.

Not saying DE is producing bad quality product (bad quality product would be putting the failed parts onto machines knowing that they fail), but have been stung because seemingly not enough quality control is taking place.


----------



## ashcroc

Cooffe said:


> Normally suppliers would sample parts post production. With numbers as small as this I would expect a 100% inspection rate even to be feasible. What John has said was that 750 parts were delivered, some worked, some didn't. The cost is then on them, as they accepted bad batches - a bad miss from DE as it's costed nearly $22,5k.
> What I was saying is that normally when agreements/contracts are written, a check at the end (often not just a "Visual" check) of processing is required. Would be considered PV testing (Product verification). This is completed in batches/samples that allow issues to be picked up. When negotiating, suppliers will want to check less parts, normally buyers will want to check more parts. However, more checks cost money, but less checks also cost money due to bad quality and bad parts being passed from supplier to buyer. Look up Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) graphs, there's plenty on it, and worth getting yourself versed in it for quality control, in any aspect of manufacturing.
> I was basically saying that it seems as if none of this checking process was done post-processing, or even in the agreement between supplier and buyer, and if it were, you could seek to recuperate costs from the supplier. Often times, though, this is very overlooked and ends up more costly with parts that fail, than what the cost of the extra process/checking jig would have been to initially implement.
> Not saying DE is producing bad quality product (bad quality product would be putting the failed parts onto machines knowing that that they fail), but have been stung because seemingly not enough quality control is taking place.


So basically exactly what John mentioned they were now doing in his post 20 hours ago.


----------



## Cooffe

ashcroc said:


> So basically exactly what John mentioned they were now doing in his post 20 hours ago.


 Pretty much - but it could have been done earlier to prevent the loss.


----------



## ashcroc

Cooffe said:


> Pretty much - but it could have been done earlier to prevent the loss.


Unless they've only just got to the end of the first batch of parts with high failure rate they got lumped with.


----------



## decent_espresso

Cooffe said:


> Pretty much - but it could have been done earlier to prevent the loss.


 If only it weren't for this: ?



decent_espresso said:


> When we started down this path almost 5 years ago, we knew nothing. We're slowly learning.
> 
> -john


----------



## Cooffe

ashcroc said:


> Cooffe said:
> 
> 
> 
> Pretty much - but it could have been done earlier to prevent the loss.
> 
> 
> 
> Unless they've only just got to the end of the first batch of parts with high failure rate they got lumped with.
Click to expand...

 Sorry I don't understand this - if the parts were 100% inspected upon manufacture, there would be no failures?



decent_espresso said:


> If only it weren't for this: ?


 I suppose hindsight is 20-20. I guess you won't be getting stung again (hopefully). I'd urge any manufacturer not to overlook quality at all though. It normally is a bad bad path (look at General Electric now from where they used to be, all because the new CEO wanted to cut corners in quality).


----------



## decent_espresso

Cooffe said:


> I'd urge any manufacturer not to overlook quality at all though. It normally is a bad bad path (look at General Electric now from where they used to be, all because the new CEO wanted to cut corners in quality).


 There's a back and forth negotiation with any custom parts supplier, with the buyer wanting to put as much risk on the supplier, and the supplier resisting.

I've learned that the way suppliers like to work is for there to be absolute clarity as to what is acceptable. We have to forecast all possible defects that we'd reject.

A "testing rig" that gives a GREEN or RED light, that we make and provide to the supplier, is the preferred way. But... this takes time to create, as well as the passage of time, to learn what needs to be tested.

Anyway, in no way am I arguing with you (grin).

I'm just explaining here, the story of where's we're at, and where we're trying to get to.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

ashcroc said:


> Cooffe said:
> 
> 
> 
> Pretty much - but it could have been done earlier to prevent the loss.
> 
> 
> 
> Unless they've only just got to the end of the first batch of parts with high failure rate they got lumped with.
Click to expand...

 What actually happened is that our first batch was 350pcs, 2 years ago, with lots of problems. But, we ordered right around Chinese New Year, which was a mistake as factories bring on temporary workers then to deal with the order rush, and (we learned thereafter) quality goes down. Don't order anything from China that needs to be delivered within 60 days of Chinese New Year. It's a 3 week holiday there, and a mad rush.

The PCB manufacturer said that in the next order, quality would be much better. We ordered 750pcs, and quality was not much better. We just finished using up that batch.

From the new manufacturer, over the past 2 weeks we've tested them all ourselves, and out of 175pcs of 1st delivery, 3 were defective. 1 was a solder problem, 2 were defective components from the supplier (a bad crystal, a bad MOV surge protector). Note that we buy everything from Mouser, a huge part supplier, not a dodgy intermediary, so that we know what we're getting. The new 1.7% failure rate is much better than 30% (!!!)

-john


----------



## Cooffe

decent_espresso said:


> There's a back and forth negotiation with any custom parts supplier, with the buyer wanting to put as much risk on the supplier, and the supplier resisting.
> 
> I've learned that the way suppliers like to work is for there to be absolute clarity as to what is acceptable. We have to forecast all possible defects that we'd reject.
> 
> A "testing rig" that gives a GREEN or RED light, that we make and provide to the supplier, is the preferred way. But... this takes time to create, as well as the passage of time, to learn what needs to be tested.
> 
> Anyway, in no way am I arguing with you (grin).
> 
> I'm just explaining here, the story of where's we're at, and where we're trying to get to.
> 
> -john


 I'm not trying to argue either. Just hoping that quality isn't overlooked in any manufacturing anywhere really. And it's interestint to read other examples outside of my own area that are still impacted. I understand the supplier struggles and especially with bespoke parts/components.

From personal experience and where I've been stung in the past I'd suggest setting up a critical/significant characteristics sheet for each sub component. Issue it to the suppliers at point of sourcing with measurement tools that you expect them to use. If they fail any of the measurements then they have to rectify and/or you have the right to reject the part(s).

china are generally a pain to deal with as well in my experience... glad to see your defect rate is lower now though!


----------



## decent_espresso

Just FYI, as of August I have my own full time employee in the mainland, whose job it is to inspect everything before they ship to us.

She was at our chassis fabricator yesterday. Here's the kind of thing she's doing, and posting to our internal basecamp forum.


----------



## decent_espresso

*New "total espresso weight" line in Decent Tablet App*

Here is a picture of how the "total shot weight" charted line looks when making espresso. It's the thin brown line you see starting from zero around 20 seconds into the chart. The weight is divided by 10 (ie, 1= 10 grams) to fit on the same Y axis as everything else.

I haven't added this feature before, as I wasn't sure what its use would be.

However, with Scott Rao Scott Rao's "blooming espresso", I've found that tracking and controlling the amount of dripping that occurs before the pressure rise, is very relevant to the final drink quality. Generally, about 5g to 8g of "drippage" yields the best flavor for me. I've previously tracked this by hand, by looking at the scale as the shot proceeds. With the new "total shot weight" line, you'll be able to see the shot weight at each stage, later on. Seems helpful.

Some remarks about this:



the thin brown line is enabled by default in the zoomed view, but not in the small-charts view (the default view) so as to avoid visual complexity in day-to-day espresso making.


an interesting thing to note is that the shot stops at around 27g, and the final cup weight was 33.5g. This is because, once the water stops and pressure is released, there is still some flow from the puck to the cup (about 5 grams' worth)


Also note that I've halved the smoothing in the weight line, from a "2 second window" to a "1 second window". The downside of this change is a slightly more jittery brown line, but the upside is that the brown line moves twice as fast toward the real weight. This is helpful when you're comparing the brown line (flow into cup) to the blue line (flow into puck) to judge the success of your preinfusion stage.


I've got the latest code running on my main home espresso machine. Once it seems solid for a few days, I'll release this publicly.


The upcoming tablet version release will also include the "allow yourself to start espresso only if the scale is connected" optional feature.


<img data-fileid="32741" data-ratio="62.50" alt="Screenshot_2015-02-07-00-27-43.thumb.png.ac9a2e992febfd96e85a9ba121ac3b38.png" data-src="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2019_10/Screenshot_2015-02-07-00-27-43.thumb.png.ac9a2e992febfd96e85a9ba121ac3b38.png" src="https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

*QUESTION*: should the zoomed espresso view automatically scale the Y axis appropriately, once the shot has finished?



In the chart above, the Y axis would have scaled to 9 bar, instead of the default 12 bar.


The downside to doing this would be that 1 to 1 comparisons between charts will be more difficult.


The upside will be a more zoomed chart that is easier to read detail from


----------



## decent_espresso

*New: zoom in on your espresso chart*

These two changes described in the video hopefully address two issues:
- two separate Y axis (for pressure, and for flow) was complicated to understand
- zooming allows you to get close to the details you want to see

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Countersunk Steam Unit*

At the HOST Milan trade show, we met the fine Australians behind this countersunk steam/pitcher rinser/hot water dispenser: https://www.steam.international
Looks quite useful for our Decent Coffee Cart project.

While our espresso machines make "not so bad" coffee, we're not optimized for steaming lots of milk. This steam unit could be quite useful for coffee carts that need to make gobs of lattes.

-john


----------



## jlarkin

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 33056
> 
> 
> *Countersunk Steam Unit*
> 
> At the HOST Milan trade show, we met the fine Australians behind this countersunk steam/pitcher rinser/hot water dispenser: https://www.steam.international
> Looks quite useful for our Decent Coffee Cart project.
> 
> While our espresso machines make "not so bad" coffee, we're not optimized for steaming lots of milk. This steam unit could be quite useful for coffee carts that need to make gobs of lattes.
> 
> -john


 Looks near - is it actually available or still in the works?


----------



## rallakias

If someone orders *today* a DE1pro , will he get



a new or the older version of the tablet ?


a brand new drip tray cover or an old defective one ?


Apart from the position of the USB plug (why is it going to change?) and the group head control that all 1.1 version owners will be able to upgrade to ,are there any other differences between the current version and the 2020 version?

In other words should I wait a couple of months to get directly the latest version?


----------



## decent_espresso

rallakias said:


> If someone orders *today* a DE1pro , will he get
> 
> 
> 
> a new or the older version of the tablet ?
> 
> 
> a brand new drip tray cover or an old defective one ?
> 
> 
> Apart from the position of the USB plug (why is it going to change?) and the group head control that all 1.1 version owners will be able to upgrade to ,are there any other differences between the current version and the 2020 version?
> 
> In other words should I wait a couple of months to get directly the latest version?


 The version 1.3 machine, coming in January is going up in price by about £300, so that's the main reason to buy now, if you don't need/want the new group head controller.

We're just about to transition to the new tablet, in about 3 weeks. If you want the new tablet, just indicate that in your order and we'll hold your order until then.

An ugly drip tray for now, as that's all we have. We haven't yet solved that design problem.

The USB plug is moving so that we can put a front-panel on/off button switch on the DE1XL model, where the USB port was.

Yes, you can upgrade the group head controller for £300 later, if you so want.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

jlarkin said:


> Looks near - is it actually available or still in the works?


 Don't know yet. I'm going to get a unit myself as soon as possible, to test it in my own cart. I'll report back here, my experiences with it. At HOST, it worked well in the demo.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Smart Espresso Profiler, running on Decent Espresso Machines*

Miklos at Smart Espresso Profiler "pitched me" on their porting the Android/iOS app to work natively with the upcoming v1.3 Decent Espresso Machine. It's a cool idea, and we're going to make it happen.

Here is his concept: instead of running the tablet app I wrote (to control the Decent), you'd run their app (I'd pre-load it on our tablet) and that would turn the Decent into a fully manual "lever machine".

You'd use the circular controller on our upcoming v1.3 espresso machines to manually control flow through the entire espresso shot, and follow the curves on the SEP software display.

This would allow you to totally emulate traditional lever machines profiles that SEP has in its software. It also sounds like fun, and a much more hands-on experience than our normal "the machine does it all" approach on the DE1.

Thanks Miklos for suggesting this cool idea!

This will incidentally be a great example of the benefit of a "software controlled espresso machine", i.e. a totally different concept for machine control, written by someone else who has a very different vision from mine. Choice is good!

And&#8230; this will be offered for free, to all our customers.

Here is a video showing how the SEP software works with Paul Pratt's awesome robot lever machine:






-john


----------



## Firedancer

You've mentioned previously about the cracking issue with Ultem. Is this something that is expected to be fixed with v1.3? Would this be something that will be retrofitted to prior machines?


----------



## decent_espresso

Firedancer said:


> You've mentioned previously about the cracking issue with Ultem. Is this something that is expected to be fixed with v1.3? Would this be something that will be retrofitted to prior machines?


 For the v1.3 machines we:



switched to fiberglass impregnated ULTEM


increased the thickness of the part that was cracking.


Yes, this can completely be retrofitted on existing machines, and we'll be doing so for free, for any v1.1 or v1.0 machines that should have this issue. So far, 4 machines (out of ~920) have had this issue.

The new material is easily recognizable as it is now opaque (older is on bottom, newer material on top)


----------



## Firedancer

Well, as soon as you start taking orders (preorders) for v1.3, let me know. Wife wants UL certification, I just want the machine!


----------



## decent_espresso

Firedancer said:


> Well, as soon as you start taking orders (preorders) for v1.3, let me know. Wife wants UL certification, I just want the machine!


 Are you in the states, or in the UK or EU? I ask, since we're already CE compliant, it's just UL that wants those buttons on the group head, to prove you've in front of the machine.

As to UL certification itself, we'll be submitting the v1.3 machine for UL certification in December, and it'll take 8 to 12 weeks.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Post-trade show wrap-up*

Arrived home last night with 3 espresso machines, after making 2000 lattes in 3 days at HOST Milano in Italy.

The photo above is what happens when you make that much coffee with no cleanup facilities. Everything stinks of souring burnt milk. Yum.​
I just ordered a 2 liter "milk cleaner" detergent bottle from Amazon. It can't come soon enough. I'm running "decalcificazione" (the tablet is still running in Italian) and cleaning cycles through my 3 machines. There's an "easter egg" on the tablet when you clean, that some of you might have not seen before. Some things I learned at the show:​


baristas new to our machine, who are pressed for time, will tend to leave the steam wand in a full milk jug. This moves milk up the steam wand, and slightly clogs the wand, and cooks the milk on the next steaming.


there's "a process" we programmed for steaming this much milk. Use the steam timer and steam "hands-free". Because, at the end of the time, the steam turns off, but then continues making gently "puffs" of steam every few seconds, to (a) keep milk from going up and (b) keep the foam slightly circulating and thus of higher quality.


Once the baristas learned the "decent process" for steaming milk, we were able to crank out many more lattes per hour, and only needed one barista, instead of two, to keep up with orders. Two machines were basically steaming constantly, while the 3rd machine pulled long Blooming Espresso shots (15g in / 50g out)


The wheels on our IKEA BROR cart of made of fairly soft plastic. I didn't notice that one wheel "locked" during transport. After 20 seconds of pushing it along the pavement, I'd sanded 5mm off one wheel, so it no longer rolled smoothly.


I designed the PRO steam wand for use when the DE1XL is countersunk. If it's not countersunk, the steam wand is too high up to do "hands-free" steaming.


This prototype v1.3 machine locked its portafilter sooner than the other machines (that's since been fixed in later prototypes). When a barista switched from his machine to mine, he didn't squeeze hard enough to lock the portafilter in. The portafilter popped out during espresso making, and splashed me with burning water. Thankfully, the burn was not too bad, but this really does bring home the lesson that we need to get all the details right, as we're working with pressurized boiling water here.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Manument is really decent*

At the Berlin Coffee Show in July, Manument was the darling of the show, and you couldn't get anywhere near them.

So, it was with great anticipation that Bugs and I were able to meet Francesca, the CEO 
https://manument.com/en/ as well as her designer and barista.

My focus was not on the beauty of the machine (which is obvious) but on "can it make good espresso?"

I was pleased to see a few coffee-quality related things that were well thought out:



a small handle controlling a needle valve, to control water flow rate in real time


the handle moves up at a speed proportional to the flow rate, giving you a rough flow meter


a front-panel control knob for the water temperature


While the Manument is heavy and tall, it's very narrow, so there are lots of cases where it'd fit nicely.

It's not yet in production, and with Francesca (who we got along famously with) we swapped notes on manufacturing. They've had some thoughts (not followed up on) about using a ceramic drip tray instead of plastic. I offered to put Francesca in touch with our porcelain manufacturer, as I think it'll work well for the drip tray design they've got there.

They had a very nice welded wire drip tray cover, and gave me a few war stories about how hard it'd been to find someone who made that part nicely. They're passing their contact for that part over to me, which is kind of them.

Francesca stressed that she wants to go slowly with their manufacturing and growth, despite lots of demand to "ship now!!!", as she wants time to incorporate barista feedback into the design, to make a truly decent product. I applaud her.

-john


----------



## Slowpress

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 33087
> 
> 
> *Smart Espresso Profiler, running on Decent Espresso Machines*
> 
> Miklos at Smart Espresso Profiler "pitched me" on their porting the Android/iOS app to work natively with the upcoming v1.3 Decent Espresso Machine. It's a cool idea, and we're going to make it happen.
> 
> Here is his concept: instead of running the tablet app I wrote (to control the Decent), you'd run their app (I'd pre-load it on our tablet) and that would turn the Decent into a fully manual "lever machine".
> 
> You'd use the circular controller on our upcoming v1.3 espresso machines to manually control flow through the entire espresso shot, and follow the curves on the SEP software display.
> 
> This would allow you to totally emulate traditional lever machines profiles that SEP has in its software. It also sounds like fun, and a much more hands-on experience than our normal "the machine does it all" approach on the DE1.
> 
> Thanks Miklos for suggesting this cool idea!
> 
> This will incidentally be a great example of the benefit of a "software controlled espresso machine", i.e. a totally different concept for machine control, written by someone else who has a very different vision from mine. Choice is good!
> 
> And&#8230; this will be offered for free, to all our customers.
> 
> Here is a video showing how the SEP software works with Paul Pratt's awesome robot lever machine:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -john


 He & Gabor (NakedPortafilter)) have used this with the Flair lever, too! I don't think people realize just how interesting/illuminating this tool can be, and a great amount of fun, too, especially if you like to match profiles from machine to machine, copy someone's espresso extraction, etc. Terrific!


----------



## Step21

Slowpress said:


> He & Gabor (NakedPortafilter)) have used this with the Flair lever, too! I don't think people realize just how interesting/illuminating this tool can be, and a great amount of fun, too, especially if you like to match profiles from machine to machine, copy someone's espresso extraction, etc. Terrific!


 Looks great. But it costs more than the Robot itself!


----------



## Slowpress

@Step21 Yup! The cost of espresso equipment & all the accompanying paraphernalia is not for the faint of heart! But, for those who love the exploration, each innovation can be another interesting part of the journey.


----------



## o2c

decent_espresso said:


> As to UL certification itself, we'll be submitting the v1.3 machine for UL certification in December, and it'll take 8 to 12 weeks.


 Woo hoo! I eagerly await seeing the next step in this very long journey and finally getting a machine!


----------



## decent_espresso

Step21 said:


> Looks great. But it costs more than the Robot itself!


 Well, it'll be free with a Decent Espresso Machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

After the HOST Milano trade show, I was given 8 liters of heavy whipping cream, that went unused in the stand's "granita" machine. As this cream has an expiry date of tomorrow (November 1) I'm making LOTS of ice cream.

I was also gifted by Cafezal https://cafezal.it/ some beautiful single origin Ethiopian beans http://www.thebigfive.store/ethiopia/ roasted in Kenya by Big Five http://www.thebigfive.store/about-us/

*My recipe:*



500ml 30% heavy cream


3 shots of espresso, using Rao's Blooming Espresso profile (15g in, 45g out)m about 150ml total. You want length and balanced acidity in your shots, to make this an interesting ice cream.


200ml of milk


Sugar to taste


Vanilla essence to taste

 Blend and freeze in an ice cream machine.

*For extra credit: *



instead of vanilla essence, use an oaked rum with strong vanilla flavor notes


the alcohol in the rum lowers the melting point. This makes for a more pleasant creamier texture when serving ice cream directly from my home freezer. My chest freezer sits at -28ºC, so I usually have to put ice cream in my refrigerator 30 minutes before serving, to soften it up.


I don't think you can buy ice cream commercially with this much alcohol, as it'd require a liquor license. That makes it something particularly special to make at home.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Bluetooth milk thermometer?*

I'm ordering a new batch of our digital milk thermometers https://decentespresso.com/milk_thermometer as we're down to 100 Celsius thermometers in stock. This new batch will have a water proof coating on the thermometer PCB, for improved water resistance.

When talking to Mingle (our thermometer manufacturer https://www.mingle-instrument.de/digital/) I also brought up the topic of adding bluetooth to it.

They said that they can't add bluetooth to the existing thermometer, as there's not enough space.

But they propose this two-part bluetooth thermometer (photo attached) to me, which they made in 2015 for another company:
﻿At Google London a few years back, I saw that their La Marzocco Espresso Machine had a probe like this clipped permanently on the steam wand. In their case it was simply going to a digital thermometer readout, but it was useful.

I was wondering: would it be helpful to do the same on a DE1? That would give us true "stop steaming on temperature" as the tablet app could connect to this over bluetooth, and stop steam at the right moment.

There are some serious downsides, though:



cleaning up after steaming will be more difficult since the probe will be attached


battery life is about 170h, or one week, if left always on.


However, I believe it is USB charged, and I'm asking Mingle if it can be left on permanently if attached to a power supply


it's likely this will fit on a thermometer clip, if you were willing to put it on a milk jug. But that becomes something else to clean.

 Damian's DSV2 and DSN3 skins already feature automatic steam stopping, by calculating the desired temperature difference, and dividing by heat transfer/second, which is constant on the DE1. However, with different heaters coming out, and milk sometimes at different starting temperatures (ie, out of the fridge vs on the countertop, warm vs cold milk pitcher) that approach doesn't work so well in a cafe.

Would love to hear your thoughts...!

-john


----------



## -Mac

1) Have you seen bluetooth temp sensor probes for BBQ cooking?

2) Have you considered building a temp sensor into a milk jug?


----------



## decent_espresso

-Mac said:


> 1) Have you seen bluetooth temp sensor probes for BBQ cooking?


 Yes, that's exactly what that object above is.



-Mac said:


> 2) Have you considered building a temp sensor into a milk jug?


 Not sure how that would work, can you write out your thoughts more?


----------



## -Mac

These are much more elegant ? https://meater.com/

I was thinking that since one of the objections to a sensor is that it's another thing to clean, and since one has to clean a milk jug anyway, why not combine them? Most temp sensors I've seen only have the sensor on the very tip of the spike (and the length is there purely to get it into the heart of the thing to be measured), so why not create a jug that has a small spike sticking up from the centre of the base (but long enough to escape the thermal mass of the jug itself)? The circuitry could be housed in an external false jug bottom.

Or, enclose the whole sensor she-bang in a robust waterproof 'bubble' that has enough ballast to semi-sink and swirl around with the milk.


----------



## decent_espresso

-Mac said:


> These are much more elegant ? https://meater.com/
> 
> I was thinking that since one of the objections to a sensor is that it's another thing to clean, and since one has to clean a milk jug anyway, why not combine them? Most temp sensors I've seen only have the sensor on the very tip of the spike (and the length is there purely to get it into the heart of the thing to be measured), so why not create a jug that has a small spike sticking up from the centre of the base (but long enough to escape the thermal mass of the jug itself)? The circuitry could be housed in an external false jug bottom.
> 
> Or, enclose the whole sensor she-bang in a robust waterproof 'bubble' that has enough ballast to semi-sink and swirl around with the milk.


 "Meater" is a cute name, nicely made, looks gorgeous. Just bought one, thanks for the tip.



-Mac said:


> These are much more elegant ? https://meater.com/
> 
> I was thinking that since one of the objections to a sensor is that it's another thing to clean, and since one has to clean a milk jug anyway, why not combine them? Most temp sensors I've seen only have the sensor on the very tip of the spike (and the length is there purely to get it into the heart of the thing to be measured), so why not create a jug that has a small spike sticking up from the centre of the base (but long enough to escape the thermal mass of the jug itself)? The circuitry could be housed in an external false jug bottom.
> 
> Or, enclose the whole sensor she-bang in a robust waterproof 'bubble' that has enough ballast to semi-sink and swirl around with the milk.


 The problem I've seen with that approach is "how to clean it?" and "how to make a plastic false bottom attach reliably to a metal jug? I think it'll be clumsy.

We've thought about using an infrared sensor to sense the metal temperature of the jug, which we can do because our jug is painted matte black. That might be a "clean" way forward.


----------



## Firedancer

-Mac said:


> These are much more elegant ? https://meater.com/


 I would agree with contacting MEATER. I backed them on Kickstarter and have since purchased more. In fact, I used it today to cook jerk chicken. Close, but not as accurate as a Thermapen, but we're talking a deg F or less difference with more convenience.

That said, an attached probe would be acceptable and probably optimal as it reduces the probability of intermittent signal loss without having to charge a battery intermittently. That said, not as tech savvy, but functional.


----------



## decent_espresso

*
New Decent Heaters
*

About 18 months ago, I was contacted by Kawai http://www.ekawai.com/ and told that they are the world's largest thermocoil manufacturer, that they make models for a few big name pro espresso machines, and that they'd like to work with us to design a heater to our needs.

Our Decent Espresso Machines are "heat on demand", or boiler-less. However, our machines aren't "sitting around cool", but instead have 1.2 meters of stainless steel tubing, coiled tightly inside a block of aluminum, sitting at 110ºC (for espresso) and 160º (for steam). That's our stored energy.

We currently have two limits imposed on us, by the fact that our demands are beyond what anyone else is doing. The maximum power heaters we can get are 1350W, with 1.2 meters of coiling. This limits us in two ways:



our maximum flow rate for espresso is 8 ml/s. Pro machines are typically around 10 ml/s to as much as 12 ml/s. This matters mainly for espresso making styles that want to hammer the puck quickly with water.


our steam is about half as powerful as a pro machine, so you need about 40 seconds to steam milk that would take 20 seconds on a La Marzocco Strada.

 For the past 14 months, Decent and Kawai engineers have been working on a new design for heaters. The main changes are:



2 meters if stainless steel tubing


standard wattage of 1500W, with test models now in our hands, going up to 2200W


30% taller


but the overall assembled size stays the same, because we've also designed molded insulation to fit efficiently around the heater


each heater used to take us 90 minutes to hand build (top photos). We would build a case, add aerogel insulation, temperature probes and triple thermal safeties (two thermal fuses, one thermostat).


Now each heater comes ready-to-use, with easier mounting as well.

 We're now testing the 1500W models, as we plan on using them in production for our upcoming v1.3 models. That represents an 18% power boost over our previous heaters.

Through 2020, we'll be testing and refining our control software, with the goal of releasing higher powered steam and faster flow rates, in our 2021 espresso machine models. It's alas not so simple as just increasing the wattage. Heat transfer is a complicated affair.

What's interesting about this progress is that it was impossible to short-circuit this step, and launch 2 years ago with this. A company this size only co-designs products with a company it believes is worthwhile. We first had to prove ourselves.

-john


----------



## avetiso

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 33422
> 
> 
> *
> New Decent Heaters
> *
> 
> About 18 months ago, I was contacted by Kawai http://www.ekawai.com/ and told that they are the world's largest thermocoil manufacturer, that they make models for a few big name pro espresso machines, and that they'd like to work with us to design a heater to our needs.
> 
> Our Decent Espresso Machines are "heat on demand", or boiler-less. However, our machines aren't "sitting around cool", but instead have 1.2 meters of stainless steel tubing, coiled tightly inside a block of aluminum, sitting at 110ºC (for espresso) and 160º (for steam). That's our stored energy.
> 
> We currently have two limits imposed on us, by the fact that our demands are beyond what anyone else is doing. The maximum power heaters we can get are 1350W, with 1.2 meters of coiling. This limits us in two ways:
> 
> 
> 
> our maximum flow rate for espresso is 8 ml/s. Pro machines are typically around 10 ml/s to as much as 12 ml/s. This matters mainly for espresso making styles that want to hammer the puck quickly with water.
> 
> 
> our steam is about half as powerful as a pro machine, so you need about 40 seconds to steam milk that would take 20 seconds on a La Marzocco Strada.
> 
> For the past 14 months, Decent and Kawai engineers have been working on a new design for heaters. The main changes are:
> 
> 
> 
> 2 meters if stainless steel tubing
> 
> 
> standard wattage of 1500W, with test models now in our hands, going up to 2200W
> 
> 
> 30% taller
> 
> 
> but the overall assembled size stays the same, because we've also designed molded insulation to fit efficiently around the heater
> 
> 
> each heater used to take us 90 minutes to hand build (top photos). We would build a case, add aerogel insulation, temperature probes and triple thermal safeties (two thermal fuses, one thermostat).
> 
> 
> Now each heater comes ready-to-use, with easier mounting as well.
> 
> We're now testing the 1500W models, as we plan on using them in production for our upcoming v1.3 models. That represents an 18% power boost over our previous heaters.
> 
> Through 2020, we'll be testing and refining our control software, with the goal of releasing higher powered steam and faster flow rates, in our 2021 espresso machine models. It's alas not so simple as just increasing the wattage. Heat transfer is a complicated affair.
> 
> What's interesting about this progress is that it was impossible to short-circuit this step, and launch 2 years ago with this. A company this size only co-designs products with a company it believes is worthwhile. We first had to prove ourselves.
> 
> -john


 Will this only be available for v1.3? I was looking to purchase a DE1PRO when the new tablets started shipping, but it would suck to miss out on this upgrade. On the other hand, I don't really need the group head controls and would like to save that $300 if I can help it. What's the outlook for people in my shoes, and people who are worried about buying the machines but missing out on awesome upgrades that might land just a few months later?


----------



## decent_espresso

Beautiful café coming together in Austin, TX, at Celadon Coffee. Two of our black DE1XL nicely countersunk.​


----------



## decent_espresso

avetiso said:


> Will this only be available for v1.3? I was looking to purchase a DE1PRO when the new tablets started shipping, but it would suck to miss out on this upgrade. On the other hand, I don't really need the group head controls and would like to save that $300 if I can help it. What's the outlook for people in my shoes, and people who are worried about buying the machines but missing out on awesome upgrades that might land just a few months later?


 The v1.3 machines coming in January will have the new heaters, but we do have v1.1 machines being built now that have a 1500W heaters in them, though they still use the old insulating case. We transitioned about 4 weeks ago. If you want a 1500W v1.1 machine, at the lower price, just let me know before you pay, and I'll make sure that's what you get.

As far as going to 2200W for steam, that'll be for our more expensive models only (DE1XL, and eventually, a DE1CAFE) and will start to appear in July 2020 (in the DE1XL) and 2021 (1st appearance of the DE1CAFE). The "home models" will peak at 1500W.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Drip tray cover progress*

After several attempts at a "lost-wax process" stainless steel drip tray, even with the cross bars, the result is too wonky to be acceptable.

Here's a photo (top) of the final attempt, compared to the current chrome-plated aluminum drip tray cover. Hopefully, you'll agree that our current cover is a lot nicer looking. It's main problems are (a) it's aluminum, and can tarnish and (b) the company that made them for us tried to hold us hostage.









So... we're giving up on "lost wax process" molding for this piece.

I will mention in passing that the supplier has been honorable throughout this time, and promised to refund our money if they couldn't succeed. That's a big loss of money for them, since the molds have been made, used, and aren't useable. We'll definitely do business with them in the future, for parts where lost wax molding is more suited (ie, parts that can be machines afterward, to remove the casting defects).

We decided to reach out to manufacturers of traditional drip tray covers, but to design something that looked less like a BBQ, and closer to our existing design.

We paid for 5 suppliers to send us samples. I've previously posted the *horrible* first sample we received. The rest of the 4 samples have taken more time to arrive, but the workmanship is much improved. All of them are a bit too large, and 2 of have a slight wobble to them. The ones on the bottom line are my favorites.









However, there are two manufacturers who are really close to acceptable, that we're going to follow up on.

I've included one photo below of the new design, on the DE1XL countersink. Except for it being a tad too large for the ceramic underneath it, I think it looks ok.

The price for these is much lower (around $5) and being made of stainless steel, they're very tough. They're heavier, so will cost more to mail to people. But overall, I'm pretty happy with how this is turning out, even if we've been sweating daily since August (!!!) about this part.

Thankfully, so many customers sent in their ugly-but-still-functional spare old drip tray covers in, that we've been able to continue shipping espresso machines, with the promise of a free gift and a much better drip tray soon to arrive.

I'm optimistic for a happy ending to this story.

-john


----------



## Wascally314

Do you have any plans to offer the DE1PRO in white? Thank you!


----------



## Firedancer

decent_espresso said:


> The v1.3 machines coming in January will have the new heaters, but we do have v1.1 machines being built now that have a 1500W heaters in them, though they still use the old insulating case. We transitioned about 4 weeks ago. If you want a 1500W v1.1 machine, at the lower price, just let me know before you pay, and I'll make sure that's what you get
> 
> -john


 Does this mean a machine bought within the last week would have the new 1.3 heater or only upon request?


----------



## decent_espresso

Wascally314 said:


> Do you have any plans to offer the DE1PRO in white? Thank you!


 Sorry, no. Just the DE1XL will be in white.



Firedancer said:


> Does this mean a machine bought within the last week would have the new 1.3 heater or only upon request?


 I thought that was the case, but... I just checked with my staff and "boss was out of the loop" ...

It turns out that as of March 2019 (around serial number 420), we transitioned to 1500W heaters. So, the past 550 machines (we just built machine 975) all have 18% more powerful heaters in them, and are just awaiting the new firmware for v1.3 (free to all) that will use the extra heating capacity.

It won't be until about March 2020 that we transition to the new Kawai heaters, which will also be 1500W. The only difference will be for us, namely that they come pre-built, rather than our needing to spend 90 minutes to build a box for each. To users, there's no difference.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*The story behind our digital milk thermometer*​
​
We're almost out of stock of our first run of 3000 digital milk thermometers.​
I designed these 3 years ago, with my Portuguese designer Joao Tomaz, based on a meat thermometer https://www.mingle-instrument.de/et578a/ design that German thermometer maker "Mingle", already manufactured. Here's what their meat thermometer looks like:​






​
To morph their thermometer into ours, we:​
- changed the probe length​
- changed the firmware to appropriate temperatures for steaming milk​
- added a silicone sleeve for water-ingress-prevention​
- changed the printing​
​
But otherwise left the rest alone, since it was a well made product already.​
​
I picked Mingle because they made my favorite oven thermometer (for roasting meats), and it was the only one that had survived my use.​
​
However, steam ingress has been a persistent problem for us. Very heavy milk steaming (or washing up in a sink) gets water inside. The thermometer shorts out and doesn't work.​
​
Luckily, the thermometer is not permanently broken when this happens. You have to twist to open it up, and let it dry overnight with the batteries removed, and it comes back to life. Still, that's inconvenient.​
​
Home users rarely have this problem (not enough heavy use) but it's been a problem for us, when our thermometer is used in cafes.​
​
Before re-ordering, I challenged Mingle to try to address this issue.​
​
They suggested that the PCBs be "nano-coated" with a water resistant coating.​
​
Yesterday they delivered 3 samples to us, and I asked my engineer Alex to run them through ever-more-punishing tests.​
​
I didn't expect them to survive the total-immersion test, but they did. I'm pleased. Only $0.80 extra cost to us oer thermometer, and so much more useful.​
​
We'll have these new models in stock, by the end of December.​
​
The milk thermometer page is here: https://decentespresso.com/milk_thermometer - if you want us to hold your order until the new ones come in, please say so in the "Notes" of your order.​
-john​
​


----------



## decent_espresso

*Lost-Wax Stainless Casting: good, but not good enough*

We just received the polished, "as good as it gets" attempt from the lost-wax folks trying to make a stainless version of our drip tray. They don't think they can do better.

It's almost-but-not-quite good enough. The occasionally distortions are very noticeable due to our repeated parallels lines design.

The cross-bars certainly helped, but not enough.

So, for now, we're proceeding with the welded-wire design you can see in my recent other posting.

-john


----------



## avetiso

Do you have any updated information on when the new tablets will start shipping? I'm waiting until then to place my order.


----------



## decent_espresso

avetiso said:


> Do you have any updated information on when the new tablets will started shipping? I'm waiting until then to place my order.


 Yep, I got news.

800 black tablets are ready for us to inspect (finished a few days ago), and we're going to the factory on Saturday to quality control them. Another 200 tablets are to be made in white, for the white DE1XL model, but they're not yet ready.

Photo of the engineers at the factory below, last week doing quality checks on our tablet PC boards and screens.

Just FYI, our tablets are made for us by PIPO, who are the folks who make the ARGOS and ARCHOS tablets. http://pipo.cn/En/index.php?m=Index&a=index

I'm hoping that we'll start shipping machines with them, starting at the end of next week.

-john


----------



## Cyberclau

decent_espresso said:


> Sorry, no. Just the DE1XL will be in white.
> 
> I thought that was the case, but... I just checked with my staff and "boss was out of the loop" ...
> 
> It turns out that as of March 2019 (around serial number 420), we transitioned to 1500W heaters. So, the past 550 machines (we just built machine 975) all have 18% more powerful heaters in them, and are just awaiting the new firmware for v1.3 (free to all) that will use the extra heating capacity.
> 
> It won't be until about March 2020 that we transition to the new Kawai heaters, which will also be 1500W. The only difference will be for us, namely that they come pre-built, rather than our needing to spend 90 minutes to build a box for each. To users, there's no difference.
> 
> -john


 Hi,

1) What will be the other differences, if any, between ordering a DE1+ v1.1 in two weeks (i.e .with the new tablet) and the 1500W heater (not the pre-built version) versus ordering a v1.3 (in January?)? Other differences than the pre-built heater and the new firmware (that will be available free to all as you said).

2) Any remaining issue with the IMS screen, provided with the DE1PRO, causing cratters? What is the current and future solution? Estimated time for a permanent fix / form of the fix?

3) Is it planned in v1.3 firmware to add the option to interact/control/react in real time when pulling an espresso shot?

Thanks,

Claude


----------



## avetiso

Just placed my order for a DE1+ with the new tablet.

Just wanted to say I'm really excited for it to show up, thanks for responding in this thread to answer our questions!


----------



## decent_espresso

Cyberclau said:


> 1) What will be the other differences, if any, between ordering a DE1+ v1.1 in two weeks (i.e .with the new tablet) and the 1500W heater (not the pre-built version) versus ordering a v1.3 (in January?)? Other differences than the pre-built heater and the new firmware (that will be available free to all as you said).


 The firmware update is compatible with all machines, going back to when we launched.

I was "out of the loop" and it turns out that since March 2019 (around machine serial #420) the factory switched to 1500W heaters, and most of the v1.3 machines will have these 1500W heaters with the slow-to-assemble fiberglass/aerogel box, and around June we'll switch to the new box around the heaters.

However, the firmware controlling the heaters is still assuming 1350W, as the new firmware to take advantage of the extra wattage is not yet out. That'll come out in January, to all machines, and will give the 1500W heater folks a bit of a boost.

The bigger difference between v1.1 and v1.3 is the new group head controller. New tablets will start to ship with v1.1 machines in about 10 days. We're QCing the new batch this saturday.



Cyberclau said:


> 2) Any remaining issue with the IMS screen, provided with the DE1PRO, causing cratters? What is the current and future solution? Estimated time for a permanent fix / form of the fix?


 I don't agree that there are "problems" with the IMS screen.

I do agree that there's always room for improvement and it looks like a spacer, which two 3rd parties sell (at differing prices) improves repeatability and reduces channeling for many people. But, lots of people are very happy without the spacer. You're welcome to buy a spacer, or wait it out and see what the results of all this research is. People are still trying out different designs, and you can buy them for under £100 at any point, if you want to play with the latest stuff.

But, if you're nervous about the IMS screen and want to buy a DE1PRO, I'm happy to include the standard screen as well as the IMS, for free, and you can try both.



Cyberclau said:


> 3) Is it planned in v1.3 firmware to add the option to interact/control/react in real time when pulling an espresso shot?


 Yes, but only with the group head controller. Older machines won't have that feature, as bluetooth does not have enough bandwidth for us to do that in a quality way.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

​
​
*Decent Coffee Cart Progress*​
I've previously written about my experiments converting a $99 IKEA BROR tablet into a coffee cart. We've now moving to the next stage in our experiments.​
We're having a new tabletop made for us, with computer-controlled-CNC, so that all our coffee components fit into the table, with no sawing needed.​
My idea is that we'll sell this at our-cost-plus-shipping, and you'll put it into a IKEA BROR table that you buy locally.​
By using CNC, we'll be able to offer a few different configurations. Possibilities such as a left-hand-oriented, or right-hand-oriented layout. Or a larger BIGGER BROR version with two countersunk Decent Espresso Machines. Or with a combination countersunk steam unit/pitcher rinser instead of our simpler pitcher rinser.​
With the tabletop we chose, we greatly thickened the top, from IKEA's 8mm to 15mm for ours. We also went with pre-varnished wood, so it's ready for you to use and fairly water resistant.​
The CNC cuts are much more precise than I was able to do with a jigsaw.​
One effect of that precision is that we were able to put a wider "margin" on the right hand side, where I was intending on putting customer drinks.​
Next steps are: power stripe, cable management, receiving a Niche grinder for this project, and wiring it all up.​
-john​


----------



## Slowpress

@decent_espresso What a terrific idea!?


----------



## gelious

Hi John,

Just a crazy idea of cross-breading espresso and nitro coffee. How about trying to use nitrogen instead of atmospheric air inside the pump while pulling espresso shot? Do you think the resulting drink would have textural benefits of cold nitro drink (richer crema, cascading) and impact on flavor & taste (due to lesser oxidation)? I acknowledge that nitrogen bubbles would be escaping at much higher pace from a 98 degrees liquid - so visual effect may not be as stunning as for cold nitro but still...

Is it technically doable to connect nitro tank to a pump?

Cheers,

Oleg


----------



## ashcroc

gelious said:


> Hi John,
> Just a crazy idea of cross-breading espresso and nitro coffee. How about trying to use nitrogen instead of atmospheric air inside the pump while pulling espresso shot? Do you think the resulting drink would have textural benefits of cold nitro drink (richer crema, cascading) and impact on flavor & taste (due to lesser oxidation)? I acknowledge that nitrogen bubbles would be escaping at much higher pace from a 98 degrees liquid - so visual effect may not be as stunning as for cold nitro but still...
> Is it technically doable to connect nitro tank to a pump?
> Cheers,
> Oleg


Doesn't the pump have water in it while pulling a shot?


----------



## gelious

ashcroc said:


> gelious said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hi John,
> Just a crazy idea of cross-breading espresso and nitro coffee. How about trying to use nitrogen instead of atmospheric air inside the pump while pulling espresso shot? Do you think the resulting drink would have textural benefits of cold nitro drink (richer crema, cascading) and impact on flavor & taste (due to lesser oxidation)? I acknowledge that nitrogen bubbles would be escaping at much higher pace from a 98 degrees liquid - so visual effect may not be as stunning as for cold nitro but still...
> Is it technically doable to connect nitro tank to a pump?
> Cheers,
> Oleg
> 
> 
> 
> Doesn't the pump have water in it while pulling a shot?
Click to expand...

 Right you're. Then how about pre-infusing water with nitrogen?


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## decent_espresso

*Think small*​
Decent Espresso is currently at the big annual Korea Coffee Show, with 5 staffers and we're maxed all day. Shin made two Ikea BROR coffee carts, with a 1 countersink machine on a small cart, and a larger cart with two machines (2nd photo). Martin from Niche is presenting tomorrow at 3pm, at our stand.​
Shin didn't tell me what he was designing for the stand, he just got on with it. This is my first look at the backdrop.​
I don't know if Shin intentionally is making a reference to the super-famous Volksvagen mini ad that changed the advertising world, 50 years ago.​
-john​


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## decent_espresso

*App update: favorite profiles, user-created lever profiles*​


your "top 3" most used espresso profiles are now automatically labelled with a heart symbol.


The reason I added this, is that I find it very hard to find my favorite profiles among the long list. I hope the heart symbol helps.


My goal with the way I've implemented this, is for it to not cause you to have to think, nor be distracting or in your way. Subtle, but helpful. Hopefully.


if you have never used 3 different profiles, then (in this order) these 3 profiles are marked with a heart, to recommend them (especially for new users): "default", "gentle and sweet", "blooming espresso". The goal is to guide new users to the most popular profiles. But once you've used 3 profiles of your choice, the heart icon follows your choice.


the "top 3 profiles" is only calculated when the app starts, and is not dynamically based on your espressos in the current session. I may change that in the future and make it dynamic.


Also:​


I've added the "advanced lever profile" created by John Weiss and Damian Brakel's extremely popular Londinium R profile.


I've added Spence's popular "Dark Theme" to the built-in themes in the app, so you no longer need to manually download it. You can see it often in instagram photos of people's Decent espresso machines.


----------



## -Mac

I don't know how it works, but do the 'hearted' ones also stay at the top of the list?


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## decent_espresso

-Mac said:


> I don't know how it works, but do the 'hearted' ones also stay at the top of the list?


 I decided not to do that, because profiles are currently sorted by name.

Your suggestion (and I gave this idea some thought as well) would mean that the profiles you used, as they became "top 3", would move about in the list.

I thought that'd make them harder to find instead of easier.

-john


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## -Mac

It wouldn't make it harder. It's pretty much how every PC/phone app in the world works (and for good reason). Favourites stay at the top and everything else is either in ascending or descending order underneath them (or as sorted in the user-specified order).


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## decent_espresso

*DE1XL: countertop or countersunk*

People often ask me if we have a version of this espresso machine that can sit on a countertop, as they don't want to cut a hole in their table. Yes, we do, it's the same model.

So... we made this very short video to show the two ways the DE1XL can be placed at your place. ?

-john


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## decent_espresso

I received photos this morning, of a big banquet for Heritage Radio that Ace Coffee Co ran in New York. Very nice to see a big production setting with our little espresso machines. Nice one, Charles!​
https://heritageradionetwork.org/ https://www.acecoffee.co/​
-john​
​
If you don't know HRN, their radio program on foods are really something:​


> "HRN is the world's pioneer food radio station. The studio broadcasts live from two recycled shipping containers inside Roberta's Pizza, an innovative restaurant at the epicenter of Brooklyn's culinary renaissance"










​


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## Cyberclau

decent_espresso said:


> The firmware update is compatible with all machines, going back to when we launched.
> 
> I was "out of the loop" and it turns out that since March 2019 (around machine serial #420) the factory switched to 1500W heaters, and most of the v1.3 machines will have these 1500W heaters with the slow-to-assemble fiberglass/aerogel box, and around June we'll switch to the new box around the heaters.
> 
> However, the firmware controlling the heaters is still assuming 1350W, as the new firmware to take advantage of the extra wattage is not yet out. That'll come out in January, to all machines, and will give the 1500W heater folks a bit of a boost.
> 
> The bigger difference between v1.1 and v1.3 is the new group head controller. New tablets will start to ship with v1.1 machines in about 10 days. We're QCing the new batch this saturday.
> 
> I don't agree that there are "problems" with the IMS screen.
> 
> I do agree that there's always room for improvement and it looks like a spacer, which two 3rd parties sell (at differing prices) improves repeatability and reduces channeling for many people. But, lots of people are very happy without the spacer. You're welcome to buy a spacer, or wait it out and see what the results of all this research is. People are still trying out different designs, and you can buy them for under £100 at any point, if you want to play with the latest stuff.
> 
> But, if you're nervous about the IMS screen and want to buy a DE1PRO, I'm happy to include the standard screen as well as the IMS, for free, and you can try both.
> 
> Yes, but only with the group head controller. Older machines won't have that feature, as bluetooth does not have enough bandwidth for us to do that in a quality way.
> 
> -john


 Hi,

Thanks for your answers! Here are a couple more  :

1) Do you have a date for the v1.3 machine with the new controller head?

a) Do you have an idea of the increase in price, if any?

2) Is the refill kit compatible with the DE1+?

3) How long will it takes (approx) to pack a DE1+/DE1PRO from a plumb-in setup to the transport case?

a) Nothing else to do to have it work with the internal tank when on the move? (except to swap the drain tray for the original one without the hole)

4) For my understanding, is the bandwidth limitation of Bluetooth the real reason why not implement a direct control of the current shot with the tablet? I think it is around 3Mbps and it serves you well for exchanging data for graphing the shot in near real time. Is it not more the lagging/slow responsiveness of the protocol the real reason? I imagine going WiFi or USB will demand a more in-depth redesign.

In all case, thanks very much for your answers. It is something to have a direct channel with the founder/CEO of such an innovative coffee equipment company . This is refreshing!

Currently, I'm owing a Rocket Evo V2 HX machine with a group head thermometer. During the last two years, I have managed to get OK results, but not more than acceptable. Too many parameters to reproduce exactly the same shot (cooling flush length and start temp, rebound, GH temperature, water temperature in tank, room temperature, etc.). It is not usable by my SO (too complicated she says ). I was looking for a DB PID machine, but your machines seem more interesting. I think that once a good routine will be found and added in the machine, it'll will be easier for my SO to use it. What do you think/suggest about that (other than getting the self levering v2 tamper )? The only disadvantages right now are the slow steaming (SO = 13 ounces Latté ), the step price for Canadian market, the fact that it is hard/impossible to find a place to try these machines before buying and the lack of long term reliability data. At first, I also thought that the lack of steaming+brewing at the same time will also be problematic, but I find myself rarely doing it if I want to concentrate on the extraction (me = good at doing only one thing that need concentration at the same time ).

Anyway, congrats on your product, company innovation and your proximity with your clients/future clients.

Claude


----------



## decent_espresso

Cyberclau said:


> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for your answers! Here are a couple more ? :
> 
> 1) Do you have a date for the v1.3 machine with the new controller head?
> 
> a) Do you have an idea of the increase in price, if any?


 We're aiming for January 1st, but it'll ship when it works to my satisfaction. We're currently fiddling with different coatings for the glass, and the firmware user interface on the controller.

Price increase is about GBP300.



Cyberclau said:


> 2) Is the refill kit compatible with the DE1+?


 Yes, the refill kit works on all models



Cyberclau said:


> 3) How long will it takes (approx) to pack a DE1+/DE1PRO from a plumb-in setup to the transport case?


 Takes me about 10 minutes to set up or tear down.



Cyberclau said:


> a) Nothing else to do to have it work with the internal tank when on the move? (except to swap the drain tray for the original one without the hole)


 Correct. If you don't plumb it, figure about 3 minutes to set up. 5 to tear down, as you want to wipe things down as you go.

Plumbed, there's some water to pour out, some tubes to avoid getting dirty, etc.



Cyberclau said:


> 4) For my understanding, is the bandwidth limitation of Bluetooth the real reason why not implement a direct control of the current shot with the tablet? I think it is around 3Mbps and it serves you well for exchanging data for graphing the shot in near real time. Is it not more the lagging/slow responsiveness of the protocol the real reason? I imagine going WiFi or USB will demand a more in-depth redesign.


 You might be thinking about Bluetooth 3.

BLE (bluetooth low energy) is Bluetooth 4, mandated on iOS, and is extremely low bandwidth.

You can send or receive 8 bytes (!!!!) 10x per second, under BLE.

Wifi and USB were not originally done because of safety compliance rules limiting what we can do. There's a reason BLE is used everywhere on kitchen stuff, and it's because it's much easier to get certified.



Cyberclau said:


> I think that once a good routine will be found and added in the machine, it'll will be easier for my SO to use it. What do you think/suggest about that (other than getting the self levering v2 tamper )?


 Our v2 tamper, sure, but there are several excellent self-leveling tampers out there now.

Grounds distribution is super important too, as much so as tamping. I'm a big fan of the bplus tool.



Cyberclau said:


> The only disadvantages right now are the slow steaming (SO = 13 ounces Latté ), the step price for Canadian market, the fact that it is hard/impossible to find a place to try these machines before buying and the lack of long term reliability data. At first, I also thought that the lack of steaming+brewing at the same time will also be problematic, but I find myself rarely doing it if I want to concentrate on the extraction (me = good at doing only one thing that need concentration at the same time ).


 As to long term reliability, we're now going on our 3rd year of manufacturing. You're welcome to ask other owners what their experience has been.

At the Korean Show last week, at our booth we had 3 owners, from different cafes. One makes 200 lattes a day on 1 DE1PRO, and told everyone he never has any problems.

Some people have had problems, but as a very Internet-focussed and globally oriented company, I really make sure we take care of our owners. Again, ask around, there are plenty of owners who will tell you their experience.

As to finding a place try it out, there are 975 owners out there, and if one is near you, I'm happy to hook you up. But Canada is a big place, so I'm hoping you live near a major city.

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Tinkering with colors and controls*

We're finalizing how your interaction with the new group head controller will work. Here you can see me telling the machine to heat up, after which a closewise red LED fills the controller as it heats up to 100%. Next to do: an equivalent "cool down" animation. Every typical action you'd need to do with the tablet, you'll now also be able to do with with the controller on the group head.

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Put a lid on it*​
Our 2 liter ceramic water sits a few millimeters under the legs of the espresso machine. Not much can get in there, but an enterprising little insect could, depending on your climate.

Ben has designed a lid that can be 3D printed, that fits on the water tank. We're going to open source the design, so that others can tinker, as we'd like this lid to be as uncombersome as possible. Maybe, an hinged opening is possible, like the sous vide lid in the photo.

Besides people 3D printing it themselves, we're thinking of making these out of food-safe silicone.

Another idea: most water tanks that sit at room temperature eventually grow some algae. Someone suggested a fish tank UV light. I'm wondering if anyone has tried plunging one of these in your espresso water tank, to prevent anything from growing?

-john


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## decent_espresso




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## blazarov

Hi,
I have a question on the upcoming decent scale.
I have an ITO/Leva! smart controller with BLE interface. So far it has been developed and tested to work exclusively with Skale2 only.
I asked the controller vendor and he is not sure so i am asking here - is the decent scale using exactly the same command set, protocol, api, etc so that can be safely assumed it will work with a controller developed for Skale2?

Thanks in advance!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## decent_espresso

blazarov said:


> I have an ITO/Leva! smart controller with BLE interface. So far it has been developed and tested to work exclusively with Skale2 only.
> I asked the controller vendor and he is not sure so i am asking here - is the decent scale using exactly the same command set, protocol, api, etc so that can be safely assumed it will work with a controller developed for Skale2?


 I asked the Skale folks if they were ok with my being compatible with them, and never got an answer.

So, I assumed that the answer was "not really, but we'd rather not create conflict and say so", and so the Decent Scale is "similar to the Skale API in functionality, but different implementation." I actually quite like the people being the Skale (Atomax, they're called) and we've gone "blood-tofu" eating in Taiwan (a bonding exercise) and if they prefer "no", I'm going to respect that.

Note that in the Decent Scale bluetooth implementation, I'm going to have flow rate (change/second) calculated on the scale itself, sent over bluetooth. I'm quite happy about out this. It removes bluetooth timing irregularities from messing with flow rate calculations, which is a problem with other bluetooth scales I've worked with.

There already is source code for talking to the Decent Scale, which you can download at https://decentespresso.com/downloads by grabbing the Android app, and looking at "bluetooth.tcl"

-john


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> The polished finished on the "lost wax" is *beautiful* and catches the light in an amazing way. I hope you will be able to see that in the video above.​
> ​


 So far all the drip covers are made out of some sort of metal.
What about making them out of a different material - wood or plastic?


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## decent_espresso

patrickff said:


> What about making them out of a different material - wood or plastic?


 That doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Wood: no, because of water resistance. Plastic, no because of strength.

I've never seen a drip tray cover out of either material.


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## ashcroc

decent_espresso said:


> That doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Wood: no, because of water resistance. Plastic, no because of strength.
> I've never seen a drip tray cover out of either material.


Gaggia Tebe/Paros has a plastic drip tray & cover. Not that they're anywhere near the calibre of your machines of course.


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## decent_espresso

*A problem with our Simple Scale*

In the past few months, I've been receiving reports that our Simple Scale isn't able to weigh single beans. It took a bit of time to track down the problem, as not every scale had this problem, and a year ago, the problem didn't exist at all.

We found that the "load cell" that is in our scale has been going down in quality. We suspect the manufacturer of that part.

The simple scale used to be accurate and fast, but recently it's been really not able to count single beans (0.1g increments) when there's 10g or more on the scale. Since that's a typical use for our scale, that's a quite bad development.

We challenged the company that makes the scale for us, and made them videos of tests we needed them to pass, which were failing now. They agreed with us that the load cells were at fault and found another manufacturer, slightly more expensive. They built 100 scales for us, which we've now tested, and the new load cells look good.

If you've bought a Simple Scale https://decentespresso.com/scale from us and found that it doesn't handle 0.1g weight increments well, you probably have one of these bad scales.

If so, contact us https://decentespresso.com/contact I'll send you a replacement scale for free.

Note that most older Simple Scales are likely OK, as they used to perform well.

To determine if you've got a problematic scale:



put about 10g of beans in a paper cup, on the scale,


and then add beans one at a time.


you should see the weight increment in 0.1g steps


if adding several beans does not increase the weight, you've got a bad scale


note: beans can sometimes weigh less than 0.1g, so it can take 2 beans to increase the weight.


Again: sorry about the problems, and please get in contact if you've got a bad scale, so I can fix this.

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Eye to eye coffee service*

Celadon Coffee just posted a photo of their beautiful installation of two black DE1XL Decent Espresso machines.

I think this is the first cafe to deploy my goal of a conversation between clients and barista, possible because Joao and I designed this model to be very low profile. No Big Boiler Machine separates you from your guests.

I intended the countersink brack to hide all the tubes and wires, but also to lower the espresso machine further down, so you can make eye contact.

The form of the machine is intentionally minimalist, so that it effectively vanishes, with your eye instead drawn to the setting (such as their spectacular mural).

-john

https://www.instagram.com/celadon.coffee/

Edit: just received this photo of the cafe actually open, and you can see that they're tinkering a bit with the tablet stand, with different approaches on both machines.


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## decent_espresso




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## decent_espresso

*Decentspotting in Malaysia*

One of my mechanical engineers, on vacation this week in Penang, Malaysia was "well chuffed" (that's a good thing) to see a Decent Espresso machine in the cafe he went to: Spacebar Coffee.

It definitely helped impress his wife that he'd made a good career choice, that's for sure.

Looking at older photos on the web, I see that the Decent replaced their two-group Faema E61 espresso machine. https://tinyurl.com/uvb9pln

Spacebar Coffee https://www.instagram.com/ome.space/ https://www.taufulou.com/ome-by-spacebar-coffee-penang/

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Welded wire drip trays*

Ten days ago, I posted a video comparing the two candidate designs for a new drip tray cover.

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/28377-decent-espresso/page/110/?tab=comments&do=embed&comment=703923&embedComment=703923&embedDo=findComment#comment-703923

I prefer the "lost wax" cast steel design. However, there is a real question of how well they can be hand-adjusted. Can we make successfully make a jig to guide the factory to do the adjusting well? What will it look like? Also, "lost wax" is a slow process, taking a minimum of 3 months. With this being a new design, and hand-adjusting, we should plan on it taking 4 to 5 months.

We'll have run out of drip tray covers long before then, so we need something that works well enough, now. Can't stop shipping espresso machines!

The welded wire design takes about 4 weeks to make, and with a bit more work, I think it'll be acceptable. We received photos of these samples today. The factory has ceramic drip tray samples from us, at two sizes, with different amounts of shrinkage. They recommend that they change the radius (the curve) on the covers, to make them fit the ceramic better. This is a well engaged supplier, making good suggestions, and their work looks to be of high quality. We also had the ends filed at an angle, with this latest sample.

Our plan is to ship these "welded wire" drip tray covers for the next 6 months, for the next 500 espresso machines. If the "lost wax" process turns out to work, and to make a superior object, we'll switch to that. Until then, we'll bank on both approaches.

-john

-john


----------



## -Mac

Out of curiosity, have you tried 3d printed metal?


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## decent_espresso

-Mac said:


> Out of curiosity, have you tried 3d printed metal?


 The cost is prohibitive, you're looking at well into £300 per part printed. Works well for a single custom part for a luxury part, or for R&D, but not for production. We're a long way still from replacing traditional ways of making things.


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## -Mac

decent_espresso said:


> The cost is prohibitive, you're looking at well into £300 per part printed. Works well for a single custom part for a luxury part, or for R&D, but not for production. We're a long way still from replacing traditional ways of making things.


 I guess it depends on volumes. We're 3D printing metal parts for aircraft cheaper than we can CNC them.


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## decent_espresso

-Mac said:


> I guess it depends on volumes. We're 3D printing metal parts for aircraft cheaper than we can CNC them.


 Also depends greatly on the shape, and how complicated it is to print. Rounded shapes are generally slower. A drip tray cover is very complicated.


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## decent_espresso

*Catering Kit Improvements*

A little less than half the people who buy a Decent Espresso machine, buy the refill kit. It keeps the water topped up automatically, from either a pressurized water source, or from a water tank (such as store-bought mineral water).

We initially made 500 of the refill kits, so we're almost out of stock. That gives us a chance to revisit it, and see what we can improve.

*MOUNTING BRACKET*
﻿








There's a screwed on mounting bracket, which allows you to:
- mount the kit to a vertical wall
- hook the kit to the back of the DE1

Of those two features, it's nice to be able to hook it to the back of the DE1, but I never found myself mounting the kit to a vertical wall. And the bracket design was not good when mounting upside down, such as for a coffee cart.

Our work-around was to take the cover off, and push screw through the feet, into the wood that we're mounting to. Besides being a lot of work, it was often inconvenient, if (for example) the position of the kit meant you couldn't get access to the screws holding the cover on. Not a great solution.

﻿Alex﻿ developed a bracket that screws into the threads inside the feet, holding the kit in place. Two easily accessed screw holes then hold the thing in place. Also nice is that unless you over-tighten those four screws, you have vibration isolation through those rubber feet.

﻿








We're going to keep the side bracket, and include it with the kit, but not screw it on by default. It's there if you want to hook the kit to the back of the DE1.

*NOISE LEVEL*

I wanted to reduce the noise as much as possible. By going to a new pump supplier, and a more expensive model, we were able to drop 13db, from 79db to 66db. That's a huge improvement, and very welcome in homes.

In the new firmware, coming out in January, the refill kit will automatically engage when you put your DE1 to sleep, so that you always have a full tank for the next morning. This also avoids having a refill while you're making your morning espresso.

*WATER FLOW SPEED*

The previous pump could lift 1 liter per minute of water. The newer model can do twice that, at 2 liters per minute. We've measured it, to make sure it really does.

*WHEN?*

These new refill kits will arrive in late January, and will be included with all plumbed in machines from that point on.

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Infrared vs In-Milk Temperature Readings*

I've been wondering whether it's possible to reliable measure milk temperature while steaming, with an infrared thermometer pointed at our matte-black Decent milk jugs. This experiment (tried 3 times) shows that there is measurement lag, but it's repeatable and linear. So, it should be possible to have steam stop automatically, so that no in-milk thermometer is needed.

As this is a bluetooth-enabled infrared thermometer, the next step is to have the Decent tablet app talk to the infrared thermometer, and see if this works.

Note: this is my personal development beta machine, with firmware that is currently making uneven steam pressure. The Decent steam on released machines is a bit more even. ?

Attached is a spreadsheet of the results.

Here is the $40 bluetooth infrared thermometer I'm using:
https://www.amazon.com/HOLDPEAK-HP-985C-APP-Thermometer-Non-Contact-Temperature/dp/B07QKYLSS5/

It would be incredibly cool if one of the programmers who owns a Decent, tried talking to this infrared thermometer, to see if this idea works reliably.

If this does work, my eventual goal would be to have an infrared thermometer built into the Decent Espresso Machine, seeing the milk jug through a small hole in the mirrored front panel.

-john


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## -Mac

Nice use of tech


----------



## decent_espresso

Infrared Thermometer Milk Steaming, test #2

I did another test with the IR sensor, this time at about the distance it would be, if the IR sensor were built into the DE1, as per ﻿ Charles Temkey's﻿ idea.

This time I used the iPad to save the IR readings, so that I have smoother data. I hand typed the milk thermometer readings into Excel.

Ray sent me better control firmware last night, so the steam went to higher temperatures than you'd take milk usually (to 75ºC) than the previous videos.

Nonetheless, it seems that the IR readings were the same, about as far away from the in-milk thermometer.

At 60ºC milk, the IR reads at 50ºC.

What I *really like* about this chart, though, is the very consistent IR readings, that are not jumpy at all. So, I think this could work.

﻿-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*DE1XL in a Decent Suitcase*​
We are working on making the DE1XL fit nicely inside our suitcase. We've done a design for the foam, and we are ordering samples to test. I think we can make this work. If any of you have a DE1XL and want the foam, let me know. When it is ready, I will send it to you for free.​
My goal is to make the DE1XL model as portable as the DE1+/DE1PRO models.​
Also, once we have accomplished this, we will be making DE1XL models in our factory, and shipping them ready made. You will no longer receive a "DE1XL conversion kit" from, and you won't need to convert your DE1PRO by yourself.​
-john​


----------



## filthynines

Lefteye said:


> Yes I get that this takes the art out but if I can get consistantly good results on a machine that may come in under £850 then that's appealing.


 Just spotted this on the front page and chuckled a little bit in hindsight


----------



## Lefteye

filthynines said:


> Just spotted this on the front page and chuckled a little bit in hindsight


 Did you mean the £850? Well I guess I was wildly optimistic in the old days!!


----------



## filthynines

Lefteye said:


> Did you mean the £850? Well I guess I was wildly optimistic in the old days!!


 I did indeed. If this was £850 I think it would've had the same uptake as the Niche for sure.


----------



## MWJB

decent_espresso said:


> *Decentspotting in Malaysia*
> 
> One of my mechanical engineers, on vacation this week in Penang, Malaysia was "well chuffed" (that's a good thing) to see a Decent Espresso machine in the cafe he went to: Spacebar Coffee.
> 
> It definitely helped impress his wife that he'd made a good career choice, that's for sure.
> 
> Looking at older photos on the web, I see that the Decent replaced their two-group Faema E61 espresso machine. https://tinyurl.com/uvb9pln
> 
> Spacebar Coffee https://www.instagram.com/ome.space/ https://www.taufulou.com/ome-by-spacebar-coffee-penang/
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 34104


 The Faema's still there, it appears to be in use in this shot?


----------



## decent_espresso

MWJB said:


> The Faema's still there, it appears to be in use in this shot?


 Heard back from the café owners. Their Faema is broken, so a local DE1 owner lent them their Decent machine while they wait for their Faema to be fixed.

But apparently they had a marathon 5 hour tasting event with the Decent, so that's cool

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Little and Simple

Two couples opened up their own cafes recently, with Decent Espresso Machines.









As Olivia writes

__
http://instagr.am/p/B5svqoTll5i/
 it's still early days for Decent Espresso and commercial use situations. By my count, there are perhaps only 30 cafes worldwide, putting the Decent in front of customers. There are another 400 machines in the back rooms of cafes and roasteries. They're used for catering, training, extra capacity or most frequently: just to learn about what they think the future likely will look like. But not many facing customers. Yet.

Olivia did her homework, called up every Decent Cafe she could find, before trusting her dream cafe to a small (but Decent) espresso machine company.

For me, working hand in hand with small owners is incredibly rewarding. Our story (Bugs and I) is much the same: build something from zero, with just our own money (and a bit of help from Mum) and years of hard work and lots of risk.

The attributes of our machine: small, very good drink quality, low cost (half per group head of competing commercial machines), the fact that you can start with 1 machine and add more as you grow, and of course: 1:1 relationship with us, fit well with the needs of small cafes.

Simple Coffee Co is in Tabernash, Colorado, USA:
https://www.instagram.com/simplecoffeeco/

--

Josiah and Noel opened their Little Light Coffee this week. They built it themselves, with quite a bit of help from their friends. Before opening, they had run a coffee stand at the local outdoor market.









Little Light Coffee is in Takasaki, Japan:
https://www.instagram.com/littlelightcoffee/

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*A quick tour of the Decent Coffee Cart*

I've been working on a web page, with everything about my "convert an IKEA BROR cart into a coffee cart" project, and it's up now: https://decentespresso.com/coffeecart
and made a video today showing the cart I have at home:






I've ordered 10 replacement tabletops to be made, and will be selling them at cost to folks, to see if this idea has legs.


----------



## decent_espresso

*DIY coffee cart instructions*​
​
I've finished editing this instructional video, and it's up now. It shows you every step to make your own BROR coffee cart, from scratch.​
​
To those of you who actually have DIY skills, my apologies. ?​
​
I'm sure there are many moments where you'll wince at my incompetence.​
​
But at least this proves "if Buckman can do it, anyone can!"​
​


----------



## decent_espresso

*The Force Tamper is very Decent*

A big thank you to Zubing, the inventor of the excellent, excellent Force Tamper for buying a DE1PRO to use at trade shows. He's at Hotelex currently.

He bought the Decent Espresso Machine in order to use the charts and objectively prove that his tamper is improving espresso. Too cool!!!!

More info at:

https://www.instagram.com/starmoonxp/

and yet another Niche coffee grinder sighting with a Decent machine.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

A day after posting the IKEA BROR DIY video, this pops in my inbox:

__
http://instagr.am/p/B5-zUV2BdW7/



> Name is One Hand Espresso as I make an espresso each morning holding our now 2-year old in the other hand, and I joked to @sspis1 that's what I'd name my coffee shop. Making espresso is one of his favorite activities!


----------



## decent_espresso

*Swiss Extensive Review of Decent Espresso*

The Swiss Coffee School and review website Kaffeemacher has put an 30 minute video review of the DE1PLUS.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Welded wire drip tray covers*​
New Decent customer Michael Garcia posted photos of his machine recently. https://www.instagram.com/mikegarciadiaz/​
Nobody noticed that his machine is sporting the new drip tray cover.​
What?​
Well... we recently ran out of ugly, old style drip trays for new customers, and so we're sending out machines with the ~20 or so samples we have, of the new "welded wire" design. We should receive the final batch right around the end of December, and if we're lucky, not have to stop shipping machines, just as the moment we completely run out of drip tray covers.​
This new design is what we're going to be using for the entire v1.3 production run.​
Hopefully, those of you looking at this photo won't find it too unappealing.​
The final run we're receiving is the same as what Michael Garcia Michael has, but with slightly different curves around the edges, to more closely match the ceramic curves. It's only a slight difference.​
We're continuing to experiment with the cast drip tray cover design, but at best, it'll be 4 months before we have those in hand. And it's not clear yet that we'll be able to achieve the quality we want. The adventure continues.​
People who sent in their ugly drip tray covers, will be able to choose whether to receive this new style, or wait longer, for possibly the cast design to be perfected.​
-john​





​


----------



## decent_espresso

*Real time pressure profiling test*

Here's a demonstration of controlling pressure in real time, on the upcoming v1.3 Decent Espresso Machine. We're also working on real time flow control.

Flow control will likely be the default during a shot, because it allows you to control both pre-infusion and the main espresso extraction. Pressure control only works once a puck has been compressed, so it's inherently less flexible.

This feature is still in beta testing, and will be improved further before release.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*R&D: Smoothing water flow and lowering sound*

In the Decent lab, we're working on flow smoothing and vibration dampening.

This experiment represents a 20db drop in dB sound for pouring hot water at 4ml/s at a defined temperature. It also provides a considerable smoothing (removing of pulses) of the water flow. This volume level around 37db, at heavy dual pump usage, is *really* quiet. Look at where this lands on a dB chart, between a whisper and a quiet office.
﻿








More good news: the changes we have made in this experiment, will be retrofittable to all existing DE1 machines, back to v1.0. There will be a cost associated with the upgrade, as new pumps and a dampening system needs to be installed, but it should be reasonable. And it's not a complicated process: you'll be able to do the upgrade yourself, with no need to send your DE1 back to us.

We still have a lot of work to do, maybe up to a year, before this is widely available. We have to figure out how to make this dampener in production (not as a prototype) and ensure that it is reliable over several hundred thousand espresso shots.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Shin made a short video of his Decent trade show booth in Korea. It's a nice showing of all the stuff we now do.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Zubing's steam wand tip*

Zubing﻿ Sun, the engineer/entrepreneur behind the truly excellent Force Tamper https://www.instagram.com/starmoonxp is a Decent customer.

We're lucky that Zubing is interested in coffee, as his approach is to use measurement and repeated experimentation, to create his coffee devices. And he shows his results! A typical example, showing improved coffee puck homogeneity with his grooming tool, which is integrated into his tamper:
﻿






I'll continue working with Zubing to perfect his steam wand tip, with the intention of selling it as an optional accessory, to Decent customers.

-john


----------



## -Mac

If you could create a similar steaming tip for a Sage/Breville Barista Express, I'm sure there'd be a big market for that too. And a 54mm tamper.


----------



## decent_espresso

-Mac said:


> If you could create a similar steaming tip for a Sage/Breville Barista Express, I'm sure there'd be a big market for that too. And a 54mm tamper.


 Possibly, but the problem is "how would you reach the Breville owners?"

With Decent, every owner is on the Diaspora owner's forum, and I actively encourage people making accessories, to publicize it to that audience. I also maintain a "Pimp your DE1" section in the online manual, which serves as a kind of "shopping site" for all these things. People making DE1 accessories are often finding several hundred customers, thanks to this. It's a virtuous circle.









I sent Woodworker Dave Stephens a "mannequin" DE1 for free (some tampers too), so that he can tinker, and he's off and running:


----------



## -Mac

I should think that this forum and Home Barista would be a 'decent' enough start for Sage bits


----------



## decent_espresso

*IKEA bigger coffee cart project*

We just got our tabletop sample for the "bigger BROR" IKEA table.

The idea is to provide you with a precut, and thicker, tabletop for this $150 IKEA table.
﻿
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/bror-work-bench-black-pine-plywood-30333286/

So you can put all your Decent gear into it.

With printed side panels bolted on, and wheels stolen from the $99 smaller BROR, it's pretty snazzy:

More video at: 




In a few weeks, we'll have these larger tabletops in stock. I wanted to get the sample, and properly check it out, before ordering in quantity. We're selling the tabletops at no markup (at cost) + the real shipping cost.

More info about the IKEA coffee cart project at:
https://decentespresso.com/coffeecart

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Preheating water tank: new feature, results & next steps

This new feature, which combines the best of both worlds (on demand water heating, and boiler based heating), allows all Decent customers to now hit faster flow rates, at high temperature. Pour overs!

I've added support for preheating the water tank to as much as 60ºC, via the LIMITS tab in ADVANCED shot profiles. This update will be publicly available shortly.

Summary: This feature gives the DE1 some of the advantages of a traditional boiler based espresso machine. Namely: stored energy. However, because we can mix on-demand heating with stored-energy heating, this DE1 changes causes only a short heating delay for the user (2.5 minutes more) instead of the usual ~15 to ~30 minutes delay of a traditional boiler espresso machine.

tldr: 
- at 14ºC tank temperature (tap temp), the DE1 can sustain 8 ml/s for 20 seconds. That's plenty for most uses (180ml of water), except for pour overs, which need much more hot water.
- at a 30ºC tank temperature the DE1 to sustain 7.5 ml/s at 90ºC indefinitely. It takes 2.5 minutes for the DE1 to preheat 1 liter of water from room temp (20ºC) to 30ºC.
- the DE1 is not reliable at knowing to preheat the water, because there is no temperature sensor in the tank itself. Setting the tank temp temporarily to 60ºC, to get the water flowing by the temperature probe, and then setting it back to 30ºC (your real goal) is the current work-around.

Next steps:

- it's likely that we can sustain higher flow rates with tank preheating. Once v1.3 is shipping, ﻿ Ray Heasman Ray ﻿ will modify the firmware to allow the higher speeds, and I'll do more tests.
﻿- changing the tank temperature setting should trigger the DE1 firmware to automatically cycle the water from the tank, through the DE1, to check the current tank tamp and thus decide if a tank warmp is needed.
﻿
-------------
﻿
Full version:

At tap water temperature (14ºC) the DE1 can only sustain 90º at 8 ml/s, for 20 seconds.









By raising the tank temperature to 30ºC, 90ºC can be delivered endlessly.

﻿








Note that heating the tank takes progressively more time, the higher the temperature requested. Note the decreasing slope in the top right of this image, which is showing the 10 minutes it took to reach ~70ºC.﻿









Finally: Note that while I asked for 90ºC at 8 ml/s, the firmware was only ever able to deliver 7.6 ml/s. The pumps should be able to provide more flow: I think this is an intentional firmware limitation that we'll revisit after v1.3 is launched.
﻿
-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*DECENT v1.3 news*

We just finished building the first, final v1.3 Decent Espresso machine, and it's on its way to me now.

Next week, I'll be making videos with it, such as:



unboxing v1.3 and setting it up.


your first espresso


how to use the real-time controller when making espresso


We're almost finished with the firmware, but still have a few last issues to sort out. Those are detailed below.

In the next two weeks, I expect that the final issues will have been sorted out. I'll be scrutinizing my machine for any hardware issues.

If all looks good, we'll be taking orders for v1.3 machines at the end of January/early February, and shipping the machines as fast as we can make them.

We will be making a few more v1.1 machines, which will be USD$300 less expensive than the v1.3 machines. Later this year, we will also be offering a USD$300 upgrade kit, for v1.1 owners want the group head controller.

*REAL TIME CONTROL*



The big change with this model is the new group head controller.


We have not finalized how the default "real time control" will work.


Probably, there will be a few iterations on this, over several months, as we get feedback from customers, about what works best.


What makes this decision difficult is that some people want to tweak an existing automatic shot, while others want to take over completely. And some people want flow control, whereas others want pressure control. Some want fine control, whereas others want coarse control. Some want flow control during preinfusion, and pressure control aftwards.


For the launch of v1.3, I'm aiming for a simple real-time control approach, and then, in the owner's discussion forum, we can explore ideas, and release them as new firmware updates.


*FACTORY CALIBRATION & FLOW MEASURING*



each machine will be calibrated against a precisely measured voltage of 120V or 230V. That way, if your country has 100V (Japan), or some variation between 220V and 240V, we will be able to detect the voltage you're actually getting. With that, we will be able to adjust our physics model of the pumps, and increase the accuracy of our flow measurements. We've written a USB-based configuration utility for our factory to use, and it's not yet perfect and needs a bit more work, as we discover how things actually work in a production setting at the factory.


v1.0 and v1.1 customers will (coming in March 2020) have a new calibration page where they can adjust the voltage themselves, in the tablet app, so as to benefit from the improvements.


*STEAM*



Steam on v1.3 machines will take advantage of the 1500W heaters, up from from 1350W heaters a year ago.


We have a completely-rewritten-from-scratch steam control method. We're now running steam at a higher pressure, which is increasing heat transfer inside the 1.2M length of tube inside the heater.


This is gaining us another 10% or so in steaming time.


Figure about 36 seconds to heat 200ml of milk from refrigerator temperature, down from 46 seconds last year.


A major goal with this new steam control approach, is to be able to cope better with partially clogged machines. Calcification and dried milk on the tip cause changes in the "physics reality" of the steam path, and this could be seen as oscillations in the steam coming out of the DE1. The new controller is much better able to cope with different physics, adjusting automatically. This aspect of the steam control is not yet working as well as I'd like.


Not only to avoid do this avoid oscillations, but we have been testing a prototype 2200W heater, and it's been working well. That heater is destined for launch in a DE1CAFE model in 2021.


All customers (going back to v1.0) will benefit from reduced oscillations, and slightly improved steaming times. v1.1 users from March onwards, had 1500W heaters in their machines, and will also no have a slight speed up. New firmware to enable this for v1.0/v1.1 customers will come out in February, once we've nailed the bugs certain to surface with this big new firmware version.


----------



## decent_espresso

*The resolution of the drip tray cover crisis*

We were originally (in August) held hostage by a manufacturer who cancelled our order right when they were supposed to deliver, unless we hugely increased our order quantity. I decided to not be played in that way, and we embarked on a long journey to redo this part, which is now concluding.

Here are photos of the final drip tray cover. We've yesterday received 100pcs in HK.

We ended up with the "welded wire" design, all food-grade polished stainless steel (no coating to wear off). We've given up on the "lost wax" design, as it's never going to be regular looking.

To those of you who sent your ugly drip tray covers to Hong Kong for us to send to new customers, thank you! You enabled us to hold off for months. You enabled us to not be victimized as "hostages" by this supplier. This also allowed us to move off of aluminum, which--even when coated--will eventually look shabby.

In the end, we only ran out of stock of drip trays for a few days, during which we couldn't send out espresso machines. Yow, that was close.

I ordered 500pcs of this model, of which 250pcs are sized for our normal ceramic drip tray, and 250pcs are for the plumbed ceramic drip tray.

Why two sizes?

Because the plumbed drip trays are a about 8 millimeters smaller than the non-plumbed ones, due to different ceramic shrinkage. Each batch is different.

We sent ceramic samples of both to the maker, so that they could make matched pairs for the different two sizes. For people with a draining drip tray, we'll be sending you 2 cover: a slightly smaller drip tray cover in addition to the slightly larger one for the non-draining cover. Ceramic is not plastic: it varies slightly every time you make it. But, I kind of like that aspect of it, as well: it's "real".

Assuming that these all look good, we'll be ordering quite a few more, so that we can send replacements to all of you with ugly drip tray covers. At the moment, I only have 50pcs of each size, so not enough on hand to send spares out. But soon, I will. Thank you for your patience!

-john
​


----------



## Brewing_Lizard

decent_espresso said:


> The firmware update is compatible with all machines, going back to when we launched.
> 
> I was "out of the loop" and it turns out that since March 2019 (around machine serial #420) the factory switched to 1500W heaters, and most of the v1.3 machines will have these 1500W heaters with the slow-to-assemble fiberglass/aerogel box, and around June we'll switch to the new box around the heaters.
> 
> -john


 Could you describe in more detail, what "most of the 1.3 machines" means? I want to order one as soon as it is available, but I wanna make sure to get the new heater.

Please also elaborate shortly on what you mean by "the new box around the heaters". Is that the before mentioned slow to assemble fiberglass/aerogel box, or is it another layer of insulation? Also what exactly is the benefit here? Better heat insulation to the other components I would assume.

Thanks for all the detailed communication. I really love the community and will most likely contribute my programming skills for skin developement and external system integration in the future.


----------



## decent_espresso

Brewing_Lizard said:


> Could you describe in more detail, what "most of the 1.3 machines" means? I want to order one as soon as it is available, but I wanna make sure to get the new heater.
> 
> Please also elaborate shortly on what you mean by "the new box around the heaters". Is that the before mentioned slow to assemble fiberglass/aerogel box, or is it another layer of insulation? Also what exactly is the benefit here? Better heat insulation to the other components I would assume.
> 
> Thanks for all the detailed communication. I really love the community and will most likely contribute my programming skills for skin developement and external system integration in the future.


 We have about enough of the current 1500W heater to make 400 machines. We are making 500 machines of the v1.3 model. Once we run out of those, we'll switch to the other supplier for 1500W heaters, likely in August. However, there's no performance difference for you, so I'm unsure what you would gain in waiting. They're both 1500W heaters, it's just that the 2nd model come prebuilt for us, rather than requiring 2h of my HK employee's time.

I'm not sure you'll get better insulation with the new heaters.

All the Decent machines, going on until August 2020, have Korean made AeroGel insulation (expensive stuff, and very nice) inside a solid fiberglass box. We get "raw" heaters in HK and insulate and make the box ourselves, as well as installing all the probes and safeties. It takes about 2h of labor for each heater.

The new heaters come to us all pre-made, with sensors and safeties and insulation all done. For us, it cuts 4h of labor off, saves about 1cm of space inside the machine, and equivalent insulation. About the same cost, to us, except that we don't have labor costs now.

It takes us currently about 20h to make a DE1. Cutting 4h off, by having someone else making the heaters, was the big motivation.

Also, with our own heaters, we'll be able to make 2200W "cafe" model heaters in the future, but FYI those will be in our most expensive model, and not really what I'd suggest for home use.

-john


----------



## Brewing_Lizard

@decent_espresso Thanks for the quick and detailed answer. Now I understand it much better. So the 1500W heater for the first 400 units will already be the one you showed in the picture on 3rd November with the longer tubing of 2 meter instead of 1.2 and everything? Or is it just the same in wattage, but not in terms of energy storing capacity?


----------



## decent_espresso

Brewing_Lizard said:


> @decent_espresso Thanks for the quick and detailed answer. Now I understand it much better. So the 1500W heater for the first 400 units will already be the one you showed in the picture on 3rd November with the longer tubing of 2 meter instead of 1.2 and everything? Or is it just the same in wattage, but not in terms of energy storing capacity?


 It's the 1500W heater with a 1.2M coil. The 2M long coils are in the upcoming heaters. However, the extra length doesn't provide any advantage at 1500W. The extra length is there so that we can go to 2200W in the more expensive models.


----------



## decent_espresso

*USB cable hell*

We've just received a big batch of USB cables from our 3rd and hopefully final supplier.

For those that haven't been following this little saga:
- The first generation (2 years ago) would occasionally melt
- The second generation (a year ago) would occasionally not charge at all (maybe 10% of them)
- This 3rd generation is from a Big Brand, and in our tests, was just perfect. We ordered 100pcs several months ago, sent them to existing customers, and not a single person had a problem.

Now, we receive today 1000pcs, and find that 85% of them are longer than the +/- 10mm tolerance we allowed. Sigh. 15mm too long, is what the top right photo looks like. Just right (3mm too short) is what the other photos look like.

Now we're negotiating to have the manufacturer re-make them to within the specifications that they agreed to.

Thankfully (sort of) we were forced to buy 5 kilometers of cable material in order to buy from these people, as our order was quite "custom", with its thicker conductor than usual, and silicone floppy (not stiff) outer sleeve. That means there's plenty, plenty of spare wire sitting in their stock, for the re-make.

On the positive side, when the cable is the right length, it looks great. We received both white and black cables.

As aside, with the v1.3 model machines we moved the USB port to under the group head. This new position creates a much more pleasing curve for the cable, than the old position to the left of the group head. You can see the old USB position in the bottom right photo.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*
v1.4 group head research
*

Though we're about to start releasing v1.3 machines, we've already been working for several months now, on the v1.4 model, which will appear next year (in 2021).

I don't think there's anything wrong with any of previous machines, but there's always room for improvement.

We're actively working on new materials and new shapes and patterns, for the two parts that go into the group head, diffusing the water flow.

All parts will be backward compatible all the way back to v1.0 machines, and you could choose to move to them if you want to. They'll be sold though, not free, but not extortionately priced either.

Our goal is to demonstratively "improve" things. I note that a few Diasporeans are privately taking part in our tests with us. It's not just Decent internal testing.

We're trying to move to the Ultem resin material for these two parts, off of brass, for two reasons:



Ultem doesn't tarnish like brass, so it stays pretty


Ultem is an insulator, unlike brass, so temperature stability is improved.


Spacing is part of that research work, as well as testing different theories for water diffusion approaches:

There's a long lead time in manufacturing: R&D needs to be concluded far before you need to start ordering parts.

And R&D, by its very nature, takes an indeterminate amount of time, if it is to provide positive results. And there's always the change that the R&D time spent, won't help you improve anything.

-john


----------



## gedoo

Hello,

Can I pay by $USD insted of £GBP on my decent shopinnig cart?

I am just student in UK, so I want to pay from my home country bank.

kind regards


----------



## decent_espresso

*Weighing Espresso Without a Scale*

About two weeks ago, I introduced a new feature to the Decent tablet software. You can now stop an espresso based on how many grams you want in the cup, but without a scale!​
How do we do this?​
The Decent is the only espresso machine I know of that automatically ends preinfusion for you, when the pressure builds up on the puck. This tracks quite well with the puck being fully saturated, and thus coffee starting to drip into your cup.​
So, this new feature works by tracking how much water the espresso machine puts into the puck, *after* preinfusion has completed.​
As you can see in the chart, this can work quite well. I used a "stop at pour" but also had a scale to track its accuracy. In my experience, within 2g. Where it's farther off, it's always off by the same amount, and you can thus adjust your numbers to get consistent weights.​
Stopping espresso by total weight in the cup is considered best practice, as it related directly to the ratio of beans-in-to-drink-out.​
The automatic stop does depend on your using preinfusion, and not messing up the settings, such as ending it before the puck is saturated.​
The great advantage of this, besides saving money by not buying a scale, is that the scale no longer gets into the way.​
In a cafe, a scale gets splashed terribly by group head flushing. It also slows down your workflow.​
For drinks that don't use preinfusion (such pour overs) or that don't use preinfusion (such as "classic italian") , the "advanced" profiles let you stop espresso at "total water volume" dispensed. This tracks well with how traditional high end pro espresso machines also let you stop by total volume.​
This feature is a free upgrade to all our customers.​
-john​


----------



## Viernes

embrya said:


> Thanks - this was too fine but tasted better than the previous!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk


 Could anyone explain why the high pressure rise happens after the pause part with only a 2.2 ml/s flow? How the Decent machine measures the pressure?

With such low flow I'll expect low pressure. Which it's what happens, for example, on a GS3. So I don't understand it.

@decent_espresso


----------



## decent_espresso

Viernes said:


> Could anyone explain why the high pressure rise happens after the pause part with only a 2.2 ml/s flow? How the Decent machine measures the pressure?
> 
> With such low flow I'll expect low pressure. Which it's what happens, for example, on a GS3. So I don't understand it.


 Once the puck compresses, comparatively little flow is needed to increase the pressure. During preinfusion, you're right, the puck can absorb a lot of water.

Generally, the puck compresses around 4 bar, and again around 10.5 bar.

In the shot above, the pause happened once the puck had compressed, and gone to 8 bar. When water was reintroduced after the pause, the puck resistance was now quite high.

Does that help?


----------



## Viernes

Thank you John for your time.

It helps, but I still don't understand how this machine works. Sorry.

My experience with other machines, it's that flow is related to puck pressure. Specially after the puck has been fully saturated with water after a long preinfusion, because you need high and quick flow to create resistance on the puck, otherwise the puck will let pass the water easily and low pressure will be created... Unless you work with a machine with a needle valve like an Slayer. But AFAIK Decent machines don't use needle valves, isnt it?

In the "bloom profile" graph, after the pause, seems that puck pressure is near zero, and then with a low flow, the pressure sky rocket to +10 bar. And that's with a fully saturated puck which it's very permeable! So, that's why it surprise me. If I try to get high pressure on my GS3 with around 2-3 ml/s with a fully saturated puck, I'm sure pressure will not pass 3-4 bar as much.

If we use a portafilter pressure gauge in the Decent (with exit water flow emulating a shot) the reading would be the same as the display?


----------



## gac

I'm sure John will explain much much better, but the thing you're missing is that the DE DOES have independent flow control, not via a needle valve, but by variable pump cycles. There are many sensors that measure flow and pressure, including at the grouphead PF area. What you see in the graph is what is picked up by those sensors in pretty much real time. Of course, flow and pressure are related at any given puck density, but I sometimes use pure flow control advanced profiles to achieve the result I want.

There is a diagram of the internal workings of the DE available at post #7 that may help you understand better. https://www.home-barista.com/reviews/decent-espresso-de1-review-t57610.html


----------



## decent_espresso

Viernes said:


> In the "bloom profile" graph, after the pause, seems that puck pressure is near zero, and then with a low flow, the pressure sky rocket to +10 bar. And that's with a fully saturated puck which it's very permeable! So, that's why it surprise me. If I try to get high pressure on my GS3 with around 2-3 ml/s with a fully saturated puck, I'm sure pressure will not pass 3-4 bar as much.


 After preinfusion exits, the puck is at 5 bar. The pressure in the DE1 is held, which cause the puck to use pressure to push the water through the puck. This is thus a faster preinfusion than if just capillary action (zero pressure) were at work.

The puck is still compressed after 30 seconds.

2 to 3 ml/s is still very fast. Assume a normal espresso at 36g in the cup. It would take just 20 seconds to get 40g in the cup at 2 ml/s.

A typical flow rate during espresso making (After puck compression) and at 9 bar, is typically between 0.5 ml/s and 2.5 ml/s. You can run the numbers on your GS/3, and see what you get. Once the drips happen on your GS/3, count the total number of seconds before you stop the espresso. Then divide by the volume of espresso you had. Ie, 20seconds yielding 40g in cup = 2 ml/s.

I had a GS/3 for many years, and verified this with the Acaia app. But, you don't need the Acaia app to verify this: the maths are very simple.



> If we use a portafilter pressure gauge in the Decent (with exit water flow emulating a shot) the reading would be the same as the display?


 Absolutely yes. We use a Scace at the factory to calibrate each machine before it ships.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Viernes said:


> If we use a portafilter pressure gauge in the Decent (with exit water flow emulating a shot) the reading would be the same as the display?


 I uploaded this video yesterday, showing the new realtime controller, which isn't really your question. However, I'm using a 0.2mm hole in a basket to emulate coffee backpressure in all the shots in this video. This video might be helpful in showing you how the machine works:


----------



## Viernes

gac said:


> I'm sure John will explain much much better, but the thing you're missing is that the DE DOES have independent flow control, not via a needle valve, but by variable pump cycles. There are many sensors that measure flow and pressure, including at the grouphead PF area. What you see in the graph is what is picked up by those sensors in pretty much real time. Of course, flow and pressure are related at any given puck density, but I sometimes use pure flow control advanced profiles to achieve the result I want.
> 
> There is a diagram of the internal workings of the DE available at post #7 that may help you understand better. https://www.home-barista.com/reviews/decent-espresso-de1-review-t57610.html


 Thank you for the diagram! I'll take a look.



decent_espresso said:


> After preinfusion exits, the puck is at 5 bar. The pressure in the DE1 is held, which cause the puck to use pressure to push the water through the puck. This is thus a faster preinfusion than if just capillary action (zero pressure) were at work.
> 
> The puck is still compressed after 30 seconds.
> 
> 2 to 3 ml/s is still very fast. Assume a normal espresso at 36g in the cup. It would take just 20 seconds to get 40g in the cup at 2 ml/s.
> 
> A typical flow rate during espresso making (After puck compression) and at 9 bar, is typically between 0.5 ml/s and 2.5 ml/s. You can run the numbers on your GS/3, and see what you get. Once the drips happen on your GS/3, count the total number of seconds before you stop the espresso. Then divide by the volume of espresso you had. Ie, 20seconds yielding 40g in cup = 2 ml/s.
> 
> I had a GS/3 for many years, and verified this with the Acaia app. But, you don't need the Acaia app to verify this: the maths are very simple.
> 
> Absolutely yes. We use a Scace at the factory to calibrate each machine before it ships.
> 
> -john


 Thanks for the clarification. As always you're crystal clear.



decent_espresso said:


> I uploaded this video yesterday, showing the new realtime controller, which isn't really your question. However, I'm using a 0.2mm hole in a basket to emulate coffee backpressure in all the shots in this video. This video might be helpful in showing you how the machine works:


 That new feature it's so nice! Machine is getting better and better.


----------



## -Mac

decent_espresso said:


> during espresso making (After puck compression) and at 9 bar, is typically between 0.5 ml/s and 2.5 ml/s. You can run the numbers on your GS/3, and see what you get. Once the drips happen on your GS/3, count the total number of seconds before you stop the espresso. Then divide by the volume of espresso you had. Ie, 20seconds yielding 40g in cup = 2 ml/s.


 But 1ml is not necessarily equal to 1g (depending on the coffee). Or is it so close that it doesn't matter (enough to make a meaningful difference)?


----------



## decent_espresso

-Mac said:


> But 1ml is not necessarily equal to 1g (depending on the coffee). Or is it so close that it doesn't matter (enough to make a meaningful difference)?


 You're of course right, but I haven't found a practical difference. Or, let's say that the error here is swamped out by other, more important errors, such as instantaneous flow measurements, and whether the puck really is truly saturated (depends on many factors), which have a much bigger error margin.

At the moment, we're getting to within 2g accuracy.

More importantly, the results have the same repeated error, making it possible to calibrate your volumetric dose with a scale, and then be able to reliably get the same weight from volume.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Steam Profiling*

New in the v1.3 model Decent machines, and coming soon to existing owners, is our concept of a "steam profile".

Just as an espresso's flow, pressure, and temperature can be tweaked to make a better drink, so can the steam. Everything on the Decent is controllable by software.
﻿
Let me take you through it:
1) We start at a high temperature and a high water flow for 1 second. That kicks the steam off with a hit of high pressure steam, instantly causing your milk to start whirlpooling.
2) We then lower the steam pressure down for about 10 seconds, so that you can easily make good microfoam.
3) We then slowly increase the temperature of the steam. This has the effect of increasing the pressure, causing the whirlpool to intensify. The milk is now heating faster.
4) You then dip the steam wand down into the milk, and let the strong whirlpool "fine" the microfoam.

We were inspired to create this steam profile, based on watching professionals who have access to a machine with a variable steam control. This slow-at-first, strong-to-finish-quickly approach is what we saw the best pro baristas doing.

So we wanted to make that easy.

This is our first attempt at such a tightly crafted steam profile. We'll be working with all the existing Decent owners to refine it, with their help. We'll also be putting in user-controllable settings in the Calibration page, so people can adjust the curves to their liking.

-john


----------



## Bolta

Thanks for the explanation John, I noticed this change recently and was wondering if it pointed to some other cause.


----------



## tohenk2

Is Green the pressure and blue the flowrate in the chart?

I remember reading something about superheating steam: too hot causes bad thermal-transfer. Good for turbines, not something you'd want when steaming milk. Does that apply here as well?


----------



## decent_espresso

tohenk2 said:


> Is Green the pressure and blue the flowrate in the chart?
> 
> I remember reading something about superheating steam: too hot causes bad thermal-transfer. Good for turbines, not something you'd want when steaming milk. Does that apply here as well?


 Yes, green=pressure, blue=flow.

Yes, your hunch is right. Once the water turns to steam it exits the coil very quickly and doesn't pick up much more energy. Another problem is that the fast moving steam will often pick up not-yet-boiled water in its motion, making the steam wet.

The solution is to pressurize the water as you're making steam, in order to raise the boiling point. Then, the super-heated water flashes to steam as it exits the tip in the steam wand, which is suddenly at a lower pressure.

Previously, we were aiming for around 2 bar steam, whereas now we're pushing more up to 3.5 bar. This also results in drier steam, as well as faster milk steaming times.

-john

Unrelated: I had it a bit of fun making this, as a kind of teaser for the group head. My videos tend to be really dry and instructional, and I'm thinking a lot of about how to change that, especially as I watch James Hoffman's video skills get better and better.


----------



## decent_espresso

*

v1.3 Decent problems to solve
*

If you're wondering why we haven't started shipping v1.3 machines yet, it's because we're working to resolve a number of problems that always appear when you make a major change.

Since the new Decent model introduces the realtime group head controller, and changes little else about the machine, naturally the problems are all associated with this new component.

*
CENTERING THE RING
*

The biggest problem we've encountered is centering the glass and light ring perfectly on the group head. It's all stuck together with a super strong and water proof 3M glue paper, which only gives you once chance to get it right.

We built a jig to do this, and in early testing, it worked well. However, it turns out that the jig had about 2mm of leeway, because it was 3D printed and had a bit of shrinkage. We didn't notice the problem because the prototypes were built by my best engineer, who is just *very good* at this sort of thing. Put normal people on the task, and whoops, we see that this task requires a lot of skill.

For two weeks we've been brainstorming solutions to this problem. We've 3D printed other designs, as well as making them too small and sanding them, back. We think we've finally gotten this good enough to make 20 almost-perfect group heads per week, but it does require one of my better assemblers to do the job. The real solution here is a CNCed high precision jig, but China is Closed Until Further Notice, and that's where all the CNC stuff normally happens. I'm going to buy a CNC off Amazon.com in the USA, and have it shipped to Hong Kong, so that we don't have to wait.

*
GROUNDING WIRE
*

Getting a grounding wire from the glass to the chassis turned out to be a little tricky, because we hadn't planned it well enough. The wire we had speced was thick, and thus didn't bend well around the planned space. We tried a variety of different wire gauges, and also hand-modified the insulation with a tiny hole to make this job easier.

*
MOUNTING HOLES
*

The metal group head has 4 cutouts for the group head PCB mounts. This worked perfectly with our prototypes. Unfortunately, when we received the mass produced group heads, the 4 cutouts varied by a millimeter here and there. We should have built more tolerance in our design, to allow for this. So, to work around this, we have to hand-file the non-conforming square cutouts, to the right shape, on a case-by-case basis. It takes about 30 minutes per machine to do this. We'll get this right in the next pass, but grrrr... tolerance problems are annoying, since you kick yourself for not having noticed the issue in the design stage.

*
PCB HAVE PANELIZING BITS
*

The PC boards for the group head were, in mass production, made "panelized". The prototype ones were not, and were made one at a time. The difference is that the panelized ones have the little connecting bits. These get in the way of the precise mounting, and each one has to be carefully dremeled off. We'll have to think about where to put these bits in the next run, so that they don't get in the way.

All these issues were resolved as of last Friday, so today (Monday) we're starting to build v1.3 machines.

I have 4 videos to finish editing, and a bunch of web site changes to implement. Once they're done, we'll be able to start taking orders for the new v1.3 models.

I expect all this to happen this week, and will announce when online ordering is open.

Thanks for your patience!

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*
How to build an espresso machine
*

When we invent something new on our espresso machine, we have to then figure out how we're going to build it, over and over, regularly and reliably.

A big part of the past 4 weeks has been trying variation after variation of ways to put together the new realtime group head controller, that's on the upcoming v1.3 Decent Espresso Machine.

Here is how we figure it out.



Lots of people in the factory give it a try, in their own manner, from the engineering drawings.


Then, everyone compares notes about their difficulties, anything they scratched or are worried might get damaged.


After several passes of this, a consensus emerges of the "best way" to do this.


The whole process then gets documented in numbing detail.

In this photo, you can see some of the pages documenting the 14 steps to build just the touch controller on the group head of our v1.3 espresso machine.

Two things I'll call out as examples:



there was a lot of worry about scratching the mirror panel, as it was found to be easy to make that mistake. And a scratch of the mirror panels means 1h of work to change it for a clean one. Quite a few steps above are to avoid this.


there was a worry that the rainbow colored cable from the controller might get damaged by the sheet metal. In the end, they decided to protect it with a transparent shrink wrap tube. Transparent, so you can still easily identify the cable.


The complete instructions to build The Decent run to the hundreds of photos.

Those instructions are constantly being revised, as someone tries a new way, everyone discusses it, and we all decide it's better (or to be avoided).

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*
New refill kit pricing
*

Previously, with v1.0 and v1.1, we offered the DE1PRO with an optional refill kit.

*With these, you could:*



connect the DE1 to a water tank (Catering Kit)


connect the DE1 to a pressurized water (Plumbing Kit)


Drain dirty water out of your drip tray (Drain Kit)


The cost increase for all 3 things (called the "Refill kit") was USD$400, if you bought it at the same time you bought your DE1. People who bought a DE1+ had to pay USD$899 for the refill kit, as their was not bundle price offered. The refill kit was always included with the DE1XL. DE1PRO users who bought the refill kit later also had to pay USD$899.

*There were many problems with this approach:*



We wasted many plumbing kits, because everyone received both a plumbing kit and a catering kit with their refill kit. Virtually everyone only needed one of them, not both. And most people use the catering kit, not the plumbing kit.


DE1XL owners who did not want the refill kit, got one anyway. This also dissuades people from buying the DE1XL as a tabletop espresso machine.


Many were unclear whether the DE1+ could even be plumbed in.


There were many more product SKUs, increasing complexity for everyone


*Starting today we:*



are no longer bundling the refill kit with any machine


we have lowered the price of each part by half


people can buy only the components they need, and not be price penalized for buying less. I prefer to not sell the bundled Refill Kit, unless they really plan on using all the components.


Previously, adding the refill kit added USD$399 to your purchase price.


Now, if you add just the two parts you need (ie, Catering Kit + Drain Kit) the overall price is USD$348, or USD$52 less.


My aim is motivate customers to order only what they need, thus getting a lower price and decreasing waste.


People can choose to plumb in later, not at the same time they purchase their DE1. There is no price penalty for doing so.


https://decentespresso.com/refill

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*
Coffee cart tabletop arrives
*

We're getting ready for 3 trade shows, and a cafe tour on both the West and East coasts of America.

To get ready for 3 trade shows I'm making a small, and a large IKEA coffee cart.

I've never seen them "for real" before, only in photos with Decent staff in HK.

I was blown away by how well packed it is. This isn't Decent's doing, it's the company computer-carving the top for us. It is:



plastic wrapped


then foam wrapped


with thin veneer wood on both sides


clamped down with fitted thick plastic corners, that are each taped down on both sides


inside a foam-sided protected cardboard box


with a wood reinforcement spacer inserted in the weak spot, where we carved out a big hole for the pitcher rinser

 Whoa! That's a lot of care being taken. I'm impressed.

I'm also very happy with how it looks. Just beautiful. The veneer is nicely done, water resistant, and looks great.

We're selling these tops at cost, to encourage people to make their own carts. 
https://decentespresso.com/coffeecart

In about a month, Bugs and I are off to New York, where we will be at Coffee Fest (March 8-10 https://www.coffeefest.com/venues/details/coffee-fest-new-york-2020), then we'll go on a cafe-demo tour from New York to Portland, Maine for two weeks. We'll end up at the Brooklyn coffee & tea show on March 21st. http://www.coffeeandteafestival.com/nyc/


----------



## decent_espresso

*
Barista Magazine on Rao & DE1
*

Quite a long and interesting article on Scott Rao's challenging the "1:2 ratio in 30 seconds" canonical espresso:
https://www.baristamagazine.com/changing-espresso-extraction-with-scott-rao/


----------



## decent_espresso

*
Now building v1.3 Decent machines
*

We've been building v1.3 machines for 3 weeks now.



Two weeks ago, we built the first 3 machines.


Last week we built 10 more.


And this week we plan to build another 20 machines.


We're not yet taking money for orders, and I'm the holdup. I have two relatively big tasks to finish this week:



the new machines, as well as unbundling the refill kits, and unbundling the DE1XL countersink kit


finish a set of videos explaining what's new in v1.3, and another video about the new profiles we've added in the past year


I expect to finish all that up this week. With any luck, we'll have enough stock of the new machines to immediately send out to those who order.

For the first few years of Decent's existence we were known for taking your money and not shipping. Now we're getting known for not taking your money. Note sure if that's progress!

Anyhow, soon we'll be shipping these machines, we'll have hopefully done a good job and people will be happy and they'll forget these delay.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*
Decent T-Shirts
*

For the upcoming trade shows, I've asked each Decent staffer to design their own slogan. We're very intentionally taking the piss of ourselves.

So far, our top tshirt slogans are:



"A bit better than Nespresso"


"Hopefully shipping next week"


"I've had worse"


"Have you tried grinding finer?"


And for fans of the "Silicon Valley" TV show, I proposed this one to Scott Rao: "Making the world a better place" and in small print "Through high extraction espresso methodologies.


In Korea, we'll also have "The genius machine that nobody can buy" as that was how they referred to us (true fact) until we finally made enough to keep up with demand.


And as James Hoffmann would now say: "What do you think? I want to hear from you! Do you have an idea for a good slogan?"

-john


----------



## Slowpress

Love it!??


----------



## sky

decent_espresso said:


> And as James Hoffmann would now say: "What do you think? I want to hear from you! Do you have an idea for a good slogan?"
> -john


 What about - „Star Wars for Coffee Nerds"


----------



## DavecUK

My vote goes for "Decent Espresso, too cool for me"


----------



## CoffeeNick

decent_espresso said:


> <img alt="decentshirt.thumb.jpg.5f4963c3e85cf576b3cd05cf30454708.jpg" data-fileid="36162" data-src="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2020_02/decentshirt.thumb.jpg.5f4963c3e85cf576b3cd05cf30454708.jpg" src="https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">
> 
> * Decent T-Shirts
> *
> 
> For the upcoming trade shows, I've asked each Decent staffer to design their own slogan. We're very intentionally taking the piss of ourselves.
> 
> So far, our top tshirt slogans are:
> "A bit better than Nespresso"
> "Hopefully shipping next week"
> "I've had worse"
> "Have you tried grinding finer?"
> And for fans of the "Silicon Valley" TV show, I proposed this one to Scott Rao: "Making the world a better place" and in small print "Through high extraction espresso methodologies.
> In Korea, we'll also have "The genius machine that nobody can buy" as that was how they referred to us (true fact) until we finally made enough to keep up with demand.
> And as James Hoffmann would now say: "What do you think? I want to hear from you! Do you have an idea for a good slogan?"
> 
> -john


Have you considered an RTFM based slogan, or a 'let me google that for you...'

'Decent... enough'

'We work under variable pressure'

'Under Pressure' for the Queen/David Bowie fans

'Nothing wrong with my flow!' Insert your own prostate exam joke

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Stevebee

I like one of the previous posts .. with an added bit

"Some work under variable pressure....others just go with the flow"


----------



## decent_espresso

*
Finally! All white DE1XL
*

We received a small sample set (8pcs) of white ceramics, and so I sent the now-finally-complete white DE1XL conversion kit to Juhee https://www.instagram.com/juheegrapher/ as she's both obsessed with white espresso equipment, and a great Instagram photographer.

In a few weeks we'll have 200pcs of the white ceramics, and I can send it out to everyone who bought a white DE1XL. They'll finally be able to make their machines all white.

To each person, I'll be sending



a white Android 8.1 tablet


a white, all metal mountable tablet stand


a white USB cable


a new drip tray cover

 -john


----------



## sky

Stevebee said:


> "Some work under variable pressure....others just go with the flow"


 Would shorten that to fit on a shirt.

"variable pressure...or go with the flow"


----------



## CoffeeNick

sky said:


> Would shorten that to fit on a shirt.
> "variable pressure...or go with the flow"


Look at us, workshopping it! We should get a job at Saatchi & Saatchi

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## sky

decent_espresso said:


> a white Android 8.1 tablet


 Hi John,

did those tablets get android updates or do you relying on not putting them to the network?

Chris


----------



## decent_espresso

sky said:


> Hi John,
> 
> did those tablets get android updates or do you relying on not putting them to the network?
> 
> Chris


 They are still getting live updates from Google.


----------



## decent_espresso

*
Discounts for older & refurbished machines
*

As part of the v1.3 release, we're going to start offering a buy-back plan to help existing customers upgrade. This also creates an opportunity to buy an older Decent Espresso Machine at a much lower price.

If someone wants to buy an older machines, here are the discounts:



new v1.1, perfect condition: no discount. But price is US$300 less than v1.3 already


new v1.1, but imperfect: 10% discount off v1.1 price


used v1.1: 20% discount off v1.1 price


used v1.0: 30% discount off v1.1 price


used v1.3: 20% discount off v1.3 price

 All machines (new and used) have a 2 year "happiness guaranteed" warranty.

*
USD$1000 "BUY-BACK" OFFER
*

When I start to take orders for v1.3 machines, we will offer a USD$1000 "buy back" credit to existing owners.



What this means is: v1.0/v1.1 customers can sell us their older DE1 for $1000 discount toward a new v1.3 purchase.


It does not matter v1.0 or v1.1, or DE1+ DE1PRO, all are $1000 discount.


For other currencies, please use http://xe.com to convert USD$1000 to their currency.


We will pay to ship the machine back to HK


Parry will check the machine is ok and then tell ﻿Mirjam that it is available for sale.


Each "buy back" machine should be processed exactly like a "repair" To-dos - Q&A (customer questions)


Because of the "buy back" offer, I expect to build stock of used machines.

 None of this is currently on the web site. That's what I'm working on at the moment.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*What's new in the v1.3 Decent Espresso Machine*

I got about 20 emails and DMs yesterday asking me "what's new in v1.3?" and so I put this video together to show & tell:


----------



## allikat

Here's some slogans:
A bit better than - Decent Espresso

Don't settle for less than - Decent Espresso

Graph your way to - Decent Espresso


----------



## decent_espresso

*Professor Shin's extensive intro to Decent Espresso*

Shin, who runs Decent Espresso Korean, put this video together, showing how he explains what we do, to someone who knows nothing about us.

This video is quite long, as it starts with "I assume you know nothing about us" to "you now know all the important stuff"

His presentation style is very much geared to an Asian audience, who are used to being good students and not interrupting to ask questions. But glammed up with wizbang animations.

Shin's style is more "wacky professor" than the Western "edutainment" style. Both styles try to educate, but Shin's style is more information dense, yet still zany. Uniquely Asian, and refreshing for it.

I found the video really interesting, as I struggle as well to explain what we do, to someone completely new to Decent Espresso.

-john


----------



## NikonGuy

Never heard of Decent before, what's with the Ipad? Looks like a machine for the Millennials..

Can't wait to watch this! opcorn:

Edit: My old Rocket and new LM give 8-9ml/s not 13-15ml/s...

Edit 2: Lot's of innovation, but would have been great if it had built in scales...

Edit 3: The UI needs work, the bottom half of the pressure tab looks a mess...

Interesting, I will look into this machine further, really nice to see something different and innovative in the market, hope it sells well for you.


----------



## MediumRoastSteam

NikonGuy said:


> Never heard of Decent before, what's with the Ipad? Looks like a machine for the Millennials..
> 
> Can't wait to watch this!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Edit: My old Rocket and new LM give 8-9ml/s not 13-15ml/s...
> 
> Edit 2: Lot's of innovation, but would have been great if it had built in scales...
> 
> Edit 3: The UI needs work, the bottom half of the pressure tab looks a mess...
> 
> Interesting, I will look into this machine further, really nice to see something different and innovative in the market, hope it sells well for you.


They've been posting on this forum for a while, all the way from the start to where they are now. There's a lot of insights here! I'm afraid you are about 3 years late to the party!

Ps: it's not an iPad.

Different machines, different flow rates. Who cares about your LM? This is about the Decent machines.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## NikonGuy

MediumRoastSteam said:


> They've been posting on this forum for a while, all the way from the start to where they are now. There's a lot of insights here! I'm afraid you are about 3 years late to the party!
> 
> Ps: it's not an iPad.
> 
> Different machines, different flow rates. Who cares about your LM? This is about the Decent machines.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 Let me guess, your a Niche Zero owner?


----------



## MediumRoastSteam

NikonGuy said:


> Let me guess, your a Niche Zero owner?


You don't need to guess. I already told you that on your Rocket Apartamento post.

Here:

https://coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/49902-rocket-apartamento-upgrade-advice/

Post #25

But like I said, shall we talk about the Decent Espresso machine here?


----------



## MrShades

Very excited to have just placed an order for a DE1+ v1.3 - now the waiting and constant updating of the queue begins!

When do I get the Decent Diaspora invite - can any existing owner advise?

I need to know / learn / read as much info as possible now.

Can't wait...

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## MediumRoastSteam

MrShades said:


> Very excited to have just placed an order for a DE1+ v1.3 - now the waiting and constant updating of the queue begins!
> 
> When do I get the Decent Diaspora invite - can any existing owner advise?
> 
> I need to know / learn / read as much info as possible now.
> 
> Can't wait...
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Are we going be retrofit PID modules to them too?  - very happy for you. What a great machine.


----------



## MrShades

MediumRoastSteam said:


> Are we going be retrofit PID modules to them too?  - very happy for you. What a great machine.


I'm not sure I can do ANYTHING to improve on what John and has team have done over the last few years.... but you never know! Due to the design of the machine I don't think a PID features anywhere (though John may correct me).

Hence why I really need to get on the owners forum - so I can see what others have already done.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## NikonGuy

MrShades said:


> Very excited to have just placed an order for a DE1+ v1.3 - now the waiting and constant updating of the queue begins!
> 
> When do I get the Decent Diaspora invite - can any existing owner advise?
> 
> I need to know / learn / read as much info as possible now.
> 
> Can't wait...
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 Congratulations, can I ask what pushed you to order this machine over others?

I an interested in this machine also to compliment my LM.


----------



## MrShades

NikonGuy said:


> Congratulations, can I ask what pushed you to order this machine over others?
> 
> I an interested in this machine also to compliment my LM.


Why? Because there's nothing else like it (for the price).

As far as I can see it's the Tesla of espresso machines. Cutting edge tech (with some radical rethinking and re-engineering of many elements of the design, rather than just taking "what has always been done"), upgradable over the air, superior support, etc etc - oh, and it should be capable of producing a great espresso too ;-)

I wanted proper pressure profiling - and have previously toyed with the idea of a Vesuvius (won't fit under my cupboards and still give a usable warming tray); GS/3 (old school, but expensive for what it is today and servicing - as I'm sure you know - isn't cheap) etc.

For the time being this will be alongside my (now 10yr old) Alex Duetto and my collection of modded and standard Classics (from 1 month old to 25+ years) - but I'm fully expecting it to become my "daily driver".

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## CoffeeNick

MrShades said:


> I'm not sure I can do ANYTHING to improve on what John and has team have done over the last few years.... but you never know! Due to the design of the machine I don't think a PID features anywhere (though John may correct me).
> 
> Hence why I really need to get on the owners forum - so I can see what others have already done.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Just email the company directly with your order number to gain access to the user basecamp community.

Because the machine already provides very accurate and consistent temperatures at the group head, I think a PID is redundant.

A lot of what you can learn is already on the Decent Espresso Youtube channel. The forum has discussions on different profiles and bits and pieces that people make, shower screen spacers, tablet skins, raspberry pi integration for APIs etc.

Profile discussions and techniques are the really interesting parts.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## MediumRoastSteam

For all intents and purposes.... the PID comment was a joke, as MrShades is well known in this forum for fitting PIDs to Gaggia Classics helping out the user base out there.


----------



## MrShades

CoffeeNick said:


> Just email the company directly with your order number to gain access to the user basecamp community.
> 
> Because the machine already provides very accurate and consistent temperatures at the group head, I think a PID is redundant.
> 
> A lot of what you can learn is already on the Decent Espresso Youtube channel. The forum has discussions on different profiles and bits and pieces that people make, shower screen spacers, tablet skins, raspberry pi integration for APIs etc.
> 
> Profile discussions and techniques are the really interesting parts.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


There's a chance that a PID algorithm is still used for the group heater and for the thermoblocky things... dunno!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## mkke

Order queue is already full, but still not possible to order the v1.3 on the web page. That's sad.


----------



## MrShades

mkke said:


> Order queue is already full, but still not possible to order the v1.3 on the web page. That's sad.


 What do you mean by "order queue is already full"... Where do you see that?

Order queue certainly has 1.1 and 1.3 machines in it, but I don't see it as "full" anywhere.


----------



## Brewing_Lizard

The order queue can be seen here: https://decentespresso.com/queue

There are already lots of orders for the v1.3 model. Also there were already quite a few shipped.


----------



## MrShades

Brewing_Lizard said:


> The order queue can be seen here: https://decentespresso.com/queue
> There are already lots of orders for the v1.3 model. Also there were already quite a few shipped.


It's not "full" though...

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## mkke

I didn't intend to provoke a discussion about queue fullness ? Can a unbounded queue ever be full?

I asked decent support three weeks ago about preordering a v1.3 and was referred to the upcoming web site update. So I guess I'll have to wait a bit longer for mine...


----------



## MrShades

mkke said:


> I didn't intend to provoke a discussion about queue fullness ? Can a unbounded queue ever be full?
> 
> I asked decent support three weeks ago about preordering a v1.3 and was referred to the upcoming web site update. So I guess I'll have to wait a bit longer for mine...


 Perhaps...


----------



## filthynines

I am highly likely to pull the trigger on one of these in the next couple of months for our roastery. It's one of those products I just can't get out of my mind, and once I decide I'm having one then it's inevitable. I hope I'm as delighted as I am excited.


----------



## catpuccino

I was about to pull the trigger before the 1.3 release when the cheap Vesuvius came up locally, otherwise I suspect I'd have one sitting in the kitchen by now. I completely understand the reservations about these machines when compared to the battle-tested alternatives, but my early-adopter/tinkering/techie mindset combined with the space saving on balance, for me, wins.

Looking forward to hearing more from @MrShades when it arrives!


----------



## mctrials23

I really like the idea of these but I really don't like the look of the new 1.3 light up ring over the portafilter. I think it looks really tacky on an otherwise really nice looking machine. I don't quite understand why I would buy a machine that is this sophisticated and then use a manual control or use it without the tablet.

Its like getting a vesuvius and running it as a standard 9 bar E61 machine or having a 3 group professional machine at home to make 2 coffees a day for yourself.


----------



## MrShades

mctrials23 said:


> I really like the idea of these but I really don't like the look of the new 1.3 light up ring over the portafilter. I think it looks really tacky on an otherwise really nice looking machine. I don't quite understand why I would buy a machine that is this sophisticated and then use a manual control or use it without the tablet.
> Its like getting a vesuvius and running it as a standard 9 bar E61 machine or having a 3 group professional machine at home to make 2 coffees a day for yourself.


If you frequently use the same brew profile then you don't need the tablet - You don't lose out on functionality, it just gives you the ability to "do the same thing again" without having a tablet on the top or connected.

Knowing the updates and changes that have been made along the development path to the 1.3, I'd be surprised if there's either no "dark mode" already - or, if not, then something that may appear in a subsequent OTA update.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

mctrials23 said:


> I really like the idea of these but I really don't like the look of the new 1.3 light up ring over the portafilter. I think it looks really tacky on an otherwise really nice looking machine. I don't quite understand why I would buy a machine that is this sophisticated and then use a manual control or use it without the tablet.
> 
> Its like getting a vesuvius and running it as a standard 9 bar E61 machine or having a 3 group professional machine at home to make 2 coffees a day for yourself.


 I'll be making a video soon showing a use case for the real time controller. Rao's "blooming espresso" is coming out more reliably for me when I do it manually, as I'm able to vary flow at the end of the 30s pause, to hit the pressure range I'm looking for. And it's quite easy to do this manually, and choose which compromise you want.


----------



## MrShades

Sounds good@decent_espresso - I knew RTC was really Real Time Coffee ;-)

... and can you turn the LEDs off - so it's less bling, if you really want to?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## decent_espresso

MrShades said:


> Sounds good@decent_espresso - I knew RTC was really Real Time Coffee ?
> 
> ... and can you turn the LEDs off - so it's less bling, if you really want to?


 This is just the v1.0 implementation of the realtime controller. It has its own computer and can take firmware updates.

There's already an active discussion of how the controller should morph in future versions, and that will all take place as a discussion between us engineers and the customers.


----------



## NikonGuy

decent_espresso said:


> I'll be making a video soon showing a use case for the real time controller. Rao's "blooming espresso" is coming out more reliably for me when I do it manually, as I'm able to vary flow at the end of the 30s pause, to hit the pressure range I'm looking for. And it's quite easy to do this manually, and choose which compromise you want.


 Do you offer a machine without the tablet, I have a draw full of old Android and Apple tablets that I could utilise?


----------



## decent_espresso

NikonGuy said:


> Do you offer a machine without the tablet, I have a draw full of old Android and Apple tablets that I could utilise?


 We don't as I much prefer to offer something that works out of the box. Android is a world of compatibility problems that I don't want my users to face when they're making their first cup of the day.

Also, our tablet is much wider than taller, so as to conserve cabinet space height in homes.


----------



## NikonGuy

decent_espresso said:


> We don't as I much prefer to offer something that works out of the box. Android is a world of compatibility problems that I don't want my users to face when they're making their first cup of the day.
> 
> Also, our tablet is much wider than taller, so as to conserve cabinet space height in homes.


 Fair enough, thanks for the reply.


----------



## decent_espresso

NikonGuy said:


> Fair enough, thanks for the reply.


 Also, all my skins are optimized for a specific screen aspect ratio of 2560x1600, 1920x1200 or 1280x800. If you have a different resolution you either get bars of scretching (you get to choose).

Some customers do *buy* their own 2560x1600 11" tablet, and that's super amazing looking. My app is downloadable for any OS (except iOS at the moment), for free, at https://decentespresso.com/downloads

-j


----------



## NikonGuy

decent_espresso said:


> Also, all my skins are optimized for a specific screen aspect ratio of 2560x1600, 1920x1200 or 1280x800. If you have a different resolution you either get bars of scretching (you get to choose).
> 
> Some customers do *buy* their own 2560x1600 11" tablet, and that's super amazing looking. My app is downloadable for any OS (except iOS at the moment), for free, at https://decentespresso.com/downloads
> 
> -j


 Are you looking at adding built in scales? That would be a big thing for me and probably many others, you could then offer auto stop on weight etc.

Just a little thing, is there anyway of hiding the cable that connects the tablet?

Sorry if these have been covered, I do not have the time to read the whole thread!


----------



## CoffeeNick

NikonGuy said:


> Are you looking at adding built in scales? That would be a big thing for me and probably many others, you could then offer auto stop on weight etc.
> Just a little thing, is there anyway of hiding the cable that connects the tablet?
> Sorry if these have been covered, I do not have the time to read the whole thread!


There's a bluetooth scale for auto stopping on weight (Skale) The will hopefully also be a Decent bluetooth scale later in the year.

It is also possible to stop on flow though group head, which is just a bit off, but is consistently just a bit off. So if you're looking for 36g out, setting the flow value to 34ml, will usually get you pretty close to within a gram.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

NikonGuy said:


> Are you looking at adding built in scales? That would be a big thing for me and probably many others, you could then offer auto stop on weight etc.
> 
> Just a little thing, is there anyway of hiding the cable that connects the tablet?


 Built in scales are a heavily patented field by LM an NS, and it's tricky to do well and to avoid getting sued by them. That's why pro machines do not all have this feature.

As mentioned by CoffeeNick, the volumetric stopping counts water dispensed after preinfusion, and thus does a reasonable job of "stopping on weight" without a scale.

But if you want to stop on weight, there is a bluetooth scale that you can put on the drip tray cover, or underneath it.

Here's a photo:











NikonGuy said:


> Just a little thing, is there anyway of hiding the cable that connects the tablet?


 No: you have to charge our tablet somehow.

You could buy your own tablet that supports wireless charging, if that's an important thing to you.


----------



## mctrials23

What are the plans for an iOS app and do you have an API that developers can tap into to create their own apps to control the machine?


----------



## decent_espresso

mctrials23 said:


> What are the plans for an iOS app and do you have an API that developers can tap into to create their own apps to control the machine?


 I'm intending to have a full port of our app on ios.

Yes, there is extensive API support (javascript, rest), and lots of people doing their own skins inside my app too. https://www.diy.brakel.com.au/dsx/


----------



## decent_espresso

*v1.3 Decent Espresso Machine*
Now available: https://decentespresso.com/model


----------



## filthynines

Am I just missing it on the website, or is the option to buy the XL frame etc separately now gone?


----------



## MrShades

filthynines said:


> Am I just missing it on the website, or is the option to buy the XL frame etc separately now gone?


This?

https://decentespresso.com/de1xl

Or just look down this list:

https://decentespresso.com/c?show=all

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## filthynines

MrShades said:


> This?
> 
> https://decentespresso.com/de1xl
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 Not quite. Before you could buy the DE1PRO and then buy the XL kit separately so you could put it front and centre. Now it seems to be pick one or the other and that's that. Feels like I'm either blind or it's an accidental omission, because I don't remember seeing a post that it was going away.


----------



## MrShades

The XL kit is on that page, at $799 / £707 for the black one etc

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## filthynines

MrShades said:


> The XL kit is on that page, at $799 / £707 for the black one etc
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 So it does, sorry. Although it doesn't mention compatibility with 1.3. John, can you assist? @decent_espresso


----------



## patrickff

decent_espresso said:


> Built in scales are a heavily patented field by LM an NS, and it's tricky to do well and to avoid getting sued by them. That's why pro machines do not all have this feature.


 Being able to patent something like "If weight reached then stop" ... ?

When will LM sue K&R - it does not seem to be more than the standard C "if (condition) break;"


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> Am I just missing it on the website, or is the option to buy the XL frame etc separately now gone?


 We aren't going to do an XL frame for v1.3. We're going to make them as DE1XL machines in HK and ship it in a suitcase that has foam cut for that model. So, it'll be as portable as the other models.

It was really wasteful to make a DE1PRO and then have you throw the chassis away when you received the larger DE1XL conversion kit a few weeks later. And now that we have foam and a suitcase that works for the DE1XL....

Plus, lots of people didn't want to convert their machine to the DE1XL, they wanted it delivered already done.

Hope that all makes sense.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> So it does, sorry. Although it doesn't mention compatibility with 1.3. John, can you assist? @decent_espresso


 The XL Conversion kit is not v1.3 compatible. Sorry. We made some changes to the legs and holes between the chassis and water tank, to prevent splashing when connected to a high pressure reverse osmosis unit.

I'm really pushing the company to "less waste" and in some cases that means lower prices, such as the DE1XL coming down in price. Replacing the DE1PRO + XL conversion kit with an already built machine, no kit.

Oh, there's one other thing.

The DE1XL will now have a standby power button on the front panel. The DE1PRO doesn't have this, as you have "easy" access to the power switch.

On the DE1XL the back panel covers the power switch, and thus made it harder to emergency-off the machine.

So, when you order a DE1XL, you'll get that new power button on the front panel too.

Here's a photo. The lit switch is left of the group head. Tablet charging stays on, but it hard-cuts AC power.

-john


----------



## filthynines

That is helpful - thanks John.


----------



## decent_espresso

As we were yesterday invited to exhibit at the USA coffee championships in Los Angeles this weekend

__
http://instagr.am/p/B8vDmy0h3Ye/
 I had to get a coffee cart together in a hurry. Thankfully, I had previously ordered our pre-cut wood top https://decentespresso.com/coffeecart and had the other parts around. A quick visit to IKEA, and 3 hours later, a fully functioning coffee cart.

This is a DE1PRO in here. It's serial number #0002 (the second machine we built), and it's still going strong. I've not ever put a DE1PRO into this countersunk bracket before. And while the tubing is not completely hidden, and the legs are a bit shorter, it still looks not to bad.

Tomorrow I'll find more appropriate water containers than a vinegar bottle and a spaghetti pot.

-john


----------



## SebO

Hi Decent Owners,

just about to pull the trigger - but there is one question that is still holding me back.

If - and I really don't hope so - Decent as a company should Exit the market - what about spare parts?

I am not speaking of PCBs and so on - It's about these simple things like shower Screen, Group Head Gasket, Pumps, Pipings, Fitting.

Are the Parts used in the Decent available after market? Or are they somewhat special and only available via Decent?

I feel this really is one of the biggest advantages of old school E61s - you can have so many spare parts manufactured by so many suppliers ...

Best Regards,

Sebastian


----------



## MrShades

Well, due to the innovation within the DE1 there are obviously lots of custom components and PCBs etc - but there are also lots of standard components.

Pumps, shower screen, group gasket, portafilter are all industry standard components - so definitely not an issue.

I believe John has also open sourced the CAD drawings of all parts, and the physical machine itself (software / firmware is probably a different matter, I'm not sure).

You're almost certainly in a better position with Decent than you would be if someone like Sage/Breville ceased to exist.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## SebO

MrShades said:


> Well, due to the innovation within the DE1 there are obviously lots of custom components and PCBs etc - but there are also lots of standard components.
> 
> Pumps, shower screen, group gasket, portafilter are all industry standard components - so definitely not an issue.
> 
> I believe John has also open sourced the CAD drawings of all parts, and the physical machine itself (software / firmware is probably a different matter, I'm not sure).
> 
> You're almost certainly in a better position with Decent than you would be if someone like Sage/Breville ceased to exist.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 Well - that's an great answer.

As for PCBs and stuff - so the things which are really core of the Decent Concept - I hope they will have done a good job and the Parts Are Long lasting. I don't see them as „wearing parts".

For pumps, shower Screen, Gaskets it's good to hear that there are other sources than just Decent.

I really don't like the idea to order each little spare part and get it delivered from China.

Thx for your answer.


----------



## NikonGuy

SebO said:


> Hi Decent Owners,
> 
> just about to pull the trigger - but there is one question that is still holding me back.
> 
> If - and I really don't hope so - Decent as a company should Exit the market - what about spare parts?
> 
> I am not speaking of PCBs and so on - It's about these simple things like shower Screen, Group Head Gasket, Pumps, Pipings, Fitting.
> 
> Are the Parts used in the Decent available after market? Or are they somewhat special and only available via Decent?
> 
> I feel this really is one of the biggest advantages of old school E61s - you can have so many spare parts manufactured by so many suppliers ...
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> Sebastian


 This is a very good question.

I think most of us spending this kind of money in the prosumer category would expect a service life of around 10 years, so Decent will you be able to service my machine in 10 years time? And when do you see it being made obsolete?

Personally I think the machine is still in the beta development stage and as such is not for me, I will be waiting until they release V3>.


----------



## MrShades

NikonGuy said:


> This is a very good question.
> I think most of us spending this kind of money in the prosumer category would expect a service life of around 10 years, so Decent will you be able to service my machine in 10 years time? And when do you see it being made obsolete?
> Personally I think the machine is still in the beta development stage and as such is not for me, I will be waiting until they release V3>.


Will any manufacturer promise and be able to commit to being able to service anything that they produce now in 10 years?

As I've mentioned, at least Decent open source as much info and designs as possible to provide some assurance that the information will be available both now and in the future for anyone to service machines themselves or through 3rd parties. I don't know any other manufacturer that provides that assurance.

... and if you're waiting for V3 then you will be waiting a long time (perhaps that's where your 10yrs worry stems from?) - though as the original machine was v1.0, then v1.1 and now v1.3, the third version is now in the wild - so you can stop waiting and get your wallet out.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## filthynines

NikonGuy said:


> ... so Decent will you be able to service my machine in 10 years time? And when do you see it being made obsolete?
> 
> Personally I think the machine is still in the beta development stage and as such is not for me, I will be waiting until they release V3>.


 I think this is unfair, and I think it's (perversely) a result of John's extremely transparent development process. I think he's created a higher standard to which Decent Espresso is held to account.

This question is not routinely asked of LMLM, Vesuvius, etc etc. This isn't a tiny little start up having a go at designing and manufacturing machines. They're clearly deadly serious about it, and their success appears to be spreading. Aside from that, @MrShades' suggestion seems pretty much on the money.


----------



## MrShades

Has anyone asked Tesla whether they will be able to service their cars in 10yrs and when they expect them to be obsolete?

No, exactly.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## mctrials23

filthynines said:


> This question is not routinely asked of LMLM, Vesuvius, etc etc. This isn't a tiny little start up having a go at designing and manufacturing machines. They're clearly deadly serious about it, and their success appears to be spreading. Aside from that, @MrShades' suggestion seems pretty much on the money.


 The reason for this is quite obvious and I think this sort of answer is kind of why people get frustrated when asking these sort of questions. The Vesuvius is ultimately a very clever E61 machine and is 90%+ a standard E61 machine. LM have been around nearly 100 years so probably aren't going anywhere any time soon and again, the LMLM is a quite simple, if very well built classic style machine.

Decent by all accounts are a great company and hopefully will be here in decades time but to compare a very technologically advanced machine using a lot of custom parts to a company that has existed for 100 years or a machine that is very similar to almost every other machine out there is simply a poor comparison.



MrShades said:


> Has anyone asked Tesla whether they will be able to service their cars in 10yrs and when they expect them to be obsolete?
> 
> No, exactly.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 Of course they have but again, Tesla is a multi billion dollar company, not a small business in what is ultimately a small industry. I wouldn't worry about Decent going out of business any time soon and honestly, I feel like the owner would probably do everything in his power to either make spares available to order before they go under or somehow enable some level of support going forwards.

I don't see why people can't be a little more honest about these things. There is a risk to investing in any product that might require fixing or maintenance but that risk is not equal in all cases.


----------



## filthynines

mctrials23 said:


> The reason for this is quite obvious and I think this sort of answer is kind of why people get frustrated when asking these sort of questions. The Vesuvius is ultimately a very clever E61 machine and is 90%+ a standard E61 machine. LM have been around nearly 100 years so probably aren't going anywhere any time soon and again, the LMLM is a quite simple, if very well built classic style machine.
> 
> Decent by all accounts are a great company and hopefully will be here in decades time but to compare a very technologically advanced machine using a lot of custom parts to a company that has existed for 100 years or a machine that is very similar to almost every other machine out there is simply a poor comparison.


 I agree with you, except the timescale of 10 years means that anything could happen. Decent might be dead and gone, owned by Apple, or just plodding along making a very nice profit on some very nice machines. I'm not sure what answer can be expected in response to that.


----------



## NikonGuy

MrShades said:


> Has anyone asked Tesla whether they will be able to service their cars in 10yrs and when they expect them to be obsolete?
> 
> No, exactly.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 Apples and oranges...

I love the innovation but see it maturing in a very short space of time and expect V3 will be availble in 18-24 months. This will also have a knock on effect to second hand values of V1 machines more so then a tradition machine of similar age.

Maybe Decent will off upgrade kits to older machines...


----------



## catpuccino

NikonGuy said:


> Maybe Decent will off upgrade kits to older machines...


 They have done for many parts and seem to be continuing in that vein. For what it's worth I do think the serviceability concern is fair, perhaps exacerbated due to it initially being a crowdfunded project and counterintuitively even more so by the transparency they display (bit of broken window syndrome I think).

At the end of the day the current stage of the machine and company vs. where you want it to be in order to buy in at such a high cost is an individual decision.


----------



## MrShades

NikonGuy said:


> Apples and oranges...
> 
> I love the innovation but see it maturing in a very short space of time and expect V3 will be availble in 18-24 months. This will also have a knock on effect to second hand values of V1 machines more so then a tradition machine of similar age.
> 
> Maybe Decent will off upgrade kits to older machines...


V1.4 will be out then - "V3" is meaningless

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## MrShades

catpuccino said:


> They have done for many parts and seem to be continuing in that vein. For what it's worth I do think the serviceability concern is fair, perhaps exacerbated due to it initially being a crowdfunded project and counterintuitively even more so by the transparency they display (bit of broken window syndrome I think).
> At the end of the day the current stage of the machine and company vs. where you want it to be in order to buy in at such a high cost is an individual decision.


AFAIK - Decent has never been crowdfunded - You're thinking of ZPM; although John stepped in and (I believe) "picked up some of the pieces" once ZPM failed, but the funds behind Decent have never been crowd funded - they've been John funded.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## catpuccino

MrShades said:


> AFAIK - Decent has never been crowdfunded - You're thinking of ZPM; although John stepped in and (I believe) "picked up some of the pieces" once ZPM failed, but the funds behind Decent have never been crowd funded - they've been John funded.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 Ah right you are, got my history mixed up


----------



## SebO

NikonGuy said:


> This is a very good question.
> 
> I think most of us spending this kind of money in the prosumer category would expect a service life of around 10 years, so Decent will you be able to service my machine in 10 years time? And when do you see it being made obsolete?
> 
> Personally I think the machine is still in the beta development stage and as such is not for me, I will be waiting until they release V3>.


 Uuuuh .... quite a discussion I have started here. But to be totally clear - I am aware of the fast that the buy in to a „maybe" game changer with such an innovative approach comes not without risk. Therefore my question really isn't about serviceability of every part over long term - but only for possible industry standard parts which can and have to be seen as „wearing".

best regards


----------



## SebO

Is there a decent de1+ or pro owner in London who would let me have a real life look at the machine in the following two weeks?

best Regards,

Sebastian


----------



## decent_espresso

The serviceability question is totally fair, and I've tried to reassure people as much as I can, with a set of decision.

*How do I get parts? *All our parts are available to anyone, not just authorized service people, and at reasonable (not car repair!) prices: https://decentespresso.com/c?show=all

*How does it work? *A massive catalog of videos to do repairs is available. A huge manual with massive detail is available. A large and active user community shares info. Our CAD is open sourced.

*What if a pump or valve or heater breaks*? The pumps are a much nicer version of the standard ULKA pump. The valves come from ODE, who also makes for LM. The 1500W heaters are available off the shelf, though they're also very unlikely to break: more likely a broken heater would be fixed with cleaning.

*What if the tablet breaks?* Buy another off Amazon

*What is the software stops being maintained or is now incompatible? *The software is open source, and today runs on Android, Linux, Windows, Mac. It can be maintained or improved by others.

*What if Bluetooth becomes obsolete?* The communications chip is a socketed computer, based on the Arduino standard, and can be easily upgraded to wifi, and USB. The community created DESIRE package is adding ethernet, wifi, USB as a replacement, and started shipping last week, so this is no longer a theoretical expansion possibility.

*What if the PCB breaks?* You can buy another from our web site, or repair it. The AC PCB is a 1 layer board, and the DC PCB is a 4 layer board. A competent repairman can swap parts (we do).

*What if tubing leaks?* We use the same standard as Nespresso, and those parts (tubes and o rings) are widely available.

*What if the 24V power supply dies?* It's made by Meanwell, and is widely available.

*What if I need portafilters or baskets?* We're using the 58mm standard and are La Marzocco Compatible.

Did I miss anything? If so, please let me know. I've tried hard to attack this problem head on with the decisions we've made these past 5 years.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

One more thing -- what kills companies most often is money. So, let me address that separately:

We've only ever been self-funded, with money from me, my girlfriend and her mum.

As of January, 2019 we were profitable.

At around 600 machines sold per year, we become profitable.

Last year, we sold 750 machines, and this year we should be around 1500 machines sold.

We don't have a desire for massive expansion or world domination. Ie, we won't be "taking on" any large established companies.

Our manufacturing cap is 2000 machines per year. Why? Because we can make that quantity ourselves and it'll make a manageable sized company (about 20 people) who can still run everything out of one office, we all get on, we all fit around one lunch table each day, and life is fun & good. I'm 50 yrs old now, and don't want the hassles of big company (I ran one once).

Small is beautiful, and sustainable (both from a money and human energy perspective).

A nice surprise is that our accessories business is growing much faster than expected. From 10% of our business at the start of 2019 to 20% at the start of 2020, and that's even with the big growth in espresso machine sales. About 20% of accessory clients later turn into DE1 clients, so I expect us to be a be to find the required 600 sales per year, for a good while.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Likely to run out of v1.3*​
In the past 10 days, we have sold 125 espresso machines, out of the run of 500 machines we'd planned for the next 6 months.​
We'd planned on restocking in 4 months, to continue production.​
But the coronavirus has added at least 2 months of delay in getting some key parts, such as the side-firing LEDs for the group head controller, which are now a minimum of 4 months out.​
This means that we will likely have a few months where we're totally out of stock of espresso machines.​
So: if you're thinking of getting a Decent Espresso Machine, you might consider getting into the order queue now.​
Our current estimate is that we'll have sold out our v1.3 run in the next 6 weeks, and that we won't be able to start making v1.4 machines until September. It's also likely that because of the parts shortage, that v1.4 machines will sell out quickly as well.​
We have no new user-facing features planned for v1.4. All improvements planned are internal, to ease assembly and to decrease parts complexity.​
﻿----​
In the graphic, I'm sharing with you 5 years of sales quantity numbers. Espresso machine sales have been on a slow and steady climb, but aggressively better with v1.3.​
Accessory sales have been climbing much faster and consistently. The "christmas rush" that started in September 2019, was not a rush after all, but a new normal. We had nothing new to sell in January 2020, but accessory sales held at almost the same level as December.​
This is good news for us, as we find that coffee accessory sales are the start to a relationship with us, that often leads to an espresso machine sale. It's much easier to sell something expensive to someone who already has a relationship with you, and has experience both your product, and how you behave when there are problems.​
In May, we're doubling our space, from 5000 sq ft to 11000 sq feet (about 1000 sq meters). And as soon as the coronavirus worries recede, we're hiring heavily in Hong Kong, to increase our manufacturing speed.​
-john​
​
​


----------



## Jony

A business man never reveals is out put.


----------



## filthynines

Jony said:


> A business man never reveals is out put.


 I think you'll find he just did. Crankhouse Dave does the same thing every year, too. Great to see.


----------



## Jony

Thanks for the update.But if want to know I can go look my self


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## decent_espresso

Jony said:


> A business man never reveals is out put.


 It's there for all to see, as I do indicate the size of each manufacturing run (280 of v1.0, 750 of v1.1, 500 of v1.3) so you just need to divide by quantity announced by the months of time between release announcements.

But more to the point, consumers are very rightly concerned about the longevity and reliability of any company they buy an expensive product from. Keeping secrets is, I think, counterproductive in our case, as a relatively new (5 years operating, 2 years making machines) company.

Since our facts are not too terrible, sharing them lets people make their own informed decisions, and hopefully more comfortable spending their money with us.

-j


----------



## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> It's there for all to see, as I do indicate the size of each manufacturing run (280 of v1.0, 750 of v1.1, 500 of v1.3) so you just need to divide by quantity announced by the months of time between release announcements.
> 
> But more to the point, consumers are very rightly concerned about the longevity and reliability of any company they buy an expensive product from. Keeping secrets is, I think, counterproductive in our case, as a relatively new (5 years operating, 2 years making machines) company.
> 
> Since our facts are not too terrible, sharing them lets people make their own informed decisions, and hopefully more comfortable spending their money with us.
> 
> -j


 100% this. Waiting for a funding issue to clear and then I'll be putting in my order!


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## filthynines

@decent_espresso - John, are you able to show the back of the DE1Pro and how "not bad" it looks countersunk into your coffee cart? I'd like to see if it's worth the saving.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> @decent_espresso - John, are you able to show the back of the DE1Pro and how "not bad" it looks countersunk into your coffee cart? I'd like to see if it's worth the saving.


 I briefly show the back of the DE1PRO in this video









Just imagine two more cables in the back (for water, and ethernet cable for pump power)


----------



## filthynines

> 51 minutes ago, decent_espresso said:
> 
> I briefly show the back of the DE1PRO in this video
> 
> View attachment 36735
> 
> 
> Just imagine two more cables in the back (for water, and ethernet cable for pump power)


 Thanks very much. How was stability? Reasonable enough as long as you don't try and ride the cart down a hill?


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## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> Thanks very much. How was stability? Reasonable enough as long as you don't try and ride the cart down a hill?


 The wheels on the IKEA cart are not that large, so smooth pavement is your friend. And make sure you don't accidentally lock the legs when you put the cart in your car.

But otherwise, I've been able to push the cart in and out of trade shows with no problem.

One other thing : the grinder will have a tendency to topple. For my Niche grinder, I replaced two bolts holding the feet in, with much longer bolts that now go through the table top, anchoring the Niche to the table. I can get you specs on those bolts if you also have a Niche.

The DE1 is countersunk, so it won't topple.

As to accessories I keep them inside the cart trays, and I've mounted the trays upside down so that they have high edges, that hold everything in. Here is what that looks like:









More at 




-j


----------



## decent_espresso

*Big Sale on Returned Items*

Bugs and I moved back to the USA, where 5 years worth of accessories returned sat waiting for us. The majority of it was "don't like it" and unused, and perfect condition. We organized it all in our kitchen, and shipped it all together back to Hong Kong.

And so we're selling it all at a 30% (or more) discount.

The stuff is all on this page:
https://decentespresso.com/sale

Some other notes:
- we're going to exit the grinder business after we sell these remaining Decent Pro Grinders. They have 64mm flat burrs made by Italmill, and we also sell SSP burr upgrades for them. So.. the price has come down to $560 for our grinder. https://decentespresso.com/pro_grinder - I think we have about a dozen grinders left, and then we're out of the business.
- we're enlarging (by 2x, 6000 sq feet more!) our factory in May, and want to "get rid" of slower selling stuff. To that end, we're discounting James Hoffmann's book "The best of Jimseven" down to $34.30. https://decentespresso.com/books


----------



## filthynines

@decent_espresso Hi John - Three days ago I was able to log into Paypal in order to attempt payment. Today Paypal hasn't been given as an option. Has it been removed as an option?

I'm looking to use Paypal credit in order to purchase this item, and won't be able to buy unless I can use Paypal. Could you assist, please? Many thanks


----------



## filthynines

filthynines said:


> @decent_espresso Hi John - Three days ago I was able to log into Paypal in order to attempt payment. Today Paypal hasn't been given as an option. Has it been removed as an option?
> 
> I'm looking to use Paypal credit in order to purchase this item, and won't be able to buy unless I can use Paypal. Could you assist, please? Many thanks


 In fact I've managed to make payment, but the PayPal issue remains. Just a flag for you.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> In fact I've managed to make payment, but the PayPal issue remains. Just a flag for you.


 Per paypal rules, we only offer paypal as a payment option for orders that only have items that we can ship immediately.

This is why (for instance) Kickstarter does not accept paypal.

I think I recently relaxed this rule to 30 days. But because of coronavirus, some models (such as DE1XL) is not going to ship within 30 days, so paypal is no longer an option.

-john


----------



## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> Per paypal rules, we only offer paypal as a payment option for orders that only have items that we can ship immediately.
> 
> This is why (for instance) Kickstarter does not accept paypal.
> 
> I think I recently relaxed this rule to 30 days. But because of coronavirus, some models (such as DE1XL) is not going to ship within 30 days, so paypal is no longer an option.
> 
> -john


 Thanks John. Might be worth making this more prominent on the website. I spent about an hour this morning trying to find why I couldn't pay by PayPal and came up short


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## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> Thanks John. Might be worth making this more prominent on the website. I spent about an hour this morning trying to find why I couldn't pay by PayPal and came up short


 Really sorry about that. We've been trying hard to not have anything out of stock and I was hoping that would be primarily the case, but recently because of the coronavirus this just changed and we have more than 30 day delays on some parts


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## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> Really sorry about that. We've been trying hard to not have anything out of stock and I was hoping that would be primarily the case, but recently because of the coronavirus this just changed and we have more than 30 day delays on some parts


 No problem - I managed to get the funds and now look forward to receiving a nice package from Hong Kong sometime after 1st May! It may make an appearance at Birmingham Coffee Festival (UK) this year, too.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> No problem - I managed to get the funds and now look forward to receiving a nice package from Hong Kong sometime after 1st May! It may make an appearance at Birmingham Coffee Festival (UK) this year, too.


 I did some reading just now, and it appears that PayPal may have revised their rules on this topic. This is what I found:

https://www.paypal.com/us/brc/article/seller-protection



> If the sale involves pre-ordered or made-to-order goods, you must ship within the timeframe you specified in the listing. Otherwise, it is recommended that you ship all items within 7 days after receipt of payment.


 as such, I'm relaxing the PayPal payment rules to items that we are shipping now or within 60 days. Our items that are made to order, like our espresso machines, give a explicit ship date at order time. So in theory that will comply with PayPal's rules.

I'm excited to hear that our machine will be at the Birmingham coffee festival, and given that is not until June, I don't think there will be a problem with your getting machine in time. Please contact me at least a month before the show if that isn't the case and I will make it happen if it hasn't yet. https://www.birminghamcoffeefestival.com/


----------



## tohenk2

I ordered some sale stuff this morning and could use PayPall. (Off course that all is available for direct shipment)

The funnel v2 doesn't seem to have magnets? (If you have one of those lying around I would like to try one of those as well. Don't care if the bottom has signs of usage ?)


----------



## decent_espresso

tohenk2 said:


> I ordered some sale stuff this morning and could use PayPall. (Off course that all is available for direct shipment)
> 
> The funnel v2 doesn't seem to have magnets? (If you have one of those lying around I would like to try one of those as well. Don't care if the bottom has signs of usage ?)


 No, we don't have magnets on our funnel.

I have tried the Wormhole funnel: https://www.coffeeparts.com.au/wormhole-magnetic-coffee-dosing-funnel-53mm-58mm-black and I think their magnetized approach is well executed and offers some nice benefits.

However, I also think that each approach has its own tradeoffs, and I personally prefer my funnel design.

It *appears* that the magnetized funnels (there are several available now) all need to be made of very light plastic, and to be quite short. At least, all that I've seen have been like that.

I suspect that's because the basket metal is very poorly magnetic, and so the funnel weight has to be kept at a minimum in order for the magnets to hold.

But I really respect this funnel. It's well conceived and works well. It just has a different set of tradeoffs.

In order for the decent funnel to have magnets, I think we'd need to make it much shorter. In other words, we'd have to simply copy the Wormhole design, and that would not be cool.

It might be that someone else has found the knack to make a tall and magnetized funnel. In which case, more power to them, they deserve success.

-john


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## filthynines

Hilariously my Decent Tamper has been shipped. It's hilarious because my machine is currently 123rd in the queue and about two months away!


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## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> Hilariously my Decent Tamper has been shipped. It's hilarious because my machine is currently 123rd in the queue and about two months away!


 Yep, we ship what we can, right away!

-john


----------



## SebO

I wonder if one of the early 1.3 owners could do a quick check on the steam quality in terms of „wetness".

As steam has been reengineered it would be great to have numbers to the changes made to quantify them.

As a Test Method I would suggest to have 250ml of whole milk, weight it, steam it to 62 degrees Celsius, weight it.

Can Anyone do that? 
Perhaps you @MrShades

Best Regards,

Sebastian


----------



## tohenk2

Thanks for the reply John - I remembered a funnel with magnets. Could very well be the one you mention, but obviously I mixed things up


----------



## MrShades

SebO said:


> I wonder if one of the early 1.3 owners could do a quick check on the steam quality in terms of „wetness".
> 
> As steam has been reengineered it would be great to have numbers to the changes made to quantify them.
> 
> As a Test Method I would suggest to have 250ml of whole milk, weight it, steam it to 62 degrees Celsius, weight it.
> 
> Can Anyone do that?
> Perhaps you @MrShades
> 
> Best Regards,
> Sebastian


To be honest, I don't really care about quantifiable results of steaming - I don't enjoy milk drinks myself and only steam occasionally, and therefore when I do steam I want good micro foam that is easy to produce.

The steamed milk I can obtain from the DE1 is both better and easier to produce than from my previous E61 double boiler - so I'm more than happy with it, and the latte art that I can pour with it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

SebO said:


> I wonder if one of the early 1.3 owners could do a quick check on the steam quality in terms of „wetness".
> As steam has been reengineered it would be great to have numbers to the changes made to quantify them.
> As a Test Method I would suggest to have 250ml of whole milk, weight it, steam it to 62 degrees Celsius, weight it.


 Total water used to steam the milk is easy to obtain, as the DE1 tells you how much water it is using to make steam.









However, by "wetness" one usually means "percentage of steam that is in the vapor stage". ie how much water is carried in the steam. That's harder to measure.

However, we have done just that in the lab.

We built a kind of centrifuge that separates steam from water. Only vapor can escape out the top of this.

We use this device to measure how dry our steam is, in the lab, as we tune things. We can weigh the water that was trapped, after steaming, and calculate the non-vapor content percentage of the steam.


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## SebO

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 36871
> 
> 
> *Measuring steam wetness*​
> I was asked today on the UK Coffee forum:​
> 
> 
> 
> "I wonder if one of the early 1.3 owners could do a quick check on the steam quality in terms of „wetness". As steam has been reengineered it would be great to have numbers to the changes made to quantify them. As a Test Method I would suggest to have 250ml of whole milk, weight it, steam it to 62 degrees Celsius, weight it. "
> 
> 
> 
> Total water used to steam the milk is easy to obtain, as the DE1 tells you how much water it is using to make steam, with the chart I've included in the photo. However, by "wetness" one usually means "percentage of steam that is in the vapor state". ie how much water is carried in the steam.​
> ​
> That's harder to measure. However, we have done just that in the lab.​
> ​
> We built a kind of centrifuge that separates steam from water. Only vapor can escape out the top of this. We use this device to measure how dry our steam is, in the lab, as we tune things. We can weigh the water that was trapped, after steaming, and calculate the non-vapor content percentage of the steam.​
> ​
> -john​
Click to expand...

 What did your result look like? 
And did you compare them to „traditional" boiler generated steam?

Sebastian


----------



## Nikko

Presumably you are able to produce superheated steam. Knowing the flow and electrical input gives you an idea of enthalpy. Does that correlate with your practical tests?


----------



## decent_espresso

SebO said:


> What did your result look like?
> And did you compare them to „traditional" boiler generated steam?
> 
> Sebastian


 My GS/3 went up to 128ºC, whereas we're typically in the 150ºC to 160ºC range. Our steam is about 50% drier, by which I mean we dilute the milk 50% less to reach the same end milk temperature.

However, currently (in v1.3) we are about 30% slower than a traditional boiler, at steaming milk. But our foam tends to be better quality, so that's not too bad a compromise.

v1.1 steam was wetter than v1.3. We're about to release v1.3 firmware, applied to v1.1 machines, which will up their steam pressure, decrease wetness, and decrease overall steaming times.



Nikko said:


> Presumably you are able to produce superheated steam. Knowing the flow and electrical input gives you an idea of enthalpy. Does that correlate with your practical tests?


 Very much so. Damian's skin lets you weigh your milk and then auto-sets the time to steam that milk to a given temperature.

Note that pressurizing the steam was the secret to better heat transfer, because that increased the boiling boiling point, the increasing the amount of time the still-liquid-state water stays in contact with the heater. At lower pressures, the steam runs away from the heater before all potential heat could have been transferred.


----------



## mctrials23

@decent_espresso Is there anywhere on the website that shows the prices of the previous generation of machines and the various options on those (cosmetic seconds, used machines etc)


----------



## decent_espresso

mctrials23 said:


> @decent_espresso Is there anywhere on the website that shows the prices of the previous generation of machines and the various options on those (cosmetic seconds, used machines etc)


 Here you can see the price difference between v1.1 and v1.3: https://decentespresso.com/model

Only feature difference is the group head controller, added to v1.3.

Price discount scheme for used/cosmetic seconds is here below on the instagram page but FYI not a single owner has traded in their old DE1 for a newer model, so there are no used models for sale, nor likely to be very many.

We do have a few (~10) very lightly mirror-panel-scratched v1.1 models at 10% off (one scratch, and under 1cm in length), and if you'd like to know about those, please write to us at http://decentespresso.com/contact

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/index.php?app=core&module=system&controller=embed&url=https://www.instagram.com/p/B8eX_RdBnoj/


----------



## filthynines

Obviously I'm only wasting my own time, but I look at the queue from time to time and my order has moved down the queue twice. Hopefully all it means is I'll get it, say, 17th May rather than 16th May!


----------



## Border_all

filthynines said:


> Obviously I'm only wasting my own time, but I look at the queue from time to time and my order has moved down the queue twice. Hopefully all it means is I'll get it, say, 17th May rather than 16th May!


 A good month May?


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> Obviously I'm only wasting my own time, but I look at the queue from time to time and my order has moved down the queue twice. Hopefully all it means is I'll get it, say, 17th May rather than 16th May!


 Coronavirus is messing things up, apologies for that. UPS suspended shipments for 10 days, now they're asking us to use another courier to get things to their warehouse. Things are not normal at the moment.

I'm just about to leave New York City, which apparently is about to go into "lockdown" with everyone confined to their home, like in San Francisco, where I'm flying to.

-john


----------



## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> Coronavirus is messing things up, apologies for that. UPS suspended shipments for 10 days, now they're asking us to use another courier to get things to their warehouse. Things are not normal at the moment.
> 
> I'm just about to leave New York City, which apparently is about to go into "lockdown" with everyone confined to their home, like in San Francisco, where I'm flying to.
> 
> -john


 No apologies needed, John. I was just making a remark for the sake of making a remark - no criticism intended. I did receive my v2 tamper today, though. Hefty!


----------



## decent_espresso

*Trouble shipping out*

A few people have noticed that our order queue https://decentespresso.com/queue hasn't been moving lately.

The reason: we've had troubles getting espresso machines shipped for the past 10 days. UPS initially refused our orders, then refused to pick up and told us to use another courrier to get packages inside Hong Kong, to the UPS warehouse. Strange.

And today...

We learned about UPS rules in effect: a limit of 150kg of packages shipped per day to the USA, and 300kg per day to EU. That's 6 machines to the USA per day, 12 to EU. That's why they were being weird to us and not accepting all our shipments, and it seems arbitrary. We can work around this limitation now that we know what it is. We are now shipping directly, using our own UPS account, instead of our usual shipping broker.

We're pretty sure that our shipping broker had gone over their limit, and that's why we have been mostly blocked from shipping for the past 10 days.

Unfortunately, they weren't communicative, and didn't tell us that this was the issue. Probably they didn't want us to bypass them, which we needed to do, to get around the daily limit that was imposed on them.

We are now shipping machines directly from our our UPS account, and not using the broker, in order to bypass these limits. It's a bit more expensive for us, but we "gotta do what we gotta do". We're swallowing the extra shipping cost (using the broker is cheaper) and not asking customers for more shipping money.

I'm fairly sure that these quotas are due to Hong Kong being the world's largest air freight airport. With China's factories back in operation, the coronavirus-struck world needs stuff, badly, and logistics companies are straining under the load. UPS is trying to be fair and evenly spread the load.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

The "shower basket" is coming

In about two weeks, we should have the pour over "shower baskets" in stock, and will ship them to everyone who has back ordered one. https://decentespresso.com/basket

To prepare for this, I'm currently working on:

- getting several new profiles from Scott Rao, for different "pour over" recipes, using the new shower basket, for different grind dose weights.

- a video from Rao showing how to make this new kind of pour-over: https://youtu.be/HraNBzMaCW8

﻿- a new feature to hide profiles you don't want to see. It's an eyeball icon, and then you uncheck the profiles you want to hide.









﻿- We're trying to find a water resistant "motorized cake display stand" to sit the V60 on, so that you don't have to do a stir, and the possibility of channeling is further reduced. For example https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M5HN2AU/ (but able to handle water pouring on it). If you have any tips, please let me know. Rao found he got another 1% extraction when using a (non-water-resistant) rotating stand under his v60.


----------



## decent_espresso

*New feature: How to show and hide presets*​
By default, only the most popular espresso presets are shown on the Decent Espresso machine. You can choose to show more, or hide those you do not want. Any preset you create, is shown by default.​
I've sometimes found myself struggling to find the preset I wan, mixed in the long list. I'm hoping this new feature addresses that problem.​
​


----------



## decent_espresso

​
​


*New: puck resistance*​
A new feature today in the Decent App, suggested by Collin Arneson in long conversation about "Stalled Extractions" (itself an interesting topic) brings "Puck resistance" to the Decent Espresso App.​
This new feature appears as a chart line, giving you an idea of how well your puck is resisting water flow.​
Another way to think of this new line, is as a representation of your "coffee puck integrity".​
"Puck resistance" should usually go down over time, since about 20% of the puck material ends up in your espresso. Less puck material should mean less puck resistance to water.​
Because it is calculated as "pressure/flow", it allows you to see the quality of the puck, somewhat independently of a changing pressure or changing flow rate. There are no objective "units" to this: this is a "made up" calculated number that seemed useful in conversation.​
Note that this line is only (at the moment) in the "Insight" skin, and only when you tap to zoom the chart. The new line is in Yellow, as its label.​
-john​


----------



## decent_espresso

Puck resistance : revisited

Yesterday I added "puck resistance" to Decent the App, calculated as "pressure / flow"

But, this calculation bothered me, and it took me a day to figure out why.

Those of us who have made flow profiled shots have noticed that a small chance in flow, yields a big difference in pressure. Yes, the "resistance" calculation we were using yesterday, implies a linear relationship.

I've heard ﻿Ray﻿ tell me that pressure increases to the square of flow. Hopefully I didn't misunderstand. I went searching online for more about this, and that seems to be the case, but "I am not a physicist" so please... someone correct me.

I have now changed the "puck resistance" calculation to be: pressure / (flow^2) and I'm so far, happier with the results the resistance line is giving me, which are now closer to what I think is actually going on.

In 3 espressos, let me explain.My first espresso was at Niche's grind setting 11, and the flow was a touch too fast, and the shot ended a bit too soon. Puck resistance never amounted to much:

﻿








So, I tried grinding 1 notch finer.My second espresso was at Niche's grind setting 10 (finer), with 17g of coffee, 36g in cup (39ml using volumetric stopping). The espresso starts with just a few drips, and "puck resistance" goes "off the chart" to represent this almost "stuck puck" that is the start of my espresso shot. The shot took a long time to finish, and was still fairly slow at the end.

﻿








Instead of changing the grind, I reduced my dose by 1.5g, and I got a shot that had almost linear puck resistance dropping, and flat flow. The slight pressure drop around 23 seconds kept flow constant as puck resistance dropped slightly. But very little pressure adjustment was needed, as puck resistance was holding well.﻿









If pressure is held constant, then the flow gives you a reasonable idea of puck resistance. That's what Matt Perger is doing with his DE1, to test his distribution tool. Here is an unpublished photo of one of his tests. Notice how he's using 9 bar constant, in order to assess how well his grooming tool is working at maintaining puck integrity.









Once Matt gets back to his DE1, after the coronavirus lockdown, he'll be able to vary pressure, and now, assess puck resistance as an independent variable.

Interesting times.

-john


----------



## Nikko

John, your calculation is correct. If you use m3/hr for the flow and bars for the pressure then you are actually calculating the Kv value of the puck (plus that of the basket and any other resistance to flow you may have in the system if you are pedantic).

Most interesting the way the resistance builds up as the puck saturates.

Concerning your precision baskets, have you considered measuring the Kv values of these in comparison to standard baskets. It has to be this which is the real differentiator between them, rather than improvements in precision.


----------



## decent_espresso

Nikko said:


> John, your calculation is correct. If you use m3/hr for the flow and bars for the pressure then you are actually calculating the Kv value of the puck


 I'm not sure Kv would be a useful scale, as a square meter of water is a LOT more than espresso would likely ever use. We're in the range of 2 ml/s, which is 7200 ml/hour, or 7.2 liters per hour.

But it's nice that I'm at least using a scale version of a real value.



Nikko said:


> Concerning your precision baskets, have you considered measuring the Kv values of these in comparison to standard baskets. It has to be this which is the real differentiator between them, rather than improvements in precision.


 Do you mean, Kv without any coffee in them? I do make the drawings and hole sizes available, for each basket we make, if you're curious.

I do think precision of the hole, though, is a big factor, at least as far as even-ness of the area punched through. I've looked at £2 baskets under a microscope, and their holes are both non-circular, and widely varying in size.


----------



## Nikko

You are absolutely right that to display it as a true Kv would not be useful - what you are displaying is Kv *1000, which is better.

I did mean the Kv of the baskets without any coffee. If you have the right rig it would be simple enough to measure but I do not think it can be modelled with any accuracy. I just think it might be interesting to know the significance of the basket resistance to that of the puck.


----------



## decent_espresso

Nikko said:


> You are absolutely right that to display it as a true Kv would not be useful - what you are displaying is Kv *1000, which is better.


 Is there measurement name for that? "milliKv" ?



Nikko said:


> I did mean the Kv of the baskets without any coffee. If you have the right rig it would be simple enough to measure but I do not think it can be modelled with any accuracy. I just think it might be interesting to know the significance of the basket resistance to that of the puck.


 Ah, I get it, that would be useful. We're currently measuring light passing through as a quality control test, using software John Weiss wrote for us. Similar idea.

-john


----------



## Nikko

I have never heard of milli Kv, but why not.

Actually, I misled you a little, it is a late Friday night here. The correct definition of Kv is the other way round to what you are doing, i.e. Kv = flow/ sqrt(dP). Your calculation is also indicative of resistance but the indication is in opposite direction to Kv, i.e. at constant P, Kv increases with increasing flow, your indicator decreases.


----------



## decent_espresso

Nikko said:


> I have never heard of milli Kv, but why not.
> 
> Actually, I misled you a little, it is a late Friday night here. The correct definition of Kv is the other way round to what you are doing, i.e. Kv = flow/ sqrt(dP). Your calculation is also indicative of resistance but the indication is in opposite direction to Kv, i.e. at constant P, Kv increases with increasing flow, your indicator decreases.


 Ah gotcha, reverse direction of the line, but perhaps easier to read in this context.

However: Jonathan Gagné is arguing elsewhere that this formula of mine is appropriate for turbulent flow, but that espresso is mostly laminar flow, and so this formula is not appropriate in our use case.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Raoul's master class on the Decent Espresso machine went on, despite the coronavirus, now remotely! Here he is with Ahmed Nazmi of the Cairo Coffee Collective.

See more photos at:

__
http://instagr.am/p/B-WGlw7nXZM/

The Institute for Coffee Excellence in Manilla, continues to do great work with Chief Caffeinator Raoul de Peralta and National Barista Champion (the Boss) Michael Harris Conlin .

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Nikko said:


> I have never heard of milli Kv, but why not.
> 
> Actually, I misled you a little, it is a late Friday night here. The correct definition of Kv is the other way round to what you are doing, i.e. Kv = flow/ sqrt(dP). Your calculation is also indicative of resistance but the indication is in opposite direction to Kv, i.e. at constant P, Kv increases with increasing flow, your indicator decreases.


 Based on Gagné's advice, I had gone back to resistance=pressure/flow, but this did not give us lines that remain flat when a "puck simulator" basket was used. That's a blind basket with a hole punched in it. If the Resistance calculation were correct, it would stay constant despite changing flow or pressure.

Damian, author of the DSV skin https://www.diy.brakel.com.au/dsx/ has run with this problem, and his final formula is currently:

It is basically R = P/F^2, with some offset, scaling and alignment to fit the screen

It looks like this
y = Resistance
$a = Pressure
$c = Flow rate

set y [expr {(((($a+0.00001) / ((($c+0.0001)*($c+0.0001))+($a*0.9))) - 2)*5)+11}]

I think the .00001 stuff is him worrying too much about floating point math, but otherwise, his resuls is impressive, with constant resistance across lots of flow/pressure changes:


----------



## Nikko

decent_espresso said:


> Based on Gagné's advice, I had gone back to resistance=pressure/flow, but this did not give us lines that remain flat when a "puck simulator" basket was used. That's a blind basket with a hole punched in it. If the Resistance calculation were correct, it would stay constant despite changing flow or pressure.
> 
> Damian, author of the DSV skin https://www.diy.brakel.com.au/dsx/ has run with this problem, and his final formula is currently:
> 
> It is basically R = P/F^2, with some offset, scaling and alignment to fit the screen
> 
> It looks like this
> y = Resistance
> $a = Pressure
> $c = Flow rate
> 
> set y [expr {(((($a+0.00001) / ((($c+0.0001)*($c+0.0001))+($a*0.9))) - 2)*5)+11}]
> 
> I think the .00001 stuff is him worrying too much about floating point math, but otherwise, his resuls is impressive, with constant resistance across lots of flow/pressure changes:
> 
> 
> View attachment 37515


 The resistance expression is derived from the affinity laws so good to see that practice follows theory.

Is the 0.0001 term on the denominator there to avoid the possibility of dividing by zero?


----------



## decent_espresso

Nikko said:


> Is the 0.0001 term on the denominator there to avoid the possibility of dividing by zero?


 Exactly.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Drop testing the DE1XL suitcase*

We've made new suitcase internals so that our larger DE1XL espresso machine, and all its parts, can fit inside.

We were worried that we'd risked the safety of the components, especially the ceramic parts, and so we dropped-tested the suitcase, with a machine and its parts, a full 11 times, to make sure the new foam help everything safely.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Robot-made mirrored front faces*

I've written before about how difficult it is to make perfect mirror panel front faces. We've previously had samples from 5 manufacturers, and settled on one for the past year.









They only were able to deliver 300 of the 550 panels we ordered for our DE1 v1.3 run. Small scratches from the manufacturing process cause little flaws, that mean we have to totally reject the part:
﻿
Instead of starting with perfect mirrors, as we do now, we're trying a new process, whereby we coat the panels with a PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) mirror coating, once all the cuts have been made. Our current manufacturer can't do that, so we're trialing 2 new producers. One sent us this video of their robot making our test run of 50 panels:






We'll shortly have these in our hands, and be able to see if this is a more promising approach to making this part.

We're also trying a new design, where we only mirror-plate the upward-facing lip. We'll make the rest of the panel brushed steel. The idea is to have an easier to maintain surface (brushed) with a mirror just where you need it (on the mirror looking into the bottom of the espresso shot).

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*The Decent Suitcase*

Two days ago, I mentioned something about a DE1XL suitcase, but I think lots of people don't realize:

Every Decent Espresso Machine comes in a custom made suitcase. The high density foam is die cut for each component.

This makes it easy for you to take your espresso machine with you. Also, if we ever need to pick up your machine and ship it back to our repair center, it is well protected.

It's a bit more expensive for us to make a high quality suitcase, than it is to use cardboard and styrofoam. However, I think it's much more ecological to make something permanent instead of disposable packaging.

In the past, the larger DE1XL model has not fit into the suitcase, and so we have shipped customers a DE1PRO, and (separately) a conversion kit. This meant it they had to convert their DE1XL back to a DE1PRO to transport it. That's not ideal.

With our v1.3 DE1XL model, we've figured out how to fit everything into our suitcase, but with a different arrangement, and totally different die-cut foam. We were very nervous that the more compact packing of a accessories might compromise their safety, which is why we did the 11 drop tests, which you can see in the recent video.

Now that the new foam design has been designed, we'll soon be able to make the v1.3 DE1XL model and ship it in its own custom suitcase.

-john

-john


----------



## filthynines

As somebody waiting for the DE1XL that is very good news. Were you holding off making the XLs until this was finalised?


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> As somebody waiting for the DE1XL that is very good news. Were you holding off making the XLs until this was finalised?


 Yes, exactly. I want to ship DE1XLs in a suitcase for v1.3, and not ask people (as we did for v1.1) to assemble it themselves.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

<img data-fileid="37632" data-ratio="74.90" width="1000" alt="doggy.thumb.jpg.9a466d3d3d2ea82c348ee8831a1028f1.jpg" data-src="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2020_04/doggy.thumb.jpg.9a466d3d3d2ea82c348ee8831a1028f1.jpg" src="https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

*Doggy in a cart*

Decent owner and small-roaster/entrepreneur Karl Vonmecklenburg http://bubblebeans.biz recently put a Decent Coffee Cart together https://decentespresso.com/coffeecart

However, as Decent is temporarily out of knockboxes, Karl has been quite creative about uses for the hole in the table, ready for that knockbox.

There's a beer tap, a dog, a vinyl DJ setup...

Quite a funny guy, this Karl. He is wonderfully not embarrassed to put his "bloops and blunders" online, where they make for a funny interlude.
https://www.bubblebeans.biz/post/bubble-beans-bloops-and-blunders

-john


----------



## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> Yes, exactly. I want to ship DE1XLs in a suitcase for v1.3, and not ask people (as we did for v1.1) to assemble it themselves.
> 
> -john


 Did I read somewhere that you're also waiting on some components to come in?


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> Did I read somewhere that you're also waiting on some components to come in?


 Yes, we're waiting for the legs and mirrored front faces to come in. The v1.3 DE1XL has a front panel pushbutton, for standby power, that the other models don't have.

But.. all should arrive about the same time, hopefully in a month.

-j


----------



## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> Yes, we're waiting for the legs and mirrored front faces to come in. The v1.3 DE1XL has a front panel pushbutton, for standby power, that the other models don't have.
> 
> But.. all should arrive about the same time, hopefully in a month.
> 
> -j


 Thanks John. Have a good weekend!


----------



## decent_espresso

*53mm espresso in a 58mm machine*

In John Weiss' review of the DE1+ on Home Barista https://www.home-barista.com/reviews/decent-espresso-de1-review-t57610.html he wrote about how his 53mm La Spaziale espresso machine, made thicker espressos than the Decent. The clarity of flavor was less, but Weiss did like the "La Spaz's" mouthfeel for certain kinds of beans.​
A lot of work has gone on since that review, in the Decent community, to try to understand mouthfeel. A lot of people believe that a spacer behind the shower screen, pushing down on the coffee puck, increases drink thickness, i.e. "mouthfeel"​
However, there's still another variable to consider. The "La Spaz", like many classic Italian espresso machines (such as Dalla Corte's current machines, like the "Mina") use 53mm baskets instead of the (more common) 58mm basket.​
However, the somewhat narrower basket causes the puck to be thicker, which likely has an effect on the drink. Clive Coffee compares them here: https://clivecoffee.com/blogs/learn/53mm-vs-58mm-portafilters​
So... I was wondering... can we (Decent Espresso) make a 53mm basket that fits into a 58mm standard portafilter? Ben Champion drew up the idea, and you can see that in the bottom of the photo attached.​
This basket would work in all bottomless portafilters, in all machines, that follow the 58mm standard. Ie, all E61, La Marzocco, Nuova Simonelli, etc.... ie, most good espresso machines!​
As part of thinking about this, we're making some prototype 53mm Decent Espresso v2 tampers.​
​
*YOUR OPINION WANTED*​
Would you be interested in such a basket?​
What do you think of this idea?​
Your feedback will give us an idea as to whether this project (a new basket!) is worth our pursuing.​
-john​


----------



## Nikko

It is a good idea. The diameter of the basket undoubtedly plays a role but comparison testing is difficult due to the difficulty of "standardising" all the other variables across several machines. Having a 53mm basket that fits s 58mm holder would enable the comparison of two baskets.

Now, a variable diameter basket - that would be something


----------



## filthynines

Nikko said:


> It is a good idea. The diameter of the basket undoubtedly plays a role but comparison testing is difficult due to the difficulty of "standardising" all the other variables across several machines. Having a 53mm basket that fits s 58mm holder would enable the comparison of two baskets.
> 
> Now, a variable diameter basket - that would be something


 Isn't the Decent machine the ideal machine for comparison purposes? Control every variable on that machine other than the basket, and therefore establishing whether or not the basket alone makes a difference?


----------



## malling

I did test a 53mm vs a 58 years back and can say my findings where less clarity and complexity on the 53mm, but it's hard to say if the effect where down to basket or machine differences or a combination, but I did find the same trend both on La Spaziale and Dalla Corte.

Whether that is important is debatable as the aforementioned machines comes with a smaller basket, so it's more something to keep in mind when purchasing a machine.

However I do think the Mina has the ability to use 58mm, I also had modded my Dalla Corte to take a 58mm basket, but never used it as I did not find it to work very well with it.


----------



## decent_espresso

malling said:


> I did test a 53mm vs a 58 years back and can say my findings where less clarity and complexity on the 53mm, but it's hard to say if the effect where down to basket or machine differences or a combination, but I did find the same trend both on La Spaziale and Dalla Corte.
> 
> Whether that is important is debatable as the aforementioned machines comes with a smaller basket, so it's more something to keep in mind when purchasing a machine.
> 
> However I do think the Mina has the ability to use 58mm, I also had modded my Dalla Corte to take a 58mm basket, but never used it as I did not find it to work very well with it.


 Thanks for the info.

My hunch is that you'll trade clarify for mouthfeel. Rao (and others) argue that those two are at opposites poles, and you can't have both. Hoffmann has really liked paper-filtered espresso for its clarity.

But if you like medium to dark roasts, and want syrupy thick shots, I'd like to make sure my espresso machine can deliver that.

I did notice that the Mina offered a 58mm adapter kit, but it's hard to get any info as to whether the shots are any better afterwards.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*USA shipping challenges during coronavirus *

Last tuesday, we were told that because there were virtually no consumer airplane flights between Hong Kong and the USA, that there would be no more air mail. We ship everything except our espresso machines via air mail, so that was a bit annoying.

Fortunately, UPS is still running, as they have their own airplanes. However, their prices are way up, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to sent a USD$49 funnel via UPS for USD$50 in shipping costs.

We held tight for 4 days, hoping the situation would improve. It did not. The same thing has just occured with Canada.

As Bugs and I are "trapped' in California at the moment, we decided on a work-around:
- every 2 days, all the orders to the USA go into a big box
- and that big box is 2-day UPSed to me in California
- I'll then collect the box, use stamps.com to prepay the stamps, labels each package, and then drop it all off at the local USPS (which remains open)
- this does mean that our tracking info is going to be incorrect
- but with stamps.com I can send these packages "Tracked", so if anyone asks, we can find out where their package is.
- We're going to do this for the foreseable future, as I don't think Hong Kong/USA consumer airline flights are going to resume anytime soon.
- Overall, this should cause only maybe a 1 day delay in getting orders to you, as what we're doing is more or less identical to what HK Post does (fly the packages to the USA, then hand off to USPS)
- Next week, we're expecting our new pour-over baskets to arrive, along with puck simulators, double spouted portafilters, and espresso glassware. Knockboxes and tamping cradles should arrive the week after.

Lots of stuff we ordered way back when has been delayed due to China's early shutdown, and now things are starting to come in.

Thankfully, after a scary rise in cases in Hong Kong in mid-march, it seems to be under control again, so Decent Espresso Hong Kong is able to continue to operate as normal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Hong_Kong

﻿Thanks for being patient!

-john


----------



## -Mac

I thought I'd read that Perger said mouthfeel was about levels of TDS. Did the Decent group measure the diff between the La Spaz TDS and the Decent TDS?


----------



## decent_espresso

-Mac said:


> I thought I'd read that Perger said mouthfeel was about levels of TDS. Did the Decent group measure the diff between the La Spaz TDS and the Decent TDS?


 Yes, people have measured it, and they feel that TDS is not accurately giving them a number that reflects the mouthfeel they feel.


----------



## MWJB

decent_espresso said:


> Yes, people have measured it, and they feel that TDS is not accurately giving them a number that reflects the mouthfeel they feel.


 Mouthfeel is largely down to non-dissolved solids, TDS measurement excludes non-dissolved solids.


----------



## -Mac

Sorry, yes, non-dissolved is what I meant. Is there a way to measure those?


----------



## MWJB

-Mac said:


> Sorry, yes, non-dissolved is what I meant. Is there a way to measure those?


 Not easily, dehydration & then subtract TDS from total solids?


----------



## -Mac

MWJB said:


> Not easily, dehydration & then subtract TDS from total solids?


 That'd be interesting to see the results of.


----------



## decent_espresso

MWJB said:


> Mouthfeel is largely down to non-dissolved solids, TDS measurement excludes non-dissolved solids.


 Yes, that's what John Weiss has written too.

Though I feel that the oil/water suspension viscosity likely comes into play. For instance, the more you beat a mayonaisse, the thicker it gets, despite the contents remaining unchanged. I'd think the same thing would be relevant in espresso.


----------



## -Mac

Just adding air, then.


----------



## MWJB

decent_espresso said:


> Yes, that's what John Weiss has written too.
> 
> Though I feel that the oil/water suspension viscosity likely comes into play. For instance, the more you beat a mayonaisse, the thicker it gets, despite the contents remaining unchanged. I'd think the same thing would be relevant in espresso.


 I think the oils/lipids (which are counted as NDS, along with CO2) come out pretty quickly, so they're mostly out pretty early on & why longer shots get thinner in mouthfeel.


----------



## MWJB

-Mac said:


> Just adding air, then.


 Higher concentration of fats in shorter shots, maybe same is true for the C02 (rather than air)?


----------



## decent_espresso

MWJB said:


> Higher concentration of fats in shorter shots, maybe same is true for the C02 (rather than air)?


 And higher pressure during shorter shots too, so a thicker emulsion.

It does seem that those pursuing super-thick mouthfeel, are also fans of ristretto.


----------



## -Mac

Or is it as simple as less water content, period?


----------



## decent_espresso

-Mac said:


> Or is it as simple as less water content, period?


 Some people are making very high TDS espresso shots with the Decent, as high as 13%, and still claiming that mouthfeel is superior.

It's been a frustrating exercise, as nobody has found an objective measurement that proves their subjective mouthfeel.

But packing the shower screen down on the puck does seem to increase mouthfeel, which some people have done with an optional spacer.


----------



## -Mac

I bet there's some magical ratio at a particular volume. Sometimes in life 1/2 doesn't equal five tenths.


----------



## MWJB

decent_espresso said:


> Some people are making very high TDS espresso shots with the Decent, as high as 13%, and still claiming that mouthfeel is superior.
> 
> It's been a frustrating exercise, as nobody has found an objective measurement that proves their subjective mouthfeel.
> 
> But packing the shower screen down on the puck does seem to increase mouthfeel, which some people have done with an optional spacer.


 Surely 13%TDS is a fairly short shot (less water)?


----------



## decent_espresso

Dan Counsell posted this video of his daily routine. He's counter-sunk his DE1XL into a marble countertop (!!) uses a Niche grinder, a Weber bean counter and more.

A bit over the top, but this will give you an idea of what best-practices in coffee preparation looks like.






-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We'll be finally shipping these 3 new-the-universe baskets on Tuesday.

- Make pour overs on your espresso machine with the shower basket

- Two kinds of "puck simulators" both for testing machines but also for making pressurized infusions from things besides coffee.

https://decentespresso.com/basket

-john


----------



## filthynines

Has there been a delay shipping machines this week? The queue seems to have moved fairly slowly. Is that a symptom of the shipping difficulties, the XL parts, or other factors? I'm mindful of the fact that it'll be at least a further month before the XL machines go out, but it's nice to see that things are moving along ok.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> Has there been a delay shipping machines this week? The queue seems to have moved fairly slowly. Is that a symptom of the shipping difficulties, the XL parts, or other factors? I'm mindful of the fact that it'll be at least a further month before the XL machines go out, but it's nice to see that things are moving along ok.


 Actually, number of machines shipped last week was quite good.

Here's our daily number of machines shipped (28 in 6 working days), direct from our UPS log:









The issue for you is possibly:



that we build all of one voltage in a batch, and we've done 2x 110V batches


we just switched from a 20 machine batch in 5 days, to a 30 machine batch in 7 days. Trialing a new approach: trying to get that down to 30 machines/5 days.


Today and tomorrow (thursday/friday) are Easter holidays, so all my staff have a 4 day holiday.


The current batch is all 220V x DE1PRO (30pcs)


We've focussed on DE1PRO, and not DE1+, as 80% of our orders are for that model


We don't have the XL v1.3 parts yet, but should in a week or two


Does that help answer your questions?

Also note that sales are currently outpacing our ability to make machines. We sold 31 machines in that same period of the last 6 working days, so our overall queue got 3 orders longer. Here is the last 6 days of DE1 sales:


----------



## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> Actually, number of machines shipped last week was quite good.
> 
> Here's our daily number of machines shipped (28 in 6 working days), direct from our UPS log:
> 
> The issue for you is possibly:
> 
> 
> 
> that we build all of one voltage in a batch, and we've done 2x 110V batches
> 
> 
> we just switched from a 20 machine batch in 5 days, to a 30 machine batch in 7 days. Trialing a new approach: trying to get that down to 30 machines/5 days.
> 
> 
> Today and tomorrow (thursday/friday) are Easter holidays, so all my staff have a 4 day holiday.
> 
> 
> The current batch is all 220V x DE1PRO (30pcs)
> 
> 
> We've focussed on DE1PRO, and not DE1+, as 80% of our orders are for that model
> 
> 
> We don't have the XL v1.3 parts yet, but should in a week or two
> 
> 
> Does that help answer your questions?


 Thanks for the detailed info, John. It does answer my questions. I think my perception was skewed a bit by the regularity with which I've looked at the queue (far too often to be healthy - I blame the lockdown), and a few other things which I'm now doubting whether my brain absorbed the info properly and so won't trouble you with.

In short: it was useful to see exactly what's going on at the moment. Thank you for taking the time, and I wish your staff a relaxing break, and I hope that you get to take some downtime too.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> Thank you for taking the time, and I wish your staff a relaxing break, and I hope that you get to take some downtime too.


 Since you asked...about our relaxing break...

Bugs, Ben and I are currently working on organizing the 288 different parts that go into making a DE1, so that



all parts, for all models, really are buyable on the web site


all parts are cleanly organized hierarchically by assembly, on the web site for you to browse. With a photo on a white background, taken in a light box, for each part.


and the hierarchy is carried through from the CAD drawings that we make available on Grabcad.com


All historical DE1 models are also represented here (a bit of forensics)


This works in reverse, starting with Quickbooks, finding every part we ever bought at quantity, and what happened to it. That way, we can be assured that we haven't missed anything


This year, the Hong Kong government auditor gave us notice that he'd be spot-checking our parts inventory, so that's the impetus to finally "get our act together" and get really organized. Every machine sold deducts from 288 different inventory counts.


This is a massive undertaking, but we're making good progress.

Every part has a very extensive multi-tabbed form, with technical information, discussion, history, etc....

Not super sexy, but needed in order to make the whole enterprise runs smoothly.

-john


----------



## Espresso_noob

decent_espresso said:


> The issue for you is possibly:
> 
> 
> 
> that we build all of one voltage in a batch, and we've done 2x 110V batches
> 
> 
> we just switched from a 20 machine batch in 5 days, to a 30 machine batch in 7 days. Trialing a new approach: trying to get that down to 30 machines/5 days.
> 
> 
> Today and tomorrow (thursday/friday) are Easter holidays, so all my staff have a 4 day holiday.
> 
> 
> The current batch is all 220V x DE1PRO (30pcs)
> 
> 
> We've focussed on DE1PRO, and not DE1+, as 80% of our orders are for that model
> 
> 
> We don't have the XL v1.3 parts yet, but should in a week or two


 Hi,

So if I ordered a DE1+ in 220V my place in the queue has no meaning? Can you predict when you will produce/ship a batch of DE1+ 220V?


----------



## Planter

Espresso_noob said:


> Hi,
> So if I ordered a DE1+ in 220V my place in the queue has no meaning?


What makes you say that?

Also, welcome to the forum 

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


----------



## filthynines

Planter said:


> What makes you say that?


 I think he's right in a way. It seems the queue isn't going down in a linear fashion: if every odd number is a DE1PRO and every even number is a DE1XL (For example), then numbers 2, 4, 6, 8 etc are going to be leapfrogged because of the batching taking place (with obvious benefits).

However, when I ordered it was clear nothing would be dispatched before 1st May, so for my order (can't speak for anybody else) if my current #58 doesn't mean that the 58th machine out of the door will be mine then that isn't too troublesome. Unless we get to the beginning of June and then I might be a tad more impatient.


----------



## Planter

I wasn't arguing the point with him. I hadn't looked at the decent list as I'm not on it. But was curious as to the reasons. You've answered and it makes sense, so I can see his point.

My eye roll statement was more the fact its his first post on the forum. Some people join to troll. Rather than just saying a quick hello and introduction first, normally tells the genuine from the not so.

I'm sure you'll have yours before June, which did you go for?

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


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## filthynines

Planter said:


> I wasn't arguing the point with him. I hadn't looked at the decent list as I'm not on it. But was curious as to the reasons. You've answered and it makes sense, so I can see his point.
> 
> My eye roll statement was more the fact its his first post on the forum. Some people join to troll. Rather than just saying a quick hello and introduction first, normally tells the genuine from the not so.
> 
> I'm sure you'll have yours before June, which did you go for?
> 
> Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


 Fair enough - sorry for mis-judging the tone. The eye roll I agree on!

I've gone for the XL, because I have plans to set it up at home and then a) roll it to the roastery (suitcase FTW!) and b) roll it to markets/events etc and set it up on one of the table tops that John and the team designed to fit in an Ikea table. I am very excited, and if I get while we're still all locked down it will eases the annoyance with world events a fair bit!

At the moment my hobby is re-reading this entire thread. It's been very interesting for a number of reasons.


----------



## Planter

filthynines said:


> I think he's right in a way. It seems the queue isn't going down in a linear fashion: if every odd number is a DE1PRO and every even number is a DE1XL (For example), then numbers 2, 4, 6, 8 etc are going to be leapfrogged because of the batching taking place (with obvious benefits).
> However, when I ordered it was clear nothing would be dispatched before 1st May, so for my order (can't speak for anybody else) if my current #58 doesn't mean that the 58th machine out of the door will be mine then that isn't too troublesome. Unless we get to the beginning of June and then I might be a tad more impatient.


Reading what you're saying, as an added thought, do you think it would make more sense to have separate lists for each machine and then anticipated dates of the next production run and of how many with each list.

For example

De1+ 
next run 1st May. 30 lots. 
Then, 15th May (approx assuming all others on target) 30 lots.

De1xl next run 15th April. 25 lots.
Then, 7th May (approx assuming all others on target. 30 lots.

Etc etc

Kind of shows where you are in your list and when yours may come in a more simplified manner with some future expectations. Albeit, can change.

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


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## filthynines

I think that would be a better system. The current queue is apt to cause disappointment if that batching isn't understood.


----------



## Nikko

decent_espresso said:


> This year, the Hong Kong government auditor gave us notice that he'd be spot-checking our parts inventory, so that's the impetus to finally "get our act together" and get really organized. Every machine sold deducts from 288 different inventory counts.


 Not directly relevant but would be interested to learn what is the rational for a government inspector checking parts inventory


----------



## decent_espresso

Planter said:


> Reading what you're saying, as an added thought, do you think it would make more sense to have separate lists for each machine and then anticipated dates of the next production run and of how many with each list.


 Trouble is, I can't forecast when the all the DE1+ 220V runs in the future will be, as it depends on future orders.

We generally wait until we get 20 orders of a model, and then do that all of that. So, if you're the 20th person to buy a DE1+, then you've just caused the next DE1+ batch to occur.

Look at the queue, you'll see that we don't yet have a full run of DE1+ in a particular voltage, to do.

We just this week switched to 30 machines per run, to get a higher per-machine build time efficiency.

We've found that mixing models or voltages in a run causes WAY more problems. Pumps, heates, AC PCB, all are voltage dependent, and look virtually identical. People have to be very careful when building, to use the right part on the right machine.

That being said, we'll hopefully soon have less than 30 DE1PRO models to build, and then we'll do a run.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Nikko said:


> Not directly relevant but would be interested to learn what is the rationale for a government inspector checking parts inventory


 Hong Kong is very much interested in its "brand", ie how it is seen in the world, and how well run the companies are that it governs. The government has a yearly audit requirement, and each year, the auditor asks for different things.

But here's the rub: the HK audit is not *just* a financial audit, it's *an audit of how your entire company is run*.

Each year (because we're growing) the audit gets more thorough, and each year, the auditor tells us what he expects from us the next year. We were told last year, that if we grew, we'd be at the stage now where we need to have proper controls for:



theft


quantity control failure


breakage


repair parts


misplaced.


We don't have all that in place yet.

HK wants its companies to be well run, so that they're profitable, pay their taxes, and reflect well on HK's global image.

The audit, while independent and stringent, is not confrontational. When we "fail" there are multiple chances to fix things. Each year, we typically fail something. This year, the audit was two weeks ago, and we passed the inventory audit for accessories, but we failed the audit for espresso machine parts. But, instead of fining us, they gave us a 1 month reprieve, and they're coming back to re-test.

If we fail that, we'll get a written notice of failure, and be expected to pass next year, or then there's the chance of being fined.

In future years, we've already been told that as we put processes in place, the audit will move to education of those processes, and thereafter: controls on those processes.

Two years ago, for instance, they told us we had to save every physical receipt of a delivery, and check that against our orders. Due to that process change, we found a few orders that year that had never been delivered. And we found an employee who was doing something dodgy, and they were fired.

This is all good stuff, and a huge and welcome change from running a company in the USA, where the government feels menacing and sometimes predatory.

And also quite amazing as this is all VERY British, if the civil service got to run things, without democracy, without politicians, and with no historical precedents impeding them. Those conditions naturally never occuring in the UK itself.

"Yes, Minister" was just so spot on.

-john


----------



## Planter

decent_espresso said:


> Trouble is, I can't forecast when the all the DE1+ 220V runs in the future will be, as it depends on future orders.
> We generally wait until we get 20 orders of a model, and then do that all of that. So, if you're the 20th person to buy a DE1+, then you've just caused the next DE1+ batch to occur.
> Look at the queue, you'll see that we don't yet have a full run of DE1+ in a particular voltage, to do.
> We just this week switched to 30 machines per run, to get a higher per-machine build time efficiency.
> We've found that mixing models or voltages in a run causes WAY more problems. Pumps, heates, AC PCB, all are voltage dependent, and look virtually identical. People have to be very careful when building, to use the right part on the right machine.
> That being said, we'll hopefully soon have less than 30 DE1PRO models to build, and then we'll do a run.
> -john
> 
> <img alt="215042556_ScreenShot2020-04-11at10_13_38AM.thumb.jpg.055ad044b224d3925a3add1dfad9b195.jpg" data-fileid="37937" data-src="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2020_04/215042556_ScreenShot2020-04-11at10_13_38AM.thumb.jpg.055ad044b224d3925a3add1dfad9b195.jpg" src="https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">


That makes total sense and can see why you're doing it the way you are.

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


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## decent_espresso

*
New plumbing kits
*

The plumbing kits are currently the only product we have built for us. We designed them, and hand-built the first 500. And thereafter, I wanted us to learn what it took to have someone else make something for us.

The biggest thing you lose when you outsource your manufacturing, is the feedback cycle from your factory back to your engineers. Problems noticed at the factory don't necessarily get brought back to the designers.

Also, if a problem during manufacturing is noticed, since the outsourced factory typically has all their staff scheduled to build their thing in a few days and then move on, there is no time to fix the problem on-the-fly.

With a much smaller staff, like we have for building our espresso machines, problems get fixed right away. My staff finds something else to work on, while the engineers and designers descend on the new problem and fix it right away.

With the plumbing kits we built lsat time, there was a problem with packaging. The on/off switch would sometimes get damaged in shipping. As an emergency measure, we (Decent) hade small rectangles of foam mage, opened up each box we'd received, and fitting them over each end of the box. Not very ecological, time consuming, and expensive.

And separately, in tech support we found that the mounting hardware we'd designed worked well for side mounting on walls, but not well at all for coffee carts, where mounting space is really limited. So, we designed a new bracket, mounting on the bottom (top right of the photo) and kept the bracket too, since it works well for side-mounting situations (such as behind the DE1).

For this 2nd run of the plumbing kits time, my engineer Johnny designed a bespoke cardboard box that would get rid of the need for the styrofoam. He did this the old fashioned way, with scissors. When the thing worked well, he drew it up on a computer, and we're paying for die cut boxes now.

And finally, as we're trying hard to make espresso machines faster, we're also focussing on outsourcing tasks that can be done without compromising quality. One of these, is to have all the tubing and fittings for the two plumbing kits (pressurized and not) to be packaged at the factory, when they're made. This requires a bit more supply-chain work, but is well worth doing.

I've written before that the catering kit for this second run, are being improved. A new pump is being used that is 12db quieter, and twice as fast (now 2 liters/minute).

This isn't sexy stuff, but it needs to be done right.

-john


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## filthynines

John, do you know if the Felicita Bluetooth scale is compatible with Decent machines for the purpose of gravimetric shots?


----------



## filthynines

filthynines said:


> John, do you know if the Felicita Bluetooth scale is compatible with Decent machines for the purpose of gravimetric shots?


 I think I've just found the answer to my own question: you're vehemently against compatibility.


----------



## Michael87

I definitely can't afford this right now but am enjoying learning about how it works and manufacturing in this thread. Maybe in five years or so...


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> I think I've just found the answer to my own question: you're vehemently against compatibility.


 Not quite my position, no.

I'm vehemently against compatibility with Acaia, or rather, Acaia is vehemently against having an open API. To be compatibly with Acaia on Android, would require signing their legal agreements and paying them royalties. No, won't do that.

As to Felicita, I am vehemently against supporting companies that blatantly copy others. See video below from Hoffmann for why.

As to compatibility, *I am happy to support ANY OPEN API 0.1G SCALE. *

I support the Atomax Skale https://skale.cc/en/ and if other 0.1g, open API scales appear on the market, I will support them.

I do not know of any others on the market.

-john


----------



## filthynines

> 8 minutes ago, decent_espresso said:
> 
> Not quite my position, no.
> 
> I'm vehemently against compatibility with Acaia, or rather, Acaia is vehemently against having an open API. To be compatibly with Acaia on Android, would require signing their legal agreements and paying them royalties. No, won't do that.
> 
> As to Felicita, I am vehemently against supporting companies that blatantly copy others. See video below from Hoffmann for why.
> 
> As to compatibility, *I am happy to support ANY OPEN API 0.1G SCALE. *
> 
> I support the Atomax Skale https://skale.cc/en/ and if other 0.1g, open API scales appear on the market, I will support them.
> 
> I do not know of any others on the market.
> 
> -john


 So, then, are Decent machines compatible with Felicita scales? By implication I think you're saying they're not open API (having ripped off another brand which was not API) and therefore no?


----------



## catpuccino

filthynines said:


> So, then, are Decent machines compatible with Felicita scales? By implication I think you're saying they're not open API (having ripped off another brand which was not API) and therefore no?


 They're not compatible, no. Reverse engineering something like the Acaia API is fairly trivial but messy (e.g. https://pakoquijano.github.io/Acaia_Scale_Web/scale.js) and wouldn't make for a particularly robust integration.


----------



## decent_espresso

catpuccino said:


> They're not compatible, no. Reverse engineering something like the Acaia API is fairly trivial but messy (e.g. https://pakoquijano.github.io/Acaia_Scale_Web/scale.js) and wouldn't make for a particularly robust integration.


 I actually did that some time ago for the launch of this product below (the Decent Doser) which worked with the Acaia Pearl, and then Acaia changed the API, didn't publish the new one, nor any info on how to maintain compatibility. I lost a ton of money and time, and Acaia was deaf to any developer problems for 2 years. Then they asked me to pay royalties and sign paperwork to work with them. So, no thanks.

Acaia makes an excellent scale, and they're welcome to run their business as they see fit. Certainly, they've been quite successful without me. 

For me, Felicita is a Acaia knock-off. I don't think that's cool, and I won't support them.

Atomax are Taiwanese pour-over fans, and made their scale because of the problems with Acaia. They're lovely people, their product is well engineered, and I'm happy to support them.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Espresso_noob said:


> Hi,
> 
> So if I ordered a DE1+ in 220V my place in the queue has no meaning? Can you predict when you will produce/ship a batch of DE1+ 220V?


 Good news for you. This from our Decent factory chat room:









FYI Hannifa is the factory lead, and Mirjam runs sales and tech support, and thus delegates what machines get made, when.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*DE1XL v1.3 black and white*

Here are shorts pans of the new v1.3 DE1XL Decent Espresso Machine. You can compare the black and white models, and get a feel for the size, shape and proportion of this machine. https://decentespresso.com/de1xl

Joao and I are working on a set of short films showing each different Decent model.

-john


----------



## filthynines

> 20 minutes ago, decent_espresso said:


 A little while ago it was confirmed that v1.3 would not have a conversion kit available. Has that now been reversed, because that link appears to have the XL kit available for v1.3?


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> A little while ago it was confirmed that v1.3 would not have a conversion kit available. Has that now been reversed, because that link appears to have the XL kit available for v1.3?


 Indeed, it has, as there were a lot of request for it.

However, if you do the v1.3 upgrade yourself, you won't then have the front-panel standby power switch, as that's not on the other models. It requires a slightly different chassis.

Also, the foam they'll receive for their suitcase will be for the DE1PRO/DE1+ model, not for the DE1XL.

So, I still much prefer people wait just a few more weeks, and then we can ship them a nicely finalized DE1XL model, with the right foam, and standby switch.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Coping with the end of global air mail*

This week's Decent Espresso orders to the USA were sent by me, from my house in California. Usually, everything is sent directly from our HQ in Hong Kong.

My label printer, whose usual purpose in life is printing labels for homemade hooch, got repurposed into a bulk mailing demon.

This will be our routine until air mail services resume. Decent employees in Australia, *Germany (for orders to the EU and UK) *and Canada will be doing the same thing, for orders sent to their parts of the world.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Professor Shin Tells You More*

Here is part two of Professor Shin's extensive presentation on the Decent Espresso machines.

As always, the style is very much Korean Television.

This video goes into more advanced topics.

Timeline:
00:06 Profile Sharing
00:25 User's Forum
01:05 Blooming Espresso
02:33 How to build higher pressure
02:44 It's hard to drop the temperature
03:08 For Latte art
03:21 Steam
04:21 Flush
04:43 Other
05:02 Q&A

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New Decent Factory*

The Decent Espresso factory is currently two large rooms of 3000sq feet (300 m2), and we're a bit tight for space.

Luckily our neighbor with 6000 sq feet (600 m2), on the other side of our long wall, has moved out. So... we've remodeled it, cut holes in the walls to join the units, and in a few weeks we're moving in.

This will allow us to more than double our orders for parts, which in turn will mean fewer parts shortages, and better quality control. We're planning for 2000 machines produced each year, up from the 780 machines we produced last year.

For the time being, we're keeping all 3 rooms, which is more space than we need, because if we don't, we're unsure when all 3 adjacent rooms will be available together again.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*UPS & Lithium Batteries*

Our Decent Espresso Machines have always included an Android tablet in the box, that has a Lithium battery in it. We've never known how to label this, because if we declare the box as having a "flammable battery" then UPS won't ship it at all, when we use their app. But, this has never been an issue, until this week.

6 espresso machines, bound for the USA, were sent back to us last week, because of "safety compliance".

It turns out that UPS just wanted us to put a sticker on the box.

We didn't have the stickers, and didn't want to delay things, so we laser-printed a sticker. Our laser printer didn't do color, so we used a red marker to put the "red warning lines" around the outside of the package.

It looks a bit DIY, but it worked!

That was fine for a week.

Yesterday, 4 boxes were rejected because they didn't like the DIY red marker lines. Sigh.

We found someone in Hong Kong who could make new labels for us within 24 hours, that are "standard". And now we're shipping again.

Apparently, because there are fewer planes flying, UPS is being stricter about labelling standards. I don't understand how those two sentences logically connect, but that's how it is now.

The good news, is that apparently all we need to do, to send tablets via UPS, is put a sticker on the box. Easy!

We're confirming today that our "test shipment" of a DE1 with the new labels is being delivered, and then we'll re-send the 5 espresso machines that were rejected, as well as several espresso machines that were waiting on getting this sorted out.

-john


----------



## Squidgyblack

decent_espresso said:


> Apparently, because there are fewer planes flying, UPS is being stricter about labelling standards. I don't understand how those two sentences logically connect, but that's how it is now.


 As someone who works in an industry that heavily deals with QA teams, I think the link between the two is because there's less cargo flights there's more time for them to go through inspections and as a result they're starting to flag a lot more than they usually would!


----------



## decent_espresso

Squidgyblack said:


> As someone who works in an industry that heavily deals with QA teams, I think the link between the two is because there's less cargo flights there's more time for them to go through inspections and as a result they're starting to flag a lot more than they usually would!


 ah ha!

Our test customer just received his machine a few minutes ago (box a little battered!) and so we're off and running again.


----------



## SebO

decent_espresso said:


> ah ha!
> 
> Our test customer just received his machine a few minutes ago (box a little battered!) and so we're off and running again.
> 
> View attachment 38516


 So you will start shipping again soon?

best Regards


----------



## filthynines

I emailed Mirjam today and she sent me the following prompt and helpful - if disappointing - reply to my question of whether the new date in my order details in my account (15th June 2020) was accurate:

"The back on stock date under machines is an artificial date, since we're not able to display an individual date to everyone. It serves merely to make sure not all the machines are shown to our boxers as "to ship today" when we do not have any machines available. The 8-week estimate for new buyers of a machine is way more accurate for PRO and PLUS machines.

In the case of DE1XL machines, we're still waiting for the last parts to arrive and can only ship once we receive them. They just did the purchase order for the XL foam for the suitcase, so we should be able to ship in June."

After thinking about this quite a lot this afternoon, I have to say I am disappointed not only by the delay (woe is me - another month before I get the shiny toy!), but also at the feeling that I didn't quite have the full picture when I placed my order. My order was precipitated by John's post on 28th February, which I took to mean that there is likely to be a COVID-induced future parts shortage once the remaining 375 in the current batch are sold. That doesn't seem too unreasonable: I ordered on 3rd March, I entered the queue at about #123, and at 20 machines a week the eight-week lead time to 1st May 2020 sounded about right. However, it now appears that not all parts were already in Hong Kong, and specifically the DE1XL parts, because they're still not there. v1.3 was said to be "available" on 17th February, but I'm now not sure that is right for all models.

What practical difference would this have made if it had been said "We're waiting for a handful of the parts for the XL to come in"? None at all - I admit that. I would have still ordered, because the plan was to have the machine ready for the Birmingham Coffee Festival. Then COVID would have knocked everything about anyway, and the delay would have still occurred. However, I would have known that once COVID hit I was due an additional wait because the parts would take ages to arrive, and I would have told my chimp brain to relax. Instead, until it was publicly stated a couple of weeks ago that the XL legs and foam weren't yet in, I had no idea that COVID had any impact upon manufacture time, since my understanding had been that HK has apparently managed to keep moving throughout. That had the result that my expectation had been, until very recently, that there might be a little slippage from 1st May 2020. Now that has shifted significantly to "should be able to ship in June".

Others will tell me if I'm being unfair, but I think this is a communication breakdown. That post on 28th Feb 2020 should have been followed by a more recent "Oh shit, now that the world is in general lockdown we're not just worried about lead-times for the next batch of Decent machines, but the current batch too" post. It would have managed my expectations a lot better. I might have missed or misconstrued something obvious to others, in which case I'll say mea culpa. But I've read this thread pretty closely over the past couple of weeks.

It's not the end of the world, I know this. To think I might be a couple of weeks away from getting something I'm very excited about, but to be actually about six weeks away, is pretty disappointing, even to a grown adult.

TL;DR: I mistakenly thought my machine was COVID-proof.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> Others will tell me if I'm being unfair, but I think this is a communication breakdown. That post on 28th Feb 2020 should have been followed by a more recent "Oh shit, now that the world is in general lockdown we're not just worried about lead-times for the next batch of Decent machines, but the current batch too" post. It would have managed my expectations a lot better. I might have missed or misconstrued something obvious to others, in which case I'll say mea culpa. But I've read this thread pretty closely over the past couple of weeks


 The problem we're having with parts that are being made now is much poorer quality than usual. Chinese factories are working 7 days a week to make up the shortfall, people are rushed, and product quality is suffering.

You're right, I should have posted an update on the DE1XL missing parts caused by this.

The DE1XL delay is caused by the factory making the legs, making stuff that we won't accept.

Some parts have now stripped and been re-painted 4 times (!!!) and each time, we pass only maybe 10% of the batch.

You can see the thick coat of paint, for example, here on this group head cover:

















Unlike companies based in the West, who don't see the defects until the parts arrive on the boat, we are based in Hong Kong, and we visit the supplier in China, before they ship to us. This allows us to refuse to accept parts that aren't up to snuff.

Below are pictures of the paint problems we're battling with at the moment on the DE1XL. They'll get solved, but it's taking multiple visits and extra weeks.

I won't make espresso machines, at the high price we're charging, unless I can get the quality to be where I want it.

Sorry to bring bad news.

Coronavirus has not just introduced delays, but messed with global shipping, and is also causing lots of other changes in the world. I'm trying to keep going, at our previous standards, but it's a slog.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

SebO said:


> So you will start shipping again soon?
> best Regards


 Yes, there was only a few days UPS delay due to the battery labelling issue. All solved now.

-john


----------



## filthynines

Hi John

Thanks for such a prompt reply. Your QC is exceptional and is, of course, a huge part of why we all have plumped for a Decent machine. I wouldn't have it any other way.

My complaint is slightly different to what I think you've taken from my ramblings (which is my fault), because you've said:



decent_espresso said:


> You're right, I should have posted an update on the DE1XL missing parts caused by this.


 My complaint was more that my understanding when you announced that v1.3 was available was that you were ready to manufacture all of your models as version v1.3 as at that date.

Filling in the gaps after the fact, once you said on 27th Feb "order now if you want one in the next several months because we've sold 125 out of the 500 machines we anticipated during this period, and COVID will now cause huge issues", I took that to mean that you had parts to make all v1.3 machines of that batch, but anything after that 500 is going to be subject to massive delay. Now, if you haven't shipped any DE1XL v1.3 since v1.3 was announced (and I don't know this), then to say v1.3 is available isn't quite right and still isn't correct as of today. I would have liked to have known that at that time. You would have still had my money, and as soon as the world went crazy I would have automatically thought "Well there goes May", instead of thinking "Wow, it's really fortunate Hong Kong hasn't really been affected!" Does that make sense?

Again, it's a case of management of expectations not of any practical difference whatsoever. All of the external stuff is clearly out of your control and you have my sympathies and well wishes for all of that. It's just come as a surprise to me more recently that it appears it was not possible for you to build a v1.3 DE1XL machine at the time when I placed my order.

I'm still rooting for you, and still very much looking forward to the machine. I will do my best to learn greater patience about the unimportant when so much else is dire across the world.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> My complaint was more that my understanding when you announced that v1.3 was available was that you were ready to manufacture all of your models as version v1.3 as at that date


 Oh, I see. Different point.

At the top of the DE1XL web page https://decentespresso.com/de1xl it is written (I bolded the text relevant to this conversation):



> *v1.3 DE1XL:*
> The v1.3 DE1XL ships completely assembled, in its own suitcase. You can travel with it: no assembly or disassembly is required. The custom-cut foam in the suitcase is specific to the DE1XL. There is a new front panel standby power button on v1.3 DE1XL machines. No refill kit or countersunk bracket is included with the v1.3 DE1XL: those are purchased separately. *We are currently waiting for a few final parts before we can start shipping the v1.3 DE1XL machines.*
> 
> *If you do not want to wait, we can send you a DE1PRO now, and the final conversion kit parts later. However, if you choose this option you will not receive the DE1XL foam for your suitcase and your machine will not have a front panel standby power button.*


 I'm assuming you didn't see this text when you ordered, sorry about that.

We were supposed to get all those parts shortly after Chinese New Year, but events have delayed that quite a bit.

-john


----------



## filthynines

@decent_espresso John, those emboldened parts can't have been present at the start of March when I ordered, because we've already referenced the fact that you very recently changed the policy on whether you would ship v1.3 with the option of converting a PRO to an XL due to popular demand. Earlier on this thread, in March, I had expressly asked whether the option was still there, and at the time I ordered it wasn't an option because of reasons you were very clear on at the time. So that text can't have been there.

It's there now, though, and I'm sure that will help prospective buyers.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> @decent_espresso John, those emboldened parts can't have been present at the start of March when I ordered, because we've already referenced the fact that you very recently changed the policy on whether you would ship v1.3 with the option of converting a PRO to an XL due to popular demand. Earlier on this thread, in March, I had expressly asked whether the option was still there, and at the time I ordered it wasn't an option because of reasons you were very clear on at the time. So that text can't have been there.
> 
> It's there now, though, and I'm sure that will help prospective buyers.


 Sorry, I didn't know when you ordered, as I don't know your real name.

You're correct that I did rewrite that paragraph several times, based on feedback coming back from customers.

I did, just to be complete about this conversation, go and check with my version control program, what the page said on March 1, 2020. The text I quoted was already there. Picture below.









Anyway, I'm not sure there's any point to my arguing with you over this.

I'm sorry, and I apologize, that you didn't know that the DE1XL model wasn't ready to be made yet.

Even if the text was on that page (let's not debate it) there's a lot of text on our web site, and it would have been easy to miss it, or simply not see it at all.

I'm hoping to resolve this all in the next few weeks and get all those DE1XL models out.

There are 31 orders for DE1XL models, so the batch of 30 we'll build at once, will cover you and everyone else that's ordered. I'm hoping we can get enough quality parts to make this happen.

ps: we're also waiting for the DE1XL specific suitcase foam to arrive. That should be in the next few weeks as well. That's a new design.

-john


----------



## filthynines

Fingers crossed your suppliers are able to get back to a level of normalcy soon. It'll be good for them, good for you, and good for us.

Back to the good stuff: the updates and little iterations.


----------



## Harry Fleurs

decent_espresso said:


> Yep, I got news.
> 
> 800 black tablets are ready for us to inspect (finished a few days ago), and we're going to the factory on Saturday to quality control them. Another 200 tablets are to be made in white, for the white DE1XL model, but they're not yet ready.
> 
> Photo of the engineers at the factory below, last week doing quality checks on our tablet PC boards and screens.
> 
> Just FYI, our tablets are made for us by PIPO, who are the folks who make the ARGOS and ARCHOS tablets. http://pipo.cn/En/index.php?m=Index&a=index
> 
> I'm hoping that we'll start shipping machines with them, starting at the end of next week.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 33491


 Hi everybody,

Lovely machine! A want to have thing!

I m reading the posts in order to decide to buy myself the Pro.

But I got a bit confused meanwhile, and this is the reason: 3 informations about the tablet used for the machine

1) This Forum 06/11/2019

About the tablet, in this tread is written that : "tablets are made for us by PIPO, who are the folks who make the ARGOS and ARCHOS tablets. http://pipo.cn/En/index.php?m=Index&a=index" post #2723 as above

2) German Kaffee-netz.de Forum: 20.02.2020

In a tread written in the german Kaffee-netz.de (https://www.kaffee-netz.de/threads/decent-espresso-maschinenbesprechung.109753/page-51) #1017 John reports: The tablet uses the most expensive Fujitsu display screen, because I want the color and brightness to be very good. In fact, my demand 120 lumens for the tablets caused months of delays, because the supplier kept trying to introduce lower brightness screens.

3) Topical Information of today an the decent Web Page

On the Home Page of Decent. https://decentespresso.com/included in the "Whats in the box" menu is informed:

*
"Android tablet
*

Bright Samsung LCD screen. 1280x800 resolution. 8 inch screen. Customized and unlocked Android 8.1 operating system. Preloaded with our software. Comes already BLE paired to your espresso machine. Note: you can use your own Android tablet, as long as it is running Android 5.1 or newer. The tablet software can be downloaded from our web site."

I really like the openess of the discussions with John here and generally in all other forums too, really enjoy all the interesting infos given by Decent and John himself, so don't stop this!.

But nevertheless I feel unlucky because it is impossible to get a complete information about what will be in the box when you order the machine.

The infos given on the Website of Decent seem not to be up to date. For example it is still informed about the drip tray cover in aluminium- but in the V1.3 Video it is mentionned the it will be in stainless steel etc.

I thing, even if the posts in the related forums are super interesting, the potential customer should not have to inform himself in x-forums combined with the producer Web-Page to get finally a totally confusing overview and false information basket of what he might probably will buy or will finally be delivred with....

There are many many upgrades done on the machines ( silent fan / 1500 W / new boilers etc.) all iformations you can collect in the forums and at Youtube but I really really would more than apprciate if DECENT could in future clearly advise the customer in a good structured and detailled Specificatian sheet about what he will get when ordered!

Whoever wants *buy a pi**g in a** po**ke? And this for 3**K bucks!*

I 'm 80% convinced to do the right choice by buying this machine, please John give me a good feeling for the rest 20%.

best regards !


----------



## decent_espresso

Harry Fleurs said:


> There are many many upgrades done on the machines ( silent fan / 1500 W / new boilers etc.) all iformations you can collect in the forums and at Youtube but I really really would more than apprciate if DECENT could in future clearly advise the customer in a good structured and detailled Specificatian sheet about what he will get when ordered!


 Do you know about this page?

https://decentespresso.com/included

I believe it is correct, except for the mistake you just mentioned, that we have upgraded the drip tray cover now. That's a fairly details specification.

I will correct the error you pointed out, and please let me know if there are any other mistakes I have missed.

-john


----------



## Harry Fleurs

Hi John,

Thanks for the answer and for the correction on the Website 
Of course I know the Webpage / .../included as I refer mySelf on it in my post.

But for the tablet i still dont know what one will be delivered in the coming 10 weeks. It is not that much important but as there are 3 different Information given by Decent in the last few month i nevertheless am interested to know what i will finally buy



Bright Samsung Display ...


a Tablet by Pipo


As written by you in the Kaffe-Netz Forum :The tablet uses the most expensive Fujitsu display screen because I want the color and brightness to be very good. In fact, my demand 120 lumens for the tablets caused months of delays, because the supplier kept trying to introduce lower brightness screens.


Looking foward to your answer

best Regards


----------



## decent_espresso

Harry Fleurs said:


> But for the tablet i still dont know what one will be delivered in the coming 10 weeks. It is not that much important but as there are 3 different Information given by Decent in the last few month i nevertheless am interested to know what i will finally buy
> 
> 
> 
> Bright Samsung Display ...
> 
> 
> a Tablet by Pipo
> 
> 
> As written by you in the Kaffe-Netz Forum :The tablet uses the most expensive Fujitsu display screen because I want the color and brightness to be very good. In fact, my demand 120 lumens for the tablets caused months of delays, because the supplier kept trying to introduce lower brightness screens.


 The answer is "yes" 

It is:



a tablet made for us by PIPO, who makes for Archos, a well known brand in EU.


with a bright display that I insisted on, but this batch are using Samsung internally. Previously we used Fujitsu. Does it matter so much, though, as long as the screen is good?


And of course you can use your own Android tablet. https://decentespresso.com/downloads


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Staff Photo*

Most of Decent Espresso is based in Hong Kong. That's where Bugs and I lived for 5 years, and as soon as they'll let us back in (we're "trapped in California"), we'll be back there.

Last week we threw a party for our cook Lily, who retired after cooking us hundreds of delicious group lunches. We took the opportunity for a group photo, and I thought I'd point out to you who works at Decent and how they help you get your espresso machine.

Another ten people work from their homes, from all over the world. I tried to hire the best, wherever they happened to be. I put little cartoons for them, in the bottom left of the photo.

*And an update...*

I'd like to explain why I've not been active in social media these past few weeks.

Espresso machine sales have been coming in faster than we can build them, so I decided to "ease off the gas" a bit (hold off on marketing), and focus completely on making reliable machines, faster.

Bugs and I took the painful decision of firing a longtime employee who was running the factory, as she was not able to make the changes needed. We were only making 15 machines a week (3 a day) while receiving 25 orders a week.

We promoted Hannifa, who insisted that Eleanor be her co-captain. They switched from a 5 day schedule of 20 machines at a time, to a 30 machine schedule in 7 days, with the intention of shortening that. They're now down to 6 days to make 30 machines, ie 5 machines a day, ie a 66% speed increase.

We've added 4 people in the past 2 weeks, so we think we'll be able to hit 30 per week shortly, and we're aiming for 40 per week within 2 months.

Bugs and I were really pleased, and last week handed out salary raises to four of Hannifa's team (and Hannifa too), thanking them for making such quick progress.

Covid has meant a certain amount of unemployment in Hong Kong, which has been good for us, as a rare company who is currently hiring. The resumes coming in are really excellent, so we're excited to have really talented staff joining us, right when we need them most.

-john

ps:

As covid is still very much a concern, the staff usually have masks on, but it makes for a different kind of photo.

﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

*Perfecting flow measuring and steam profiles*

Charles, Ray and Ben are have been pulling loooong hours for a few weeks now, in order to try to perfect two modest goals:
- very accurate water flow measurements
- different steam profiles that work well

*Why are these things difficult?*

Very accurate water flow measurements are difficult because physical flow meters are not very good. They don't work under 2 ml/s, which is the range we're interested in for espresso. And they're not very accurate: they are essentially windmills with magnets on them, and the pulses sometimes double or don't happen at all. That's likely the reason you've yet to see many (any?) of our competitor's espresso machines, ever display numerical flow rates.

On the DE1, we have a physics model that tracks everything about the machine, from the sizes of the pump pistons, the spring strength, down to leakage through the pistons under pressure. Starting with v1.1 our machines have had an "electrician's clamp" built into them, which potentially allowed us to exactly measure current. This is important, because current often varies significantly when the heaters are running, which effects the pumps' performance characteristics, especially under pressure.

In the past, we've been able to get within 90% accurate most of the time, though there are situations where we've been 80% accurate. With the 110V v1.3 DE1 models, there are situations where we're only 60% accurate (that's not the case with the other models).

Our new firmware should bring much, much more accurate flow measuring. Here is what Ben's machine spit out this morning. The brown line is flow rate as measured by a scale, whereas the blue line is measured by the DE1's physics modeling of the water flow. Even as the pressure changes significantly, the accuracy remains.

﻿
The two yellow lines represent "puck resistance". This chart was from an espresso made with a 0.3mm "puck simulator" basket, so puck resistance should be near-constant, regardless of flow or pressure. It isn't yet, but it's pretty close. There are two yellow lines as one is calculated using the scale, and the other is calculated using flow measurements. We haven't had the two be so close to each other before, which of course was the goal.

This new firmware should work quite well on v1.1 and v1.3 machines. For v1.0 machines that lack the electrician's clamp, we're going to offer a "calibration setting". Buy yourself a $15 wattmeter from Amazon, and enter into the tablet app what number you get.









As far as steam profiles go, Charles has been making tables of every combination of water flow rate and heater temperatures, so that we can see which pairs of values give the best results. The goal will be "steam profile" recommendations we can make, of different flow/temperature pairs that give different quality steam. You'll be able to dial in your preference.
﻿
This new firmware compiles about 6 months' programming work, so we're being really careful about testing and fine-tuning, as there's a lot of behind-the-scenes innovation to make these things work well.

We hope to be able to release this new firmware in the coming weeks. Initially, it'll be offered as a manual-upgrade for the more adventurous Decent customers. And once it's proven reliable, it'll be an easy push-button upgrade.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Reducing milk dilution *

If you scrutinize the steaming chart that ﻿Charles﻿ made, you'll see that he's tracking dilution.

What's interesting to me in his results, is that these two settings have near-identical steaming tims (33s vs 35s) but the 2nd one puts 45% more water into your milk to do so. 165ºC at 0.4ml/s vs 140ºC at 0.6 ml/s. Huge difference in your drink, but likely not noticeable unless you measure everything.

















We're all going to benefit from Charles'﻿ meticulous work, by having less dilute, thicker milk drinks.

-john


----------



## Nikko

The steaming time depends on the enthalpy rate of the steam (J/g) which is a function of the heater power (W) and water flow. The Decent machine is unique in that it can produce superheated steam and it is the degree of superheat which determines the amount of water added to the milk, i.e. more superheat means less water added. Unfortunately, higher superheat comes at the expense of mass flow rate of the steam. This is standard physics and can be easily calculated, just as you calculate and display the puck resistance.

It will be interesting to see which condition actually produces the best microfoam.


----------



## decent_espresso

Nikko said:


> The steaming time depends on the enthalpy rate of the steam (J/g) which is a function of the heater power (W) and water flow. The Decent machine is unique in that it can produce superheated steam and it is the degree of superheat which determines the amount of water added to the milk, i.e. more superheat means less water added. Unfortunately, higher superheat comes at the expense of mass flow rate of the steam. This is standard physics and can be easily calculated, just as you calculate and display the puck resistance.
> 
> It will be interesting to see which condition actually produces the best microfoam.


 There are several other physics factors we know about:



our steam heater is a 1.2M long coil. Once the water turns to steam, it rushes out quickly as it expands, not necessarily much contacting the superheated metal surface, and also dragging water along with it.


Thus, delaying the phase transition is desirable. We can do that by increasing pressure, by either using a smaller steam wand hole, or .... counterintuitively, increased flow rates can cause increase energy transmission, by increasing pressure, thus raising the boiling point, and increasing the amount of water/metal contact time. Crazy!


We think that a water vapor barrier around the metal inside the tube might form, causing water to not touch the walls. We're going to try putting a piano wire inside the 1.2M coil, to intentionally create turbulence, ie "stirring".


Thus "this is standard physics and can be easily calculated" is what we thought too, but reality is more difficult.

The basic problem is actually converting all 1500W that we have available, to the water. That's not an easy problem. At 2200W (our next gen heaters) that's even more problematic, but we've lengthened the coil to 2M to help with that. We've got a centrifuge as well, in our lab, to separate the steam and recirculate the water back to the heater. That *might* make it into a later product we make.


----------



## Nikko

decent_espresso said:


> There are several other physics factors we know about:
> 
> 
> 
> our steam heater is a 1.2M long coil. Once the water turns to steam, it rushes out quickly as it expands, not necessarily much contacting the superheated metal surface, and also dragging water along with it.
> 
> 
> Thus, delaying the phase transition is desirable. We can do that by increasing pressure, by either using a smaller steam wand hole, or .... counterintuitively, increased flow rates can cause increase energy transmission, by increasing pressure, thus raising the boiling point, and increasing the amount of water/metal contact time. Crazy!
> 
> 
> We think that a water vapor barrier around the metal inside the tube might form, causing water to not touch the walls. We're going to try putting a piano wire inside the 1.2M coil, to intentionally create turbulence, ie "stirring".
> 
> 
> Thus "this is standard physics and can be easily calculated" is what we thought too, but reality is more difficult.
> 
> The basic problem is actually converting all 1500W that we have available, to the water. That's not an easy problem. At 2200W (our next gen heaters) that's even more problematic, but we've lengthened the coil to 2M to help with that. We've got a centrifuge as well, in our lab, to separate the steam and recirculate the water back to the heater. That *might* make it into a later product we make.


 You are absolutely correct that the vagaries of 2- phase heat transfer must not be underestimated. The use of turbulators should help to get better results.

One question if I may; is the Heat value in column 25 calculated or measured?


----------



## McGarv

Could you possibly create turbulence by varying the water flow into the steam heater? I don't mean flow rate but possibly pulsing pressure changes.


----------



## Michael87

The vapour layer would be the leidenfrost effect acting along the inner pipe wall? It is fascinating how much physics is involved in making a cup of coffee!


----------



## decent_espresso

McGarv said:


> Could you possibly create turbulence by varying the water flow into the steam heater? I don't mean flow rate but possibly pulsing pressure changes.


 It's difficult because we've piped things up to reduce pulsing (as it's bad for espresso), through the use of precision flow constrictors. And we're about to add vibration dampeners to the circuit soon too.



Michael87 said:


> The vapour layer would be the leidenfrost effect acting along the inner pipe wall?


 Exactly.



Nikko said:


> One question if I may; is the Heat value in column 25 calculated or measured?


 I just checked, and these 3 columns are calculated, as simple division.



Heat/[W]

Eff/[J/g]

Eff/[W/g]


----------



## decent_espresso

Thomas Storm drew this very fun riff on the Decent Espresso logo.


----------



## tohenk2

there's no cup 😉 Nice one for a T


----------



## KeithS

I'm deciding between DE1+ and the PRO model - are the incremental differences worth the price? Any thoughts?


----------



## filthynines

KeithS said:


> I'm deciding between DE1+ and the PRO model - are the incremental differences worth the price? Any thoughts?


 My only useful input at the moment is that it's been repeatedly pointed out that the warranty for the models is not an expectation that on shot # 10,001 everything will suddenly implode. A comparison was made with cars under warranty. 10,000 shots for somebody making coffee only at home is a lot anyway. Right now I'm managing four shots a day for myself, which is nearly *seven years* to make up 10,000 shots.

I make that point to say that if you don't need the up-rated heavy-duty parts on the PRO then I'm sure you would have a happy life with the DE1+. The mirror might be harder for you to do without, but at a $400 difference that's perhaps an upgrade on the PRO you might do without.


----------



## MrShades

filthynines said:


> My only useful input at the moment is that it's been repeatedly pointed out that the warranty for the models is not an expectation that on shot # 10,001 everything will suddenly implode. A comparison was made with cars under warranty. 10,000 shots for somebody making coffee only at home is a lot anyway. Right now I'm managing four shots a day for myself, which is nearly *seven years* to make up 10,000 shots.
> I make that point to say that if you don't need the up-rated heavy-duty parts on the PRO then I'm sure you would have a happy life with the DE1+. The mirror might be harder for you to do without, but at a $400 difference that's perhaps an upgrade on the PRO you might do without.


Exactly - and that's why I went for the DE1+ and not the Pro.

The brushed steel front is easier to keep clean - and there's a cheap and easy solution to the mirror (that was my only deep concern too, as it is useful - but the right piece of acrylic mirror and a Stanley knife soon solved that).

If one or both of the pumps pack up in 5 years then I'll replace them... it's a vibe pump (of decent spec - no D required) so not hard or expensive to replace IF it ever fails. Look and see how many Gaggia Claasic owners have needed to replace pumps on their machines that may be 20+ years old... not many, I can tell you!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

And just to be clear on the DE1+ vs DE1PRO expected life times .... our numbers (10,000 shots vs 200,000) are based on extrapolations from what the manufacturers tells us.

We have the option of paying more for a longer-lived pump, and the manufacturer tells us what we should expect.

However, we don't run our pumps ever at 100% full power, unlike most other vibe pump machines, and so we *expect* that we'll get a longer time from them than the manufacturer's ratings. But we don't know, so we use the only real longevity numbers we have, which are from the manufacturer.

In my experience, what kills pumps and valves in all machines, is *calcification*, not over-use. More expensive pumps and valves won't help you if you don't keep your machine clean.

-john


----------



## KeithS

decent_espresso said:


> And just to be clear on the DE1+ vs DE1PRO expected life times .... our numbers (10,000 shots vs 200,000) are based on extrapolations from what the manufacturers tells us.
> 
> We have the option of paying more for a longer-lived pump, and the manufacturer tells us what we should expect.
> 
> However, we don't run our pumps ever at 100% full power, unlike most other vibe pump machines, and so we *expect* that we'll get a longer time from them than the manufacturer's ratings. But we don't know, so we use the only real longevity numbers we have, which are from the manufacturer.
> 
> In my experience, what kills pumps and valves in all machines, is *calcification*, not over-use. More expensive pumps and valves won't help you if you don't keep your machine clean.
> 
> -john


 Ok then I think the pump for DE1+ is probably more than enough for me

I only wish there is a mirror finish option on the DE1+ that would just be perfect


----------



## decent_espresso

KeithS said:


> I only wish there is a mirror finish option on the DE1+ that would just be perfect


 Unfortunately, about half the mirror panels we get are not perfect enough for us, so we reject them, and put them through a secondary process to brush the surface, thereby removing the imperfections.

Until we find a way to get 90% of the mirror panels we order, to be perfect, we'll need something to do with those imperfect panels. Throwing them out is not an option I'd consider. So they end up on the DE1+.

Hope that makes sense.


----------



## decent_espresso

*New "choose a model" page*

I've been slowly working on this for about two months: https://decentespresso.com/model



All new renders for v1.3 machines, and for most v1.1 machines


Split screen interface


much high quality preview image of machine


much better user interface on mobile phones.

 Let me know if you find any bugs!

-john


----------



## MrShades

KeithS said:


> Ok then I think the pump for DE1+ is probably more than enough for me
> I only wish there is a mirror finish option on the DE1+ that would just be perfect


What's wrong with this solution Keith...



















Best of both worlds...

There are DE1PRO users who actively want to change to the brushed finish as its easier to keep clean - and you don't have to worry about buffing it to a glorious smudge free finish every day.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## KeithS

MrShades said:


> What's wrong with this solution Keith...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Best of both worlds...
> 
> There are DE1PRO users who actively want to change to the brushed finish as its easier to keep clean - and you don't have to worry about buffing it to a glorious smudge free finish every day.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 Yes I was also thinking about some potential solutions:

1) a piece of mirror reflective tape - might have to see if this works depending on the quality of the tape that I can find

2) Polish that strip part to mirror finish - seems possible with polishing compound and a bit of elbow grease, probably the best-looking solution if done well

3) Cut actual mirror and glue it in (which is what you did there)


----------



## MrShades

KeithS said:


> Yes I was also thinking about some potential solutions:
> 
> 1) a piece of mirror reflective tape - might have to see if this works depending on the quality of the tape that I can find
> 
> 2) Polish that strip part to mirror finish - seems possible with polishing compound and a bit of elbow grease, probably the best-looking solution if done well
> 
> 3) Cut actual mirror and glue it in (which is what you did there)


 Mine is very thin acrylic mirror about 1mm thick (Amazon) - that you can easily cut with a craft knife... and it's held there with two small pieces of blutac - which you cant see.

I tried various mirror tapes / foils (well, ordered them, didn't get as far as fitting any as none were very good).

Polishing it would take a LOT of effort I think - and then anything you do (good or bad) will be there ad infinitum (unless you then tried to brush it back to standard again) - anyway, risk was too high for me to even think about that.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Searching for parts on the decent web site*

You can now easily search for any part that goes into the Decent Espresso machine, as well as all our accessories. There are over 800 different items in our database, so the search feature is will be quite helpful finding just what you need.

You can search for any word (or word fragment) in the description, in the SKU, or in the engineering part number.

I made a video showing this new feature.






After you search, you have the option to:
- search for other text (the search button)
- show all items available (the round-arrow button)
- show your shopping cart (the eraser button)

I'm not very happy with my icon choice for those last two operations. If you see a more appropriate icon in the library I'm using https://fontawesome.com/v4.7.0/icons/ please do suggest it to me.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Sweet factory 3D*

Bugs ﻿ has been using the wonderful open source program Sweet Home 3D http://www.sweethome3d.com/ in cooperation with HK head engineer Johnny Au, to plan the Decent factory expansion. We use the paid version from the Mac App Store https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sweet-home-3d/id669289700 that provides more premade objects. The app is Java based, and runs on most OSes. It's a bit quirky, but tremendously powerful.

Sweet Home 3D's high quality renders are tremendously helpful, because they are realistic enough that you can imagine yourself in the space, and you then see problems with how things are laid ou.

In the graphic above, you can see our original space in the back third of the image. But we do have another space of that size again, where we currently build all the DE1s. The back third is all accessories stocking and boxing (back, left side) and engineer's offices (back, right side).

Johnny and Bugs have been going back and forth with revisions to the layout for about 2 months, because we're trialing a number of new ideas. We'd like to be able to grow easily to 2000 machines a year, and we think we have enough capacity to double that, if enough people turn out to want what we make.

If you're interested, I'm attaching here the CAD file for our factory. Sweet Home 3D is a free download, so if you're bored, why not download the app and our factory, and have a virtual visit through Decent Espresso's new headquarters?

http://magnatune.com/p/decent_factory.sh3d

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Back in August, we made the painful decision to leave the supplier who was making our drip tray cover. They had cancelled our order right before they were supposed to deliver, knowing that would put us into an impossible position of running out of a key part. They wanted us to suddenly order 20x more than we needed. We weren't happy with their quality in aluminum, so we took the risk to leave them, and redesign the part for stainless steel.

Thus started a process of redesigning this part

__
http://instagr.am/p/B5DrlTRBgTg/

eventually we succeeded, and we had 500pcs of the new tray, for the new v1.3 machines we were making:

__
http://instagr.am/p/B7Y0IALhjrq/

Today, I received this set of photos from the supplier who is making our new drip tray covers, of lots of covers, that we can very soon send to our v1.0 and v1.1 customers, whose drip tray covers may have tarnished or scratched, as the aluminum was not as long lasting as we'd wished for, 3 years ago.

I'm looking forward to having this part of our history, be history.

-john


----------



## filthynines

Anticipation builds as my machine was shipped today. Opted for the PRO to arrive and then the XL parts later. Perfect for me, actually. Makes it far more palatable to have in the house until it's in frequent use at the roastery. It's only fair - technically (and legally) I own it but my company will get the benefit of it.

I look forward to receiving it in maybe 7 - 10 days time (my guess). I've ordered four different varieties of Extract beans to try out on it.


----------



## filthynines

Alright, so my 7-10 days lead time was way off, and my machine arrived to my door within 48 hours of shipping! That's exactly in line with pre-COVID-19 shipments. After being irrationally impatient for quite some time it was a really great feeling to get it, and especially just moments before I was due to put my son down for his afternoon nap. Gave me time to get it out of the box immediately.

So, I thought I would share initial thoughts. Bear in mind this is my first E61 bloody big machine. [A kindly forum member spared my blushes by pointing out by PM that this isn't an E61 machine. I checked to see, and I'm not actually sure.



It's a beautiful machine. It just is.


The suitcase is huge! But I love it because I will use it for movement between home, the roastery, and events.


The biggest immediately improvement to my life is that I no longer have the pounding sound of the La Pav as it hits temperature. It is silent as it heats and that is music to my ears.


I loved getting up this morning and having a warmed-up machine ready to go. The scheduler worked great.


The grouphead controller - new with v1.3 - is a great addition. I particularly like entering and exiting standby, because a lovely pink ring fills the outside.


That mirror finish is lovely, though I do worry about keeping it clean. I've no doubt the material will keep clean, it's just a case of whether the user will do his bit...


My first shot was straight in the bin, but the second (Square Mile - Sweet Shop) was delicious and better than anything I had from my La Pav. As recommended I used the "Gentle and Sweet" profile which is recommended to all beginners. A good recommendation, IMO.


The data on the screen can overwhelm to begin with. It's not always intuitive where to look for the data you care about at that moment. However, just because it isn't intuitive doesn't mean I won't get to grips with it, just like using any app for the first time. The graphs help, but also have the potential to overwhelm. There is a solution - you can just use a skin that doesn't display that stuff.


In common with other users: yes, this has exposed weaknesses in my puck prep. I'm not sure how forgiving this of poor puck prep, but my instinct is that it is less forgiving than my La Pav. No problem - just pay more attention to puck prep.


I'm glad I've followed the suggestions of just getting used to Gentle and Sweet before moving on to pressure and flow profiling. I would have ended up with frustration and tears instead of tasty espresso.


I've only had one go at steaming milk, and it was pretty good. My steaming skills are not good, but I sense this machine will help me get there.


The Decent Diaspora community is very involved and care about getting the best out of the machine and about helping other users. That feels unique.


Happy to answer any questions that prospective purchasers might have.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> The data on the screen can overwhelm to begin with. It's not always intuitive where to look for the data you care about at that moment. However, just because it isn't intuitive doesn't mean I won't get to grips with it, just like using any app for the first time. The graphs help, but also have the potential to overwhelm. There is a solution - you can just use a skin that doesn't display that stuff.


 This video I made is meant to be a gentle introduction to reading the lines, as well as explaining a bit how the profiles differ. Hope this helps.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Unboxing Directions*​
Decent Engineer Alex made these IKEA-style directions for unboxing your Decent Espresso Machine. There is an unboxing video that we send when each machine ships, but this 1 page reminder will be included in the suitcase. Not everyone watches the video. Some things it points out, while (mostly) avoiding English​


collapse your carton, but please store it, in case you ever need to send the machine to us for repair


how to put the steelie stand on your tablet, and our centering guide


how to put the tablet on your DE1. Some people are confused by how the tablet+
stand sits.


how to fill the water ank


how to push the group head handle on, and a basket into the portafilter


how to get electricity, and power on the machine. Some people are confused by having to turn the tablet separately from the DE1.


-john​
​





​


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## decent_espresso

*Decent tamper v3*

Here's what's new in our self-leveling tamper.

There are only small changes, to address imperfections in the tamper v2 design. The overall tamper remains mostly the same, as the basic idea is sound.

We will have these in stock in about 20 days. Preorders welcome 😄

https://decentespresso.com/tamper

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Zoom: Decent Q&A - Friday 6pm (California time) (that's 2am UK time 😩)*

For two hours tomorrow (Friday 5pm and 6pm California time), I'll be hosting a zoom call.

The Zoom link is in our Instagram bio.

5pm: for DE1 owners only. The idea is that you can ask any me question.
6pm : primarly for non-DE1 owners. Thinking about buying a Decent? Join and ask anything.

If this is popular, I'd like to do it weekly. It's an easy way to get answers to your questions, in a conversation format.

*I will be changing the time of day around each week, so that people in different time zones have more of a chance of joining in.*

You'll be limited to 1 question at a time, and then the next person can ask. Once everyone's had a chance, you can ask another question.

Decent Q&A
Scheduled: May 29, 2020 at 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Location: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/72272044429?pwd=aUxXZTNqTEYvNGxMZ3RTVjMrQTdrQT09
John Buckman is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Decent owner's call
Time: May 29, 2020 05:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/72272044429?pwd=aUxXZTNqTEYvNGxMZ3RTVjMrQTdrQT09

Meeting ID: 722 7204 4429
Password: 4NbV9R

﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

*What's coming in DE1 v1.4*

We're still (very much!) building DE1 v1.3 machines, but we've now ordered all the parts for DE1 v1.4, which we're planning on starting to build in October.

There are a very modest set of changes in this revision of the DE1.



We will now be *using the DE1XL tablet stand on all models*. No more "Steelie stand". You can see what the DE1XL tablet stand looks like here:

__
http://instagr.am/p/BzdHixTBxB2/
 and the Steelie Stand here:

__
http://instagr.am/p/B6Q-lZPhhvE/
 If you prefer the Steelie Stand, you can choose to use it by buying it from us (we have black versions) and indicating that you want us to NOT glue the tablet to your stand. The suitcase foam will be cut to allow either kind of stand to be used. Note that this new tablet stand is currently an option you can buy from the Decent store to retrofit older machines.


The internal *DC power supply is being increased* from 30W to 65W. This is a new model power supply from Meanwell, and did not previously exist. It will mean that the *USB charger is always on* and will allow *background filling of the water tank without interruptions*, even during steaming and espresso making. At 30W, we do not face the power to USB charge or refill, when also making coffee or steam. Currently, USB charging, and refilling, cannot take place when the machine is making coffee or steam. Currently, the USB charger turns on/off automatically. And currently, the Refill kit interrupts the DE1 with a "out of water" message when it is running.


The v1.4 machine will be USD$200 more expensive than v1.3. COVID has caused virtually all our costs to increase.

If you have already paid for a v1.3 machine and are waiting for us to build it, and would prefer to wait until October to get the v1.4 machine, we will upgrade you for free. http://decentespresso.com/contact us. New orders for v1.4, from today on, will be at the $200 higher price, however.

We do have a lot of improvements planned for software, the field of the tablet app, firmware, and cloud services, and these will be available to all Decent owners, for free.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Video: unboxing the v1.3 Decent Espresso Machine*

I've made a new unboxing video, this one is for the current v1.3 machines.

The previous unboxing video was 18 months old, and for v1.1 machines.

If you don't own one of my machines, you still might find the video helpful, as it goes through everything in the box, the setup, and tips for use.

-john

﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Espresso Zoom Call for UK and Europe*

A few days ago, I organized a Zoom video chat session. About 40 people attended, and it seemed very helpful, as people were able to ask any question they had in mind.

It was scheduled at 5pm California time, which is much too late for the UK and Europe.

I am thinking on doing the next zoom call at 10am California time, which is 6pm UK time. This saturday.

Would this call be useful for some of you? Would you participate?

-john


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## decent_espresso

The video for this Zoom event was recorded. View it:
- https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/wfxEIJK3sVNLYYn_s0iOa5IkR5q1aaa82nQWq_pZzkfEWqjbrG Ep3ZMMKJXHP7tF?startTime=1590796506000
- password: meeting1!

I cut out two parts of the conversation that I think could be useful and posted them as separate YouTube videos.






One of the participants transcribed my 'dialing in your coffee" advice, into something much more coherent than my "speech" :

Some helpful guidelines for choosing profiles, and how to tweak them, from John

Start out with 3-step pressure profiles, such as Default.
1. Preset preinfusion setting works well on all pressure recipes. Don't mess with it.

Do mess with
2. Hold time: how long want initial high pressure to be held
3. Decline: What final pressure do you want

If coffee coming out really bright, very acidic, especially if speeding up at end, then drop final pressure down

This is because as coffee erodes, resistance to flow goes down, water speeds up, and if goes too fast coffee is underextracted and sour. Way to deal with that is to lower the pressure. This is how lever machines typically work.

What high pressure is best?

If have shot that is channeling no matter what you do, try lowering pressure. eg if you use a Baratza Sette grinder, and go to 9 bar, you're probably going to channel. (It's just not that great a grinder. Sorry.) So go to Gentle and Sweet profile, which runs at 6 bar, and will pull much better espressos.

It's also the case that if you are just bad at puck prep, you're going to channel. So go to 6 bar, and as your prep gets better, increase the pressure.

Generally 6 bar with a chocolatey bean will give a shot with reduced complexity. Will be a perfectly nice but boring drink. As go up more towards 8 bar drink will get more complicated and more other flavors besides plain old chocolate milk will come out.

If you've got a light roast, it's completely different.

A very slow flow rate will tend to give a muted coffee that's not interesting. Light roasts need more water flow to liberate their flavors. The darker the roast, the easier the coffee is liberated. In general with a lighter roast you're going to want a faster flow rate, you're going to want more in the cup, you're probably not going to be adding milk. You'll probably end up with something in the range of 50-90 ml in the cup. You also don't want to make an espresso at 60 seconds. Somewhere in the 30-40 second range is better. With light roasts anything can go, even 20 seconds sometimes.

Higher pressures seem less important with light roasts. Will often taste good at 4, 5 or 6 bar. Might taste good at 9 bar, but not necessarily.

With light roasts flow rate is really the key. The other factor that helps can be 'blooming' or extended water contact time. This is because it is harder to extract the coffee from lighter roasts. Using a recipe with an integrated pause will increase contact time; these type of recipes are really for light roasts.

The Standard profiles:

Default: like traditional Italian machine but a bit better. Preinfusion is done intelligently and automatically, and the pressure drops a little towards the end to counteract acidity.

Gentle and Sweet: 6 bar shot, appropriate usually in two cases. One is bad grinder or bad at prep - easier to make reasonably well. Second is you have lighter beans that don't need pressure, and also lighter beans tend to channel much more and their pucks tend to erode much faster. Thus less pressure much more likely to get you an extraction that you are happy with.

Blooming espresso: does work with medium and dark roasts, but really all about light roasts. Light roasts need more water contact. Either do that with a high flow rate or pump the water in and let it sit. Blooming espresso does the latter. Has 30 second pause after putting the water in, then squeezes the espresso out. This is a more advanced technique, but one that is revolutionizing espresso. Because people outside of Italy have liked light roasts but have really struggled with traditional machines. Slayer (in Seattle, USA) was first to come out with a machine that controlled flow rates, especially allowing slower flow rates, thus do light roasts and do them well. However consistency with Slayer is hard because analog control and no feedback. Blooming is hard to dial in because need to get good dose, time and prep so it doesn't channel like crazy.

Allongé: new recipe. Very fast water flow. Works really great for a lot of light roasts. Easier to dial in than Blooming. Gives you essentially an Americano, but without adding water.

Blooming Allongé: combines previous two. A pause, then a lot of water flow. This is bleeding edge.

Also popular:

Londinium R profile, by Damian Brakel: (download from https://www.diy.brakel.com.au/damians-lrv2/ Also included with Damian's DSx skin https://www.diy.brakel.com.au/dsx/)
Mimics Londinium R lever machine. Fast preinfusion, short pause, then high pressure to declining extraction.
Has a lot of conditional stuff in the profile, which handle when things go wrong. Not necessarily for making world's best espresso, but makes ok shots quite a bit better, without you having to know why. Also gives good body, thick mouthfeel.

Cremina: classic lever machine profile.


----------



## rallakias

I don't see a buy/pay button at the bottom of my ''cart'' page.Is it just me or something else going on?


----------



## decent_espresso

rallakias said:


> I don't see a buy/pay button at the bottom of my ''cart'' page.Is it just me or something else going on?


 Are you buying from one of the countries in the Arab world (and a few other countries), where we only ship using Aramex Shop & Ship?

If so, the cart page should say that you should please get an Aramex shop & ship account, and change the destination country to Hong Kong. Then you can check out.

If not, can you send me a screen picture in an email to me directly at [email protected] ?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Zoom #2 for UK/EU/Arab world*

We're having our 2nd Decent Zoom meeting.

This time:



it's 8 hours earlier than the last one, so that our friends in the UK, EU and the Arab world can join in.


I'm not separating "owners" from "possible future owners". Everyone can join, and I'll try to give equal time to both audiences.


Please post questions below that you'd like answered. Even if you can't join in, you'll be able to watch the recorded version later.

 Decent Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81935088876

Topic: Decent Zoom #2
Time: Jun 7, 2020 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Meeting ID: 819 3508 8876
No password.

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdy18mBIB3

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent "Puck Rake" new product coming*

We're in the final steps of getting this coffee grounds "puck rake" tool made.

You can pre-order it now:
https://decentespresso.com/c?show=all&filter=rake

In the photo are renders of this new tool.
﻿
You can see how this tool is used, in ﻿ Scott Rao Scott ﻿ Rao's video on puck preparation:

__
http://instagr.am/p/B-QPq0mJd9d/
 ﻿
I'm not yet sure when it will arrive, as it's a new product and has to go through a few more steps before it meets my approval and can be shipped to you, so I've marked it as September 1st. I'm hoping it'll be a lot sooner than that, barring any unforeseen problems. We're ordering 10 samples made this week from a supplier whose work we already know.

The wood is ash (like our portafilter and group handles) and the wires are medical grade acupuncture needles (sharp ends snipped off).

Here's what my handmade version looks like (with help from ﻿ Dave Stephens Dave ﻿) The wire handles will be flush with the wood in the production version, not thicking out 4mm as they are here.

It'll be available in two colors, corresponding to the two colors that the DE1 wood comes in. We're using the same wood turning company that does our portafilter & group handles, so we're hoping for reasonably good color matching.
﻿
We'll be using .4mm acupuncture needles, with a 30mm handle, and a 50mm needle, which is then trimmed to 45mm so that it isn't sharp at the end.

The needles can be pulled out with pliers and replaced. They are held in with the right size wood hole. They are not glued, in order to make this repairable by you.

You'll want to put new needles in:
- if the needles get bent
- or you want to try different needle thicknesses. 0.3mm and 0.35mm are both interesting. I prefer 0.4mm but ﻿ Ben Champion Ben ﻿ prefers 0.3mm.

So far, I've found the acupuncture needles to be much more durable than the metal wires on my bpoint, which are all bent from use.

We'll have stock of replacement needles and will send them to you on demand, for free, in any future order. You can, of course, spend $10 on Amazon and buy the same needles, and get a variety of sizes: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07M66QHQF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00

﻿The prices will be $25 for the black version, and $29 for the natural wood version.
https://decentespresso.com/c?show=all&filter=rake


----------



## Daniel R

Hi,

I'm convinced that your software driven approach is the future of espresso machines. It has the potential to deliver better coffee while also allowing the espresso enthusiasts to continue to experiment. Also, your hardware setup with multiple heaters and measuring temperature in the brev chamber is impressive.

However, the price is well above what I and most home baristas are willing to spend. I would like to challenge you to make a simpler model in the $1000-1500 range. That would really revolutionise the home espresso market. I would not presume to know how go about this, but not including the tablet and the fancy case would perhaps be a start.

Also, let me ask you about flow vs weight. If weight (in the cup) is measured, what is then the added value of measuring flow? Also, a more integrated scale would perhaps ba a nice enhancement.

Best, Daniel


----------



## filthynines

I'm not connected to Decent, but having read the entirety of this thread (and now owning a machine), I can say the following without speaking for John:

- The case was originally planned to be limited edition, but once it was noticed that it reduced the likelihood of damage in transit it was made a permanent feature. Removal of the case would still lead to a residual cost of a certain amount to improve the (very wasteful) packaging for air transit. There are a number of users who make use of the case after the fact. It is probably one of the lesser utilised "features" though - I accept that.

- $1,000-$1,500 is - I would imagine - a pipe dream. This was the original projected price and it has been blown out of the water. I can't imagine what quality of machine I would have if this had been the money I'd paid for mine, but it wouldn't have all the bells and whistles that even the base model has. You only need to go back through this thread to see the R and D involved, and it's not even all of it. I can't imagine what Decent would strip away that could give an exceptional coffee machine at bargain prices. Also, it would undoubtedly cannibalise the sales of the bigger models. I think this would destroy the business.

- Getting rid of the tablet seems like a nice idea, but the aim has been that you can a) use it straight out of the box with no downloads, b) have no compatibility issues, and c) not have a load of stuff slowing down your own tablet that would make the machine perform other than optimally.

At the end of the day, this machine isn't for everybody, in the same way as a Tesla isn't for everybody. But you absolutely get what you pay for. It is an exceptional machine. It has improved my life, and I'm not exaggerating. Espresso is one of my main pleasures in life, and in tandem with a Niche grinder it is exceptional. My worst shots on the Decent are better than many shots I've had in coffee shops, and the customisability means I can always design the right profile for the bean I'm drinking.

This is a luxury product, make no mistake. It is aspirational, but for the serious enthusiast with the disposable income to hand it is almost a no-brainer.


----------



## filthynines

Another update, now I'm two or three weeks into my Decent Espresso ownership journey.

I can't imagine swapping this for any other espresso machine. Not one. If I swapped it for a KVDW or a Slayer I'd just sell them and buy a Decent again.

The machine makes amazing espresso. It just does. Once you have puck prep down to a science the machine comes into its own. With some basic understanding of the effect of pressure and temperature (which is all I would self-certify as having) on espresso, it's almost impossible to pull a bad shot. If you can add flow to that mix then you are on your way to phenomenal espresso with unlimited profiles possible.

For me the major illustration of this step up has been the fact that I now enjoy drinking blends. For years now I've bought blends thinking "this one will be different - it will actually taste nice", but never quite got there. But with the equipment to tweak the variables to fit the coffee I'm really enjoying every coffee I dial in.

The steaming capability and the results are just so much better than either my Sage DTP or my La Pav. That might be an obvious statement, but those are my comparators. Straight out of the box my milk steaming was improved several times over. Glorious microfoam every time. I even now let the machine do it for me by following John's "ghost steaming" method. Oh, and today the firmware (not the hardware) got an upgrade which permits hotter and faster steaming. What's that about?!

It's also a beautiful machine for such a small footprint. Ok, a Slayer would win a fashion competition, but this is the prettiest small machine you can have in your home, in my opinion. The one area I am still on the fence about is the mirror panel at the front. I can see a time in my future where I scratch it beyond repair and I'm really upset with myself. I think the best design would be brushed steel plus a mirror lip, which is currently being prototyped.

But I'm serious when I say this has improved my life. I enjoy espresso, and when I enjoy espresso more it means I enjoy life more. That's just me. So often I drink some coffee now and go "Wow" and then I realise I have a big smile on my face. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about.

I doubt I can really give many more personal opinions on this machine without turning this thread into a very boring personal blog. I'll still dip in and out to answer the questions of prospective owners if that helps them.


----------



## Daniel R

Hi again,

I noticed that the tablet and suitcase is listed at €211 and €423.

Here's an idea. Why not offer the machine as a kit for those that are able and willing to assemble themselves? Looks like all the parts are listed at your site, but perhaps you can put together a complete kit (with some instructions) at a good price?

Also, I noted that the declared value increase for v1.4 goes up from €500 to €2999. In a high VAT country like Sweden, that's a net price increase of €615.

Daniel


----------



## decent_espresso

Daniel R said:


> I noticed that the tablet and suitcase is listed at €211 and €423.


 The suitcase is so expensive because we can only ship air mail currenty, and air mailing an empty suitcase is the same cost as a full one. To Sweden, it costs us about €250.



> Here's an idea. Why not offer the machine as a kit for those that are able and willing to assemble themselves? Looks like all the parts are listed at your site, but perhaps you can put together a complete kit (with some instructions) at a good price?


 It currently takes my trained staff 20h to build a machine and that's in batches. This machine is nowhere near simple enough for other people to build.

And also, EU would kiiiiiiiillllll us on safety compliance and liability if we did that. Building a machine that boils water at 13 bars of pressure is not a great home project.



> Also, I noted that the declared value increase for v1.4 goes up from €500 to €2999. In a high VAT country like Sweden, that's a net price increase of €615.
> 
> Daniel


 Thanks for spotting that, it was a mistake. Fixed. I'm rebuilding the postage cost database now (takes ~4h)

Done:

UPS - Worldwide Expedited (Pick up) delivers within 6 days:
+ Shipping cost: €195.58
+ Tax for Sweden: €192.69
= €388.27

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Daniel R said:


> However, the price is well above what I and most home baristas are willing to spend. I would like to challenge you to make a simpler model in the $1000-1500 range. That would really revolutionise the home espresso market. I would not presume to know how go about this, but not including the tablet and the fancy case would perhaps be a start.


 Unfortunately, it's very expensive to build a high end, high tech machine, and also quite expensive to do this level of R&D. Innovation isn't cheap.

More to the point, the price you're quoting is in the range of my current parts cost, never mind 5 years of R&D, staff costs, warehousing, everything else.

I realize you want this machine, but it's out of your budget. I'm sorry, but I just can't run a business at the price you're quoting.

Instead, we've been going in the other direction: increasing the cost of our machine, which allows us to continue increase the quality of the build, and also allows us to fund R&D and come out with new things people really want. The new group head controller increased the price of the machine by USD$300, but sales tripled.

*In the $1000 priced low end, nobody can touch the Breville (Sage) Dual Boiler*. They have the R&D all paid for (20 years ago), massive volume, and a very likely inexpensive build cost, as the body is all plastic. It also happens to make better espresso than E61 machines costing twice its price. It would be folly for Decent to try to compete with Breville.



> Also, let me ask you about flow vs weight. If weight (in the cup) is measured, what is then the added value of measuring flow? Also, a more integrated scale would perhaps ba a nice enhancement.


 Measuring flow is vital to doing preinfusion at the rate of which the coffee puck can absorb water. It simply makes much better coffee than the usual "the preinfusion flow rate is whatever the tap line pressure gives you"

re: integrated scale. Yeah, nice feature, we're working on it. It's R&D, and it's expensive to do, which is why Acaia has a monopoly.

Integrated weighing is a feature currently available only on machines in the €15,000 price range.

Instead, we're doing a USD$99 bluetooth scale of our own design.

-john


----------



## catpuccino

decent_espresso said:


> The new group head controller increased the price of the machine by USD$300, but sales tripled.


 Interesting. What accounts for this? The UL certification, influx of people holding off for 1.3, just simply people wanting tactile controls?


----------



## decent_espresso

catpuccino said:


> Interesting. What accounts for this? The UL certification, influx of people holding off for 1.3, just simply people wanting tactile controls?


 My reading of it, is that previously people had to decide between "computer controlled" vs "real time manual control", ie Decent vs levers/bianca/rocket-r9

And so the decision to go computer-controlled with Decent was worry-inducing. Are they going to miss the old way of manually controlling shots?

Now, as I read the situation, people see that Decent does both approaches, and arguably we do real time controller better than any (it's real flow control, and also real-pressure control, not a mechanical guess), so no reason to not go with Decent.

In other words, the group head controller removed a major reason for people NOT to buy the Decent.

Others might have different opinions...

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I don't know if there are many French Speakers here on this forum, but in case there are...

-john









*Appel Decent Espresso Francophone sur Zoom*

Ce Samedi, 13 Juin

10h Californie
13h Montréal
19h Paris

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86512373198
ID : 865 1237 3198

Pour les utilisateurs d'une Decent Espresso ou pour ceux qui n'en ont pas mais qui souhaitent en savoir plus.

Veuillez afficher ci-dessous les questions auxquelles vous souhaitez obtenir une réponse. Même si vous ne pouvez pas participer, vous pourrez regarder la version enregistrée plus tard.

-john


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## Daniel R

decent_espresso said:


> It currently takes my trained staff 20h to build a machine and that's in batches. This machine is nowhere near simple enough for other people to build.
> 
> And also, EU would kiiiiiiiillllll us on safety compliance and liability if we did that. Building a machine that boils water at 13 bars of pressure is not a great home project.


 John,

Thanks for replying. It's great that you are engaging on online forums.

20 person hours for one machine?

It's a very over-used phrase, but I really think Decent is the Tesla of espresso machines. After Tesla focused on product innovation with the Model S and X, they turned to innovate for lower cost and easier manufacturing with the Mode 3 and Y. I bet you could do the same, if you wanted to. Incidentally, I have a Tesla Model Y on order.

Also, could the EU really have legal grounds if you shipped a bunch of parts? Also, a person building a espresso machine a home is not breaking any laws.

Best,

Daniel


----------



## filthynines

@Daniel R - if you're really into this machine then I invite you to read this thread from start to finish. It is long, and it will take you days to finish if you read it in chunks. But by then you'll see the monumental efforts undertaken, as well as the philosophy of the company. Decent wouldn't be Decent if it compromised on everything to hit a certain price point.

Besides that, it's just bad business. There's clearly a market for the product, and it's only growing. John seems to want to make a modest number of exceptional machines every year. He's nailing that objective.


----------



## decent_espresso

Daniel R said:


> also, could the EU really have legal grounds if you shipped a bunch of parts? Also, a person building a espresso machine a home is not breaking any laws.


 You can't import a machine into the EU unless it's labelled CE.

Parts, you're right, would probably be ok.

However, if someone hurt themselves with the machine they built, from our guidance, we would be dead. No CE compliance, and huge liability.

CE is there for a reason, it does make people safer.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I was a bit upset today, when I went to pick up our mail at our PO box. Of 7 packages received, 6 were product returns. We rarely get returns, maybe 1 a month. WTF?

FYI : we're going through logistics hell getting products to customers, due to the "death of global air mail", so it's a "major bummer" to have all these returns.

But in opening each box and emailing the customer, we discovered something interesting...

A few months back, about 100 orders we sent out via air mail, got "caught by COVID" and stuck in a post office warehouse. For months. With no sign of ever being released.

So, we sent our replacements to those customers, at our cost, bounced through me here in California. Hong Kong sends a big box to me via 2-day UPS, I then re-stamp everything and visit my local US Post Office.

What happened with these returns is this: they were all all duplicate products received by our customers, who had already received their replacements. USPS is finally delivering those warehouse-captured products from months ago!

What blew my mind is that these folks paid $8 to $15 postage fees to send us these duplicate package, without our even asking them to send them back to us at all!

And when we offered to refund them the postal fees, none of them accepted!

"It's the least I could do" was the typical response. "Glad to help!" !!

*Incredible.*

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Built for Niche*

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of the Niche grinder, and that it's the most popular grinder among our Decent Espresso Machine customers. The two together make the best espresso in the world. That's probably why some of the biggest names in coffee use the two together.

But I long ago found that I could make even better coffee with the Niche if I ground directly into the portafilter. The Niche cup is nice, but using it invariably means the grounds are unevenly distributed and need a bit of re-arranging. Grinding directly into the center of the portafilter basket gets rid of that work, and makes better coffee. It's also a faster workflow.

That's why I changed our portafilter stand design to now have a 3rd hole, specifically placed and calibrated for the Niche. Those new portafilter stands arrived in our warehouse yesterday. It allows you to grind directly into your portafilter.

To install it, you remove the bolt on your Niche, place the portafilter stand, put back the bolt, and you're done.

We offer the stand in two sizes.
https://decentespresso.com/portafilter_stand

Our short stand works well with bottomless portafilters, and our Decent Funnel. It's what I use on my Niches. You can still use a double spouted portafilter, but you'll have to hold it by hand when you do.

Our tall stand also works with the Niche, and supports both bottomless and spouted portafilters. However, there is not enough space for our Funnel, so you'll need to buy a competitor's shorter funnel, or wait for our shorter-funnel model to ship (we're working on it). Alternatively, you can use a deeper basket (say, 20g for a 15g dose) so that a funnel is not as needed.

-john


----------



## mmmatron

Pushed the button on a DE1+ today, very excited!


----------



## MildredM

mmmatron said:


> Pushed the button on a DE1+ today, very excited!


 😃😃😃 oooooooh!!!!!! Fantastic! I am really excited for you and look forward to hearing your experience 😁 😁


----------



## filthynines

mmmatron said:


> Pushed the button on a DE1+ today, very excited!


 You won't be disappointed! Hoping you get it as quickly as possible!


----------



## mmmatron

filthynines said:


> You won't be disappointed! Hoping you get it as quickly as possible!


8 week wait at the moment. Gives me some time to sell the Vesuvius, it's a bit big to have lying around!


----------



## catpuccino

mmmatron said:


> 8 week wait at the moment. Gives me some time to sell the Vesuvius, it's a bit big to have lying around!


 Be very interested to read your thoughts on moving to the Decent from a Vesuvius. I was hoverin over the purchase button on Decent's website before my Vesuvius came along and still revisit from time to time...


----------



## filthynines

catpuccino said:


> Be very interested to read your thoughts on moving to the Decent from a Vesuvius. I was hoverin over the purchase button on Decent's website before my Vesuvius came along and still revisit from time to time...


 My uneducated guess is that it's not quite the night and day of a La Pav to a Decent, but it's not far off


----------



## mmmatron

catpuccino said:


> Be very interested to read your thoughts on moving to the Decent from a Vesuvius. I was hoverin over the purchase button on Decent's website before my Vesuvius came along and still revisit from time to time...


I'm not expecting a huge difference in the cup, it's more the small size, nearly instant warm up and being able to fully geek out! Plus I really like how engaged with the customer base and coffee community they are. I'll keep you posted.

Reluctantly selling the Vesuvius, I love it with its beautiful Indian rosewood handles


----------



## Jony

Please do, knowing you come from a Vesuvius.


----------



## decent_espresso

On the Vesuvius vs Decent, Luca Costanzo wrote two articles.



Back December 2019, he wrote:


like







John said, I had a vesuvius before the decent. It's a fine machine, and both have their plusses and minuses, but the bottom line is that the Decent is my daily driver and I haven't used the Vesuvius since I got the Decent.

The Vesuvius absolutely annihilates the Decent when it comes to steaming milk. I haven't really considered if the Vesuvius creates greater body than the Decent. The Vesuvius can also be plumbed out whilst still giving you easy access to the water tank, plus it has a massive cup tray that can heat a fair few cups up nice and toasty. Other than that, the Decent seems better to me in just about every respect. The thing that made me get the Decent was playing around with it at MICE last year and basically you can do lower flow rates and pauses with the Decent, so you can use finer grind settings and lighter roasts.

Don't get me wrong; the Vesuvius is a great machine. Before buying the Decent, I did go and take a bag of coffee over to LM and burn through it playing around with the GS3 conical valve. I've sort of yearned for a GS3 since like 2005 or whenever it was that I first got to use one, but I'd *probably* take a Vesuvius over a GS3.



and in May 2020 he wrote a much longer report, which ends with some Vesuvius thoughts:


I'm just popping in to offer a few comments ...

*The DE is both repeatable and adjustable*

There are two very different and important concepts in espresso machine choice: repeatability and adjustablity.

The worst machines are not repeatable. This means that if you do everything the same, you will get different results. For example, the water temperature might be very different depending on how long the machine has been on, or depending on whether or not you have pulled multiple shots in sequence, or depending on how long ago the heating element turned off. You either learn to work with their repeatability limitations, or you get frustrated. For example, you might have to have the same routine every day of having the machine turn on an hour before you want to use it, then only pulling one shot and allowing another hour for the temperature to restabilise.

Most acceptable machines that people buy are repeatable. They take the guesswork out of what extraction conditions the machine will produce. So if you do the same thing, ideally you should get pretty much the same results. If you have a repeatable, but not adjustable machine, some coffee will not taste good on it and over time you will probably find coffee that produces a result that you like on it. So if you have a machine that repeatably produces a very cold brew temperature, for example, maybe you will gravitate towards buying dark roasts. If you buy a roast that is too light, there might not be much you can do about it.

The decent is both repeatable and adjustable. So, for example, if you buy a roast that is too light, you could change the temperature. But that doesn't mean you'll always get a better cup ...

*Adjustability creates complexity*

Here's the complexity. How do you know if you should go hotter or colder? What about the brew pressure and flow rate? Let's face it, if you're the kind of person who is reading this thread because you're apprehensive about what you have been reading here, you probably have no idea. Don't worry; most people have no idea. You'll only learn this after a lot of experience. And you'll read a lot of contradicting opinions on every possible adjustment. Welcome to the coffee internet.

So the point to take away is this: much of what you will read on the diaspora that is about people's disappointment is about not knowing what adjustments to make. That's the user's fault, not the machine's. Another bunch of posts about people's disappointment may be about getting bad results. To be very blunt, this is likely because their barista skills suck and would suck on any other machine, or because the coffee they are using sucks. Most people's barista skills suck and most roasteries' coffees suck. Also not the machine's fault.

*With the DE, complexity is a choice - newbies should choose simplicity*

The DE has a wide number of different pre-programmed pressure and temperature settings, and you can adjust the brew temperature on each of them. If you're new, restrain yourself, particularly if you're new to coffee. You've read it before, and it's a very simple concept, but you won't be able to help yourself. Don't fiddle until you've established you can get good results, consistently, with something easy to work with.

The "default" and "gentle and sweet" profiles are excellent starting points. These have a preinfusion phase and a declining pressure phase that are both forgiving of poor puck prep or bad grinders. In many respects, they are designed to produce similar results to what you would get from most prosumer machines, but with a few small tweaks to give you a larger margin of error. These profiles are also well considered to be suitable for most traditional espresso roasts, which tend to err on the side of being overdeveloped, baked or charred rather than underdeveloped and acidic.

If you're not sure where to start, find a local coffee roastery whose coffee you like, get whatever they use on their espresso machine and just stick with that for a few months. It will likely be something that works with "default" or "gentle and sweet". The roaster will probably recommend a brew temperature of 92C or lower and will probably also recommend a 20g dose and a 40g yield. Starting with that dose and yield is probably a good idea; starting with DE's 88C brew temperature for "default" or "gentle and sweet" is probably also a good idea.

*The data exists regardless of whether you can see it*

To start off with, the most important thing is to establish a baseline of consistency. This applies regardless of machine. Unless you have a year's experience making coffee or more, if you are new, your consistency probably sucks. The easiest thing that you can do to improve your consistency is to weigh your dose to 0.1g. Then time and weigh your shots. And, of course, taste them. You should more or less ignore everything else until you can make 5 shots in a row that give you the same shot weight within a 2 second window and with the same taste (be it good or bad). With the new group head controller, you can operate the machine without the tablet, and if you haven't used an espresso machine before the DE, there's probably some merit to doing this.

When you start looking at the graphs, it's easy to get lost in the detail. You might think, for example, that the DE is a tricky machine to use because you can see that the flow rate accelerates towards the end of the shot (for a pressure profile). This is probably happening on every machine, just that the DE shows you this data in a way that makes it obvious. Again, this stuff isn't the machine's fault. It's just telling you what is happening. The important thing to remember is that the objective is get a cup of coffee that tastes good, not a set of graphs that looks pretty. So, as you start to learn what the graphs mean, try to correlate them with the taste results.

*Adjustibility is useful ... eventually*

I've used a tonne of machines, and I choose to use the DE at home. I have a vesuvius 2 sitting on the floor in my apartment, unused. The bottom line with the DE is this: pretty much if the coffee is good, I can make it taste good as espresso (or something like it) on the DE. I'm basically at the point where I'm using filter only roasts, and the only ones that I find unpleasant through the DE are filter roasts so light or underdeveloped that they are also unpleasant as filter. I don't buy many standard espresso roasts, but when people have bought some over, or I have ended up with them, I tend to just switch profiles, adjust the brew temp a little and end up with results that more or less equal or exceed what I'd get on other machines. Getting to this point has taken a lot of learning over many years, little of which has actually been specific to the DE, and most of which has been learning about roasting and green quality coffee.

After establishing a baseline of repeatable shots on the DE, the thing to do is probably to do a lot of comparative tastings. That is to say, as much as possible, taste two coffees against each other. Maybe that's buying two very different coffees and pulling shots one after the other. Maybe that's cupping two coffees against each other. Maybe that's extracting the same coffee on the same profile at two different brew temperatures. Maybe that's trying the same coffee at two different dose and grind settings that get you the same extraction yield or flow rate. Over the course of the journey, you'll do all of these things. Try to do them methodically. Eventually, you will start to see some patterns in the noise.


----------



## mmmatron

Thanks John, that's really interesting. I'm looking forward to revisiting the light roast coffees that I've found somewhat challenging to brew.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## mmmatron

Well this was a nice surprise this morning! I was expecting it to ship in August. Where am I going to put the V?!


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## filthynines

mmmatron said:


> Well this was a nice surprise this morning! I was expecting it to ship in August. Where am I going to put the V?!


 Holy moly, that is quick!


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## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> Holy moly, that is quick!


 You got lucky!  We had a shortage of perfect mirror front panels, and so we made a bunch of DE1+ machines while we sorted that out.

FYI We're switching all DE1s to a new "hybrid" front panel, made with brushed stainless, and a die-cut mirror glued onto the lip. Here's a photo.

I'll be posting more about this change shortly. The advantage is that the optical quality gets a big quality boost, the mirror can be replaced if scratched, and we can actually get these made.

-john


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## Apr1985

mmmatron said:


> Where am I going to put the V?!


 I'll look after it for you 😁


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## mmmatron

decent_espresso said:


> You got lucky!  We had a shortage of perfect mirror front panels, and so we made a bunch of DE1+ machines while we sorted that out.
> FYI We're switching all DE1s to a new "hybrid" front panel, made with brushed stainless, and a die-cut mirror glued onto the lip. Here's a photo.
> I'll be posting more about this change shortly. The advantage is that the optical quality gets a big quality boost, the mirror can be replaced if scratched, and we can actually get these made.
> -john
> 
> <img alt="mirror_example.jpg.19be48e1a64bd0b4105e3fabb211af21.jpg" data-fileid="41313" data-src="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2020_06/mirror_example.jpg.19be48e1a64bd0b4105e3fabb211af21.jpg" src="https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">


I've just read all about the panel issues, sound like a nightmare. I think the hybrid panel looks great. Will keep an eye on when we can order a mirror for the DE1+.


----------



## decent_espresso

mmmatron said:


> I've just read all about the panel issues, sound like a nightmare. I think the hybrid panel looks great. Will keep an eye on when we can order a mirror for the DE1+.


 The mirror lip is available now:

https://decentespresso.com/c?s=347+1

But your machine is due to arrive at yours by Thursday evening.

I'd recommend you wait on the lip, and add it to some other order you make sometime, and thus get free shipping.

-john


----------



## webuild4life

Hi John,

Essentially have read the whole thread at this point and have a question I didn't see addressed.

When it comes to preheating the water tank (which may be necessary when doing a pour over), does the preheat start when you press "Start Espresso" or at another time? I would assume its when you press start because it's per profile, but that would mean you would be waiting 3min or so before the shot started, is this correct?

Also, do you plan to release the barista kit with your Decent Scale (at a higher price) when it comes out? I'd be interested in buying those together as I would have no use for the basic scale.

Thanks!

edit: another question. How do you descale the DEXL if it's plumbed in with a catering kit? Do you pull it out of the countersink, pull the tank and fill it with the citric acid and water?


----------



## mmmatron

decent_espresso said:


> The mirror lip is available now:
> https://decentespresso.com/c?s=347+1
> But your machine is due to arrive at yours by Thursday evening.
> I'd recommend you wait on the lip, and add it to some other order you make sometime, and thus get free shipping.
> -john
> 
> <img alt="1686707358_ScreenShot2020-06-16at3_24_19PM.thumb.jpg.5a885af488eae1d70e44cda75b2b594b.jpg" data-fileid="41329" data-src="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_2020_06/1686707358_ScreenShot2020-06-16at3_24_19PM.thumb.jpg.5a885af488eae1d70e44cda75b2b594b.jpg" src="https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">


Fab, thank you. Will do!


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## mmmatron

It's awesome! First shot blew me away so I can't wait to see whet it can do.


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## xpresso

mmmatron said:


> It's awesome! First shot blew me away so I can't wait to see whet it can do.


 Happy Birthday to You .. Happy Birthday to You ...... ????????????.

Enjoy the new toy ..... Jon.


----------



## mmmatron

xpresso said:


> Happy Birthday to You .. Happy Birthday to You ...... .
> Enjoy the new toy ..... Jon.


Thanks Jon  It's our wedding anniversary today so a nice little present to ourselves


----------



## xpresso

mmmatron said:


> Thanks Jon
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's our wedding anniversary today so a nice little present to ourselves


 The thing is I actually thought I'd posted this way earlier in the thread and was mystified at its non appearance, when in fact I had failed to 'Submit'.

But I totally agree with your sentiments regard DECENT, they were already well on the way when I started to take an interest and admired his approach, hands on and prepared to listen and share his experience of bringing his 'Child' to the market, hiccups on the way from suppliers, quality control, logistics, packaging, damaged in transit supports, his hands on ... all to be a credit to the team Decent and he deserves to do well ...... still raining t'up North ????.

Jon.


----------



## mmmatron

Ha yes, always


----------



## decent_espresso

webuild4life said:


> When it comes to preheating the water tank (which may be necessary when doing a pour over), does the preheat start when you press "Start Espresso" or at another time? I would assume its when you press start because it's per profile, but that would mean you would be waiting 3min or so before the shot started, is this correct?


 When you power on the machine, it takes 4.5 minutes for:

- the steam heater to go to 160º

- the hot water heater to go 120º

- the group head heater to go to.... whatever the goal temperature is of the current profile

Then when you press start, water circulates all way up the the valve behind the group head, gets a temperature reading, and then is flushed back into the tank. UNTIL that last temperature reading is within 0.5ºC of your goal. This last step is heating the tubes, valves, fittings between the hot water heater and the group head. It takes a maximum of 20s, but usually is in the 5s to 10s range.

Remember, both the heater and the group head are giving us the water temperature we asked for, but the bits in between can destabilize things. As they do on other machines, but aren't usually measured.

On my GS/3, there was a factory calibrated temperature loss of 6.3ºC from the boiler to the group, so when you ask for 92º boiler, it actually heats it to 98.3ºC 😁 But they don't actually measure it or adjust to your reality. Still, that GS/3 calibration is much nicer than the uncalibrated reality of most other machines.



webuild4life said:


> Also, do you plan to release the barista kit with your Decent Scale (at a higher price) when it comes out? I'd be interested in buying those together as I would have no use for the basic scale.


 Probably not: we'd have to make 1000pcs of custom cut foam to accomodate that. The stuff is expensive (about £5 a piece) and bulky to store, and we don't sell that many barista kits to warrant this.

But more relevant: COVID has meant a tripling of global air mail prices, as UPS now owns the field, and even they have doubled prices. We actually discontinued barista kits yesterday, as we found we were paying £120 to ship each one. It used to be more like £35.

We'll bring the barista kits back if/when global air mail returns. But that's looking pessimistic at the moment, given that global tourism is not likely to return for a long while.



webuild4life said:


> edit: another question. How do you descale the DEXL if it's plumbed in with a catering kit? Do you pull it out of the countersink, pull the tank and fill it with the citric acid and water?


 There's a switch on the catering kit. You turn it off.

Take the drip tray out, push the water tank forward, empty and them fill it with citric.

But in practice, descaling is rarely done on the DE1XL as most people who buy that model use good water.

-john


----------



## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> When you power on the machine, it takes 4.5 minutes for:
> 
> - the steam heater to go to 160º
> 
> - the hot water heater to go 120º
> 
> - the group head heater to go to.... whatever the goal temperature is of the current profile
> 
> Then when you press start, water circulates all way up the the valve behind the group head, gets a temperature reading, and then is flushed back into the tank. UNTIL that last temperature reading is within 0.5ºC of your goal. This last step is heating the tubes, valves, fittings between the hot water heater and the group head. It takes a maximum of 20s, but usually is in the 5s to 10s range.
> 
> Remember, both the heater and the group head are giving us the water temperature we asked for, but the bits in between can destabilize things. As they do on other machines, but aren't usually measured.
> 
> On my GS/3, there was a factory calibrated temperature loss of 6.3ºC from the boiler to the group, so when you ask for 92º boiler, it actually heats it to 98.3ºC 😁 But they don't actually measure it or adjust to your reality. Still, that GS/3 calibration is much nicer than the uncalibrated reality of most other machines.
> 
> Probably not: we'd have to make 1000pcs of custom cut foam to accomodate that. The stuff is expensive (about £5 a piece) and bulky to store, and we don't sell that many barista kits to warrant this.
> 
> But more relevant: COVID has meant a tripling of global air mail prices, as UPS now owns the field, and even they have doubled prices. We actually discontinued barista kits yesterday, as we found we were paying £120 to ship each one. It used to be more like £35.
> 
> We'll bring the barista kits back if/when global air mail returns. But that's looking pessimistic at the moment, given that global tourism is not likely to return for a long while.
> 
> There's a switch on the catering kit. You turn it off.
> 
> Take the drip tray out, push the water tank forward, empty and them fill it with citric.
> 
> But in practice, descaling is rarely done on the DE1XL as most people who buy that model use good water.
> 
> -john
> 
> View attachment 41411


 Awesome , mind boggling and a credit to the hard work and effort you've put into this machine.... Jon.


----------



## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> Awesome , mind boggling and a credit to the hard work and effort you've put into this machine.... Jon.


 Thanks, though I forgot to mention that I'm working on a "perfect temperature vs fast start" slider in the Tablet App, so you can choose to have a faster espresso start if you're willing to compromise slightly on the perfection of the water temperature at the very beginning.

It might be that accepting a 1ºC inaccuracy for 2s will get startup time down to 3 seconds, for instance.

I've got the bluetooth firmware commands now from Ray to fiddle with this. It'll come in the next 6 months.

Cafes especially want the faster startup.

-john


----------



## xpresso

decent_espresso said:


> Thanks, though I forgot to mention that I'm working on a "perfect temperature vs fast start" slider in the Tablet App, so you can choose to have a faster espresso start if you're willing to compromise slightly on the perfection of the water temperature at the very beginning.
> 
> It might be that accepting a 1ºC inaccuracy for 2s will get startup time down to 3 seconds, for instance.
> 
> I've got the bluetooth firmware commands now from Ray to fiddle with this. It'll come in the next 6 months.
> 
> Cafes especially want the faster startup.
> 
> -john


 Now you're just showing off... 😁😁😁 .... Jon.


----------



## webuild4life

decent_espresso said:


> Then when you press start, water circulates all way up the the valve behind the group head, gets a temperature reading, and then is flushed back into the tank. UNTIL that last temperature reading is within 0.5ºC of your goal. This last step is heating the tubes, valves, fittings between the hot water heater and the group head. It takes a maximum of 20s, but usually is in the 5s to 10s range.


 So it circulates until the water tank hits the goal temp? Got it.



decent_espresso said:


> But more relevant: COVID has meant a tripling of global air mail prices, as UPS now owns the field, and even they have doubled prices. We actually discontinued barista kits yesterday, as we found we were paying £120 to ship each one. It used to be more like £35.
> 
> We'll bring the barista kits back if/when global air mail returns. But that's looking pessimistic at the moment, given that global tourism is not likely to return for a long while.


 This is super unfortunate. I was really looking forward to that case, and honestly I probably don't mind paying the extra. Can I talk to you about an exception? I assume you're selling all of it without a case still, though. Is there an option to send SAL/slow mail?



decent_espresso said:


> There's a switch on the catering kit. You turn it off.
> 
> Take the drip tray out, push the water tank forward, empty and them fill it with citric.
> 
> But in practice, descaling is rarely done on the DE1XL as most people who buy that model use good water.


 I'll be using RO water with TWW additions so yeah I doubt I have to descale (if ever?) not sure if TWW Espresso has calcium in it, I don't think it does.

*ALSO:*
I saw the flowjet and pitcher rinser was discontinued??? I am going to be ordering all the stuff to make the cart. Is this a temporary out of stock issue? Super bummed if it is permanent. If it is another shipping issue can you let me know the costs? I don't mind paying extra.


----------



## filthynines

webuild4life said:


> *ALSO:*
> I saw the flowjet and pitcher rinser was discontinued??? I am going to be ordering all the stuff to make the cart. Is this a temporary out of stock issue? Super bummed if it is permanent. If it is another shipping issue can you let me know the costs? I don't mind paying extra.


 I would be interested to know this too.


----------



## decent_espresso

webuild4life said:


> I saw the flowjet and pitcher rinser was discontinued??? I am going to be ordering all the stuff to make the cart. Is this a temporary out of stock issue? Super bummed if it is permanent. If it is another shipping issue can you let me know the costs? I don't mind paying extra.


 I discontinued it yesterday because shipping was high on it, and I didn't think people would be willing to pay the real shipping.

But... you convinced me, I'll put some work into this now, and put these items back onto the web site, but with "real shipping price" calculated, you pay for that, and if you are willing to pay for shipping, then no problem.

I'll post here when that's done. It's a few hours work as I have to update a few places and then a few hours to calculate shipping to each item to each country we ship to.

-john


----------



## webuild4life

decent_espresso said:


> I discontinued it yesterday because shipping was high on it, and I didn't think people would be willing to pay the real shipping.
> 
> But... you convinced me, I'll put some work into this now, and put these items back onto the web site, but with "real shipping price" calculated, you pay for that, and if you are willing to pay for shipping, then no problem.
> 
> I'll post here when that's done. It's a few hours work as I have to update a few places...
> 
> -john


 A possible compromise, since you aren't trying to turn a profit on the cart accessories, is maybe an exact model number that could be used to source it state wide (or where ever a customer may be)? I doubt the normal shipping prices will return in the next 1-2 months I am planning to buy this all. Also maybe a discretion on the price as some are sure to email you asking about the "absurd" cost haha!

Also, do you happen to have any close ups of the "new" drip tray for v1.4 referenced on Instagram? Curious to see what it looks like.

Thanks for your understanding though !

edit: I also know your set-up was designed by you and isn't set in stone. I found this flowjet sold in the USA for less https://www.amazon.com/Flojet-Bottled-Water-System-Single/dp/B01LWU7XQ5/ I could use this with the pitcher rinser (haven't been able to find the exact dimensions you have listed). Thoughts?


----------



## Skizz

@mmmatron that's the classiest compact coffee corner I've seen!


----------



## Skizz

Duplicate post. Sorry.


----------



## decent_espresso

webuild4life said:


> A possible compromise, since you aren't trying to turn a profit on the cart accessories, is maybe a exact model number that could be used to source it state wide (or where ever a customer may be)? I doubt the normal shipping prices will return in the next 1-2 months I am planning to buy this all. Also maybe a discretion on the price as some are sure to email you asking about the "absurd" cost haha!


 USA isn't too much of a problem for us with normal items, as it costs about $10 to put an item in a BIG box with 50 other orders, and then $500 to ship the big box to me. I then open it, stamp it and send it via USPS.

But big items like the flowjet are more like $80 send to me, then another $30 or so to send it onwards in the USA, or $60 to send it to UK/EU.

We tried (hard!) to get a distribution center in the EU together, but !omfg! EU tax regulations are from hell!

Did you know that we'd pay German VAT, to import to our distribution center, and then have to regularly issue VAT corrections to every EU country we ship to, with a check, for the difference in VAT for each country from the German amount we paid? The paperwork/accounting load to do this is insane. This load is one reason I think Amazon is taking over. They have the scale to cope with the administrative load.

FWIW we've also learned the UK was apparently widely cheating on EU-regs for Duty, and so the EU hasn't been enforcing their own regs since the UK wasn't. Post-Brexit, the EU (and especially Germany) are hyper enforcing their rules now that the UK won't be able to ship duty free inside the EU. That's part of what's making it hell for us. Unexpected side effect of Brexit,



> Also, do you happen to have any close ups of the "new" drip tray for v1.4 referenced on Instagram? Curious to see what it looks like.


 New drip tray? Yeah tons of photos. Here are two "purdee" photos we took, followed a photos yesterday from a customers on Instagram. More photos are not hard to find.















https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/index.php?app=core&module=system&controller=embed&url=https://www.instagram.com/p/CBP4SW9BVb7/


----------



## webuild4life

decent_espresso said:


> USA isn't too much of a problem for us with normal items, as it costs about $10 to put an item in a BIG box with 50 other orders, and then $500 to ship the big box to me. I then open it, stamp it and send it via USPS.
> 
> But big items like the flowjet are more like $80 send to me, then another $30 or so to send it onwards in the USA, or $60 to send it to UK/EU.


 Dang! Didn't realize you did so much to get stuff here.

FWIW, I am going to be ordering literally everything from you guys 😅(I'm probably not special for that) so maybe a single box will be for my stuff hah! The cart stuff, 1.3XL (maybe 1.4?) barista kit, the baskets, steam tip, cups, niche holding thing, new scale. I'm super excited to move on from my $5 amazon knock off everything into a real solid setup. I'll be attempting to document everything as well since there isn't a lot of user content on the XL (and none on the cart!).



decent_espresso said:


> New drip tray? Yeah tons of photos. Here are two "purdee" photos we took, followed a photos yesterday from a customers on Instagram. More photos are not hard to find.


 Sorry, must have not looked hard enough! Thank you! They look nice for sure.


----------



## decent_espresso

webuild4life said:


> FWIW, I am going to be ordering literally everything from you guys 😅(I'm probably not special for that) so maybe a single box will be for my stuff hah! The cart stuff, 1.3XL (maybe 1.4?) barista kit, the baskets, steam tip, cups, niche holding thing, new scale. I'm super excited to move on from my $5 amazon knock off everything into a real solid setup. I'll be Jattempting to document everything as well since there isn't a lot of user content on the XL (and none on the cart!).


 Just FYI the espresso machine suitcases have very little space for accessories, as the foam is custom cut to protect the machine. Your baskets and steam tips would fit in there, but everything else would go into a separate box.


----------



## decent_espresso

webuild4life said:


> Dang! Didn't realize you did so much to get stuff here.


 I actually made a little movie about it 

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/index.php?app=core&module=system&controller=embed&url=https://www.instagram.com/p/B_DIdiPBTFO/

My process is a bit better now, but this is my kitchen every 3 days:


----------



## webuild4life

decent_espresso said:


> Just FYI the espresso machine suitcases have very little space for accessories, as the foam is custom cut to protect the machine. Your baskets and steam tips would fit in there, but everything else would go into a separate box.


 Oh yeah, makes sense. Also, let me extend my earlier worries about the cart and say if the knockbox is the "shipping is too high" lets see her too lol.

Can you tell me if I place my order today for the 1.4XL, am I charged for everything in my cart, or only things that will be shipped? Would make it easier for my to buy the cart stuff today and the machine later (if i'm charged later.)



decent_espresso said:


> My process is a bit better now, but this is my kitchen every 3 days:


 Wild!

Think that's all my worries and concerns. I super appreciate your help and answers.


----------



## decent_espresso

webuild4life said:


> Can you tell me if I place my order today for the 1.4XL, am I charged for everything in my cart, or only things that will be shipped? Would make it easier for my to buy the cart stuff today and the machine later (if i'm charged later.)


 We do charge for everything up front. Sorry. 😞


----------



## decent_espresso

webuild4life said:


> Can you tell me if I place my order today for the 1.4XL, am I charged for everything in my cart, or only things that will be shipped? Would make it easier for my to buy the cart stuff today and the machine later (if i'm charged later.)


 It occured to me that you might be interested to know that we're building all the 1.3 black DE1XL models this week (all the parts just came in), and I think we will have a few in stock, 2 or 3 of each voltage, in excess of current orders. Unless new orders arrive in the next 7 days and grab them, we'll be shipping those immediately to who-ever buys them.

I can post back here in a week if that turns out to be the case. I do know that waiting 8 weeks is no fun.

There currently are orders for 22 black DE1XL machines, and we have enough perfect mirror panels to build 28 of them. https://decentespresso.com/queue

So, these will not be mirror-lipped, but entirely mirrored. Those will be the last of the fully-mirrored that we can make for now.

As the expression goes, *not for love nor money* can we find any more perfectly mirrored front panels, so we're switching to hybrid (mirrored lips, brushed otherwise) panels from now on.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

webuild4life said:


> I saw the flowjet and pitcher rinser was discontinued??? I am going to be ordering all the stuff to make the cart. Is this a temporary out of stock issue? Super bummed if it is permanent. If it is another shipping issue can you let me know the costs? I don't mind paying extra.


 I've brought back most of the items I discontinued, so you can choose to buy them again, but pay the real shipping price. You can see what prices look like these days, which makes buying larger "mostly air" items fairly unattractive in the post-COVID reality.

I'm of course happy to sell these things to you, but I'll be surprised if any UK/EU person goes for it, given these shipping rates. Shipping HK->USA is about half to a third the HK->UK cost.

For espresso machines, given their high value, currently high shipping rates are tolerable. But for lower value items like a knockbox, it doesn't make sense to ship them individually.

I'm working on a solution here, either with UPS giving us a huge price break 🤣 or using Amazon FBA, or something else...


----------



## webuild4life

decent_espresso said:


> 've brought back most of the items I discontinued, so you can choose to buy them again, but pay the real shipping price. You can see what prices look like these days, which makes buying larger "mostly air" items fairly unattractive in the post-COVID reality.


 Yeah it's quite wild. I suppose most people would pick a local alternative over paying that shipping cost. I'd say give the option though, I for one will pay a premium to stay in a "Decent" brand .



decent_espresso said:


> I'm of course happy to sell these things to you, but I'll be surprised if any UK/EU person goes for it, given these shipping rates. Shipping HK->USA is about half to a third the HK->UK cost.


 Those EU costs are insane!!! Totally understand that, USA is high but semi tolerable if you look at it from a "well I'm spending x already...." mindset haha



decent_espresso said:


> For espresso machines, given their high value, currently high shipping rates are tolerable. But for lower value items like a knockbox, it doesn't make sense to ship them individually.


 Is it not possible to stock inventory in your closet at home? lol



decent_espresso said:


> I'm working on a solution here, either with UPS giving us a huge price break 🤣 or using Amazon FBA, or something else...


 Is shipping via snail mail (China Post EMS - this may not be a thing in HK I'm not sure) not an option? I order tea from Yunnan and use that as it's about $20 for a large package - but takes 3 months. Waiting 3 months for a knockbox may be weird, but when you're waiting 3 months for your espresso machine to get in production probably would make it ok to some.


----------



## decent_espresso

*New Mirrored Lips*

Starting today, all our DE1PRO and DE1XL models will feature a mirrored lip, so you can see your espresso coming out of your portafilter as you make it, without having to bend down.

Previously, we've been making front panels from mirrored stainless steel panels. That's always been a difficult process, with about 50% of them failing our quality-control tests and being turned into brushed steel panels. Post-covid, suppliers no longer want to make such a difficult part.

We fired our two suppliers 2 months ago, and switched to two new ones. One of them failed to deliver any samples, declaring them all fatally flawed. The other one delivered them to us, but only 28 out of 150 are useable (19% success rate) and even they aren't perfect.

We've come up with a better way to make these panels.

We're now die-cutting a real mirror to the exact shape of the lip. We get it made with a 3M glue backing, and we then adhere it to the lip of a brushed panel.

The mirror image quality is much improved with this approach. And, if you should ever damage the mirror, we can send you a new one, that you stick on yourself.

The brushed front panel is much easier to maintain, as you don't have to worry about scratching the mirror.

Our Pro customers have long asked us for this solution, as brushed steel is the standard with commercial equipment, as it's so easy to maintain. But retaining the mirror is nice touch.

The DE1+ will not feature this mirror lip, though you can buy it from our store https://decentespresso.com/c?s=347+1 and stick in on yourself.

If you're wondering what the difference is from the DE1+ to the DE1PRO, it's mostly about the longer-lasting valves and pumps, and 20x greater shot warranty that comes with that. And the IMS filter screen is standard on the DE1PRO, though you can buy that from us too https://decentespresso.com/c?s=73345+1 and install it yourself.

-john


----------



## mmmatron

Anyone interested in jumping in my order for a mirror? Ordering a 3 hole steam tip also. Just installed an IMS screen.


----------



## decent_espresso

webuild4life said:


> Is shipping via snail mail (China Post EMS - this may not be a thing in HK I'm not sure) not an option? I order tea from Yunnan and use that as it's about $20 for a large package - but takes 3 months. Waiting 3 months for a knockbox may be weird, but when you're waiting 3 months for your espresso machine to get in production probably would make it ok to some.


 Yeah, sending by boat is an option, but I don't think our clients will accept a 3 month wait. Well, at least not until COVID, everyone was used to air mail speeds.

But I'm back to HK next month, and high on my todo list is finding a solution to this shipping mess.

-john


----------



## filthynines

Think you've cracked it with these, John. Best of both worlds.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Watch Zoom call about Blooming Espresso*

This was by far the best zoom call so far. Not only are the Zoom technical issues gone, but the questions were great, the pace was good, and we had a excellent multiperson conversation going.

Luca participated extensively in this Zoom call, and his being the "coffee knowledge guy" is a good counterpoint to my being the "technical guy".

Highlights:



Luca and John dial in a Blooming Espresso and explain the charts


Discussion of approaches to making good coffee with ultralight roasts


makes an experimental-process Kenyan bean and explains what's interesting about it.


Questioning the flat-flow profiles (ie, "best for milky drinks")


Luca and John dial in a Blooming Espresso and explain the charts


Bugs and I re-watched the entire thing, as it was surprisingly fast-moving and informative.

I think there's a lot to learn from this episode:


----------



## decent_espresso

*Zoom call this saturday on "Blooming Espresso" for USA, UK/EU and the Arab world.*

Next week we'll have another open Zoom Decent call, timed to suit the USA, UK/EU and the Arab world.

The theme this time will be "Blooming Espresso".

Those of you on the call, with DE1s, it'd be great if you tried to make a Blooming as well. You can then show your Decent tablet screens and get feedback on dialing it in.

Together, we can try to achieve tasty coffee with this innovative technique.

Topic: Decent zoom EU/UK/Arab world - "blooming espresso"

Time: Jun 27, 2020 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Time: Jun 27, 2020 6:00 PM London time

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84478596057

Meeting ID: 844 7859 6057

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Film noir skin for espresso machine*

We're working in a vinyl print sticker that could be applied all around your Decent Espresso Machine. The graphics we made are inspired by the Film Noir movie tradition of post-WW2 spy films. We'll be releasing an Adobe Illustrator file so you can print it yourself locally, or make your own graphics.


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## olivier

Hey John, thanks a lot for all the information provided here, been following this thread for a long while (almost bought a DE1 two years ago, and again a couple of weeks ago but was put off by the 8 weeks wait!) I have a couple of questions regarding the near and long-term future of DE machines:

- DE1 v1.4 will feature a higher DC power supply. As far as I remember the only improvements that leads to is the tablet always charging, and background refill for users who have their machine plumbed in. Are there potential improvements the 65W machines could benefit from in the future that would not be available on the 30W (ie pre v1.4) machines?

- Have you already thought about plans for a DE2, or whatever would come next, and what you'd change, improve etc.? It might be very far down the road, but interested to hear about anything you may have in mind. I can understand as well that you might want to keep this to yourself to preserve your edge against the competition.


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## decent_espresso

olivier said:


> Hey John, thanks a lot for all the information provided here, been following this thread for a long while (almost bought a DE1 two years ago, and again a couple of weeks ago but was put off by the 8 weeks wait!) I have a couple of questions regarding the near and long-term future of DE machines:


 FYI the wait is now down to 5 weeks, as some people have moved their orders to v1.4, and we've sped up our manufacturing for v1.3.



> - DE1 v1.4 will feature a higher DC power supply. As far as I remember the only improvements that leads to is the tablet always charging, and background refill for users who have their machine plumbed in. Are there potential improvements the 65W machines could benefit from in the future that would not be available on the 30W (ie pre v1.4) machines?


 At the moment, I can't think of any improvements that the 65W will give you.



> - Have you already thought about plans for a DE2, or whatever would come next, and what you'd change, improve etc.? It might be very far down the road, but interested to hear about anything you may have in mind. I can understand as well that you might want to keep this to yourself to preserve your edge against the competition.


 most of the improvements we have planned are in the world of software, and thus apply to all machines we've ever made.

And we'll be coming out with a 220V-only high end model with 50% faster steaming, in 2021, but that'll be more expensive and aimed toward the pro market.

-john


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## olivier

Cheers, that's helpful. Think I've read about other upcoming enhancements (eg. different type of pump), but that's not for v1.4, right?


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## decent_espresso

olivier said:


> Cheers, that's helpful. Think I've read about other upcoming enhancements (eg. different type of pump), but that's not for v1.4, right?


 We're working on moving to a 10db quieter pump, and that might come in v1.5. However, we have something that works well, and so we're going to move very slowly on that front, as so to make sure it's the right move.

Note that when/if we do move, you'll be able to order the pumps and replace them yourself. 15 minute job.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Bloom Zoom Call #2*

This turned into a much more advanced conversation, as it was mostly DE1 owners on the call. Toward the end, I pull manual blooming shots on the v1.3 DE1.


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## decent_espresso

*Top Secret Espresso*

Our first attempt at making a vinyl decal for the DE1, here with a "film noir" spy-movie set of graphics Joao made.

We used a local printing company to make the same sort of "vinyl wrap" that would go on a car. It's durable stuff.

Some things we learned with our first attempt:



it's very hard to align screw holes. We'll reprint this and leave the holes off, and cut them in afterwards.


Drawings don't meet reality. In a few places, the stickers are a few millimeters shorter than the real object.


it's a great way to repurpose "cosmetically challenged" but otherwise acceptable metal parts, and so it's a good eco-friendly solution.


we printed the back panel backwards (whoops).


It took about 2 hours to get everything on, and remove all the bubbles, even with all the right tools and watching Youtube videos.


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## decent_espresso

Here's what the assembled "film noir" vinyl skin looks like on a Decent Espresso Machine.

These aren't renders, this is the real object.

-john


----------



## mmmatron

The V went off to its new home this afternoon. A little side by side with the DE1+. The pics don't really do the size difference justice but you get the idea.


----------



## salty

Both look amazing but all that counter space you now have! Congratulations









Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## olivier

Small footprint is actually one of the things that's drawing me toward the Decent. Still haven't pulled the trigger on one though. How do you like it compared to the Vesuvius so far, @mmmatron?


----------



## mmmatron

olivier said:


> Small footprint is actually one of the things that's drawing me toward the Decent. Still haven't pulled the trigger on one though. How do you like it compared to the Vesuvius so far, @mmmatron?


I love it! I've noticed a big difference in shot taste, they're sweeter and more balanced. The shots have less mouthfeel and are a bit 'thinner' on a flat 6 bar profile like I was running on the V but i'm blown away with the taste.

Steaming takes longer and can't be done while you're brewing but I'm actually getting much better microfoam. Plus there's no drop in steam pressure or recovery time like the V.

One of the main differences I love is the warm up time. It's gone from 45 mins to 4! It feels a bit life changing  and I have a ton more counter space (to fill with coffee paraphernalia of course).

I did have a moments regret when I was getting the V ready to send it on its way, it's been such a brilliant machine but I do love the DE.


----------



## shaunlawler

I really wish there was a UK/EU distributor of this machine.

If there was, I would buy one in a heartbeat but just can't justify the import/shipping fees unfortuantely.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## olivier

Thanks for the update. Indeed quick warm up time is another big one for me. I don't necessarily drink loads of coffee during the day (and I'm usually not home in normal times anyway), so having to wait 20+ minutes to get the boiler and group up to temp is not ideal.

The other big plus for me though is the feedback you get from the app. I think it's hard to improve what you can't measure, so here you get more data points to understand what's going on. Of course coffee is not just about charts and numbers, and taste buds should remain the main and ultimate "sensor" in the chain. Having real-time, precise feedback about your puck preparation seems like a good way to improve onself.

I guess I just talked myself into buying one!


----------



## filthynines

olivier said:


> Thanks for the update. Indeed quick warm up time is another big one for me. I don't necessarily drink loads of coffee during the day (and I'm usually not home in normal times anyway), so having to wait 20+ minutes to get the boiler and group up to temp is not ideal.
> 
> The other big plus for me though is the feedback you get from the app. I think it's hard to improve what you can't measure, so here you get more data points to understand what's going on. Of course coffee is not just about charts and numbers, and taste buds should remain the main and ultimate "sensor" in the chain. Having real-time, precise feedback about your puck preparation seems like a good way to improve onself.
> 
> I guess I just talked myself into buying one!


 It is a legitimately great machine. Quick warm-up is a big boon.


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## decent_espresso

shaunlawler said:


> I really wish there was a UK/EU distributor of this machine.
> 
> If there was, I would buy one in a heartbeat but just can't justify the import/shipping fees unfortuantely.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


 The price would be more if we used a UK/EU reseller, because



they would still have to pay for shipping, and VAT, import fees, customs broker, and naturally have to pass those costs onto you.


and they would add 30% to the price, in order to have a profit margin to pay their bills with. They can't run a business importing foreign machines without charging for their services.


That's why we don't use distributors. You're effectively getting a 30% lower price because we sell direct.

La Marzocco resellers enjoy a 40% markup, FYI. I don't begrudge them that, everyone is entitled to earn a profit.

We do have a Germany-based repair depot, however.

-john


----------



## shaunlawler

decent_espresso said:


> The price would be more if we used a UK/EU reseller, because
> 
> they would still have to pay for shipping, and VAT, import fees, customs broker, and naturally have to pass those costs onto you.
> and they would add 30% to the price, in order to have a profit margin to pay their bills with. They can't run a business importing foreign machines without charging for their services.
> That's why we don't use distributors. You're effectively getting a 30% lower price because we sell direct.
> La Marzocco resellers enjoy a 40% markup, FYI. I don't begrudge them that, everyone is entitled to earn a profit.
> We do have a Germany-based repair depot, however.
> -john


Understood, thankyou.

It would probably be more cost effective for me to fly to the US, buy one directly and then bring one back to the UK as carry-on luggage in the fantastically designed suitcase it comes packaged with!


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## decent_espresso

shaunlawler said:


> Understood, thankyou.
> 
> It would probably be more cost effective for me to fly to the US, buy one directly and then bring one back to the UK as carry-on luggage in the fantastically designed suitcase it comes packaged with!


 More than one person has done such a thing. It's not an accident our suitcase has 4 wheels.

Or wait until COVID quarantine is over and come visit us in HK.


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## catpuccino

shaunlawler said:


> Understood, thankyou.
> 
> It would probably be more cost effective for me to fly to the US, buy one directly and then bring one back to the UK as carry-on luggage in the fantastically designed suitcase it comes packaged with!


 You forget the bit where you skirt about declaring its value through customs though eh 👍


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## shaunlawler

catpuccino said:


> You forget the bit where you skirt about declaring its value through customs though eh


The value of a 'decent espresso' is priceless!


----------



## decent_espresso

This was a bit of good news for us:

https://www.hongkongpost.hk/en/about_us/whats_new/press_release/index_id_704.html

*
2020.07.02
*

Hongkong Post today (July 2) announced that postal services to the destinations listed below will resume from tomorrow (July 3) as airlines are gradually scaling up their air traffic capacity and some postal administrations have resumed the acceptance of overseas mail. Notwithstanding this, postal operations of these destinations are still under the influence of the pandemic, and delays in mail delivery are expected.



Destinations

Service types available
 

Asia


India and the Philippines

All postal services (including Speedpost service)


Europe



*United Kingdom 😀 😀 😀*


Speedpost service, e-Express and all surface mail postal services


*France*, Poland, Spain and *Switzerland*


All postal services (including Speedpost service)
 

Estonia


All airmail postal services (including Speedpost service)
 

The UK and Switzerland are both big destinations for Decent Stuff, and so I'm really looking forward to not having to bounce shipments all over the world any longer to get stuff to them.

I did 3 boxes of 50kg each last week (about 180 orders), though my garage in California. I'm headed back to HK shortly, so this news comes at a good time, since I won't be here any longer to do the bouncing.


----------



## decent_espresso

The first question on the most recent Decent Zoom call was about the reliability (or not) of our Decent Espresso Machines. I've pulled that answer out into a separate video, seen here:


----------



## decent_espresso

The Rao Allongé is my other favorite technique (allonge with Blooming Espresso) for light and ultralight roast coffee.

Those kinds of beans need more water contact in order to extract coffee material from the beans, because of the lighter roast. The can be accomplished with either a much faster flow rate (Allongé) or longer water contact time, via a blooming pause.

In this Zoom call, I explain the theory behind the Allongé, why and how it works. I also explain how non-Decent espresso machines can be dialed in to make this sort of drink (it's possible, Rao did it 20 years ago!).

A few other people on the call make their own Allongé and we discuss the charts, tastes and areas for more research.

-john


----------



## Rob1

I've done a couple of allonge like drinks recently by accident, and I've been trying blooming espresso too. It's really difficult to get good extraction with the blooming method for me, the taste was quite bland and I would guess leaning towards over-extraction. I'm using a Pacamara for the first time I did a couple of really long shots dialling in that came up to pressure and dropped rapidly down to about 5-6 bar. I pulled them to about (18g:65g) out and really enjoyed them, got the tasting notes perfectly (Marzipan, Toffee, Cherry). The paddle allows me to control the flow rate and I brought it down to about 2.5ml/s after pre-infusion. Getting a normal espresso out required about 5 notches finer with a long pre-infusion and obviously delivers something more concentrated (17g:45g) but not really as pleasant to drink. It's really interesting what you can do when you're willing to step outside of ordinary margins for espresso and just throw a load of water through a puck at a controlled flow rate.


----------



## TomR

Question for John - for a UK customer (for a DE1+) should I buy now, or is shipping likely to get much cheaper over the next few weeks?

thanks for your advice

Tom


----------



## Rob1

I'm looking forward to our UK-US free trade deal.


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## decent_espresso

TomR said:


> Question for John - for a UK customer (for a DE1+) should I buy now, or is shipping likely to get much cheaper over the next few weeks?
> 
> thanks for your advice Tom


 We're shipping the machines via UPS, and it's true that UPS has increased its prices. I don't know if they'll go up or down.

At the moment, when you place your order, we charge you for shipping and then pay (5 weeks later) whatever UPS charges us. Mostly, that's had us eating the price increase.

But...

If you're willing to take a gamble, I'd be willing to revisit the UPS shipping price when we ship your machine, on the condition that:



if the UPS price has gone up now, you pay the difference


if the UPS price has gone down now, we'll refund you the difference.


Just trying to be fair...

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

​
​


For a few weeks now, we've completely switched over to making Decent machines with "hybrid" front panels.​
​
These have a brushed stainless steel front panel, and then we place a die-cut bathroom-quality mirror on the lip.​
​
The advantages of this hybrid panel are:​


easier to clean brushed panel


optical quality of the "true mirror" are superior to polished stainless that we did before.


if you scratch the mirror, it can be removed and we'll send you a free replacement with your next shipment from us, that you can stick on yourself


we keep shipping machines, instead of bashing our head against the wall trying to achieve perfection.


-john​


----------



## TomR

decent_espresso said:


> We're shipping the machines via UPS, and it's true that UPS has increased its prices. I don't know if they'll go up or down.
> 
> At the moment, when you place your order, we charge you for shipping and then pay (5 weeks later) whatever UPS charges us. Mostly, that's had us eating the price increase.
> 
> But...
> 
> If you're willing to take a gamble, I'd be willing to revisit the UPS shipping price when we ship your machine, on the condition that:
> 
> 
> 
> if the UPS price has gone up now, you pay the difference
> 
> 
> if the UPS price has gone down now, we'll refund you the difference.
> 
> 
> Just trying to be fair...
> 
> -john


 thanks John - very fair indeed, but to avoid hassle I think I will order through the routine process

do new customers get basecamp access on ordering or on delivery - I would enjoy filling the weeks waiting exploring the advice there

tom


----------



## decent_espresso

TomR said:


> do new customers get basecamp access on ordering or on delivery - I would enjoy filling the weeks waiting exploring the advice there


 We ask that people who just bought a DE1 and who want access to Diaspora first read:

https://decentespresso.com/reviews.html

and then once they understand that, we give them access.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Temperature Bump*

The Decent shows you the temperature 2mm above the coffee puck, and so you can see the interaction between hot water and your room-temperature coffee grounds.
Most people don't realize that all classic espresso machines extract with a temperature profile, starting low (typically 6ºC to 8ºC) and not reaching the "boiler water temperature" until about 20 seconds into an espresso.

This is one reason, I believe that coffee experts generally prefer pour-over (filter) coffee to espresso, because the extraction temperature is much more constant, and results in a better drink.

The Decent lets you instantly change the water temperature during an espresso shot.

I recently started experimenting with a slight temperature boost at the start of my shot, for two reasons:



to compensate for the cooling effect of the room temperature grounds


to extract more coffee material at the very start of the shot, when the best tasting stuff is extracted. The theory goes that a lower temperature later in the shot is advised, to avoid extracting too much unpleasant flavors.


I've been surprised at home much this this small change:



improves the flavor of the espresso, especially removing harshness


significantly changes the temperature curve the first 7 seconds of the espresso


Take a look at before and after photos below. Notice:



without this bump the shot starts 2.5ºC under temperature, reaching the goal around 7 seconds.


with this bump, the shot immediately starts at the goal temperature, and then goes up to 1.5ºC over temperature as it settles back to the goal temperature over the course of the shot.


Interesting stuff!

-john


----------



## TomR

decent_espresso said:


> We ask that people who just bought a DE1 and who want access to Diaspora first read:
> 
> https://decentespresso.com/reviews.html
> 
> and then once they understand that, we give them access.


 This is such a sensible approach to the situation/ problem described. It was also enough to convince me to finally put my money down on a de1+


----------



## decent_espresso

💩🤣 Puck rake hilarity

Sometimes a vendor sends you a hint: "please go away, we don't want to make this object for you"

I think that's what happened today with these samples of our forthcoming "puck rake" https://decentespresso.com/c?s=343+1+344+1

The top right photo is what it's supposed to look like. The other images are what we got.

We've hand-made a few samples for our own use. It wasn't hard to do. No glue needed, just a drill press and a lathe.









Instead of asking this supplier to "improve" what they sent us, I am taking the hint, and going away.

We're next going to try a supplier who makes fine objects from ebony wood. That should require a certain level of quality workmanship, since the material is so expensive.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Temperature stability on E61 and Decent*

On this zoom call I was asked why Decent measures espressos at a lower temperature than other machines. I explain how E61 and other machines measure temperature, how their approach affects temperature stability.


----------



## mmmatron

Replaced the stock steam wand tip with the 3 hole. Combined the with the new firmware I'm getting much better results.


----------



## Rob1

> On 09/07/2020 at 23:27, decent_espresso said:
> 
> The first question on the most recent Decent Zoom call was about the reliability (or not) of our Decent Espresso Machines. I've pulled that answer out into a separate video, seen here:


 I missed this earlier.

I've wondered about the max temp the water is heated to in your machines for a while. IIRC you mix hot and cold water together to hit the target temp at the puck, presumably using a thermoblock system? Do you know the typical max temp you'd expect to see the water heated to in this system for say a 95c puck, and what temps the water is heated to for steaming? With this information you can determine the max hardness and alkalinity you can have in water before you see scaling. The hardness doesn't have to come from Calcium, you can also get Magnesium Carbonate precipitate.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Easy Temperature Profiling.*

A new app update adds the ability to change the temperature over the course of an espresso shot.

Most classic machines have natural temperature profiles and do not deliver flat-water-temperature lines.

For example the E61 with its massive stainless steel group head both radiating heat and heating (or cooling) the water just before it hits the espresso.

Features of this new capability:
- invisible by default, no added complexity if you don't need this feature
- tap on red part of thermometer to turn temp profiling features on/off.
- fast setting of all 4 temperatures on one page
- easy relative changes to all steps
- sample profile called "default with descending temperature" is now included, and hidden by default.
- Let's experiment and see what tastes best. My sample profile is just that, a sample, and will be improved with what we learn here, together.
- new profiles will come out over the next few months, in conversation with the Decent Diaspora community, as we figure out what tastes best.

-john


----------



## filthynines

TomR said:


> This is such a sensible approach to the situation/ problem described. It was also enough to convince me to finally put my money down on a de1+


 You won't regret it! Though the wait might kill you!


----------



## Guy Levine

I am very excited. I have just had the shipping notification on my DE1 + The team there have been really good to deal with as my order has chopped and changed a little bit! Looking forward to sharing my journey.


----------



## filthynines

Guy Levine said:


> I am very excited. I have just had the shipping notification on my DE1 + The team there have been really good to deal with as my order has chopped and changed a little bit! Looking forward to sharing my journey.


 Great stuff - you're going to have a lot of fun!

I fully recommend following the advice to start off with the "Gentle and Sweet" profile and go from there. There's the real potential for frustration if you start doing the advanced stuff too quickly. Get tasty coffee, then start to play!


----------



## Guy Levine

filthynines said:


> Great stuff - you're going to have a lot of fun!
> 
> I fully recommend following the advice to start off with the "Gentle and Sweet" profile and go from there. There's the real potential for frustration if you start doing the advanced stuff too quickly. Get tasty coffee, then start to play!


 Thanks! The good thing about the wait is you have time to watch all the videos! I have ordered a Niche Grinder so will have to get used to coming from a big shop grinder as well. My old machine has no complexity, so its going to be a fun journey. My wife is excited to have some counter space back!


----------



## decent_espresso

*Zoom call tomorrow, for USA/UK/EU*

Time: Jul 18, 2020 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Time: Jul 18, 2020 6:00 PM UK Time

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86057696447

(link in Instagram bio)

There's been a lot of new Decent things released recently, and I'll go over all of them.

An archive of the call will be posted, and those questions that I manage to answer coherently will get separated out into separate, short videos.

-john


----------



## viveur

I have some questions about the water tank and catering kits 🙂 (disclaimer: I've recently spent far too much on a grinder, so it'll take a few years before I've saved up enough for the DE - but I know I want one ASAP - but I'm also interested in waiting for the faster steaming models seeing as I live in 230V land)!

- Is there some way of monitoring the water tank level, without pulling it out - e.g. will the tablet tell me that I need to refill BEFORE I run out of water mid-shot?

- How necessary is the catering kit if you decide to run with a "tank" that is on the same level as your machine? I ask because with my current machine (and E61 DB, with vibe pump), I'm able to use an external "tank" (just a tall glass jar) without any extra pumps - the only change needed was some extra tubing to the pump and from the pressure valve. I imagine the Decent could cope with something similar, assuming the tank is on the same level as the machine (but I can also see how the pump is necessary if you have a tank on a lower level)?

Finally: thanks for deciding on a ceramic tank! I've had horrible experiences with the plastic tank in my current machine, which is one of the reasons why I use the external glass jar tank (the other reasons being: less heating of the tank, and that it's much easier to remember to refill the tank when it's visible).


----------



## decent_espresso

viveur said:


> - Is there some way of monitoring the water tank level, without pulling it out - e.g. will the tablet tell me that I need to refill BEFORE I run out of water mid-shot?


 Yes, the various skins all display the water level. In Insight skin it is here. Discrete, but it starts to blink red when it gets low.











> - How necessary is the catering kit if you decide to run with a "tank" that is on the same level as your machine? I ask because with my current machine (and E61 DB, with vibe pump), I'm able to use an external "tank" (just a tall glass jar) without any extra pumps - the only change needed was some extra tubing to the pump and from the pressure valve. I imagine the Decent could cope with something similar, assuming the tank is on the same level as the machine (but I can also see how the pump is necessary if you have a tank on a lower level)?


 You do still need the catering kit in this case, as it is powered up whenever the DE1 tank gets low, to fill our own tank.



> Finally: thanks for deciding on a ceramic tank! I've had horrible experiences with the plastic tank in my current machine, which is one of the reasons why I use the external glass jar tank (the other reasons being: less heating of the tank, and that it's much easier to remember to refill the tank when it's visible).


 nice!


----------



## decent_espresso

The zoom call turned out to be mostly me talking, answering tons of good (and sometimes difficult) questions. Normally we get more a dialogue going, as we usually focus on coffee making together.

I've cut the answers up into short videos, in a big playlist. Here they all are:


----------



## decent_espresso

The most beautiful coffee cart award goes to:
https://www.instagram.com/alwaysdialingincoffee/

with COVID and no more access to cafes, he decided to make his own cafe, at home.
﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

*Moving to the new factory*

We have 70 DE1 machines built and waiting for burning in, calibration & testing, so we used this opportunity to finally move our factory.






Our "boxing" room has become crazy crowded as sales have zoomed up, due to the COVID-caused "make coffee at home" trend. We really can use the extra space.









We now have enough space to mark areas for different versions of machines (here: v1.1 vs v1.3) and you can walk around everything now.

[IMG alt="" data-src=""]https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png[/IMG]








We're keeping old factory, and converting into a warehouse for our accessories.

We also gain enough space to get our lunchroom back. A core part of each day was eating our lunch together, with the cook we hire who comes each day to do so. It was really a shame when, last year, we lost the lunchroom to store espresso machine suitcases.

Thankfully, all 3 spaces we rent are adjacent to each other. We've renovated, knocked down walls, and made them all connected. It helps that our landlord is crazy for coffee and even bought one of our machines.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New Pour-over basket*

Back in April, we shipped a new portafilter basket design, for making V60-style pour overs on the Decent. https://decentespresso.com/basket

The basket had taken about a year and a half to design, as a collaboration between Scott Rao and my engineer Ben Champion (Ben and I FYI met on HB, when he was a forum member).









Rao worked on the interaction between flow rate, pressure (which causes churning of the coffee bed), volume and temperature until he was happy with the recipe. We manufactured 7 rounds of designs, about 40 variations in total, as part of the R&D.

Rao's Decent Pour-Over recipe is included by default, so you can simply select it without knowing all the complexity behind it:









It includes a fair number of detailed steps, for the more technical/exploratory folk to be able to modify if they choose.









Last week, I added a new Rao-authored "cold brew" recipe, as a recent firmware release now allows cool temperatures (20º to 30º appearing to be ideal for cold brew). We're still dialing in the cold brew recipe, to make it better.

We had ordered 1000pcs of these baskets made, which we thought would hold us for 2 years. To our surprise, we're almost out of stock of them 4 months later, so we're ordering another 2000 baskets to be made.

With each production run, we look to see if there's anything we can do to improve the item.

In this case, it's a small thing, but some people complained about the scratched texture of the bottom of the basket. It's stainless steel, but unlike a normal basket, it's not covered in holes, so it does get scratched up.

So, in this latest iteration, we're now paying a bit more for our supplier to brush the texture of the outside of the basket, so that it looks nice and matte. No effect at all on the functionality. It just looks a bit better.









-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New vs old: what goes on inside*

I'm often asked "what's new improvements are coming to the Decent?" and my reply is "mostly neat things in software and firmware. We took 3 years to design a 'Turing complete espresso machine' that could improved like a computer can be."

Now, of course, we're still improving the inside. But very little of what we do creates new features for customers. Instead, the work we do goes to simplifying and speeding assembly, lowering costs, and decreasing complexity.

First, we had to figure out how to make an espresso machine that did what we wanted. We couldn't focus on that, and also keep it cheap and simple to make. Our current model (V1.3) takes about 16 hours for us to make it. I know the real time, that work is done by our team. On top of that, about 4 hours of work is outsourced. So, figure 20 hours to build a Decent.

In the photos above you can see--on the bottom row--our "manifold". That's the the sort of "train station" where hot and cold water comes in, various sensors check temperature and pressure, and valves decide where the water should go (espresso, flush, steam, etc...).

To make the Decent in small quantities, we mostly make things using a process called CNC. That's where you take a block of material and use a computer controlled drill to remove what you don't need. This is an expensive process, wasteful of material and very time consuming of very expensive machines. However, it's the only way to make complicated parts in small quantities.

Moulds are very expensive (typically tens of thousands of USD$), take a long time (6 month minimum, with 18 months to perfect them being commonplace) and require unchangeable, mature, tested designs. Thus, moulding is not appropriate for a small company, producing small quantities of machines, and where our design is changing quickly.

The "manifold" on the Decent has 3 CNCed parts made of an expensive resin called "ULTEM". We use it because it's incredibly inert: it's used medically for in-body parts and withstands high pressure and temperature. The big manifold, even at the quantities we're buying now (1000 at a time) costs us USD$120. The two smaller parts are cheaper, around USD$35 each. Add valves, sensors, the PCB, and you've got an expensive part. Plus, there are lots of tubes connecting everything. We color code every tube.

It's taking about 3 hours to assemble and test each full manifold.

Ben has been working 2 years on a unified manifold design, that takes all 3 ULTEM pieces, combines them into one, and in the process removes the need for 9 tubes. All the connectors become much easier to access as well.

On the top row of the photo, you can see a 3D printed prototype of his design. In a few months, we'll have small quantities of a CNCed version of this, that we can start testing. Once we get that all working, this manifold will start appearing in v1.5, or perhaps v1.6 Decent machines.

And once this part's design is mature, we'll switch to moulding it. That'll finally allow us to reduce the cost of making this part. But that's probably 18 to 24 months away.

And also note that this part is 100% backward compatible with all Decent machines. If a manifold were to break on an older model, we could install this new version in its place. All mounting point are identical, and the functionality is identical too.

I just wanted to share with you a bit about our longer term projects inside the Decent.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Back in Hong Kong*
﻿
Back in June 2019, Bugs and I left Hong Kong for what was supposed to be 9 months of intense outreach (many, many cafe demos on road trips), and several big trade shows. We managed to be at World of Coffee in Berlin, and CoffeeFest New York, and then covid happened. Trade shows we had booked in Brooklyn and Portland were cancelled. Talk about bad timing.

To compensate for the closures, I've been doing regular Zoom calls which anyone can join, and they feel like they're actually much more impactful than trade shows.

We've been living in California since February, waiting for "covid to blow over". That didn't happen. I applied to be a HK Resident, so that Bugs and I could get back there, and be back among all the staff we left to run the show while we were gone. That paperwork was approved 10 days ago. HK is only letting residents in, to try to control covid.

The flight from California to HK was 13 hours long, plus two hours of immigration, and multiple checks. Mandatory (but free) covid tests. 10 hours waiting in a big converted trade show hall in HK. After landing at 5:10am, at 7pm we were allowed to go to our rented apartment when we got stamped proof of covid-freeness.

We now have a "StayHomeSafe" HK government app running on Bugs' iPhone, tracking us via bluetooth enabled wristbands. We're in a strict quarantine for two weeks, in a very pleasant place called "Happy Valley". Waiting now for our first coffee in days to be delivered, from the earliest delivery that would come (9:30am sigh) but a very nice pastry https://www.passionbygd.com/ . It'll just be Illy beans, but I'm ok with compromising at this point.

We ran out of coffee beans 2 days before leaving California. Both Bugs and I immediately got day-long headaches, from caffeine withdrawal. We're now fully detoxed, and ready to up our caffeine levels again!

At 11:30am, Coffee Academics opens up, and they deliver. They're on some of the "top 10 worldwide best cafes" lists, so we're not at all unhappy with that choice. Plus, 5 years ago when we started Decent Espresso here in HK, Coffee Academics was our local, at the hotel where all of us were living, so it's great to come full circle, to an old friend https://www.the-coffeeacademics.com/

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Future drip tray design*​
Ben has been working on a new drip tray design, to enable easier integration of a scale placed underneath, out of the way.​
Besides being a little bit shorter, there is a cutout space for the drip tray cover to come up and around.﻿​





​
​
like so:​
​





​
​
We'd like to make this part using a new process for us: ceramic coated aluminum. This is the same stuff you might have seen in camping gear stores.​
​





​
​
It's still ceramic, so it has the same food safety and longevity as our current drip trays.​
However, the shape and strength is defined by a cast aluminium inner. This makes it much more resistant to breakage, thinner, and lighter.​
​
This'll mean :​


more accurate weighing of your espresso,


less worry about breakage,


better fit on the DE1 (due to tighter tolerances)


about 1kg (2.2lbs) lower weight, for easier transportation of your DE1


and better fit with the current stainless-steel drip tray cover design (less wiggle) due to better tolerances.


a plumbable version will have a hole on the far side (not the center) so that an under-tray drip pan can be used which doesn't get in the way of the scale. This will allow a scale to be used even in plumbed-in situations.


Here a sample of what this kind of ceramic-on-aluminum process creates. You can see that this photo is pretty similar to what we have today. And it looks pretty nice.​


We're having a difficult time finding an affordable supplier. Manufacturers are very nervous about taking on new clients at the moment, due to all around global uncertainty. I think we'll eventually get there, but it's going to take some time.




The hope is to have this for early 2021. It will (of course) work on all DE1 historical models and be available at a reasonable price, on our web site.




Hopefully some of the people who make existing Scale adaptors, will come out with versions that work with this new drip tray model. I'll be sending free samples of this new part, to those who have design drip tray adaptors, to encourage this.




Note that we're planning on making the water tank out of this process as well. That's how we get 1kg (2.2lbs) of weight reduction, as our 2 liter-capable water tank, being made of porcelain, is fairly heavy.


-john​
​


----------



## decent_espresso

*An Insight about different espresso recipes*
by charting the first derivative of the puck resistance

"Puck resistance" is a concept I added to the DE1 a few months ago, but we've been struggling a bit to understand what to do with the information.

Collin Arneson yesterday posted an interesting writeup arguing for the 1st derivative of the puck resistance number. This is a chart of the change in puck resistance.

This number shows us when puck integrity falls apart, regardless of flow rate or pressure changes that might obscure that trend.

What I found interesting was that it's also a way to compare espressos recipes.









Those recipes that result in linear puck degradation should make better tasting.









The author's tests with Rao's Blooming seems to confirm this. Pucks hold up better after a 30 seconds bloom, and degrade in a cleaner fashion.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Zoom call: all about the Decent Tablet app*

Bugs and I are in quarantine in Hong Kong for another 10 days, and I'm without a DE1. So.... while I'm happy to host a Zoom call, I can't make any coffee. So...

I do have access to the Decent app on my Mac and can "share screen" so I can do a "focus on the Decent App" zoom call topic.

My thinking is that I'd 
- walk through every screen of the Insight Skin 
- and all the Settings pages pages
- the ❤ section, 
- God shots, 
- Your Setup, 
- exporting CSV to Excel, 
- and whatever questions people have about the app.

﻿If Damian is available, he will do a complete walk through all the DSX skin features.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84187338701 - Meeting ID: 841 8733 8701
- August 1 - Saturday 6pm (pacific USA time)
- August 1 - Saturday 9pm (east coast USA time)
- August 2 - Sunday 9am (Hong Kong time)
- August 2 - Sunday 11am (Melbourne time)
﻿


----------



## Nikko

decent_espresso said:


> *An Insight about different espresso recipes*
> by charting the first derivative of the puck resistance
> 
> "Puck resistance" is a concept I added to the DE1 a few months ago, but we've been struggling a bit to understand what to do with the information.
> 
> Collin Arneson yesterday posted an interesting writeup arguing for the 1st derivative of the puck resistance number. This is a chart of the change in puck resistance.
> 
> This number shows us when puck integrity falls apart, regardless of flow rate or pressure changes that might obscure that trend.
> 
> What I found interesting was that it's also a way to compare espressos recipes.
> 
> View attachment 43380
> 
> 
> Those recipes that result in linear puck degradation should make better tasting.
> 
> View attachment 43379
> 
> 
> The author's tests with Rao's Blooming seems to confirm this. Pucks hold up better after a 30 seconds bloom, and degrade in a cleaner fashion.
> 
> -john


 Can you please post a link to Collin Arneson's article. Thanks


----------



## decent_espresso

Nikko said:


> Can you please post a link to Collin Arneson's article. Thanks


 Apologies, but it's a huge discussion thread on Diaspora, the Decent-owners-only forum.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's a Youtube video capture of the zoom call from today, covering the decent tablet app.






FYI you can download the app for free, and run it on Windows/Mac/Linux
https://decentespresso.com/downloads


----------



## decent_espresso

*Short Decent Funnel*

We've made a few prototypes of a shorter version of our funnel. Still aluminum, but these now have magnets to hold the funnel in place.

The shorter height of this model works well in cases where there's not much space between the portafilter and coffee ground exit chute.

We've specifically measured this funnel to work with the Niche grinder, and our double spouted portafilter stand. https://decentespresso.com/portafilter_stand

Our current funnel design doesn't fit with the Niche if you use our taller stand, which you'd use for double spouted portafilters.

I'll be testing these next week.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Slayer's preinfusion flow rate*

I have always wondered if the Slayer factory was calibrating their preinfusion flow rate (via their needle valve), and if so, to what setting?









I happened across a Slayer maintenance FAQ this morning, that gives the answer:
https://desk.zoho.com/portal/slayer/en/kb/articles/prebrew-flowrate-calibration



> Step 6: Prebrew flow rate should be set to 40g-60g/30 seconds. If the output is more than 60 grams, turn prebrew knob clockwise to tighten. If the output is less than 40 grams, turn prebrew knob counter clockwise to loosen.


 So that's a flow rate calibration between 1.33ml/s and 2ml/s.

Based on recipe times I'd found on the internet, and my own tests, I set our "Innovative long preinfusion" profile (which comes with the DE1) to default to 1.5ml/s:







﻿

For me, with an 18g dose, that gives me 37 seconds of preinfusion before the first drip comes out. That seemed in line with the 30s to 40s recommendations I'd seen for this style of espresso.

I am going to test speeding up the default flow rate for this recipe to 1.6 ml/s on the DE1, so that it's right in the middle of Slayer's recommended range.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Scott Rao has a new book out, entitled "Coffee Roasting Best Practices"



> "The most advanced guide ever written about expert-level coffee roasting. There is little overlap with The Coffee Roaster's Companion, which focused on the basics of roasting and different roasting machines. This book focuses primarily on advanced techniques to craft and control roast curves, with numerous pages devoted to strategies to avoid "ROR" crashes and flicks, baked coffee, unnecessary roasty-ness, and other roast defects."


 You can buy it from Rao's own site http://scottrao.com or from Decent https://decentespresso.com/books

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

It has begun.... other people have started writing their own Decent-compatible apps

Within 24h of each other, two Decent customers posted photos of their written-from-scratch apps for the DE1.

A native app for Windows from Mimoja https://mimoja.de/ - https://twitter.com/WingsOfMimoja









and a native iOS app was announced too, by Brian K









both those images are only teasers of what they're working on. But it's interesting that both were announced so close to each other.

I think that happened because in the past few months, Decent has crossed over from selling mostly to coffee geeks, and now we're selling to the (larger) tech geek audience. This new customer base recently started a crazy-long and technical "big data coffee analytics" discussion thread on our private Diaspora forum. It's causing dozens of posts per day, much of it above my competency, which is great.

Last week, Decent customer Barney in the UK walked me through his skin for my tablet app, which completely rethinks how the Decent should be piloted. Barney's work is much closer to finished than the yesterday-announced Windows/iOS apps, which are just starting.









Barney's "metric" skin presents the Decent in traditional "advanced barista" terms of grind, dose, ratio and temperature. The profile that runs the shot is automatically made for you, and not the focus. Instead, you focus on traditional espresso terms that, if you have a coffee background, you already know.

This is all very good news, because as good as my team might be, we can't compete with the talents of thousands of motivated Decent customers. This is the payoff for openness.

-john


----------



## daveyoung

Hey,

Quick one here! With possibly having better shipping, is it likely that I'll be able to buy the DE1+ to Ireland at a cheaper price?

Would really like to pick it up but it's definitely outside of my price range with an additional €400 added for shipping/tax. Thank you John


----------



## catpuccino

daveyoung said:


> Hey,
> 
> Quick one here! With possibly having better shipping, is it likely that I'll be able to buy the DE1+ to Ireland at a cheaper price?
> 
> Would really like to pick it up but it's definitely outside of my price range with an additional €400 added for shipping/tax. Thank you John


https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/28377-decent-espresso/page/126/?tab=comments&do=embed&comment=758282&embedComment=758282&embedDo=findComment#comment-758282


----------



## daveyoung

catpuccino said:


> https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/28377-decent-espresso/page/126/?tab=comments&do=embed&comment=758282&embedComment=758282&embedDo=findComment#comment-758282


 Aha right that makes sense.

The exchange rate from pounds to euros for the base model just seems a bit off too, which ends up it costing €250~ more expensive!

Nevermind me anyway I'm just trying to justify the stretch to it


----------



## decent_espresso

daveyoung said:


> Hey,
> 
> Quick one here! With possibly having better shipping, is it likely that I'll be able to buy the DE1+ to Ireland at a cheaper price?
> 
> Would really like to pick it up but it's definitely outside of my price range with an additional €400 added for shipping/tax. Thank you John


 The shipping price to Ireland is actually quite reasonable, at €220, and is about the same as pre-COVID pricing.

What is making it €406 in total is VAT/customs, which hasn't changed in a COVID world, and is unlikely to change:



UPS - Worldwide Expedited delivers within 6 days:


+ Shipping cost: €220.79


+ Tax for Ireland: €185.51


= €406.30


ps: I usually refresh shipping prices weekly, but I pushed out an update just now to see if the price had budged. It has not.


----------



## daveyoung

decent_espresso said:


> The shipping price to Ireland is actually quite reasonable, at €220, and is about the same as pre-COVID pricing.
> 
> What is making it €406 in total is VAT/customs, which hasn't changed in a COVID world, and is unlikely to change:
> 
> 
> 
> UPS - Worldwide Expedited delivers within 6 days:
> 
> 
> + Shipping cost: €220.79
> 
> 
> + Tax for Ireland: €185.51
> 
> 
> = €406.30
> 
> 
> ps: I usually refresh shipping prices weekly, but I pushed out an update just now to see if the price had budged. It has not.


 Perfect - appreciate you getting back.

With regards the exchange rate with pounds/euros, is it possible to pay in £ and get shipped to Ireland?


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Coffee Cart at Falcon Roasters*

This appeared on an Instagram story today, and I thought I'd turn it into a video. This cafe has put their own very-large tablet on our DE1XL v1.1 model espresso machine. There is also what appears to be a K30 grinder, and a tamping mat.

I also found it interesting that everything in that cafe is on wheels, or easily moved.

They're using a scale to stop the shot : I need to let them know about the new "stop at pour volume" feature which removes the need for a scale for most cafes.

-john

Video by Adnan Coffee
https://www.instagram.com/adnan_coffee/

of Falcon Coffee Roasters
https://www.instagram.com/falconroasters/


----------



## decent_espresso

daveyoung said:


> With regards the exchange rate with pounds/euros, is it possible to pay in £ and get shipped to Ireland?


 It isn't, sorry. We get audited yearly by the HK government, and "wrong currency for customer" was flagged by our auditor as a "suspicious transaction" and we should not be doing that. Customers need to pay in the currency of their country. The stringency of the audit has been ramping up as our revenue grows, so some things that were tolerated previously, no longer are.

-john


----------



## daveyoung

decent_espresso said:


> It isn't, sorry. We get audited yearly by the HK government, and "wrong currency for customer" was flagged by our auditor as a "suspicious transaction" and we should not be doing that. Customers need to pay in the currency of their country. The stringency of the audit has been ramping up as our revenue grows, so some things that were tolerated previously, no longer are.
> 
> -john


 No problem at all mate. Thank you for being so transparent.

I definitely think a Decent DE1 will be an order of mine, just not yet.

Want to progress up the ranks first with my own machines.

Have an awesome weekend.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Coffee Shin TV*

My plan for global world domination (mwaaaahahahah!) is to try to copy Tesla's model of no-resellers, but to have a strong presence in each major market, with my own employees in that country, and try to provide very good, appropriate-to-local-culture, support.

South Korea is the first place I deployed that strategy, in hiring a local, and having set up a Decent Base in Seoul. Shin, a young ex-engineering-student who moved to Australia for a while, to learn about coffee, is my Decent Man in South Korea.

I assume that the locals-on-the-ground know best, so I let each local Decent Base, do what they think is best. In South Korea, that means Shin visits tons of cafes and customers in person (they have a good train network), we exhibit (and sponsor, supplying machines) at the two major coffee trade shows, and..... Shin does "Coffee Shin TV"

If you're not acquainted with the style of Asian television, it's usually a wacky, surreal, sensory overload.

Nonetheless, Shin provides really excellent information about not just Decent, but also



coffee in general,


reviews grinders (as as the new Ultra grinder that's sold by Levercraft in the USA)


and of course, lots of Decent info.


Here's a sampling of his recent videos, which are a good introduction. Everything is in English, with Korean subtitles. You'll notice the Youtube videos don't have many views, but that's because South Korea has their own video-sharing platforms, where he's huuuuge.

His Youtube station:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy0gJrMcGVJqf1xaeOkx8-w/videos






-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent parts catalog

I have written a web site viewer for all our product parts.

You can find it here: https://decentespresso.com/parts
﻿









It's also mentioned on the bottom of the shopping cart page, and in the DE1 warranty page.

You need to first pick a product:
﻿









and then the first level of parts and assemblies is shown:
https://decentespresso.com/parts?filter=DE-DE1PLUS110V2-00211

﻿








You can further drill down to individual parts in the assemblies:
https://decentespresso.com/parts?filter=DE-STEAMHEATER110_R2-13145

﻿








Some comments:



not all parts displayed can be ordered.


some parts have been discontinued, and there's a "contact us" link on those parts, to ask for help


some parts have been are "not yet available". That means the part is in stock, but we haven't yet done the database work to make it available for purchase. If you need this part now, click on the "not yet available" linked text and send us an email, and we'll prioritize if for you.


about 1/3rd of our parts have photographs. We're going to work hard of fleshing that out in the next 3 months, as we've hired ﻿ Nicole Chow Nicole ﻿ recently, to manage our parts inventory and ordering process.


There are mistakes in the database. For example, both the 120V and 220V AC boards are listed for one of the DE1 110V models.


One big motivation behind my writing this, was to provide an easy way for both Decent employees, and the outside world, to see how well (or not) we are organized.


By making errors much easier to see, and by making this all public, I'm hoping to clean this data up faster, and make it more accurate for everyone.


You don't need to report errors in our database yet, but I will announce again when I think the database is accurate, and then you guys can send us emails showing us how wrong we were. 🥰


-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New: much better previewing of espresso profiles*

Fairly big app version release today, as I've been coding full time during 2 weeks of quarantine in Hong Kong. I was holding back on a release until I could test on an espresso machine, which I didn't have access to during quarantine.

The main feature in today's new app version is much better previewing of all profiles.
- all profiles now show temperature, pressure and temperature 
- previewing advanced profiles now work
- real-time chart while you edit advanced profiles
- a "cursor" on the advanced profiles editor as you pick a step.
- the title of each profile is displayed on its Settings Tab.
- New profiles get a name of "untitled #xx" automatically
- Tapping on the profile tab shows you that it was saved.
- Here's a quick video showing you all this.


----------



## decent_espresso

*A bit of backstory..., and the view from my new desk in Hong Kong*

After 4 years of building a business up from nothing, Bugs and I were thoroughly exhausted, and needing a break. We left Hong Kong in May 2019, with plans to exhibit at a few trade shows (Berlin, London, New York, Portland) as sales were quite slow back then (about 40 machines/month).

At the "World of Coffee 2019 Show" in Berlin, someone pulled me aside... worriedly. He told me he'd had been comparing my current Youtube videos, could see burnout, and wanted to warn me that I wouldn't last long. He said "I don't think you're having fun anymore" (his words).

At that time, it was sleeping pills at night and painkillers during the day, just to keep going. So, that was a wakeup call. Coming off Ambien was not fun, and took a month of no sleep. With Scott Rao's help, we learned that Bugs' shoulder problem were a biome reaction to alcohol.

In some ways, COVID has been well timed for Bugs and I. It forced us to live in California for 6 months, in the middle of a forest, and just have a very simple life. A BIG reset, and a tan.

COVID has also caused a big increase in people wanting to take up espresso-making at home, which for us is a silver lining to an otherwise sad situation, since we happened to have an appropriate product for that very need.

So....

16 days ago Bugs and I flew back to Hong Kong, to get "back in the game".

I've set my desk up with the other engineers working on making machines. This is the new factory, which moved production into just 10 days before our arrival.

Both bugs and I were bit shellshocked and emotional by what we saw on arriving. We'd seen the CAD files of the factory, and interviewed everyone via video chat, but it really didn't hit us, until we were here, this is our company, and our employees, and this is what we're building.

Whoa.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New order queue page, new v1.4 water and steam heaters*

I've rewritten our "Queue" page to now display v1.4 orders. Since that model will be built after all the v1.3 machines have been built, I've placed v1.4 orders in the queue immediately after the last v1.3 order.

https://decentespresso.com/queue

There are currently 98 v1.4 machines sold, and a total of 208 machines sold, overall in the queue.

I previously projected that we'd ship the v1.4 machines in October. If we manage to get v1.4 building started by October, we should be able to ship almost the entire existing order log of v1.4 machines in that same month, as we've been making about 90 machines per month.

It's too early to tell if v1.4 machines will be built faster in October, as there be a "new model slowness" factor, offset by a few speeding-up-assembly improvements.

Most notably, all models up to now have required 2 hours each of hand-soldering to make a fiberglass box, aerogel insulation, sensors and triple thermal safeties, around an off-the-shelf water (and steam) heater. There are two heaters in each machine, so that was 4 hours work per machine.

In about two weeks, we changeover to our-design heaters, that have a custom moulded insulation, and everything pre-assembled for us by the heater manufacturer. They also make heaters for a rather well known American pro espresso machine, and we've been happy with the quality (less happy with the mould costs, but c'est la vie).

The insulation rating is slightly better with this new model, as we used infrared cameras to find where heat was leaking out of our old design, to capture that heat loss with our moulded design. FYI the heat loss was significant around that central thermostat safety feature in the old design.

The new heaters, like the old ones, have 1500W of power each. However, the internal tubing length has gone from 1.2 meters, to 2 meters. That gives us more time to heat the water (and stabilize its temperature) as it passes by the hot tubes.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Steaming in two stages*

New firmware from Ray landed at Decent Espresso today. Previously, we've used one dedicated 1500W heater, running at 160ºC, for making steam, using room temperature water. That steam heater has a 1.2 tube length on it. Today's firmware now uses the espresso heater to preheat the water from 20ºC to 95ºC, before it then goes to the 160ºC steam heater.

We still have the same amount of current available to us (1500W total) but now we're seeing greater steam power because (1) we've doubled the heating tube length, to 2.4 meters, and (2) we've used our water mixing technology to stabilize the steam, as the input is now always 95ºC, almost water vapor already.

The new firmware is on the v1.3 machine on the left. The old firmware is on the right. You can see that the steam is "thicker" and goes about 30% higher toward the ceiling now. It's also jumped from 2 are of pressure, to a bit over 3 bar.

We'll be testing this new firmware over the next few weeks, and it'll then be made available for free to all DE1 owners. Even our v1.0 machines will be able to use this new firmware and approach to steam.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Just slightly bad news, is that 110V machines might not see much power increase, whereas 220V customers should see a 10% speed improvement over current v1.3 firmware. But 110V customers should see more stable steam (less variation) . At least, that's been my experience.



I'm now down to 27 seconds to heat my 200ml latte.


With v1.1 I was at 46 seconds,


and with v1.3 previously it was at 33 seconds.


And more importantly, foaming quality is holding steady with good microfoam. I don't want to sacrifice quality to achieve speed.


----------



## decent_espresso

What's planned to come next year, in our v1.5 model, from Decent Espresso?

The main thing is a new approach to distributing water onto the top of the coffee puck.

We're switching from brass to ultem resin in v1.5, and our approach toward water distribution is changing radically. Four of our top coffee-expert customers have been part of the testing group, working directly with my engineer Ben, trying out about 20 different designs in real use, over a two year period.

Top left in the photo is what a typical traditional espresso machine's shower block looks like.

Top right in the photo is what the current model shower block looks like on a Decent.

The two larger holes are for a thermometer probe that sits just behind the shower screen, to measure the puck temperature, and a "forward flush" hole so that we don't dirty the water path with a "backflush" like traditional machines do.

Amd on the bottom of the photo is what that part will look like in v1.5 DE1 machines:

Note that your eyes do not deceive you: there is some cracking on that part after a year's use. As it's a prototype, we made it out for 100% pure ultem, with no fiberglass reinforcement, so that it could be cheaply and quickly made. The production version of this design will be 30% fiberglass reinforced and shouldn't suffer any cracking. But if it did, we'd replace it for free for you.

Below is an internal video (we have a dozen more like this, comparing each design) showing you what we're trying to accomplish.






Simply put: the new shower block should make better tasting coffee. And it will be retrofittable, and inexpensive, for all existing customers.


----------



## adrian.maceiras

decent_espresso said:


> It has begun.... other people have started writing their own Decent-compatible apps
> 
> Within 24h of each other, two Decent customers posted photos of their written-from-scratch apps for the DE1.
> 
> A native app for Windows from Mimoja https://mimoja.de/ - https://twitter.com/WingsOfMimoja
> 
> View attachment 43684
> 
> 
> and a native iOS app was announced too, by Brian K
> 
> View attachment 43685
> 
> 
> both those images are only teasers of what they're working on. But it's interesting that both were announced so close to each other.
> 
> I think that happened because in the past few months, Decent has crossed over from selling mostly to coffee geeks, and now we're selling to the (larger) tech geek audience. This new customer base recently started a crazy-long and technical "big data coffee analytics" discussion thread on our private Diaspora forum. It's causing dozens of posts per day, much of it above my competency, which is great.
> 
> Last week, Decent customer Barney in the UK walked me through his skin for my tablet app, which completely rethinks how the Decent should be piloted. Barney's work is much closer to finished than the yesterday-announced Windows/iOS apps, which are just starting.
> 
> View attachment 43686
> 
> 
> Barney's "metric" skin presents the Decent in traditional "advanced barista" terms of grind, dose, ratio and temperature. The profile that runs the shot is automatically made for you, and not the focus. Instead, you focus on traditional espresso terms that, if you have a coffee background, you already know.
> 
> This is all very good news, because as good as my team might be, we can't compete with the talents of thousands of motivated Decent customers. This is the payoff for openness.
> 
> -john


 This is awesome. I was between a Bianca Lelit and a DE1+. Finally made the decision to go with the Decent and purchased a DE1+ v1.4 a few days ago. The main thing that pushed Decent over is really how open the ecosystem is and your approach to iterative transparent product development.

Can you share where the Decent DE1+ source code is mastered? I found this:
https://github.com/oscar-b/de1-mirror

But the name implies a mirror and I cant seem to find the upstream master. I am a software developer of ~10 years and am looking to pickup a project to learn rust and embedded systems development. I am not that familiar with TCL but it seems that the repo is only the cross-platform client application. Is the firmware open sourced?

I also found this project that looks really interesting... they seemed to be be providing a javscript API over the decent espresso esp32. Unfortunately, all the linked documentation and development boards seemed to be locked down.
https://github.com/reedtaylor/plucky

From plucky, I gather the chip inside the DE1+ is an ESP32. I am thinking of picking up an ESP32-Devkit and beginning by contributing to esp-rs. Eventually, my lofty goal would be re-implement the firmware in native rust.

Mazelbv has started some good work in this space:
https://mabez.dev/blog/posts/esp32-rust-svd-pac/

Right now I am in research mode. If you can share any links to existing repositories you know of and any documentation you have provided that would be amazing.

Also, I heard we get access to a private Decent Espresso community as owners. If there is a vibrant dev community there, can I get access before my Decent espresso ships?


----------



## adrian.maceiras

OK, I just watched all the videos I could on Desire/daybreak/plucky. It looks like Reed Taylor moved from an Arduino to using an ESP32 and is mimicing the serial protocol that the app uses to communicate over bluetooth. Is the serial protocol for the DE1+ documented anywhere?


----------



## decent_espresso

adrian.maceiras said:


> This is awesome. I was between a Bianca Lelit and a DE1+. Finally made the decision to go with the Decent and purchased a DE1+ v1.4 a few days ago. The main thing that pushed Decent over is really how open the ecosystem is and your approach to iterative transparent product development.
> 
> Can you share where the Decent DE1+ source code is mastered? I found this:
> https://github.com/oscar-b/de1-mirror
> 
> But the name implies a mirror and I cant seem to find the upstream master. I am a software developer of ~10 years and am looking to pickup a project to learn rust and embedded systems development. I am not that familiar with TCL but it seems that the repo is only the cross-platform client application. Is the firmware open sourced?


 Unfortunately, we are not allowed to make the firmware open source, as part of UL and CE compliance.

The machine has to have its safeties be "non defeatable" and if we make the firmware open source, you can remove the safeties and make the machine unsafe.

The tablet app is open source https://decentespresso.com/downloads but is only authored by me. It's not a collaboratively written program.

However, skins can be authored by anyone, shared and installed without my involvement, and if they are popular and the author is cool with it, I include them in the app. Skins can completely replace the UI, so really all that's left of my app is the framework.

Some skins, though, like the very popular DSX https://www.diy.brakel.com.au/dsx/ the author prefers to maintain distribution control and doesn't want his skin bundled. I'm 100% in favor of the right of the creator to determine how their creation is used, so that's his right.

The github you found is a slightly delayed mirror of my releases, and is handy for seeing the many small changes I make. My own source is kept in single-user CVS repo.



> I also found this project that looks really interesting... they seemed to be be providing a javscript API over the decent espresso esp32. Unfortunately, all the linked documentation and development boards seemed to be locked down.
> https://github.com/reedtaylor/plucky


 As a DE1 owner, you'd have access to all the docs. They're all on Diaspora so we can all talk about it.

Here's just a sample of the docs, there are lots more.











> From plucky, I gather the chip inside the DE1+ is an ESP32. I am thinking of picking up an ESP32-Devkit and beginning by contributing to esp-rs. Eventually, my lofty goal would be re-implement the firmware in native rust.


 Unfortunately, we can't enable you to reimplement the firmware, sorry. Also, it's an insane amount of work, like 5 years full time for a team of 3. Our firmware is where all our innovation resides.



> Also, I heard we get access to a private Decent Espresso community as owners. If there is a vibrant dev community there, can I get access before my Decent espresso ships?


 There isn't a community of Decent developers who don't own DE1s. 😄 Sorry, everyone is on Diaspora, and the entrance ticket is owning a DE1.

EDIT: I didn't notice the word "SHIPS" in your question. Yes, as soon as you've paid for a DE1, you can request to join and get early access.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

adrian.maceiras said:


> OK, I just watched all the videos I could on Desire/daybreak/plucky. It looks like Reed Taylor moved from an Arduino to using an ESP32 and is mimicing the serial protocol that the app uses to communicate over bluetooth. Is the serial protocol for the DE1+ documented anywhere?


 The DE1 has its own firmware, running FreeRTOS https://www.freertos.org/ on an Atmel CPU. For safeties' sake, we have a serial port interface to an i/o computer, which then provides bluetooth to the world. That thing is running the Arduino shield standard, and is targetable using Arduino tools, if you wanted to run your own code inside the DE1 chassis. That's as close to writing your own firmware as you can get, and it's fairly close to the metal.

What Reed Taylor has done with Plucky is take that serial port connection and feed it to the ESP32, where he then proxies it to USB and Wifi, as well as keeping the serial port connection working inside Linux running on his ESP32.

That lets him (for instance) run my Tcl app, on Linux, talking to the DE1 over the serial port.

And my Tcl app can broadcast a realtime interactive Mp4 stream over http, which is how you can run my app inside an iPad or inside a Chrome broswer.

Someone else has written a javascript npm library to the DE1, which works over bluetooth and serial. A number of people have used that clean source code to see a nicely documented code base that talks to the DE1. The serial protocol is the same as the BLE and Wifi protocol.

The npm package can be run over http locally on the ESP32, giving a high speed, wired, TCP/IP accessible interface to the DE1.

One last note, is that we're developing a "puppet master" hardware platform, based on the Beagle Bone http://beagleboard.org/bone that is quite similar (and mostly compatible) to Reed's work, but running on a more powerful computer.

Apologies to everyone else where who is not a computer programmer and is reading this. 🤣

-john


----------



## adrian.maceiras

decent_espresso said:


> The DE1 has its own firmware, running FreeRTOS https://www.freertos.org/ on an Atmel CPU. For safeties' sake, we have a serial port interface to an i/o computer, which then provides bluetooth to the world. That thing is running the Arduino shield standard, and is targetable using Arduino tools, if you wanted to run your own code inside the DE1 chassis. That's as close to writing your own firmware as you can get, and it's fairly close to the metal.
> 
> What Reed Taylor has done with Plucky is take that serial port connection and feed it to the ESP32, where he then proxies it to USB and Wifi, as well as keeping the serial port connection working inside Linux running on his ESP32.
> 
> That lets him (for instance) run my Tcl app, on Linux, talking to the DE1 over the serial port.
> 
> And my Tcl app can broadcast a realtime interactive Mp4 stream over http, which is how you can run my app inside an iPad or inside a Chrome broswer.
> 
> Someone else has written a javascript npm library to the DE1, which works over bluetooth and serial. A number of people have used that clean source code to see a nicely documented code base that talks to the DE1. The serial protocol is the same as the BLE and Wifi protocol.
> 
> The npm package can be run over http locally on the ESP32, giving a high speed, wired, TCP/IP accessible interface to the DE1.
> 
> One last note, is that we're developing a "puppet master" hardware platform, based on the Beagle Bone http://beagleboard.org/bone that is quite similar (and mostly compatible) to Reed's work, but running on a more powerful computer.
> 
> Apologies to everyone else where who is not a computer programmer and is reading this. 🤣
> 
> -john


 Thanks John for taking the time to respond in such detail. Completely understand your reasoning behind not open sourcing the firmware. It is a bit unfortunate. I was really hoping to dive into this as a fun side project. Ideally you should be able to protect your innovations by using some proper / more draconian open source software license, but proving infringement and enforcing it is another story. I can understand why that would not be appealing. I also find it odd that open sourcing would open you up to any liability - I would hope voiding the warranty and providing a warning would be sufficient. You wouldn't need to encourage or assist in making the safety controls defeat-able, but I guess even making it an open ecosystem could possibly open you to legal risk. Gotta love this litigious American society.

I'll find the NPM library you referenced. Maybe exploring my own implementation of a puppet master route might provide me enough meat and potatoes to play around with and learn Rust/embedded systems development. Can you share any more details on what your vision is there?

Whats the best way to request access to Diaspora? Support tix on the account I used to purchase the DE1+?

Side note... and completely backseat driving here... I see why you chose TCL... its very nice that its cross platform, but my guess is you would have a much more vibrant open source community/crowd source contributions if it were in a more mainstream language/framework - React/React Native would probably be my choice... or even ditching the cross-platform dream and just implement it as a native android application. But what you have done is very cool and I am sure we will start seeing more community written/support clients organically emerge.


----------



## decent_espresso

adrian.maceiras said:


> I also find it odd that open sourcing would open you up to any liability - I would hope voiding the warranty and providing a warning would be sufficient.


 Intertek is very clear on this aspect of UL and CE. Safeties must not be user defeatable. *must not*. Opening the firmware makes them defeatable, hence not UL or CE compliant.

I note that there have already been two blatant attempts to copy the Decent, by a well known Italian company, and one by a Chinese company. I'm really ok keeping the firmware closed, otherwise I think we'll just get ripped off, and Decent won't be able to afford all the R&D we do. All those R&D salaries have gotta be paid back somehow, and uhhh.... it's millions of dollars so far, out of my pocket, Bugs' and her mother (the 3 investors). I also wouldn't mind making some sort of a salary someday... both Bugs and I have never been paid anything for 5 years work on this.



> I'll find the NPM library you referenced.


 It's here: https://github.com/LukasBombach/de1/

Once you're on Diaspora: https://3.basecamp.com/3671212/buckets/7351439/documents/1999150110











> Maybe exploring my own implementation of a puppet master route might provide me enough meat and potatoes to play around with and learn Rust/embedded systems development. Can you share any more details on what your vision is there?


 We're building hardware and software that can automatically test and calibrate each DE1. We've got an all-digital alternative to the SCACE 2, which talks to the Linux box, that will be our calibration reference.



> Whats the best way to request access to Diaspora? Support tix on the account I used to purchase the DE1+?


 Exactly. https://decentespresso.com/contact



> Side note... and completely backseat driving here... I see why you chose TCL... its very nice that its cross platform, but my guess is you would have a much more vibrant open source community/crowd source contributions if it were in a more mainstream language/framework - React/React Native would probably be my choice... or even ditching the cross-platform dream and just implement it as a native android application. But what you have done is very cool and I am sure we will start seeing more community written/support clients organically emerge.


 I really wanted to be desktop compatible, and as you noticed, we are on Linux/Mac/Windows already, and the mp4 streaming app, which makes it browser compatible, is pretty cool.

I didn't go native Android because (a) I wanted to be cross platform and (b) I wanted to enable skinning and modding, which is strictly not supported by iOS or Android, for "security reasons".

I'm sure that someone, maybe you, will make a React Native app. It's way more mature on bluetooth now. 5 years ago the bluetooth support was very iffy.

-john


----------



## adrian.maceiras

Thanks for all your responses! I completely understand your reasoning for not open sourcing the firmware.


----------



## Stevebee

After reading all 129 pages came to the conclusion I had to have one of these so ordered a 1.4.

The patient waiting begins. I currently use an L1 and Vesuvius at weekend Farmers Markets so looking to replace one with the Decent to stop me getting a hernia! Not sure sure yet which one it will replace but at the moment I'm guessing L1.

I want one grinder to serve both machines ideally as currently I have to take a Mythos Clima Pro and Compak E10.

Might be better easier to tweak the profile on these two but I'll see when it turns up.

The hernia is just me justifying the Decent as I use a Compak R120 for bag grinding which is a beast so any weight reduction is not really the reason 😀


----------



## filthynines

You won't be disappointed, Steve! Welcome to the club.


----------



## decent_espresso

Stevebee said:


> I currently use an L1 and Vesuvius at weekend Farmers Markets


 What farmers markets are you working? I'm in London at least 2x a year and would love to stop by and buy a coffee off you.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Testing steam on new machines*

We're creating a new workflow at the Decent factory, to figure out how to speed up our monthly production and shipping of machines.

This week, we wired up the assembly tables with water and electricity, so that we can test the machines directly where they were built. This also lets us test multiple machines at once.

Here new hire (started on monday) Desmond is running steam on 3 Decent machines on once, and check each tablet to make sure the flow rate and pressure is what we expect.

The air conditioning system is on HIGH now all the time. 😄

-john


----------



## mmmatron

Stevebee said:


> After reading all 129 pages came to the conclusion I had to have one of these so ordered a 1.4.
> The patient waiting begins. I currently use an L1 and Vesuvius at weekend Farmers Markets so looking to replace one with the Decent to stop me getting a hernia! Not sure sure yet which one it will replace but at the moment I'm guessing L1.
> I want one grinder to serve both machines ideally as currently I have to take a Mythos Clima Pro and Compak E10.
> Might be better easier to tweak the profile on these two but I'll see when it turns up.
> The hernia is just me justifying the Decent as I use a Compak R120 for bag grinding which is a beast so any weight reduction is not really the reason


You're going to love it! Took ours on holiday recently, really easy to do.


----------



## Stevebee

decent_espresso said:


> What farmers markets are you working? I'm in London at least 2x a year and would love to stop by and buy a coffee off you.
> 
> -john


 Barnes Farmers Market SW13 9HG on Saturday and Stroud Green Market N4 3HB on Sunday. Would be great to meet you and if it's later than 10 ish weeks the Decent will be there as well 😀


----------



## decent_espresso

Stevebee said:


> Barnes Farmers Market SW13 9HG on Saturday and Stroud Green Market N4 3HB on Sunday. Would be great to meet you and if it's later than 10 ish weeks the Decent will be there as well 😀


 Stroud is super convenient for me, on the Piccadilly line. Can you send me a message on https://decentespresso.com/contact so I know who you are and can reach you?

I'm kind of waiting for COVID and Brexit to have their impact before coming back, though.


----------



## filthynines

decent_espresso said:


> Stroud is super convenient for me, on the Piccadilly line. Can you send me a message on https://decentespresso.com/contact so I know who you are and can reach you?
> 
> I'm kind of waiting for COVID and Brexit to have their impact before coming back, though.


 See you in 2024 then!


----------



## mikas

decent_espresso said:


> . To make the Decent in small quantities, we mostly make things using a process called CNC. That's where you take a block of material and use a computer controlled drill to remove what you don't need. This is an expensive process, wasteful of material and very time consuming of very expensive machines. However, it's the only way to make complicated parts in small quantities.
> 
> Moulds are very expensive (typically tens of thousands of USD$), take a long time (6 month minimum, with 18 months to perfect them being commonplace) and require unchangeable, mature, tested designs. Thus, moulding is not appropriate for a small company, producing small quantities of machines, and where our design is changing quickly.
> 
> The "manifold" on the Decent has 3 CNCed parts made of an expensive resin called "ULTEM". We use it because it's incredibly inert: it's used medically for in-body parts and withstands high pressure and temperature. The big manifold, even at the quantities we're buying now (1000 at a time) costs us USD$120. The two smaller parts are cheaper, around USD$35 each. Add valves, sensors, the PCB, and you've got an expensive part. Plus, there are lots of tubes connecting everything. We color code every tube.


 Have you tried/checked high temperature 3D printing? There's some really interesting stuff going on right now with 3D printing technology and ULTEM, PEEK, PEKK and other filaments. Prototyping should be way cheaper and faster.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent micro-coffee spaces*

I met Rainer last year in June, in Cologne, Germany, when we were on our way to the Berlin's World of Coffee trade show.

At the time, he was winding down having run a coffee-bike Franchise that was based in an office lobby, and which had done well for him.







﻿

But he was itching for something new, especially as he was nearing retirement. His ideal was to find a way to involve his son, who had studied design, in his next coffee step. He had a DE1PRO at home, to learn about it.

As we took a long walk down the quai in Cologne after dinner, we bounced ideas back and forth. Nothing came of it, but a few months later I did notice Rainer buying the white DE1XL conversion kit and countersink, and I wondered what he was up to. Then I forgot about it.

Today, a cafe owner in Salzburg who is closing their coffee down 😞 wrote me to ask about coffee bikes and mobile use of Decent (power requirements, susceptibility to damage from vibration, etc) and I thought of Rainer.

And I came across this: https://www.bloomingcoffee.de/

Rainer and his son Johannes are about to launch a company making micro-coffee spaces, based on the Decent DE1XL:









His son has run with our design and created something new and wonderful.

According to their instagram https://www.instagram.com/bloomingcoffeecologne/ they haven't launched yet, but soon.







﻿

I've reached out to them this morning, to see what I can do to help.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

mikas said:


> Have you tried/checked high temperature 3D printing? There's some really interesting stuff going on right now with 3D printing technology and ULTEM, PEEK, PEKK and other filaments. Prototyping should be way cheaper and faster.


 Our Ultem stuff needs very tight tolerances, otherwise there are leaks. So, no, we don't 3d print Ultem parts.


----------



## decent_espresso

*How to get a cheap DE1*

Up to now, we've been managing by hand, a spreadsheet of what used or refurbished machines people would like. It's grown to 76 people, and with voltage needs combined with preferences for specific models, versions and scratched vs used vs refurbished, it's all too complicated for us to handle.

Here's what our spreadsheet looked like:
﻿







﻿
So, I've created a the new system.

From now on, as a machine is available, it will be photographed, a video made, it will be described and offered on this forum. You will get an email about it.



The machine will be sold to the first person who posts "I will take it". Shipping and taxes will be added to the price we state, as is appropriate to your country.


If the winning person does not pay within 3 days, the machine is offered to the the 2nd person who posted they would take the machine.


All machines sold by Decent (new as well as discounted) carry our 2 year "happiness guaranteed" https://decentespresso.com/warranty


All machines sold here can be returned to us within 30 days for a 100% refund, minus shipping charges and taxes.


Any questions? Please ask here!


The machines available here will include:



new machines that fail "cosmetic quality control" and thus cannot be sold new at full price


trade-ins, where the machine as older DE1 model, and was in working condition. It was fully checked, cleaned, and recalibrated.


broken machines that we took back from customers and repaired ourselves, but we sent the customer a new machine to replace the broken one, so now it's being sold.


Please send me a "Private Message" with your name and email address, if you'd like to be added to the "Cheap Decent" Basecamp group. You can leave at any time.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Acaia scale working with Decent*

Decent customer Mimoja has "used the force, Luke!" to modify our tablet app, so that it now works with Acaia scales. After a bit more refinement, this will make its way to everyone, as his improvement is merged into the main app itself.

The "espresso shot" stopped automatically at 33.2 grams, with the goal was 34g. Not bad for a first attempt.


----------



## mmmatron

decent_espresso said:


> *Acaia scale working with Decent*
> Decent customer Mimoja has "used the force, Luke!" to modify our tablet app, so that it now works with Acaia scales. After a bit more refinement, this will make its way to everyone, as his improvement is merged into the main app itself.
> The "espresso shot" stopped automatically at 33.2 grams, with the goal was 34g. Not bad for a first attempt.


This is great news!


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent tea portafilter coming*

I've received two tea portafilters and developed a profile that works well with them.

Essentially these are portafilters with an exit valve that opens at 4 bar. With the right DE1 program, we can control that valve opening time.

Here are the advantages of making tea with an espresso machine:
 - totally automated 3 minute brew
- works with a teabag and loose tea. 
- Easy cleanup even with loose tea.
- different water temperatures can be used for different teas (some teas benefit from lower temperatures)
- concentration (ie dilution) of the tea can be standardized
- multiple pass recipe through the tea bag gets more tea extracted, as clean water is put in each time. 
- you can choose to throw out the first extraction, as is common practice with nice tea.
- another benefit of throwing out the first flush is that this serves to warm the basket and portafilter, so that the rest of the brews are at a higher temperature.
- improved tea flavor by getting the timings and temperature exactly as you want them.

I developed a program that makes passes at brewing, ending up with about 250ml of tea in the mug. Here it is:
﻿







﻿
I fill the basket and exit on pressure, and then hold to brew. I then flush at 4ml/s, and then hold at 2 bar, then once again, and then a final flush.﻿








﻿
Our new firmware is doing a fairly good job of getting the tea in the portafilter close to 100ºC.
﻿







﻿

Here are the steps in the profile:
﻿






and then ran the program again to make my tea, as I quite like weak english breakfast tea without milk:
﻿







﻿
I will be evaluating several other models of tea portafilter heads in the next few weeks.

The intent is to have a new portafilter from Decent, as well as a variety of tea recipes, optimized for different kinds of tea.

*TALKING TO THE MANUFACTURER:*

We spoke to the manufacturer of this portafilter head, and they said "but we don't have a valve in our portafilter!"

They made the portafilter to artificially create pressure in brewing tea-concentrate, and that's how they think of their device, because they only have a 9 bar espresso machine.

Look at this exploded parts image:

﻿







﻿

The spring on the washer causes water to need about 4 bar of pressure to exit. That causes the tea to extract at pressure.

However, with the Decent we can control the pressure, and also stop water flow, so we can use that spring as a non-electrical open/close valve.

We're not using the portafilter as they intended, but that's fine. You can of course as the Decent to make a 9 bar shot, and then extract tea at around 4 bar, which is about what the the spring resistance gives.

FUTURE TEA RESEARCH

Decent customer Dylan suggested an interesting idea, of starting the tea brew with quick, successive rinses at 2 bar, and then using the flush valve to automatically throw that "first rinse" tea out. I'm going to try that out, and see if it works. If so, that makes the Chinese practice of throwing the first rinse out fully automated, and we can pick the settings that work best.

﻿


----------



## mmmatron

Will it be able to brew a good cup of Yorkshire tea though?


----------



## catpuccino

Here's a screenshot from James Hoffman's latestg video (on the Niche and Wilfa Uniform), really gives a good sense of scale particularly as a Niche owner.

How can I shrink my Vesuvius? 😬


----------



## decent_espresso

mmmatron said:


> Will it be able to brew a good cup of Yorkshire tea though?


 Absolutely yes. Bugs is from Lincolnshire and likes her tea to lightly etch the spoon.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Cheap Decent machines in the pipeline*
﻿
Here are the espresso machines we're getting ready to sell at a discount, on our "Cheap Decent" forum.

Private message me with your name and email address if you'd like to be on it. There are currently about 440 people on this forum, so there unfortunately is a bit of competition for each machine.

I hired an assistant on Thursday (he's starting tomorrow) and he'll be helping me run this "bazaar".

Over the next week or two, all these machines will be listed. It's first-to-say "I'll take it" gets it, but people who already have paid for a machine and are thus on our queue, have priority.

ps: apologies for the weird text callouts in this video. I recently bought the mCallouts extension so that I can have text labels move with objects onscreen, and used this video as a training exercise on them.

-john


----------



## Pseudonym

Like those before me, I've managed to read this thread in its entirety before commenting. What an effort it took! haha!

I find myself in somewhat of a quandary.

I had previously set my sights on the ACS Vesuvius to replace my current home machine, but after taking the journey through these pages, I feel the best place for my money would be with Decent. Particularly the DE1XL.

Not only would it be everything I need any more for home espresso in a smaller footprint, but it would also work equally well in the roastery & allow a deep dive on the beans we roast & what is possible with flavour.

...or as part of a cart set up when we do events. The grand vision would be the DE1XL , the Niche Zero (or equally capable SD Grinder) and the Aillio R1V2 making a very nice trifecta. Very exciting prospect indeed.

I probably have a better business case & chance of approval with SWMBO if I'm investing this kind of money & it includes possible business implications.

I do have a question if I may @decent_espresso? Apologies if they have been addressed previously but its difficult to remember

*Simultaneous Brew/Steam Capability* - Is this something that's achievable now the machine is in it's 4th iteration and has the 1500W motor? or is this still something that cannot happen until the 2200W motor is in place?

While SIMOPs do feature in my workflow for now, that's not to say it always will but it's a "nice to have"

I now need to go away & see exactly how I go about finding the additional funds for a purchase.

Wish me luck!


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## Pseudonym

mmmatron said:


> This is great news!


 +1 Gravimetrics was something I really had hoped would be available easily when I first started reading through the thread.


----------



## filthynines

@Pseudonym

As of v1.3 (and, I think, 1.4) you can't steam and brew at the same time.

If you have the space then go for the DE1XL. The suitcase foam you get will be cut for the XL. The alternative is that you buy a Pro, and later buy the parts to make it up to the bigger XL but a) it may be more expensive (I haven't checked, but I would imagine shipping alone will cause that issue) and b) your XL won't quite fit in the Pro suitcase foam.

If you were doing events that require a really high volume then you would probably need two Decents, but I foresee myself doing small events with a single grouphead and getting on just fine.


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## filthynines

Pseudonym said:


> +1 Gravimetrics was something I really had hoped would be available easily when I first started reading through the thread.


 If you don't already have Acaia scales then don't sweat it. The Skale 2 can already allow you to produce gravimetric shots.


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## Pseudonym

TBH, If it were an event where I / we felt the machine wasn't up for it, we probably wouldn't do it. We're only a small gig for now so I'd imagine we wouldn't be running before we could walk. Particularly with a machine like the DE1XL

I'm coming from a Sage Oracle at home to something like this so the leap forward I suspect will be quantum.

As for the steam, thanks for letting me know. I assume this is something that is still on the cards for John & the team - Particularly has John has shared his auto texturing technique in the posts.

I digress, but on single boiler machines I have, I always prepare milk first, then extract an espresso, integrating the texture together until I'm ready to pour. I wonder if this would make a difference.


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## filthynines

Trial and error will give you your answers, I suspect. It is an excellent machine. I don't think you'd regret your purchase for a moment.


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## Pseudonym

filthynines said:


> If you don't already have Acaia scales then don't sweat it. The Skale 2 can already allow you to produce gravimetric shots.


 True, but its the pretty pretty design language that gets me. The Pearl / Lunar is very akin to the aesthetics of the DE range of machines when you think about the geometry.


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## mmmatron

Decent are producing their own scale which I like the look of. I was ready to buy one until the lunar news came in.


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## filthynines

mmmatron said:


> Decent are producing their own scale which I like the look of. I was ready to buy one until the lunar news came in.


 I think of all options the Decent would be bottom of my list on looks. If it is waterproof (I think so?) and the batteries last longer than the Skale (not difficult) then it would be a tougher choice.


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## Pseudonym

> On ‎26‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 14:02, decent_espresso said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> While James discusses the Freezing of beans he doesn't touch on extraction from Frozen.


----------



## decent_espresso

filthynines said:


> I think of all options the Decent would be bottom of my list on looks. If it is waterproof (I think so?) and the batteries last longer than the Skale (not difficult) then it would be a tougher choice.


 The Decent Scale batteries are AA, whereas the Atomax Skale is AAA. That gives you a lot longer battery life at not much more battery cost.

I'm getting close to finished on the Decent Scale firmware. Yesterday's version has good latency. It's just ever a bit faster than the Atomax Scale, in my slow motion videos I've taken, and both are faster than the Acaia, as has been reported by others.

Here's a photo I took yesterday of the Decent scale calculating the flow rate of a 3ml/s shot.









Gravimetric vs volumetric flow rates are matching fairly well (blue vs brown line) in yesterday's scale version.

The Acaia is much less tall and smaller.

However, the Decent Scale can handle two coffee mugs at once (such as when using a double spouted portafilter), which neither the Acaia or Atomax can do without an adaptor. I hope to (in a few years) make the Decent Scale the same height as the Acaia, but of course it'll become more expensive in so doing (just as Acaia's scales are more expensive as they get smaller). I'm likely to keep the footprint of the Decent Scale the same, as find the shape to be really good for two lattes at once, which is a drink I make frequently.

As far as waterproof goes, The Decent Scale is completely water proof as long as water is not introduced from below, because the weighing platform wraps around the entire unit. The video below explains. The USB charge cable comes in from below (not from the side as with Acaia and Atomax) and so you can leave it in a USB plug and not affect the waterproofness.


----------



## decent_espresso

Pseudonym said:


> *Simultaneous Brew/Steam Capability* - Is this something that's achievable now the machine is in it's 4th iteration and has the 1500W motor? or is this still something that cannot happen until the 2200W motor is in place


 Steam during brew is not something that is ever coming to a Decent machine. The precise temperature control during espresso requires water mixing, and there's only one water mixing chamber. Cafes who use our machines all buy several DE1 machines so that they can brew on one machine while they steam on another.

Current steam with 1500W heaters at 220V is fairly powerful. Back with v1.0 we were taking 46 seconds to heat a 200ml drink. Now that's around 28 seconds.

Last week we made 10 prototype DE1CAFE machines, which are essentially DE1XL but with two 2200W heaters that have 2 meter long heating coils each. CE safety compliance will allow us to grab another 50% more current and still be legal in the UK/EU, so I'm expecting that model to get us under 20 seconds to heat a 200ml drink. It'll run fine on UK current, as it requires 220/10A minimum.

I have beta firmware on our DE1XL v1.1 staff machine here, that uses both heaters (hot water and steam heater) to achieve greater steam stability and also about another 10% speed boost. The water is first heated precisely to 95ºC by the hot water heater, and then goes to 160º with the steam heater. Here's a video of that (new steam on the left). Precise preheating of the water before it hits the steam heater creates visibibly more consistent steam.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Feasting, thanks to Peter*

Canadian Decent customer﻿ Peter Middleton﻿ messaged me a few days ago that he was so pleased with his Decent Espresso Machine, that he wanted to thank the team that had built it, with a gift. His idea was that everyone involved with Decent would have a special meal.

On Friday, we normally have a special meal anyway (double food budget), but this week we added Peter's HK$1000 gift (about $130) to make the meal super-extra-special.

Chef Michael used the extra money to make:
- roast pigeon
- homemade lacha paratha (https://www.kookingk.com/recipes/lachha-paratha-or-flaky-layered-paratha/)
- shrimp wrapped in mushrooms and filo
- Indonesian beef curry
- stir-fried wild forest mushrooms
- homemade french fries
- we still had some money left over so we bought 4 top-end cakes from https://lucullus.com.hk/









We're now up to 25 people here in Hong Kong, with 8 people joining in the past 4 weeks. Car (in boxing) took the photo.

We were able to ship 27% more machines this month, which beats our previous monthly record of 87 machines. There are only 38 machines left in the v1.3 queue https://decentespresso.com/queue (down from 220!), and in two weeks we're building our first v1.4 machines, slightly ahead of schedule. Only 9 covid cases per day in HK, the past 2 days, which is good news. In all this world turmoil, things are going decently well for us.

The cake and food were really appreciated! Chef Michael was really happy for the extra budget to stretch his wings and show off a bit.
﻿






And so... thank you again Peter, and everyone who has bought one of our little espresso machines, as you've helped make all this possible!

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

And here's the full video of today's Zoom call. There's a factory tour!

My new assistant Ihti will be learning Final Cut Pro this week, to chop this up into separate Q&A videos.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's a Decent Espresso Factory Tour I gave in this weekend's zoom call:


----------



## decent_espresso

Good progress from the Smart Espresso Profiler folks 
https://www.naked-portafilter.com/smart-espresso-profiler/

They're offering a great software program for guiding Decent users through real time control.

Here they're imitating a shot from the Profitech Pro800.

Once released, this software will be free for all Decent Espresso users, though it does require the Group Head Controller, which we launched in January 2020, with our v1.3 machines.


----------



## decent_espresso

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/index.php?app=core&module=system&controller=embed&url=https://www.instagram.com/p/CE1su97BbOX/

UPDATE: Gabor released a new video, using the DE1 + SEP to imitate the La Marzocco Leva

This is looking more and more interesting.


----------



## decent_espresso

*It's not easy to speed up manufacturing, yet keep quality high*

In the past two weeks we've configured the factory, added 30% more staff, with the intent of going from ~90 espresso machines made per month, to a goal of 120 per month, and then eventually 160 per month. Our https://decentespresso.com/queue started to come down briefly, and then September starts, and this happens:









I had actually hoped that July's peak sales was an anomaly, so that my near-term goal of 120 machines/month would see is reducing the backlog.

In this saturday's zoom, I was asked when the Decent factory was going get faster. The last time we quickly sped up production, we started to see quality problems right away. This time, we've introduced new processes, such as Fabrice, one of my senior R&D engineers, moving to the factory and doing a full review of every machine, for about ten minutes. He pulls every wire, checks every little thing. That's kept our quality up, but it's actually slowed things down in the short term. We've added 50% more staff in the past 4 weeks, and that'll help, but it's not immediate.

Parts shortages are a constant problem for us, as we've moved off a number of our previously-trusted suppliers, because their quality got shoddy, to a smaller number of good (but more expensive) suppliers, and those few are overloaded now with our big orders. We managed to get 10% of the v1.4 parts delivered last week, so we can start on that next week, with the hope that our new main metal supplier (who we love working with) can keep up with regular deliveries of v1.4 parts slightly faster than we need them.

I got bad news last week from our Android tablet vendor, as I'm extremely picky about screen quality, and specify brightness and color balance with explicit measurements they have to pass. The screen they ordered failed. They need another 45 days to deliver our next round of Android tablets, as they need to place a new order with a different LED screen manufacturer. The good news is that I've been working with their Android build manager, and we now have a really slimmed down, custom version of Android, that requires virtually no customizing to be ready for use. We're going to build White DE1XL models for a few weeks, as we have plenty of stock of white Android tablets, but only about 80 black tablets.

I give a much more extensive answer to what's changing at Decent in terms of making machines, in this video:


----------



## mcwill

I placed my order less than 24 hours ago, and there are already 10 new orders on the queue behind me! Looks like you are heading towards a very busy Q4.

I think the visible queue is a great idea as I'm sure it will cut down some traffic from prospective owners asking "is it ready yet ?"


----------



## decent_espresso

*The Impact of COVID on Manufacturing*

I was asked yesterday what the impact was of COVID, on manufacturing.

As it happens, I had just received news that the black powder-coating of our almost-finished knockboxes, had been pushed out to the end of September, and was having that very conversation with the company that makes our knockbox for us. I'm attaching below the two comments she made.

From my perspective, what I've seen is previously-reliable suppliers, now turning out low quality work. And, they're skipping steps.

This past weekend we had to reject 100% of a batch of 2000pcs of brushed steel front panels, because they had laser etched our logo at too low power, and it looked terrible. Most suppliers I've worked with make 1 sample with the logo, and then sends me a photo via chat for approval. Or, also common, is for no logo to be etched until after we approve the work in person, and then they put the logo on while my staff member is witnessing it. This is because they're legally allowed to sell product we reject, as long as it doesn't have a company logo on it. ps: I don't mind that law, as I think it's eco-friendly.

So.... low quality is the first thing we're seeing. Secondly, everything is taking twice to three times as long as as they estimated. A 6 week delivery date turns into 12 to 18 weeks. Partially, this is because suppliers were shut down for 6 months, and now there's a huge rush to get things done before Christmas. And also it's because so many suppliers fired staff during the Covid shutdown times, and those people have gone and found other work. Suppliers have tons of new employees, and they're not as good. So, quality and speed suffers.

A glimmer of hope? Yes: a few small companies were well run, and did not fire people during the covid times, are hungry for work and want to take on more. But they can only scale up so fast (just like us) and maintain quality.

So... making stuff is a bit of a challenge at the moment, if you want to make good stuff.

Attached is a photo of the chat with my supplier from yesterday.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Initial DE1CAFE steam research results*
﻿
We've built ten prototype DE1CAFE machines and I can now report our initial results from making steam with them using newly crafted firmware.



I'm able to make a 200ml (150ml/6oz foamed to 200ml/8oz) latte from 8ºC to 65ºC in 17 seconds. Two drinks at once (300ml foamed to 400ml) took 31 seconds.


These DE1CAFE models require a 230V line, and have 2x our-design 2200W heaters in them, both with 2 meter long water tubes inside. There will be no 110V DE1CAFE models. However, this model will work on typical 220V/240V home power plugs worldwide. Commercial electricity is not needed.


By picking the right steam wand tip to create 5 bar of pressure, I'm able to raise the boiling point to 152ºC, which (when combined with the 4 meters of the length) allows much greater heat transfer.


Once the water flashes to steam, it expands greatly, moving out of the tube quickly, and it's not really possible to heat it up more.


Delaying the boiling point is the key insight to greater that transfer, and thus better/hotter/drier steam.


This has sped up our steam by 35% from our previous best (not released publicly) efforts, and 50% faster than currently shipping DE1 models.


This model will become available next year, and will be priced at USD$1000 more than the DE1XL model, and will be in the same chassis. This model requires a 220V line, and will work in the USA if you have your electrician install that for you, or worldwide on a normal 220V/240V power plug.


While home users are welcome to buy this machine, the greater power is really meant for commercial use, where time spent steaming is often the limiting factor in quickly getting drinks to people.


I'm using a prototype steam wand tip made for me by Zubing (who makes the Force Tamper) with three 0.75ml holes in it.



Note that the pressure curve below is our intentional "steam profiling" curve, to give you time at lower power to create microfoam with less powerful steam, then plunge the steam wand tip in and get maximum speed heating of the milk.


The "steam profiling" also means that steaming larger amounts of milk is faster than steaming small amounts, as the steam energy peaks and then stabilizes at around 50 seconds.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Espresso white DE1XL models are currently in stock*

I have about thirty of the white v1.3 DE1XL model that I can ship right away. Why? Because we're running low on black Android tablets.

The new batch of black Android tablets have been delayed to a shortage of high quality LCD panels. Well... the tablets would have delivered in time, but the sample I received for approval had unacceptable color balance, so I rejected the entire run, and the supplier had to find another screen supplier. I also think that these delays are there to push us to accept lower-quality product, since it's painful to go out of stock of a key component, like the tablet. But... we have plenty of white tablets, so that's what we're doing, and I'm refusing the accept lower quality components, even though it's painful.









The good news is that we have plenty of white tablets with great LCD screens, and so I decided to make our white model for a few weeks. New Android black tablets should be arriving in about 4 weeks.

We have 34 existing orders for the v1.4 model in white, which we'll have fully satisfied in about 10 days. We should be able to make 100 more white DE1XL just as the black tablets arrive, so that means we'll be fully in stock of white DE1XL. So... if want a Decent FAST and you order soon https://decentespresso.com/model?de1xlwhite there's a good chance you'll have a Decent Espresso machine by the end of September.

I also have six of the v1.3 white DE1XL in stock, with perfect mirror panels, and they're USD$200 cheaper than the v1.4 model. The only difference is the larger DC power supply, which will enable more frequent background refilling, if you're using our refill kit. Otherwise, they're identical to the v1.4 models. Here's the order link if you want one: https://decentespresso.com/c?s=219+1+220+1

These last few white v1.3 DE1XL (and the early batch of lucky v1.4 white pre-orders) have fully mirrored panels, which were the few perfect ones we received from the 10 different suppliers we bought samples from. Each sample cost us about $100 each, and then we discarded 80% of them as too imperfect, so you can sort of understand why we're not offering mirror panels for now. Once these white panels are used up, all our DE1PRO/DE1XL machines will sport a brushed panel, with a mirrored lip.

I also have three v1.1 white DE1XL models, brand new, all with fully mirrored panels that are slightly imperfect, sold at a 21% discount. Next week, there will be v1.3/v1.4 white and black DE1XL models going for sale on the "Cheap Decent" forum. Direct-Message me if you'd like to be on the "Cheap Decent" forum.

-john


----------



## arellim

I've ordered one! 🤯


----------



## TomR

arellim said:


> I've ordered one! 🤯


 I will be interested to see how it compares with your L1 - a Londinium was my other choice (I've had a de1+ for a month)


----------



## arellim

TomR said:


> I will be interested to see how it compares with your L1 - a Londinium was my other choice (I've had a de1+ for a month)


 If it's half as good I'll be impressed to be honest!


----------



## Stevebee

Different ends of the coffee spectrum. I have a plumbed L1 and it's as simple and reliable as can be, prepare, pull, enjoy great espresso. By its nature, declining pressure and temp, designed to deliver in the cup.

The Decent is so cutting edge. Temp, flow, pressure, software updates, bugs and continuous improvement, gravimetrics, the list goes on. I'm in the queue for one so will compare with my L1 and Vesuvius but I see it complimenting and increasing understanding / learning of profiling which can be applied to the V. At the moment, not based on taste in the cup, if I had to choose one for the rest of time it would be the L1 I think but I change that view on a regular basis and the Decent will probably throw another spanner in the works.


----------



## decent_espresso

*50 at once....*

6 months ago, we were shipping 50 machines a month, now we need to be making 200 machines a month, if we're going to keep up with demand and shorten the queue https://decentespresso.com/queue

Last week, we made 20 v1.4 machines in 3 days, and then another 20 machines in 4 days. There were 4 small teams responsible for groups of 5 machines each, and I noticed a bit of competition among the groups, that I wasn't sure was entirely healthy. Fabrice and I have been wanting to move to a large-batch, specialist approach, for a while, and so...

This past monday, we did that.



we're now building 50 machines at once.


each sub-assembly has a "Master" assigned.


The Master is responsible for building the assembly, testing, installation, and feedback to engineering.


This also means that if something goes wrong, we know who to talk to.


It does mean for a less interesting job for each person (less variety) but it should yield higher quality and speed.


For now, we're going to aim for 8 days to build 50 machines, which would give us 150 machines per month.


That would still be a massive speedup over our previous best of 111 machines in a month.


And with time, we'll try to shorten the 50 machine cycle to a 6 day week, and eventually to a 5 day week, so that my staff can get their saturdays back.


As it happens, with this first batch of 20 v1.4 machines, Desmond, the "Master" of testing, though that some of the machines were not regulating temperature at pressures, as well as he thought it should (off by 1.5ºC). He's been doing all the testing/calibrating for a month (when he was hired), so he's become adept at this now. He brought the issue to me, for commentary and validation of his hunch.

Last night, a master repairman (SK) and new hire Keith worked late, moving single parts from one "good" machine to one "bad" machine until the problem went away. We're pretty sure that we've isolated the problem of two different value flow constrictors being installed backwards, which only creates a problem at low pressures, when the precise flow constrictor resistance values matter the most. We're testing that right now, and if so, just need to swap two flow constrictors to fix the 20. And then develop a process to make sure this doesn't happen again, as the flow constrictors are so small that you can't tell which is which, so this is an easy problem to cause.

Meanwhile, we're at step #6 out of 20 steps today, in our assembly of 50 machines. They'll hopefully be finished next week, but it might take a few days longer, as this is our first time changing the process so much.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Which is the real 3M?*

Decent Engineer Ben Champion noticed today that the tablet on his prototype DE1CAFE wasn't sticking all that well to his tablet stand.

He investigated, and found that the color, material, and stickiness of this 
"premium product" (3M makes good stuff) does not seem right.

We suspect that we've just been handed a batch of counterfeit 3M adhesive tissue. We're contacting our supplier, who is the same we've used for years.

We're also having 3M officials urgently come to our factory, as they've visited us before, and they've been exceedingly helpful. We're paying for the real stuff, so we want to receive it, thank you very much. And I'm sure 3M doesn't want their reputation tarnished.

If you received a DE1XL from us recently, it's possible that you have this inferior 3M adhesive on the back of your tablet. Naturally, if you have any problems, we will send you a free replacement, just as soon as we sort out with 3M, what's going on.

This might also temporarily delay the shipping of our new v1.4 machines, for a few days, as all v1.4 machines from us now use the same tablet stand as te DE1XL model does.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

We're just about to ship our new model v1.4 Decent Espresso machine. A little peak inside....


----------



## decent_espresso

Just published yesterday a video showing how to unbox and setup the DE1XL.






﻿
Saturday night, I was on chat with new customer Edmond in Singapore, because he new DE1XL wasn't getting past the startup tests, and his pump was making an awful noise. Just as if it had no water. I hadn't yet uploaded this video, so Edmond had set the machine up without any instruction. Well, after 30 minutes of trouble shooting, it occured to me that he wasn't taking the back panel off and lifting the water intake tube out of the way. So... yeah, the machine really was "sucking air" and had no water.

I wish I could have finished this 24 hours earlier, and I could have saved Edmond and I a bit of stress! Hopefully this video will also help others from making this simple (but important) mistake, and they can get making espresso a bit faster.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent Parts photos

My new assistant Ihti ﻿has been working through the DE1 "bill of materials" https://decentespresso.com/parts and is going through each main assembly (from the top), redoing or filling in photos as needed. My goal is to have really clear, high resolution, well lit photos of every part we use at Decent Espresso.

One change in how we're taking photos is that for cables, we're winding them up so that you get more detail, and whenever possible, the ends of the cables are facing the camera, as the ends are most interesting bits.

Only the first two main assemblies are done so far, but Ihti has now found a good way to take most photos (lighting, framing), so it's going faster.

Because the photos are looking really good, we'll be replacing a lot of the renders on the site, with real photos.

﻿Ben Champion has helped too since he was previously a professional photographer.

Examples:
https://decentespresso.com/parts?filter=DE-ACBOARD110V_R1-13040
https://decentespresso.com/parts?filter=DE-COMPLETECHASSIS_R3-13021

For those who are interested, we're taking these photos inside a light box, on a light table. The light table was really key in getting rid of excessive shadows under the objects. Naturally, there's a bit of photoshop afterwards to completely mask out the lightbox background, but when the photo is well shot, it's remarkable how little post processing work there is to do.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Day 7: first time building 50 espresso machines at once*

I'm very proud of my Hong Kong team, for managing to build 50 machines in 8 days. We're on day 7 and set to finish these tomorrow. This is 60% faster than we've ever built machines before. We just started with a brand new system where they work in teams of two. One is the "master" of a single object and task, and the other is their apprentice. On the right hand side, you can see another team preparing 50 chassis so that we can start building another 50 machines on the second assembly line, just as soon as we finish the first.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Sticky stuff: new Japanese adhesive*

We recently received a batch of counterfeit 3M double-sided adhesive tape, of inferior quality. Turns out we bought it from an authorized 3M reseller. We've decided to move to Japanese-made Nitto Adhesive, as the stuff is incredibly high quality, we can buy it directly from the manufacturer, and they delivered us samples cut to our specs within 24 hours. Impressive.

https://www.nitto.com/us/en/rd/base/adhesive/specificat/

Some recent customers received DE1XL machines with the inferior adhesive, and we'll be sending them "this good stuff" shortly, when we get our large order with them in stock.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Daily little challenges*

Every week seems to bring one or two "stop the factory" moments.

Two weeks ago, there were four of them in one day. I had a stiff cocktail that night.

Two of those were resolved that week, one today, and I hope to have the last one solved next week.

Some of these issues are caused by COVID, but mostly it's simply the difficulty of the task we're trying to accomplish: small production of a high quality, high tech, hand-made device.

I'd like to share one such with you.

We use a thin piece of fiberglass to thermally isolate the hot group head parts from the cool group head parts (arrow pointing to it on top left photo).

Dividing the group head into two thermal zones is one of our "secrets" (whoops!) for how we're able to go from "cold" to "perfect temperature" in 4.5 minutes.

This thin piece of fiberglass also serves to define the point at which a portafilter stops and feels locked, when you put it into the group head. Small thickness changes have a big effect.

Ten days ago, we received 1000 pieces of this fiberglass spacer, and they were all about 0.2mm too thick. The result: the portafilters lock too far in (bottom left photo).

The portafilter is supposed to lock at a point that is symmetric to the group head handle opposite it (bottom right photo). I won't ship a machine out unless those two handles are symmetric.

Our PCB manufacturer visited us the next day, but they couldn't fix this super fast, as it's a problem with their raw PCB stock.

So, we ordered URGENT 24 hour delivery from PCBWay, at about $1.50 each, 50 pieces, for that weeks' run of machines. They were perfect (within 0.02mm), and so we ordered "less urgent" (7 days) replacements.

On Friday, I told my staff that they could have Saturday off, because we couldn't build any more machines. We didn't have the spacers yet, and we'd built as far as we could without putting the group head in.

Saturday morning, Bugs and I are working in the empty factory. Delivery: 1000 (hopefully perfect) spacers.

Thanks to this delivery, on monday, we're can finish the 50 espresso machines that are now 60% completed.

And we're unblocked until the next emergency.

Which (foreshadowing a bit) is that our stock is down to seven Android tablets, due to LCD screen shortages causing our Android tablet manufacturer to delay by 120 days. All this week we've been evaluating off-the-shelf Android tablets that can hold us through this shortage. These are way more expensive for us, but they're nicer tablets for customers IPS screens, instead of LCD, for instance) but we have no choice. I'll be hopefully making a social media post about that change in a few days.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

For example, there were 11 DE1XL White v1.4 220V machines available, and so today I invited 11 from the front of the queue https://decentespresso.com/queue who had bought that model.

We just finished building 50 v1.4 machines at 220V (20 DE1XL black and 30 DE1PRO), and those customers will be emailed in their queue order, to pick their machine. On wednesday we'll finish our first batch of DE1PRO 110V machines and start testing them.

This is a new system I've developed, launched today, to match machines up with buyers. Previously we offered one machine a time, via personal email, and this was taking too much time. Machines were backing up here in the warehouse.

The Showroom is for full priced, already-purchased machines, and only v1.4. Any machine that is discounted, will be listed on the Bazaar, where about 700 people will be notified and someone can choose to buy it.

As we're increasing our speed of production, my hope is to get to a point where there is no waiting for a machine from us. If that day comes, I'd still like to use the Showroom, and let potential buyers see what we have available, and ask questions.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*SMORG first look: feedback wanted*
﻿
Back in March March I mentioned new Decent hire ﻿Omri Almagor. Omri had previously worked for Kees van der Westen, where he created the Idromatic group head option. I've occasionally mentioned that he was working on a sculptural Decent.

I expect that the design above will be hated by most. That's OK, because like Tesla Cybertruck, it's meant to be bold, an likely offensive to many. Most will hate it, some will love it. We hope!

I call this iteration "SCI SMORG" as the inspiration is Omri's love for science fiction ships, specifically the Star Trek Romulan warbird, to which SCI SMORG is his homage.







﻿

Here are more views of SCI SMORG:
﻿









This outer casing replaces the DE1 case, but otherwise the inside remains a DE1. It's made of polished metal, using 3D printing in Germany, and then polished.

The tablet will be placed on the side, with a "Baby SMORG" case that then sits on the tabletop, next to the espresso machine.

Yes, I realize this is a flat out crazy design.

Omri and I have also explored a different direction, which we call "Golden Era Smorg". Here is what that looks like.







﻿

Omri and I would both love your thoughts on the this.

Note that our plan is to make SMORG as a special limited edition. We're "testing the waters" for whether there is an interest in a boldly designed Decent.

And of course we'll continue to make "modernist" style DE1 as our main product line.

-john


----------



## Coffee by the Casuals

The white one has the beginnings of looking beautiful. Yes, the purple one is horrid.


----------



## mmmatron

This is bonkers! Will certainly divide opinion. Can't really see it fitting the aesthetic of most homes, but would certainly be an eye catching addition to events/exhibitions.


----------



## J_Fo

The purple is definitely one for the coffee enthusiast/PC enthusiast crossover market!


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent working with Weber Workshops*

I've long admired Douglas Weber's many products, from the EG-1 grinder that I own, the HG-1 grinder that I've used, the steam dial. Even the stuff he makes that I don't like, I still admire because it's always bold, inventive, and high quality.

From when we started Decent, I'd hoped Decent could be seen as the other highly-creative company in espresso.

So it was with great pleasure to get a Whatsapp from Douglas Weber some weeks ago. We chatted for about 2 hours, and talked about ways we could work together. It was fascinating to find how many stories and viewpoints we shared.

Today Douglas announced https://www.instagram.com/weberworkshops/ a Decent adaptor for his Steam Dial tip:
﻿









I have used the steam dial, years ago, on the two group E61 I owned. I loved it. Sadly, the threads were incompatible with the Decent, until now.

Also, a few weeks ago he announced that he'd tested his new Spring Clean https://weberworkshops.com/products/spring-clean product on the DE1 he owns and can confirm it works well with Decent espresso machines.
﻿









As our working together is based on mutual admiration and similar philosophies, I'm looking forward to see what we can do together, in the future.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Why no 3 way valve?*

During the first few years we started making the Decent Espresso Machine, I would often hear criticism that the Decent "lacked" a 3 way valve and thus did not flush properly at the end of espresso.

I patiently repeated my answer that this was not a lack at all, but a decision we made because it seemed to us that using the same tube from the water heater to the group, both for clean water in (to make espresso) and dirty water out (to release pressure) was a bad idea.

All espresso machines (that I know of) before Decent did this "backflush". We thought that coffee oils would likely build up in that tube, go rancid, and slowly degrade the quality of future coffee.

But our position was alone. Nobody else backed us up or agreed with it.

And people usually didn't believe my explanation, likely because we were the only ones (it seemed) arguing this position. I think people thought I was trying to do "marketing spin" on a "problem with the product" instead of perhaps, maybe having a valid point.

Until I read James Hoffman's "Best of 11 years' writing" book https://decentespresso.com/books where I found out that he'd explicitly called this out as a common source of bad tasting espresso, and thus how important it was to clean this part on conventional espresso machines.

﻿








James wrote this 4 years before we even started designing the Decent! I wish he'd published this book earlier.

Here's the relevant quote from his book:

﻿








With the Decent, we release pressure through a separate tube that only ever is used for dirty water. The clean-water-in path holds its its pressure at the end of espresso, forcing water out this path.

Here is a photo of the inside of the group head on a Decent:
﻿









The brown tube brings water in (brown=making nice coffee) and the black tube on the right (black=dirty) flushes it away.

We call this approach "forward flush" to oppose it to "backflushing"

It's been a few years since I've heard the "why don't you flush like a normal machine" criticism but I think it's still not commonly known that this common design feature of traditional machines is not great.

This topic came up yesterday, because part of the goal of Weber Workshops new Spring Clean https://weberworkshops.com/products/spring-clean product is to clean this "backflush tube". Decent owners were asking whether it was worth buying Spring Clean, given that we don't have this same cleaning problem as traditional machines. I don't know yet, but I'll be getting a Spring Clean myself soon, for testing, and will report back what I find, about the job it does on a Decent.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*What we learned by delaying v1.4 for ten days*

We finished building our first 50 v1.4 machines in early September, about a month ahead of schedule.

During our temperature accuracy test, we found that about 30% of the machines were not acting as they should, with water temperature about 2ºC above the goal temperature.







﻿

All 50 machines were identical, so what could be the problem?

We tried a variety of theories. 
- Maybe the flow constrictors were mis-mounted? 
- Maybe the temperature probes were of varying quality?
- Maybe the pumps were defective?
- None of our theories were right.

So, we proceeded to take 1 part at a time out of a "good" machine, and replace it in the "bad" machine, until the problem re-appeared.

The problem finally re-appeared when we replaced the section where "water mixing" happens. That's where 110ºC superheated water meets room temperature water, at varying flow rates, so that we can give you the exact water temperature you want.

So then we started taking the "bad" parts apart, and measuring everything. We couldn't find any difference between the "good" and "bad" part.

After 4 days of delays, I decided to put all 50 machines aside, and start building another 50. I then assigned 3 engineers onto the problem full time here in Hong Kong, while Ray (Seattle) and Ben (Australia) also worked on this issue remotely.

We eventually figured out that no component was defective. The problem was a temperature sensor we'd moved.
﻿









We had moved the temperature sensor closer to the point where the water mixing happens. The new position gave us slightly faster sensor feedback. We'd been testing this for almost a year with no problems, so why does it not work now?

We finally figured it out.

The new temperature probe location is right where the hot and cold water mix.

It turns out that teeny tiny changes in the angle of water flowing into this mixing chamber, caused big changes in how well, and how evenly, the two different water flows mixed.

With slight differences in angle, the new temperature probe location was measuring ever so slightly more cold water than would eventually be in the final mix. And therefore our mathematics were compensating for that cooler water by putting warmer water in. Which then gave us 2ºC hotter water, when finally measured at the coffee puck.

The bright yellow and green water tube in the upper right part of the photo, is carrying mixed water to the "old position" temperature sensor. That tube is only 1.2mm wide. There's not much water in there.

It turns out that squeezing the mixed water from the chamber, through the tube and back into a chamber, causes the water to be thoroughly and evenly mixed. Measuring the water temperature earlier gave use readings that still had hot and cold eddies flowing around.

Once we figured this out, we moved the temperature probe back to the old position, and all our machines now worked as expected.

The exercise, though stressful, was quite worthwhile. We learned something new about measuring water temperature, and mixing, and eddies.

In our latest firmware (about to be released), insights from these ten days have led to revisions to our mathematics, and specifically we now are able to stabilize our coffee puck temperature significantly better, with very slow "thick" shots that have very little added water through them. This has been a case where we typically ran about 1ºC too cool at the end of the shot, and we'd not been able to understand why. Our better understanding of water mixing dynamics has helped Ray to crack that problem.

We've never before achieved this level of "measured at the puck" temperature accuracy, with such slow shots (in my test, a 38 second espresso).

Note how, in the photo, the puck temperature is only 2ºC too cool at the start, thanks to our slight 2ºC over-temperature bump for the first 2 seconds. Traditional machines typically start 6ºC to 8ºC cooler than the goal, because the puck is at room temperature. And then the rest of the shot manages to stay with 0.3ºC at the coffee puck, during the entire shot. I'm happy!﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

*A new way of addressing the Decent backlog*

If you've been watching our order queue https://decentespresso.com/queue you might have noticed two things:

1) the queue has been getting longer
2) the order of the queue is a thorough mix of different models and voltages

We've been sloooowly improving our speed of making machines, from 17/week in January, to 23/week in August. Progress has been too slow.

I've been removing complexity everywhere I can find it, in an effort to speed things up.

In the past, we've done "mixed runs" of different models and voltages. No more. That slowed us down.

Now, each week, we build 50 of whatever model has the most number of backlogged orders. You can see that list on the bottom right of the photo.

Even though we have 270+ orders backlogged, this is spread over quite a few models. One effect of this "one model only" change is that we will, at times, have built more machines of that model than have orders. Wow, stock-at-hand of Decent machines! That would be nice.

I wrote recently that I switched to a "master" system, where we build 50 machines at once, and there's an employee who is designated the "master" of a sub-assembly. The build it, test it, install it, and train their apprentice. That way, they know what to do, every day. No need to micromanage.

My idea was that as we've completely build 50 machines, we'd move to the 2nd assembly table, where we'd start building another 50 while the previous ones were tested.

That basic idea worked well enough. We were able to build 50 machines in 8 days, or 150 machines/month, assuming a 6 day workweek.

We ended up modifying that idea, though, because I managed to speed up testing quite a bit with new software and test equipment, so that it now takes 4 days for two people to test and calibrate 50 machines. That means the assembly line is free on day 5. And it turns out that at around when the 50 machines are 60% built, we have the staff available to start building the next round of 50 machines. This "overlapping build cycles" tweak, this has allowed us to build 50 machines in 6 days.

With a 6 day workweek, that's 200 espresso machines/month. Now, we're finally getting somewhere! At that pace, we can make 44 machines more than were sold (we sold 156 espresso machines last month) and so make progress at the backlog. Previously, sales were growing so much faster than our speed of building, that we were getting progressively further behind.

I don't know that we're going to succeed, but my hope is be totally up to date with our backlog by the time Christmas comes along, so I can give my employees a well deserved break and maybe a bit of a Christmas present as well.

And ideally, every client who ordered would have received their machine by then.

I might be dreaming, but it's good to have goals!

What can slow us down is if we don't have enough time to get the "sub assemblies" done in order to keep up this pace. Small problems, like the recent "group head handle position" problem, lost us a day and a half (not too bad) and slow us down.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Note the monolith grinder, and the smoothly working integration with the Acaia scale thanks to ﻿Johanna Amélie Schander.﻿
﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

*There's something about Peter*

Another Decent customer named Peter﻿ was inspired by "the other Peter﻿" having offered the Decent HK staff a lovely meal

__
http://instagr.am/p/CEtgColA0sO/
 thanks to Peter and wanted to do the same.

So, last week we enjoyed the best "moon cakes" that money can buy, thanks to a generous gift from ﻿ Peter Neelands Peter ﻿.

Actually, we had an assortment of different styles from different places, from traditional to ice-cream-moon-cake (best for Westerners like me). After the mooncakes last wednesday we left the staff go home early and enjoy their 4 day weekend holiday. The good weather held until monday, when it started raining again. Apparently, it usually rains during the "mid autumn festival" so we were lucky.

Thanks again to the two Peters for filling our bellies with joy, but more importantly, making us feel really lucky to have such customers and community around us.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Future Decent Zoom calls*

I've been doing fewer Decent zoom calls since moving to Hong Kong two months ago, because:
- on weekends we've all been working, building machines. The factory has been noisy, and I also I have needed to focus on helping everyone build.
- I don't work/live at home any more
- And we've actually started taking weekends off.
- But I'd happily start doing them again, as long as I can schedule them for a weekday.

Here are two times I'm thinking of:
- 6pm Pacific USA time (9pm Eastern USA) (9am HK time)
and
- 7pm Melbourne time/9am Berlin time (4pm HK time)

Is Friday good for people? If not, what day is best? The only day I can't do is Monday, as that's the busiest day.

There's a Typhoon warning in HK today, so the office is dead quiet. We live in a hotel nearby, so we were able to walk to work, but public transportation is closed.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*

*

*






*

*
Zoom call on Thursday: Inside the DE1
*

John Buckman is inviting you to a scheduled Decent/Zoom meeting.

Topic: Inside the DE1
- Oct 15 - 6:00 PM Pacific USA 
- Oct 15 - 9:00 PM Eastern USA
- Oct 15 - 11:00 AM Melbourne Australia Time

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84943846243?pwd=aFZZWG9ER0FpOWFjMG1kalZMcWdKdz09

Meeting ID: 849 4384 6243
Passcode: decent

*﻿I'll soon have another call time scheduled that is more UK/EU friendly.*


----------



## decent_espresso




----------



## decent_espresso

*A Decent timeline*

The most important number I track is "number of new machines shipped per month". It's a "cut through the bullshit" kind of number.

Here's several years of that:
﻿









I don't want to jinx it, but we seem to be sustaining another doubling of our ability ship machines, and I hope to ship around 200 DE1 this month. That'll be almost twice our previous (one-time) record.

Since we're building 50 machines at once, sometimes we make more of a specific model that we have orders for. That means some models are coming into stock and can "ship immediately".

The first model of ours to now be back in stock is the DE1XL Black 220V model, and there's a dozen of them ready to ship.
﻿








Here's what happening right now at the Decent factory, here in Hong Kong:
﻿









Even though our queue is 227 machines deep, the orders are spread across many models, so over the next 2 weeks, there's a good chance a small number of these models will come back into stock as well.

I don't know yet if we'll manage to have a empty queue for Christmas, but it now seems likely we'll have a few different models available before Christmas, for anyone who wants to give a super-nice gift. 😀

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*The tablet shortage, solved*

I've mentioned in a few previous posts, that we were running out of black Android tablets, and this could prevent us from shipping the espresso machines.

We've in fact run out completely of our black tablets, which is why we made a bunch of white DE1XL models two weeks ago, as we still had plenty of white Android tablets. Those while DE1XL models promptly sold out, and then we ran out of one of the white chassis parts (the tablet stand, sigh) as we'd fired our previous chassis maker for their poor quality. Welcome to the world of manufacturing during the age of COVID.

On the positive side, yesterday we received two samples of the white DE1XL parts from our new support (who we really like) and the workmanship is fantastic. We've had a really hard time getting flawless white chassis.







﻿

The black Android tablets were ordered 5 months ago, were were supposed to be here 3 months ago. However, COVID caused shortages in this resolution of LCD screen. Only poor quality screens were available for sale. Our manufacturer (a company named PIPO, that makes the tablets for Archos, which is a big name in Europe) wanted me to compromise and accept the lower quality screens, as that was all that was available. Since I didn't compromise (surprise!), we ran out of PIPO tablets and we were delayed another 3 months to get the good screens (in theory, coming next month, we'll see).

However, as long as there's money in the bank, there's a way to solve this problem!

With the help of my I.T. guy Ricky, we bought samples of most of the 8" Android tablets being currently made, all those available at a screen resolution of 1280x800. And all with ample stock, available to ship immediately.

We found that a company named "Teclast" has more or less cornered the market, as they're making current-spec tablets for this size and resolution. No other company seems to be investing serious R&D into this form factor, since Samsung stopped making them. The Android world has more-or-less abandoned tablets (except for the ultra high end), since Phones are where the Android-action is at.

The picture above shows the new tablet (left) and the old tablet (right). It's hard to see much difference in the photo (they're boot good screens), except for:
- the green color is overly vivid on the old PIPO tablet
- there's a bit of light leakage on the left edge of the new Teclast tablet
- The Teclast screen is a bit sharper.

However, the Teclast tablets use current CPUs (8 cores vs 4 cores) and are 45% faster than our usual tablets. The Teclast screens use IPS technology, as opposed to LCD, for truer whites and sharper text. It's also Android 9, which is more current.
﻿









To get us through this shortage, we've bought 200pcs of the Teclast P80X tablet, directly from Teclast.

Just to be 100% transparent, these tablets are available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/TECLAST-Processor-Acceleration-Intelligent-Optimization/dp/B07TKKYLPL/ref=sr_1_1
and that 10+ price on Amazon is the same price we paid.

Here are the tablet specs: http://teclast.com/en/zt/P80X/

Over the next few weeks, these are the tablets that will come with DE1 machines. After the 2000pcs of the PIPO tablets come in (Android 😎 that's what we'll go back to. We ordered them 5 months ago. There's nothing at all wrong with them, and they have no brand labelling, which I think looks nicer on the machine. In a year, there's a good chance we'll move to Teclast, especially if I can negotiate with them to get an Android build with most of the Google bloat removed.

The PIPO tablets all have developer-access "root" enabled and a really, really clean Android build made just for us, according to my specs. That's very hard to get in the commercial world. The custom Android build makes them run a lot faster than Geekbench indicates, because there's no Googlebloat running in the background.

Some of you might remember Ricky from when we hired him a few years ago. He had just been discharged from the hospital for cancer, having had a good part of his throat removed. I considered ourselves lucky to be able to hire an IT guy with 20 years experience, at a reasonable salary (the government paid 75% of his salary for the first 9 months). He's now mostly recovered and works full time for us. Though he'll never be able to eat solid food, he's a bit of a work addict, as he's well loved here at Decent, and craved to be more than a "patient" for the rest of his life. I couldn't have gotten out of this situation without him.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Cake for staff, now GAAP compliant*

Last week﻿ Marius wrote me that he'd like to cancel his $99 order for the Decent Scale, because it's so late in shipping that he's bought a different scale elsewhere. Sorry! But here's the twist: he'd prefer we keep the $99 and use it to buy the Decent staff some cake. Wow!

Marius certainly didn't mean to do this, but this caused a good 30 minutes of intense concentration in the Decent accounting department, because "this doesn't usually happen under GAAP accounting rules" (!)

So, a bit of "creative accounting" (cough) later, we now have two "products" in our catalog, that people can buy:
https://decentespresso.com/c?s=888+1+889+1

When then adds one of the staff's two favorite cakes from Lucullus http://lucullus.com.hk/







﻿









Seriously (grin), if you'd like to buy us a cake, now at last there's an easy way to do it.

Just add it to your shopping cart.

You can then photoshop this image with "Thank you <your name here>"







﻿

As I write this, Hong Kong Coffee Educator Celia Wong (who just bought a white DE1XL) https://www.instagram.com/chingchingcelia/ is on a bus, headed here with homemade biscuits.

﻿








The fact that this keeps happening (customer buying and making us cake, to thank us) is completely blowing my mind.

-john


----------



## asbr7

Hi I've been lurking on this forum for years. I am interested in purchasing one. Do you by any chance sell them anywhere in California? I would like to buy one and avoid the shipping charges etc


----------



## Coffee by the Casuals

asbr7 said:


> Hi I've been lurking on this forum for years. I am interested in purchasing one. Do you by any chance sell them anywhere in California? I would like to buy one and avoid the shipping charges etc


 I don't work for Decent, but I know enough to tell you that they only sell direct for the purposes of keeping the cost as low as possible. Remember: you'd still be paying the shipping charges to get your machine to a dealer in California. You just wouldn't know how much they were


----------



## decent_espresso

Coffee by the Casuals said:


> I don't work for Decent, but I know enough to tell you that they only sell direct for the purposes of keeping the cost as low as possible. Remember: you'd still be paying the shipping charges to get your machine to a dealer in California. You just wouldn't know how much they were


 Yep and you'd be handing a 30% commission to the local dealer for the honor of receiving your machine from us.

But @asbr7 if your question is rather "where can I try out a DE1?" i can find you someone in California you can visit, assuming you live in a populated area, and they give their OK despite COVID.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*The ecological cost of quality control*

This doesn't get discussed much: the world's quest for aesthetic perfection in their purchased goods causes millions of otherwise perfectly-acceptable goods to be thrown away.

Let's talk about this.

Anything that gets made has a quality-control failure rate.

Apple accepts a 10% quality-control failure rate, and their suppliers often can't meet that. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/Apple-iPhone-Foxconn-return-defects,22195.html

And Africa doesn't want our discards either https://miista.com/en-us/africa-doesnt-want-your-second-hand-clothes/

Some things are easy to make, such as our coffee funnels (97% pass rate), but add eight small magnets press-fitted into the base, and the pass rate drops to 91%. 
﻿








What happens to those failed items?

If the product is simple and the problem minor, it can often be repaired, such as putting in a new magnet.

If the problem is cosmetic, like this knockbox, to really repair this, it would have to be first bathed in acid to remove the paint, and then repainted. Is this cure worse than the disease? Often, I think so.﻿









Our knockboxes, because they're large, made from form-pressed aluminum, then powder coated, are quite challenging to make without a fault. Only about 60% are judged as "Grade A" by us.

But instead of repainting from scratch or (worse) scrapping, I prefer to highly discount them, typically after hiding the paint defect as best we can, usually with an indelible marker.







﻿

Our "grade C" items are sold at cost (no profit, once shipping costs are accounted for) 
https://decentespresso.com/c?s=73952+1+201+1+202+1+102+1
﻿









I've been repeatedly advised to never sell anything that is less than perfect, in order to "protect our brand".

Firstly, I find the quest for no-sign-of-humanity, perfect objects to be strange, and a bit disturbing. But that's what plastic-molded, cheap stuff has trained so many people to expect.

Secondly, I just can't make myself discard otherwise good product. ﻿ Bugs﻿ and I readily admit to dumpster-diving, as well as going to farmer's markets after closing, to pick up the left-behind "over-ripe" fruit and veg.

Finally, our "brand" seems to be doing just fine. A lot of people want "Decent stuff."

However, many people can't afford what we sell. Our stuff is expensive. I know that.

For me, selling cosmetic-failed goods at a significantly lower prices is a good way to "meet the market". We're getting our products into the hands of people who want them, at a price they can afford.

Sometimes, we don't make any money doing so, but at least we don't waste.

-john


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## asbr7

decent_espresso said:


> Yep and you'd be handing a 30% commission to the local dealer for the honor of receiving your machine from us.
> 
> But @asbr7 if your question is rather "where can I try out a DE1?" i can find you someone in California you can visit, assuming you live in a populated area, and they give their OK despite COVID.
> 
> -john


 Oh no that's okay I trust the product. Just trying to find ways to save money haha. I'm going to end up buying it regardless.


----------



## decent_espresso

*v1.4 and the state of R&D*

I've previously mentioned that while we are currently building our v1.4 espresso machines, we had planned on releasing v1.5 starting in March 1.5.

Plans have changed. 
- we're be making the v1.4 model for another year and a half
- There's nothing important that's wrong with this model, and nothing "wow" that we can do quickly. The "big stuff" has been taken care of.
- I've given Ray, Ben and my other R&D engineers a full year to work on "big ideas", without the pressure of a near-term deadline.
- We're planning on version 1.5 to come out in early 2022.
- I can't even speculate what will be in that version, because it's very much pure R&D, that may or may not succeed.

I can tell you what we will not be doing: 
- no vibration dampening on the pumps, 
- nor moving to a different vibration pump manufacturer.

*Why not? *

We're thoroughly tested the German and Swiss engineered vibration dampeners, and they don't last long. Typically, after 1000 to 2000 espresso, they literally explode. I don't think we can easily do better than Jura or Siemens: those are some of the smartest engineers, anywhere.

We've tested a number of alternative vibe pumps. All are Italian, and we think it's too risky to switch to them.

Firstly, Italian manufacturing is in a COVID-induced mess at the moment. We've been having trouble getting samples, specs, or even pump engineers to talk to, for almost 10 months. The commercial espresso machine business will likely see a lot of "contraction" (that's biz-speak for closures, bankruptcies, fire-sales and cheap acquisitions) as cafes worldwide go out of business, stop buying commercial machines, and prepare for much lower throughput. This will likely have a knock-on effect to the parts-supplier ecosystem in Italy. I prefer to be conservative, and stick with the suppliers we have who are reliable and globalized.

Our existing pumps (and valves) are designed by ODE, a massive Italian company that also makes for La Marzocco and others. However, they are made in China, and so they are currently available, and reliably so. And ODE's engineers are here in Hong Kong, so we can take the subway to visit them.

*Trying to make better coffee*

Since May 2019, we've had an "elite" group of our customers who receive speculative designs from us, and give us feedback in a private forum we run with them.

One point of focus has been water distribution on the the coffee puck. We think we've found a design that "everyone agrees is not worse, and some thing is better". We're also using a resin called Ultem to make these water distribution parts, as they need less cleaning, and not pre-heating

However, the prototype pieces we made were 100% ultem, not glass reinforced, and after a year, some have developed cracks, such as this one from Luca ﻿:
﻿









﻿Ben has taken what we've learned in a year of field testing, and produced another round of water distribution designs. These are all made with 30% glass reinforced Ultem, and we want to have them in heavy real-world use for a year. It is a super easy part for a customer to replace themselves (one screw, 2 minutes) but it's better if they don't have to.

Because of COVID, we've also had huge difficulties getting prototype parts made.

These parts in the photo are 5 months late and arrived just a few days ago. 
- There are many new designs of Ultem water distribution parts, 
- as well as cast stainless steel group head parts (instead of CNCed brass). 
- There is also a "unified manifold" design that would halve the number of water tubes, thus simplifying assembly and making space inside.

Here is what one of our "gift boxes" (grin) looks like for one of our testers:







﻿

We're fairly sure that we'll be able to slightly improve the water distribution onto the puck with this research. Once we can, we'll make that upgraded part available as an inexpensive self-upgrade for all existing customers. There's a good chance that will be available to existing customers before v1.5 comes out.








﻿

*The "Golden Era" espresso machine from Decent*

The feedback to ﻿ omri almagor omri ﻿ and me, about the SMORG designs (Sci Smorg vs Golden Era Smorg) was that people overwhelmingly preferred (and many loved) the "Golden Era" model. So this is what we're going to focus on delivering in 2021.

The crazy "Sci-Smorg" design is on the storage shelf for now, perhaps to be brought back to life after we've done the model people really, really want.

Omri has some more design work to do on Golden Era Smorg (the GE1?), and so expect to see renders with ideas in the months to come.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

"Decent Diaspora" is the DE1-owner's-only community where a lot of hardware creativity happens, thanks to DE1 owners hacking away on interesting problems.

Two big areas of recent work have been around scales and weighing:

1 - Johanna adding support for many different models of Acaia and Felicita scales

2 - Damian, Thomas, Lorenz and others designing 3D printable replacement drip trays that integrate weighing. The scale disappears into the drip tray. This is a difficult mechanical engineering problem to solve, but in the end all the free-to-print-yourself solutions are all better than what Decent made, which is why we've discontinued our own scale-stand. You can download their 3D files, and either print them yourself or find a person local to you on 3dHubs.com to print it for you, cheaply.

A side effect of this progress is that some DE1 owners find themselves with perfect good coffee accessories that they no longer need. So they give them away.

Last week saw Pascale start things off in giving away his Atomax Skale. Peter then did the same. Roger chimed in with his Hog-puck-tool prototype, and a ONA stem scale platform.

This sort of gifting happens a lot. Usually it's in the form of open-source contributions to the tablet app, or writing their own app, or making their own 3D printable objects, or most commonly, people gifting their time to help people new to coffee, quickly learn how to make the best espresso of their life.

As James Hoffmann once famously said, people buy espresso machines because they're looking for a hobby. That's true, but very frequently, they're also looking to find like minded folks, a community, and to make friends with which to learn, share, give, and grow.

-john


----------



## spasypaddy

i love the openness of your discussions.

i wish i could afford and justify one of your machines


----------



## decent_espresso

Our focus on "faster steaming, please!" has now yielded more power on 230V DE1 machines than some people are comfortable with.

Decent customers Stephen and Anders both explained this week, that they were having trouble making good microfoam with their 230V DE1 machines. They posted their steam charts, which you can see in the image.

Both these charts are great: there's no technical problem here. They're both at 165ºC and around 3.5 bar of pressure. However, you do need to be able to cope with fast and powerful steaming. It takes more skill to make good microfoam when you are working with this much power, though a multi-hole steam wand tip does help make it easier, by spreading the force into several steam streams. That's why I use a 3 hole tip on our prototype 10 amp DE1.

Commercial boiler based espresso machines do deliver high powered steam. But even professional baristas can have trouble making good microfoam with it. Often they don't even realize that their foam is not all that great, especially if it does look good for the ~30 seconds where they see the drink go to the customer. Consider for example this tutorial on latte art: https://www.coffeescience.org/latte-art-beginners-guide/

Notice how coarse the teacher's bubbles are in the photo.

Both Stephen and Anders found out (thanks to help from Decent's Charles Temkey) that lowering the steam temperature (settings->machine->calibrate) and then lowering the steam flow rate, will lower the power of the steam, and thus make it easier to make good microfoam.

So yes, if you are struggling to make good microfoam, consider lowering your steam heater temperature, and then lower the steam flow rate, so that you're in the 2 to 2.5 bar range. It will take more time to heat the milk, but your milk will be easier to texture. Our original v1.0 DE1 model, years ago, took 46 seconds to steam a 200ml latte, which is slow, but people were very happy with the ease of making microfoam. Now, with current machines, you can choose where you want to be on the "ease vs speed" continuum.

As an aside, in the recent Zoom call "inside the DE1" I was asked if we would ever put a steam boiler into the DE1. I gave a slightly exasperated answer of "no, never" and then went on with some detail. Apologies for sounding slightly peeved (my bad) but I do think the answer and conversation that ensued was quite good:




 (jump to time 1:26:33)

Going straight to the point: I find boiler-based steam to be low-pressure (and thus, low shearing force) and too wet.

Traditional steam boilers give you steam in the 1.2 bar range
https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/commercial-espresso-machine-average-steam-pressure-t41554.html
whereas the DE1 is typically at 2-to-2.5 bar (on 110V machines) and in the 3 to 5 bar range on 230V machines.

The extra pressure translates directly into increased shearing force, which is what breaks milk bubbles into smaller bubbles. It's also been my experience that greater shearing force creates longer lasting microfoam. Ten minutes later, your DE1 foam is still very much on your latte.

The higher pressure of DE1 steam also allows us to greatly increase the boiling point of water, up to 150ºC at 5 bar, so that it flashes to steam when it comes out your steam wand tip. Consequently, Decent steam is extremely dry.

And finally, the fact that DE1 steam is on demand and computer controller, means that you can instantly and easily change its characteristics.

Want lower powered steam for a 70 ml piccolo latte? Set: steam heater at 140º, flow rate of 0.8 ml/s. Want max power for two big lattes? 170ºC steam at 1.4 ml/s. In the future, we'll have quick-access buttons on the tablet, to let you quickly change your settings to suit the drink you're making. We can do this, because we're on demand, computer controlled, and have power to spare.

So no, we're never going to have a steam boiler inside a DE1. It would be a massive step backwards for us.

This also means we won't have steam-during-brew, because there's not enough electricity to give this quality of steam and also make temperature stable espresso. Every technical decision unfortunately has its pros and cons.

-john


----------



## siliconslave

spasypaddy said:


> i love the openness of your discussions.
> 
> i wish i could afford and justify one of your machines


 agreed - love this approach and would like to support & get involved but i'm not sure I can justify the outlay (for now)


----------



## decent_espresso

*"Best of" Inside the DE1 Zoom call*

My assistant Ihti has chopped out the best parts from our recent 2 hour zoom call "Inside the DE1"


----------



## Guy Levine

I love mine! Been great.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## decent_espresso

*Buy Cake for Damian*

Click here to buy Damian a cake!
https://decentespresso.com/c?s=889+1

By far, the most prolific member of our Decent community, Damian is the author of the widely-popular DSX skin. https://www.diy.brakel.com.au/









What I appreciate most about Damian is that he thinks very differently from me. He has different priorities, and different tastes, strongly held. And so what he does with his skin is so very different than what I do. His skin emphasizes speed of use, and powerful features, and is especially popular with DE1 power users.

Some of the capabilities exclusive to Damian's skin:



comparing historical shots you've made


quickly switching between profiles and starting right away (ie, caf/decaf or single vs double shots)


group head flush stops on a timer


automatic timing of milk when it achieves a certain temperature (by integrating weighing of the milk)


and more


Where Damian and I agree is on the importance of the freedom to do as you wish. He's fiercely independent, which sometimes rubs people the wrong way <grin> but is part of the personality that also creates things that are very different from others.

Besides the DSX skin, Damian has also created and iterated on the Londonium profile for the DE1, which is also very popular. I include it by default with the DE1 app. There's quite a lot of fancy stuff happening in this profile.

This profile simulates a Londinium R machines extraction style. This is an advanced profile with some added steps to assist with less than ideal puck prep. Christee-Lee described it as like having a milkshake with extra syrup. Great body and flavour range.

﻿








But you don't need to know anything about the technical way in which it does its magic. Just prep your coffee puck, hit start, and enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Damian has also created a profile to copy the new La Marzocco Leva machine. 
https://www.diy.brakel.com.au/decent-profiles/









He's also designed his own replacement drip tray stand, which integrates into the Atomax bluetooth Skale. https://www.diy.brakel.com.au/projects/ It's one of the most popular solutions to this mechanical question. You're free to download it and 3D print it yourself, or with a local service via something like 3D Hubs.com.

I'm greatly appreciative of all Damian does, the fact that he shares so much, on top of answering questions about his work, and just general coffee and DE1 questions.

Even if you don't own a Decent, you can consider thanking for his contributions to the field of espresso knowledge.

So please, thank Damian by buying him a cake.
https://decentespresso.com/c?s=889+1

He'll be receiving 100% of the money we get. And naturally, he can buy himself a cake, or a beer, or whatever he likes. The important thing is to show your thanks.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Two new Decent Coffee Stands launch this weekend

I'm starting to see more Decent Coffee Carts launching, partially as part of a shift in the coffee industry toward smaller, and outdoor, serving of coffee. Low (or no) rent is nice too, given the lower volume of coffee that cafes worldwide are serving.

Both these coffee carts started with the BROR cart I designed, and then modded them heavily to be more appropriate for their specific use. https://decentespresso.com/coffeecart

﻿














In North Carolina, Rowan Coffee added dark wood panels to their Decent Bror carts, with one for making coffee and one for the till.
https://www.instagram.com/rowancoffee/














And in Hong Kong, Even0 launched with a moveable bicycle/stand setup, next to other food carts in a relaunched public market https://www.instagram.com/tcsmarkethk/
https://www.instagram.com/even0/

﻿







Notable also is that these are small entrepreneurs, often starting out with their first cafes. Our little coffee cart creates new opportunities to start out, since the cost is so much lower than opening a traditional rented-location cafe.

With a new photo in my instagram feed this morning, is "Always dialing in coffee" with his beautify Paris-based coffee-cart-for-the-home - not for commercial use. Instead, replacing a cafe at home, since Paris is in lockdown.


__
http://instagr.am/p/CHEIUSXhPvR/


__
http://instagr.am/p/CHEIUSXhPvR/

﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Bathroom Mirror for a Cafe?*

Our favorite (and new) metal supplier, who is currently responsible for all cosmetic metal on the Decent machines, made 4 mirror panels for us, to show us what they're capable of.

Indeed, they're beautiful.

Unfortunately, they're also lacking a cut out for the USB port, and 4 screw holes.

So, they're totally useless to us.

That's Decent Engineer Fabrice mirror-imaged in the photo, explaining this to me.

However, I think they'd make a fantastic bathroom or makeup mirror, perhaps for a Decent-equipped cafe?

I'll happy send one of eac
h of these free to the top 4 ideas people have for using these. There are only 4 of them.

Our very utilitarian staff bathroom has an old mirror panel installed.









ps: we're holding off on ordering mirror panels from them at the moment, as they're massively backlogged for about 6 months, with urgent orders from us. Maybe next year, though.

-john

﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

The two white DE1XL machines seem to attract the bulk of the public's attention at today's launch of the Taikoo Place food market, even though they're going to head-to-head against Blue Bottle's second cafe in HK:

https://www.taikooplace.com/en/whatson/content/whatson/tcsm2020


----------



## arellim

I must admit- a cool machine draws me into a coffee shop. Part of the reason I went to visit % in HK with their lovely looking Slayer!


----------



## decent_espresso

*Transparent DE1 case*

Years ago, we had a transparent case made for the MICE trade show in Australia. It was a big hit, and we ended up traveling worldwide with that transparent case.

Enough people have asked about it for their DE1, that we've now made 100 of them.

You can order it here, for any version of DE1+ or DE1PRO (but not for the DE1XL, sorry!)
- For the transparent cover: https://decentespresso.com/c?s=310+1
- For the transparent cover, and optionally the v1.4 tablet stand and tablet: https://decentespresso.com/c?s=310+1+30057+1+318+1

If you have a v1.4 machine, you won't need the tablet stand or tablet. Just the transparent cover will do it.

If you have v1.0/v1.1/v1.3 machine, you can continue to use your Steelie Stand and tablet on it. However, there are 3 holes predrilled in the case for the tablet stand, that you might find unsightly.
﻿
I've included our latest Android 9 tablet in that shopping cart URL above, in case you want to upgrade your tablet at the same time, perhaps as part of getting the new tablet stand. The tablets we send out are preconfigured and preloaded to be "Decent".

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Our first COVID-era trade show*

COVID is controlled enough in Korea that they're going ahead with their massive trade coffee show. http://www.cafeshow.com/eng/

To cope with likely-lower turnout, the organizers are promoting 6 Youtubers, who will be making videos of the show, promoted as a "virtual tour" http://www.cafeshow.com/eng/media/notice_view.asp?NUM=73&param=%26page%3D1

The trade show organizers have closed all "food services" so that people do not congregate while eating. Instead, all booths are now permitted to serve food and drink, at no extra cost to us, and with no forms to fill out. The goal is to spread people eating across the entire show. Nice move.

Shin, who run Decent Espresso Korea, is there with a normal-sized stand. 






﻿

We're partnered again with Fillout Coffee, who have a massive booth, and 3 of our DE1XL models. They also use these in production, at their cafe. Having a well respected, large cafe talking about their experience using Decent (now over a year) is incredibly valuable, and we really, really appreciate it.
﻿









Shin has one of our prototype 10 amp / 2200W DE1XL machines, which reduces steaming time by 40%, to 18 seconds for a 200ml latte. It's mounted into IKEA's new "white BROR" cart, which looks great with the white espresso machine https://decentespresso.com/coffeecart
﻿









That 10 amp model is already in high volume testing with Even0 coffee:

__
http://instagr.am/p/CHEpDZJBF9b/
 in Hong Kong at this month-long coffee festival. 
﻿









We only had enough parts to build 10 machines with the high amp steaming capability. Those machines are now in cafes in Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Bangkok and San Francisco. We still have some firmware improvements to do, to take advantage of the higher power, such as faster water for Americanos, and higher flow rates for making larger pour overs with our pour-over basket. https://decentespresso.com/basket

In January, we'll start making those high amp versions of the DE1XL. They'll require a 230V power line.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Upcoming Zoom call: Damian's DSX skin*

I've written recently

__
http://instagr.am/p/CG9vhFdh8ms/
 about the Damian skin for the DE1. This week, we'll have Damian himself walking us through his skin and its advanced capabilities.

John Buckman is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Decent zoom about Damian's DSX skin
Time: Nov 5, 2020 5:00 PM California
Time: Nov 6, 2020 9:00 AM Hong Kong
Time: Nov 6, 2020 12:00 AM Melbourne

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85924553874?pwd=NlE0RENsQ0toVHZXTnh3OEJwSTRjZz09

Meeting ID: 859 2455 3874
Passcode: 153915

As always, the call will be video recorded and posted on youtube later.﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

*Portafilter alignment jig*

A few months ago we had a problem with our portafilters not locking in a position that was symmetrical to the group head handle.

This was caused by a 0.2mm difference in thickness in a fiberglass insulating spacers board we use to regulate this.

We had to disassemble all the group heads and rebuild them with newly sourced spacers, which took several people, several weeks to do.

So Decent R&D engineer﻿ Alex﻿ designed, 3d printed, and built this jig.

It will go to our group head CNC manufacturer so they can now quickly test that the alignment is correct. The green area shows the acceptable range, whereas the red area means "not acceptable"

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

High amperage cake

Thanks to ﻿Decent customer Phuong for buying the Decent staff today's 3 cakes!

I scheduled it as part of the visit by my friend Anant, who works for German thermal-protection devices company "Intercontrol"

Anant is doing us a huge favor.

His company makes the world's best (and expensive!) thermal protection devices. We met accidentally on a yacht party thrown by our apartment landlord, and he later convinced me that going cheap on a thermal safety device was very unwise, as this little part could accidentally decide a thermal event had occurred, and turn the machine off. Or worse, something could go wrong, and the thermal safety might not function correctly. Safety is worth paying for.

So... we buy "made in Germany" for our thermostats on our hot water, steam and group head heaters. This is the advantage of charging a high price of our machine: we can afford to buy the good stuff.

Anyway, to get back to how Anant is helping us.

As of this year, we switched to our own-design water heaters, and the thermal safety we use https://www.intercontrol.de/en/control-technology/products/fixed-set-point/thermostat/161-641-smarty-compact/ is a compact clip that is in the center (in pink) in the drawing.
﻿









It's goes up to 10A of power. We've paid a USD$20,000 mould for our heater design (and surrounding insulation) so we're really quite invested in this thermostat design from Intercontrol.

We would like to make high amperage versions of these heaters, but it turns out this thermostat only exists up to 10A. In January, we're testing versions at 12A, 13A, 15A and 20A.

Anant got preliminary approval to create a new, custom product just for us. A high amp version of this company thermostat. In Germany they'll be hand making some samples of this for us. He was coming by to hear more about our need, and sales projections to argue for this to high superiors.

Without this favor to us, we'd be stuck at 10A unless we paid for a new mould. So, we're really grateful, and naturally, that called for cake.

So ﻿ Phuong Truong Phuong ﻿ if we manage to make high amperage versions of the DE1 next year, you'll have made it possible, thanks to your gift of cake.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Damian's DSX Skin (zoom call)*

Damian's DSX skin for the Decent DE1 is a favorite among power users. Here's a deep dive into every aspect of it, from the creator himself.


----------



## Stevebee

My Decent made it's debut at Barnes Farmers Market. Profile used mimics the one on the Vesuvius perfectly so only need to take the one grinder, the Mythos CP. Stop at weight, milk steam time calculated stop time, plus produces great espresso, week 1 wad a success. Was using the plumbing kit and drain tray with a drip tray that acts as a scale.


----------



## Coffee by the Casuals

@Stevebee - Great stuff, I'm glad it was a success for you! Is the plan to drop the Vesuvius in due course, or run both regardless? We're planning on taking DE1 plus Mythos to our markets. Just working out logistics at the moment!


----------



## Stevebee

We used to use the Vesuvius with a Londinium 1, so the L1 has been dropped and replaced by the Decent. We need two machines to cope with the volume, c250 coffees in 5 hours so one machine, in real terms, couldn't cope. With the V and L1 we had to take 2 grinders, Mythos CP and Compak E10, as the grind was significantly different for each machine. Now, by mimicking the V profile on the Decent, I only need the one grinder. Definitely get the tray with scale underneath as stop by weight is fantastic. I've got Sheldons but Damian does a 3D one you can print both work the same way. For bag grinding we use a Compak R120 but it is so heavy am looking at the LeverCraft Ultra and maybe getting a hopper that can fit as it's significantly lighter and comes in 2 parts. Either that or do some weights so the R120 gets easier to lift!


----------



## decent_espresso

Stevebee said:


> With the V and L1 we had to take 2 grinders, Mythos CP and Compak E10, as the grind was significantly different for each machine. Now, by mimicking the V profile on the Decent, I only need the one grinder.


 That's really interesting. While I know it was Damian's goal to match the Londinium's flavor profile, I didn't (until today) realize he'd succeeded in having the same grind work in both machines. Are you using the same dose size in both machines, too? Same basket types, or not?


----------



## Stevebee

Same dose, baskets (Decent) in both. I based the profile on LRv2 but tweaked it to match the one on the Vesuvius so I got the same output in the same time, and similar flows on both. I also matched a profile to the Londinium but the grind is 4 notched coarser on a Niche than my Vesuvius profile and my L1 doesn't hit 9 bar it seems so it's a totally different profile. The V profile is, ironically, a lever type - 14 secs PI, up to 9 the declining.

If I switch from the Vesuvius to the L1 is when I'll use that profile.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Locking things down*

For the first 2 years of making the DE1 espresso machine, by far the most common problem was an electrical cable connection shaking off during shipping.

We bought a "shipping simulator" and for 4 years, every machine was shaken 12h, to find all possible manner in which that could happen.

We stopped buying assembled cables from companies, and instead started buying cable components, directly from the manufacturer, building our own cables, and subjecting them to intense tests. Over time, we moved to having all our cables custom made for us by BMA https://www.bma-tech.com/ with our specific choice of components, no substitutions allows.

We've mostly succeeded, but occasionally there's a problem.

Last week, on our our customers received a new machine couldn't steam. After a brief video chat with Charles, we saw that the power cable to the steam heater had shaken off. It's quite incredible that it can, because we yank of each power cable twice. Once when it's assembled, and once again during final check, by another person. But, it happened.

So, I discussed with my team, how we could finally make this problem go away, permanently and certainly. After testing a few ideas, we found that shrink tubing (which shrinks when hit with hot air) over the insulated connectors themselves, would make disconnection impossible. We're using UL certified, fire-safe shrink tubing, because we're paranoid.

On the T that splits the water intake between two pumps, we connect silicone tubes. We then tie those down with cable wraps, and cut the ends. A lot of companies do that, such as the new Eagle One machine. However, with research we found that's not best practice, because those cable ties exert uneven pressure on the tube, and also can pinch the tube. We tested various designs, and settled on a UK-made "water tube lock", which you can see in the bottom right photo. Yes, we really are importing these from the UK!

Though it's not a common problem, I'm looking at switching to locking IEC power cables, like these https://www.mouser.com/new/schaffner/schaffnerIEC-lockcords/ for the future.

I'm sure there'll still be a cable or two that manages to wriggle loose every once in a while, somewhere on a machine of ours, somewhere in the world. But at least now I feel we've found most of them, and we'll continue to lock down any weaknesses that we find.

This feedback loop, of customer-problems-to-feedback-at-the-factory, is one of the greatest benefits of our not using resellers. Charles, Shin, Magalie and Omri repair DE1 machines all over the world, and we discuss and photo every single problem, on Basecamp, with me and the rest of the assembly team.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*"Signature drink" concept brings in the crowds*

The annual Coffee Show in Seoul Korea just ended, and it was (as expected) much quieter and smaller than usual.

Not so, for our friends at Fillout Cafe, who were crowded every day while other stands stood empty. They are a roastery who runs a cafe, with hopes of selling their beans to other cafes. They had 5 DE1XL machines on their quad-sized stand.

They were promoting the concept of a "signature drink" that is exclusive to your cafe.

Their proposition: cafes are too interchangeable and undifferentiated.

You might go to a restaurant because they make a dish like nobody else. Why not at a cafe?

Their idea was to run with the flavors of good quality light roasted espresso, and build on it.

They call it a "Salt Creme latte", and they:



make espresso from an expensive micro lot specialty bean blend


extracted at high pressure (at 11bar) with a low flow rate.


Add warm foamed milk.


Then put a "secret recipe" creme on top of it.


A bit of caramel drizzle on it.


Finally, a pinch of pink salt on top.


Whether you like this specific drink idea or not is not my point. My point is: cafes could be more creative, could differentiate more, create customer loyalty, and move beyond "tastes like chocolate" flavor profiles, building on the vastness of flavours that come out of better coffee.

James Hoffmann has made a video about his espresso & custom-made tonic drink, which is much the same idea (working the interesting flavors of a good quality, light roasted bean):






﻿
There was always a queue to try Fillout's signature drink.

I don't have a photo of their Salt Creme Latte, but from their Facebook page, I see that they are making drinks that are very much Instagram worthy.
﻿









Smart.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Brian's video about dialing in using the Decent*

Brian Quan works at Coffee Housing, a California based charity that works for "Affordable housing for coffee professionals. Coffee Housing is a Silicon Valley based 501(c)(3) certified non-profit tackling the fundamental problem of housing for coffee industry professionals." https://www.coffeehousing.org/

He recently got a Decent, and has started making videos sharing what he's learning.

In this video from a few days ago, Brian explains how he dials in his grind.

Brian is using a different process than I had envisioned. Because of that, his video has spawned an interesting conversation among Decent owners about how to make his approach easier. We're thinking about having "God shot" templates included with each profile that comes with the Decent. Dialing in would then be a (fairly) simple matter of adjusting your grind and dose to come close to the sample curves that we provide (for pressure and flow, using that profile).


----------



## decent_espresso

I don't know why I didn't foresee this, but as soon as people started receiving transparent cases for their DE1 (just shipped out a few days ago), they immediately started putting LEDs inside.

Now, there's an active discussion on the Diaspora DE1 owner's forum, about pimping the inside of your Decent Espresso Machine with LEDs.

I just ordered sound-reactive LEDs, as I thought it'd be fun to have the lights react to the making of a drink.

Disco time!

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Spotlight on Damian's DSX Skin.*

Last week Damian Brakel hosted a Decent Zoom call, where he gave an in-depth review of the alternative skin he's developed for Decent Espresso Machines. https://www.diy.brakel.com.au/dsx/

While it may not be to everyone's aesthetic taste, there's no denying the many innovations in espresso workflow that Damian has brought. In the call, several things he's working on came out (recipes based on flow rate into the bluetooth scale) and ideas for improvements to the history viewer were also discussed.

We've chopped up the over-2 hour long video 



 into separate bits and posted them today.

The best (but also longest) is the general overview:






some people complained on a previous post I made, that this skin was "ugly". It might be, but (a) it's free (b) it's optional (c) it's very powerful (d) it's an open source labor-of-love and (e) you're under no obligation to use it with the DE1. The skin I wrote ("Insight") is the default and is what most people use.

And yes, Damian is Australian. I'm not going to apologize for his accent. 😄


----------



## decent_espresso

*No more waiting for Decent Espresso*

Throughout the 3 years we've been making espresso machines, every buyer has had to wait. It's never been less than a month, frequently 3 months, and some waited much much longer. In South Korea they called us "the genius machine that nobody can buy".

Finally, FINALLY! this won't be the case.

Even though our monthly sales have been increasing, my team has been getting better and better at their jobs. We did double the staff count in August but this had only a modest effect on machines shipped per month.

The real shift came from human factors. I had long ago figured out that Western-style management doesn't work here. Hong Kongers do not want to be "bossed", and by extension, none of our employees would accept a promotion to be a manager. What I had learned about Management in California didn't work here.

I tinkered with the workplace culture of the company, and I finally have found a good fit.

There's an opposing tension between individualism and communal-spirit here. Some of the workplace experiments I tried, such as having small teams, were actually a productivity and HR disaster, and actually promoted conflict. It's difficult to figure out the right structure and balance.

What has worked best, and REALLY worked, is copying the French restaurant's "battery de cuisine" concept. In a "battery de cuisine" kitchen, everyone has a speciality, and there's always work to be done in that job. There's no "boss, what should I be working on?" And when it's mealtime, the pressure is on for each person to produce in their speciality. Everyone knows how they fit into the whole, when they're expected to perform, and they feel both individual pride in their contribution, as well as in the output of team.

I adapted the "battery de cuisine" system to the Decent factory.

Keith, for example, is responsible for fully testing every DC PCB (the "computer") that will go inside the espresso machine. Every day, he plugs temperature sensors, LED and motors into a board on his desk, and painstakingly tests it. Each takes about 20 minutes. That's a long time, but thanks to the extensive prep work, when it's time install them, Keith can put 50 computers into 50 espresso machines in just 2 hours. And rarely do any have problems that need later fixing, when it'd be quite a bit harder to do so. Like a restaurant dish with a frozen-in-the-middle steak.

Decent Espresso is now run like a professional kitchen. Everyone has their own "prep station". And when the 50 machines on the line need their part, they're "in the kitchen" installing their part, so they don't slow anyone else down.

Initially I started with 2 lines (a "kitchen") of 50 machines each, with 1 actively being built, and the other being tested. As the testers got faster, after 1 day they finished 25 machines, we squeezed the remaining machines down, and started a 3rd line of the next 50 machines. Thus, most of the time we're actually running 3 "kitchens".

This puts more stress on good prep. But as each person is totally responsible for their part, they know what is expected of them, but also they are empowered to improve how they work.

And that's how we managed to go from 23 machines per month, to 69, to 108, to 213 and this month: to 291 machines in one month!

I had the "talk radio show" turned off, and it's quiet in the factory, except for power tools pulsing. There's an intense concentration on people's faces. And come Friday, they're mentally drained, but happy, because everyone can see the success of the week.
﻿
Tomorrow we're testing 50 DE1XL 220V machines, and in a few days we'll have the same quantity of 110V DE1XL done. That has us almost wiping out the queue that has been a weight around our neck:﻿









I had hoped (dreamt!) to be at this point before Christmas, but it looks like we'll be there by the end of November, a month early.









That also means that if you buy a DE1 before mid-December, there's a good chance we can get it to you in time for Christmas.

. . .

Am I worried that we're now building much much faster than we're selling?

Yes, of course I am.

However, I'm also aware of just how many people have said "no thanks" to a Decent Espresso Machine, because they didn't want to wait.

People are used to getting instant satisfaction from their purchases, and a several-months-long wait doesn't cut it. So I'm hoping that "ships within 24h" will have a positive effect.

And finally, we're getting a tremendous number of inquiries from small cafes. I think that now that the COVID vaccine is in sight, planning has started on the orgy of travel, restaurant, and entertainment spending that is likely to follow.

-john


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## decent_espresso

1st time using an espresso machine

This video is from Henry of Even0 coffee in Hong Kong. He writes "Hi John, just want to show u a video. This woman has zero espresso making experience. It is her first time even touching a portafilter, and look at how acceptable 1st shot she made with the DE machine. 😎🍷 She is one of my stall staff who does sales and cashier."


----------



## decent_espresso

*Buy Johanna a Hot Toddy*

Buy Johanna a Hot Toddy, to thank her for all she's done for our Decent community:
https://decentespresso.com/c?s=889+1

﻿Johanna has had a Decent for only 9 months, but WOW! has she made a massive impact on our community, through her inventions, collaborations and improvements to the Decent app.

In that short time, she has:
- programmed support for all the major bluetooth 0.1g scales out there: Acaia Pearl, Acaia Lunar, Felicita arc, Hiroia Jimmy where previously we only supported the Atomax Skale.
- rewrote ﻿Reed ﻿'s proof-of-concept USB/wifi support for the DE1 app, into something that is suitable for production use. That will allow us all to run the de1app on Windows/Mac/Linux and with wifi or a USB cable, control our Decents.
- helped me migrate the de1app to have 3 versions you can choose from: stable, beta, and current, from previously just one (which, let's be honest, was always "beta"). Now, those of you who want a stable daily Decent software experience, can have it.
- convinced me to move my app from being privately maintained, to being on github, inviting far more collaboration.
- personally moved 4 years of code changes to github, without losing any of the commits and changes that I had in my personal version control system
- she's working on a bunch of super cool things at the moment, which she hasn't revealed yet, but which are just as wow.
- fixed a bunch of my (cough) bugs and made many code improvements. In fact, she's done that so much, and helped so much on the Diaspora forum, that people assumed she was a Decent employee.

You haven't heard from Johanna these past 10 days, as she's home, quite sick with a cold that won't go away. That's because on top of her crazy busy day job, she's often up at 5am chatting with me on telegram about her latest idea, and then again back at it at 10pm! She's productive because she's talented, but oh boy, she also puts the time in. So now she needs a bit of rest, and thanks from all of us.

So, please THANK JOHANNA by buying her the scotch whisky, lemon and spices that she needs to get well, by making that wonderful British medecine, the Hot Toddy:
https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/987/hot-toddy-hot-scotch-and-lemon

I know that Johanna likes her fine whisky, and she's in bed with a cold now, so a Hot Toddy is exactly what she needs right now.

As with the "Buy Damian a cake" giveaway, we'll paypal her 100% of the proceeds so she can send her partner off to the local store to get the goods. All of you chipped in to Damian 10 cakes!

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Scott Rao interviews John Buckman*

A one hour conversation recorded live from Instagram. We'll be releasing chopped-up single-question videos from this, next week. From

__
http://instagr.am/p/CHy4aw8pRoC/


----------



## decent_espresso

*12 questions from when Rao interviewed Buckman*

Scott Rao interviewed me last week, and we've split the hourlong conversation into 12 questions, which makes short, sweet & "to the point" viewing.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvrtv8Pfv90-Iv4kovkp41JGKuPr1jNRH

Calling it an interview isn't quite right as Scott (quite rightly) spoke a fair amount. I tend to babble on too long in most interviews, but with Scott I found that I reigned that tendency in, likely because I knew that he'd continue to pilot the conversation is an interesting direction.

Scott suggested to me, that we have another conversation in maybe 6 months. However, as this one went so well, I'm thinking of perhaps more regularly conversations between the two of us. And perhaps with less of of an interview structure, more of a conversation about topics besides Decent, might be quite interesting.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*A unified theory of espresso making recipes*

I've been working on a "unified theory of espresso making recipes", which results in 4 "mother" recipes.

*The optimal espresso curve*

But before I plunge into that, I want to make the argument that there is an arguably optimal pressure curve for espresso recipes.

You can see it as the pressure profile that occurs naturally when constant flow water is used to make an Allongé recipe coffee on the Decent. The resulting pressure is a reflection of the declining puck resistance over time, as the puck loses material to the espresso drink.
﻿







﻿

This curve has the following characteristics:



a preinfusion that takes about 10 seconds before pressure builds


a peak pressure around 8.6 bar


an end pressure around around 4 bar


a total espresso making time around 30 seconds


I think it's no coincidence that this is exactly the pressure curve that most spring lever espresso machines naturally give you. The people who designed their machines, very likely did this on purpose, by using their eyes and taste buds, as they didn't have access to the data we now have.

I'm going to argue that the "best" espresso recipes are all variations on the curve above, as they recognize the reality of the physics of the coffee puck during espresso extraction.
﻿
﻿For me, "best" = "tastes most pleasing" = "most good flavors, minimizing bad flavors". I realize that people have different levels of acidity they seek, and I'm deliberately putting that aside here, focussing instead on flavors.

*The "four mother" recipes*

My position is: a bean's roast level is the most important consideration in choosing a recipe for making espresso.

This is because, the darker a coffee bean is roasted:



the more soluble it becomes ("more easily gives up material to water")


the more integrity the coffee puck will have (it is less likely to fall apart and channel badly during espresso making).


Put another way: the less soluble a bean is, the more your recipe will have to work harder to get material out of the bean.

The three main ways to get more material out of a bean are:



*increase time*: the amount of time that the beans are in contact with water


*increase water flow* *rate* through the grounds bean puck


*increase the water temperature*, which increases the efficacy of the water to extract material (but not always the good flavors)


Finer grind size also increases extraction, but is not an independent variable. There is typically an appropriate grind size for each type of recipe.

This gives us:
﻿







﻿

*Which gives us these insights:*



*Classic Italian espresso machines are hard-wired to give their best results with Italian-style roasted beans (medium dark to dark).* FYI: I consider the common "flat 9 bar" profile to be a simplified (and less good) version of the Lever profile. Lever Profile results in typical extraction yields of 19% to 21%, that are the lowest of the 4 recipes, since flow rate is lowest and water contact time is the shortest, with this recipe.


*Light roasts are known to fall apart quickly and channel during espresso making when using the Lever (or flat 9 bar) profile.* This is likely why those whose machines can only that recipe of espresso will tend to compensate by either making Ristretto (short time) shots, or putting a lot more coffee into the basket. If you don't do this, you get very acidic, generally under-extracted espresso, because you haven't appropriately compensated for the lower solubility of the beans you're working with.


*The Blooming recipe works well on medium to light roast beans, but with ultralight roasts, the puck tends to fall apart at the end of Blooming shots*, as ultralight beans don't have enough puck integrity to survive the last stage. Rao tries to work around this by having the last stage flow profiled, so that if the puck integrity fails, at least the flow rate doesn't go super-fast. The long preinfusion demands a super-fine ground. Blooming results in the highest extractions, both because of the long water contact time, but also because this recipe requires the finest ground beans, which also increases extraction.


*The Allongé recipe works best with ultralight roasts because it demands so little puck integrity,* and the fast flow rate require coarse grounds in order to not go over-pressure. The Allongé recipe is the follows the findings from the widely quoted Hendon research paper https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590238519304102 that coarse grinds, and fast flow, result in relatively high extractions and good consistency. The typical EY of 21%-23% is likely due to the coarser grind than Blooming. But because Hendon didn't use a flow-profiling or pressure profiling espresso machine, his espresso suffered from rapid loss of puck integrity, and so he ended up advocating for shorter duration espresso recipes. By using constant flow (or decreasing pressure) it's possible to use the coarse grind/fast-flow approach but to pull the shot to the normal 30 second duration.


*Each recipe has an ideal bean roast level.* If you use dark roasted beans for any non-lever recipe, you'll likely over-extract it. Light beans on Lever will often under-extract and/or channel.


*People with manual lever machines are able to make all these recipes, and have long been able to make delicious espresso with light roasted beans*. Typically, this has been either a Blooming shot, or they've cleverly made 50 seconds Lever profile shots, thus extending the water contact time over the entire duration of the recipe.


*End notes*

My definition of roast levels is flavor based, which isn't necessarily that common an approach but here is how I think of them:



*dark roast:* dark chocolate flavor, some "burnt forest" flavors. Often served very thick. Taste profile similar to dark cooking chocolate.


*medium-dark*: a mix of chocolate flavors, both dark and medium, with little (if any) burnt flavors, and some layering of different styles of chocolate.


*medium:* less dark chocolate flavors, but no burnt flavors. Can include layers of different chocolate roast level flavors.


*medium-light*: same as medium (layers of chocolate), but with some fruity (tropical and red fruits are typical) or floral notes added as well. Can have a "milk chocolate" flavor. Taste profile is similar to expensive "single origin chocolates".


*light*: no chocolate flavors. A "well developed" light has other Maillard flavors such caramel, toffee, cooked pear. A "less developed" light roast will not have any flavors arising from caramelization. Fruit, floral, meat, and more. An amazing panorama of flavors is possible with light roasted beans, which is why so many coffee experts favor this roast style.


*ultralight*: intense fruit flavors. Often tastes more like expensive tea than traditional coffee.


﻿
﻿This article is a work in progress, and represents my current thinking. I very much would like to discuss it and you're welcome to revise my chart above with your ideas.


----------



## Chainlinephil

Very interesting as supports some of my practical experience recently, both with PI capable levers (Londinium LR) and my current Slayer.

Up until relinquishing my Londinium LR I had enjoyed great success with my Ceado E37 Naked and its highly unimodal output, being able to produce some amazing espresso to my taste with ultra light roasts and a high pressure pre-infusion for a long time 10-20s then the traditional lever profile for typically 28-38s. No doubt aided by the naturally very fine grind resulting from this type of burr output.

When I got my Slayer, and began to experiment with the Slayer style shot of long, slow flow blooming pre infusion it resulted in post pre-brew/pre infusion super fast extractions that tasted very over extracted. This was compounded by a high extraction basket and my target ration of 2:1.

I discovered some success by 'cheating' the accepted standards and raising the pre-brew flow significantly as well as initiating main at 8bar for a short time aka the bumpon some shots, before returning to a higher than typical flow rate pre brew thus maintaining higher pressures than I otherwise might

So I can currently confirm that in my experience the Blooming Allongé is not good at all for any of the ultra light to med light roasts I used! I wish I had realised that this combination was going to be so very challenging.

I was also ble execute some incredible extractions using the Allongé type recipe or aka EKspresso at 1:3 ratios if I interpret correctly, unsurprisingly having discovered this as the Ceado always had an EK type extraction profile speeding up exponentially towards the end of a shot irrespective of grind.

So I can't add much other than to offer that my experience tallies with what has been written here so far, some other things have come to light for me but this was very interesting to read. Thank you.

I am transitioning to a different grinder/grind output now to allow me to maximise the flexibility I have with the flow profiling options I have.

So an incredible positive fast track learning experience on the one hand and a wallet sapping change of direction in grinding on the other!


----------



## decent_espresso

Chainlinephil said:


> I got my Slayer, and began to experiment with the Slayer style shot of long, slow flow blooming pre infusion it resulted in post pre-brew/pre infusion super fast extractions that tasted very over extracted. This was compounded by a high extraction basket and my target ration of 2:1.


 The combination of long preinfusion and fast flow is going to be very challenging as it'll tend to over-extract everything. It's on my "4 mothers" chart for completeness, but I haven't found it to be a useful technique yet.



Chainlinephil said:


> was also ble execute some incredible extractions using the Allongé type recipe or aka EKspresso at 1:3 ratios if I interpret correctly, unsurprisingly having discovered this as the Ceado always had an EK type extraction profile speeding up exponentially towards the end of a shot irrespective of grind.


 Can I recommend that you pull it to 1:4 (or even 1:5) in 30 seconds, with your ultralight beans? You're not doing a fast enough flow yet if you're at 1:3.

As the Slayer does not display pressure-at-the-puck, in order to do a good Allongé you'll need to assure yourself that you're at ~9 bar.

To do so, I'd recommend you set your needle valve to fairly fast flow (~4.5 ml/s) and then only do ONLY a preinfusion, and try to get your grinder set to give you 1:4 in ~40 seconds. Then, slightly coarsen your grind to drop the time to 30s for a 1:4 ratio. If your beans are light, 1:4 will be ok, but 1:5 is even better if you're on ultralight, or if you find you have more acidity than you like.


----------



## Chainlinephil

decent_espresso said:


> The combination of long preinfusion and fast flow is going to be very challenging as it'll tend to over-extract everything. It's on my "4 mothers" chart for completeness, but I haven't found it to be a useful technique yet.


 I was vigorously agreeing with you based on my experience!



decent_espresso said:


> Can I recommend that you pull it to 1:4 (or even 1:5) in 30 seconds, with your ultralight beans? You're not doing a fast enough flow yet if you're at 1:3.
> 
> As the Slayer does not display pressure-at-the-puck, in order to do a good Allongé you'll need to assure yourself that you're at ~9 bar.
> 
> To do so, I'd recommend you set your needle valve to fairly fast flow (~4.5 ml/s) and then only do ONLY a preinfusion, and try to get your grinder set to give you 1:4 in ~40 seconds. Then, slightly coarsen your grind to drop the time to 30s for a 1:4 ratio. If your beans are light, 1:4 will be ok, but 1:5 is even better if you're on ultralight, or if you find you have more acidity than you like.


 I may try this. My 1:3 was in 17 to 22s so as fast as suggested but not as long....and scurries away to do research as I thought my Slayer did display pressure at the puck but I was set to blind at 10 for 9 in theory so should've guessed that.

I did find it was better at an indicated 8.5 bar. I assume Slayer guage is pump output pressure then.


----------



## decent_espresso

Chainlinephil said:


> I may try this. My 1:3 was in 17 to 22s so as fast as suggested but not as long....and scurries away to do research as I thought my Slayer did display pressure at the puck but I was set to blind at 10 for 9 in theory so should've guessed that.


 Oh sure, if you're pulling 1:3 in ~20 seconds than your flow rate is likely in a good place. Just a question of where pressure might be.



Chainlinephil said:


> I did find it was better at an indicated 8.5 bar. I assume Slayer guage is pump output pressure then.


 Yeah, I'm fairly sure Slayer is displaying pump pressure, behind whatever flow constriction you have.

Actually what would be super cool is a portafilter with an analog pressure gauge installed. Not sure it's possible to build, though.


----------



## decent_espresso

*What we're building now*

The Decent Espresso queue page https://decentespresso.com/queue now shows you what models we're currently building, and what we're building next:
﻿








We run two lines "assembly tables", one for each voltage, and each is always at a different stage of completion.

What we build next is very simply defined as: whatever machines are at the top of the queue.

Each run takes a total of about 10 work days from start to being handed over to UPS. So, the "will build next" models should definitely ship in less than 20 days, and usually less than that.

In November we sold 202 machines to new customers, but we managed to ship 275 machines in that same month. So we're managing to make machines faster than they get ordered. 202 machines presented a 32% increase over our previous record of 152 machines sold in a month. I'm guessing that sales increased due to the decreased wait time.

I don't know if we'll be able to stay ahead of the order queue in coming months, as next year just has so many unknowns in the world. With a vaccine coming, but the economic cost hitting, will our sales go up or down? No idea, but for now, we're able to keep up, which is good news.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*How a soft silicone tube is made*

This new tube is being introduced in a few weeks, inside the machines we build. Previously, we used several tubes with connectors, and found that occasionally the connectors would tire with usage and then leak. So, we designed a custom silicone tube to replace all that complexity.

Such a simple little part is actually quite a bit of work to make. In this video we show you how a soft silicone tube is actually made.


----------



## benbarista

By reading you, John, and the way the DE1 works with flow I have a question about spring lever machine .

Could we say that the spring, thanks to preinfusion that wets theorically all grinds in the pucks, acts as steady flow injector?

If preinfusion successes to wet all grinds, the puck will not absorb water anymore, it will not absorb the flow and let it go through. Nothing limits the flow of water anymore as the puck is saturated and then no more dry grind takes water in order to be wetted. Then flow that goes in the puck, goes out : flow in and flow out are (in theory) the same quantity. (I am not sure, though, that we can say that the puck opposes resistance to pressure but not to flow).

One generally thinks that a spring on a lever machine loses force during extraction but it is not true : the force of the spring is quite stable in the little range of elongation (a few millimeters) where it is asked to work on a lever machine.

Then, as the spring gives about the same force along the shot, it pushes on the puck about the same amount of water all along the shot, the same volume of water per second, determinated by the diameter of the piston/water chamber and the force of the spring. The spring on a lever machine delivers the same flow on the puck along the shot ; it regulates the flow or, rather,makes it the same along the shot! Flow of water and of coffee are stable!

Then the bigger pressure declines with lever spring machines or with the Decent is due to the good preinfusion and the steady flow (and of course the erosion of the puck).


----------



## decent_espresso

benbarista said:


> Could we say that the spring, thanks to preinfusion that wets theorically all grinds in the pucks, acts as steady flow injector?


 I don't know if "steady flow injector" is a "term of art" with a special meaning, but as preinfusion on the DE1 is a "flow controlled" and has the same flow rate during all of preinfusion, I would say "YES" to your question.











benbarista said:


> If preinfusion successes to wet all grinds, the puck will not absorb water anymore, it will not absorb the flow and let it go through. Nothing limits the flow of water anymore as the puck is saturated and then no more dry grind takes water in order to be wetted. Then flow that goes in the puck, goes out : flow in and flow out are (in theory) the same quantity. (I am not sure, though, that we can say that the puck opposes resistance to pressure but not to flow).


 My understanding is that water flows with little resistance into a dry puck, but encounters more resistance when the puck is wet. Thus, a constant flow during preinfusion might give you a 0.1 bar pressure, when when it's wet, you'll get 9 bar of pressure, due to that increase resistance.


----------



## benbarista

Then, I was totally wrong, I thought the opposite! I thought that as long as the puck is dry it absorbs water (which prevents pressure rise) and is too dry to compress (which doesn't produce pressure neither) but later , when the pucks gets saturated, it can be compressed by the flow and pressure rises.

I supposed that when the puck is wet , it becomes less resistant to the flow but more resistant to the pressure!

Coffee is incredibly hard to understand!

Thank you for sharing!


----------



## decent_espresso

A few people emailed me, asking if they could delay their DE1 shipments until we had the new silicone tube in stock.

I told them there was no reason to wait, as we switched off the plastic "T" several months ago, when we received a bad batch, and moved then to a much-more-expensive stainless steel T, as well as several UK-main tube crimps. There's no way this is fail, it's actually a bit "over engineered" for the role.

So, this is what we're currently doing, which will all be replaced by that single molded silicone tube:


----------



## decent_espresso

*An Espresso Profile that Adapts to your Grind Size*

Coffee researcher and author Jonathan Gagné shared with me a breakthrough-paper he's working on "An Espresso Profile that Adapts to your Grind Size"

Essentially, he's come up with a theory on how the Decent DE1 could be programmed to automatically adjust the recipe to your grind size, to produce a near-optimal espresso curve. This recipe would radically simplify your need to "dial in" a grind to be "just right" and would adjust the recipe instead.









He wrote me about his ideas, and I shared with him our plans to implement a simple "scripting language" for making an espresso, which would run on the DE1 itself. This future capability will allow recipes to change themselves based on what's currently happening. For example, what's the flow rate coming out preinfusion, as we reach peak pressure? Should we take that flow as a our baseline flow and then adjust our flow relative to it? But... this feature doesn't yet exist (hopefully, next year).

Ater a bit of brainstorming, Gagné realized he could do almost what he wanted, with the our existing Advanced Profiles, which feature a conditional "exit this step if..." logic. It's not quite a full programming language, but it does allow a fair amount of logic to be programmed in.

Visualizing his profile, it looks like this:








Gagné's research paper is available now to his Patreon followers:
https://www.patreon.com/coffeeadastra

He's also shared the results with all Decent DE1 owners on our Diaspora forum, and is engaged in a very active discussion with the community about this idea.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Struggling a bit to keep up*

This is what our "DE1 shipped per month" looks like. The last 3 months have been kind of insane.







﻿

Considering that curve, I think we're doing "fairly well" and not screwing up too often, but I do want to note that we have been failing in these ways:



there have been an increase in shipping mistakes. We used to never make them, but occasionally we send the wrong color USB cable out, or a mis-fitting drip tray cover.


sometimes it takes us a few days to get an order boxed


and there's more discussion on Diaspora than I, Charles, or anyone else on my staff can keep up with.


So much has been discussed on Diaspora in the past, and there are so many knowledgeable people here, that the vast majority of questions or issues can be solved within a few hours, here on this forum.


We do have a "ticket system" in place to make sure we don't "not respond" to something.


This is where your emails go when you https://decentespresso.com/contact us.

This is what our internal tech support dashboard looks like, and each Decent staff member can see their own messages.﻿









If you have a problem and we reply back to you, and you never reply back to us, currently there won't be any more followup. Our system is based on the assumption that "we have to be the last message in a discussion".

So if we write to you with a question and you don't reply, there won't necessarily be any more followup from us.

In that case, if you think a problem has been dropped, please send us an email https://decentespresso.com/contact saying "hey, my problem XYZ still hasn't been resolved" and that'll re-open your ticket and get our staff to follow up with you.

I know there are systems with "open tickets" and "closed tickets" and we might someday move to that concept. However, the tech support I've had from companies that use that sort of thing, tends to encourage staff to close things much too soon, and I've not had quality communications with those companies. So, I've resisted moving to an "explicit close" ticket system. "Explicit close" tickets works when you have a lot less volume than we have.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Portafilter locking symmetry test*

This is a jig we built to test that our portafilters lock symmetrically to the opposite wood handle. A number of sub-millimeter tolerance parts can change the locking point, not to mention "how hard to push" when locking it in. This way we're absolutely consistent, no matter who works on this.

I reported on this goal some time ago, but it's taken a while to design, debug and build. This model uses a torquing wrench which "gives up" at a certain strength.

Our v1.4 machines have each been taking about 30 minutes more to build, because the locking point of the portafilters was not consistent, due to a small variation in thickness on two different parts. We've had to disassemble each group head and re-assemble them with the right spacer (0.4mm 0.6mm 0.8mm) to get this alignment just right.

For our v1.42 machines, we're sending this jig to our CNC metal supplier, so that they can verify that all the parts they've made for us are exactly the right size, and we don't have to do this annoying rework.


----------



## decent_espresso

*30 minute coffee podcast with Decent John*

The Craft Your Own Coffee Podcast yesterday posted a 30 minute interview I did with by Joel ﻿ Joel Sigmon .

In the interview, I talk about my journey to "suck less at making espresso" and explain why I love lever machines, am not a fan of "flat 9 bar" espresso machines, and explain just why espresso is so hard to make well.

The podcast can be heard here:
https://anchor.fm/craftyourowncoffee/episodes/S3E7-1-on-1-with-Decent-Espressos-John-Buckman-enoqcd/a-a448h46

The "Craft Your Own Coffee Podcast" is up for a Sprudgie award, so if you enjoyed this episode, give it your vote at : http://sprudge.com/vote/

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Weber's Spring Clean, Optimized for Decent*

The new Weber "Spring Clean" https://weberworkshops.com/products/spring-clean espresso machine cleaning accessory is now optimized to work beautifully with Decent Espresso Machine. We've made a 3 minute long cleaning recipe, which builds pressure gently and then releases it slowly over several passes. This flushes a lot of detergent through the group head, significantly more effectively than a standard "blank basket" could ever do.


----------



## decent_espresso

*The Last Barista Kit*
﻿
For the past four years, we've packaged up the coffee accessories I designed into one big suitcase, and sold it as a "Barista Kit". https://decentespresso.com/barista_kit








﻿
I first started designing coffee accessories for a few reasons:



I was learning to make better espresso, and as I did, I wanted to take what I had learned and make it easier


Sometimes, it was a journey, such as what I learned about tamping, moving from a focus on tamping pressure, to now being focussed on a level bed, and a level tamp


the suitcase looked great, very James Bond, and it was fun to go to events with everything I needed in one hightech suitcase


I really needed to learn about manufacturing, and have suppliers in place, before the DE1 design was finished (which would take 4 years)


I also knew that we had to get our sales, tech support, web site, and logistics (shipping, returns) all working well, before we started shipping espresso machines. If we waited until we had espresso machines to ship, we'd not have the time to do a good job on this vital part of the business.


In the four years of shipping this suitcase full of goodies, we've learned:



compact packaging hugely saves on shipping. We paid way too much of air shipping, because we used cardboard box and air space around the suitcase. When we started, it cost us about USD$65 to send the baristakit to the USA.


COVID doubled the cost of shipping these, because UPS raised their rates.


we were constantly running out of stock of one or more items in the baristakit. This meant we were frequently unable to ship the entire suitcase.


We tried to work around this sometimes by sending almost-complete suitcases and then following up with the remaining parts later. However, that cost us a lot in shipping and labor, and greatly complicated logistics.


Batteries turned into a constant problem, largely due to COVID. We've always been unable to ship lithium batteries in products via air mail, but during COVID all shippers started getting super-strict, and refusing any batteries. Even the watch battery in our digital milk thermometer, now causes the entire baristakit to become unshippable. This meant we had to remove the batteries by hand from all packages.


We had too many variations, with two different kinds of spouts, 3 different tampers, and Celsius vs Fahrenheit thermometers. Add "discount" kits for cosmetically challenged items. This meant that every order had to packed as the order came, and that's inefficient. It was also a incredibly hard to track all those variations.


People didn't seem to value the baristakit suitcase are rarely photographed in social media, unlike the DE1 suitcase, which gets lots of visibility.


Shipping these items without the suitcase is hugely less expensive.


Overall, I'd say the suitcase costs us over $100 in costs in shipping and materials cost, and that's to the USA. Shipping to other locations made the price more like $150.


I don't think people found the suitcase added $100 to $150 of value for them, so it wasn't a good way for us to spend money.


So, with these last barista kit suitcases, we now end this product.

We'll continue to sell the discounted bundled of products known as the baristakit (it's about 30% off from buying individually) but we won't do a suitcase again.

We're still selling the tamping kit with suitcase https://decentespresso.com/tamper until the stock of suitcases runs out, and then we'll stop that too. It has no batteries, and no thermometer or milk jugs, so all in all, fewer variations. And we packaged it up in a air-bubble envelope, so shipping costs are much more under control.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Live view of all Decent Espresso Stock*

The Decent Queue page:
https://decentespresso.com/queue

now has public, live links to the Showroom (new, full price espresso machines) and the Bazaar (discounted espresso machines)

All those who buy a new machine from us receive an invitation to choose their machine. Every machine, even the perfect ones, has a 360º 4k video of that machine, as well as a video of the calibration and testing, and a text file of the tests.

You can also ask any question you have about any machine, and my staff will answer you there, with the entire discussion visible to any who looks at that machine.

People often ask questions like "did I see a defect at 0:12 in the video, on the group head?" or "the steam on this machine has lower pressure than others, why?"

These live inventory links will also let you understand exactly what models and options are currently available. For example, we have no "mirror lip" DE1XL models in stock at the moment, only DE1XL mirror panels with minor flaws are in stock. This week we'll finish building 80 DE1XL with mirror lips, and those machines appear in those live views.

My goal is to continue to be as transparent as possible.

As our queue shrinks and we sell machines more and more from stock, I'll continue to improve this feature, with the eventual goal of being able to show non-customers the videos and other details of every machine in stock. That will take some programming work on my part, which is why it's not yet done. At the moment, only buyers have access to all information about every machine in stock.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Dashi on a Decent*

In this video, DE1 user Masao Noda shows how he makes Japanese Dashi broth with his Decent Espresso Machine.

With the tea portafilter, the Decent can now make other kinds of infusions that require pressure to be held, but which don't have coffee's ability to hold water bank. The pressure-gated valve on the tea portafilter can do that. This opens up the Decent to new culinary uses, where high temperature and pressure might help extract more from from flavorsome materials.


----------



## GazRef

John I remember reading recently that your costs went up due to covid. Do anticipate any price changes for the UK market due to Brexit (courier fees/import taxes) ?


----------



## Fran

GazRef said:


> John I remember reading recently that your costs went up due to covid. Do anticipate any price changes for the UK market due to Brexit (courier fees/import taxes) ?


 And also due to the pound's movement on the foreign exchange markets?


----------



## canuck10

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 40800
> 
> 
> *Decent "Puck Rake" new product coming*
> 
> We're in the final steps of getting this coffee grounds "puck rake" tool made.
> 
> You can pre-order it now:
> https://decentespresso.com/c?show=all&filter=rake
> 
> In the photo are renders of this new tool.
> ﻿
> You can see how this tool is used, in ﻿ Scott Rao Scott ﻿ Rao's video on puck preparation:
> 
> __
> http://instagr.am/p/B-QPq0mJd9d/
> ﻿
> I'm not yet sure when it will arrive, as it's a new product and has to go through a few more steps before it meets my approval and can be shipped to you, so I've marked it as September 1st. I'm hoping it'll be a lot sooner than that, barring any unforeseen problems. We're ordering 10 samples made this week from a supplier whose work we already know.
> 
> The wood is ash (like our portafilter and group handles) and the wires are medical grade acupuncture needles (sharp ends snipped off).
> 
> Here's what my handmade version looks like (with help from ﻿ Dave Stephens Dave ﻿) The wire handles will be flush with the wood in the production version, not thicking out 4mm as they are here.
> 
> It'll be available in two colors, corresponding to the two colors that the DE1 wood comes in. We're using the same wood turning company that does our portafilter & group handles, so we're hoping for reasonably good color matching.
> ﻿
> We'll be using .4mm acupuncture needles, with a 30mm handle, and a 50mm needle, which is then trimmed to 45mm so that it isn't sharp at the end.
> 
> The needles can be pulled out with pliers and replaced. They are held in with the right size wood hole. They are not glued, in order to make this repairable by you.
> 
> You'll want to put new needles in:
> - if the needles get bent
> - or you want to try different needle thicknesses. 0.3mm and 0.35mm are both interesting. I prefer 0.4mm but ﻿ Ben Champion Ben ﻿ prefers 0.3mm.
> 
> So far, I've found the acupuncture needles to be much more durable than the metal wires on my bpoint, which are all bent from use.
> 
> We'll have stock of replacement needles and will send them to you on demand, for free, in any future order. You can, of course, spend $10 on Amazon and buy the same needles, and get a variety of sizes: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07M66QHQF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00
> 
> ﻿The prices will be $25 for the black version, and $29 for the natural wood version.
> https://decentespresso.com/c?show=all&filter=rake
> 
> View attachment 40801


 I think those are printer nozzle cleaning needles rather than acupuncture needles. Or perhaps acupuncture needles are used for cleaning printer nozzles.


----------



## Stephen Prosser

Ok everyone...I really want to start my shop (maybe start with a kiosk) with one or two dexl for medium volume coffee shop space. Does anyone have experience running the dexl for public coffee making? What are your experiences running 2 machines for the 2 grouphead experience?

Have you had success running both machines on one RO system?

Do you have issues not being able to steam and pull a shot at the same time with heavy traffic?

Any insight would be great!


----------



## decent_espresso

GazRef said:


> John I remember reading recently that your costs went up due to covid. Do anticipate any price changes for the UK market due to Brexit (courier fees/import taxes) ?


 The only thing that might increase is UPS's shipping rates, and I can't make any guess what they'll do. I don't think there will be any import tax change, since we're shipping from Hong Kong, not EU.


----------



## decent_espresso

Fran said:


> And also due to the pound's movement on the foreign exchange markets?


 We are about to start shipping v1.42 of our DE1 machines and all prices will shortly be rebased to current exchange rates, compared to USD, starting next week.

I don't yet know how much change this will cause, as the last time prices were rebased was a year ago, and it seems like exchange rates GBP/USD haven't changed much. https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=1Y


----------



## decent_espresso

canuck10 said:


> I think those are printer nozzle cleaning needles rather than acupuncture needles. Or perhaps acupuncture needles are used for cleaning printer nozzles.


 They're the same thing. Or rather, the "3d printer nozzle cleaning wires" are actually acupuncture needles.

Buy whichever is cheapest/easiest for you to get.


----------



## decent_espresso

Stephen Prosser said:


> Ok everyone...I really want to start my shop (maybe start with a kiosk) with one or two dexl for medium volume coffee shop space. Does anyone have experience running the dexl for public coffee making? What are your experiences running 2 machines for the 2 grouphead experience?Have you had success running both machines on one RO system? Do you have issues not being able to steam and pull a shot at the same time with heavy traffic?


 I'm not sure anyone on this forum will be able to opine, as this forum is more home-user oriented than pro.

Two groups is a common DE1XL pro setup. If you watch cafes using 3 group traditional machines, it's rare for them to be making two espressos at one time and also steaming at the same time. More common would be two espressos at one time, OR one espresso, while also steaming. You can do either with two Decents.

Can you tell me what you consider to be "medium volume" in terms of peak time coffee drinks/hour?

One RO system will be fine, as long as you have a T to feed both machines. Water pressure from the RO isn't relevant as long as it's enough to get the water into the DE1's tank.


----------



## Stephen Prosser

decent_espresso said:


> I'm not sure anyone on this forum will be able to opine, as this forum is more home-user oriented than pro.
> 
> Two groups is a common DE1XL pro setup. If you watch cafes using 3 group traditional machines, it's rare for them to be making two espressos at one time and also steaming at the same time. More common would be two espressos at one time, OR one espresso, while also steaming. You can do either with two Decents.
> 
> Can you tell me what you consider to be "medium volume" in terms of peak time coffee drinks/hour?
> 
> One RO system will be fine, as long as you have a T to feed both machines. Water pressure from the RO isn't relevant as long as it's enough to get the water into the DE1's tank.


 Hi Decent_Espresso! I guess since I have you here I might as well go all put, apologies if this is long.

I'm new to the business. I have been a home brewer for a long time, but always on the very cheap end. But, I love craft coffee at my favorite local shops. With COVID and the energy industry I'm the dips, I was laid off from my long term position. This has afforded us a good opportunity to move back to my wife's hometown in Eastern KY. This is an old coal mining town that is trying to undergo revitalization. There is no coffee shop in town, so we are jumping in! It's been a long 3 months crash course in espresso (thanks James Hoffmann) and business management. I'm an experienced geologist/geochemist so the big data aspect of decent machines have caught my eye...I was originally intending to use a La Marzocco Linea 2 group.

Like I mentioned, the town is small, but there are still 600 people working downtown everyday and 100 new jurors going to the courthouse every day. 8000 cars pass downtown everyday next to main street. We will be located squarely downtown on main Street. I'm projecting to sell 200 cups a day as my baseline, but with an 80/20 split of drip to espresso-based drinks.

The space location is still up in the air (bring a building, leasing a building or leasing a space) because there are some other hands in the pot and we are still deciding, but fortunately I have everything queued up and ready to press go once the space is decided (just about everything is already renovated in any space option). If we start with the kiosk, I was planning on one decent dexl over going full with the la marzocco...but am hesitant is it can't keep up and then I would need 2 dexl to manage...when I could just get a used la marzocco for 7500 from voltage coffee supply.

I know it's a lot to start new, especially with my lack of experience, but the coffee science is much like water-rock interaction in the geology world. Maximize surface area exposure and maximize extraction (oil or coffee). I also think my inexperience leads to the ability to move past industry norms.

So, I am heavily considering the decent dexl setup, but am just not seeing much out there on actual cafe experience with it. Can the machines handle that much activity...maybe 10 to 20 to 30 drinks an hour on one or two machines? What do you truly think the capabilites are? What are the limitations?

Also, is it a 59mm grouohead?

Thanks so much and am eager to hear your reply!!


----------



## decent_espresso

*Picture-in-picture, Coffee Visualizer, and the coming extensions*

I made a short video about the picture-in-picture DE1 mod that Johanna did:






Johanna (she's a customer, not an employee) is also leading the effort to have plug-in extension standard for the de1app, and that's just been released into beta.

This picture-in-picture mod is just the sort of thing I'd like as an extension, as it's a small feature that should be made available to all the various skins people are developing for the DE1. There's a lot of activity going on in the Decent owner's community right now, around this new feature, as lots of programmer/owners of Decents have small feature ideas they'd like to do.

Another example of a de1app extension is Miha's "coffee visualiser":
https://visualizer.coffee/shots/64c33b34-a390-444c-8411-b660c5877cd8

It's a web-based chart-creator for your Decent Espresso shots. The plugin that runs inside the de1app automatically uploads yours shots to it. Miha's offering a different (superior?) way to see your espressos, discuss them with others, and in the future I expect this will lead to more analysis and insight too.

-john


----------



## olivier

Just wanted to give a bit of feedback after a few weeks with a DE1 at home. Some background: I'm coming from a very reliable Lelit Bianca, but was looking for improvement in some areas, not necessarily related to coffe cup quality.

When I bought the Bianca 2 years ago, I almost bought the Decent instead, but I thought there was not enough feedback for me to take the plunge, while the Bianca was using tried and tested E61 with a few key innovations.

What I was looking to gain by switching to the Decent were:
- Smaller footprint: definitely gained there, just need to look at the size charts of both machines to understand why. Even with the moveable tank on the Bianca, the DE1 remains smaller.

- Quick heat up: I don't drink loads of coffee, usually one or two in the morning, and sometimes I'll have the impulse to have another one later in the day. Letting the machine run most of the day on the off chance I might need it seemed a bit wasteful. But waiting 15-20 mins for it to be fully ready to play with was sometimes not convenient. The DE1 will heat up in a couple of minutes, although it seems it benefits from being kept heated up for slightly longer so that the whole group and portafilter are warm. But in any case, it's ready very very quickly. Kind of exceeded my expectations in that respect.

- Repeatable profiling: of course the Bianca does flow profiling thanks to the neat paddle installed above the group, but even if/when you know what to do with it, you have to be there and manipulate it and hope to be doing the exact same thing time after time. The DE1 allows to do that in a fully repeatable fashion, and adds pressure and temp profiling as well. The repeatability of this machine can't be overstated enough: given your puck has been consistently prepared, you know exactly what you're going to get shot after shot, and that's fully hands free. I don't have a bluetooth scale so can't use the "stop on weight" function, but I find that for standard espresso I can quite easily rely on the flow-based stopping mechanism. I usually end up within a gram of expectations, so nothing that will significantly affect the ratio.

- Quantified feedback: of course, taste is the only valid criterion when it comes to espresso. However, having access to the data allows you to better understand what might have led to a tastier (or worse) shot, so that you know what to look for or adjust next time. Maybe this is less of a problem for very skilled baristas that can fully operate by feel because they know their coffee and machine inside out, but still, I think this opens new doors.

What I was afraid of:

- Steaming: I don't have milk drinks often, but my partner likes a flat white and she'll have them several times a week. The steam wand is definitely not as nice to use as the one on the Bianca, but still does the job. However, although it might be slightly slower, I have been able to get at least as good steamed milk as on the Bianca very easily.

- Noise: the Bianca has a nice and quiet rotary pump, while the DE1 uses vibration pumps that generate clicking sounds. I must say that most videos you see of the DE1 will tend to overstate the loudness of those pumps. So on the one hand you have the pleasant hum of a rotary pump, and on the other hand the sputtering moped engine sound of the DE1. For me I'd give a slight advantage to the Bianca on that front, but I actually grew fonder of the DE1 noise, and think I actually enjoy hearing it now! Interestingly, my partner said she preferred the sound of the DE1 from the start.

Of course the final verdict is about espresso quality. Maybe it's the honeymoon phase, but I would say the DE1 is superior to the Bianca in that respect. The Bianca can probably do 90% of what the DE1 does in terms of taste, but I believe the key really lies in the programmability of the Decent machines. I have read feedback here and elsewhere about "sour" taste, and thin shots on the DE1. This is not my experience. I even tried the "Italian espresso" profile and it was going too far on the opposite side of the spectrum (maybe because the 94C temperature from this profile is too high, as it refers to group temp, but I digress). I have been able to extract shots that are as syrupy as from the Bianca. I haven't had the courage to set them up side by side and do a direct comparison, but I'm fairly confident in my observations.
Flow/pressure charts also help with the dialing in once you know what to look for, so that's potentially less precious coffee wasted too!
Feedbacks about the machine being much less forgiving than an E61 are definitely true, but not on all type of profiles. The default one or the "gentle and sweet" profiles for example are fairly easy to use without having channeling or spraying everywhere. I found that a homemade distributor tool with four 0.4mm needles in a wine cork indeed work wonders in terms of improving puck consistency, and all of that for a few quids.

I'd say the DE1 is probably overkill for most people. However it's a fantastic thing to play with that delivers consistently excellent coffee and which is already leading to new ideas about espresso making improvement thanks to the data it's generating and its community of dedicated users. Some might argue that there is nothing wrong with espresso from traditional machines, and hence nothing to improve in the first place, but that's another debate. It is probably more geared toward people who enjoy lighter roasts, with which profiling really shines.

The only think I'm not too fond of with this machine are the steam wand, the fact that it often generates wet pucks which are messier to knock out of the portafilter and clean (not a big deal, and could be solved with a spacer) and the price (and I bought mine with a discount...). Oh and the fact that I have too low a caffeine tolerance to spend all day to experiment with it


----------



## shaunlawler

olivier said:


> Just wanted to give a bit of feedback after a few weeks with a DE1 at home. Some background: I'm coming from a very reliable Lelit Bianca, but was looking for improvement in some areas, not necessarily related to coffe cup quality.
> When I bought the Bianca 2 years ago, I almost bought the Decent instead, but I thought there was not enough feedback for me to take the plunge, while the Bianca was using tried and tested E61 with a few key innovations.
> What I was looking to gain by switching to the Decent were:
> - Smaller footprint: definitely gained there, just need to look at the size charts of both machines to understand why. Even with the moveable tank on the Bianca, the DE1 remains smaller.
> - Quick heat up: I don't drink loads of coffee, usually one or two in the morning, and sometimes I'll have the impulse to have another one later in the day. Letting the machine run most of the day on the off chance I might need it seemed a bit wasteful. But waiting 15-20 mins for it to be fully ready to play with was sometimes not convenient. The DE1 will heat up in a couple of minutes, although it seems it benefits from being kept heated up for slightly longer so that the whole group and portafilter are warm. But in any case, it's ready very very quickly. Kind of exceeded my expectations in that respect.
> - Repeatable profiling: of course the Bianca does flow profiling thanks to the neat paddle installed above the group, but even if/when you know what to do with it, you have to be there and manipulate it and hope to be doing the exact same thing time after time. The DE1 allows to do that in a fully repeatable fashion, and adds pressure and temp profiling as well. The repeatability of this machine can't be overstated enough: given your puck has been consistently prepared, you know exactly what you're going to get shot after shot, and that's fully hands free. I don't have a bluetooth scale so can't use the "stop on weight" function, but I find that for standard espresso I can quite easily rely on the flow-based stopping mechanism. I usually end up within a gram of expectations, so nothing that will significantly affect the ratio.
> - Quantified feedback: of course, taste is the only valid criterion when it comes to espresso. However, having access to the data allows you to better understand what might have led to a tastier (or worse) shot, so that you know what to look for or adjust next time. Maybe this is less of a problem for very skilled baristas that can fully operate by feel because they know their coffee and machine inside out, but still, I think this opens new doors.
> What I was afraid of:
> - Steaming: I don't have milk drinks often, but my partner likes a flat white and she'll have them several times a week. The steam wand is definitely not as nice to use as the one on the Bianca, but still does the job. However, although it might be slightly slower, I have been able to get at least as good steamed milk as on the Bianca very easily.
> - Noise: the Bianca has a nice and quiet rotary pump, while the DE1 uses vibration pumps that generate clicking sounds. I must say that most videos you see of the DE1 will tend to overstate the loudness of those pumps. So on the one hand you have the pleasant hum of a rotary pump, and on the other hand the sputtering moped engine sound of the DE1. For me I'd give a slight advantage to the Bianca on that front, but I actually grew fonder of the DE1 noise, and think I actually enjoy hearing it now! Interestingly, my partner said she preferred the sound of the DE1 from the start.
> Of course the final verdict is about espresso quality. Maybe it's the honeymoon phase, but I would say the DE1 is superior to the Bianca in that respect. The Bianca can probably do 90% of what the DE1 does in terms of taste, but I believe the key really lies in the programmability of the Decent machines. I have read feedback here and elsewhere about "sour" taste, and thin shots on the DE1. This is not my experience. I even tried the "Italian espresso" profile and it was going too far on the opposite side of the spectrum (maybe because the 94C temperature from this profile is too high, as it refers to group temp, but I digress). I have been able to extract shots that are as syrupy as from the Bianca. I haven't had the courage to set them up side by side and do a direct comparison, but I'm fairly confident in my observations.
> Flow/pressure charts also help with the dialing in once you know what to look for, so that's potentially less precious coffee wasted too!
> Feedbacks about the machine being much less forgiving than an E61 are definitely true, but not on all type of profiles. The default one or the "gentle and sweet" profiles for example are fairly easy to use without having channeling or spraying everywhere. I found that a homemade distributor tool with four 0.4mm needles in a wine cork indeed work wonders in terms of improving puck consistency, and all of that for a few quids.
> I'd say the DE1 is probably overkill for most people. However it's a fantastic thing to play with that delivers consistently excellent coffee and which is already leading to new ideas about espresso making improvement thanks to the data it's generating and its community of dedicated users. Some might argue that there is nothing wrong with espresso from traditional machines, and hence nothing to improve in the first place, but that's another debate. It is probably more geared toward people who enjoy lighter roasts, with which profiling really shines.
> The only think I'm not too fond of with this machine are the steam wand, the fact that it often generates wet pucks which are messier to knock out of the portafilter and clean (not a big deal, and could be solved with a spacer) and the price (and I bought mine with a discount...). Oh and the fact that I have too low a caffeine tolerance to spend all day to experiment with it


Great review, thanks.

Did you order any accessories with the Decent?

I'm about to order and interested to know whether to add anything else at the same time...


----------



## Max35111

Hi there!
I ordered the portafilter stand and the funnel. Very useful with my niche to grind directly in the PF.
Got a pitcher, temper V3 and temper stand. All good but I guess like other similar options.
Enjoy!


----------



## olivier

shaunlawler said:


> Great review, thanks.
> 
> Did you order any accessories with the Decent?
> 
> I'm about to order and interested to know whether to add anything else at the same time...


 No, didn't get any accessory, as I more or less have everything I need already. Was tempted by the pour over filter but I'm not THAT lazy after all, and I actually enjoy the pour over ritual.

Just one thing to keep in mind: you might not get the accessories at the same time as the machine. As the latter is shipped in a custom-made suitcase, accessories ship separately.


----------



## Stevebee

The accessories that I have are the Bluetooth Skale2 and the drip tray and adaptor that works with it. Turns the whole drip tray into a scale that links to the app meaning stop at weight works like a dream. Also use the steam by weight function on the DSX skin. You set the weight for each of your jugs, then weigh the milk you are going to steam and time how long it takes to get to the temp you like. Enter these details as the default. Then just fill your jug, rest on the tray/scale press the button and it sets the steam time based on qty of milk. Very accurate and you end up at the same temp every time regardless of qty.


----------



## GazRef

olivier said:


> Just wanted to give a bit of feedback after a few weeks with a DE1 at home. Some background: I'm coming from a very reliable Lelit Bianca, but was looking for improvement in some areas, not necessarily related to coffe cup quality.
> 
> When I bought the Bianca 2 years ago, I almost bought the Decent instead, but I thought there was not enough feedback for me to take the plunge, while the Bianca was using tried and tested E61 with a few key innovations.
> 
> What I was looking to gain by switching to the Decent were:
> - Smaller footprint: definitely gained there, just need to look at the size charts of both machines to understand why. Even with the moveable tank on the Bianca, the DE1 remains smaller.
> 
> - Quick heat up: I don't drink loads of coffee, usually one or two in the morning, and sometimes I'll have the impulse to have another one later in the day. Letting the machine run most of the day on the off chance I might need it seemed a bit wasteful. But waiting 15-20 mins for it to be fully ready to play with was sometimes not convenient. The DE1 will heat up in a couple of minutes, although it seems it benefits from being kept heated up for slightly longer so that the whole group and portafilter are warm. But in any case, it's ready very very quickly. Kind of exceeded my expectations in that respect.
> 
> - Repeatable profiling: of course the Bianca does flow profiling thanks to the neat paddle installed above the group, but even if/when you know what to do with it, you have to be there and manipulate it and hope to be doing the exact same thing time after time. The DE1 allows to do that in a fully repeatable fashion, and adds pressure and temp profiling as well. The repeatability of this machine can't be overstated enough: given your puck has been consistently prepared, you know exactly what you're going to get shot after shot, and that's fully hands free. I don't have a bluetooth scale so can't use the "stop on weight" function, but I find that for standard espresso I can quite easily rely on the flow-based stopping mechanism. I usually end up within a gram of expectations, so nothing that will significantly affect the ratio.
> 
> - Quantified feedback: of course, taste is the only valid criterion when it comes to espresso. However, having access to the data allows you to better understand what might have led to a tastier (or worse) shot, so that you know what to look for or adjust next time. Maybe this is less of a problem for very skilled baristas that can fully operate by feel because they know their coffee and machine inside out, but still, I think this opens new doors.
> 
> What I was afraid of:
> 
> - Steaming: I don't have milk drinks often, but my partner likes a flat white and she'll have them several times a week. The steam wand is definitely not as nice to use as the one on the Bianca, but still does the job. However, although it might be slightly slower, I have been able to get at least as good steamed milk as on the Bianca very easily.
> 
> - Noise: the Bianca has a nice and quiet rotary pump, while the DE1 uses vibration pumps that generate clicking sounds. I must say that most videos you see of the DE1 will tend to overstate the loudness of those pumps. So on the one hand you have the pleasant hum of a rotary pump, and on the other hand the sputtering moped engine sound of the DE1. For me I'd give a slight advantage to the Bianca on that front, but I actually grew fonder of the DE1 noise, and think I actually enjoy hearing it now! Interestingly, my partner said she preferred the sound of the DE1 from the start.
> 
> Of course the final verdict is about espresso quality. Maybe it's the honeymoon phase, but I would say the DE1 is superior to the Bianca in that respect. The Bianca can probably do 90% of what the DE1 does in terms of taste, but I believe the key really lies in the programmability of the Decent machines. I have read feedback here and elsewhere about "sour" taste, and thin shots on the DE1. This is not my experience. I even tried the "Italian espresso" profile and it was going too far on the opposite side of the spectrum (maybe because the 94C temperature from this profile is too high, as it refers to group temp, but I digress). I have been able to extract shots that are as syrupy as from the Bianca. I haven't had the courage to set them up side by side and do a direct comparison, but I'm fairly confident in my observations.
> Flow/pressure charts also help with the dialing in once you know what to look for, so that's potentially less precious coffee wasted too!
> Feedbacks about the machine being much less forgiving than an E61 are definitely true, but not on all type of profiles. The default one or the "gentle and sweet" profiles for example are fairly easy to use without having channeling or spraying everywhere. I found that a homemade distributor tool with four 0.4mm needles in a wine cork indeed work wonders in terms of improving puck consistency, and all of that for a few quids.
> 
> I'd say the DE1 is probably overkill for most people. However it's a fantastic thing to play with that delivers consistently excellent coffee and which is already leading to new ideas about espresso making improvement thanks to the data it's generating and its community of dedicated users. Some might argue that there is nothing wrong with espresso from traditional machines, and hence nothing to improve in the first place, but that's another debate. It is probably more geared toward people who enjoy lighter roasts, with which profiling really shines.
> 
> The only think I'm not too fond of with this machine are the steam wand, the fact that it often generates wet pucks which are messier to knock out of the portafilter and clean (not a big deal, and could be solved with a spacer) and the price (and I bought mine with a discount...). Oh and the fact that I have too low a caffeine tolerance to spend all day to experiment with it


 Timely review. I'm currently considering both machines. Nice to hear your thoughts.


----------



## decent_espresso

*DE1XL 360º countersunk and not*

You can see how both our DE1XL espresso machines look in black and white, from all sides, both countersunk and not.


----------



## decent_espresso

[/QUOTE]


----------



## decent_espresso

*% sales trends for each model*

In planning how many DE1 suitcases to get for each size, I needed to make a forecast of what models people have been buying. Our DE1XL model takes different internal foam from the DE1+/DE1PRO models.
﻿
Some insights:



The DE1XL model was very slow to start, and now has been taking sales away from our DE1PRO model


The DE1+ model is very stable at 30% of our machine sales


DE1XL sales briefly shot up, at the same time that we had them in stock. We didn't anticipate this, and ran out of stock, and ran out of stock after 5 months, at which point sales of that model decreased.


Next month, we're going to start selling a new espresso machine model. It will be the 10 amp version of the DE1XL. It's 40% more powerful, and so steaming is is faster and higher pressure (around 3.5 bar vs 2 bar), resulting in finer milk microfoam. Professionals visiting our office who try it have said that the steam feels "normal" to them, like a pro La Marzocco or Simonelli machine, though they're happy with the microfoam quality.

We're in the process of receiving parts to build 2000 machines of our v1.42 model, which we plan to build over the next 9 months. As we've made 2400 machines in our entire history, that will bring us to 4400 total Decent machines out in the world, which is a fairly reasonable number. It also means we won't be out of stock for a while, since this is a much larger run than our v1.40 run of 750 machines, which we built and sold out in 3.5 months.

In September, we'll start building 2000 machines of the v1.43 model, which will be virtually identical to our current v1.42 model. Hopefully we can keep our production up with demand, and not run out of stock again.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Zoom call scheduled: Picking the right recipe for your bean*

to join the Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81115386914?pwd=NytDTGVYWmVaMitockxhN3hlREJ3dz09

Meeting ID: 811 1538 6914, Passcode: 51

Time: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20210108T010000&p1=tz_hkt&p2=224&p3=179&p4=152
﻿

As always, the zoom call will be video recorded and made available on youtube later.


----------



## Stephen Prosser

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 50688
> 
> 
> *% sales trends for each model*
> 
> In planning how many DE1 suitcases to get for each size, I needed to make a forecast of what models people have been buying. Our DE1XL model takes different internal foam from the DE1+/DE1PRO models.
> ﻿
> Some insights:
> 
> 
> 
> The DE1XL model was very slow to start, and now has been taking sales away from our DE1PRO model
> 
> 
> The DE1+ model is very stable at 30% of our machine sales
> 
> 
> DE1XL sales briefly shot up, at the same time that we had them in stock. We didn't anticipate this, and ran out of stock, and ran out of stock after 5 months, at which point sales of that model decreased.
> 
> 
> Next month, we're going to start selling a new espresso machine model. It will be the 10 amp version of the DE1XL. It's 40% more powerful, and so steaming is is faster and higher pressure (around 3.5 bar vs 2 bar), resulting in finer milk microfoam. Professionals visiting our office who try it have said that the steam feels "normal" to them, like a pro La Marzocco or Simonelli machine, though they're happy with the microfoam quality.
> 
> We're in the process of receiving parts to build 2000 machines of our v1.42 model, which we plan to build over the next 9 months. As we've made 2400 machines in our entire history, that will bring us to 4400 total Decent machines out in the world, which is a fairly reasonable number. It also means we won't be out of stock for a while, since this is a much larger run than our v1.40 run of 750 machines, which we built and sold out in 3.5 months.
> 
> In September, we'll start building 2000 machines of the v1.43 model, which will be virtually identical to our current v1.42 model. Hopefully we can keep our production up with demand, and not run out of stock again.
> 
> -john


 So, the 1.42 version will be the higher steam power. Can we pre-order one?


----------



## decent_espresso

Stephen Prosser said:


> So, the 1.42 version will be the higher steam power. Can we pre-order one?


 v1.42 is the same as v1.40/v1.41, it does not have more steam power. It's just hew batch of 2000 machines we are building.

However, in February we will be releasing a new model, the DE1XXL, which has 40% more steam power, and it can be pre-ordered.

https://decentespresso.com/c?filter=de1xxl


----------



## decent_espresso

*R&D fluid dynamic simulation of next-gen mixing chamber*

Here is a look into our long-term R&D process. We've given Ben and Ray a full year (up to 2 years) to work on difficult problems before needing to ship anything new. Our current v1.4 models don't have any major negatives, so instead of tinkering, we want to work on more substantive things.

Ben is working on a new hot water mixing system, planned for release in 2022. It will not introduce any new features to the DE1, but it does condense 3 separate parts in our current model, into one. It also removes 8 water tubes, and one of two quite expensive medical-grade flow constrictors.

This video is a fluid dynamic simulation of hot and cold water mixing. Ben is trying to understand how well the water is mixing. Turbulence, eddies, and other complicated physical aspects of moving liquids can cause water mixing to be less even, which would then affect our temperature stability.

Ben's fluid dynamic simulations of water flow onto the coffee puck, 5 years ago, led to a radically different design of how the Decent places water onto a dry puck. We believe it's the main reason why it's so difficult to intentionally cause channeling on the Decent, yet so easy to have that problem on other machines.

This sort of computerized modelling so much cheaper and faster than physical modelling, which will be done as a later step, once the computer thinks we've got something that might work well. Then we'll test it in the real world, in an infrared camera, to see how closely the models match reality, and what improvements still need to be made.

-john


----------



## canuck10

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 48250
> 
> 
> *No more waiting for Decent Espresso*
> 
> Throughout the 3 years we've been making espresso machines, every buyer has had to wait. It's never been less than a month, frequently 3 months, and some waited much much longer. In South Korea they called us "the genius machine that nobody can buy".
> 
> Finally, FINALLY! this won't be the case.
> 
> Even though our monthly sales have been increasing, my team has been getting better and better at their jobs. We did double the staff count in August but this had only a modest effect on machines shipped per month.
> 
> The real shift came from human factors. I had long ago figured out that Western-style management doesn't work here. Hong Kongers do not want to be "bossed", and by extension, none of our employees would accept a promotion to be a manager. What I had learned about Management in California didn't work here.
> 
> I tinkered with the workplace culture of the company, and I finally have found a good fit.
> 
> There's an opposing tension between individualism and communal-spirit here. Some of the workplace experiments I tried, such as having small teams, were actually a productivity and HR disaster, and actually promoted conflict. It's difficult to figure out the right structure and balance.
> 
> What has worked best, and REALLY worked, is copying the French restaurant's "battery de cuisine" concept. In a "battery de cuisine" kitchen, everyone has a speciality, and there's always work to be done in that job. There's no "boss, what should I be working on?" And when it's mealtime, the pressure is on for each person to produce in their speciality. Everyone knows how they fit into the whole, when they're expected to perform, and they feel both individual pride in their contribution, as well as in the output of team.
> 
> I adapted the "battery de cuisine" system to the Decent factory.
> 
> Keith, for example, is responsible for fully testing every DC PCB (the "computer") that will go inside the espresso machine. Every day, he plugs temperature sensors, LED and motors into a board on his desk, and painstakingly tests it. Each takes about 20 minutes. That's a long time, but thanks to the extensive prep work, when it's time install them, Keith can put 50 computers into 50 espresso machines in just 2 hours. And rarely do any have problems that need later fixing, when it'd be quite a bit harder to do so. Like a restaurant dish with a frozen-in-the-middle steak.
> 
> Decent Espresso is now run like a professional kitchen. Everyone has their own "prep station". And when the 50 machines on the line need their part, they're "in the kitchen" installing their part, so they don't slow anyone else down.
> 
> Initially I started with 2 lines (a "kitchen") of 50 machines each, with 1 actively being built, and the other being tested. As the testers got faster, after 1 day they finished 25 machines, we squeezed the remaining machines down, and started a 3rd line of the next 50 machines. Thus, most of the time we're actually running 3 "kitchens".
> 
> This puts more stress on good prep. But as each person is totally responsible for their part, they know what is expected of them, but also they are empowered to improve how they work.
> 
> And that's how we managed to go from 23 machines per month, to 69, to 108, to 213 and this month: to 291 machines in one month!
> 
> I had the "talk radio show" turned off, and it's quiet in the factory, except for power tools pulsing. There's an intense concentration on people's faces. And come Friday, they're mentally drained, but happy, because everyone can see the success of the week.
> ﻿
> Tomorrow we're testing 50 DE1XL 220V machines, and in a few days we'll have the same quantity of 110V DE1XL done. That has us almost wiping out the queue that has been a weight around our neck:﻿
> 
> View attachment 48251
> 
> 
> I had hoped (dreamt!) to be at this point before Christmas, but it looks like we'll be there by the end of November, a month early.
> 
> View attachment 48252
> 
> 
> That also means that if you buy a DE1 before mid-December, there's a good chance we can get it to you in time for Christmas.
> 
> . . .
> 
> Am I worried that we're now building much much faster than we're selling?
> 
> Yes, of course I am.
> 
> However, I'm also aware of just how many people have said "no thanks" to a Decent Espresso Machine, because they didn't want to wait.
> 
> People are used to getting instant satisfaction from their purchases, and a several-months-long wait doesn't cut it. So I'm hoping that "ships within 24h" will have a positive effect.
> 
> And finally, we're getting a tremendous number of inquiries from small cafes. I think that now that the COVID vaccine is in sight, planning has started on the orgy of travel, restaurant, and entertainment spending that is likely to follow.
> 
> -john


 It seems things didn't work out as you planned. What happened?


----------



## decent_espresso

canuck10 said:


> It seems things didn't work out as you planned. What happened?


 When I wrote "no more waiting" I didn't anticipate a 35% increase in month-to-month sales.

DE1 sales rose quickly when we had stock, peaking in November and December, selling out of whatever machines we had built:









We closed for 10 days during Christmas, to have a holiday, and we also changed over from the v1.40 line to the v1.42 line, and have some parts shortages during the change-over as all the new parts arrive.

At any rate, the wait is only 4 weeks right now, and likely to get reduced to 2 weeks in about 10 days, we we've just finished 127 machines (current queue is 152 machines) and are another week out from finishing another 100 machines. And all parts for the next 2000 machines, are set to arrive in the next 2 weeks.

However, the DE1 queue will be shortly back to under 2 weeks, and in february I hope we can keep up with sales to start to have stock again, shipping next-day.

Here's a view from my desk:


----------



## decent_espresso

*A coffee cart for the office*

We've built a two-DE1 IKEA coffee stand for staff use. There are about 30 people here, making coffee in their-own-preferred way.

The image above is the sign I posted above the cart, for my staff to read (and hopefully, follow),

Previously, we used a large bamboo IKEA table, that let us get away with being messy. However, that bamboo table isn't anything I'd recommend to our clients, as it was a huge pain in the neck to cut out (due to strengthening cross ribs) and to clean.

The two-DE1 stand is something I developed for tight-on-space coffee carts, as it does give you steam-during brew, or the ability to make two coffees at once.

But, space is tight, so you have to be disciplined about what you have on the table top, and to have a workflow which manages to work efficiently in a tight space.

I've got my preferred workflow, which is circular: grind->WDT->tamp->mount portafilter->make espresso->steam milk->pour->serve cup on right->knock out spent puck->rinse portafilter in pitcher rinser->dry basket->grind

Notably, this workflow requires you to be partially ambidextrous, but the benefit is that there is no passing objects between your hands. It's quite efficient.

I've made the poster above and over the next few weeks I'll be observing how well this works at Decent, with a group of people who are decidedly not baristas (they build our espresso machines).

And I've love to hear your feedback on any experience you've had in trying to get your coworkers to maintain a coffee-making area, and to follow a demonstrably-workable way of making drinks.

Note that this cart is completely self-sufficient, with clean and dirty water handled on the cart. It's also heavy-load, with those water containers not needing emptying (or filling) often at all. This is my first time splitting clean water into "espresso water" and "pitcher rinser water" so as to economize.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Reddit "Ask me Anything" (AMA) for Decent / john*

In 2 days' time I'll be doing a "Ask me Anything" on Reddit.

Announcement:

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/espresso/comments/kvpt4r

Which will be visible here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/espresso/

it will be at this time/date:
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20210115T010000&p1=tz_hkt&p2=224&p3=179&p4=152

Thanks to ﻿Andrew Levenson (/r/espresso moderator)﻿ for proposing and organizing this.
﻿


----------



## spasypaddy

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 51122
> 
> 
> *A coffee cart for the office*
> 
> We've built a two-DE1 IKEA coffee stand for staff use. There are about 30 people here, making coffee in their-own-preferred way.
> 
> The image above is the sign I posted above the cart, for my staff to read (and hopefully, follow),
> 
> Previously, we used a large bamboo IKEA table, that let us get away with being messy. However, that bamboo table isn't anything I'd recommend to our clients, as it was a huge pain in the neck to cut out (due to strengthening cross ribs) and to clean.
> 
> The two-DE1 stand is something I developed for tight-on-space coffee carts, as it does give you steam-during brew, or the ability to make two coffees at once.
> 
> But, space is tight, so you have to be disciplined about what you have on the table top, and to have a workflow which manages to work efficiently in a tight space.
> 
> I've got my preferred workflow, which is circular: grind->WDT->tamp->mount portafilter->make espresso->steam milk->pour->serve cup on right->knock out spent puck->rinse portafilter in pitcher rinser->dry basket->grind
> 
> Notably, this workflow requires you to be partially ambidextrous, but the benefit is that there is no passing objects between your hands. It's quite efficient.
> 
> I've made the poster above and over the next few weeks I'll be observing how well this works at Decent, with a group of people who are decidedly not baristas (they build our espresso machines).
> 
> And I've love to hear your feedback on any experience you've had in trying to get your coworkers to maintain a coffee-making area, and to follow a demonstrably-workable way of making drinks.
> 
> Note that this cart is completely self-sufficient, with clean and dirty water handled on the cart. It's also heavy-load, with those water containers not needing emptying (or filling) often at all. This is my first time splitting clean water into "espresso water" and "pitcher rinser water" so as to economize.
> 
> -john


 can i ask why you wouldnt have the machines on the outside of the unit with the cleaning/grinding section in the middle shared between the two machines. To me it makes more sense from a people workflow, now if 2 people are making coffee there is a risk that person at DE1 turns around and into someone crossing over the back of them


----------



## decent_espresso

On Home Barista there was recently a conversation about or XL (aka "Pro") steam wand, and how it doesn't bend far enough. https://www.home-barista.com/advice/decent-de1-last-questions-before-pressing-submit-payment-button-t70457.html#p768986

One person wrote:



> Note that the pro wand is too long to be able to purge into the drip tray.


 I haven't yet announced it publicly until right now, but we have a new XL (aka "pro") steam wand design coming, that resolves that issue.

Here is a photo comparing the two models









the gooseneck bend is a different shape, and the wand now angles into the drip tray.









It also makes it easier to "ghost steam" (hands free) since the tip goes much deeper into the milk jug.









We've also revisited the silicone sleeve that goes over the wand, and the clip connector is now integrated into the steam wand instead of requiring a longer adaptor.

The bad news: due to COVID induced delays, our steam wand supplier is hugely backed up, and we are completely out of any XL steam wands (old or new design) until mid-April, when the new design arrives.

Until then, we'll be shipping XL models with the standard steam wand, and then following up a few months later with the XL steam wand in the mail. Swapping the steam wands yourself is not difficult, and there's a video: 



 - you will of course be able to keep the standard wand, and the XL wand as well, no need to return anything.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

spasypaddy said:


> can i ask why you wouldnt have the machines on the outside of the unit with the cleaning/grinding section in the middle shared between the two machines. To me it makes more sense from a people workflow, now if 2 people are making coffee there is a risk that person at DE1 turns around and into someone crossing over the back of them


 The IKEA BROR cart is much smaller than it looks in that photo. It's only 109cm wide, which is really not wide enough for two people.









So, short answer: I never considered that one cart would be used by two people.

Another reason is that the workflow I intended was to brew the espresso on the left machine, while you steam milk on the right machine, and then leave the drink for customer pick up to the right of the right machine, in that gulley.

Here's a video of this cart setup being used at a trade show, and you can see the intended workflow in action:






Note that in this video, the cart is made from the IKEA "Rimforsa" table, which is 120cm wide -- slightly more than the BROR that we have now settled on.


----------



## decent_espresso

The archive of the Reddit AMA is now here:

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/espresso/comments/kxjeyy

I think it makes a quite good FAQ for non-Decent-owners.


----------



## decent_espresso

We've chopped up the video from last week's zoom, where the topic was "Picking the right recipe for the bean", into separate videos per-topic, for easier reference.



Here's the full unedited video (1h40m): 





How to make a good Allongé shot? (3m) 





Londinium: how to dial this profile in (8m) 





Pressure vs Flow profile (13m) 





Will my shots channel less with the Decent compared to an E61? (8m) 





Is straight flow better? (8m) 





Future feature: limiting flow and pressure (2m) 





What do I think about "pulse technology" (1m) 





Can water become stale/acidic in the water tank? (4m) 





Picking the right recipe for the bean (21m) 





-john


----------



## GazRef

How does the stock screen on the DE1+ stack up vs the IMS screen shipped with the more expensive models?


----------



## decent_espresso

GazRef said:


> How does the stock screen on the DE1+ stack up vs the IMS screen shipped with the more expensive models?


 Both make the same quality coffee. The stock screen we use is hardly low end -- it's the same one you'd find on the Simonelli Black Eagle.

However, the IMS screen stays much cleaner on its own. So, over time, unless you clean frequently, the IMS screen will outperform the stock screen.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Out of DE1XL steam wands, so using Norm**al Wands, will send XL v2 wand later*

New DE1XL customers, from now until April, will be receiving their machines with a Normal steam wand, and this printed apology letter in the suitcase.

If anyone wants to talk more about it, here's the place to do it.

This will also get posted onto all forums and social media.

Here is a video I made, showing how to swap the steam wand yourself: 




Growing a manufacturing quickly, during COVID, is turning out to be super challenging. So far, we're managing, but there are compromises.

-john



> COVID has caused big problems with our "supply chain" and,
> 
> *Our new v2 DE1XL steam wand has been delayed for several months*
> 
> In order to not delay the delivery of your espresso machine, we've installed the normal steam wand on your espresso machine.
> 
> In a few months, we expect to get the v2 design of our XL steam wand, and we'll send it to you automatically when it arrives.
> 
> It's super easy swap steam wands. We've got a video showing you how. We'll send you that video later. We even include two custom made wrenches for the job.
> 
> Sorry again about the swap! If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to write, or to post on any of the forums I hang out on.
> 
> -John from Decent Espresso


----------



## GazRef

decent_espresso said:


> Both make the same quality coffee. The stock screen we use is hardly low end -- it's the same one you'd find on the Simonelli Black Eagle.
> 
> However, the IMS screen stays much cleaner on its own. So, over time, unless you clean frequently, the IMS screen will outperform the stock screen.


 Got you. I was curious if it improved water distribution to the puck. In my old e61 an IMS screen was the only way to get the rain drops effect vs the cheapo stock screens that produced a more dribbly stream.


----------



## decent_espresso

GazRef said:


> Got you. I was curious if it improved water distribution to the puck. In my old e61 an IMS screen was the only way to get the rain drops effect vs the cheapo stock screens that produced a more dribbly stream.


 We've put a crazy amount of time into designing our shower block, so that the shower screen has no water distribution issue to fix.

I hired Ben Champion off home barista, as he had been doing fluid dynamic simulations of traditional blocks(unpaid by me) and found them to be really terrible (about 70% even water distribution, whereas we're now around 98% even). Because of the great (free) work he did as a fan on HB, I hired him to be my principal mechanical engineer. Later this year we'll have an even newer design (backward compatible) which you can see in the photo below.

I have a hunch that if your shower block looks like the "traditional" one, then yeah, a high end shower screen might help fix the bad distribution that the block is creating. In particular, the IMS screen helps with the "waterpik" like effect of having so few holes, and so high flow, during preinfusion, which is how most traditional 9 bar semi-auto machines work.


----------



## decent_espresso

*New faces at Decent*

My apologies, I haven't had time to do any new programming in 2 weeks as I've been interviewing for new positions here. Since we seem to be able to sell espresso machines without too much effort, instead I'm focussing on hiring people to support people who do buy our machines.

So, here are a few people you'll hear from over time:



Mohammed: standup comic, actor https://www.mohammedmagdi.com/ English teacher (also does French) and home espresso fan. He's going to work with me and Ihti to make a lot of new instructional videos, and just generally focus on communications (videos, home page, social media, how people learn and use the Decent).


Emy: pro barista and educator, with an IT support background, she'll be focussed on helping people brand new to espresso, or new to "The Decent Way" to go from "bad espresso" to "yummy". So... dialing in, puck prep, what recipe to use, how to tell if the shot looks bad, all that stuff. She'll be on Diaspora and 1:1 on tech support too.


We've also hired a new boxer (Allan), new purchasing assistant (Shanshan) and new machine builder (Alfred is a serious pro barista for 3 years from a double-michelin star restaurant, an engineer with a decade of building experience in the UK, and also a native Italian speaker).


So, those are the five people starting this week and next. Everyone above has excellent English skills (both Mohammed and Emy are native English speakers).


My aim over the next few months is really smoothing out the experience you all have, after you've opened your DE1 cardboard box.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Pretty amazing light and etching modifications to our transparent vinyl cover, by espresso-machine-customizers 
https://www.instagram.com/uaeespressoservice/


----------



## _HH_

decent_espresso said:


> Pretty amazing light and etching modifications to our transparent vinyl cover, by espresso-machine-customizers
> https://www.instagram.com/uaeespressoservice/
> 
> View attachment 51538


 This looks amazing! I know you fabricated a limited run of 100 of the clear cases, are they going to become a regularly-available item? I am strongly considering making the jump to a DE1+, and have always wanted a machine with a transparent case so this makes it extra-exciting.

I also wanted to ask whether you had made any progress on fitting a Niche grinder into the DE1+ flight case? You mentioned this much earlier in the thread as something you were considering looking at. I appreciate you may have more pressing matters to focus on currently, but this would be amazingly useful for having an easily-portable set up. If you considered selling an optional foam insert for the case, or even a 'pick & pluck' style foam section I would be really interested.


----------



## decent_espresso

_HH_ said:


> This looks amazing! I know you fabricated a limited run of 100 of the clear cases, are they going to become a regularly-available item? I am strongly considering making the jump to a DE1+, and have always wanted a machine with a transparent case so this makes it extra-exciting.


 There seems to be a lot of interest in the transparent case, so we'll likely keep it in stock.



_HH_ said:


> I also wanted to ask whether you had made any progress on fitting a Niche grinder into the DE1+ flight case? You mentioned this much earlier in the thread as something you were considering looking at. I appreciate you may have more pressing matters to focus on currently, but this would be amazingly useful for having an easily-portable set up. If you considered selling an optional foam insert for the case, or even a 'pick & pluck' style foam section I would be really interested.


 I haven't put any more work into this, no. The box that the Niche comes in seems to work well for travelling, so that's what I do.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Out of white drip trays*

We normally include a white drip tray with our white DE1XL model, but due to COVID delays, we are out of stock of them until March.

This letter will come in the suitcase of any white DE1XL we ship now.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Disco lit Decent*

Some of our customers have started to pimp their Decent by putting LED lights inside the transparent case. So we decided to figure out all the safe places LEDs could be placed, and fully document how to do it yourself. The LED kit we bought has a microphone in it, so that the light show responds to what the Decent is currently doing.

Fabrice has drawn up his suggestions for where to put the LEDs, and this is now part of the Decent Manual.

"A.14.2 Fabrice LED inside lighting" 
https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/QV8adf6AZ2ANoDH2C9biAbbh


----------



## thenitwas

decent_espresso said:


> v1.42 is the same as v1.40/v1.41, it does not have more steam power. It's just hew batch of 2000 machines we are building.
> 
> However, in February we will be releasing a new model, the DE1XXL, which has 40% more steam power, and it can be pre-ordered.
> 
> https://decentespresso.com/c?filter=de1xxl


 Hey John! Would you be able to show how does the 40% increase in steam power translate to? Timing, and vortex ability?

Many Thanks!


----------



## RSteak

Hello!

I'm about to pull the trigger for either a de1+ or a pro, but I can't decide.
I mean I can easily upgrade the mirror pannel and IMS screen on the de1+, but what about the valves? Could I "upgrade" them later, if I feel like it?
And my biggest question... on the webside there's talk about the moulded parts (that's where hot and cold water mixes, afaik) the de1+ only says 100% ULTEM and the pro has 70% ULTEM, 30% glass.
I know that ULTEM is that medical grade stuff they're using, but is the 30% glass a big plus to the part's life?
And since there will be a new mixing part in the future, could I just go with the "lower spec" 100% ULTEM and just upgrade to the new part when it's out? I read you can always "retrofit" your own machine for a good price, when new parts come out.

Best regards!


----------



## decent_espresso

thenitwas said:


> Hey John! Would you be able to show how does the 40% increase in steam power translate to? Timing, and vortex ability?
> 
> Many Thanks!


 We just received the heaters a few days ago, and we're building the first 50 DE1XXL machines next week. Once they look OK, I'll be putting up a more formal page with a video, and specs, on this model.

I have a basic video from September showing the steam:


__
http://instagr.am/p/CE_SPYeh5rf/

You have to move to a 3 hole steam wand tip, as there's too much power otherwise (it goes to 5 bar, which is too much)

Timing comes down from about 33s to 22s for a 200ml latte, going from 8ºC to 60ºC.

Vortex is only slightly stronger, by choice, so that you can still easily texture and not have to "fight the power".

Here's some more info, copied over from something I wrote on the German coffee forum:



> As the heaters are 40% more powerful, there are a number of effects:
> - steaming milk is about 40% faster
> - steam pressure goes up to 5 bar, if you want it to
> - comes with a 3 hole steam wand tip to bring Steam pressure down to a more management 3.5 bar
> - heats up in 3 minutes (instead of 4.5 minutes)
> - faster maximum flow rate when making pour overs and other things that need hot water at a fast flow rate for a long time.
> 
> The new heaters are supposed to arrive here on January 30. However, as we do not have them yet, I did not want to announce this new model until I was certain we could build it.
> 
> You can see the price here:
> Decent Shopping Cart: buy espresso accessories
> 
> Once the heaters arrive, we'll add this model to the web site, and it will have the same information I have written above.
> 
> It will only be available for 220V-240V and requires a 10A power connection.
> 
> -John


----------



## decent_espresso

RSteak said:


> Hello!
> 
> I'm about to pull the trigger for either a de1+ or a pro, but I can't decide.
> I mean I can easily upgrade the mirror pannel and IMS screen on the de1+, but what about the valves? Could I "upgrade" them later, if I feel like it?
> And my biggest question... on the webside there's talk about the moulded parts (that's where hot and cold water mixes, afaik) the de1+ only says 100% ULTEM and the pro has 70% ULTEM, 30% glass.
> I know that ULTEM is that medical grade stuff they're using, but is the 30% glass a big plus to the part's life?
> And since there will be a new mixing part in the future, could I just go with the "lower spec" 100% ULTEM and just upgrade to the new part when it's out? I read you can always "retrofit" your own machine for a good price, when new parts come out.
> 
> Best regards!


 The 30% glass mixed in with the ultem is there to help with thermal cycling, ie preventing cracks from propagating.

Unless you're making more than 10 cups a day, the DE1+ is all you need.

As to later swaps, if anything ever breaks on a machine, we always replace it with the PRO version (ie valves, pumps, moulded parts) since that customer is obviously stressing the machine.


----------



## thenitwas

decent_espresso said:


> We just received the heaters a few days ago, and we're building the first 50 DE1XXL machines next week. Once they look OK, I'll be putting up a more formal page with a video, and specs, on this model.
> 
> I have a basic video from September showing the steam:
> 
> 
> __
> http://instagr.am/p/CE_SPYeh5rf/
> 
> You have to move to a 3 hole steam wand tip, as there's too much power otherwise (it goes to 5 bar, which is too much)
> 
> Timing comes down from about 33s to 22s for a 200ml latte, going from 8ºC to 60ºC.
> 
> Vortex is only slightly stronger, by choice, so that you can still easily texture and not have to "fight the power".
> 
> Here's some more info, copied over from something I wrote on the German coffee forum:


 John, thanks for the lengthy update!

I'm planning to carry over the 1 hole/blade Proline Foamknife which is currently on my GS3. Would this pose a problem w.r.t. the power of 5 bar? Is this adjustable?

Lastly, I see that the Instagram post had mentioned this DE1CAFE (DE1 XXL) model will cost $1000 more than the DE1 XL. Is this for the final production? I see the pre-order link you've put up showing as a $400 increase over the XL.

Thanks again for being so responsive!


----------



## decent_espresso

thenitwas said:


> I'm planning to carry over the 1 hole/blade Proline Foamknife which is currently on my GS3. Would this pose a problem w.r.t. the power of 5 bar? Is this adjustable?
> 
> Lastly, I see that the Instagram post had mentioned this DE1CAFE (DE1 XXL) model will cost $1000 more than the DE1 XL. Is this for the final production? I see the pre-order link you've put up showing as a $400 increase over the XL.


 The Foamknife threading is not compatible with our wand. I have some prototype steam wand tips that are like the knife, and we'll likely release something like that in the future.

The $1000 price increase was a placeholder as this was still in the far future at the time of that IG post.

The final price increase from XL to XXL is USD$400, which you can see here, in a shopping cart that has both models: https://decentespresso.com/c?s=339+1+405+1


----------



## thenitwas

decent_espresso said:


> The Foamknife threading is not compatible with our wand. I have some prototype steam wand tips that are like the knife, and we'll likely release something like that in the future.
> 
> The $1000 price increase was a placeholder as this was still in the far future at the time of that IG post.
> 
> The final price increase from XL to XXL is USD$400, which you can see here, in a shopping cart that has both models: https://decentespresso.com/c?s=339+1+405+1


 Sounds great! Looking forward to it! For now, the steam tips are male, 8.5mm diameter thread?


----------



## decent_espresso

thenitwas said:


> Sounds great! Looking forward to it! For now, the steam tips are male, 8.5mm diameter thread?


 Here it is from the drawing we provide, and the manual page for it.

https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/RDT5Wm2Sd4NoWZxRypShqmo3


----------



## thenitwas

decent_espresso said:


> Here it is from the drawing we provide, and the manual page for it.
> 
> https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/RDT5Wm2Sd4NoWZxRypShqmo3
> 
> 
> View attachment 52069


 Thanks John! Have a great weekend ahead!


----------



## shaunlawler

Received my Decent Espresso machine today and it all seems great so far.

The picture below is the graph of the first shot on the suggested 'Default' profile. This was an 18g dose in and 36g liquid out. The taste was actually very balanced for the first run and initial impressions are very good.

The next stage is to experiment with milk steaming and then move on to the more advanced profiles. I am looking forward to trying the Allonge / Blooming Espresso profiles and tasting the flavour differences in the cup.

I will update my journey on the thread if anyone is interested...


----------



## Mark70

shaunlawler said:


> Received my Decent Espresso machine today and it all seems great so far.
> 
> The picture below is the graph of the first shot on the suggested 'Default' profile. This was an 18g dose in and 36g liquid out. The taste was actually very balanced for the first run and initial impressions are very good.
> 
> The next stage is to experiment with milk steaming and then move on to the more advanced profiles. I am looking forward to trying the Allonge / Blooming Espresso profiles and tasting the flavour differences in the cup.
> 
> I will update my journey on the thread if anyone is interested...
> 
> View attachment 52120
> 
> 
> View attachment 52121


 Yes please. I have one on order


----------



## _HH_

shaunlawler said:


> Received my Decent Espresso machine today and it all seems great so far.
> 
> The picture below is the graph of the first shot on the suggested 'Default' profile. This was an 18g dose in and 36g liquid out. The taste was actually very balanced for the first run and initial impressions are very good.
> 
> The next stage is to experiment with milk steaming and then move on to the more advanced profiles. I am looking forward to trying the Allonge / Blooming Espresso profiles and tasting the flavour differences in the cup.
> 
> I will update my journey on the thread if anyone is interested...
> 
> View attachment 52120
> 
> 
> View attachment 52121


 Nice choice on the clear case! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the beast


----------



## Stephen Prosser

Once I hear from the city on an equipment grant for small business next week, I am pulling the trigger on my coffee shop equipment. Almost everything espresso related will be decent...barista kit, skale, knockbox, pitcher rinser, tea portafilter.

Going for two XXLs. Taking the risk on no double boiler for quality. Glad to see the steam power update, regardless of cost.

Incredibly excited and scared, haha! My home setup is nowhere close to what my shop is about to look like 🤣.

See you soon decent ✌✌


----------



## Jony

You must be wedged that's a lot of machine for shop, what's your footfall going to be. And what grinders will otu be using.


----------



## TomR

Stephen Prosser said:


> Once I hear from the city on an equipment grant for small business next week, I am pulling the trigger on my coffee shop equipment. Almost everything espresso related will be decent...barista kit, skale, knockbox, pitcher rinser, tea portafilter.
> 
> Going for two XXLs. Taking the risk on no double boiler for quality. Glad to see the steam power update, regardless of cost.
> 
> Incredibly excited and scared, haha! My home setup is nowhere close to what my shop is about to look like 🤣.
> 
> See you soon decent ✌✌


 Where will your shop be? Id love to come


----------



## Stephen Prosser

TomR said:


> Where will your shop be? Id love to come


 Hazard, KY USA


----------



## TomR

Stephen Prosser said:


> Hazard, KY USA


 Ok. Im in london england so it might be a while

good luck getting set up


----------



## decent_espresso

May I ask what roast level are the beans you're using? The chart looks to me like your shot is a bit too fine for a medium or lighter bean, but would give you a very nice super-thick traditional lever shot, from a medium dark to dark roasted bean.

-john



shaunlawler said:


> The picture below is the graph of the first shot on the suggested 'Default' profile. This was an 18g dose in and 36g liquid out. The taste was actually very balanced for the first run and initial impressions are very good.
> 
> View attachment 52121


----------



## decent_espresso

*The Ten Minute Challenge*

I frequently get questions from potential café customers asking "will the decent be fast enough?"

My response is usually two-fold:



plan on about 1 minute to make an espresso drink, and 2 minutes for a milk drink


and what is their forecasted max drinks/hour, during the morning rush?


But while those "1 minute espresso, 2 minute latte" timings are estimates that I think are honest, I haven't actually tried it and timed myself.

So recently, each Friday afternoon, I've been making espresso at full speed, on my two-DE1XL coffee cart, for about ten minutes. It's taking me an average of 45 seconds to make a Londinium-recipe espresso. I made 16 of them in 12 minutes, this past Friday. This my setup:
﻿







﻿
I'm fairly happy with this speed, as I'm doing a bunch of "specialty coffee things" that a normal cafe would say they don't have time for, such as:



weighing every dose as I go, to 15g, +/-0.2g


use a slow, single dose grinder (the Niche) so I have no bean aging from a hopper


using a funnel on the portafilter, while I grind.


grooming the puck with WDT, then tap the portafilter, then tamp


Yet still, I'm at 45 seconds on average. There are two "tricks", though:


I have a 3rd portafilter, that allows me to have a portafilter prepped when the espresso ends. I can swap the portafilter and hit start, right away. Or to grind while espresso is keeping the two machines busy.


Espresso making is the slowest process, especially with the Londonium recipe, which is a fairly long and slow one, with about 20s of preinfusion. But it tastes great.


The pitcher rinser makes portafilter cleaning much faster, about 5 seconds total to knock the puck out, rinse the portafilter and dry it.


A portafilter stand so I don't have to mind the portafilter during grinding.


My goal is to have a workflow where:



I never stop working, thus I'm never waiting


Both DE1XL machines are making espresso virtually without pause. As soon as an espresso cycle ends, I start the next espresso quickly.


On Friday, there were two times where I had to wait about 20s each time, for the espressos to finish. I wondered if a 4th portafilter would have been useful, to keep me busy.


The Ten Minute Challenge

Over the next few months, I'm going to be making videos where I see how many drinks I can make, with a certain setup, in ten minutes. I'll be trying each setup with an all-espresso menu, and again with an all-latte menu. Here are the setups I'm testing.



1 DE1XL, 1 Niche


2 DE1XL, 1 Niche (both with a without a portioning milk dispenser for making lattes)


4 DE1XL, 1 Niche, just for latte making. 2 DE1XL will make espresso, 2 will steam 200ml/8oz lattes "hands free".


Besides getting an overall feel for average time per drink, I feel that this process will also show us where time is being wasted. For example, if we can portion milk into a jug quickly and accurately, that will save 20s from having to:



remove milk thermometer from the pitcher


rinser the pitcher


put thermometer back


and there's a 5 second time savings in using a warm pitcher, which is lost if you rinse. Steam time on the DE1XXL goes from 23s to 18s for an 8os drink.


I've also realized that the "small bror" table is a bit too small, and slows me down, so we just designed and had made, a prototype DE1XL big-bror table. I had previously design this table for two DE1XL, but that's *really* crammed. With only 1 DE1XL on it's it a pleasure to use. It's amazing how much 60cm of additional width helps. Here's what that top looks like.
﻿








Next we'll be making a 3 DE1XL big-BROR table top, which can go at a right angle to this table, giving the barista easy access to 4 DE1XLs. That'll be fun to use!

I think we're a long way from 10 milk drinks in 4.5 minutes, like Dritan does. I'll be happy if we can get to half as fast as him.
﻿


----------



## shaunlawler

decent_espresso said:


> May I ask what roast level are the beans you're using? The chart looks to me like your shot is a bit too fine for a medium or lighter bean, but would give you a very nice super-thick traditional lever shot, from a medium dark to dark roasted bean.
> -john


It was a medium roast coffee bean, although on the darker side of medium.
@decent_espresso ;can I ask what data you can see which suggests that the grind may be too fine for this shot?

I am still trying to understand the variables / data and actual changes in the cup.

It did taste very good, especially for my first shot, and I am enjoying the process of learning the machine and how it changes my understanding of making well extracted coffee specific to a certain type of coffee bean/roast level.


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## decent_espresso

shaunlawler said:


> It was a medium roast coffee bean, although on the darker side of medium..


 In which case the grind was likely appropriate, and it should have given you a very intense chocolate hit, and very thick body.



shaunlawler said:


> It was a medium roast coffee bean, although on the darker side of medium.
> @decent_espresso ;can I ask what data you can see which suggests that the grind may be too fine for this shot?
> 
> I am still trying to understand the variables / data and actual changes in the cup.
> 
> It did taste very good, especially for my first shot, and I am enjoying the process of learning the machine and how it changes my understanding of making well extracted coffee specific to a certain type of coffee bean/roast level.


 Your flow rate after preinfusion was around 0.4ml/s. That's quite slow, but around 0.5 ml/s is typical for ultra-thick, syrupy shots that develop slowly. Your final flow rate was around 1.4 ml/s, which is good as it means you didn't channel and have your shot speed up due to that.

Your overall shot time of 39s is also typical of a slow lever shot, and appropriate to this style.

If you went slightly coarser, aiming for a post-preinfusion flow rate of 1 ml/s, and ending around 2.5 ml/s, you will get less body, but your espresso flavors should open up more. However, with a darker bean, that might bring out burnt flavors. A very slow extraction like you did tends to hide unpleasant flavors in darker roasts, and highlight chocolate.

A faster flow rate (1ml/s start to 2.5 ml/s at the end) is what I'd recommend if you moved toward a medium roasted bean, that still had a dominant chocolate note, but other flavors as well. That is FYI what I make most of, as I favor medium-light roasts, which give a "chocolate+" flavor. Still traditional, still good with milk, but a bit more sophisticated.


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## decent_espresso

*3 Group Decent Espresso Machine*

As part of the "Ten Minute Challenge" I'm starting to think about how to speed up how many coffees can be made per hour in a cafe.

We've designed a 3 group table top, that will fit on IKEA's BROR table, which costs just USD$149. You buy the table at your local IKEA, but use our precut and nicely finished, replacement tabletop.

This functions like a traditional 3 group machine, except that each group is independent, and you get 3 separate steaming stations. With the upcoming DE1XXL higher powered model, and hands-free steaming, you should be able to make drinks fairly quickly with this setup.

Traditional commercial espresso machines build everything into one box. This looks impressive on the bar, but it has some disadvantages:



one fault can bring all the group heads down at once, so you can't make make any espresso at all


it's very heavy, so that shipping has to be on a pallet, and repairs have to be on premises, since shipping the machine for repairs is not feasible. Moving the machine usually takes 2 people.


it limits the workflow possibilities you have.


We took a different approach, of only making single group espresso machines, with each one is totally separate from the other.



If one goes down, the other two still work.


The weight, at 21kg, is light enough to send via UPS to us for a quick repair, which is why we include a suitcase with each machine.


You can position the machines as you wish, in whatever way works best for your workflow.


In a few weeks, we'll be selling this new tabletop. Like the previous tops, it will be priced https://decentespresso.com/c?filter=bror at our cost. We aren't in the furniture business, so we're not looking to profit from selling you this wood top. Our value add is in the espresso equipment we make.

-john


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## decent_espresso

*A Safer DE1XL*

With the current DE1XL espresso machine we sell, when you remove the magnetic-locked back panel, you can then see the metal back of the espresso machine. If you were looking to hurt yourself, you could get a screwdriver and start poking into the few exposed holes on the back, which are there for ventilation, and to not block the Bluetooth antenna signal. Since the back is customer facing, there's a risk that some child might try to pry off the back and then try to get into further trouble.

You can see how this magnetic panel works in more detail in this video as well as on the top left photo above: 





It's unlikely that most people would do such a silly thing, but.... to make the DE1XL back as safe as the other models we sell, next month we're going to start putting two back panels on these models.

There will be an internal panel that is visible only when you remove the outer panel. You can see that panel on the top right of the photo above.

This change makes the final panel mount 1mm deeper, so the overlap of the metal case is 1mm less. However, I think it still looks pretty good.

For existing DE1XL owners who want to do this to their existing machines, we'll have a kit we can send you, that we'll include for free with any other purchase you make with us.


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## decent_espresso

*LEVA on DE1 with Smart Espresso Profiler (SEP)*

Gabor from SEP shared with me this video he made, of capturing a La Marzocco LEVA shot with SEP, and then recreating it with the DE1 and SEP software.






The SEP support for the DE1 is something we're testing now here at Decent, and we'll be making several videos to show you how to use this. The SEP software is free of cost to use, for DE1 users, and works with all models we have made that have a group head controller on it.


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## Axel

I am about to place an order but want the machine to be „spouse proof",

my wife is more „analogue" oriented and would much more prefer to operate the de1 exclusively via GHC. Now she will not make more than one kind of drink, a capu and sometimes a rare espresso. Now I can of course have a profile set for her cup to be triggered through the grouphead. But what if she has to entertain company and she wants to make two cappus at the same time? Would she be able to do that without using the tablet at all? I have to have the option to keep it really simple otherwise acceptance of the de1 would suffer and she would want the E61 back on the counter.

Sorry for that very basic question but kind of important to have a sophisticated as well as simple mode avaiable.


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## filthynines

Axel said:


> I am about to place an order but want the machine to be „spouse proof",
> 
> my wife is more „analogue" oriented and would much more prefer to operate the de1 exclusively via GHC. Now she will not make more than one kind of drink, a capu and sometimes a rare espresso. Now I can of course have a profile set for her cup to be triggered through the grouphead. But what if she has to entertain company and she wants to make two cappus at the same time? Would she be able to do that without using the tablet at all? I have to have the option to keep it really simple otherwise acceptance of the de1 would suffer and she would want the E61 back on the counter.
> 
> Sorry for that very basic question but kind of important to have a sophisticated as well as simple mode avaiable.


 Either you or she would need to set the profile to be used, but then she will be able to use the GHC alone based upon the pre-selected profile. You could even switch off the tablet once the profile is selected.


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## Axel

Yes I understand this, the question is could the same profil cater for a single and a double capu ?? Would that require to stop manualy instead of using volumetric stop?


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## _HH_

Axel said:


> Yes I understand this, the question is could the same profil cater for a single and a double capu ?? Would that require to stop manualy instead of using volumetric stop?


 If she were to use a double spouted portafilter and split the second double to make a single, then it would be exactly the same. If she wanted to make a single, it would require a different basket and ground setting, so splitting the shot would be much easier.


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## decent_espresso

*Here is a tip for realtime control with the GHC and the SEP software*

Use another finger (or hand) to touch the machine chassis. This will ground you, and greatly lower the signal-to-noise ratio on the group head controller, so that it can be more accurate.

Also, putting a lot of flesh from your finger on the controller, rather than the tip of your finger, is good. That will also help get a good reading.


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## decent_espresso

*Dark Mode Insight, and Refresh*
﻿
I'm working with DE1 customer Veronica to make a Dark Mode version of the Insight Skin, and also to refresh the Light Mode to be more polished.

Veronica is a professional UI designer working in Switzerland, and is doing this after-hours with me.

The Insight Skin is the default on the DE1 tablet app, and was designed by me. The original UI was made by a Bangkok-based design firm. I liked the look of it, but it was very social-media features heavy, and not so good at coffee workflow, so I took it as the "point of departure" and did the UI work myself. However, I'm not an artist, so I always knew that eventually I'd have to circle back on this, work with someone who really is a pro at this, and polish the user interface.

This is still a month or two away from happening.

The image above shows the work in progress. Veronica is redrawing the UI from scratch, using the program Sketch https://www.sketch.com/

As always, this will be a free update, and the source files for this UI will be made available for anyone who wants to use them to make their own skins.

-john


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## decent_espresso

New steam wand connection

Starting today, we have a custom made steam wand, that has our connector built into it, so no converter is needed.

Previously, our DE1+/DE1PRO models have used an off-the-shelf steam wand, and we've put a threaded converter on the end of it.

All the tubes in our espresso machines are solid teflon, and end with a clip connector design made popular in Nespresso machines. Think what you will of their drink quality, but those Swiss designed Nespresso machines just don't have mechanical problems. I've never seen one leak, and in fact, the entire espresso industry is slowly moving to this connector style.

This "clip connector" is self-sealing and only needs a paperclip like piece of metal to hold the tube in. A silicone o-ring finishes the job. The tube can freely move when there's no pressure.

These amazing connections are totally resistant to thermal cycling, something which frequently destroys traditional espresso machines that use screwing connectors or (worse) welded connections.

The solid teflon resists calcium adhering to it, and is also a good insulator. Copper tubes, in traditional machines, cake up with calcium over time, and also look heat to their surroundings, stealing steam power and heating up your room.

As Decent has grown, our buying power has enabled us to get parts manufacturers to make things specifically for our needs. We couldn't get this done 5 years ago.

The advantages of the new steam connectors:



one less piece to leak (no threaded adaptor is needed)


less heat loss, for more powerful steam


easiest installation/changing


the tube bend is less angled, so we don't need to worry about kinking the steam tube.


Like most improvements we make, this one is compatible with all previous DE1 models, and available at a low cost to existing customers: https://decentespresso.com/c?s=72057+1

-john


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## decent_espresso

*New: prettier back panels*

We've switched to a new kind of opaque plastic for our espresso machine back panels.

We've made them thicker, opaque, matte finished, and achieved a significantly better color match with the powder coat paint on the metal chassis.

I'm really pleased with the result.

We did use the same color for those panels in the machines we've built until now, but because the reflectivity and transparency is different from metal, the colors did not match all that well. Also, on the white DE1XL, it really bothered me that the metal magnet pads could be seen through the translucent plastic.

The top left two photos (black and white machines) show the older panels, used until recently for the 2500 espresso machines we've sold.

We're selling these new panels at a low cost
https://decentespresso.com/c?s=273+1+73575+1+73585+1

However, I'm happy to send one of these new matte back panels to you for free, if you're an existing DE1 owner, if you buy anything else from us (such as a milk jug, tamper, thermometer, etc...).

If you'd like one of these new panels for your DE1, please https://decentespresso.com/contact us before you pay for your next order, and we'll add the appropriate panel to your invoice, at zero cost to you.

We started using these matte panels exclusively around two weeks ago, but I only had 100pcs, as a first sample shipment. I wanted to wait until we had enough of these before I offered them as a free upgrade to existing customers. 2000 of these came in a few days ago, so now I can!

I much prefer these new panels, and I hope you'll prefer them too.

-john


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## xhr16888

Hello, boss. When have the model that can do espresso and steam at the same time? I don't mind 16A.


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## Coffee by the Casuals

xhr16888 said:


> Hello, boss. When have the model that can do espresso and steam at the same time? I don't mind 16A.


 Not part of the company, but it's repeatedly been said that Decent Espresso won't be releasing a machine that does both at the same time.


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## InfamousTuba

This is the video explaining why just for any further clarification:


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## decent_espresso

*﻿Video: 10 minute challenge: espresso, 2x DE1*

The ten minute challenge is where I try to make as many of a single type of drink, with varied espresso setups, in ten minutes.

This is the first one we've made, where I use two DE1XL and a Niche grinder, to make just espressos.

I've intentionally made this not into a competition sport:



I haven't prepped anything, nor practiced this setup, when I first do it, so you can see what a real-world experience of this is like


I'm doing a lot of fussy "specialty coffee" things that slow me down. Why? Because my goal is not "to make the fastest coffee" at a cost to the drink quality. I want to "to make good coffee, fast". Good coffee is the goal.


I have someone chattering at me the whole time, engaging me in conversation. This constantly breaks my concentration. This is meant to be like a real cafe or a real home, where customers or children would be distracting you. Making good coffee, fast shouldn't be antisocial, and should be able to survive constant distraction.


LESSONS LEARNED

After filming and watching this video, I learned a whole lotta things:



I do not have a consistent workflow at all. Often, I could be running the grinder, but I forgot. Or, I could have weighed the next bean dose, but I didn't.


I make a lot of mistakes, especially with getting a cup under the portafilter after hitting start. My cups are not at hand, and where I put my drinks when they're done, is not close either. This makes them not part of my workflow.


I have done this a few times before, on my own (to make espressos for the weekend away from work). Without distraction I was much faster (45 seconds per espresso, vs 60 seconds).


I never managed to get both espresso machines going at the same time. This is largely because I had no workflow planned and didn't get my portafilters prepped in time.


At one point in the video, I prepare a puck, lock it in the machine, and then forget to his start. Whoops. A minute later, I look at the idle machine, take the portafilter out and knock the puck out.


The slower Londonium espresso profile was not an obstacle here. The problem was me.


Coming soon (already filmed):



I make 10 minutes of lattes with this setup


and I move to another setup with just 1 DE1XL and a Niche, to make espressos


Spoiler alert:



In the next video, you'll see that I'm able to make the same number of drinks with one DE1XL as with two DE1XL. Most of the mistakes I do in today's video don't occur with one machine. Probably because one DE1XL/Niche has been my home setup for a few years. I'm comfortable with it and have a smooth workflow.


Still to film:



lattes with 1 DE1XL and a Niche


In this video, I managed 10 espressos.


One more espresso was almost finished at 10:00


And another espresso should have been there, but was distracted, forgot to hit START and threw away the puck after a confused minute.


So.... 12 espressos in ten minutes should be easily doable, which is an espresso every 50 seconds. But I think I could do a lot better, too. As I speed up my workflow, we're going to find new things that are the bottlenecks. I might need another Niche grinder, for instance.

 Thanks for watching!

-john


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## coldcoffee

Is there a YouTuber who is filming content with Decent DE1+/Pro etc? Wanted to watch someone's journey before jumping in


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## Mark70

coldcoffee said:


> Is there a YouTuber who is filming content with Decent DE1+/Pro etc? Wanted to watch someone's journey before jumping in


 Have a look at Brian Quan He's done a few videos


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## decent_espresso

coldcoffee said:


> Is there a YouTuber who is filming content with Decent DE1+/Pro etc? Wanted to watch someone's journey before jumping in


 Search for "Decent Espresso" on Youtube and you'll find a lot of them.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=decent+espresso


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## decent_espresso

Coffee by the Casuals said:


> Not part of the company, but it's repeatedly been said that Decent Espresso won't be releasing a machine that does both at the same time.





xhr16888 said:


> Hello, boss. When have the model that can do espresso and steam at the same time? I don't mind 16A.


 Our machines only have one water path at a time. It's part of the design, and has both benefits and negatives.

Cafes that want to steam during brew buy two machines, essentially creating a 2 group machine.


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## Doctor G

Guys, anyone knows if the decent can switch itself on based on a schedule? E.g. every weekday switch on at 0700am, Sat at 10am, Sun at 11am kind of thing?

Thanks!


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## arellim

Doctor G said:


> Guys, anyone knows if the decent can switch itself on based on a schedule? E.g. every weekday switch on at 0700am, Sat at 10am, Sun at 11am kind of thing?
> 
> Thanks!


 Without checking my machine, I can't remember. But with the very short warm up time (under 4 minutes I think?) I've never thought to research any further.


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## TomR

arellim said:


> Without checking my machine, I can't remember. But with the very short warm up time (under 4 minutes I think?) I've never thought to research any further.


 Yes. It has a fairly basic built in scheduling function to turn on/ off by daily timer, plus an auto off if not used for x minutes

but also true that since you are not waiting 45 minutes for 25 kg of metal to heat up, this is much less of a deal


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## olivier

I concur. Before receiving my machine I was looking into ways of remotely turning it on/off by software. Turns out it's unnecessary given the quick heat up time. It really is a great machine in many respects. Not sure what espresso machine I could fancy more than this one at the moment (maybe a DE 2 or whatever could be the next iteration in 5 years time? not even sure as a lot of potential improvements might come from the software side anyway).


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## Mark70

Looks like quite a few Decent owners on here now. I will be joining you shortly as I gradually move up the queue

Wonder if Decent could have its own section of the forum especially as John is a sponsor. It would be easier to find out more then

Thoughts?


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## decent_espresso

*BDT: Bugs Distribution Technique*

Bugs learned how to prepare a coffee puck for espresso from Scott Rao 



 but she has modified her technique to use an angled, rotating portafilter during grinding. In our tests, this is giving us the most even espresso extractions of any technique.

The name BDT is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek homage to John Weiss' popular WDT technique, which Bugs does use as well, after the coffee has been ground.

The combination of Bugs' grinding-into-the-corners approach, followed by WDT, gives us the best espresso shots we've ever seen.

You can use this technique with any grinder (such as the Niche) which does not lock the portafilter into one location.


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## decent_espresso

Mark70 said:


> Looks like quite a few Decent owners on here now. I will be joining you shortly as I gradually move up the queue
> 
> Wonder if Decent could have its own section of the forum especially as John is a sponsor. It would be easier to find out more then
> 
> Thoughts?


 Once your machine ships, you'll be invited to the Decent Diaspora, and it's likely that will fulfill all your Decent forum needs. It's the reason why there is so little owner-postings here, as that all happens on Diaspora.


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## Michael87

EDIT - [I had misunderstood how this tamper works, so the following is all incorrect!]

I have an observation/question on the decent tamper v3 (self-levelling), keen to hear others' thoughts.

The tamper calibration seems to work by restricting the downward travel of the tamp head into the basket, i.e. a depth limit, rather than a force limit. That means it is pushing however much coffee into the same volume, which means the puck density directly changes as you vary dose. So if you dose up, you may need to grind coarser to offset this extra effect.

I hadn't given this much thought until now (it's an excellent tamper) but I wondered if anyone else had noticed this effect in practice? Or maybe that is how all calibrated tampers work, I haven't owned one before!


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## decent_espresso

Michael87 said:


> I have an observation/question on the decent tamper v3 (self-levelling), keen to hear others' thoughts.
> 
> The tamper calibration seems to work by restricting the downward travel of the tamp head into the basket, i.e. a depth limit, rather than a force limit. That means it is pushing however much coffee into the same volume, which means the puck density directly changes as you vary dose. So if you dose up, you may need to grind coarser to offset this extra effect.
> 
> I hadn't given this much thought until now (it's an excellent tamper) but I wondered if anyone else had noticed this effect in practice? Or maybe that is how all calibrated tampers work, I haven't owned one before!


 Hi Michael,

I'm confused by your message, as the Decent tamper has NO depth calibration. You can tamp as deep as you like.

There are other tampers, by other companies, that feature a depth calibration, but my design does not.


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## xhr16888

Hello, any update about de1cafe? Could you tell more details about this edition? Looking forward to buy one.


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## Michael87

decent_espresso said:


> Hi Michael,
> 
> I'm confused by your message, as the Decent tamper has NO depth calibration. You can tamp as deep as you like.
> 
> There are other tampers, by other companies, that feature a depth calibration, but my design does not.


 Hello, I don't think I explained that right. I mean the tamper itself is set up in a way that allows the temping head to go down a fixed depth into the puck (but as you say this depth is not adjustable), rather than for the head to go down a fixed force. So if say someone tells me to try and tamp with 30lb of force each time, that can't be achieved with this tamper, as I am applying however much force is needed to make the tamping head reach its depth limit.


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## InfamousTuba

I thought the spring was calibrated to a certain force so if you have a 15lb spring like in the v3 you would be applying 15lb of force to compress the puck then the spring would compress if more force is applied stopping the puck from compressing further. So the tamper can only apply a fixed maximum force, the distance changes depending on when that limit is reached. If you wanted more force you could buy a different spring


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## Michael87

Yes. I had misunderstood how it works! I just tested it and it works as you say - there is sudden huge resistance at a certain depth (not the full ROM) which would be the spring engaging to counter my pushing force. I just assumed that was it hitting the max depth.

Thanks - one more (imaginary) complication eliminated!


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## Michael87

Now that that's solved, I have another question. Is there any way to work out if I have the 25/30/15lb spring? I bought my tamper second hand (which I now learned is v2). I can't figure out an easy way to measure it using scales.


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## InfamousTuba

From what I can see the v2 is 25lbs: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Calibrated-Espresso-Tamper-self-Leveling-v2/dp/B07NHZKZXR

You can also buy replacement springs, maybe taking the tamper apart you might be able to see which one it has


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## decent_espresso

InfamousTuba said:


> From what I can see the v2 is 25lbs: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Calibrated-Espresso-Tamper-self-Leveling-v2/dp/B07NHZKZXR
> 
> You can also buy replacement springs, maybe taking the tamper apart you might be able to see which one it has


 Yes, v2 is 25lbs, and v3 is 15lbs.


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## decent_espresso

*10 minute challenge #2: latte, 2x DE1 (#2)*

This is my first attempt at making lattes as fast as I can, on two Decent DE1XL espresso machines.

TLDR: I made 5 lattes, and spilled one. Scott Rao tells me that my goal should be 8 lattes in 10 minutes per barista, which would almost meet his peak when he ran his Montreal café.

Lessons learned:



I need to find one workflow, and stick to it.


When I deviate from my workflow, I make mistakes. Lots of them. I spill drinks, I forget to prep a portafilter. I forget to hit START.


I made 5 lattes, but would have made 6 if I hadn't spilled one on the floor, and possibly 7 lattes if I'd remembered to hit START sooner on another.


Ghost (hands-free) steaming works well in all cases, with the new (coming in April) DE1XL steam wand.


The auto-steam-off timer didn't produce reliable results. In order for it to be reliable, that feature needs the same amount of cool milk each time. If I don't use all the milk in the pitcher for one drink, and leave it in, my steaming time now needs to be shorter. If I don't pay attention to this, I'll overheat the milk.


So, measuring milk correctly is important, so that I use all of it for each drink.


I usually make flat white in these cups, for myself, steaming by hand (not hands free). However, ghost steaming creates latte-style foam, which is more voluminous. To compensate, I should have reduced the cold milk volume per drink from 150ml to 120ml. The extra 30ml I hadn't planned on was being used in the next drink. This was the cause of the uneven final temperature results when using timed milk steaming here. Or perhaps I should have thrown away excess milk each each pour (though I really dislike waste).


I spoke to ﻿Scott Rao Scott﻿ Rao about speed goals for cafes. He told me that, all optimised, his cafe in Montreal could crank out 100 lattes per hour, with two baristas on a La Marzocco pro machine (not sure if it was 2 or 3 group).

Per barista, this works out to 50 lattes per hour.

That works to a bit more than 8 lattes made in ten minutes (8.33, to be exact). That's 48 lattes/hour, per barista. With two baristas at two stations, each with 2 DE1XXL models, would get us to 96 lattes per hour.

So now I know my goal: to move up from 5 lattes/ten-minutes, to 8 in ten minutes.

In future episodes we'll be trying:



pre-weighed bean doses


a faster grinder


not screwing up


-john


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## decent_espresso

A new feature was added today for all DE1 owners.

Each step in an espresso making can now have a water volume limit, expressed in ml. Hitting that limit moves the recipe to the next step.

Why use this? 
- you might want to put 2x as much water in as your bean dose, to fully saturate the puck during preinfusion
- you might want to define a step in your espresso making (for example, the last part of a Blooming Shot) in terms of total water volume added into the cup
- other recipe ideas on the DE1 have been theorized, that are now easily possible.

This new feature was made available today in our beta de1app, for free, for all customers.

If you don't have a DE1, you can see the feature in our desktop app (Mac/Windows/Linux) freely downloadable at http://decentespresso.com/downloads


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## decent_espresso

*10 minute challenge #3: espresso, 1x DE1XL (#3)*

After doing two challenges with two DE1, now I'm doing two challenges with just one DE1XL machine. The idea is to see how the slowest setup performs, and then critically evaluate each speedup independently, to see what optimization yield the biggest improvements.

Lessons learned:



Big surprise: I was almost as fast with 1 DE1XL, as I was with two.


I made 9 double espressos, instead of 10, in the ten minutes. Just under 1 per minute.


If I were using a double spouted portafilter, like many cafes do, I'd be making 108 single espressos per hour.


I'm very comfortable with this setup, because it's what I've had in my home for 4 years. Because of that comfort level, my workflow is smooth, unvarying, low stress, and fairly fast.


I'm pretty sure that the weighing and grinding process is what's slowing me down the most.


The "please add water" pause on this model DE1XL slowed me down twice. This has been addressed in a recent firmware update, so that water refilling happens transparently in the background without making the barista wait.


And so, foreshading a bit.... a few days ago I repeated this same challenge (one DE1XL), but with two Niches and preweighed doses in cups. This hugely sped me up, and I managed 17 double espressos in ten minutes. This equates to 102 espressos per hour.


The next challenge is making lattes, not hands free on this 1 Niche/1 DE1XL setup.


-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*10m challenge #4: latte, 1x DE1*

In this Ten Minute Challenge I makes lattes on a coffee cart with one DE1XL machine, and one Niche grinder. Result: 5 latte drinks in ten minutes.

The big surprise is that I was as fast with one espresso machine, as I was with two espresso machines. With two machines I didn't make any more, and I was more likely to make errors, see 



 for me with two machines, making lattes.

The main lesson I learned in this video is that I should start the next espresso brewing before I pour the milk to make the latte art. I only realized this at the last step, and you can see that it'd save a lot of time.

However, in order to start the next espresso then, I'd need to have the next portafilter ready. I'm not sure if I have enough time to do that, with just one Niche grinder. It might be that I need two Niches, in order to have that next portafilter ready to go, after the milk was steamed. But maybe there is enough time... I'll have to try that workflow in the future.

Nonetheless, without rushing or stressing, I was able to make 5 lattes, from double-espressos, poured into 200ml cups, in that ten minutes. That's faster than many cafes I go to.

-john


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## benbarista

Hi John,

It is not important but couldn't you use a bigger spoon to avoid unnecessary gestures when you weight your grind? (you often use the spoon twice)

You could also use any object like a little plastic glass or cup that would fit better your specific weight!

Another idea to go faster could be to use a higher table (you bend a bit, maybe...) but I know what it means as you worked a lot around the Ikea table!


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## Michael87

It's neat to follow the progression in these videos, it's a nice way to learn little tips for saving time


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## decent_espresso

benbarista said:


> It is not important but couldn't you use a bigger spoon to avoid unnecessary gestures when you weight your grind? (you often use the spoon twice)
> 
> You could also use any object like a little plastic glass or cup that would fit better your specific weight!


 You're absolutely right, I should do that. At trade shows, where I'm making a LOT of shots, I cut a paper cut down to size, so that it gives me the same dose, for those beans, every time.

Ah, in fact, the cut-to-size cup is what I used in this video: 




and you can see how well it works. 15.2g in one motion.


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## decent_espresso

*10m challenge #5: 17 espressos=102 per hour !*

In this Ten Minute Challenge John makes espressos on a coffee cart with one DE1XL machine, two Niche grinders, and pre-weighed bean doses in paper cups. Result: 17 espressos in ten minutes, which is equal to 102 espressos per hour (17x6=102).

Lessons learned:



for the first few minutes I'm work with both Niche grinders in parallel, preparing two portafilters at a time. This was a big speedup, but I lost that work-flow after a few minutes, and reverted back to one-Niche running at a time. Since I had plenty of spare portafilters, I should have been able to continue with two-at-a-time.


17 espressos were made in 10 minutes, which averages out to 35 seconds per espresso, or 102 espressos per hour. Given that the Londinum shots run for about 30 seconds normally, it's not likely I can go much faster. Average delay between shots was thus about 5 seconds.


I had dialed in the grind in the black Niche, and set the white Niches to the same grind setting, thinking it would be the same. It wasn't: it was coarser, and so my white-Niche shots ran fast for 2 shots until I corrected this. I should independently dial in each grinder so they have the same end-shot time, and not rely on the Niche grind setting number.


Pre-weighed doses was a massive speedup, with only 5 seconds of "idle time" between each espresso shot. It's unlikely I'll be able to go any faster, since espresso takes ~30 seconds per shot, unless I bring in another espresso machine.


What about lattes? Our next challenge will be with another barista joining me, and she'll be dedicated to steaming and pouring milk. I don't know that she'll be able to keep up with the speed at which I'm putting out espressos (every 35 seconds!).


My speed goal with the DE1 is:



100 espressos/hour with one barista, and one DE1XL. Done!


100 lattes/hour with two baristas, with one DE1XL (for espresso) and one DE1XXL (for milk). Still to be proven.


-john


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## spasypaddy

so what did you do with the 17 shots??


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## decent_espresso

spasypaddy said:


> so what did you do with the 17 shots??


 I always schedule these Challenges on Friday, so I can pour all the drinks I made into a Thermos, and drink them at home, during the weekend. Until last week, I've been living in a 1 room flat with no space for a DE1 (no kitchen, actually) but just moved into a larger space last week, and getting a DE1 in the flat as soon as my Niche shows up.


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## decent_espresso

*DE1+ discontinued, DE1PRO delay, DE1XL/DE1XXL new focus*

Here at Decent HQ, we've been working 6 day weeks, with double-pay on Saturdays, to try to make enough espresso machines to keep up with orders, and to try to keep our wait time reasonable. We're not succeeding.

We can currently make about 250 espresso machines per month, if we're working 6 days a week. Historically we've managed 200 machines a month. Working saturdays, my staff will burn out in a few months, so I can't ask them to do this permanently.

Last month's DE1 sales (February 2021) were surprisingly strong (248 machines). This was 20% better than the previous best (November 2020) of 207 machines. I thought we might be able to keep up, with our 6 day working week.

Toward the end of February, and now into March, our machine sales are exploding, way beyond what we can fulfill.

The DE1XXL model was released last month, and combined with strong demand for all our models, sales this month are forecast to grow another 46% over last month's record month.

There's absolutely no way we can increase our machine production this fast. Even if we could, we'd run out of parts, because it takes about 5 months these days for us to get a new run from our suppliers.

Here's what our monthly espresso machine sales look like:
﻿







﻿
Unless we do something to dampen demand, we're going to be taking money for machines that we can't deliver for an ever increasing longer time. That's not the kind of company I want to run.

And so, effectively immediately:



we are temporarily discontinuing the DE1+ model


the DE1PRO model is still available, and we promise to deliver your order within 6 months


we will focus on DE1XL/DE1XXL production, and guarantee delivery of those orders within 4 weeks.


If you have already placed an order for a DE1+ or DE1PRO, we will honor the delivery date we stated when you paid.


I'm really sorry to have to drop the DE1+ and delay the DE1PRO, but we have to do something drastic, or otherwise we're going to trash our reputation, by taking money and not delivering as promised.

Here's a chart summarizing all this:
﻿







﻿


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## spasypaddy

decent_espresso said:


> I always schedule these Challenges on Friday, so I can pour all the drinks I made into a Thermos, and drink them at home, during the weekend. Until last week, I've been living in a 1 room flat with no space for a DE1 (no kitchen, actually) but just moved into a larger space last week, and getting a DE1 in the flat as soon as my Niche shows up.


 im pleased it didnt go to waste, but sad you didnt just stand there and drink them all and then not sleep for a week 😃


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## leemkule

decent_espresso said:


> *DE1+ discontinued, DE1PRO delay, DE1XL/DE1XXL new focus*
> 
> Here at Decent HQ, we've been working 6 day weeks, with double-pay on Saturdays, to try to make enough espresso machines to keep up with orders, and to try to keep our wait time reasonable. We're not succeeding.
> 
> We can currently make about 250 espresso machines per month, if we're working 6 days a week. Historically we've managed 200 machines a month. Working saturdays, my staff will burn out in a few months, so I can't ask them to do this permanently.
> 
> Last month's DE1 sales (February 2021) were surprisingly strong (248 machines). This was 20% better than the previous best (November 2020) of 207 machines. I thought we might be able to keep up, with our 6 day working week.
> 
> Toward the end of February, and now into March, our machine sales are exploding, way beyond what we can fulfill.
> 
> The DE1XXL model was released last month, and combined with strong demand for all our models, sales this month are forecast to grow another 46% over last month's record month.
> 
> There's absolutely no way we can increase our machine production this fast. Even if we could, we'd run out of parts, because it takes about 5 months these days for us to get a new run from our suppliers.
> 
> Here's what our monthly espresso machine sales look like:
> ﻿
> View attachment 54087
> 
> ﻿
> Unless we do something to dampen demand, we're going to be taking money for machines that we can't deliver for an ever increasing longer time. That's not the kind of company I want to run.
> 
> And so, effectively immediately:
> 
> 
> 
> we are temporarily discontinuing the DE1+ model
> 
> 
> the DE1PRO model is still available, and we promise to deliver your order within 6 months
> 
> 
> we will focus on DE1XL/DE1XXL production, and guarantee delivery of those orders within 4 weeks.
> 
> 
> If you have already placed an order for a DE1+ or DE1PRO, we will honor the delivery date we stated when you paid.
> 
> 
> I'm really sorry to have to drop the DE1+ and delay the DE1PRO, but we have to do something drastic, or otherwise we're going to trash our reputation, by taking money and not delivering as promised.
> 
> Here's a chart summarizing all this:
> ﻿
> View attachment 54088
> 
> ﻿


 This is so utterly disappointing for those of us who have been saving up to be able to get a DE1+. I don't want to wait 6 months and I don't want the larger machine much more expensive machine, I think you'll lose a lot of business doing this.


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## ARN22340

leemkule said:


> This is so utterly disappointing for those of us who have been saving up to be able to get a DE1+. I don't want to wait 6 months and I don't want the larger machine much more expensive machine, I think you'll lose a lot of business doing this.


 would have been more appropriate to say "effective 31 March"... I was going to order at the weekend when work slowed 😞


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## leemkule

ARN22340 said:


> would have been more appropriate to say "effective 31 March"... I was going to order at the weekend when work slowed 😞


 Yeah I can understand their reasoning but it's quite a thing to do to prospective customers at the drop of a hat. They could have given some warning like you say. I'm not prepared to wait 6 months and I'm also not going to pay an extra £800 for a machine that offers me nothing extra, so I'll spend my money elsewhere.

It's a shame, I was so interested and inspired by what Decent have been doing, but this is the slap in the face to prospective customers. I understand they're worried about their reputation but as far as I'm concerned this has already damaged it quite enough.


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## Baffo

leemkule said:


> Yeah I can understand their reasoning but it's quite a thing to do to prospective customers at the drop of a hat. They could have given some warning like you say. I'm not prepared to wait 6 months and I'm also not going to pay an extra £800 for a machine that offers me nothing extra, so I'll spend my money elsewhere.
> 
> It's a shame, I was so interested and inspired by what Decent have been doing, but this is the slap in the face to prospective customers. I understand they're worried about their reputation but as far as I'm concerned this has already damaged it quite enough.


 I understand it may be frustrating, but I don't know how you can't see that giving the warning would have had the worst effect possible, with even more people piling their orders in, and so instead of a challenging 362 orders they would have had 462 to fulfil..

There was no good way to do this, but the way you are proposing it be done is possibly the worst.


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## leemkule

Baffo said:


> I understand it may be frustrating, but I don't know how you can't see that giving the warning would have had the worst effect possible, with even more people piling their orders in, and so instead of a challenging 362 orders they would have had 462 to fulfil..
> 
> There was no good way to do this, but the way you are proposing it be done is possibly the worst.


 I understand the dilemma they're in, it's not exactly complicated. Just a blanket cut off of the orders or a massive delay or being funnelled into ordering a machine that doesn't suit my needs (as well as being a lot more expensive) in reality wasn't their only option, it's the one they chose, so I feel like it's fair that I can give my opinion on it.

I see your point regarding giving warning, I guess that would have cause a flood of extra orders, but just a flat cut off is really harsh on those who have been waiting to order and has kind of killed the company as an option for me.


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## Baffo

leemkule said:


> I understand the dilemma they're in, it's not exactly complicated. Just a blanket cut off of the orders or a massive delay or being funnelled into ordering a machine that doesn't suit my needs (as well as being a lot more expensive) in reality wasn't their only option, it's the one they chose, so I feel like it's fair that I can give my opinion on it.
> 
> I see your point regarding giving warning, I guess that would have cause a flood of extra orders, but just a flat cut off is really harsh on those who have been waiting to order and has kind of killed the company as an option for me.


 It is harsh, and not fair for sure that they'd do this. But they got to a point where they can't keep up with demand. I don't think Decent are happy about losing sales either..

I definitely don't know of a better solution myself, perhaps there might have been one, perhaps not.


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## catpuccino

I'm a little burned myself as had a milestone in mind in the near future when I wanted to order one.

I like the way Decent does business, so it's with regret I say that I don't find not being able to manage a 3x order increase in 12 months particularly encouraging or that it's fair to say it's particularly unexpected, given the rise in enthusiast home brewing over the last year and the increased attention Decent have recieved as a unique value proposition (mainly driven by the home market which is now locked out!). I am suprised the company hasn't been able to build in more resiliance, perhaps by capping orders earlier, because those numbers aren't taking the company to the moon, they're just good growth.

Whether we can buy one now is neither here nor there, and I'm sure though drastic this is a case of limiting damage in the best way John sees fit. But I would say that when and if the DE1+ comes back, you'll have some rebuilding of confidence to do. If I'm spending £3,200 on the base model of a machine from a relatively unknown company, I want that company to assure me they'll be around in 5 years time. This is a big step back on that front.


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## leemkule

Baffo said:


> It is harsh, and not fair for sure that they'd do this. But they got to a point where they can't keep up with demand. I don't think Decent are happy about losing sales either..
> 
> I definitely don't know of a better solution myself, perhaps there might have been one, perhaps not.


 Yeah I guess as they see it it was their best option, I'm sure they're unhappy about it too. I'm just frustrated as given everything going on and the seemingly never ending lockdown it was quite a really big thing in my life that I was looking forward to. I know it's ultimately just coffee, but it's that sort of thing that keeps you going.


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## leemkule

catpuccino said:


> Whether we can buy one nor is neither here nor there, and I'm sure though drastic this is a case of limiting damage in the best way John sees fit. But I would say that when and if the DE1+ comes back, you'll have some rebuilding of confidence to do. If I'm spending £3,200 on the base model of a machine from a relatively unknown company, I want that company to assure me they'll be around in 5 years time. This is a big step back on that front.


 I think this is more eloquently put (rather than my upset ramblings). It's the sense that if they can't scale to a reasonable degree given the extra demand (we're not talking thousands of extra orders here), then what's their future like? I'm sure I saw a video where the owner basically said that he didn't want to scale in terms of staff numbers and was more focussed on getting the production time down with the same amount of staff. However, wouldn't it make more sense to do both?

Anyway I'm not a businessman and I wouldn't do any better if I were in his position, but it definitely affects my confidence in the company.


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## Baffo

@leemkule I want to point out that I don't find your "ramblings" inappropriate or unjustified. It was just the proposed solution that I found to be not the best fit for the situation.

And I do agree that it is not confidence inspiring and that if I were a prospective customer, I'd have wanted to read a plan, or at least a vision, on how these problems (if excess demand can be called a problem) will be tackled in the future. Decent order book is not going to shrink over time, so a long term plan is in order..


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## leemkule

Baffo said:


> @leemkule I want to point out that I don't find your "ramblings" inappropriate or unjustified. It was just the proposed solution that I found to be not the best fit for the situation.
> 
> And I do agree that it is not confidence inspiring and that if I were a prospective customer, I'd have wanted to read a plan, or at least a vision, on how these problems (if excess demand can be called a problem) will be tackled in the future. Decent order book is not going to shrink over time, so a long term plan is in order..


 Yeah, I had misinterpreted you initially but quickly realised I hadn't read it properly because I was upset, thanks for clarifying though. I also don't want to be overly harsh on the Decent owner (sorry don't know his name), probably a difficult time as it is.

I agree entirely with the last part of your post, when I think of other companies, you'd expect them to have this all planned out, however I suppose I'm comparing my expectations of much larger companies to a smaller one. I guess time will tell what happens, for now I'm pretty much forced to spend my money elsewhere. I can't tolerate going to cafe's and standing in line for the next 6 months!


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## Stevebee

They have increased both labour and square footage of the factories to increase output. However, even if they could triple assembly overnight, they would just run out of parts sooner and assembly would stop. Some of the parts probably have long lead times and are bespoke and whilst they may have increased these in the pipeline if orders are always increasing more than planned they are playing catch-up. A difficult position to be in but way better than no orders at all.


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## ARN22340

For me I had intended to buy their accessories but all it means is I won't be getting the other nice shiny bits I had intended. In reflection I probably have enough of those already

Outcome is the actual cost from my pocket is not much more


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## decent_espresso

A few comments on the above discussion:



As I wrote in the message on the previous page, the lead time for espresso-machine parts in a COVID world is 5 months. Even if we could double production overnight, we would then face a factory closure for about 2 months, as we waited for parts. We last week increased our next-batch order for parts for 3000 machines.


We have increased staff 50% in the past 4 months, and doubled the factory size, from 6,000 to 12,000 sq feet.


Yesterday we sold 11 machines, despite the change. 8 DE1PRO, and 3 DE1XL. 11x30 = 330 machines/month, which is still more than we can make per month. Correction, the day had not yet finished, and we ended up selling 15 machines that day after that announcement, of which 10 were DE1PRO. That's still almost 2x what we can make in a month at the moment.


Each machine takes about 10 man-hours to make. This isn't a stamped out widget. Despite it being a high tech machine, it's very much hand-made.


A few years ago, Martin from Niche did a deep audit of our machine and build process. His whole career has been Chinese manufacture of kitchen appliances. He flat out said this machine could not be built in China, and only Germany or Switzerland could do the quality and complexity required to build this, if we want to outsource. This is why we build the DE1 with our own staff: virtually all of them have engineering degrees, and we do not outsource assembly.


An order-cut-off is what Niche and Monolith have opted to do, to deal with demand outstripping supply. Their approach is not without its downsides, specifically people who want the product, but cannot buy it, nor even get on a waiting list. Niche is currently getting a lot of forum-hate due to this approach.


Actual machines shipping per month has been climbing nicely in 2020. We're shipping about 4x more/month than we were a year ago. Here are the actual numbers of DE1 machines shipped. The trend is positive, and fairly fast, but speeding things up like this isn't a "snap your fingers" kind of thing.


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## decent_espresso

New steam wand tools

When you buy our XL steam wand upgrade kit, we include two wrenches, to help people change between the standard steam wand and the XL one. We also routinely send the wrenches out for free to any owner who indicates that they could use them.

We designed the wrenches ourselves, because our stuff ships air mail, and sending two very heavy, cast-steel wrenches by plane isn't smart. We needed them to be lighter. Our first design (bottom right of the photo) was primitive, and still quite heavy.

We're revising this tool to be both lighter and multipurpose. You can now:



change the steam wand (needs two different wrenches)


tighten the ball joint on the steam wand (in case it loosens and leaks)


remove the steam wand tip (for thorough cleaning, for example)


with holes for mounting the tools on a wall.


and it's quite a bit lighter, as its being made from stronger metal, which allowed us to go thinner.


When these newly revised tools come in, we'll continue to send it along to customers who might be able to use it. I think we'll have them in about 8 weeks.

-john


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## Michael87

I was going to write last night but I can't see a better way to handle this. A company going for pure shareholder profit would just increase the price to keep orders manageable and take more profit, or one with less integrity would let the queue grow and grow without being up front about delays. Or just outsource production to a different factory and let quality slip. This happens all the time. So it's obviously very disappointing right now if you're planning to buy one, but in the long run it's definitely the most positive option for the company to take.


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## GazRef

The up front communication is infinitely better than talking payments on orders that cant be delivered. Don't see how anyone can be upset about that.

The decision to pull the cheapest model, of an already expensive machine, means the price of ownership just went up by a decent chunk. Does shut up a slice of potential customers but its a logical business decision. You have to accept it if you want what Decent sell. Otherwise vote with your feet. I'm sure Decent will evolve if better solutions present.


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## gac

While I understand in this modern era patience in want gratification is in very short supply, I remember paying in full for my DE1+V1.0 in the days when it was still vapourware. I can't remember which of 12 or 18 months was the wait for delivery of my version 1.0 machine. But all I can say from my own experience with my DE, is that a 6 month wait would be entirely worth it. I look at the limitations of all those shiny HX and similar machines and am so grateful that I can adjust my machine to the coffee and not always the other way round. I occasionally fire up my old HX to remind myself of how cludgy and limiting coffee making was before. 

I'm not starry eyed about the DE. Being there from early days means I've seen and sometimes struggled with lots of issues. But I have also seen those issues go away with later iterations of hardware and software. It's a much better experience these days - and for any serious coffee hobbyist - certainly worth the wait for a lower end model.


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## decent_espresso

I do need to make clear that if you order a DE1PRO, we promise to deliver it within 6 months, no matter what, but it's immensely likely that it'll be *much sooner than that. *

However, people really scream at us if we miss our estimated ship date by even one week, and so to avoid letting people down, we're no longer promising a quick turnaround date on the DE1PRO.

However, you can look at the https://decentespresso.com/queue and take a guess as to how long it'll actually be.

Daily orders are currently sitting at about 2x more than what we can actually produce, but since this big upward leap is relatively recent (past 2 weeks), the order queue is not yet looking badly delayed.


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## ARN22340

gac said:


> While I understand in this modern era patience in want gratification is in very short supply, I remember paying in full for my DE1+V1.0 in the days when it was still vapourware. I can't remember which of 12 or 18 months was the wait for delivery of my version 1.0 machine. But all I can say from my own experience with my DE, is that a 6 month wait would be entirely worth it. I look at the limitations of all those shiny HX and similar machines and am so grateful that I can adjust my machine to the coffee and not always the other way round. I occasionally fire up my old HX to remind myself of how cludgy and limiting coffee making was before.
> 
> I'm not starry eyed about the DE. Being there from early days means I've seen and sometimes struggled with lots of issues. But I have also seen those issues go away with later iterations of hardware and software. It's a much better experience these days - and for any serious coffee hobbyist - certainly worth the wait for a lower end model.


 Nice to hear. I ordered a DE1XL yesterday which apparently should be here in 5 weeks, if it is later then so be it. I did not go for the DE1PRO as the quoted 26 weeks was too long for me.


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## decent_espresso

Reporting back on sales since I announced the big changes:
- DE1+ discontinued
- DE1PRO no longer promising fast delivery
- DE1XL delivers under 4 weeks.

Before the change:
- 11.4 machines sold per day (342/month)
- 27% DE1XL/DE1XXL

After the change:
- 11 machines sold per day (330/month)
- 73% DE1XL/DE1XXL

However, we did sell 15 machines on the first day, and then 9/day afterwards, which skews the 3 day average. Our average going forward might be 9/day.

9/day would be great, actually, as I think a realistic maximum number of machines that we can manufacture each month is 300 machines/month. So... I'm trying to get sales volume into that range. Selling 9/day on average would allow us to send machines out to buyers on a timely basis, with little waiting, which is my goal.

Obviously, I have no idea how these numbers will look in a few months. We managed to ship 161 machines in February, so a goal of 9 machines shipped per day (270/month) is already very ambitious, and I don't dare aim for more than that.

﻿-john


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## Stevebee

There will be a DE1 Pro v1.3 in the For Sale section soon I believe @leemkule if you haven't already chosen a different machine


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## decent_espresso

A few weeks ago I read Dennis Hew's ebook https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08V1X75JG/ on latte art, and really enjoyed it.

However, I do think it's mis-titled, because the first 150 pages don't discuss milk at all, and are instead an excellent beginner's guide to espresso making.

I particularly liked the ample illustrations, because I was able to flip through, not reading the text, and only looking at the illustrations, to decide if I wanted to read that section. Very reader-friendly.

I contacted Dennis and he & I have worked out a deal, where he's helping us make a Decent-specific version of his book. We're adding new chapters and illustrations, and I have two staff members here in HK working on it with him. We're hoping to get it done within 2 months. Fairly fast, yes, as we'd already gotten started on our own beginner's book.

This ebook will be available for free from our web site, and also available as a print-on-demand or Kindle from Amazon.

As more and more new-to-espresso people are buying Decents, I felt we really needed to improve what we did for them, so that they can go from zero espresso knowledge to making something they're happy with. Dennis' book is almost ready-to-go, and with his illustrations, is better than what we would have cooked up on our own.

And now...please help me pick a better book title. "Be Decent at Espresso" was only meant as a placeholder, and is pretty weak. If you have any suggestions for the title of this beginner-book, please make then below. Thank you!

-john


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## leemkule

Stevebee said:


> There will be a DE1 Pro v1.3 in the For Sale section soon I believe @leemkule if you haven't already chosen a different machine


 Thanks for the heads up, I bought a Linea Mini instead.


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## decent_espresso

*Decent Espresso CAD files*

Ben today updated the CAD files for our espresso models, which are freely available on our web site.

I thought I'd make a little video about this, and show you some of the uses the CAD files are put (thanks ﻿Sheldon!).

And also to remind you that you can find the CAD files here https://decentespresso.com/overview

The OnShape versions of the drawings are particularly useful, as their no cost, web-based CAD software is very nicely done.


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## decent_espresso

Help me choose a Decent book title, take this survey:
https://www.survey-maker.com/QLH27Y4BI


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## decent_espresso

*New coffee cart designs*

Today we've added two new coffee cart designs. There's a more roomy 1 DE1XL/XXL top, and the exact opposite goa: a 3 DE1XL/DE1XXL top for high volume. https://decentespresso.com/coffeecart







﻿
﻿
In the video I made showing my coffee cart:
﻿






﻿you can see printed foam panels cover the tubing and other ugly-but-necessary stuff inside the cart. To mount those, you need longer bolts, and we sourced nice flat ones, black, of the right length.

﻿







﻿

The goal is to provide you with everything you need to put together a Decent cart using IKEA cheap-but-fantastic BROR system.

We're also in the process of revamping the way we present our espresso machines. Instead of priotizing the model name, we're focussing on how they're going to sit and look in your space. That's actually the main difference between the models, except for the DE1XXL being faster at steaming. https://decentespresso.com/compare

Here's what the new home page looks like now, introducing the machines:

﻿







﻿
Again, the goal is to simplify and clarify.

There's still lots of work to do, especially about how to reorganize the huge amount of information and videos we have, to make things easier for you when you visit our site.

-john


----------



## Stevebee

*2 Decents and a Vesuvius for the weekend.*

Having just bought a 1.3pro, with a lovely mirrored panel, on the forum to go with my 1.4 pro, I'll be attempting to run them both, with the Vesuvius at our Farmers Markets this weekend. At the moment there will only be 2 of us running 3 machines but hope someone will be interested to start next week so we can exploit the extra capacity. We have power but balancing it between the 3 lines is tricky. Especially as we use a hot water urn for teas and Americanos. It's good that max draw on the Decent is 1700w. The V is 2,400w if both boilers kick in. Don't want to trip out as the reset switch is inside the building and we don't have access. No power would be a disaster. Watched John's throughput videos and will also be using two portafilter per machine. My modified LRv2 profile takes c46 secs so not quick but milk will be the bottleneck I guess. May have one Decent for espresso, one milk with the V switching to whatever is behind but we'll see. What will be quicker is grinding as we use a Mythos One CP, 6-7 secs per shot, compared to the Niche. Do use the Niche but just for Decaf with pre weighed tins.


----------



## Colio07

Stevebee said:


> There will be a DE1 Pro v1.3 in the For Sale section soon I believe @leemkule if you haven't already chosen a different machine


 Interesting info, thanks. I'll look out for it!


----------



## Gav86

Colio07 said:


> Interesting info, thanks. I'll look out for it!


 It's been and gone!


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## Colio07

Gav86 said:


> It's been and gone!


 Ah, shame. Thanks


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Cup Holder: concept drawings*

We're working a clean design for holding cups on our Decent espresso machines. Here is what we're thinking of, as we get close to something that works both mechanically and aesthetically.

The current iterations are all anchoring to the back of the tablet stand. We want the wire to be removable, so that you can easily take apart your DE1, put it into the suitcase, and go.


----------



## decent_espresso

*New recipe: 7g basket*

We've sold a 7 gram basket for years, because it's part of the Italian tradition, but I've never been happy with the results. Because of the small coffee dose, the puck usually cannot resist 9 bar of pressure, and it channels badly. Sour, water espresso is the usual result. This isn't a commonly used basket size, but I do regularly get questions from German customers about it, and so it's been on my to-figure-out list for a few years.

When I hired coffee-expert ﻿Paul﻿ Chan a few weeks ago, one of the first challenges I gave him was to figure out how to make a good shot with a 7g basket. And see if he can do it would using dark roasted beans.

With advice from the Diaspora Forum (especially from Damian﻿ regarding a suggested flow rate based on calculations of projected puck integrity), Paul tried a lower flow rate during preinfusion. That turned out to be the key in getting the puck to maintain its integrity throughout the shot. He also lowered peak pressure to 7.5 bar, and overall shot time to 24 seconds. I'm using the new "flow limiter" feature to never go over 6 ml/s, which acts like a flow constrictor/gicleur on a traditional machine.

The notes for this profile are:
"This profile is optimized for the 7g Decent Basket. You should weigh 7g of beans and dose them into the center mini-basket at the bottom. You'll need a small 36mm tamper. The flow rate is slowed down to prevent disturbing the puck. A lower pressure is used to compensate for the lower puck integrity. Final shot weight should be 18 to 28 grams."

We've used beans roasted from light to medium, with good success, with this profile and the 7g basket. No longer is the 7g basket appropriate only for dark roasted beans.

This is a nice example of how control over flow rate and pressure can solve real coffee problems. This new profile was released today as part of the v1.34.22 de1app beta.

We've designed a special tamper for this basket with a , and made the 3D file available for free on Thingiverse. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4771376 You can 3D print it yourself or have it printed for you by a service such as https://www.3dhubs.com/
﻿







﻿
You can buy our 7g basket here: https://decentespresso.com/c?s=30047+1

Here is the profile:
﻿







﻿

and here is a typical extraction of it:
﻿







﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's an example of an espresso shot being made with our 7g basket, with our new "7g basket" profile for the DE1. Looks good : no channeling, even extraction, good crema.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Espresso on a Google Chromebook*

Decent Customer Richard Steeper made this video of the de1app working perfectly on his chromebook. This is exciting because it's part of the future proofing of the Decent, showing espresso being made on a current laptop, using bluetooth to the espresso machine.

There are a few minor things to sort out still (creating a permament desktop icon, and running the app in a separate window).

As our app is Open Source, and the programming language we use (Tcl/Tk on Android, using Androwish), lots of people are able to collaborate to move Decent forward faster than we alone could do.

I was chatting with Androwish's programmer Christian Werner last night, and he's bought a used Chromebook locally, and is going to try to resolve the remaining minor issues.

A nice example of the advantages of openness.

-john


----------



## Teddybaebae

I'm just getting into espresso and prefer light roast beans in my gaggia titanium, will the light roast translate well to espresso through an espresso machine?


----------



## Aidy

decent_espresso said:


> As our app is Open Source, and the programming language we use (Tcl/Tk on Android, using Androwish), lots of people are able to collaborate to move Decent forward faster than we alone could do.


 Huh. Tcl/Tk is still a thing? Who knew?


----------



## pipedreams86

@decent_espressoI was already sold on buying a DE1XL and then I have read through this whole thread in the past few days and I am doubly ready to order! The innovation on these machines is just incredible, and your openness with the process and questions is really what made me ready to spend the money...I don 't think I have ever seen that from any other company, in this field or anywhere.

I am looking at the white version of the DE1XL and I want to place it in the cart option. My question is that I want to buy the Ikea cart (well the larger bench version) in white to go with the white of the machine, do you sell a table top for this variant?

If not, is the tabletop you sell with the cutouts, suitable for painting and will still end up looking good? I couldn't find any examples online of anyone using the white DE1 with the original color tabletop...I'd love to see that if you happen to have any examples of this combination? As I'm also thinking that maybe the color of the original tabletop may go well with the white bench underneath and the white machine and wouldn't need to paint? Or have you found that the white machine goes great with the original color bench and I could just go with that?

My other question is regarding scales, I would like to have the scales under the drip tray like I have seen others doing. I own the Acaia Lunar scale atm, and would be willing to buy the Decent scale when it's available to ship if this is a better way to do it, but I wasn't sure how the scales are fitted or placed under the drip tray? I saw some mentions of 3D printed stands etc to help with this but wasn't sure if those are purchased from Decent?

Thanks!


----------



## decent_espresso

*New: Metric Skin*

Decent Espresso customer Barney Hawes' https://github.com/barneyhawes "Metric Skin" reached version 2 this week, and with that milestone, is now included by default with the de1app that comes with the Decent espresso machine.

What's most interesting about the Metric Skin is that it totally rethinks your relationship to how you make espresso on the Decent. Yes, you still pick a profile, but then you change aspects of that profile using traditional coffee terminology, such as dose, yield, temperature. The profile is edited for you.

When making an espresso, instead of charts, you see gauges that are reminiscent of traditional espresso machines.

The interface is very clean and minimal. Barney developed his own GUI widgets to be large and finger friendly, with attractive and restrained use of fonts and colors. His technical background is making computers for severely disabled people, and his sensitivity shows.

Barney showed me a prototype of Metric quite a long time ago. I was extremely excited because he'd brought a totally different viewpoint to the Decent, and that was something I had really hoped would happen when I made total "reskinning" of the de1app possible.

I feel that Metric will be particularly popular among those new to the Decent, as the terms it presents are from the traditional espresso vernacular, instead of the more specialized words that experience Decent users tend to move to, and which can be intimidating to those new to the Decent world. His limited choices match up well with traditional expectations, while still giving you much of the power that the other skins do.

Thanks Barney, and well done!

I note that Barney explicitly made Metric from the start as a collaborative project. It's open source, on github, and I expect that other programmers in our Decent community will start to tinker more with it now, and take it even further.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Teddybaebae said:


> I'm just getting into espresso and prefer light roast beans in my gaggia titanium, will the light roast translate well to espresso through an espresso machine?


 Yes, "filter roasts" can used well on espresso machines, but generally you'll want to use an espresso profile that has either fast flow or a long preinfusion. The "4 mother recipes" article I wrote might help https://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-news-t66649-160.html#p760073


----------



## decent_espresso

Aidy said:


> Huh. Tcl/Tk is still a thing? Who knew?


 We even have conferences!


----------



## decent_espresso

pipedreams86 said:


> I am looking at the white version of the DE1XL and I want to place it in the cart option. My question is that I want to buy the Ikea cart (well the larger bench version) in white to go with the white of the machine, do you sell a table top for this variant?


 The white BROR from IKEA is identically sized to the black one, and the natural-wood top we sell works well with it. We just bought one last week and are building a cart with it now.

https://www.ikea.com.hk/en/products/outdoor-furniture/outdoor-storage/bror-art-60453871











pipedreams86 said:


> If not, is the tabletop you sell with the cutouts, suitable for painting and will still end up looking good? I couldn't find any examples online of anyone using the white DE1 with the original color tabletop...I'd love to see that if you happen to have any examples of this combination? As I'm also thinking that maybe the color of the original tabletop may go well with the white bench underneath and the white machine and wouldn't need to paint? Or have you found that the white machine goes great with the original color bench and I could just go with that?


 I used a white bror cart for our east-coast-usa tour, just as COVID was hitting, but I can't find a photo of it the moment. However, In Korea we used that same thing at this trade show:

https://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-news-t66649-130.html

though... hmmmm that's a white painted top.









Ah ha found a photo from when I demoed in Boston, and that's our normal wood top:











pipedreams86 said:


> My other question is regarding scales, I would like to have the scales under the drip tray like I have seen others doing. I own the Acaia Lunar scale atm, and would be willing to buy the Decent scale when it's available to ship if this is a better way to do it, but I wasn't sure how the scales are fitted or placed under the drip tray? I saw some mentions of 3D printed stands etc to help with this but wasn't sure if those are purchased from Decent?


 The Acaia will work great on the drip tray. The under-drip-tray options are all made by others, either bought or 3D printed by you. Kind of depends on whether you're countersinking or not. Countersunk, you need to have the scale on the drip tray.


----------



## pipedreams86

decent_espresso said:


> The white BROR from IKEA is identically sized to the black one, and the natural-wood top we sell works well with it. We just bought one last week and are building a cart with it now.
> 
> https://www.ikea.com.hk/en/products/outdoor-furniture/outdoor-storage/bror-art-60453871
> 
> View attachment 55455
> 
> 
> I used a white bror cart for our east-coast-usa tour, just as COVID was hitting, but I can't find a photo of it the moment. However, In Korea we used that same thing at this trade show:
> 
> https://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-news-t66649-130.html
> 
> though... hmmmm that's a white painted top.
> 
> View attachment 55456
> 
> 
> Ah ha found a photo from when I demoed in Boston, and that's our normal wood top:
> 
> 
> View attachment 55457
> 
> 
> The Acaia will work great on the drip tray. The under-drip-tray options are all made by others, either bought or 3D printed by you. Kind of depends on whether you're countersinking or not. Countersunk, you need to have the scale on the drip tray.


 Thanks so much, the natural coloured countertop on the white cart looks very sharp!

I am going to order this week, but I am trying to decide between the XL and the XXL...I understand that the only differences are higher steam power and quicker startup time on the XXL? Is there anything else different between those 2 machines?


----------



## decent_espresso

pipedreams86 said:


> I am going to order this week, but I am trying to decide between the XL and the XXL...I understand that the only differences are higher steam power and quicker startup time on the XXL? Is there anything else different between those 2 machines?


 3 hole steam wand tip, vs 1 hole. Bigger pour overs from higher flow rate capability.

I'm working on a video. We filmed one but I don't like how it turned out, so I'm redoing it. I'll ping it to you privately.


----------



## Aidy

> 4 hours ago, decent_espresso said:
> 
> We even have conferences!


 Amazing - I wrote a load of Tcl/Tk many years ago, and it seemed like it was pretty obscure then. DE1 just became that much more desirable for me!


----------



## ChivaCoffee

I have a question regarding the use of Bluetooth scales on a two machine coffee cart.

If I use two acaia lunars for example (those should still fit under the portafilter with 300ml Togo cups) and pair them with the decent. Is it easy to setup one for each of the machines and are the connections steady?


----------



## Stevebee

Yes to both


----------



## Stevebee

The two Decent and a Vesuvius had a full run out on Sunday. One just shots, the other just steam with the Vesuvius doing both. Was swamped the first 2 hours, traders and when customers first get to the market, this with using 2 portafilters continuously with very little dwell time. We used both Plumbing Kit and Catering Kit and they worked well. Might upgrade to beta as it fills in the background but it didn't take too long. The profile I use (LRv2 type) is a lever style and takes c45 secs with preinfusion but prefer the taste so not changing that. These are not the XL versions and are not countersunk but I use the scale under the drip tray to stop at weight so couldn't do that anyway.


----------



## decent_espresso

Aidy said:


> Amazing - I wrote a load of Tcl/Tk many years ago, and it seemed like it was pretty obscure then. DE1 just became that much more desirable for me!


 Check out the free app download https://decentespresso.com/downloads for Android, Windows, Linux and OSX.

Community developement of the de1app is pretty intense at the moment: https://github.com/decentespresso/de1app/releases

This was yesterday's beta release: https://github.com/decentespresso/de1app/compare/v1.34.25...v1.34.26

All improvements to the app work on all models, back to DE1 v1.0, and are free (as in beer and in freedom).


----------



## decent_espresso

ChivaCoffee said:


> I have a question regarding the use of Bluetooth scales on a two machine coffee cart.
> 
> If I use two acaia lunars for example (those should still fit under the portafilter with 300ml Togo cups) and pair them with the decent. Is it easy to setup one for each of the machines and are the connections steady?


 Yah, totally easy. Just remember to recharge your scales at night.

Myself, in production settings, I don't bother. Once you set the volumetric stop on the DE1, using a scale once to see where you want it, then the volumetric is typically within 1g accurate.

The reason it's that repeatable is that the volumetric stopping on the DE1 calculates water debit *after* preinfusion ends (with a rise in pressure). This avoids the inconsistency with other volumetric approaches, caused by having the fill the empty group head, or any air in water tubes.


----------



## decent_espresso

*My depressed espresso puck*

I've been experimenting with making a slight "depression" in my coffee grounds.

It's an center area, about 2.5cm wide, where there are less coffee grounds than the rest of the puck? I'm using a puck rake https://decentespresso.com/rake to try this.

Why, you ask?

Because... even with a perfectly flat, fluffy grounds (before tamping), I find that the very start of the extraction is always from the outside in. When I make a slight depression, the shot starts everywhere.

I'm not at all sure that this is definitely a good thing. However, conventional wisdom has it that shots should start evenly, everywhere, if your puck prep is perfect.

I'm curious as to whether you have tried this? If so, what results have you had?

If you haven't tried, but you're curious -- let me know your results.

-john


----------



## Gav86

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 55649
> 
> 
> *My depressed espresso puck*
> 
> I've been experimenting with making a slight "depression" in my coffee grounds.
> 
> It's an center area, about 2.5cm wide, where there are less coffee grounds than the rest of the puck? I'm using a puck rake https://decentespresso.com/rake to try this.
> 
> Why, you ask?
> 
> Because... even with a perfectly flat, fluffy grounds (before tamping), I find that the very start of the extraction is always from the outside in. When I make a slight depression, the shot starts everywhere.
> 
> I'm not at all sure that this is definitely a good thing. However, conventional wisdom has it that shots should start evenly, everywhere, if your puck prep is perfect.
> 
> I'm curious as to whether you have tried this? If so, what results have you had?
> 
> If you haven't tried, but you're curious -- let me know your results.
> 
> -john


 I find the same when using a convex tamper vs a flat tamper.

Saving for a DE1 so not tested on your machine!


----------



## decent_espresso

Gav86 said:


> I find the same when using a convex tamper vs a flat tamper.


 I don't know if a convex tamper actually redistributes grounds outwards or simply compresses the middle more. If it compresses the middle more, then it'd actually make the donut extraction worse.

Definitely, we need experimentation with bottomless portafilters, and we could get an answer to this question.


----------



## pipedreams86

@decent_espressoI thought I would ask this here rather than DM so others can see the answers, I had 2 more questions:

1. I am English but am living in Romania at the moment, I am not sure when I will move back home, but when I do is it easy to swap over plugs/cables etc for UK variants? Is there anything else I should think about re. using it in the UK vs Romania? I'm guessing its not a big deal as it's the same voltage etc?

2. We have a lot of power cuts/power surges here in Romania, I was thinking of plugging the DE1XXL into a UPS or a surge protector, to protect it from these issues...do you have any recommendations of solutions you have used for this already or do you think a standard UPS from the tech store would be enough to protect it?

I have lost some electronics over the years to the surges/cuts here and pretty worried about plugging the XXL straight into the electric here!


----------



## cuprajake

Would this not depend on the delivery of the water to the puck, i know totally different machines but i have an older londinium which has 4 jets of water injected into the chamber






This shot was wdt and then a spinning distribution tool, no tamper but it fills in the centre a fraction quicker

As you say if it makes any difference im unsure haha,


----------



## decent_espresso

Cuprajake said:


> This shot was wdt and then a spinning distribution tool, no tamper but it fills in the centre a fraction quicker
> 
> As you say if it makes any difference im unsure haha,


 Yes,I agree that evenness of water distribution will definitely matter.

I hope you don't mind me criticizing your (beautifully photographed) espresso, but for me this is a very uneven start, taking a long time to get from the center to the outside.









I'm aiming for the shot to be coming out from the entire bottom within 1 second of the first sign of any coffee on the bottom, like this is:









My photograph is far inferior to yours (sorry!) but hopefully you can see what I mean here. I took this movie this morning, and probably should have had my glasses on: 




I see room for improvement in my shot start, as it's looks like liquid is focussing a bit toward the front left, once it starts.

Perfect Puck Prep is a goal that seems to move further way, each step I take toward it.


----------



## decent_espresso

pipedreams86 said:


> 1. I am English but am living in Romania at the moment, I am not sure when I will move back home, but when I do is it easy to swap over plugs/cables etc for UK variants? Is there anything else I should think about re. using it in the UK vs Romania? I'm guessing its not a big deal as it's the same voltage etc?


 It's no big deal, just a different power cable you'll plug into the back. In the order notes, when you order, please indicate "please include UK and EU power cable per discussion with John"



pipedreams86 said:


> 2. We have a lot of power cuts/power surges here in Romania, I was thinking of plugging the DE1XXL into a UPS or a surge protector, to protect it from these issues...do you have any recommendations of solutions you have used for this already or do you think a standard UPS from the tech store would be enough to protect it?
> 
> I have lost some electronics over the years to the surges/cuts here and pretty worried about plugging the XXL straight into the electric here!


 if the power cuts are short (under 5 seconds), then a normal computer UPS will be totally fine. I've done the same when I was living in nowhere-France.


----------



## pipedreams86

decent_espresso said:


> It's no big deal, just a different power cable you'll plug into the back. In the order notes, when you order, please indicate "please include UK and EU power cable per discussion with John"
> 
> if the power cuts are short (under 5 seconds), then a normal computer UPS will be totally fine. I've done the same when I was living in nowhere-France.


 That's so awesome with the power cables, thanks!

The power cuts are sometimes quick like 5 secs, and other times last up until 30mins or longer...I have a large monitor for my computer that is plugged into a UPS, and if the power cut is a long one I try to make it in time to shut it down properly before the UPS cuts out, so I would probably aim to do the same with the XXL but my worry with that is always if I am out somewhere and won't be back in time to shut down properly...

Oh one other question, I couldn't see what (if any) portafilter basket is included with the machine? I am looking to buy the 7g, 18g and 20g baskets with the pourover basket and tea portafilter, but wasn't sure if the machine comes with a basket?

Thanks!


----------



## pipedreams86

@decent_espressoWhoops, just saw on the 'what's included' page that it comes with the 18g basket...


----------



## decent_espresso

pipedreams86 said:


> The power cuts are sometimes quick like 5 secs, and other times last up until 30mins or longer...I have a large monitor for my computer that is plugged into a UPS, and if the power cut is a long one I try to make it in time to shut it down properly before the UPS cuts out, so I would probably aim to do the same with the XXL but my worry with that is always if I am out somewhere and won't be back in time to shut down properly...


 Losing power won't hurt the DE1. Power glitches (such as spikes), however, can hurt it.

So, that means that your UPS will protect your DE1 nicely. A short power outage or spike will be intercepted. And a long power outage just means the DE1 gets turned off.

Note that if your DE1 is in idle mode when you lose electricity, your UPS will happily keep it on for a long time, as it uses very little juice in that mode.



pipedreams86 said:


> Oh one other question, I couldn't see what (if any) portafilter basket is included with the machine? I am looking to buy the 7g, 18g and 20g baskets with the pourover basket and tea portafilter, but wasn't sure if the machine comes with a basket?


 I know you already found the answer at: https://decentespresso.com/included


----------



## cuprajake

@decent_espresso no not at all, im still learning with my machine as its new to me.


----------



## pipedreams86

decent_espresso said:


> Losing power won't hurt the DE1. Power glitches (such as spikes), however, can hurt it.
> 
> So, that means that your UPS will protect your DE1 nicely. A short power outage or spike will be intercepted. And a long power outage just means the DE1 gets turned off.
> 
> Note that if your DE1 is in idle mode when you lose electricity, your UPS will happily keep it on for a long time, as it uses very little juice in that mode.
> 
> I know you already found the answer at: https://decentespresso.com/included


 That is great to know, I will go ahead with a normal UPS over here to start with then...

Regarding tamping/puck preparation, I use a Puqpress Mini to tamp, I saw in a pic online someone was using the bigger puqpress with their DE1, so I assume it would be good to carry on using my mini with the XXL when I get it? I have it set at 15 (lbs?) for pressure atm for my Sage (Breville) Dual Boiler

Sorry for all the newb questions, I am still very early on in my espresso learning process!


----------



## decent_espresso

pipedreams86 said:


> Regarding tamping/puck preparation, I use a Puqpress Mini to tamp, I saw in a pic online someone was using the bigger puqpress with their DE1, so I assume it would be good to carry on using my mini with the XXL when I get it? I have it set at 15 (lbs?) for pressure atm for my Sage (Breville) Dual Boiler


 That seems like it'd be fine. 15lbs is plenty.


----------



## decent_espresso

[/QUOTE]


----------



## pipedreams86

@decent_espressoI have a question re. grinders for the DE1XXL, I know you had a Decent grinder on sale for awhile, and I believe it's now discontinued?

I am on the waiting list for both the Niche Zero, and the Weber EG-1, and I am also interested in the Lagom P64...

If I am correct, you own/have used the EG-1 and the Niche with the machines, not sure about the P64?

My question is whether with the DE1XXL, I will notice much if any difference between the higher end grinders like EG-1/P64 vs the Niche?

Right now I have 2 Sage Smart Grinder Pro's with decaff/caff beans in the hopper, so I'm thinking anything from the Niche upwards should be a pretty good upgrade on that setup...I am willing to spend on the EG-1, but I just can't get a definitive answer on whether stepping up to that from the Niche would be worth it, especially in reference to the DE1.

Online searching didn't reveal anyone who seemed to be using the P64 with their DE1, I found a couple of people with the EG-1 and a LOT of people with the Niche.

I started a thread on the forum re. grinders and got a lot of very useful feedback, but now that I have gone with the DE1XXL I would like to know more specifically in reference to using a grinder with the Decent machines..


----------



## olivier

The Decent can do many things, and hence should allow you to get the best of any grinder... but also the worst! By that I mean it's not very forgiving.

Conicals such as the Niche will tend to be easier to "get right" than big fat burr grinders such as the EG-1. Very generally speaking, the latter will tend to do better in terms of mouthfeel/body, blending of flavours, while the latter will give you more flavour clarity and separation.

Both can produce excellent espresso. I've never tried the EG-1 myself, but used to have a Niche and now have a Monolith Flat. The difference and step up in quality from one to the other was definitetly noticeable, but I'd very happily go back to the Niche if I had to

Haven't tried one either but from what I've read, Lagom would be a sidegrade rather than an upgrade from the Niche.

Also consider size of EG-1 vs Niche... Not the same at all!


----------



## pipedreams86

olivier said:


> The Decent can do many things, and hence should allow you to get the best of any grinder... but also the worst! By that I mean it's not very forgiving.
> 
> Conicals such as the Niche will tend to be easier to "get right" than big fat burr grinders such as the EG-1. Very generally speaking, the latter will tend to do better in terms of mouthfeel/body, blending of flavours, while the latter will give you more flavour clarity and separation.
> 
> Both can produce excellent espresso. I've never tried the EG-1 myself, but used to have a Niche and now have a Monolith Flat. The difference and step up in quality from one to the other was definitetly noticeable, but I'd very happily go back to the Niche if I had to
> 
> Haven't tried one either but from what I've read, Lagom would be a sidegrade rather than an upgrade from the Niche.
> 
> Also consider size of EG-1 vs Niche... Not the same at all!


 Thanks so much for your advice and feedback @olivier! Especially interested to know that you did notice a step up in quality between the Flat and the Niche.

I would hope and expect that a £500 grinder and a £2500-£3000 grinder like the EG1 would have a clear difference in quality and taste of the espresso, but I have really struggled to find people stating this in reviews (they all seem to love their endgame grinders but don't compare them to the cheaper grinders)...I wonder if that is just the subjective nature of drinking coffee though.

I have a feeling (pure conjecture) that the truth might be in the realm of diminishing returns when stepping up to the endgame grinders, but part of me feels that if I am spending the money I am on the DE1XXL, I'd like to have a grinder that can match it in quality.

Interesting point you make, re. the forgiving aspect of the Niche vs higher end...I am a complete newb to espresso making. I bought my Sage Dual Boiler about 18 months ago or so, which was an upgrade to my Nespresso machine, and this will now be my next step up in espresso. I am not an expert or even very good at all at getting a good shot, which is why I wanted the Decent, and want to learn from the feedback it can give on the process...maybe a more forgiving grinder would be better in the short term?

Size consideration is a good suggestion, as I have the larger Ikea BROR bench ordered, to setup my DE1XXL station when it all arrives. The EG1 is much larger than any other grinder I have looked at.


----------



## _HH_

pipedreams86 said:


> Thanks so much for your advice and feedback @olivier! Especially interested to know that you did notice a step up in quality between the Flat and the Niche.
> 
> I would hope and expect that a £500 grinder and a £2500-£3000 grinder like the EG1 would have a clear difference in quality and taste of the espresso, but I have really struggled to find people stating this in reviews (they all seem to love their endgame grinders but don't compare them to the cheaper grinders)...I wonder if that is just the subjective nature of drinking coffee though.
> 
> I have a feeling (pure conjecture) that the truth might be in the realm of diminishing returns when stepping up to the endgame grinders, but part of me feels that if I am spending the money I am on the DE1XXL, I'd like to have a grinder that can match it in quality.
> 
> Interesting point you make, re. the forgiving aspect of the Niche vs higher end...I am a complete newb to espresso making. I bought my Sage Dual Boiler about 18 months ago or so, which was an upgrade to my Nespresso machine, and this will now be my next step up in espresso. I am not an expert or even very good at all at getting a good shot, which is why I wanted the Decent, and want to learn from the feedback it can give on the process...maybe a more forgiving grinder would be better in the short term?
> 
> Size consideration is a good suggestion, as I have the larger Ikea BROR bench ordered, to setup my DE1XXL station when it all arrives. The EG1 is much larger than any other grinder I have looked at.


 I would absolutely recommend the Niche with the DE1, it will allow you to learn the ropes and makes delicious espresso without another massive outlay. Many many DE1 owners use a Niche (it's the most popular grinder to pair with the DE1) and makes great coffee.

James Hoffman recently did a video comparing high-end grinders, and also briefly compared them to the Niche:


----------



## JA92

_HH_ said:


> I would absolutely recommend the Niche with the DE1, it will allow you to learn the ropes and makes delicious espresso without another massive outlay. Many many DE1 owners use a Niche (it's the most popular grinder to pair with the DE1) and makes great coffee.
> James Hoffman recently did a video comparing high-end grinders, and also briefly compared them to the Niche:


Completely agree with the point above. My DE1 is used alongside a Niche Zero and it's great!


----------



## Coffee by the Casuals

+1 to the Niche and Decent combo.


----------



## shaunlawler

The Niche and Decent are indeed a great combo!


----------



## Jony

Niche works with most machines anyway.


----------



## decent_espresso

Generally: flat, larger burrs will produce better coffee with light roasts, with cleaner flavors ("great clarity"). Conical will produce better mouthfeel.

For someone getting started, I'd recommend the Niche to them. It's so good at that price, that until you know more, you should just spend less.

Then, eventually, if you get into lighter roasts, get yourself a more expensive flat/large burr grinder. Sell the Niche, and you'll lose almost no money as they're constantly in demand.


----------



## essexespresso

Thank you for your comments. They are also useful to me. I am considering upgrading from a Sage Oracle Touch to a DE1XL. Given the scarcity of Niche Zeros (which based in my research, I believe would be my ideal grinder) and the inability to even order one at the moment, is there a grinder that you would recommend in that price range? I tend to like darker roasts in my espresso and happy to stick with that for now.


----------



## decent_espresso

essexespresso said:


> Thank you for your comments. They are also useful to me. I am considering upgrading from a Sage Oracle Touch to a DE1XL. Given the scarcity of Niche Zeros (which based in my research, I believe would be my ideal grinder) and the inability to even order one at the moment, is there a grinder that you would recommend in that price range? I tend to like darker roasts in my espresso and happy to stick with that for now.


 If you're a fan of darker roasts, would you consider buying a used Mazzer grinder, such as the Mini? You can get them used at a quite reasonable price.

but if you can wait, I believe that Niches are very soon to become more available.

If you want something gorgeous, get the Lagom.


----------



## shaunlawler

decent_espresso said:


> If you're a fan of darker roasts, would you consider buying a used Mazzer grinder, such as the Mini? You can get them used at a quite reasonable price.
> but if you can wait, I believe that Niches are very soon to become more available.
> If you want something gorgeous, get the Lagom.


@decent_espresso ; what's your opinion on the Kafatek Monolith grinders being paired with a Decent machine?

Have you used one much in the past?


----------



## decent_espresso

shaunlawler said:


> @decent_espresso ; what's your opinion on the Kafatek Monolith grinders being paired with a Decent machine?
> 
> Have you used one much in the past?


 Years, and I mean years ago, I was over at Denis' house with a prototype DE1 and he had his prototype Monolith. He's an exceedingly clever guy, and very focussed on drink quality.

Until the Levercraft Ultra, there was nobody even near to challenging Kafatek's claim to Highest Quality Grinder in the Universe.

I've never had a Monolith, but many DE1 owners do, and it's an exceedingly well regarded grinder. A well aligned EK43 with SSP burrs would be the only other grinder in this rarefied group.


----------



## Stevebee

decent_espresso said:


> Years, and I mean years ago, I was over at Denis' house with a prototype DE1 and he had his prototype Monolith.


 Must have been an interesting meeting, both now arguably top of your respective fields. Who'd have thought you'd both end up restricting supply to cope with demand back then 😁 Good place to be though and loving my Decents


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## Mrboots2u

decent_espresso said:


> Years, and I mean years ago, I was over at Denis' house with a prototype DE1 and he had his prototype Monolith. He's an exceedingly clever guy, and very focussed on drink quality.
> 
> Until the Levercraft Ultra, there was nobody even near to challenging Kafatek's claim to Highest Quality Grinder in the Universe.
> 
> I've never had a Monolith, but many DE1 owners do, and it's an exceedingly well regarded grinder. A well aligned EK43 with SSP burrs would be the only other grinder in this rarefied group.


 No EG1 in there too>


----------



## decent_espresso

Mrboots2u said:


> No EG1 in there too>


 I really like the EG1. I have one and have used it often at trade shows.

The EG1 has 80mm burrs, which is big, and another step up from Lagom/Mazzer with their 64mm burrs.

The 98mm burr sets on the EK, Ultra and Monolith for me, move those 3 grinders into another tier.

But I'm really not the right one to judge, as I've not done competitive tests. These are all really competent grinders. My daily is a Niche, and I'm very happy with it.

Also, I am a bit skeptical of reading any grinder judgements from people who have traditional machine that have no real visibility as to what the extraction actually did. Puck prep is a massive intershot variable, that a lot repetition would need to happen to get real data. My feeling is that most grinder comparisons are likely actually tracking shot differences, because they've not been methodical enough to really compare.

I think that, to make a real grinder comparison, I'd want someone to spend a few months with a grinder, and really learn what it's great at. For instance, one grinder might make its best shots at 15g, whereas another might be best at 18g. Or fast flow shots vs slow & thick shots.

I'd want to compare the best shots that each grinder is capable of.


----------



## pipedreams86

Wow, really amazing feedback from you all on the grinders! I think something that makes the whole grinder decision process so much harder, is the availability of them...almost all the ones I want or have been looking at, range from earliest being available in mid May, and one is not available until Nov 2021!

If the Niche Zero was on sale somewhere today to buy I would buy it now and use it for 6 months and see if I felt the need to upgrade...right now I'm looking at the Eureka Mignon Specialita as a stop gap solution as it's available for shipping tomorrow here in Romania, and then I will use that to single dose until I can get something more in line with what I want.

@decent_espressoI was wondering regarding water, what size bottles do you recommend for the ikea cart, and what kind of water should I be looking for? I seem to remember somewhere in one of your threads here or on coffee snobs/HB, that you recommended volvic to avoid calcification? The water quality where I live isn't great so I use a Berkey to filter the faucet water, but it doesn't soften water at all, just makes it safe to drink and it is very hard water.

There is a bottled water available here called Bucovina that seems to be fairly soft, would you recommend I just take the levels of sodium/Calcium etc in Volvic and compare them to the available water here? My Sage Dual Boiler has gotten pretty gunked up with calcium here and I hate to do the same to the Decent.

My other question is that I want to order this week the cart kit/bundle to go with the BROR bench I ordered, I see that the black drip tray for plumbing in, is available now, but the white one is shipping in 5-6 weeks...with it being a White DE1XXL that will be countersunk is the black actually seen anywhere? I'd prefer not to wait 5 weeks for the white tray if the black won't really be seen anywhere apart from when I pull it out for cleaning or something.

Sorry for all the questions! if there is a better place to post them or you prefer DM for questions like these please let me know, hate to distract from your updates...


----------



## Mark70

I am using the Specialita with the DE1. It's not for single dosing and it will be ok as an interim grinder I quickly decided to get the best out of the machine I would need to upgrade. I have an Ultra on order

why not try a hand grinder like the JX pro. I use mine with the Decent and it's probably better than the Specialita especially if you want to single dose


----------



## decent_espresso

pipedreams86 said:


> I was wondering regarding water, what size bottles do you recommend for the ikea cart, and what kind of water should I be looking for? I seem to remember somewhere in one of your threads here or on coffee snobs/HB, that you recommended volvic to avoid calcification? The water quality where I live isn't great so I use a Berkey to filter the faucet water, but it doesn't soften water at all, just makes it safe to drink and it is very hard water.


 In Europe, VOLVIC is available and is a great choice for espresso.

I use the 8L version. The only really annoying thing is their anti-refill tap makes it impossible to get a tube down it. So, I use a steak knife and slice it right off.











pipedreams86 said:


> My other question is that I want to order this week the cart kit/bundle to go with the BROR bench I ordered, I see that the black drip tray for plumbing in, is available now, but the white one is shipping in 5-6 weeks...with it being a White DE1XXL that will be countersunk is the black actually seen anywhere? I'd prefer not to wait 5 weeks for the white tray if the black won't really be seen anywhere apart from when I pull it out for cleaning or something.


 You understood correctly. Since you're countersunk, you won't see the black drip tray. That's actually why we hadn't bothered to make a white draining drip tray until recently, since most people had been countersinking their DE1XL. But nowadays, more people are putting that model on their countertop, so we ordered white ceramics.



Mark70 said:


> I am using the Specialita with the DE1. It's not for single dosing and it will be ok as an interim grinder I quickly decided to get the best out of the machine I would need to upgrade. I have an Ultra on order
> 
> why not try a hand grinder like the JX pro. I use mine with the Decent and it's probably better than the Specialita especially if you want to single dose


 That's good advice, because then when you get a "proper" grinder, you'll have something useful remaining, instead of a mediocre grinder you'll need to sell.


----------



## decent_espresso

﻿
In this recent DE1XXL video, I gave Mohammed a free hand to be funnier: he told me he'd been restraining himself in the previous ones. And I got what I asked for. Within 40 seconds, he comes out with a funny joke about racism that took me a few seconds to recover from.

While Mohammed was great in this video, I took his energy and tried to match it, but in my lesser skills hands, I go a bit manic, waving my hands around a lot and talking too much.

I was planning on redoing this video with less caffeine in my system and a bit more experience under my belt. But .... I don't know when time will permit, so I'm going to release this video in all its manic glory, and would love to hear what you think about it.

Mohammed and I made another video shortly after this one, about the Decent Puck Rake. I feel like we struck a better entertainment/informational balance with this one: 





-john


----------



## pipedreams86

So Volvic seems like the best option for water, the only thing is I can only find it here in Romania in 500ml bottles...I wonder if it would it be worth using those and taking the time to decant them into bigger bottles? Or I wonder if I can get it imported from Hungary or other countries near us...


----------



## decent_espresso

pipedreams86 said:


> So Volvic seems like the best option for water, the only thing is I can only find it here in Romania in 500ml bottles...I wonder if it would it be worth using those and taking the time to decant them into bigger bottles? Or I wonder if I can get it imported from Hungary or other countries near us...


 Does your supermarket offer on-site filtered water, with your bringing in your own bottles? That's a very eco solution, and lower cost.


----------



## pipedreams86

decent_espresso said:


> Does your supermarket offer on-site filtered water, with your bringing in your own bottles? That's a very eco solution, and lower cost.


 That's a good idea I'll have to make some enquiries. I saw people in the UK were suggesting Volvic also, along with Ashbeck water from Tesco and when I compared the levels of those waters compared to the Bucovina water I can get easily here the levels seemed similar so I may have to take a risk on that.

It's a shame as I invested in the Berkey water filtration system so as to avoid buying plastic water bottles continually as I hate the environmental issues with that and also having to lug them around from the store etc...but my Sage Dual Boiler machine has become so gunked up with calcium deposits from using the water from my Berkey that I really don't think I should put that in my Decent when it comes. I may also look into adding a second step to my filtering, by filtering for softness just for espresso making water.


----------



## Mark70

pipedreams86 said:


> So Volvic seems like the best option for water, the only thing is I can only find it here in Romania in 500ml bottles...I wonder if it would it be worth using those and taking the time to decant them into bigger bottles? Or I wonder if I can get it imported from Hungary or other countries near us...


 I use a Zero water filter and blend it with tap water to bring the calcium levels to where I want it to be. In fact it goes through a BWT filter first as it's so hard.

my first filter has lasted 3 months snd is still going strong. Worth considering


----------



## pipedreams86

Mark70 said:


> I use a Zero water filter and blend it with tap water to bring the calcium levels to where I want it to be. In fact it goes through a BWT filter first as it's so hard.
> 
> my first filter has lasted 3 months snd is still going strong. Worth considering


 Thanks @Mark70 I saw the Zero water filters advertised and always wondered how well they worked for softening the water...I will take a closer look at them. Have you noticed much if any limescale buildup on your appliances since using this combination?


----------



## pipedreams86

I have been comparing the composition of Volvic, and the Bucovina water that I can get easily here, and from what I can see they seem to be fairly comparable?

If anything the Bucovina is a bit better on some of those levels...if you all think this might be safe to use with the Decent it would be awesome as I can get it in 5 litre bottles in a store 2 mins up the road from where we live.

*Bucovina (mg/l):*
Calcium: 9.85
Sodium: 2.84
Sulphates: 5.89
Magnesium: 2.55
Potassium: 1.18
Fluoride: 0.048
Chlorides: 3.55
Hidrogen Carbonate: 48.8
Nitrates: 5.01
Dry Residue: 180C: 78mg/l
pH: 7.7

*Volvic (mg/l):*
Calcium: 12
Sodium: 12
Sulphates: 9
Magnesium: 8
Bicarbonates: 74
Potassium: 6
Silica: 32
Chlorides: 15
Nitrates: 7.3
Dry Residue: 180C: 130mg/l
pH: 7


----------



## Mark70

pipedreams86 said:


> Thanks @Mark70 I saw the Zero water filters advertised and always wondered how well they worked for softening the water...I will take a closer look at them. Have you noticed much if any limescale buildup on your appliances since using this combination?


 Zero water strips all the calcium out. To make it drinkable you need to remineralise which I do by mixing with my hard tap Water. I do not have a problem with limescale this way


----------



## decent_espresso

Mark70 said:


> Zero water strips all the calcium out. To make it drinkable you need to remineralise which I do by mixing with my hard tap Water. I do not have a problem with limescale this way


 I would much prefer no addition of tap water, and no calcium at all in your water. Calcium will always precipitate when steam is made, no matter what espresso machine you have. It later needs to be removed.

A very inexpensive solution is to buy "zero water" (purified water) and remineralize it according to the Scott Rao or Matt Perger recipes:

https://www.baristahustle.com/blog/diy-water-recipes-redux/

This will produce really excellent water-for-coffee that will never precipitate in your espresso machine.

------

*Recipe 4 - Barista Hustle Water Recipe*



40.1g Buffer


80.7g Mg


879.2g DI water


The original Barista Hustle water recipe - where it all began. Add an extra 4.3g of the Mg concentrate and you're at the top limit of the SCA specifications.

*
Recipe 5 - Rao Water
*



50.1g Buffer


75.7g Mg


874.2g DI water


This is close to Scott Rao's recommended water chemistry for brewing flavourful, balanced coffee. Slightly higher than the SCA in both total hardness and buffer, with a little more buffer than the BH recipe.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Cup rail design v2*

As I mentioned in my previous post about the "cup rail design project", we had some worries that the previous design, though pretty, would not stay level and would have "wire bounce" problems.

Decent designer Joao Tomaz came up with a new design that doesn't have the mechanical problems of the previous design.

This new design also has the advantage of being totally independent of the tablet stand. That means it won't require people to change their tablet stand to put a cup rail enabled version on it, which is a big win. Another nicety of this design is that it is quickly removed for travel. It is as well physically compatible with all DE1 versions, though we would need to make a version for the DE1+/DE1PRO and a longer one for the DE1XL/XXL models.

However, I don't find it as beautiful as the previous design. But, it's likely to actually work, so that's a nice benefit.

There's also the question of whether we should make 1 color (chrome) or do we need a black wire version as well? I've included renders of both.

Would love your feedback.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New from Decent : the Espresso Tap 1*

We're super excited to launch our new flagship model: the Decent Espresso Tap 1. Shipping in two weeks! Hopefully, maybe!

We learned from our customers that that they value speed, silent working and ease of use, far more than quality, and we've listened!

The DETAP1 delivers espresso on tap. Our DETAP1 model come with a 3 liter container of the highest quality premade espresso, from 50% arabica dark roasted-in-Italy beans.

"This by far the simplest, most reliable, fastest-to-warmup model that we could imagine" said Decent cofounder John Buckman. "By removing all sources of operator error, such as beans, grinding, extraction, freshness, water, or skill, we are able to deliver you 100% perfectly consistent espresso" he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The DE1TAP1 features a patented SureToLockYouIn™ DRM locking coffee seal, so that only certified premade-by-Decent-Espresso coffee can be used. For your protection (and those of your children) it cannot be refilled by you.

The best part? The DE1TAP1 comes with a 2 year premade coffee subscription, and refills can only be purchased online from our web site. A Wifi connection is required so that each drink can be digitally certified coming from us.

With this innovation, we were able to take your morning coffee experience to the next level by removing all margins of human or machine error: no tablet, no water tank, no grinder and no electricity needed. Just plug in your SureToLockYouIn™ premade espresso tank, and dispense as needed.

Only the finest coffee (and coffee-like flavors) is used.

INGREDIENTS: Colombian brewed coffee (filtered water, coffee), sugar, maltodextrin, chicory root fiber, cellulose gel, cocoa (processed with alkali), sodium hydroxide, natural and artificial flavor, cellulose gum, caffeine anhydrous, carrageenan, ascorbic acid, vitamin E dl alpha tocopheryl, vitamin A palmitate.

It's gluten free!


----------



## Rickv




----------



## Gav86

😜


----------



## mdray

Perfect, just what I have been after...Does it come in white? and can I pour an espresso and steam at the same time?? 😜


----------



## spasypaddy

dare i ask the price?


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## decent_espresso

spasypaddy said:


> dare i ask the price?


 Just give us your credit card number, and we'll charge you appropriately. Trust us.


----------



## cuprajake

the the option with water is potassium bicarbonate Dr. Pavlis made a recipie that will never scale used with rodi water(zero water)


----------



## decent_espresso

*Locking the tablet?*

We're putting the finishing touches on a new Android tablet stand for the Decent, and I'd like your feedback about something. This tablet stand will start to appear in October 2021.

The current stand has 3 screws to lock it on, and the stands sits on top of the DE1. It's a simple, secure setup, but it does require a screwdriver to assemble, and is thus not as fast to disassessemble. For people who move their Decent a lot, the 3 screws are a bit of a hassle.

The new tablet stand slides into a slot directly under the top cover, which has been cut into the chassis. We've designed a spring that guides the stand into the right centered location. A slot in the stand allows the spring to click into the final position.

The locking spring has four mount mounts, which prevents the stand from bouncing as the tablet is tapped.

To remove the tablet, you slide it out, toward you.

FEEDBACK WANTED: in the current tablet stand design, the tablet can be removed at any time. It cannot be locked. In a cafe, or other public situation, would this be a worry? It's not obvious that the tablet can be removed. We're thinking about designing a variation on the locking spring, which makes tablet removal impossible, without taking the main cover off (it's held in place with 8x Torx T10 screws).

Here is the locking mechanism we're contemplating. ﻿









What do you think? Is having a tablet "walk away" a real concern for you, if it's not obviously stealable? I'm trying to gauge whether we're "going overboard" here and overthinking things.

About backward compatibility: unfortunately, this stand design cannot be retrofit onto earlier DE1 model, as the earlier metal chassis lack the cuts needed to allow the stand to slide in.


----------



## garethevans

Maybe i'm not qualified to comment on this as a home user, but it seems unnecessary, if i'm an unscrupulous character and i walk up to a espresso station, i am not far more likely to grab the tamper, acai scale, 2kg of coffee or some of the much easier to steal things (and i haven't seen chained versions of these), it's not like the tablet is grab and go, would still be difficult to remove unless you are in front of the machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

*"Bengle" concept drawing for a 2022 Decent *

Decent mechanical engineer﻿ Ben Champion showed me this set of concept drawings for a alternative chassis for the Decent. I'm calling this idea "Bengle" (as in "Ben designs with Angles"). I've made a version without a cup rail or tablet on the top right, to show a possible variation.

We've been working a while on a few different ideas for a re-skinned Decent Espresso Machine for launching in 2022. I've previously shown renders for Smorg. Bengle is another one we're considering.

We'd continue to make the current minimalist design v1.4 DE1 (DE1PRO/DE1XL).

Internally, all our machines would be built on the same chassis, just the "skin" changes, as a final step during assembly.

For me, the fundamental goals of a redesign is to



fit into people's existing spaces (both homes and cafes)


the machine should have a visual personality, and elicit a visceral "wow" reaction.


but it should avoid making a strong visual statement, which would make it difficult to fit into people's existing spaces.


For me, the Simonelli Prima One and the La Marzocco Mini, both accomplish this remit brilliantly.














﻿

I feel that current Decent models fit into a kitchen that has Braun kitchen appliances, ie modernist minimalism. 
﻿













﻿
I feel that we could do a lot better at eliciting a "Wow" as well as fitting into more existing spaces.

What do you think?

-john


----------



## steveholt

I like the idea of the reskinned model as a cherry on top step up now that V1.4 seems to be a pretty stable platform.

The Bengle is really striking. I really like it. Are you thinking of using it as a future paid upgrade or as a end user cost neutral 'option' ?

I have been following your work pretty much since you posted on home barista. I was close to early adopting but.... I didnt.

At V1.3 it felt that you had a proven product. This feels like a confident step into product and market maturity. All the nuts and bolts are pretty much working, not you can have some 'fun'

Congrats!


----------



## decent_espresso

steveholt said:


> I like the idea of the reskinned model as a cherry on top step up now that V1.4 seems to be a pretty stable platform.
> 
> The Bengle is really striking. I really like it. Are you thinking of using it as a future paid upgrade or as a end user cost neutral 'option' ?


 The "pretty Decent" machine we're trying to do for next year, would not be "cost neutral", it'd be more expensive.

We have some multiyear hardware R&D work that, when it comes to fruition, I want to put into a more expensive model, and I'd like that model to be a step up, aesthetically, if we can pull that off.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Smorg + Discommon = Bengle*

Many of you noticed that yesterday's "Bengle" concept drawing had a striking similarity to to the machine designed by Discommon https://www.instagram.com/discommon/ (specifically by Kevin at https://www.instagram.com/kevincossdesigns/) for Matt at https://www.instagram.com/coffeedrunklbc/ - it was made by Jacob at https://www.instagram.com/pantechnicondesign/

There's a very good reason for the visual similarity.

Many of you know that we've been working on a "Smorg" design, conceptually based on a leaning dragon shape. I've been posting variations on that idea for quite a while.

__
http://instagr.am/p/CGuHaQ4hGOK/


__
http://instagr.am/p/CFtv1LoB5nX/

What I hadn't shown you is our most recent revision of Smorg, which you can see in the upper left of this image. There's been good progress on that design, but we were interested in pushing this idea into a more abstract direction.

When we came across Kevin's design for https://www.instagram.com/coffeedrunklbc/ we saw it as a big dragon, leaning on its forward wings, but made abstract with very liberal use of planes.

What I posted yesterday was ﻿Ben's attempt to apply the planar/abstract ideas in Kevin's design, to what we were doing with Smorg. And... I posted that to get feedback.

Bengle is very much a concept drawing, first draft, and we're still in the ideating stage about what next year's "pretty Decent" should look like. Our Portuguese designer Joao Tomaz https://www.instagram.com/joao_tomaz_design/ is currently working with Ben's draft, to refine it with his modernist touch.

I do very much want to credit Kevin's fine work for inspiring Ben to try the planar approach. But... I also want to show you where we were coming from.

I am very much a follower and fan of Austin Kleon's books https://www.instagram.com/austinkleon/ and see the artistic process as borrowing ideas from here and there, merging them to make new things. That's why I started the music service http://magnatune.com/ that features Creative Commons licensing, to enable this sort of remixing. And it's also why I sat on the board of Creative Commons for many years.

I spoke today with Neil Ferrier, who runs Discommon designs, and besides being ok with what we've done, he'd also like to take a crack at refining our Smorg design. As he's a master of surface, light and reflection, I'm really interested, especially as we're having trouble getting Smorg "over the finish line" into something we are really excited to build. I've put him in touch with Paolo at https://www.instagram.com/regaliacoffee/ in New York, so he can get his hands on a Decent.


----------



## steveholt

decent_espresso said:


> The "pretty Decent" machine we're trying to do for next year, would not be "cost neutral", it'd be more expensive.
> 
> We have some multiyear hardware R&D work that, when it comes to fruition, I want to put into a more expensive model, and I'd like that model to be a step up, aesthetically, if we can pull that off.


 Aha,

So this 'Pretty Decent' would be a Decent 1.5/2.0 or a Decent SuperPro type of set-up as opposed to just being an aesthetic upgrade option for DEPro1.4 ?

Either way, long may your exciting times continue.

Congrats


----------



## Mc2me

thanks for all the info , very interested in this machine


----------



## decent_espresso

*Hohohk podcast with Decent's John Buckman*

Standup comedians 
- Andy Curtain https://www.instagram.com/andycurtain/
- and Mohammed Magdi https://www.instagram.com/theothermohammed/
- and I

had a super-interesting hour long conversation which is today listenable as an audio podcast at:
https://hohohk.podbean.com/e/the-man-in-hk-revolutionising-how-we-make-coffee-with-john-buckman/

It's mostly not at all about coffee geekery, but more about topics around 
- starting a company in Hong Kong, 
- getting scammed repeatedly, 
- the evil music industry (my previous biz "Magnatune")
- piracy, getting copied
- entrepreneurship
- Silicon Valley culture

and generally about human topics which people who are "Decent curious" might find interesting.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Running our factory as a village of specialists*

After listening to yesterday's podcast conversation about how I organized the Decent Factory, Home Barista member Mooky asked:

"John, some things you said about HK culture "tell us what, don't tell us how" reminded me of Ricardo Semler - have you read any of his stuff?"

I didn't know about Semler, but spent an interesting 2 hours reading about his ideas on the web this morning. Thanks for the ref.

I'm not sure I'd call my structure a democracy at all. More like a village of specialists.

I was very inspired by this in Seoul, Korea, sadly being destroyed:
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/20/end-of-an-era-seoul-prepares-to-rip-out-its-manufacturing-heart

instead of 'teams' I try to find a way for 1 person to be actually responsible for something (or a group of things), but never is it a team for that 1 thing. Responsibility for quality, speed, reliability is then squarely with that person.

For instance, experienced home builder Alfred Nenada built last week a tool for expanding the water filters we buy to a precise size:






However, quality checks on the water filters afterwards, and posted to our internal forum, saw about 30% of those expanded now had slight defects and were unuseable.









Because Alfred is the one entirely responsible for this task (building the jig, expanding the filters, testing them) it's clearly on him to rectify this, and totally within his power to do so (no approvals or teamwork needed).

That's not really a democracy.

Literally (pun intended) this looks more like Ayn Rand's ridiculed (and let's face it, ridiculous) village of expert single craftspeople at the end of Atlas Shrugged. But maybe there's something useful in that notion...


----------



## Axel

Talkin about democracy.

Does the political situation in HK has any effect on your company, staff or your own living? It seems to me like a potential conflict running such an open minded enterprise in a more and more restricted environment. I do not know wether it is "political correct" to ask such a question on a coffee forum but it always comes to my mind watching or reading news about HK.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Countersunk Decent Scale*

Decent customs Euan Lake recently posted a design for a drip tray cover that integrates and Acaia scale. He made his design free-to-3D-print yourself, as well as offering his own powder-coated metal one that you can buy from him. Best of both worlds!

I wondered if we could pull off the same thing for the about-to-ship Decent Scale.

Above is our first attempt at the idea. We make replacement drip tray cover, with bent wires to hold the scale in place. A USB cable to permanently power the scale snakes out the side through a gap in the cover.

Why do this?

No need with unplumbed setups: at the moment, if your drip tray is not plumbed in, there are excellent scale adaptors that go under the drip tray. These were designed by the Decent Diaspora community. Some are free to print,

However, if you plumb in your drip tray, the drainage tube interferes with the scale, and we currently have no good solution to that.

The idea above would work for plumbed in setups.

I've read about people doing something similar with Acaia scales, and that a common problem is that the drip tray pools water, eventually drowning the scale. I'm hoping to avoid that problem with our design, since no pooling is likely to occur with an all-wires support.

With the idea above, the scale is suspended about 7mm above the bottom of the drip tray. Hopefully that will be enough distance to avoid water coming back up into the scale.

For now... we need to make one of these, and test test test....

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New tablet stand for October 2021, news of upcoming version*
﻿
This is the new slide-in tablet stand we're going to move to, starting with Decent espresso machines made in October 2021 (labelled v1.43). This is the only planned hardware change for that version.

Note the slot cut out of the chassis, in order to make this new feature possible. This is cut from the stainless steel of the front face and the aluminum chassis behind it. We weren't able to make this new feature work without modifying the chassis, which unfortunately makes it not backwards compatible to earlier machines.

With all other designs we tested (and we took 2 years to design and test this), we found them to wobble when tapped, which was super annoying. You can see in this video that this stand design is quite strong, and doesn't wobble. It appears permanently mounted to the chassis, if you were to guess, as you need to give it a good strong pull to get remove the tablet stand from the chassis.

This is the chassis that will start shipping in October, with the DE1 version we are labelling as v1.43. This is the only change in this version, from the DE1 we are currently shipping.

I do not yet have pricing for this v1.43, but it is likely that we will be raising prices, perhaps as much as 10%.

*The Global Supply Chain is currently very Precarious*

Products that need a lot of different parts are finding it hard to buy everything they need, in time to keep production going. Many car factories have stopped production, but as Ars Technical reports, there are shortages of many high tech products.

We are currently buying for this v.143 version, and finding that our parts costs have risen dramatically. Chips are particularly more expensive, with (for example) our Taiwanese-made CPU rising this month from $15 to $25 each.

What's causing these price increases? A vicious cycle, I think:



certain product categories, such as ours, have seen huge increases in demand. If it makes your life at home better, chances are that it's selling well, due to COVID-induced lifestyle changes. Decent is ordering larger quantities of parts, but so are all our other supplier's clients. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/04/intel-nvidia-tsmc-execs-agree-chip-shortage-could-last-into-2023/


factories were shut down during COVID, so they have to catch up anyway. At the same time, production capacity has gone down, as many factories went permanently out of business during the COVID shutdown.


parts prices have gone up, delivery times have increased (typically, from 60 days now to 6 months)


and so companies are ordering even more, stockpiling parts, to avoid factory shutdowns


we previously were ordering enough for 7 months at a time. We're now buying for 2 years of parts.


I think everyone is doing this, which is further driving up costs and delivery times.


This week, we managed to order parts from the "spot market", at a huge markup, parts that were supposed to be delivered in April, but suddenly were delayed another 6 months. We literally had to pay whatever the sellers wanted to charge, otherwise we'd have to halt production.


Our white chassis supplier fired us a few weeks ago, for being too picky, but a few days ago we found a new supplier whose quality looks good. White is a notoriously difficult color to get in high quality, and I'm hoping the new supplier delivers.

Last week, things looked grim, like a July/August factory shutdown was inevitable. News this past week was all good, as we paid "whatever it takes" and we think we'll not have to stop producing our espresso machines due to parts lacking.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Cleaning and testing our silicone F-Tubes*
﻿
This post is going to seem a bit insanely obsessive, but so be it.

Back in December, I posted a video about the new all-silicone F-shaped tubes:

__
http://instagr.am/p/CIh4mSXB_eS/

This tube carries water from the water tank into two pumps (hot and cold paths).

Making a custom tube allowed us to remove a lot of other parts, improving reliability and simplifying assembly.

As you can see in the video, these tubes are made by heating soft silicone, and subjecting it to pressure. It's common, though, for little bits of silicone to be left inside, dangling but still attached.

Decent engineer Alfred Nenada built a machine to clean out those bits. Actually he built several machines, as it took a few attempts to make something that actually worked.

In the end, Alfred decided to clean one tube at a time. A high powered pump fires clean water at 5 bar of pressure, and the water is reclaimed through a particle filter. The high pressure swells the tubes, spotting any weaknesses or leaks. The high water flow rips out any bits of silicone that might be dangling inside the tube.

This process takes about a minute per tube. As we built around 250 espresso machines per month, it takes Alfred a half day a month, to prepare the tubes we need.

Yes, this is a bit obsessive, but if we didn't do this, we would worry about a dangly bit inside the tube shaking loose some many months later, where it would then cause a blockage, and a real problem.

And yes, we could outsource this process, but we prefer to do our own cleaning and quality-control, so that we can closely monitor what our suppliers are giving us, and not get caught unawares if their quality slips.

A "Chinese Wall" between the manufacturing and testing of a part, is a really good idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

﻿*DE1XXL steaming & latte art*

Dennis Hew shows how he steams milk, and then makes latte art, on his DE1XXL espresso machine.

He uses two milk jugs: the 350ml to steam with, and the 600ml to pour the art with. The larger jug gives him better control over the foam, since he can angle the jug further.

https://decentespresso.com/de1xl


----------



## decent_espresso

*Adding a 3rd line for DE1XXL*

Last year, we had one line of tables to build espresso machines for customers. In August we moved to a new space, and added a 2nd, and lengthened both. Each was dedicated to either 120V or 220V machines, Yesterday, we finished reconfiguring our space, so we can add another line.

The reason for the change? We're getting a lot more 220V orders, now that we have the DE1XXL model, that is 220V-240V only, and cafes are regularly ordering this model in batches of 3 at a time, and sometimes as many as 15 at once.

So... this new line of tables will be dedicated to building the DE1XXL model, and hopefully we can keep up with orders.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Masterclass: finding the right recipe for your beans*

An hour long conversation between Decent co-founder John Buckman, coffee educator and judge Celia Wong, and trainer from Fuel Espresso, Paul Chan.

We start with medium roasted beans and move to light roasted single origin, discussing what recipe is appropriate for each bean, and tasting as we go.

You'll learn how to think about what espresso extraction recipe (on the Decent, a "profile") would extract a given bean best, or in the way you most want from that bean.

Note: shortly after this event, I hired Paul to work for Decent, focussed on our manual and training videos.


----------



## 4085

Whilst I admire the Decent, and I really do. What the guys have achieved with these machines is technically really clever, but, and it is a big but....the machine is only as good as its operative and therein lies its Achilles heel. When I had a Vesuvius (many moons ago) after a very short period of time, I just wanted too make coffee. I tired very quickly of profiles as I am sure many other owners will admit to. I know several who simply set it up to the imitation 'lever' shot and that was that! In the right hands, the ability to change shot parameters by an ants knacker, and then have the taste buds to detect it is fantastic, but I bet that applies to the select few


----------



## shaunlawler

dfk41 said:


> Whilst I admire the Decent, and I really do. What the guys have achieved with these machines is technically really clever, but, and it is a big but....the machine is only as good as its operative and therein lies its Achilles heel. When I had a Vesuvius (many moons ago) after a very short period of time, I just wanted too make coffee. I tired very quickly of profiles as I am sure many other owners will admit to. I know several who simply set it up to the imitation 'lever' shot and that was that! In the right hands, the ability to change shot parameters by an ants knacker, and then have the taste buds to detect it is fantastic, but I bet that applies to the select few


 I couldn't disagree with you more - but I appreciate the profiles and that different roasted beans do react very differently using them (as well as all the other variables you can experiment with).

Maybe you just prefer a simple shot, with a 'normal' roasted bean (and there's nothing wrong with that) but most Decent owners, myself included, want something that has the ability to manipulate different flavours and provide endless opportunity to experiment.

If you are buying a Decent, and spending that much money, you owe it to yourself to make sure that you get the best out of it and that it's right for you. I don't think it's fair to say 'many other owners' tire of the profiles as your comment is not backed up by anything and goes against the many conversations on the Diaspora, which is the community of Decent owners.


----------



## decent_espresso

For what it's worth, I personally stick to just 4 profiles:



Londonium


Default Lever


Allongé


Blooming


as each makes a different kind of drink, and those are the 4 I like. It also depends on the bean.

I don't tend to change the profile settings, except for final shot weight, pulling it a bit shorter if there are some off flavors.

But I do really, really use the espresso charts constantly, to help me dial the grind in.

Typical example: I just noticed that I accidentally pulled a Londonium that only went to 4 bar, probably because the beans went old quickly in the current heat & humidity. Instead of serving it to my girlfriend, I poured it over vanilla ice cream for myself 😀 (hiding the acidity), fined the grind on the Niche, and pulled an acceptable shot for a latte for her.


----------



## ARN22340

> 50 minutes ago, shaunlawler said:many conversations on the Diaspora, which is the community of Decent owners.


 Where is the Diaspora Forum... did a quick google but did not see it. All I have is Basecamp where you book the machine.

Got to say I am very impressed with the machine.


----------



## shaunlawler

ARN22340 said:


> Where is the Diaspora Forum... did a quick google but did not see it. All I have is Basecamp where you book the machine.
> 
> Got to say I am very impressed with the machine.


 You need to be added by Decent. If you send them a message, they will send you the link.

Its then accessible through the Basecamp platform.

Enjoy the experimentation!


----------



## decent_espresso

shaunlawler said:


> You need to be added by Decent. If you send them a message, they will send you the link.
> 
> Its then accessible through the Basecamp platform.
> 
> Enjoy the experimentation!


 Diaspora is only for DE1 owners. You have to buy a machine from us to have access. Sorry!


----------



## shaunlawler

decent_espresso said:


> Diaspora is only for DE1 owners. You have to buy a machine from us to have access. Sorry!


 Yes sorry should have added that point!


----------



## ARN22340

decent_espresso said:


> Diaspora is only for DE1 owners. You have to buy a machine from us to have access. Sorry!


 I already have


----------



## decent_espresso

ARN22340 said:


> I already have


 I'll follow up with you 1:1. You Diaspora invitation is possibly in your email spam folder.


----------



## ARN22340

Thanks for getting back to me.

Mirjam got back to me this morning and she had not been informed of my shipment, hence she had not sent the invitation. She has now sent it.

The machine itself was straight forward so was easy enough to use off the bat without instructions.


----------



## decent_espresso

SUPER!


----------



## decent_espresso

*Movie rotating DE1 3 ways*

Our web site http://decentespresso.com/?movie=1 now lets you see 3 different ways of installing the Decent, all animated 360º, at the same time. What do you think? Too much visual stimulation?

You tap on the movie button to enable/disable this animation. By default, it's off until you tap the movie button.


----------



## decent_espresso

*New Showroom process*

As discussed on Home Barista https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/email-from-decent-espresso-t72925.html#p791819 and also with many customers, for some people the Decent Showroom is confusing.

However, many people do like it. It seems especially confusing for people whose English is less good.

So, we're changing the process:
- I've rewritten the email templates to be clearer
- If we don't hear from someone 48h after we've invited them to the Showroom, then my assistant Ihti will pick a machine for them, and email them a "public URL" of it. That way, they don't need to navigate Basecamp.
- After offering them a specific machine, after 48h if they don't reply, we send that machine.
- For those from countries where English is not well spoken, Ihti will pick the machine for them, thus skipping the first step. We're doing this as of today for our Arabic, Chinese and Korean customers.

Here is the first message that most will receive:







﻿

and here is the 2nd message (sent a few days after the first), but this is the 1st message that is sent to our not-so-good-at-English customers:

﻿








Here is an example of the records we provide on every machine, before it ships to you:
https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/6rRMu4mWdwQ1pxizYn7aMFek

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Bengle v2 - potential new design moves one step forward*

Decent Engineer Ben Champion has been working on turning his Bengle design for Decent, into a buildable prototype that we can test and use.

Here are the latest drawings. We're currently trying two color schemes: a black-metal/dark-wood and a white-metal/light-wood. We're starting with the black chassis, and have started to order parts to make two prototypes (one for Ben, one for me).

The tablet will slide into a slot under the main cover, so that your machine can have the tablet above the group head, like it is on the DE1, or you can put it aside, or in a drawer, if you prefer.

This is still a long way from being a real model we manufacture, but it's moved one step forward now.


----------



## decent_espresso

*When outsourcing fails... you DIY*

Part of the legacy of COVID is that many of our suppliers fired skilled workers during the shutdown periods in order to avoid bankruptcy. They are now lacking skilled personnel, and the quality is poorer. One place we've seen that is in paint-work, which (for wood) has been impossible for us to get at a quality we will accept.

Our woodturning supplier doing everything by computer-controlled lathe, so the quality is unchanged. However, these handles then went to a painting company, who three times did an unacceptable job and ruining the batch of handles. In the end, we lost patience, and told them to "just sent us the raw wood handles, we'll finish them ourselves".

Alfred, our recent hire from a few months, is a Albanian who worked as a general home builder in the UK for 6 years, and seemingly can do most anything. We've given him a room to convert into his own shed, and a budget to replace all the mediocre tools with good stuff. And he's really tidy! Luckily for us, he married a HK Woman in the UK, and they moved here.

I asked Alfred to trial several different varnish products and present me with samples. In the end, I really liked the natural color this choice produced. Alfred coats them once, lets them dry, then sands them, and then applies a second coat.

He's done about 400 handles this way now, so that we finally have natural wood handles in stock that I can be proud of.

Sometimes, you just have to do-it-yourself.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Better wheels for our coffee carts*

There are some slightly annoying things about the IKEA BROR carts https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/bror-work-bench-black-pine-plywood-30333286/ we use for our coffee carts:
- the bigger BROR cart legs cannot take wheels for feet
- the small BROR table has legs for wheels that you can swap into the bigger BROR
- but the wheels are low quality, tend to lock by accident, and wear flat very easily

I wanted to address these wheely issues with the IKEA BROR cart.
https://decentespresso.com/c?s=75741+1+75740+1+302+1+291+1+290+1
We're now selling a wheel adaptor bracket:
- it works on the bigger BROR table
- lets you use heavy duty 3rd party wheetls, including really big, outdoor-grade wheels
- here are two examples from Amazon that work with our bracket: https://www.amazon.com/WHARSTM-Locking-Casters-Diameter-Threaded/dp/B0814S923Z/ https://www.amazon.com/Industrial-Replacement-Furniture-Workbench-CasterBS75_1025EN/dp/B07HLK1XPT/

We also sell nice looking long black bolts so that you can put printed side boards around, to hide the tubing and generally make things prettier:

Here are the BROR tops and accessories we're selling, to help you easily & cheaply make your own coffee cart:
https://decentespresso.com/c?s=75741+1+75740+1+302+1+303+1+291+1+290+1

More info here:
https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/ef7JJeQ6dp5PQyeXk59xJjLC

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

AureaOli said:


> I must say, that is actually pretty nice. I think that really looks good for a cart business and I love how it has wheels. Very accessible and very convenient too. I am actually curious if this was for franchise or if it was something to be set up manually? If it was a franchise, I must have to commend it for using decent machine. That machine produces real good coffee and I think it was one of the impressive machines that I have tried. The machine is also very easy to operate, thus making it really better than others.


 The photo is of the coffee cart I built for myself, when I was living in Southern France. On Sundays, we would set it up in front of a friendly furniture shop at the farmer's market.

Not having a French registered company, we weren't legally allowed to "sell coffee" but the local government lady helpfully suggested a workaround of a "suggested donation" of 1€ for an espresso, and €3 for a latte. Those of you who can read French might spot the text about this on the cart.

In case you were wondering by espresso was mis-spelled.


----------



## decent_espresso

People sometimes post to Instagram, their Decent cart projects.


----------



## BeatBloom

Yes, absolutely. I have been using Decent for 1 year and everything suits me, but it is better to watch the video on YouTube and choose your option, which will suit you more.


----------



## decent_espresso

As we've decided to drop the Bengle-design direction, we're casting a wider net, and talking to a variety of designers, as part of reimagining what a Decent Espresso Machine might look like.

On DeviantArt.com I've made contact with a few artists I like and have commissioned concept drawings from them. If you have any artists on that site you like, please post them here, and I'll take a look.

I'm also running a contest on designcrowd.com but so far the results are not inspiring.

Decent customer "espressoSquirrel" worked on his own redesign idea, both tabletop and countersunk, and I feel they're inspired.

However, I do feel it's not a mass-audience look, so it's not likely something Decent would do right now.

I would love for us to either get the point where we could do a 30 machine run of a design like that, but currently we can't. I can't make enough plain-black-box DE1 to keep up with orders. 

I am encouraging espressoSquirrel and others to continue to post their ideas, because there are some people in the Decent Diaspora (such as the super-productive Sheldon Wong) who very much do know how to build things, and one of them might want to cooperate with him.

And I'll continue to post inspired designs here as I receive them.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent customer/designer "espressoSquirrel" continues his creative burst with a design homage to Elon Musk's Tesla Truck.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dennis' milk steaming tutorial

Dennis Hew has an excellent summary of how he steams milk on the DE1.






﻿
I've been using his technique for a few weeks on my DE1XXL, because I found that my older technique (tip against the jug wall) didn't work well with the more powerful steam.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Zoom call : Latte Art with Dennis Hew, in 3 days*

At this time:
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20210515T010000&p1=tz_hkt&p2=224&p3=179&p4=152

John Buckman & Author Dennis Hew are inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Learn how to texture milk appropriately for different styles of drink and latte art styles. Get help live, from Dennis and John, on any steaming problems you might be having.
﻿
As always, this will be video recorded and posted to Youtube later.
﻿
The Zoom URL will be:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84788938050?pwd=eVVlRHlCR0RxZ0xEbFJLVVNRQ3QyUT09

Meeting ID: 847 8893 8050
Passcode: 216474


----------



## decent_espresso

*Good milk swirl*

Dennis Hew shows the swirling pattern you want to achieve when steaming, so as to get perfect microfoam that also makes great latte art.


----------



## decent_espresso

"BEST PRACTICE" espresso profile now available.

I've been working on "best practices" espresso profile, incorporate the best practices we've found in the five years we've been shipping the Decent Espresso machine.

I'm very much looking for a better name, but I'm not going to name it after me (some people suggested), as all I've done is poach 3 other people's good work (Damian Brakel, Scott Rao, Jonathan Gagné) and merged it into one unified profile.

Here is what I think is "best practice" about this profile:



*quick fill* of group head at the start of preinfusion


*low pressure preinfusion*, to assist capillary action in fast, even wetting


slightly *softened pressure rise* to avoid channeling that a hard rise can cause


*extraction phase switches to flow profiling*, for automatic channel healing.


extraction phase has a *linear flow rate ramp up* over time, to keep constant water contact time, instead of using pressure profiling to approximate this


extraction phase uses *pressure limiting*, so as to never go above the set max pressure (9 bar)


the extraction phase decides the *end-flow rate relative to flow at peak pressure*. This adapts the profile to the grind size (not yet implemented) -- this comes from Gagne's work.


*accurate stop-at-volume* closely matches scale weight, because of a fully successful preinfusion


a smooth puck *resistance curve* is achieved


Some of the "best practices" here were originally discovered on traditional machines:



- several machines (such as Kees's Idromatic) have a quick fill, followed by a soft-pressure-rise feature built into the group, and manual lever users have done this for years


- pressurized preinfusion is fairly common in traditional machines, but to my knowledge, no traditional machine implements this by measuring puck pressure. Instead they measure pressure-behind-a-flow-constrictor, which gives different results.


Here is a photo using this profile. The traces behind are my Londonium god-shot, which was my reference to try to imitate, but hopefully improve.









Things to note about my shot pull that are different than the Londonium god shot reference:



the pressure rises both start at 0:12 but the "best practices" profile takes a few seconds longer, and has a linear pressure rise


the flow rate down/up bump of Londonium, which occurs as max pressure is hit, is mostly gone with this profile


pressure has a flick up around 0:25, due to fines migration, visible now due to the constant flow. With Londonium, this fines migration is visible as a flattening & decreasing of the flow. The extraction theory I'm adhering to doesn't think that the flow rate declining in a shot, is a good thing, so this is the biggest difference between Londonium and Best Practices profile.


This profile is now in the 'nightly' build of de1app, or make it by hand with the images below.

Note: I have not yet implemented the "mutating" aspect of this profile, which is to have it change the final goal flow rate based on the flow rate at the end of the "pressurize" stage. It's currently set manually (default: 2.2ml/s) and you'll want to adjust this so that it's (in my experience between 0.5ml/s and 1.0 ml/s) more than the pressure you observe at peak pressure.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Here is the youtube archive of the 90 minute Zoom call with author Dennis Hew about steaming for latte art:


----------



## Jollybean

Great YouTube Dennis and John. Learnt a lot - thanks. Off to find a big jug!


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent customer Martin in California shared this photo with me, of his kitchen remodeling, with a countersunk white DE1XL espresso machine.

In the bottom right I inserted a small photo inside the cabinet under the machine, so you can see the very tidy plumbing job.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Zoom: Decent Latte Art (EU/MENA/AU)*

John Buckman & Author ﻿Dennis Hew are inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Learn how to texture milk appropriately for different styles of drink and latte art styles. Get help live, from Dennis and John, on any steaming problems you might be having.

As always, this will be video recorded and posted to Youtube later.

You can put your own location onto this web site to see when it'll be for you:
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20210522T090000&p1=tz_hkt&p2=136&p3=37&p4=214&p5=776&p6=152
﻿
﻿The Zoom URL will be:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87817771308?pwd=VmJpWWN1czJrSU9qamhJaUFYLzBoQT09


----------



## decent_espresso

*Justin Nagelberg's Decent Design*

Ultra-minimalist Designer Justin Nagelberg https://www.parallelogr.am/ reached out to me as proposed to work on a concept drawing for a potential future Decent Espresso Machine.

I've made an animation from the stills he sent me.

There's a lot to like in what he's done:
- he's staying within Decent's current design, but pushing it even further, and bringing more design integrity to it
- the flip-up tablet design, integrated into the machine, is interesting. When up, it could also serve as a cup holder (though that would ruin the minimalism! <grin>)
- he makes an interesting point via email to me that "objects that appear to be more stable generally tend to have a higher perceived value"
- hiding the power cord is his recommendation, which we do on the DE1XL
- removing screws is also his recommendation, and I agree, and we've done that on the group head as of v1.3, and we use magnets on the DE1XL back panel to avoid screws. Removing screws on the side is likely achievable with more mechanical engineering design work.
- he'd like to remove the buttons on the group head, but unfortunately we were forced to put them on as of v1.3 for legal safety compliance reasons, but I think he could make them attractive.
- I really like his handle shapes
- the drip tray cover design is very pretty, but as stamped metal, it will hold water droplets and require frequent cleaning, which is why we moved away from this design.

I'm continuing to work with a variety of designers, who are making concept drawings for me, and I'll be posting more from this exercise as I receive them.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*"Decent Guide to Espresso" now available to Decent customers*

The first draft of Dennis Hew's book https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08V1X75JG adapted for Decent Espresso, is now visible to Decent customers at:
http://decentespresso.com/guide

This is meant to be a beginner's guide, not for advanced home baristas. Note that if you're not a Decent customer, you won't be able to follow the links on that page. For more detailed information about most-anything-you-can-think-of, check the Decent Espresso Reference Manual: https://decentespresso.com/manual

Here is are two samples page from the guide, about milk steaming and puck prep:
https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/xmsoN8A4n5vwjSeAifzdyA3a
https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/uzp3miJ65TKyarq6Dm1QUtXE

Some notes about what we've done:



- we're trying to cap each chapter with a video demonstrating the same information on the page, for those who prefer to learn by seeing


- Dennis is also an illustrator, and makes simple-to-understand drawings, which we favor over using photographs, as they're easier to understand.


- on the bottom of each page is local navigation inside the chapter


- every page in the guide has a discussion below it, so that you can ask questions of Decent, and those become part of the permanent record of this page in the guide.


- much requested, there is also now a cleaning guide


This is still very much a work in progress and there are chapters that are marked TBW (to be written). However, from now on we'll be working on the public version of this guide, so that it's useful right-now, and can also benefit from real feedback.

-john


----------



## newdent

What's the thinking behind making the decent forum private?


----------



## benbarista

John, in your interesting post on "best practices" profile, you wrote : "extraction phase has a *linear flow rate ramp up* over time, to keep constant water contact time, instead of using pressure profiling to approximate this ". Would you have time enough to explain more?


----------



## decent_espresso

newdent said:


> What's the thinking behind making the decent forum private?


 So that there is no sales talk, and everyone there has the same gear and can have a good conversation. Public conversations are available here and on 24 other forums (!). One forum gets to be private.


----------



## decent_espresso

benbarista said:


> John, in your interesting post on "best practices" profile, you wrote : "extraction phase has a *linear flow rate ramp up* over time, to keep constant water contact time, instead of using pressure profiling to approximate this ". Would you have time enough to explain more?


 Espresso extracts about 20% (roughly) of the solids into the cup. Thus, a 20g puck ends up at 16g of coffee material at the end of the shot. Naturally, this means less resistance to high pressure water.

For this reason, espressos will always flow faster as the shot progresses. Generally the end of the extraction is faster flowing than optimal.

There are a few ways to combat this:



use pressure profiling to indirectly lower the flow


use flow profiling to control the flow


As to why "linear flow ramp" it's because if you're ok with an increasing flow rate during espresso (it's natural, after all) you want the flow rate to move at a linear rate, with the same pace of the extraction of coffee solids. Lurching up really quickly at the last 8 seconds of the shot, makes for a bitter brew mixed in a the end (and is typical of a flat-9-bar extraction).

Note that flat-flow espresso is totally fine too, but generally more appropriate for medium to dark roasts, as puck integrity is greater with those style of roasts. With light roasts, a flat flow generally results in under-pressure extraction (under 4 bar) toward the end of the shot.

As my experience is that the best espresso is achieved when FLOW and PRESSURE are both in a good zone, I prefer to have flow increase over the course of the shot so that I can keep pressure up over 6 bar, even at the end, but not at too high a flow rate (never over 3ml/s)


----------



## Denis S

benbarista said:


> John, in your interesting post on "best practices" profile, you wrote : "extraction phase has a *linear flow rate ramp up* over time, to keep constant water contact time, instead of using pressure profiling to approximate this ". Would you have time enough to explain more?


 There are general profiles that work for almost all grinders and then there are profiles that dont work for a certain type of grinders. But you have to dig up deep to find and understand why.

Unimodal grinders (ssp MP 64mm or unimodal on lagom) or 98 mm high uniformity burrs for espresso wont extract good using the things that work on a Niche, or on a Eureka, Mazzer grinder.

For unimodal grinders you need a fast extraction because the puck doesn't hold long, max pressure will be always 6-7 bar not 8-9 bars, and a steady flow during extraction will give you a bad result.

Typical shot with light roasts and unimodal burrs is a shot with 1-2.5+ ratio pulled in total time of 15-25 sec max, at a higher temperature (93-97C).

Why? because unimodal grinders have a narrower distribution, and it allows you to grind much finer, so you end up with a lot more surface that extracts higher in %/higher TDS. But the pucks are full with fines because of that, and these fines dont like higher pressure, or a long water/coffee contact time, as it will channel.

This type of extraction is only good for light roasts, so unimodal burrs are good and made for light roasts. If you pull a medium roast at 3-7g/s in the cup then it will taste like ashtray.

With Niche for example, a medium roast has great taste in the 1.2-2.2g/s range in flow, while a dark roast taste good at 0.5-1.5g/s in the cup flow.

A light roasts on unimodal is pulled at 3-7g/s meaning, 15g of coffee pulled to 50g out (1:3+ratio) in 18 sec total time. 8 sec is preinfusion with short bloom (3sec) and the rest of 10 sec is extraction.

50g out /10 sec extraction= 5 g/s average flow.

You can apply what John and decent proposed to a majority of roast and grinders, but to that small % of unimodal grinder and ultra light roasts you cannot apply it with good results.


----------



## Denis S

I added two graphs to make it easier to understand. If you are interested on the subject you find some info but again, you have to take your time and search forums. I know all this because I already tested it with different grinders and burr types.

Fast shot typical for unimodal burrs with light roasts:

https://visualizer.coffee/shots/2b7c740a-f498-490a-920e-f419d8d5fe7b

https://visualizer.coffee/shots/d6f7390c-8485-4877-a1e6-9310b5dd3020

Slower shot :

https://visualizer.coffee/shots/94e9c9cb-d1f6-48e9-b707-9ad049c2eb13


----------



## decent_espresso

@Denis Sis a serious coffee guy, and his advice has at least as much validity as anything I might opine about.

On this profile, my feeling is that Denis is prioritizing hitting a good pressure (never under 6 bar), over maintaining a lower flow rate.

If I were running his shot <grin> I'd have been willing to lower pressure further (down to 2 bar) in order to keep flow from going over (say) 3.5ml/s.

https://visualizer.coffee/shots/d6f7390c-8485-4877-a1e6-9310b5dd3020

That being said: the "proof" is in the taste, and if this 9-to-6 bar profile makes tastier espresso than my ideal of under-3.5ml/s flow, then Denis would be right. Both approaches are valid, but which-ever tastes better is right in this case.


----------



## Denis S

An idea on why that shot went like that would be that a higher volume of fines is present into a unimodal grinder ( 64 multi-purpose burrs in the shot above) and after pushing and washing those fines/solid into the cup the puck gets depleted tot he point it's becomes neutral, as no matter how much flow you will pump it will not stay or go up in pressure.

My idea of more fines present in unimodal grinders is based on the fact that they achieve huge extractions (2-3% above Niche) in a much shorter period of brew time.

Or else how you can get a 25% EY in a 20 sec shot. This is why the profiles from this type of grinders look like massive channeling shots with a huge flow. A galoping type of flow, increasing more and more, because the fines/solids are washed towards the bottom, many of time are ultra fine and can make it easily into the cup, increasing the extraction/tds.

Thank you for your explanation. I still believe there is much to discover and because of the feedback from the Decent graph and database it is easier to compare and understand stuff.


----------



## decent_espresso

Denis S said:


> An idea on why that shot went like that would be that a higher volume of fines is present into a unimodal grinder ( 64 multi-purpose burrs in the shot above)


 Yes, that's my belief too.


----------



## MWJB

Denis S said:


> Why? because unimodal grinders have a narrower distribution, and it allows you to grind much finer, so you end up with a lot more surface that extracts higher in %/higher TDS. But the pucks are full with fines because of that, and these fines dont like higher pressure, or a long water/coffee contact time, as it will channel.
> 
> A light roasts on unimodal is pulled at 3-7g/s meaning, 15g of coffee pulled to 50g out (1:3+ratio) in 18 sec total time. 8 sec is preinfusion with short bloom (3sec) and the rest of 10 sec is extraction.


 Surely the first point has more relevance to overall fineness of grind? E.g. if your average grind size is smaller with a tighter distribution, you may have the same, or only marginally more fines (here, I'm calling fines the peak around 40-60um)? It's not clear what their mass is, or whether they can produce whole % of additional extraction. In the same vein, if your distribution is narrower, you also have smaller particles at the +80%/90% and max particle size. Isn't it likely that these are also more able to give up additional solids (maybe also impacting incidence of voids in the puck) due to their relatively smaller volume compared to a wider distribution at a coarser overall grind?

When the first drips leave the PF, they contain a massive concentration of solids, so in the time that the water has travelled the depth of the puck, extraction of the puck must already be well underway. You have no yield in the cup before the first drips land, nor any extraction yield, but a significant degree of the puck has been extracted...it would be fair to call this out as moot point, but dissolution of solids must have started by the time the water has travelled the depth of the puck.


----------



## benbarista

Thanks a lot John and Denis! And Thanks a lot, John, for sharing so much!


----------



## decent_espresso

*Crazy/scary Decent launcher screen*

I'm going through a pile of 6-year old Android tablet samples, to see if they still work and we can use them for *something* here at the Decent Factory.

Back then, I was also playing with various kinds of Android Home Screen backgrounds, as I was working with a dozen different artists and trying to decide the look I wanted.

I was highly amused to find this Android launcher screen. It's pretty crazy.

I thought I'd share.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*A jig for cutting wires evenly*

Our puck rake manufacturer couldn't figure out how to trim the super-bendy wires we use for our puck rake, so that they're all the same length. The problem is that the wires move as you're cutting them. So, we took the rakes back to Decent HQ, with their acupuncture-sharp ends, and I gave this problem over to Alfred. His solution: a jig that keeps large shears in place, while you rotate the puck rake and cut over and over, until all the wires are trimmed to the same length. We're now (finally) shipping the black puck rakes, having figured this out.

Sadly, it's taken so long to get these made, that the entire run is already sold out. We're switching away from this supplier, as they took 9 months (!) and trying 2 new ones. As soon as we know we can get rakes in stock, we'll take orders again for them. https://decentespresso.com/rake


----------



## decent_espresso

I've been working with Omri Almagor, who is an engineer who worked for Kees and Gaggia, on his concept for a Decent redesign, for about a year. Here is his final drawing, rendered in black or white. I called this "Smorg" as it reminded me of a dragon.


----------



## RobW

If you are using the water tank with the XL or XXL models how do you refill it? Do you have to remove the back panel to raise the pipe out of it?


----------



## decent_espresso

RobW said:


> If you are using the water tank with the XL or XXL models how do you refill it? Do you have to remove the back panel to raise the pipe out of it?


 You can't easily tell from the drawings, but this is a two part chassis, and the winged part comes off (likely via magnets), giving access to the back. And the assumption is that you'd then connect the refill kit, and put the case back.


----------



## decent_espresso

Cafe Racer Design

Decent customer "EspressoSquirrel" continues to fire amazing design ideas at us.

Here is what he wrote about this set, that he sent at us:

"I was thinking about cross pollination of design elements from other products into espresso machines rather than thinking of other machines. I started looking at motorbikes and then particularly 'cafe racers' ironically. So here's a cafe racer inspired design, kind of rough around the edges, the lines and curves are not great, but maybe of interest."

I love he turned the "ugly" back panel into a design feature with a partially translucent back panel. So cool!

-john


----------



## RobW

decent_espresso said:


> You can't easily tell from the drawings, but this is a two part chassis, and the winged part comes off (likely via magnets), giving access to the back. And the assumption is that you'd then connect the refill kit, and put the case back.


 Sorry, I wasn't clear in my question. I was talking about in the current standard design (which I think has a good design aesthetic). Do you need to remove the magnetic back to access the control to raise the water hose? If so I presume these models are targeted at plumb in only?

I would not want to plumb in (can't really with my kitchen) but I like the idea of the better steam power.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Puck Rakes Samples received from new suppliers*

I received samples from a new supplier of puck rakes -- this is the same company that makes our funnels, and their quality is good. They're also charging 3x more than the others, but I'm happy to pay it to get a higher quality product, reliably.

Paint quality is good, but the main problem is that they packaged them in plastic bags and not the custom-sized boxes we have, and this caused most of the received samples to have bent wires on arrival 😥. The natural wood is nice, but needs a coat of something. So...kicking this back at them, to get a second-attempt at this.
﻿
﻿-----
﻿
I haven't received them yet, but I have photos from the other supplier. They've changed our design without asking us (grin), getting rid of the "wire holding tube", and instead cutting the rake in half, mounting the wires inside the wood, and then regluing it.

It's not unusual for suppliers to change the design, because the product is hard to make as it currently stands (with the suitcase, their improvements were important and good)

In this case, the wires are straighter and the mounting is invisible, which is good. But... you can't replace the wires with your own, and the cut line is not attractive on the natural rakes, but likely ok on the black painted ones. We'll see!

﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

*Key grinder from Weber, used with a Decent*

Doug Weber shared with me this video he made a few days ago, showcasing his upcoming Key grinder https://weberworkshops.com/products/key-grinder and his Decent.

What's interesting about the Key, besides its size, is that a very, very respected name in high quality grinders, is coming out with a conical burr set. I feel that Niche brought conical burrs back into respect, with their 63mm set. Weber's massive 83mm burr is another big step up, and it'll be interested to see how it compares both with the Niche and with big flat burr grinders.

Size and design-wise, the Key looks great next to a black DE1, and doubtlessly next year we'll start seeing Instagram photos of happy parents, with their new coffee setups.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Upcoming Zooms: Puck Prep*

Please read this new chapter by ﻿Dennis Hew in the Decent Guide to Espresso:
https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/MvQ8StLcx3fJXk43TfaBNUWP

Dennis and ﻿Paul Chan will be discussing how to prepare a coffee puck for espresso. The zoom call will start with the basics but also cover advanced topics. Please feel free to place your Zoom camera near your coffee gear, show us what you're doing, and ask questions.

I will introduce the call, but it will be run by Author Dennis Hew, and professional espresso trainer Paul Chan.
﻿
---
﻿
﻿John Buckman is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Decent Puck Prep #1 (USA/Asia/AU)
Time: Jun 6, 2021 09:00 AM Hong Kong SAR

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89905277805?pwd=U2tQVWJ5VnpuanlKVVF2WjZpUHRHUT09

Meeting ID: 899 0527 7805
Passcode: 168249﻿
﻿
With this URL you can put your own time zone in, and see when the call will happen:
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20210606T010000&p1=tz_hkt&p2=224&p3=179&p4=152

﻿
---
﻿
A week later, we will host the same topic at a different time, so that we can reach those in: UK/EU/Middle-East/Asia. It will be at this time/date:
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20210612T090000&p1=tz_hkt&p2=224&p3=179&p4=152
and I'll advertise it next week with the Zoom URL.

As always, both calls will be recorded and later made available publicly.

---
﻿
-john


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## decent_espresso

Puck prep: youtube copy & next time zone for same

Here is the Youtube saved version of today's Zoom on Puck Prep:






And so I can now announce the next Zoom call for puck prep:
https://tinyurl.com/zoomprep2

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84526120030?pwd=WGg0Wk9GSmlyMFdqVXhiditMd2tMQT09


----------



## decent_espresso

I've got a new supplier for the puck rakes and am ordering 1000pcs of each color. The samples they made did arrive with needles bent, due to bad packaging (they were in plastic bags), but otherwise quite nice.

We're going to experiment for the first time, with a "blister pack" form-fitting approach for this, because it holds the handle in place and nothing touches the needles during shipping.

I'm not usually a fan of plastic, but this is a case where the material is the right choice for the job.

These should arrive in about 2 months. When I've got them in my hands, and can confirm that I'm happy, I'll re-open ordering on our web site, for our puck rakes. https://decentespresso.com/rake

Above is a photo of a hand-made blister pack we put together, to test the idea.


----------



## decent_espresso

Paul's MDD coffee puck technique






Decent Espresso's Paul Chan developed what he calls the "multi-depth distribution" method for preparing an espresso coffee puck. He swirls around the edges, with the puck rake in deep, and after one circular pass, starts to lift the puck rake up, and finishes with the center. After a single tap of the portafilter, you can see that his coffee grounds are very evenly distributed, and make a very nice espresso shot.

But, we need a better name for this technique!

This video is now in the Decent Guide to Espresso, in the newly rewritten Puck Prep section. 
https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/kBvnUfRnMTYipEvgHLsAL61L


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Scale progress*

I received a box of 40 scales 8 days ago, and have thoroughly checked every one of them, and I have submitted the testing protocol back to the supplier.

There other 960 scales are now being checked according to my specification. They should arrive here next week, and then we'll start to ship them to customers. However, there are 600 orders, and only 3 people in the Boxing team, so it will likely take a week or two, to get all those orders out.

The 40 scales I have now are reserved for App programmers. We are giving away free Decent Scales to people who have apps in the Google or Apple store, if they express interest in supporting the Decent Scale. My goal is for this scale to be the first "open scale" and it will hopefully be supported by many apps.

I have fully documented the Bluetooth API https://decentespresso.com/decentscale_api and am providing free technical support to any programmer working on it.

We've recorded two videos about the scale, and they are being edited now. Hopefully they'll be released next week.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent Scale: tracking your gushers with 0.1g accuracy
﻿
Now with the Decent Scale https://decentespresso.com/scale even your worst espresso disasters can be tracked in high-speed, 0.1g precision, and charted for posterity on the de1app screen.
﻿






﻿
---

An explanation of this video:

A bunch of people have asked me to make a video showing the Decent Scale in action on the Decent Espresso Machine.

So, I asked Paul﻿ to make me an espresso in our studio, with some beans we'd just received.

The scale is paired, and is showing the flow-rate-into-the-cup as the brown line.

Unfortunately, the grind was *really* not dialed in, and so the espresso reached 33 grams in just 9 seconds. A lovely "gusher". Result: Paul is embarrassed.

﻿Anyway, it's still a demo of the scale in use, and proof that Decent is not more immune to to screwing up, than anyone else.

---
﻿
I have 960 Decent Scales arriving from our supplier in a few days (they were shipped out yesterday), and we'll be sending them to the 600 pre-orders as fast as we can.

As it's been a long time (some people have waited 4 years!) I'll be emailing all customers to confirm that we still have their current postal address. We'll prioritize sending scales to those who confirm their address with us.

Some other scale news:

- Later this week we'll be posting two scale-related videos I shot with ﻿Mohammed. These cover (a) using the Scale as a plain-old-scale (no bluetooth) and (b) the scale being used with the Decent. Ihti is our in-house videographer, as I hired him because of the thoughtful videos he did for his blog.

- Mohammed and I are reaching out to Android/iOS app developers, to see if we can entice them to add support for our scale. I'm sending them a free scale and 1-on-1 programming tech support. Lars, the programmer behind https://beanconqueror.com/ is our first take-up.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Video: intro to the Decent Scale

Here's a video we finished today that discusses everything about the Decent Scale *except* how it works with the Decent Espresso Machine. My goal was to have something for people who want to just know all about it, and don't own a Decent.

We've also filmed another video, now being edited, which is dedicated to DE1 use of the Decent Scale, and that should come out next week.

This video, like a few of my recent ones, is in a much more relaxed and conversational style with Mohammed, instead of the more intense/information-dense (and shorter) videos I made on my own, in the past.

As always, I am guided by Steve Stockman's book "How to shoot video that doesn't suck" https://www.stevestockman.com/the-book/ whose principal point is: if you don't entertain, people won't watch.

My earlier videos have been info-dense, but barely watched, so that needed to change. Hopefully, many of you will like this easier-going video style.

The Decent Scale is now shipping, though it'll take about 2 weeks for us to work through the order backlog. For more info: https://decentespresso.com/scale

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Factory Production Schedule now online*

At https://decentespresso.com/batches you'll now find a full accounting of every machine scheduled, in progress, and past (starting this year). 
- You can see every model we make, how many of them, and how long it takes us (in weekdays) to do that batch. 
- There's also an estimate of how far along we are for the "in progress" batches of machines. 
- And, you can see what we have planned for the next batches. 
- If a model you're contemplating buying is not in stock, this will give you a good estimate of when it will be available.
- Totals per month are given
- You'll note that we've been doing more batches each month, but taking more time to do each. This is because we added a 3rd assembly line at the end of April:






﻿
﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent Scale in the Cold*

Over on the Home Barista Forum, I was asked if the Decent Scale could work in near-freezing temperatures. This espress glass weighs 124.0g at room temperature.... and the same when the scale (and batteries) have been sitting 6 hours in a 0ºC freezing-cold refrigerator.

I was also asked how hot conditions could get before the scale failed, but I'm not sure I want to put the scale in an oven to find out. =:-O

And before anyone asks... the LEDs on this scale as this was a beta model from December, that I still use for my own programming. The production scales use white-ish LEDs.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent Scale Quality Control

We opening every box, of all 1000 decent scales that arrived, to make sure they're flawless (both aesthetically and functionally). It's a lot of work... but better to find problems here, before it arrives at your home and becomes your problem.


----------



## decent_espresso

*The Decent Scale with the DE1*

In this video, I show how the Decent Scale works with the Decent Espresso Machine.

Note that all the features I am showing here work equally well with a variety of other (competing) 0.1g scales.

Thus, this video is perhaps best understood as "what does the DE1 do with a bluetooth scale?"

If you're wondering "how does this scale compare to the competition", my answer is:

- It's an open-scale, meant to be supported by a wide variety of apps. In a few months, I hope you'll be able to find a large number of apps that work with it. The API is open https://decentespresso.com/decentscale_api and we're sending free scales to programmers of apps on the ios and android stores.

- It's got a very waterproof design, with no openings at all from the top of sides. That includes the USB port, which is on the bottom, and not on the side, unlike some competing scales.

- It has a vertical LED and vertical buttons, which are not blocked when you put a large vessel on the top of the scale. Most competing scales have their LEDs and buttons on top, and a large vessel (such as if you use this for baking) will obstruct them.

- And it's less expensive than many competing scales, at USD$99.

- More about the scale hardware at this video:


----------



## decent_espresso

A larger Decent Tablet?

It isn't possible to find a White Android 8" tablet for sale any more. There are literally none on Amazon.com. The 8" style is only in black, and very rarely... in silver (and rarer still, white front, silver back). For our white DE1 machines, that's an aesthetic problem.

The reason: people much prefer larger tablets, and so manufacturers have focussed their improvements on larger models. The same issue exists in the Apple ecosystem, with the iPad Mini (about the same size as our DE1 Android tablet) lagging behind the improvements of its larger iPad cousins.

We will run out of our stock of Android white tablets in a few months, and I'm not sure what we'll find to replace them.

Running the numbers, we need about 1000pcs white tablets per year (it's 46% of our DE1XL sales). Teclast, who make our current-model Black tablets (running Android 9) have offered to accept a special-order of white tablets, but their minimum order quantity is 3000 tablets. In the 3 years to use up the order, these models will be seen as very obsolete. And tablet batteries sitting around for 3 years will likely degrade. So, that's not a great option.

One possibility is to move to a 10" screen for the white model.

I've mounted one such tablet to our staff-use DE1 (an old v1.0 machine, with no group head controller). I've bent the tablet stand back at a further angle, so that it's easier to read. That's what it's in the photo.
﻿﻿
I think it's possible for us﻿ to find a 10" tablet with a more narrow bevel, so that more of the tablet size is the screen, and the overall tablet width then becomes less. Still, you can see that a 10" screen slightly overlaps

One advantage of this 10" size, is that the resolution can go to 1920x1280, or 2560x1600, which looks really beautiful. We would also want to find a 10" tablet where the USB port is on the left - the ones I had were all right-side charging.

I remember when I first say in a Tesla S. My first impression was "whoa! huge tablet screen!" but then it just felt great to have more screen than I really needed.

But... would you feel the same way with your espresso machine?

-john


----------



## crypticc

decent_espresso said:


> We are about to start shipping v1.42 of our DE1 machines and all prices will shortly be rebased to current exchange rates, compared to USD, starting next week.
> 
> I don't yet know how much change this will cause, as the last time prices were rebased was a year ago, and it seems like exchange rates GBP/USD haven't changed much. https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=1Y


 Hi

Interested in your machines... I currently have Rancillo Silvia but I've been reading and procrastinating for about 4 years now. Now I think is the time that I need to take the plunge.

The money now burning a hole in my pocket wants a XXL, but I'm telling myself it's for potential countersink in the future. Does it include the latest upgrades?

Also I'm not interested in glued-on tablet stand. Can I get the magnetic one like DE1Pro? - referring to this link > Link to your previous reply

Finally, the dimensions online seem to refer to the DE1PRO. Are the location of the feet the same on the DE1XL/XXL?

Thanks

Chris


----------



## crypticc

crypticc said:


> Hi
> 
> Interested in your machines... I currently have Rancillo Silvia but I've been reading and procrastinating for about 4 years now.
> 
> The money now burning a hole in my pocket wants a XXL, and for potential countersink in the future. Does it include the latest upgrades?
> 
> Also I'm not interested in glued-on tablet stand. Can I get the magnetic one like DE1Pro?
> 
> Finally, the dimensions online seem to refer to the DE1PRO. Are the location of the feet the same on the DE1XL/XXL?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Chris


 p.s. any discounted XXL 220/240V? ;-D


----------



## decent_espresso

crypticc said:


> p.s. any discounted XXL 220/240V? ;-D


 A realtime inventory of discounted machines is available from a button at:

https://decentespresso.com/queue

There was a discounted XXL available that was claimed recently. If you'd like to get email notices when a discounted machine is made available, please DM me.


----------



## decent_espresso

crypticc said:


> he money now burning a hole in my pocket wants a XXL, but I'm telling myself it's for potential countersink in the future. Does it include the latest upgrades?


 v1.42 is the current model, but in August we will raise our prices slightly, and come out with the v1.43 model. The only change is a slide-in tablet stand, instead of having 3 screws.



> Also I'm not interested in glued-on tablet stand. Can I get the magnetic one like DE1Pro? - referring to this link > Link to your previous reply


 No problem at all, and no charge for that either.



> Finally, the dimensions online seem to refer to the DE1PRO. Are the location of the feet the same on the DE1XL/XXL?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Chris


 The XL/XXL is 6cm deeper than the PRO.

Full dimensions here:

https://decentespresso.com/img/DE1XLV143.pdf


----------



## decent_espresso

*Which scale is faster at tracking weight change?*

In another video 



 I mentioned that the Decent Scale is optimized to track weight change, while most other scales are optimized to determine stable weight.

A customer decided to test my claim, by putting an Acaia scale on top of the Decent Scale, and filming the different weight results as they poured water into the top of both. That's their video above.

As you can see, the Decent Scale is consistently showing a greater weight than the Acaia. This is because it's reacting faster to the weight changing. When there is no weight changing, both scales show the same result.

In no way is this a criticism of the Acaia. It's a beautiful, well built scale. In many way, my design of the Decent Scale was in reaction to the Acaia, changing things as I wish they were on the Acaia. These aren't necessarily what you want changed.

One thing I really wanted was "no lag", because I use my 0.1 gram scale for tracking "flow rate into the cup" with my DE1 espresso machine. I also use it to stop the espresso at the right moment, and less lag means more accurate stopping.

I don't need or want "smoothing" because I want to compare, in as real time as possible, the flow rate going into the puck, compared to the espresso flowing into the cup. Smoothing the weight causes a delay between the two lines, which makes interpretation more difficult.

I have heard that it's possible via bluetooth to disable the smoothing on the Acaia, and if so, that's a great feature that they put in.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Which scale is faster? (version 2)*

This is a follow up comparing the Acaia to the Decent Scale. The first video is here 




In this video, again done by a customer, the customer has adjusted their Acaia "filter=" setting to its smallest value of "2", which should remove the smoothing that scale does, and lead to a faster responsiveness (lower latency). This does improve the Acaia's responsiveness (reducing its latency) and is something we'll recommend to those using an Acaia scale on the Decent Espresso Machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

All^h^h^h Most Decent Models now in stock

Back in November 2020, I posted

__
http://instagr.am/p/CHuoeTUBqTR/
 that our Decent Espresso Machines were finally in stock. No more waiting!

That didn't last long. <sigh>

We had sold 127 espresso machines in October, and made 180 machines, so I thought we'd finally gotten ahead of the demand curve. A month after I made that Instagram post, all our espresso machines stock was gone. Our monthly sales went to 207 machines in November, climbing to 259 and then 278 machines in March, again outpacing our ability to build them.

There's good news, though.

Since January, we've been able to speed up our building another 50%. And now, finally, we've gotten close to having all our models in stock.

We have 121 machines in stock. The realtime list can be seen here: https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/KTaSDBmAH2X6r7TcDvB8pBkm

A few days ago, I made a live chart for the website, of how many machines we start building and finish each month. https://decentespresso.com/batch_chart﻿









I had thought I'd be able to announce, this week, that all models were in stock. Alas, no.

Anytime we get close to having stock of all models, a bunch of people notice, sweep in an buy them.

But... we do have stock of almost all our models, and those will ship the next day, in your hands a few days later. For the 2 models (DE1XL 110V Black, DE1PRO 220V) that we don't have, the wait is just 10 days, at the moment.

*Next month, we raise our prices by USD $100 for all models.*

Why? All our suppliers have raised prices by at least 10%. Global shortages of metals and other goods have increased the cost of everything. PCB component prices have gone insane. We're paying now for parts to be delivered in 14 months, otherwise there's no guarantee we'll get it.

US Inflation is expected to be between 2% and 3%, which is about what our $100 price increase will be.

So, if you have been thinking of buying a Decent, now is a good time.

https://decentespresso.com/model

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Light diffraction Decent easter egg*

Light diffraction is an interesting phenomena. These newly-arrived brushed steel panels from a new supplier have coarser, and deeper grooves than our previous ones, and this causes an hidden "easter egg", if you know how to cause it.

With light pointing straight at the brushed steel, if you then look at a 30º angle, the light is diffracted, and the logo disappears into a rainbow of colors.

My engineer was worried that I'd reject this batch, but I think this strange effect is a wonderful accident. From a normal angle, the logo appears totally black.

And who doesn't want to discover a secret rainbow?

These hidden-rainbow front panels will appear in our Decent espresso machines in a few months.


----------



## decent_espresso

Sous vide light roast coffee ice cream

Whenever I have light roast beans that are a bit too acidic, or I have too many of them and they're getting old, I pull a LOT of shots, and freeze the espresso. Then... I later make homemade espresso ice cream with all those leftover shots.

Even if you're not a fan of light roasts, you should try ice cream made with it. The floral, fruity, acid and often perfumey aspects make far better ice cream than medium-to-dark roasts, where the flavors don't shine. And this style of ice cream is not something I've ever seen sold.

The cream and sugar hide overly acidic, badly pulled light roast shots. When Paul and I are trying to dial in a newly arrived bean, we save all the "sink shots" in a plastic water bottle. Nothing wasted!

To make the ice cream base, I need a blender, an immersion cooker (sous vide machine) and an inexpensive ice cream machine like this $99 Cuisinart model: https://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-ICE-30BC-Indulgence-2-Quart-Automatic/dp/B0006ONQOC/

Having a removable sleeve is much easier than more expensive models that provide chilling, because I can put the ice cream & sleeve directly in the freezer when the ice cream is ready.

Here's my recipe:
- lots of espresso (at least 20 shots, more is better) 
- 20% cream (if using 30% cream, dilute with milk to 20%)
- 3 to 6 eggs (6 eggs if you are making two full blender's worth)
- White sugar
- Vanilla (optional)
- In Hong Kong, I haven't found a source for Vanilla in large quantities, so I'm using Monin's vanilla syrup, which effectively provides the sugar and vanilla (like) flavor.

To make it:
- use a blender to mix 2/rds of the espresso, cream, milk, some sugar. 3 eggs per totally-full blender (I usually make a double batch).
- put in a sous vide bag, cook at 80ºC (176ºF) for 2 to 3 hours.
- cut open the bag bag, put it back in the blender. Blend and you'll have a thick custard. Add sugar, milk, more coffee, to taste. It should be stronger tasting than you want the final mix to be, because freezing will dull the flavor.
- After blending, put it back into a sous vide bag, seal, and put it in the fridge. It can sit there for a few days.
- Make the ice create an hour before you want to eat it. It's so much better freshly churned. On my Cuisinart, a cold custard takes about 30 minutes to fully set, and then we serve it directly from the machine.
- I often have a bag or two of this coffee-custard-base in my freezer, hard. I thaw it a few hours before I want to make it into ice cream. Just need to cut-the-bag, pour it into the ice cream machine, and serve. Easy.

Never waste espresso! Sugar and cream hide the flaws of the worst shots!

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*The Tea Portafilter*

Our Tea Portafilter, when used on the Decent Espresso Machine, will make tea taste better than you thought possible. "How so?" you say.

Firstly, because our recipes use repeated short infusions of 30 seconds, each time flushing and using clean water. This avoids over-extraction, which leaches tannins out. The clean water, every 30 seconds, is also a better solvent than already-brewed water. Next, the temperature of the water and the vessel is precisely controlled.

We provide recipes for different kinds of tea, from black to green and delicate white teas, to tisanes, over temperatures ranging from 105ºC to 70ºC. All informed by Scott Rao, who wrote about tea in his book "Everything But Espresso".

Our tea portafilter does fit other espresso machines. However, because the Decent offers precise control over time, temperature and pressure, we can craft tea recipes that can't be done on other machines.

We've been working on these recipes for about a year. They're pretty good now. Good enough that you can just pick one and hit START. But... we're also continuing to improve the tea recipes, with active involvement of tea enthusiasts in our Decent community.

Find it here:
https://decentespresso.com/c?filter=tea portafilter

--

Bugs and I start a 9-day "staycation" today, so I'll be vanishing from this forum for a bit, to enjoy some time off.


----------



## spasypaddy

can i whack a yorkshire tea bag in?


----------



## AlanSky

decent_espresso said:


> The only change is a slide-in tablet stand, instead of having 3 screws.


 Are you doing a video of this update John? Interested to see how it looks.


----------



## arellim

AlanSky said:


> Are you doing a video of this update John? Interested to see how it looks.


 I use strong velcro on mine and it is amazing. No way was I faffing on with those tiny grub screws time and time again to get the stand off the machine.

Likewise I use velcro between tablet and stand.


----------



## AlanSky

@arellim yeah that would be a solution but the 3 holes would still be on top of the machine I guess?


----------



## Stevebee

AlanSky said:


> @arellim yeah that would be a solution but the 3 holes would still be on top of the machine I guess?


 I'm guessing the Velcro will cover those


----------



## AlanSky

@Stevebee yes but would also leave the velcro on the top of the machine. My preferred choice would be the tablet at the side or in a drawer out of the way unless I'm fiddling. I would also like to see the usb connection at the back, though I'm being fussy.


----------



## Stevebee

Mine's always on the machine. I don't want to walk up to the machine, then find the tablet, position where you want it then have to put it away after the shot. Also the tablet will always be charged if on the machine. I can anticipate if left in a drawer going to make a shot and the tablet has run out of battery. With regards the holes, you could always insert the screws but without the stand making the holes less visible although there will be 3 screws, albeit flat to the case.


----------



## AlanSky

@Stevebee yeah that would likely be what I would do, though I think I'll wait to see what the 1.43 slide in stand is like. Thanks for the info 😀


----------



## decent_espresso

spasypaddy said:


> can i whack a yorkshire tea bag in?


 Absolutely, I make 8 cups a day of the stuff. We just got home from shopping, whacked a teabag in, press go, have a pee, milk the tea, relax.


----------



## spasypaddy

amazing, i assumed this was for loose leaf stuff


----------



## decent_espresso

about the new stand, Better video coming&#8230;






now, back to me holiday&#8230;


----------



## decent_espresso

spasypaddy said:


> amazing, i assumed this was for loose leaf stuff


 In the video, I first make tea with a teabag.


----------



## decent_espresso

AlanSky said:


> @Stevebee yes but would also leave the velcro on the top of the machine. My preferred choice would be the tablet at the side or in a drawer out of the way unless I'm fiddling. I would also like to see the usb connection at the back, though I'm being fussy.


 The tablet talks to the de1 with Bluetooth, so you can put the tablet to the side and use your own charger. That's tidier if the tablet is not on the de1.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Biker Jacket Milk Jug*

I'm currently working on a new design milk jug, and would like to get rid of the handle, if I can. And, I'd prefer to use a existing product to provide a heat-insulating "wrap" around the milk jug, instead of making something custom.

I came across this miniature leather jacket, and ordered one, to see if it works. The fit it almost perfect (the handle is stretching it in this video, but I'm working on a handle-free jug) and OMIGOD this thing is so cute.

The material is imitation leather (ie, plastic), has no smell, and is insulating the fingers well from the hot milk. Obviously, it's not the simplest thing in the world to clean up. It arrived a bit dirty, from the shattered ceramic cup that it was originally wrapped around. I left the dirt on, as I kind of like the way the dirt looks here.

I have some other ideas for other off-the-shelf heat insulators, that have a lot of personality to them. Wedding garters, for example, are typically lined on the inside with silicone, so they grab the jug well, and insulate. Plus, the cheap ones are all nylon, so they wash up well. Who knows if any of these ideas will really work in the end, but it's fun to play a bit.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*A better "silky silicone" steam wand sleeve*

The steam wand on the Decent Espresso Machine uses a length of food-grade silicone tubing, to indicate the safe place where you can grab the steam wand to move it.

Most of the time, you can actually grab the wand anywhere, as it's a "cool touch" wand, with an inner teflon tube, to keep the outer metal cool. However, with enough use, the hot milk will heat that metal up. Also, psychologically, it's nice to have a "this area is safe" visual indication on a potentially hot object.

Most other espresso machines use a moulded piece. Sometimes harder plastic, sometimes silicone. This is typical:
﻿















With the Decent, I wanted something much longer, so you could grab it with your hand, not just two fingers. That's why I decided to go with the silicone tubing.

However, there's a downside. Silicone tends to "sweat" a bit of oil over time, and this tends to attract dust and dirt, which then requires soap and water to remove.

I asked my engineer ﻿Alex Alex﻿ to look into this for me, and he found that there exists a special kind of silicone, which feels silky to the touch, and to which dust does not stick. It's almost skin-like, to the touch. I remember first encountering this silicone on the silicone-covered power cord to an apple laptop, but otherwise, it's not a material I often see.

In the photo above you can see that the white matierial does not reflect light, and it's also remained clean while the black cover is dusty.

We're now testing this new silicone here at Decent HQ. I like it, and I've given Alex the go-ahead.

Once we get these in stock (in about 2 months), they'll be given freely to existing customers, on request as a +1 to any other purchase they're making with us (such as a coffee accessory). We'll have them in black and white, in two lengths (for our two steam wand models).

To swap the sleeve yourself, there's a trick to get it to slide on easily. First, remove the steam wand tip. Then, put some dilute dishwasher liquid inside the sleeve, and all along the shaft length of the steam wand. You can then easily slide the new sleeve on. When the water dries, the sleeve will stay put, and you can wash the detergent off the rest of the wand.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*10m challenge #6: two people making lattes*

In this Ten Minute Challenge, Paul and John make lattes on one machine each. Most of the time is spent waiting for the one portafilter to finish the shot, so that the next shot can then be prepared. Nonetheless, not too bad a result, with 9 lattes in ten minutes (equivalent to 54 lattes/hour).

The main lesson learned was that a 2nd portafilter would have hugely helped John, as he'd then be able to prepare the next espresso as one is currently being made on the Decent. Instead, he had to wait, doing not much, about 40 seconds for each espresso to finish, which is about 9x40 seconds wasted, or 6 minutes of unused time.

The next video will be the same as this, but with two portafilters, and possibly larger cups, so that we can make full size lattes, instead of these 100ml ones.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Steam profiling progress on the Decent*

I recently added real-time control over the steam flow rate in the app, and we're working on having profiles that you can quickly select. That way, you could for example go to a slower but easier to make micro foam profile, or a very high-powered one if you had a liter of milk to heat.

Today, I've added a dashed line to the de1app that shows the goal flow rate.﻿

In this video, you can see me moving the goal steam flow rate as the steaming progresses. Note that this video was shot with the app on my Mac, which isn't actually steaming, which is why the other lines don't run after the goal. 😄






﻿
The built in steam profile on the Decent has a pressure and heat rate increase around 15 seconds, based on the assumption that you will make your microphone early on in the steaming, then dive the tip into the milk and want that final heating stage to be as fast as possible.

Not everyone wants that, so the steam profiles will enable different approaches to steaming.

Also, I have an XXL model at home, and I find the steam without this feature to be much too powerful to heat a piccolo latte with 100 mL of milk. That was actually the impetus behind this feature 🙂

In the future, there will be a dropdown list of steam profiles. You will be able to save the steaming you just did as a new profile, or choose existing other ones before you steam. You'll also be able to "take over" during steaming, over override the existing profile. That's a feature that's in progress, but it requires some firmware changes, and I'm working with Ray on that.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Free Soul Coffee Popup in Hong Kong*
﻿
Last week we decided to drop by local coffee popup Free Soul Coffee https://www.instagram.com/freesoulcoffeehk/ and say hi to ﻿Karen who runs it.

She really wanted me to try her Honduras Sherry Barrel Fermentation Single-Origin bean. I was impressed, as it really did have a clear "rum/raisin ice cream" impact on me, from the cream/buttery flavor to the rum in the mouth, and raisin on the nose.

I was doubly impressed to find out that she roasts the beans herself, at home, with a Korean-made Gene home roasting machine http://baristahk.com/product/gene-cbr101-home-roaster/

I asked her how she managed to pull this off, as the beans were actually well developed, low acidity, as a light roast should be but rarely is, without roasting into the medium level and getting chocolatey notes and obliterating the bean's other flavors through roasting. She confessed that she went through quite a few trials at home, and most of her failures were under-roasting. She only had a small quantity of the green beans, as supply was ultra-limited, and was very nervous that she'd not manage to get the roast right before running out. She only had beans left for a few more shots, when we showed up.

Karen and her stand-mates are all airline stewardesses, currently out of work, and they've banded together to run this popup. Karen makes espresso drinks, while the other two on the stand sell their homemade savory scones.

Karent told me that the compactness of the setup was genius for her. She arrives with just two suitcases: one with the DE1XL and the other with the Niche grinder, beans, milk and cups.

Karen also sells her beans online https://www.freesoulcoffee.com/ so if you live in Hong Kong, I'd recommend you her beans a try. She clearly has great intuition, and a knack for roasting.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I've split out the most interesting bits of my IG Live conversation with Dennis Hew, into short videos, each answering a specific question:

Decent retail stores?


----------



## decent_espresso

*idea: black or white painted front panels*

﻿Euan Lake an Acaia-compatible drip tray for the DE1. He both sells it premade, and gives away a 3D printable design you can make yourself.
https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/qNHHoWmMkxHLLg4HEuFHgaFT

But what caught my eye was his all white front panel, as part of a white-conversion that he'd done himself.

We have made those front panels either mirrored (in the past) or brushed (current design) and I found his all-white design very compelling.

Today, we had 10 samples arrive of an all-black, and all-white front panels. Ours have a Decent logo on them, which Euan's didn't, since he repainting hid the logo.

I think it looks quite nice, but I'm less convinced that it's a good idea to put the mirror lip on it. You can see the mirror lips in the bottom of this photo, as well as the black/white samples next to brushed versions. The matte black is really striking, I feel.









The looks very "glued on" and the top edge of the mirror is very noticeable. Much more so than when the mirror in on brushed metal, where it blends in.

What do you think of how all this looks?

-john


----------



## crypticc

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 58850
> 
> 
> *idea: black or white painted front panels*
> 
> ﻿Euan Lake an Acaia-compatible drip tray for the DE1. He both sells it premade, and gives away a 3D printable design you can make yourself.
> https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/qNHHoWmMkxHLLg4HEuFHgaFT
> 
> But what caught my eye was his all white front panel, as part of a white-conversion that he'd done himself.
> 
> We have made those front panels either mirrored (in the past) or brushed (current design) and I found his all-white design very compelling.
> 
> Today, we had 10 samples arrive of an all-black, and all-white front panels. Ours have a Decent logo on them, which Euan's didn't, since he repainting hid the logo.
> 
> I think it looks quite nice, but I'm less convinced that it's a good idea to put the mirror lip on it. You can see the mirror lips in the bottom of this photo, as well as the black/white samples next to brushed versions. The matte black is really striking, I feel.
> 
> View attachment 58851
> 
> 
> The looks very "glued on" and the top edge of the mirror is very noticeable. Much more so than when the mirror in on brushed metal, where it blends in.
> 
> What do you think of how all this looks?
> 
> -john


 Hi

I agree. Mirror makes sense with a polished steel backing. Less so with stainless or white.

Either looks good, just one more so.

That said black and mirror isn't that bad. But how does the painted surface clean compared to stainless? My Silvia still looks pretty new on the outside.

Chris


----------



## crypticc

Also while we're talking about customisation. Any chance of a XXL specified model in a Pro length box? The question is because otherwise it won't fit on my drawer/knockbox setup that I quite like.

Also I don't quite understand the ordering process. When I looked, it looked like all your stock was allocated to Ihtisham F. Or is that a code word?

Thanks again

Chris


----------



## decent_espresso

crypticc said:


> Also while we're talking about customisation. Any chance of a XXL specified model in a Pro length box? The question is because otherwise it won't fit on my drawer/knockbox setup that I quite like.


 At the moment, no, and I think you're the first request I've heard for that. But maybe someday...



crypticc said:


> Also I don't quite understand the ordering process. When I looked, it looked like all your stock was allocated to Ihtisham F. Or is that a code word?


 Ihtisham (aka "Ihti") works here, and he's the one who posts the machines. Once you order, you'll have the rights to view any machine's details, ask Ihti questions about it, etc...


----------



## decent_espresso

*The State of Decent R&D*

I was asked: "what's new in this v1.43 model, that's about to come out"

The only change from v1.42 to v1.43 is the tablet stand now sliding in. No other changes.

And "what about the group head changes you talked about last year?"

As to the group head changes, they're delayed likely by 2 years, to v1.5.

And "how is R&D for other changes going?"

R&D has become very, very slow in this COVID age. Prototyping companies have either gone bust, or tripled their prices, or (often) producing low quality stuff.

Lead times from suppliers have climbed to 14 months for parts, so we've had to order the parts for next September, already, otherwise we won't get them. That means that any R&D discoveries we make this year, won't appear until we reorder again, which would be in a year.

If we didn't order parts now, next year we would run out and not be able to build any machines. We just received enough parts for 3000pcs of v1.43, and next July, we'll receive parts for another 3000 machines. As we're selling about 2700 machines/year at the moment, this represents two years worth of parts stock.

As an example: we received 10 prototype new "unified mixing manifolds" from our usual company, and they were all unuseable. This is some R&D we're doing to simplify the internals (3 parts become 1). We had them redone by the same company, and also with another company, and both were unuseable. We've managed to cobble together one working prototype, about to try it here, by sanding, drilling and changing o-rings around. But basically... all R&D is massively delayed, as supply chains worldwide are crumbling.

We tried to buy a current-model Canon color laser printer last week and found that they're out of stock, worldwide, for several months. Even big companies are having trouble getting the parts they need.

This slowdown in the R&D process, coupled with long lead times (we used to work on 4 month lead times), means that new models of our machines are not going to happen for 2 years.

Our plan is to continue to make v1.4x for 2 years. v1.5 is planned for July 2023. It should feature a stainless steel (instead of brass) group head, and Ultem-based water dispersion parts (instead of brass). Next year we might switch to a different pump manufacturer, but the specs are the same, though the sound they make is a bit more pleasing to me.

One exception to the R&D delay: the prototype machine we've built runs on 15 amps of power (vs 9.5 for the XXL model, and 6.5 for the XL/PRO models) and is a planned DE1XXXL model, hopefully to ship in December 2021. The main "draw" (ha ha) is even more powerful steaming. There's a bit of R&D still to do to make this work, but it's work we can do internally (modifying steam wand tips, new control algorithms, new tablet app GUI for steam profiling).

I used to mock the magazine business, that had 6 month lead times, so that a story written today wouldn't appear until a half year later. Now I'm sympathetic. 😢

This is most definitely NOT to say that there won't interesting new stuff coming from the Decent Universe, but rather that almost all the R&D happening currently is on the software side. I'm personally working on a new kind of espresso profile that unifies the many parameters needed to dial in different kinds of beans at different roast levels, with simple (ie: light vs dark roast, unimodal vs bimodal grinder) GUI choices, where the "right thing" is chosen for you, and you can later tweak it. I know of a native iOS app, as well as new apps being developed in Javascript (totally browser based) and in Python. There's very interesting stuff going on in Extensions and constant improvements to the 3rd party Skins that others are working on, with the most popular being MimojaCafe and DSX.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

New Silicone Material for Steam Wand Sleeves

We've received samples of the new silicone material, with different hardness ratings for us to test and dcide on. We're going with 70A hardness, and ordering mass quantity now.

I REALLY REALLY like the way this new material reflects light.

Which looks much nicer to than the current silicone we use.









We'll be happy to send a replacement part made with the new rubber, for free, with any other purchase from us.

I don't know when they'll arrive, but I'll post about it here when they do.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Here is the full Zoom recording of last week's: "Latte Art (Basic Tulip & Wiggling practices)" with author Dennis Hew and Paul Chan


----------



## decent_espresso

Next Zoom: this Saturday evening (USA)/ Sunday morning (Asia)

Decent Espresso Pour Overs : V60 and Kalita and the DE1 pourover basket, with Decent's Paul Chan

You might want to watch Scott Rao's video beforehand:






Time of Zoom call: 
- San Francisco, CA, USA - Sat, 31 Jul 2021 - 18:00
- New York, NY, USA - Sat, 31 Jul 2021 - 21:00
- Melbourne, Australia - Sun, 1 Aug 2021 - 11:00
- Hong Kong Time - Sun, 1 Aug 2021 - 09:00

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81986335307?pwd=eGpoTWpsMEJES1JHNVRaVm15Q1kxZz09

Meeting ID: 819 8633 5307
Passcode: 132763


----------



## decent_espresso

In the spirit (har har) of the Star Trek Drinking Game https://tinyurl.com/trekdrinking I give you ...

The Decent Espresso Drinking Game

take a small sip if:
- you see a post in social media that says "decent is the Tesla of espresso"
- you see a post in social media that says "john is the Steve Jobs/Elon Musk of espresso"
- you see a photo of the Decent and Niche in the same photo
- the model you want is currently out of stock
- someone asks "what's the price?"
- someone asks "when is it shipping?"
- someone asks "can it steam and brew at the same time?"
- someone asks "where can I buy it?"
- someone asks "is there an ipad app?"

drink a shot if:
- you posted to Instagram a photo of a latte sitting on the group head
- you've read Ars Technica on your Decent tablet
- your DE1 legs were bent in transit and Decent sent you a replacement
- - you see a comment that says "I've been making blooming shots on my ...."
- take a shot for each hour (on average) you're on Diaspora daily
- you've made espresso extractions above 23%, two shots if 25%, and 3 shots if 27%.
- you use the beta version of the DE1 app
- you've bought sku code 888 https://decentespresso.com/c?filter=888

drink two shots if:
- an app update has more than 100 files to download
- you serial number is under 100 and your machine has never had a problem
- you use the nightly version of the DE1 app
- you have a 2nd machine at your summer house
- you 3D printed yourself an accessory
- you're on a first name basis with Sheldon, Luca, Johanna, or Enrique.
- you built your own coffee cart

drink three shots if:
- you see a comment that says "I can do that with my E61"
- you have a 3rd machine on your yacht
- you're making and selling accessories to others
- you've started roasting and selling your beans to other DE1 owners
- you cut a hole in your marble countertop to put your Decent into
- you've modified your van or mobile home to permanently have a Decent in it
- you own three or more coffee grinders

finish the bottle if:
- you wrote a twitter-bot to post every time you make an espresso
- you've written your own app, skin or extension 
- you're on the super-secret beta hardware group
- you've been the recipient of SKU code 889 https://decentespresso.com/cart?filter=889
- you've repainted your entire machine to some custom color
- you've written a web spider to calculate exactly when your machine will be ready
- you've hacked the Decent website to try and purchase items that should only be available to Decent admins

Please add to the fun, and suggest your own rules!


----------



## SafetyThird

Finally joined the club


----------



## decent_espresso

SafetyThird said:


> Finally joined the club


 In case nobody told you, you *can* bend the tablet stand to a steeper angle, which you might want to do if you're really tight on height.


----------



## SafetyThird

decent_espresso said:


> In case nobody told you, you *can* bend the tablet stand to a steeper angle, which you might want to do if you're really tight on height.


 Thanks, I thought about it but then the angle isn't quite right and I have to keep pulling the machine back and forth to read it. I think having it off to the side is the best option and allows the machine to stay neatly pushed back under the cupboard.


----------



## decent_espresso

SafetyThird said:


> Thanks, I thought about it but then the angle isn't quite right and I have to keep pulling the machine back and forth to read it. I think having it off to the side is the best option and allows the machine to stay neatly pushed back under the cupboard.


 Well, I'm happy to hear that, as on-the-side is something I very much wanted to support, but I think you'll be the first person to actually use it that way.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Espresso Log now for Decent Scale*

The impressive "Espresso Log" app has added support for the Decent Scale: https://espressolog.app/ https://decentespresso.com/scale

On the Decent Scale forum I run https://decentespresso.com/decent_scale_request I asked Alex, the app author:



> Can you write a bit about how your "Auto Tare" works?
> The reason I ask, is that my miserable experience with "auto tare" on another company's Smart Scale, caused me to decide to move this feature in the "smart connected device" so that it could be iterated, improved, versioned, etc... and "actually work".
> "Auto tare" seems like not-that-easy a feature to program, with for instance, perhaps a "sensitivity" setting needed. Espresso might start with a few drips, for instance, that are barely detected if you have a noise filter.


 He replied:



> This "Auto-Tare" feature has two sensitivity settings:
> 
> Weight
> - Tare when an object heavier then the set threshold is placed or removed from the scale
> 
> Time (delay)
> - Execute tare after set delay when (above) conditions are met (or still valid).
> 
> If the brew dose isn't set, only positive weight changes trigger "auto tare" to prevent issues like; if a barista places a portafilter, tare executes and then removes it (moves it to a grinder) than places it back on the scale. (workflow quite often encountered in coffee shops)
> 
> This together with the "Shot Recorder" feature that automatically starts and stops the timer using sensor data makes a completely hands-free operation of the app.
> 
> The "Shot Recorder" checks the available sensors and chooses the best algorithm for the job depending if you have a pressure transducer, scale or both connected to the app.


 Gorgeous job Alex, and you've marvelously made my point, that I believe fancier scale features are better done in a proper piece of software.


----------



## decent_espresso

Paul Chan's advice on making pour overs with the Decent, short video clips:

*Why a Decent pour over?*
Here i go over the benefits in brewing with the DE1. We talk about temperature stability and overall consistency.






and the entire 2h zoom call:


----------



## decent_espresso

*Podcast: The Curiosity Project interviews John*

Listen at: https://tinyurl.com/decent-curiosity or with your favorite podcasting app.


----------



## Nightrider_1uk

decent_espresso said:


> One exception to the R&D delay: the prototype machine we've built runs on 15 amps of power (vs 9.5 for the XXL model, and 6.5 for the XL/PRO models) and is a planned DE1XXXL model, hopefully to ship in December 2021.


 15A would require a dedicated electrical supply from the fuse board to run properly in the uk.


----------



## Del

decent_espresso said:


> *Podcast: The Curiosity Project interviews John*
> 
> Listen at: https://tinyurl.com/decent-curiosity or with your favorite podcasting app.


 Just listened to the podcast; really enjoyed it! I've been looking at a Decent or the Linea Mini as my not so distant future aspirational machine and this has definitely nudged me in the Decent direction.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Bike Helmet Foam for your Decent*

The Decent Espresso Machine comes to you in its own suitcase. It's cradled inside with custom-cut foam, and the suitcase sports 4 wheels and a handle. This protects it on its way to you, but also when/if you want to travel with your Decent.

We're working on a new design for the inside. When we made the DE1XL foam inside the suitcase, we redesigned that, and we managed to substantially reduce the likelihood of damage to the DE1 during shipping. With the older foam, 6.7% of machines suffer some sort of shipping damage, whereas 2.3% of DE1XL suffer shipping damage.

But, we think we can do better.

We were originally inspired by the precision moulded EPP foam parts used on the inside of cars by Knauf Automotive.
https://knaufautomotive.com/products/epp-and-eps-components/

Besides moving the parts around inside the suitcase, we're also switching to a high end foam that is used for bike helmets and inside cars.

The mould cost for this is eye wateringly expensive, at USD$24,000, so we have to get the design right the first time. At the moment, we're having CNC machines (essentially robots with a drill) carve out prototypes we can test, out of big blocks. Each test run costs about USD$1000, so this is not cheap either, but it's the only way.

We still have a lot of work, before this new design is ready to be inside suitcases shipping to customers. Because this foam is so much stronger, we've found it much more difficult to get the machine in, as the foam does not yield. And the suitcase is much more difficult to close as well. We have to solve these engineering problems before we can proceed.

Once we're finished, each suitcase will have foam that costs about USD$20 per suitcase to make, which is a small price to pay, if we can succeed at our goal of preventing most damage to your Decent during its time with shipping companies.

The new foam will be backward compatible with the existing suitcases, so people can upgrade.


----------



## decent_espresso

Nightrider_1uk said:


> 15A would require a dedicated electrical supply from the fuse board to run properly in the uk.


 We also have a set of 10 sample heaters here speced at 13A, specifically for the UK.

In fact, that's what we are using right now (2800W heaters) as we didn't have 15A capable thermal fuses on hand, only 13A ones. I'm not sure the 15% difference in power will be important though, as it's already an insane amount of steam power, and going 3200 will be more an issue of how to manage it.


----------



## decent_espresso

Del said:


> Just listened to the podcast; really enjoyed it! I've been looking at a Decent or the Linea Mini as my not so distant future aspirational machine and this has definitely nudged me in the Decent direction.


 That's nice to hear.

And as an aside, just last week we hired a new support engineer named Depp, who's from Plymouth (as I see you are). He designed a flow meter at his previous job (an irrigation manufacturing company) so he has a bit of experience in our domain.


----------



## Del

decent_espresso said:


> That's nice to hear.
> 
> And as an aside, just last week we hired a new support engineer named Depp, who's from Plymouth (as I see you are). He designed a flow meter at his previous job (an irrigation manufacturing company) so he has a bit of experience in our domain.


 Ideal, nice to know there's someone local who can repair a hypothetical fault on my hypothetical machine I may hypothetically get!

I'm going to look into the machine more to see what version will suit me in the future but it'll likely have to be in white!


----------



## decent_espresso

*Smart Espresso Profiler with DE1 and Decent Scale*

The Smart Espresso Profiler is available, for free, working with the Decent Scale. It also works (no extra cost) talking to the Decent, and reads its pressure sensor. Or.... you can buy SEP's own pressure sensor for your non-Decent machine, and use the software to guide you in making great manual espresso shots.

The Android version now has the Decent Scale support (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=hu.kavekalmar.sep), and the iOS version should be available shortly, as soon as Apple approves it.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Ramen packaging inspired*

The problem we're encountering with our ceramic drip trays, is that customs inspectors take them out of all the protective packaging we put them in, to inspect the object. When they're done, they just through it all back in the box, no longer well wrapped and the ceramic gets broken. We had to send one guy the same package 3 times before it got through.

Inspired by the packaging around the ramen noodles at the "Ramen noodle museum", I wondered if the same "air cushion" approach would work to protect our ceramic drip trays.

I'm hoping that by putting the object in a transparent balloon, the customs inspectors will be satisfied, and won't take off any more of the protective packaging, and the object can arrive undamaged to you.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Join Paul and Mohammed as we give you the chance to pick our brains with the usual general Q&A for the first 30mins and then we cover the topic of the week...

This week we will be exploring a straight 9 bar extraction again but WITH preinfusion. We will cover what to expect with this type of extraction and how to dial in, how the DE1 delivers preinfusion and when might this type of shot be useful.

If you missed last weeks we will post the link below in the comments.

Time: Aug 22, 2021 05:00 PM Hong Kong SAR
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20210822T090000&p1=tz_hkt&p2=13 6&p3=37&p4=214&p5=776&p6=152

- 10am-12pm (London)
- 11am-1pm (Berlin)
- 12pm-2pm (Riyadh)
- 1pm-3pm (UAE)
- 7pm-9pm (Melbourne)

Topic: Straight 9 Bar Extraction with Preinfusion

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88078181992?pwd=RlQ1N0FoUXp1TVoxZEloMERqMjNLdz09

Meeting ID: 880 7818 1992
Passcode: 719151


----------



## decent_espresso

*"Espresso is difficult" and new video strategy*

I've decided to take a new approach with the main Decent videos we make.

I've made a LOT of videos, most of them getting just a few thousand views. The topics are generally focussed on espresso geeks, and frequently, toward those who already know Decent.

However, we've never made any videos that generally explain what Decent is about. Lots of videos about products, but nothing more general.

My new video-focus will be on topics of more general interest, such as "the history of espresso machines", "right to repair", "open hardware, open source, open company", "buying direct from the designer/manufacturer", "why no resellers", "community/collaborative product design", "the modding community", "making products that improve with age" and more...

The video above, first in this series, is now on our homepage http://decentespresso.com/ and just in 24h it's already amassed more hits, and better comments, than anything I've done. It's a big change for us to have a video as the first thing you see, instead of a big product photo and a call to join our newsletter.

I'm trying to create interesting videos they'd want to watch, totally separate from any sales strategy from us. Decent, as a company, is kind of interesting, and I need to do a better job communicating that. I suspect a few people might be interested.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Product development hell : the Decent Puck Rake finally back in stock

A year ago I showed the tool that Ben and I were designing:





and the video that we made for it was quite popular (12,000 views)






Unfortunately: this meant that this new product went almost immediately out of stock.

Worse yet, getting this product to market had been from hell. We went through several companies, as all were producing incredibly low quality work. The photos of those attempts are really quite funny:

__
http://instagr.am/p/CCmHvdehGgH/









The first batch we did get, we had failed about 40% of them for poor quality.

So.... the reason for the long delay in getting this thing back in stock, is that I wanted to find a reliable, high quality supplier.

Being paranoid, I hired two temps to 100% quality check every puck rake from the new supplier that we eventually settled on. The manufacturing run was finished last week and arrived Friday.

They did, and... they failed most of them! So, Bugs and I looked at what they had rejected, and could not find any flaws. When we took the "failure here" stickers off, they couldn't identify what the reason for the failure was. In fact, the stickers seemed to be pointing at random parts of the packaging.

It seems that these two were thinking "if we approve them all, the boss will think we didn't do any work. But if we fail most of them, they'll think we are really paying attention and working hard." Sigh.

So... we're peeling the failure stickers off the packaging, and having my more experienced staff re-check them all. So far, we haven't found a single one I'd fail. The quality looks great.

The new packaging we've moved to protects the needs in transit, which previously we solved with a lot of foam, and that was not a solution I liked.

We do get a lot of emails about this item, likely because the video is popular, so I'm glad to finally have someone who can make them for me, and to have them in stock.

https://decentespresso.com/rake

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Coffee Folk Review of DE1*
https://thecoffeefolk.com/decent-espresso/

James Hysop at Coffee Folk has written a very extensive review, covering pros & cons, and the Decent's evolution over 5 years.

Along with John Weiss' 2019 review https://www.home-barista.com/blog/decent-espresso-de1-review-t57610.html and Tom Chips' (2018) https://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/review-of-decent-espresso-de1-pro-t52582.html and Hoffmann's (2018) 



 this is among the most extensive writeups.

It's interesting to note, too, that once a product comes out, even if it improves a lot, it's rare to get later reviews. The Decent has grown up a LOT in those years, so it's nice to have one that (for instance) mentions the realtime group head controller, which we introduced 2 years ago.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Matte silicone steam wand sleeves now available*

We now have stock of these new silicone sleeves in black and white, for both steam wand styles we make. They were mentioned 2 months ago here: https://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-news-t66649-720.html#p810098

v1.43 machines will be shipping with this new style. On request, any v1.42 machine that we haven't shipped yet, we can swap the sleeve for you.

If you have an existing Decent, you can either order the sleeve from our website:
https://decentespresso.com/c?filter=sleeve

the price we charge on or shopping is only to cover our shipping & handling cost.

HOWEVER, we're also happy to include the sleeve for free, with any purchase you make from us. To make this happen, make your shopping cart, and contact us http://decentespresso.com/contact before you pay, so we can add the free sleeve to your order.

As my boxing team is super-fast, make sure you contact us before you pay, so we can include the free sleeve. If you email us after you paid, there's a good chance your order was already boxed up & shipped before one of my support team reads your email. 😮

Mohammed & I have made a video showing you how to replace the sleeve on your machine. It's a 2 minute job, and very easy.






﻿
As an aside, I don't know if I mentioned this: but a few weeks ago I programmed the website to automatically send the relevant "quick start" or "how to install" video via our tech support system, at the same time the box gets shipped out. We're working to flesh out our video catalog with these videos, so that a few minutes on Youtube, gets you started with most every product we sell.

-john


----------



## newdent

I was watching a video of a modded gaggia that was pulsing pump power from a SSR to pressure profile and noted that it sounded just like a decent. Is this how pressure is regulated in a decent? Just curious. Thanks.


----------



## decent_espresso

newdent said:


> I was watching a video of a modded gaggia that was pulsing pump power from a SSR to pressure profile and noted that it sounded just like a decent. Is this how pressure is regulated in a decent? Just curious. Thanks.


 To my ears, that gaggia sounds like it's doing longer AC on/off cycles, and not single AC pulses to the pump. So, it's similar, but a bit simpler.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Manual GHC mode, aha! moment : software pressure limiter makes it work well*

I recently tasked ﻿Paul Chan with trying to pull shots manually with the Group Head Controller, like a manual lever machine might do it.

He reported back to me that he was choking the puck often, after preinfusion. A bit too much flow (easily done) moved the puck pressure beyhond 9 bar, to the 13 bar that the Decent can do.

I wondered if our Ray's Decent firmware had left the "pressure limit" feature active, once you take over from the profile on the GHC. We'd never tested it. It turns out that YES, the limiter stays active, and this is the the secret to achieving successful shots with manual control.

With the limiter, no more choked pucks as you rise preinfsion, because previously, as you're controlling flow, it was super easy to give the puck too much flow, go to 13 bar, and choke the shot. Now, the "software OPV" in the Decent stops the flow at the point needed to achieve 9 bar.

And Paul will be showing his results of his experiments on tomorrow's Zoom call:
https://www.home-barista.com/marketplace/decent-espresso-news-t66649-780.html#p814926

Today's 'nightly' de1app now has a 9 bar limiter in the default "GHC/manual flow control"
﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

In today's Zoom, Decent customer Damian﻿ demonstrated his new programming work: the D-Flow profile.

I'm hugely excited by what he's done. I had mentioned a few months ago, that I wanted to see Profiles have dedicated user interfaces, specific to how that profile works. No need for every profile to require the user to fully understand it. Ask the user simpler questions, and adjust the profile accordingly. That's what Damian has done.

The core of his profile is his Londonium, which has a fast preinfusion, pressure-hold "preinfusion dripping" step, a pressure rise and extraction stage.

D-Flow give you simpler controls, such as 
- temperature control of preinfusion vs extraction
- simple control over the duration of the dripping phase
- the shot stops as a ratio of the bean dose weight
- automatically sets both flow and a pressure limit, so that the espresso is "bounded" within a happy range

I suggested two features to Damian, which he seemed to like:

* a "[x] milked" checkbox, indicating this espresso is to have milk added. 
- The reason for this, is that when making an espresso for milking, I change the acidity to have less acidity, typically by having a lower flow rate, and extracting less in cup. Acidity doesn't mix well with milk. 
- However, an espresso w/o milk needs some acidity, or else it's boring, and pulling the shot out longer brings out more flavor interest

* a [light.......dark] slider, which would change a number of parameters for you, which you could see on the chart. You can then tweak the parameters, but this gets you mostly there.
- Lighter roasts extract better hotter, around 94ºC, compared to 88ºC for medium to dark roasts
- A shorter dripping period is appropriate for darker roasts, whereas lighter roasts need more time to bloom
- Lighter roasts will drip more, and that's ok. Also, instead of holding 3 bar during the dripping stage, a declining pressure avoids too much dripping, which is what Rao's Blooming profile does.
- A lower flow rate for darker roasts, faster for lighter roasts
- More in cup for a lighter roast

* I've tinkered with asking the question "Did you pay more than USD$2500 for your grinder?" 😆
- This is an easy way to determine if they have large, flat burrs, or smaller flats burrs (typically 64mm) or conical burrs. Larger burrs=unimodal particle size, vs bimodal (more fines)
- Large burrs tend to have a pressure crash, as the lower amount of fines reduces puck integrity during extraction
- The extraction phase differs depending on whether you have fines or not, with a lower pressure goal being more appropriate with a unimodal grind.

I'd love for all that knowledge to be "invisible" and simply help you along with getting the optimal recipe. Damian's D-Flow profile is a big step toward that goal.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Damian explaining D-Flow for ~30 minutes in today's zoom call.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Multicolor, multilayer wood handles*

Our wood handle manufacturer knows that we're looking for fancier wood for the Decent. The problem we've encountered is that the really beautiful stuff is handcraft-artisan-only, and never available in the kinds of quantities we need.

We do promote the artisan woodworkers who make these beautiful handles in our online community and manual, and these folks do great work. However, none of them want to make 5000 handles for me. 😮 They typically can handle <har har> a few dozen orders a year.

A few weeks ago, they told us that a new kind of wood was available, really it's a kind of plywood (multiple layers glued together). We ordered some samples wood Decent handles made in 2 conservative choices, and 2 in crazy-colors.

Personally, I preferred the two woods that were not colored, and left either as light or dark wood. On the top left you can see one that is 50/50 light/dark wood, and to the right of it, once that is mostly light wood (80/20)

The feel of these handles is great. Really smooth, nicely finished. And because they're not "painted" after shaping, they should last well. And the wood is widely available, so we really could mass manufacture these.

But now, I'm curious to hear what you think ... !


----------



## decent_espresso

*Beanconquerer progress*

Lars is making good progress in adding scale features to his free Beanconquerer https://beanconqueror.com/ app for Android & iOS. He gave me a version today with a nicely working flowmeter, which now has Excel exporting.

Impressively, it has some "dampening" logic in it, that actually works, as he asked me to lift the cup and swirl, like with a v60, which I did. The flow meter correctly ignored the lifting and weight shock of the returned cup. A little blip at 22s is all I saw from the swirling water motion I'd set up.

This was a test with the DE1, which fed 0.8ml/s for 10 seconds, then a 20s pause, then 1.6ml/s for 10s.

﻿


----------



## Nightrider_1uk

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 59650
> 
> 
> *Multicolor, multilayer wood handles*
> 
> Our wood handle manufacturer knows that we're looking for fancier wood for the Decent. The problem we've encountered is that the really beautiful stuff is handcraft-artisan-only, and never available in the kinds of quantities we need.
> 
> We do promote the artisan woodworkers who make these beautiful handles in our online community and manual, and these folks do great work. However, none of them want to make 5000 handles for me. 😮 They typically can handle <har har> a few dozen orders a year.
> 
> A few weeks ago, they told us that a new kind of wood was available, really it's a kind of plywood (multiple layers glued together). We ordered some samples wood Decent handles made in 2 conservative choices, and 2 in crazy-colors.
> 
> Personally, I preferred the two woods that were not colored, and left either as light or dark wood. On the top left you can see one that is 50/50 light/dark wood, and to the right of it, once that is mostly light wood (80/20)
> 
> The feel of these handles is great. Really smooth, nicely finished. And because they're not "painted" after shaping, they should last well. And the wood is widely available, so we really could mass manufacture these.
> 
> But now, I'm curious to hear what you think ... !


 I like the bottom left one.


----------



## decent_espresso

RIP - Decent Tamping Kit 2016-2021

When Bugs & I moved to Hong Kong to set up Decent Espresso, with the intent of building espresso machines, we knew nothing about manufacturing. Really, nothing. So... I started by designing coffee accessories and thereby getting an education.

While a few of my coffee accessories have been somewhat successful, the Tamping Kit was a dismal failure. I sure learned a lot! The biggest lessons were:

1) just because something costs a lot to manufacture, doesn't mean that your public will value it. In general, while people say they like nice packaging, they don't want to pay for what it really costs.

2) it's really difficult to assemble something that comes together from many different suppliers. The Tamping Kit was frequently unshippable, due to one accessory being out of stock. Each accessory came from a different supplier, and because we were a small company, our lead times were long, and our inventory easily depleted, as we only had money for a maximum of 6 months of stock.

3) selling a bundle to a public who likely already own some of the items, is well-nigh impossible. Nobody wants to buy duplicates

4) don't stamp the name of your specific product on the expensive packaging! If the suitcase had just said "Decent" on it, we could have re-used the suitcase for other products, but because it said "Tamping Kit" it was doomed to be used only for a glacially-slow selling product.

5) if you assemble a bundle of separate products into one, make sure you sell the bundle quickly. Otherwise, parts of the bundle will obsolete, and then nobody will want the bundle of not-current-generation parts. I made 4 major revisions of the tamper during these 5 years, causing chaos.

6) the "Barista Kit" was less of a failure, because it offered greater value (more stuff in the suitcase) but was still plagued by "cannot ship" through perhaps a third of its 4 years of life.

7) Rather humorously, there are company out there that directly copy whatever Decent does, and several are now offering "Barista Kit" bundles (even the same name) in fancy packaging, such as https://www.amazon.com/Motta-7580-Barista-Kit-Black/dp/B01GRPC09A/ - and perhaps they'll read this text, and realize that imitating is only a good strategy is the person you're following knows where they're going. 😄

In the end, it tooks us 5 years to sell out the (only) 500 Tamping Kit suitcase we had made. The suitcase design and mould costs...never recovered. We steeply discounted these (at the end, 50% off) to finally kill this off.

To celebrate the last ones shipping, we decided to hold a "wake" with a Tamping-Kit shaped cake, so that .... it could leave us with a good taste in our mouth!

But, boy, in another sense "mission accomplished" ! We learned so much about manufacturing this dud product, so in that sense, "failure" has been a success.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Flair, Decent Scale, SEP for iOS*

I'm a big fan of the Flair Espresso Machine https://flairespresso.com/ as it's an inexpensive way to get into the world of manual lever espresso, where you can make great quality drinks without spending much money. I've been working with ﻿Andrew Pernicano of Flair for some time on various projects, and one was to make sure that the Decent Scale fit nicely into their Flair's base. Was happy to see this photo today from a happy customer.

I'm also a fan of the Smart Espresso Profiler https://www.naked-portafilter.com/smart-espresso-profiler/ which adds digital intelligence to machines that lack it, like the Flair and other lever machines. Yesterday, Apple approved the SEP version for iOS, that supports the Decent Scale. The Android version was available last week.

The Decent Scale is an inexpensive USD$99 open-API bluetooth scale, and I'm working with a half dozen programmers currently, who want to support it with their app. https://decentespresso.com/scale and https://decentespresso.com/decentscale_api

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New Emphasis on Direct Messaging*

A few years ago, some number crunching showed us that people who contacted us were much, much more likely to buy. So, I put "contact us" buttons throughout the website, encouraging folks to write in.

Email volume immediately shot up, but sales didn't respond. 6 months later, sales did pick up dramatically. It's possible there was a delay in the effect, or possibly there was no relationship.
﻿
It's likely that the correlation had a selection bias: people very interested in buying were those emailing us. The relationship between email volume and revenue has stayed in lockstep every since.









In the past 6 months, we've averaged 30 new emails coming in each day. However, what's changed is that where we used to get 3 Instagram DMs per day, now it's around 40/day. If you factor in questions that interspersed randomly inside comments, there's another 5 on top of that. Youtube comments-that-are-really-questions are around 10 per day. WhatsApp and Telegram add another 20/day.

Direct messaging is now far more important way to talk with potential customers.

People are talking to us more on their mobile devices, and the prefer short, quick exchanges. Sending emails using a website, on your phone, is not much fun. And, people do not like having to create an account with us, to ask us a question. With Direct Messaging, they don't have to: Instagram, Whatsapp, Telegram are "one click" to start a conversation.

And so, a few weeks ago, I changed the "contact us" form to really promote Direct Messaging. I also changed my staff around to have one person dedicated to email (﻿Paul Chan), who knows coffee very well) and another dedicated to DM (﻿Mohammed Magdi) . They sit next to each other, with mechanical engineer Depp﻿ between them, so that most answers can be obtained immediately, which is what Direct Messaging conversations typically want.

I still recommend "send us an email" on our website for extended conversations. Keeping a record is much easier with that, and we can also include videos and photos. However, DM programs have become very powerful, and it's common for a customer with a problem to switch to video chat, point their phone at their Decent, and start making a coffee to show us what their issue is. This works remarkably well, and everyone (us and them) appreciate how much faster issues can be resolved with a quick video chat on a phone. As Mohammed is often responding to DMs at all hours, and through the weekend, he's allowed flex-time, sometimes coming to the office late after a long night of helping someone out.

In China, virtually every company is on wechat, and customers demand instant response. We've had customers demand to return our espresso machine because we took more than ten minutes to reply. WhatsApp has released an API, and there are some Enterprise Software companies helping the rest of world provide this sort of response, as I think it's where the world is going.

As an aside, Depp is going to be mostly-absent for a few months from support, as he takes over a vacant testing & calibration job spot One of our staff members has cancer and has to go for treatment. Depp will learn a lot, and hopefully be back in support in a few months, as we hope the treatment for our absent colleague goes well.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Dark mode & Mobile de1app

Martin Reuben Martin﻿ and his assistant Alex have just about completed their "dark mode" version of the Insight skin for the de1app.

There's one last little tweak to make, and then it's ready for me to code it. They've done a gorgeous job : the frames are displayed in the GIF animation below.







﻿

﻿Dennis Brekke Dennis﻿ has been working on a portrait-mode version of Insight, that will also be suitable for mobile phones. We're not as far along as the dark-mode project, as this entails a lot more UI work. Dennis has redrawn the icons too, and after a half-dozen revisions, we're close to having a basic UI that we're happy with:

﻿








there's still a few more weeks of design work to do on this, but I expect that by year-end, we'll have a (Android) mobile-phone friendly version of the de1app. The dark mode version should be finished in the Autumn.

Naturally, all this work will be open source and available on our github. Perhaps someone will want to code an iOS version of Dennis' work, once I've done the Android version and thus fully fleshed out all the design issues.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Barron's "favorite things" article on me*

Barron's magazine interviewed me a few months ago, and the article came out today:
https://tinyurl.com/barrons-decent

Their "Penta" sub-magazine is more a "lifestyle magazine" and the questions they asked were very oriented toward "stuff you can readily buy". I am guessing that the business model of the magazine is to have stories for people to read about successful people, and then stuff those people buy, so you can be like them.

Initially, the story that the writer put together was rejected by her editor, as my answers were not sufficiently consumerist. I'm more in the school of "you are what you do, not what you buy". Naturally, I sell an expensive coffee machine, but what makes someone interesting is not that they own a Decent, but what they do with it.

The writer Emily Farache https://twitter.com/emily_farache and I had several extended, really interesting conversations, but ultimately, she needed to deliver what her editor wanted. I'm nonetheless quite happy with how it turned out in the end, with a focus on doing rather than consuming.

Links to items I mentioned in the article:



the incredibly minimalist *Strietman* lever machine: https://www.instagram.com/wouterstrietman/


*Coffee beans* we drink: https://www.instagram.com/fineprint.hk/


*Colin Harmon's* great book about (café) business: https://www.instagram.com/colinharmon/


*Vienna's "Fakes Museum"* and the deep question about what constitutes great art: https://www.instagram.com/faelschermuseum/


Yes, finally, something you can buy, a *chamber vacuum sealer*: https://www.instagram.com/vacmasterfresh/


And everyone should know something about *Buckminster Fuller* https://www.instagram.com/buckyfullerinst/ - "Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud (1996)" is a great introduction 





-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*BIG Basecamp & Decent Diaspora changes*

Decent Espresso runs a very-very busy forum titled "Diaspora", for all DE1 owners. It's a great community, but we do struggle with how popular it is. Two hundred messages per day is not uncommon, over dozens of topics.

Jason, the Basecamp CEO, is a DE1XL owner, and a fan of how we use his company's product. He's given me direct access to one of his senior programmers, who over the past year addressed the speed issues we were having due to our scale. He's also hinted that for Basecamp 5, he wants to much better support the kind of thing Decent is doing with Basecamp.

Today Basecamp 4 features started to be rolled out, with the big one for us: being able to make multiple message boards, and multiple document repositories.

The "Diaspora" forum has today been broken into 3 forums:
- General Forum
- Problems 
- Programmer's Forum

I'm absolutely interested in discussing with you, other organizing ideas, or more sub-forums.

I've moved several weeks of back-conversations to the appropriate forum and will continue to do so. I'll also ask ﻿my two co-admins Mohammed and ﻿Paul to move topics out of this "General Forum" into "Problems" or "Programmer's Forum" as appropriate.

﻿Mirjam has started to reorganize (again!) the manual and guide, as well as starting on a German translation. The existing documentation is going to get shuffled around again, quite a bit, as this new Basecamp feature is a great way to organize the vast amount of accumulated information.

Here's one idea: a "Top conversations" forum, where we move previous conversations that have occured on Diaspora, into that. This would make it easy to look at historical "really great" conversations that occured, and also keep them going longer. There are probably about 100 conversations we could find, that would be the most important ones ever.

Any other ideas?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Most Popular Topics on Decent Diaspora*

People frequently ask what the conversations on the Decent-owners-only "Diaspora" forum are like.

Today I created a new subforum of "Most Popular Topics" and moved those over.

This makes it a lot easier for the occasional reader to pop in, see what the BIG topics are, and pop out.

I'm sharing with you the first two screens of "Top topics" so you can see what the Diaspora conversations are about. I've blurred out names for confidentiality. Feel free to ask for more info about a topic, if you're curious.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*How we're handling worldwide direct messaging*

Social media platforms mostly attach themselves to one phone and one computer, which makes it very challenging for a company to participate. This system basically locks you into having a single "corporate mobile phone" that gets handed around each time someone's "shift" comes up. It also makes it impossible to escalate questions to the right person to answer it, if the question requires specialist knowledge, or if the message is not in English.

We've been using https://sproutsocial.com/ to give us a "single inbox" to Facebook/Instagram/Twitter as that was the best available tool five years ago. It allows several people to login, but has no concept of assignment, escalation, threading, and doesn't do Whatsapp, Wechat or Instagram DM (just Instagram comments).

We switched yesterday to https://respond.io/ as it supports Whatsapp, Wechat, Telegram and Instagram DM, and has threads and escalation. Within minutes, a message in Korean came in via Instagram, which previously we had no way of handling. Another one in Chinese via Whatsapp from Taiwan, and one in English from Norway. I really like having a manual "close this conversation" button, so that we make sure we don't lose track of conversations among all the daily noise.

Getting Whatsapp, Twitter and Telegram working is not so simple. Whatsapp and Telegram require dedicated (not available via mobile phone) accounts to work with respond.io so this week we'll set those up. And Twitter's API requires you to apply for permission. Hopefully that'll all be completed this week.

I'm not 100% in love with respond.io. Automation is the biggest lack. Most of the Instagram DMs we get are "emoticon responses" to our posts, or "Story mentions" and we don't want those creating conversations we have to manually close. I'd also like messages not in English to be auto assigned to my employee speaking that language: respond.io automatically determines the language, so it could do this.

Nonetheless, respond.io is a BIG step forward for us. We previously would frequently lose conversations inside Instagram, because 20 more messages would arrive an hour later, and there was no way for us to see which DMs we'd replied to, and which not. This solves that problem.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New video: DE1XL v1.43 unboxing*

We've started shipping the v1.43 model of our DE1XL espresso machine, so we made a new unboxing video to go with it.

Here's a 1 minute Instagram-worthy short version of it, that shows the highlights:
﻿






I watched all the previous unboxing videos and comments/criticism of them, namely "you forgot to mention"... and that's why this is a bit on the longer side, as I attempted to not forget anything vital. I know that people hate manuals, but having just spent $4000 or more, spending 10 minutes to learn the essentials is probably worthwhile. We have a DE1PRO version of this video, which we'll launch when we start making v1.43 DE1PRO models, likely in November.

Next week, we'll do a "what's new in v1.43" video. However, so much of what's new in the past year has been software (and backward compatible to v1.0 machines) that the video will be more of a "what's new since our previous v1.42 version launched in January"

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Sprometheus's video about Rao's Allongé on Decent and LMLM*

Quite a nice video about Scott Rao's Allongé, which "Sprometheus" decided to make. He borrowed a DE1, and compares the taste to his Linea Mini version of the Allongé.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Article: how Decent uses Basecamp*

Basecamp CEO (and Decent owner) Jason Fried has written a nice article about how we use their software, with a focus on their most recently released "multiple tools" feature.

https://updates.basecamp.com/post/how-decent-espresso-uses-multiple-tools

Basecamp is deeply, deeply used here, down the the factory floor, repairs, and in our supply chain. Each machine gets its own Basecamp page, with test logs, videos, photos, problems and solutions, all tracked in that "machine file". Our main suppliers each have separate Basecamp projects with us, where we discuss our work with them.

Jason and I are planning a series of video "Basecamp master classes" that will go into greater depth on this.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Video: The History of Espresso Machines (quickly summarized)*

From the first espresso machines to today, the "recipe" for how they do their magic has been a combination of temperature, pressure, and water flow rate over time. In this video, we use the Decent to show you the "recipe inside the machine" from famous and important machines from espresso's past.

This is a deliberately simplified, whirlwind tour of the history of espresso machines, from my perspective. I show photos of important machines from history, that were typical of that stage.

My version of espresso's history is overwhelming about Lever machines, a brief E61 mention, pressure profilers like the Bianca and Rocket R9, and then Slayer, who were the first to suggest a radically different view on espresso extraction, finally addressing the different needs of light roasts.

Many thanks to Claudio and Simone of The Lever https://thelevermag.com/ magazine, who greatly aided me through lever machine history in the making of this video. I'm currently working with them on an article-length version of this historical view for their magazine, which I really wish were called "Be-Lever magazine".

-john


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## benbarista

It is of course a detail : you say, John, in your last video, that the first lever spring espresso machines had a max pressure of 6 bars, then later machines going up to 9 bars. Isn't it the opposite? The first "real" expresso machines, after WWII, like the professional Gaggias (1947) and later the Faemas (1951) had a max pressure slightly above 8 bars. Then, first domestic machines appeared with different springs, like the Faema Faemina in 1953 going slightly below 8 bars or other machine going only to 6 bars, no?

On the following video , you can see that the spring on a Faema President (going up to 8 bars) doesn't loose force so much and really takes time to go down : it stays at 8 bars for roughly 10 seconds, then stays around 7 bars for also 10 sec!






Benoit


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## decent_espresso

> 14 hours ago, benbarista said:
> 
> It is of course a detail : you say, John, in your last video, that the first lever spring espresso machines had a max pressure of 6 bars, then later machines going up to 9 bars. Isn't it the opposite? The first "real" expresso machines, after WWII, like the professional Gaggias (1947) and later the Faemas (1951) had a max pressure slightly above 8 bars. Then, first domestic machines appeared with different springs, like the Faema Faemina in 1953 going slightly below 8 bars or other machine going only to 6 bars, no?
> 
> On the following video , you can see that the spring on a Faema President (going up to 8 bars) doesn't loose force so much and really takes time to go down : it stays at 8 bars for roughly 10 seconds, then stays around 7 bars for also 10 sec!


 Apologies if the order of when-machines-came-out is not accurate. I was guided by the advice from The Lever magazine editors, as they're much stronger on this than I am.

So yeah, it's likely that reality was more complicated as to when machines came out, but I still think there are Lever machines in different categories: 6 bar, 8, 9, 10, one spring, two and manual. But when each came out is likely more complicated than I have stated.


----------



## decent_espresso

*A new way to make filter coffee: Filter 2.0 profile by Scott Rao*

Scott Rao has today announced a new, automated way to make filter coffee, by using the Decent Espresso Machine:
https://www.scottrao.com/blog/2021/9/28/decent-coffee-shots

This new profile is now in the nightly de1app, or you can download it and put it on your Android tablet via USB, in the /sdcard/de1plus/profiles/ directory.

The profile is described like this in the de1app:
"A new technique developed by Scott Rao, for making filter coffee with an espresso machine and 24g basket. The process: (1) insert two micron 55mm paper filter into the bottom of a clean portafilter basket. (2) Rinser the filter and basket with hot water. (3) Fill the basket with 20g to 22g of finely ground coffee, not quite espresso grind, but far finer than any filter grind. (4) WDT the grounds. (5) tamping is optional. (6) Place a metal mesh filter on top. (7) Lock in the portafilter and make the espresso to a 5:1 ratio. (8) Dilute with 225g-250g of water."

On the phone with me today, Scott described this as "the only automated filter coffee approach he's willing to drink" and a "9 out of 10".

You'll need a 24g basket, a mesh screen (such as bplus https://www.bplus.biz/products/lower-shower-screen-contact-shower-screen-puck-screen or Flair 58 https://flairespresso.com/product/flair-58-puck-screen/)

This new coffee making approach is fairly straightforward on a Decent, but you can also make it with a manual lever machine, such as the Flair, if you use a bluetooth scale and an app to track the flow rate for the extraction phase. Both Acaia Scales and Decent Scales https://decentespresso.com/scale will work for tracking flow rate, and maybe other scales too. If you don't track the flow rate at the end, Scott tells me that a too-fast flow rate will likely result, and the result is very unpleasant. A 3ml/s extraction really is needed.

Looking forward to hearing from your results with this.

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Lagom grinders here at Decent HQ*

I've been friendly for quite a while with the Hayden and Sam at "Option-O" https://www.instagram.com/option_o.coffee/ who make the Lagom grinders. During their R&D phase, they bought a DE1 to test with, and then bought more machines from afterwards as they improved their models.

That certainly got my attention!

I know that our espresso machine's charts are extremely useful to grinder and burr makers. SSP, the Korean super-burr designer/maker uses a Decent. A few years ago, a I visited Baratza with a DE1, and we were able to find problems in the direct distribution of grounds, of a grinder that was still in R&D, a problem that wasn't present when dosing through a cup. There's an Italian, and also a German grinder company, who also use Decents in their R&D.

Before the Niche arrived in the scene, poor quality grinders were the #1 cause of new-customer unhappiness with a DE1. Grinders under $1000 largely didn't produce coffee grounds of a high enough quality for the Decent, until the Niche arrived.

So, why I am interested in Lagom grinders?

The Niche is a conical burr grinder, which does produce very small "fines" in the mix of its coffee grinds. Those fines help the puck retain integrity, like mixing sand with gravel to make concrete.
﻿








This mix of particle sizes prevent channeling, which is a good thing. However, those fines tend to over-extract, and also the cloud the drink, leading to less clarity and less sweetness. With a light roast, those problems are something you want to solve, whereas you can usually live with them with medium-light to darker roasts.

A 64mm flat burr grinder is also a good choice, but there have been very few to choose from that don't have a huge hopper on top. The Decent Grinder that we used to sell, was essentially a Mazzer Super Jolly, modified by us with a built in scale. I decided to make that grinder, 6 years ago, because I could sell it well under $1000 and it made acceptable coffee with the Decent. 64mm burrs do a good job with medium to dark beans.

However, the hopper and horizontal path that grinds have to travel in that traditional "hopper grinder" design, make that style grinder not a great choice for home use. It's too big, causes clumping, and mixes stale beans in. Single dosing grinders solve those issues.

That's why I think the Lagom P64 https://www.option-o.com/lagom-p64 with its 64mm flat burrs, is also a good general purpose grinder, perfectly suitable for medium light beans, and darker. It's single dosing, with a straight grinds path, so it avoids causing clumping and holding stale grinds.

But what I was really excited about is their P100 grinder https://www.option-o.com/lagom-p100 with its massive 98mm flat burr set. Large flat burrs tend to give even particle size, with very little fines.

I love the offset-cylinder design, which pairs visually nicely with our black DE1 espresso machines.

More importantly, after a week using the P100, Paul and I are finding that our drink quality has been noticeably improved, especially with light roasts. Surprisingly, we've not been suffering huge pressure crashes like we expected from a big flat burr set, but that's partially because the Decent profiles we use today are much more tuned to preserve puck integrity, than what we had several years ago.

The Lagom P100 has an interesting feature, where the grind happens at one constant speed, and once the coffee beans are fully ground, the burrs speed up a LOT for a few seconds, which blows out the retained grounds in 2 seconds. It's a nice solution, automated and less ugly than the "air pump" bellows that I've seen on the Ultra grinder.

The P64 sells for USD$1585 while the P100 sells for USD$2650.

The Lagom folks tell me that they've got a mounting bracket, which is quite interesting to me as I have been trying to find a not-too-large, light-roast-friend grinder for our coffee carts. Being able to bolt the P100 down will make it much more travel friendly. Apparently, a twist-off motion can free the grinder, when you do want to remove it from the cart. Looking forward to testing that.

A few months ago, I published my "Adaptive Profile", which uses a constant flow extraction phase, that automatically calibrates, for each shot, at whatever flow was occuring at peak pressure. That profile has been working well with the medium light roasted beans, but not so well with light roasts on big flat burrs, where the pressure crashes. I haven't had a big-burr grinder here, so I haven't been able to address that deficiency. Over the next few months, I plan to try to find a way to have constant-flow extraction with light roasts and big burrs, at the end of an espresso, but without the downsides. I don't know if I'll figure it out, but now at least I can try!

-john

﻿


----------



## decent_espresso

Henry Hardy posted the message above on our owner's forum, and a few people added their emoticons to agree with it.

I wanted to share with you what happens here at Decent HQ when a machine comes in for repair. A whole bunch of people get involved, there's a lot of process and transparency. 1 to 2 day turnaround from arrival-to-shipping-back is typical. We've got a pretty well oiled repair machine here.

We're happy to share our internal repair conversation with anyone who has a machine repaired with us, if you're curious to see what was done.

This is a machine that came in for repair, from Dennis Brekke Dennis, who kindly also included a bag of roasted beans for us to try. Pictures from the 12 pages of internal workflow/conversation are on the bottom of the photo above.

-john


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## decent_espresso

*The new v1.43 Decent tablet stand*

In August, we started to make a new version of the Decent Espresso Machine, numbered v1.43. All our XL/XXL models are now in stock with this.

We still had about 200 machines of v1.42 DE1PRO to build, which is why this newer version wasn't immediately available in the DE1PRO model.

Yesterday, I change the "choose a model" page https://decentespresso.com/model to let you choose v1.42 or v1.43, and wrote up a page about the difference. The only change is the tablet stand, and this video shows how it works.

If you're indifferent to the tablet stand improvement improvement, you can save USD $100 by buying the v1.42 model now.

I've started taking pre-orders now for the DE1PRO v1.43, and they'll ship toward the end of November.

We've been working extra hard since July to build up stock of machines for the Christmas season. At the moment, we have stock of all Decent models.

The barrage of news about chip and parts shortages has spooked me, and we've been investing virtually all our profits into building up stock of parts. We're paying a premium, of course, but that's much better than risking "factory slowed down or closed", which surprisingly many companies are having to do.

-john


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## decent_espresso

A big thank you to New York/Israel interior design studio &#119818;&#119838;&#119851;&#119838;&#119847; &#119821;&#119842;&#119855; &#119827;&#119848;&#119845;&#119838;&#119837;&#119834;&#119847;&#119848; https://www.instagram.com/kerennivtoledano/ for including our espresso machine in this home, and having it featured in a TV show which shows this house. 

__
http://instagr.am/p/CUAJC6zoDgF/


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## decent_espresso

*Preparing for the coming Supply Chain Apocalypse*

Each day, I read yet another story about groceries stores with empty shelves, factories closing., high tech items unavailable. I don't think it's all "FUD", because our suppliers are giving us vague delivery estimates of "6 months to a year" for things that used to be 60 days. We bought the last 1000 Android tablets our supplier has, as they told me "we don't know when we're building more, as we don't have a firm delivery date from the chip vendor".

This is a bit worrisome. I don't know if this is a ploy to get people to stock-up-now, or if there's a genuine crisis. Or if the crisis is being caused by panic-induced hoarding.

We've always received "how long to wait after I pay?" messages, even though our website indicates "in stock" or the estimated wait times. But we're getting that question more often now.

I asked some of the people asking us this, if they'd see the "in stock" message on our website,? The reply was "lots of websites say that: they take your order and then you find out later it isn't in stock and have to get a refund".

So, to battle the perception that "is it really, really in stock?", as of today we're putting our audited inventory levels on the website itself, on every item that we track.

Some low cost items (screws, gaskets) we don't keep counts of, but most everything else, we do. For bundles of items (and assemblies), the "in stock" number is the quantity of the low-question part needed to make that bundle.

And by "audited" I really mean it. The HK government sends and auditor here at least yearly (it's been every 6 months recently) and the inventory they find has to really closely manage our books, or we get fined.

We use Quickbooks Online here at Decent, and their programmer's API is really fantastic. I've written software to nightly import customers and invoices into. I then pulling the new stock levels from the books, which make their way back into the website via a static "JSON" file of our entire product catalog. Our product database is available publicly at https://decentespresso.com/js/data/decent_products.js in case anyone wants to write an app that uses it.

Everyone in manufacturing is saying that 2022 will be "challenging". To prepare for that, we're buying 18 months of parts, far more than the recommended 6 months. Prices are high now, but they're not insane. I've seen 60x increases at times on things that are really unavailable otherwise, and I'd like to avoid being in that position. We're looking at renting another warehouse to store the extra parts stock.

Hopefully, telling people exactly how many items we really have here, will help them believe that their purchase really will be shipped right away.

-john


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## decent_espresso

﻿

Emmy's Decent Cartoon

Emirates-based cartoonist Emmy owns one of our Decent Espresso Machines. She's a coffee fan https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17995608133013157/ and we're big fans of her cartoon series, which you can find at https://www.instagram.com/emmy.art/

In her cartoons, she explores Arab life from a woman's perspective: romance, relationships, children, pregnancy, couple's dynamics (in good times and bad). Besides being just plain fun, it offers the rest of us a view into Arab life that few of us know.

My only request, Emmy, can you put English subtitles in your Instagram posts, so that the rest of us can follow along?

On her website https://emmy.ae/ she sells a variety of products integrated with her art. I absolutely love her cup collection, which are adorable and fun, and definitely liven up the morning brew.
﻿







﻿

Find more of these cups at https://emmy.ae/collections/winter-collection

---

Yesterday, the de1app (the Android app that talks to our espresso machine) got a new screen saver, drawn by Emmy herself. You can get Emmy's screen saver by choosing "nightly" and clicking "update". In a few months, it'll be in the "stable" app that everyone uses.

You can see it at the top of the photo above. It's chosen by the app automatically, among the Decent artwork that I commissioned years ago.

This is the first donated piece of art on the de1app, and I'm hoping it motivates other Decent owners with an artistic bent, to consider joining Emmy on the 5000 Android tablets making Decent espressos each day.

---

Next month, we'll receive a large format, variable power, laser etching machine that we bought. One goal with it is to work with artists to etch their designs on the Decent itself. We can't do color, but we can do levels of gray. Here are sample etches the company did for us, on our black (and white) main covers, to show what it's capable of.

﻿







﻿
I think that line art, with swathes of color, will work best. I'm hoping we can sneak into Emmy's busy schedule to work together on this.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Accounting is like physics, or ... how Decent can be so ambitious

I find deep accounting questions super interesting, because for me, accounting is like physics: a math/numerical simplification of reality, which makes insights possible.

If that viewpoint sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend this book, which argues that European history is largely a product of the history of accounting in those countries:
https://www.amazon.com/Reckoning-Financial-Accountability-Rise-Nations/dp/0465031528

﻿







﻿

"The Reckoning" argues that the history of European nations can be read through their accounting practice. Well run, trusted government accounts meant lower interest rates to fuel war, and the countries with worse accounting lost those wars, as money to fight the war was less available to them. Accounting helped empires decide when they had expanded too much. In other places, accounting gave us freedom from Kings, with merchant states like Venice being able to replace a Monarch with a system that everyone has to follow, where trust and equality is. A dictatorship of transparency, you might say. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Soll

It's a bit of tragedy that accounting has been now turned into a tool of government taxation, so that it's now associated with something quite negative. In some countries, like the USA, the entire field of accounting appears to see itself as purely a cost center of legal compliance, with nothing positive to say about how a company should act.

At Decent, we are trying to do a lot. Not only reinventing espresso machines, actually making them ourselves, as well as creating a full suite of coffee accessories. I don't know of any other company, except for Weber Workshops https://weberworkshops.com/ with so ambitious a plan.

To pull this off, we have to simplify the otherwise complexity of our ambitions. That's what accounting means to us. If we do it right, we can answer real questions like: should we design our own grinder (no!) ? Launch our website in a new language, and hire support people who can speak it (maybe)? Set up a repair shop in a country? (usually, no) What price should we charge, so that customers can still afford to buy form us, but we make enough profit, that the risk of total loss is worth it.

Because Decent is owned by its Bugs and I, and not outside investors, these questions are very real. It's our money. We only get one shot at at this. Screw up, we go bust.

Accounting for an espresso machine

Getting into the gritty details, we have 280 parts that go into a DE1. We need to make sure we don't order too late, but each part has its own lead time, and it's always shifting. Order too early and you need to store more parts, and the money is now tied up, and can't be used for other things. Every part has its own failure rate, and that has to be taken into account too. Screw up, and the factory stops. In six years: that's happened twice. It hurts.

A friend of ours who worked at Tesla told me that they only have an imprecise idea of how much each car costs to make. That's fine, when you have the kind of cash they have, and the ability (and desire) to borrow lots more money.

For those interested in manufacturing accounting, let me explain a bit how we track the inventory and cost of parts that go into our espresso machine:



In Quickbooks, the way we track machines changed with v1.43. I don't have visibility in our accounts, of how many machines we have, for machines before v1.43. But that wasn't a problem, because in the past, every machine we built was pre-sold, We never had any inventory of DE1, and demand outstripped supply.


This year, with v1.43, we now can build machines faster than they're ordered. To track our building and costs, we created an "internal customer" who buys the parts from us, and then returns a finished machine. That allows us to know how many finished machines we have, and what each machine cost us to make.


With all our earlier models, in Quickbooks we list all the parts the person received as if they'd bought parts (and not a machine), and then discount the entire thing to reach the amount they paid


That previous accounting method let us track our parts inventory, but it made for very large invoices for each customer, making Quickbooks slow.


With v1.43 every batch of machines is "sold" to the "decent factory" customer. My program imports the invoice into Quickbooks, then fetches the journal entries that show me the actual this-very-moment first-in-first out current cost of every part. I then update the invoice to reflect today's parts prices.


With v1.43 we're now able to exactly know what it costs us to build a machine, on that day. The total price changes daily as we consume parts from different supplier orders.


To put a picture to it, here is an example of a Quickbooks invoice to a customer, for a v1.42 DE1XL. All the parts are listed on the invoice, as if the person had bought the parts from us, and not a machine. 
﻿







﻿

We now are able to make machines faster than we sell them (finally!) and so we immediately sell parts to ourselves, and return a finished machine. That puts espresso machines into quickbooks' inventory, which I can then suck out via the quickbooks API and present to our customers on our website. Here are 25 machines of one model, being made:
﻿







﻿

Note that all this Quickbooks stuff is created automatically by software I've written, which syncs the website database of purchases, with quickbooks. We have no manual data entry here, of any customer orders, payments, returns, refunds, etc. Everything goes automatically into quickbooks via their APIs, with programs I've written.

Yes, this represents a massive amount of programming, but it means that we can keep things running smoothly here. Manufacturing complex objects isn't easy.

And all this homework means we can be bold, when we decide to act. We've simplified reality, which was the original goal of accounting, and it has its benefits.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*"Insight Dark" - new skin for the de1app*
﻿
Decent customer ﻿Martin Reuben and Alex Roys have completed the Photoshop work for a Dark Mode version of the Insight Skin, and I've finished programming it.

It's now available in the 'nightly' version of the de1app, and can be selected on the settings->app->skins page:
﻿
As the "dark skins" (DSX, Metric, SWDark) are all quite popular, I expect that Insight Dark will be as well.

Note that I have not made "Dark Mode" versions of the "Settings" section, as those pages (especially the shot editors) are still actively being changed, and it's a lot of work to keep two versions in sync of the same gui. When you go to "Settings" you'll be back to the usual color scheme.

I'm also continuing to work with Dennis Brekke on a mobile-phone (in portrait mode) version of the de1app and Insight Skin. There's good progress there, but that's a lot more programming work too, once the photoshop work is done.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Espresso with smaller baskets, learning from Lever machines*

Looking back at the history of espresso machines, and especially with lever machines, you find that the 58mm basket used on 9 bar machines, is not so common. Smaller diameter baskets are really common. And lever machines are known for making ultra-smooth, easy-drinking espresso.

I long thought that 53mm baskets (such as those on Dalla Corte machines) was something I wanted to experiment with. I asked ﻿Ben Champion Ben﻿ to draw me a design for a 58mm->to->53mm basket, but in the word of COVID, no manufacturer wants to play with pure R&D with us.

Last week, from our tamper supplier, in arrived a variety of 58m baskets that they make, that have smaller output diameters. We measured them at 37mm, 41mm, and 52mm.

Going from 58mm to 52mm may sound like a small change, but this presents a 25% reduction is surface area of holes. Holding the dose weight constant, you get a correspondingly thicker puck as well. Going from 58mm to 53mm with a 15g dose, gives you the same thickness puck as if you'd gone to a 18.75g dose in the 58mm basket. That's a big change.

Theoretically, thicker pucks should channel less. I've definitely noticed that our 10g basket is almost impossible to make good espresso in without channeling, and I've been wanting to work on that. My assumption is that the puck is just too thin and tends to fall apart very easily.

I asked my in-house coffee expert ﻿Paul Chan Paul﻿ to work with my engineer ﻿Alex Alex﻿ , and do some experiments. Alex previously designed a 3D-printable tamper specifically for our 7g basket, and I think special tampers will be needed for the baskets above too.

Initial tests gave us the results we kind of expected: the 52mm vs 58mm basket gave us a thicker shot, and much, much smoother, both at a 15g dose and the same grind. I've asked Paul to perfectly dial in the grind for each basket, and come back to me, as I think the 58mm basket will need a finer grind in order to be optimized, than the 52mm needs. I'll report back what we find.

Has anyone here also done comparisons of baskets that fit 58mm portafilter, but have a smaller bottom hole surface? What have you found?

We've absolutely found that how close the shower screen comes to the puck, greatly affects espresso thickness and the risk of channeling. I would expect that puck thickness would also have a strong effect. Thicker pucks should be easier to make, and smoother in flavor when using low doses.

However, if you move to 18g doses, I suspect that the 58mm basket is a more appropriate size. The puck would get too thick. Or will it?

Would love to hear from you on this, if you've tried these sorts of baskets, dialed in the grind, and compared.

-john


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## 4085

@decent_espresso As an Evo owner, I have had to make the transition from 58mm to 53mm. Initially I was a little sceptical but soon began to understand the obvious advantage. The 58mm puck is often like a pancake doing at 18 gms where as 18 gms into the 53mm basket gives you a much less wide but far deeper puck. Now, I am not going to try and explain this to you as I suspect your knowledge is somewhat greater than mine! But, I very rarely ever get channeling and the first and lasting thing to note, is that the same bean (allowing for differences in capabilities of machine) the 53mm produces a richer more gloupy shot.

There has been a lot of comment or banter between the various lever officianados as to the capabilities but sadly very little has been based on science! So, interesting to hear your thoughts


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## DavecUK

I've always believed the deeper reduced diameter pucks of Dalla Corte, La Spaziale and the LSM lever groups produced a good shot, and far less channelling. When testing those machines more than a decade ago now, the differences were clear.

Whether it's better or not, I guess, depends on the individual, and the coffee used.


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## KVLVR

Hi coffee lovers,

*I'm giving away a Decent Digital Thermometer...*

Recently I bought a thermometer from Decent, but it sadly turned out that I couldn't use it for the purpose that I had in my mind. My personal recipe is coffee+water only so I'm not involved in the milk frothing business, just wanted a thermometer that reminds me with beeps when my coffe has reached the ideal drinking temperature. Now I already know that the thermometer beeps only as the temperature goes above the set limit and not the other way round.

After discussing my mistake with Paul from Decent, he very helpfully suggested that instead of sending it back for a refund, I could offer the thermometer to someone who could use it more than me. The thermometer is almost new, only used a few times, fully working, in original packaging as seen on the photos below.

*If you can't afford to buy one but would really like to have and use one, please answer to this post and I'll send it to you* (first come first served). It can be collected from Cullompton, Devonshire - or I can post it if you don't mind paying the delivery fee.


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## decent_espresso

*Some DE1PRO now available with special edition front panels*

Before I explain the title, I need to explain a bit about the front panels on our espresso machines.

We used to have two kinds of front panels:
- 100% mirror
- 100% brushed

In the past two years, we ordered samples made from 12 different suppliers, of the 100% mirror model. We even imported mirrored metal from Korea, but we never got failure rates with the 100% mirrored better than 50%. That's way too high. It's just really difficult to cut and bend mirrored sheet metal without causing a hairline scratch on the mirrored material.

We eventually settled on making 100% brushed panels, and then gluing a die-cut mirror onto the lip. The advantages of this design are:
- actually possible to manufacture
- if your scratch the mirror (it happens!) it's cheap ($29 https://decentespresso.com/c?filter=mirror) to replace your mirror.

We call these brushed-with-mirror-lip "Hybrid" panels.

However, while we tested the various approaches, we did get have a small quantity of successes:
- some 100% mirrored panels
- some hybrid panels that do not have a glued on mirror. We hand-brushed mirror panels that had scratches not-on-the-lip, so the lip is still perfect.

The "limited edition hybrid" panels are what we have some of now, for the v1.42 DE1PRO line. Mostly 220V, some 110V. Here is a photo of that:









We will also, shortly, have about 60pcs "100% mirror" v1.42 DE1PRO machines available. I believe those will all be 110V. Here's a photo I took just now, of the 110V 100% mirror DE1PRO machines being tested. They'll be in inventory, available for choosing by those who bought one, in a few days.








Naturally, all these special models are first-come-first-serve. And, we're not charging anything for these.

We have no v1.43 of these, as the front panel design has changed, and now has a notch cut out for the tablet stand to slide into.

-john


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## Scwheeler

KVLVR said:


> Hi coffee lovers,
> 
> *I'm giving away a Decent Digital Thermometer...*
> 
> Recently I bought a thermometer from Decent, but it sadly turned out that I couldn't use it for the purpose that I had in my mind. My personal recipe is coffee+water only so I'm not involved in the milk frothing business, just wanted a thermometer that reminds me with beeps when my coffe has reached the ideal drinking temperature. Now I already know that the thermometer beeps only as the temperature goes above the set limit and not the other way round.
> 
> After discussing my mistake with Paul from Decent, he very helpfully suggested that instead of sending it back for a refund, I could offer the thermometer to someone who could use it more than me. The thermometer is almost new, only used a few times, fully working, in original packaging as seen on the photos below.
> 
> *If you can't afford to buy one but would really like to have and use one, please answer to this post and I'll send it to you* (first come first served). It can be collected from Cullompton, Devonshire - or I can post it if you don't mind paying the delivery fee.


 Hi KVLVR, if you can't find a more worthy person I'd love to have it. I'm v.happy to cover postage as while I'd love a trip to Devonshire it's a little far. It will certainly keep my Dad happy as he's always complaining my coffee is not hot enough for him!

As one good turn deserves another, I have some spare accessory's from my Sage Bambino I will give away in the pay it forward section when I get back for Portugal.


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## KVLVR

Scwheeler said:


> Hi KVLVR, if you can't find a more worthy person I'd love to have it.


 It's yours then. Please check your private messages.


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## decent_espresso

*﻿﻿New video: how pressure profiling changes flavor*

I know that this video will seem oddly "retro" as it *only* has 3 steps: preinfusion, hold, decline, but bear with me! Understanding this stuff is the knowledge foundation you need before you go modifying those wizardly profiles from Stéphane, Gagné, Damian, and JoeD.

Away from the Decent and fully-controllable direct levers, 3 steps of programming is still "cutting edge, state of the art" from other companies, with (for example) the new San Remo machine being a 3 step machine. And, there's a reason: this is very classic espresso, really excellent with medium-light to dark roasts, and you should master part of history, this before you venture to more complicated profile programming.

The 3 profiles in this video only differ by the end pressure, which also affects the appropriate grind to use, and the running time of the shot.

I really recommend that you try this exercise. There is this gravitational pull toward more complexity with Decent profiles, and that's fine, but these simple profiles have very distinct flavor and texture, and I think they should be in everyone's arsenal.

I've seen criticism of these 3 step profiles that "they're all basically the same", to which I answer: Yes and No. Yes, they're quite similar, but no, they don't taste at all the same.

The "classic italian' profile has preinfusion, and then holds at 9 bar:
﻿







﻿

From there, I hand-edit the profile in the video you but can simply choose the "classic lever profile"
﻿







﻿
and finally, the middle ground, what I probably could have called "the classic pressure profile" ,which you can find as the "best overall" profile:
﻿







﻿
Careful eyes might have noticed that the temperature also declined in each profile. That's because 9 bar Italian espresso tends to be brewed fairly hot, lever machines less so, and those with profiling control tend to go between 88C (for dark/medium beans) to 92C (for light roasts).

In this video, I used a medium-light roast from Fineprint.hk, by Australian champ Scottie Callaghan https://fineprint.hk/ and that roast level to darker, is where these profiles perform best.

I don't think the profiles above are the best choice for ultralight beans, but if you like how light roasted beans taste on traditional machines (a bit thin, a lot of brightness), then you should give this exercise a try.

And thanks to ﻿Paul Chan for playing along with this exercise, as I think this the first time he'd tried these profiles seriously, and was quite surprised at how good they tasted.

-john


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## decent_espresso

*New: temperature changing of all steps*

Probably the single most requested feature, is to make it easy to change the temperature of all the steps in a shot. Simple pressure & flow profiles could, but the Advanced profiles could not.

The reason: I have not programmed this because I could not see an elegant design solution. The "Advanced profiles" page is very complicated already and every "solution" I dreamt up made it even more so.

For some reason, looking at the problem again today, I saw a nice design solution that had never before occured to me. And so I programmed it, and it's in the nightly de1app version now.

The main PRESETS tab now has +/- buttons on the thermometer icon, that work on all profile types.

The video above is a demonstration of how this works.

-john


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## decent_espresso

BilliumB said:


> I'm wondering if you could please talk at some length about how closely the Decent can mimic the behaviour (and output) of lever machines that people using the Decent often aim to emulate.


 That would depend on what Lever machine, but (say) the Londinium, which is very popular with the same audience, I think we do well. Someone here on this forum was running a coffee stand with a Decent and a Londinium, in production, and indicated they were very similar. I'm sure there are levers out there that we can't mimic, but we do a fairly good job at the moment, and I think that if you use a 41mm or 52mm basket, you really get close.

If you want more mouthfeel, but slightly less EY%, add a "spacer" with your DE1 to lower the shower screen further onto the puck. A few different people sell this, and in June, our new shower block will have a similar effect.



BilliumB said:


> Another issue I was wondering about is whether your controlled vibration pumps setup can lead to pressure pulsing of the puck.


 We've really studied that worry, and don't think it's the case. A few reasons:

1) unlike most vibe pumps, we never "turn the pump on" at full voltage. Every pulse is controlled, and we use noise shaping (like a speaker) to control vibrations. For example, the hot and cold pumps run at opposite pulse polarities, to cancel each other's pulses out.

2) the tubing from the pumps goes through several mixing chambers, they're relatively large, and the tubes are 1.2mm diameter, so pulses get neutralized there too. There's intentional chaos in those mixing chambers, to cause hot/cold mixing.

3) we use military grade flow constrictors (yes, from the USA, made for jet fuel injection systems) to precisely calibrate flow, and pulses don't get through those. There are two of those, and they are $%#@#[email protected]#$ expensive, but they work well.



BilliumB said:


> I obviously get the fact that the Decent can do much more than emulate a lever, and this is a very significant attraction, however double spring lever shots seem to be the 'holy grail' for some people.


 I'm not a fan of those, and much prefer direct levers, that let you really control the pressure curve, so you can use your lever to extract coffee across the roast spectrum. A spring locks you into a single pressure curve.

I have an article coming in The Lever Magazine, where I explain more on this topic.

-john


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## benbarista

Hi John!

Decent machines seem great to mimic lever machines! Would you have a few advices for lever machines owners who want to mimic Decent profile like allongé or the"best practices espresso profile"?

Right now, I am using a Cafelat Robot with its manometer. For example, in the case of the "best practice espresso profile", the time I need to fill manually the portafilter with water is of course not foreseen in the Decent profile : should I adapt the ramp up to 2.5 bars beginning the preinfusion or are those few seconds of filling without pressure not so important? ?

Thank you for all your always interesting work!

Benoit


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## decent_espresso

benbarista said:


> Decent machines seem great to mimic lever machines! Would you have a few advices for lever machines owners who want to mimic Decent profile like allongé or the"best practices espresso profile"?


 Yes, buy a Smart Espresso Profiler for your lever. The app can exchange espresso runs with the de1app, and will help you mimic Decent profiles.



benbarista said:


> Right now, I am using a Cafelat Robot with its manometer. For example, in the case of the "best practice espresso profile", the time I need to fill manually the portafilter with water is of course not foreseen in the Decent profile : should I adapt the ramp up to 2.5 bars beginning the preinfusion or are those few seconds of filling without pressure not so important? ?


 As it happens, I just finished writing an article for The Lever magazine, that explains how to make a Blooming Espresso on a direct lever.

Ramping up to a bit of pressure during preinfusion is a good idea, and tends to make for a more even preinfusion (water everywhere at about the same time)

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Lockdown prompts Decent Scale escape plan*

On monday, a team for four salaried Decent staff few to Shanghai and descended on the factory that builds our Decent Scale. Their mission: to hand-test 2140 Decent Scale v1.1, with batteries, with the de1app. Yes, they really do bring tablets and connect to each one. This scale, for instance, appears to work, but... no bluetooth light, and no bluetooth connection can be made:

My staff take a video of every single failure, both to prove it to the supplier, and also to document every different problem. 
﻿







﻿

At the end of each day, they post to our internal Basecamp discussion, the results of each day. Here's the start of the 1st day report:
﻿







﻿

For Decent Scale v1.0, we did the testing once we received the scales, and that turned out to be a mistake. 30% of them had light scratches, for instance, and had to be discounted. Others had problems.

That's why for v1.1, I decided to send 4 people, put them up in hotels, and really be a pain-in-the-neck, so that the supplier feels the pain of any quality problems. As the rules of the contract are that we only pay for scales that get shipped, with v1.0 we paid for all of them, but for v1.1, the supplier will not get paid the full amount until all problems are resolved.

But all that went to hell this morning, when 1 case of COVID was discovered in the factory district where the scales are made.
﻿







﻿

The entire area is under lockdown now, and only people with a negative COVID test in the past 48h are allowed out of the area. I'm worried that even that will get revoked shortly, not be able to go home on Friday, so I'm pulling my employees out right now. They're at the hospital getting tested right now, and then on the first flight out.

The good news is that 432 Decent Scale v1.1 passed the tests on monday and tuesday, and we'll get those to Decent HQ shortly, and send them to customers. As we have 446 pre-orders, most people will get their scale soon. But, we won't be able to send everyone one, and it'll be a bit longer before we have stock to send to new orders.

Such is the world of manufacturing.

I'm writing this to explain a bit what things are like, but also so that those of you who email me, angry about the delays, understand better why.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Playing with Lasers

We just received a large-format laser etching machine, with the intent of making custom DE1 chassis with artwork burned into them.

Above are a set of photoshop mockups of what we think we can do.

A happy coincidence is that customer Jeremy﻿ Clark recently made a set of Monochromatic Screensavers for the de1app, and because he drew them as grey scale art, they work well within the limits of what the laser can do. The photoshop versions above on the black DE1 are all from Jeremy's artwork. I've pinged Jeremy to see if I can get Illustrator versions of his artwork, and if he wants to make artwork specifically for this use case.

Arabic calligraphy looks great, and we're trying two sample. However, I'm not yet sure we can pull off the watercolor artwork on the top right, even though it is quite grey scale. We'll see.

Because the chassis is easily replaceable, customers can try ideas out, and if swap the covers out themselves.

-john


----------



## Michael87

decent_espresso said:


> View attachment 60479
> 
> 
> *Espresso with smaller baskets, learning from Lever machines*
> 
> Looking back at the history of espresso machines, and especially with lever machines, you find that the 58mm basket used on 9 bar machines, is not so common. Smaller diameter baskets are really common. And lever machines are known for making ultra-smooth, easy-drinking espresso.
> 
> I long thought that 53mm baskets (such as those on Dalla Corte machines) was something I wanted to experiment with. I asked ﻿Ben Champion Ben﻿ to draw me a design for a 58mm->to->53mm basket, but in the word of COVID, no manufacturer wants to play with pure R&D with us.
> 
> Last week, from our tamper supplier, in arrived a variety of 58m baskets that they make, that have smaller output diameters. We measured them at 37mm, 41mm, and 52mm.
> 
> Going from 58mm to 52mm may sound like a small change, but this presents a 25% reduction is surface area of holes. Holding the dose weight constant, you get a correspondingly thicker puck as well. Going from 58mm to 53mm with a 15g dose, gives you the same thickness puck as if you'd gone to a 18.75g dose in the 58mm basket. That's a big change.
> 
> Theoretically, thicker pucks should channel less. I've definitely noticed that our 10g basket is almost impossible to make good espresso in without channeling, and I've been wanting to work on that. My assumption is that the puck is just too thin and tends to fall apart very easily.
> 
> I asked my in-house coffee expert ﻿Paul Chan Paul﻿ to work with my engineer ﻿Alex Alex﻿ , and do some experiments. Alex previously designed a 3D-printable tamper specifically for our 7g basket, and I think special tampers will be needed for the baskets above too.
> 
> Initial tests gave us the results we kind of expected: the 52mm vs 58mm basket gave us a thicker shot, and much, much smoother, both at a 15g dose and the same grind. I've asked Paul to perfectly dial in the grind for each basket, and come back to me, as I think the 58mm basket will need a finer grind in order to be optimized, than the 52mm needs. I'll report back what we find.
> 
> Has anyone here also done comparisons of baskets that fit 58mm portafilter, but have a smaller bottom hole surface? What have you found?
> 
> We've absolutely found that how close the shower screen comes to the puck, greatly affects espresso thickness and the risk of channeling. I would expect that puck thickness would also have a strong effect. Thicker pucks should be easier to make, and smoother in flavor when using low doses.
> 
> However, if you move to 18g doses, I suspect that the 58mm basket is a more appropriate size. The puck would get too thick. Or will it?
> 
> Would love to hear from you on this, if you've tried these sorts of baskets, dialed in the grind, and compared.
> 
> -john


 I got this kind of reducing portafilter when I bought my used gaggia classic and keep coming back to it over the VST baskets. I just love the taste.

So it's fascinating to hear this is why it might be.


----------



## decent_espresso

*The amazing accidental physics of coffee grounds*

We sell two different 'puck simulators', which are just portafilter baskets with a tiny, tiny hole drilled in them by an electron beam drill.

A single hole at 0.2mm in diameter lets through about 0.8ml/s (similar to a thick espresso) while a 0.3mm hole lets through twice as much as that, similar to what you'd want from making espresso with a light roasted bean. https://decentespresso.com/basket

﻿







﻿

Let that sink in for a moment.

A typical espresso puck lets through the equivalent of a 0.2mm to 0.3mm hole of water. That's over a 58mm size, which is 26 square cm, almost exactly 4 square inches.

Think of how amazingly effective coffee are at resisting water under great pressure. Only the equivalent of a 0.2mm of water makes it way through all that coffee. Not that many materials work so well.

Another mind blowing thing about espresso is to appreciate just how much pressure is on those coffee grounds. 9 bar is about 140 pounds of pressure per square inch. As there are 4 square inches of area on a coffee puck, that's about equivalent to 3 adult male ballet dancers "en pointe" on that coffee puck.
﻿







﻿

It's truly amazing to me that this tasty roasted fruit happens to optimally give its soluble material up at these low flow rates, and can this same material can create these flow rates under these tremendous pressures. Change the pressure down to (say) 3 bar, with a coarser grind, and espresso isn't as tasty.

Try to make a tasty extraction from ground cocoa, powdered cinnamon, or .... anything else.

Espresso blows my mind sometimes.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*The Sniff Test*

Our most recent batch of heaters arrived two weeks ago, and we noticed a plastic smell, that seemed to also permeate the steam. That got us very worried.

Every time we get a new batch of water heaters delivered, we do the sniff test. In the past, that's been running steam and several members of staff smelling the steam as it comes out of the machine. Our concern is that some cleaning product, solvent or other chemical used to make the heaters, might remain. We do run each machine for 2 hours before it leaves the factory, but the sniff test has always been part of our process.

In order to figure out where the smell was coming from, Decent Engineer Alfred did two things:
- built a hot water recirculation device, sending water from each heater through a fine mesh filter, and turning each area into a aeroseoling device, to make smelling defects easier.
- completely dismantled the heater into its parts, and heated each individually on a commercial warming plate.

We found the main culprit of the smell. Though the heaters are made for us, they have needed some reworking, and part of that has been us (at Decent HQ) putting high temperature shrink tubing around red-cable electrical connection. That's been fine, but with this batch, we asked the heater maker to do that for us, and... they didn't use the material we approved, instead swapping in a rubber that smells terrible when heated. That's the black tube on the right. So, we're going to cut them off the 6000 heaters we received, and put the correct shrink tube material on ourselves.









Alfred also found that a slight plastic smell comes from the insulating rubber ring right below the electric terminal, pictured above with the left arrow. Unfortunately, that's difficult to replace, and that has a very specific role, is glued in, and we would have trouble replacing it. On the positive side, we could only detect the smell when we put this part practically inside our nostrils.

Getting to a point where the Decent can get warm, without generating any smells at all, is my goal. Given, however, how many different materials are used (we worried about that cable tie, for instance, in the middle of the heater) it's an ongoing process, or of swapping out every part with another, until we slowly reduce all parts that give off smells when warm.

We do find that the warmth-caused smells drop off massively after a few hours of warm use, which has always been the case, and after 2h at the Decent factory, the machines have mostly lost their smell when warm. But... still, I do think that for a few days, after you get your Decent, you might notice a smell if you put your nose directly to one of the vents on the espresso machine. I'd love to achieve zero-smell, but perfection is hard to achieve. We'll keep working at it....

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Brian C, a Decent portafilter stand customer, reported the the vibrations from his Niche grinder with our portafilter stand https://decentespresso.com/portafilter_stand mounted to it, were causing loud rattling between the portafilter basket and funnel. Also, a groove was appearing in the paint of the
handle, from the rubbing, where the stand meets the wood.

I suggested to Brian that he buy a bit of rubber tubing, as another customer had previously posted that mod. He did it, found it solved his problem, and then posted to Decent Diaspora about it. The two photos on the top right of the collage show Brians' own mod.

Quite a few people chimed in, indicating that more folks than I thought, were concerned about this, especially the part about a groove forming in the portafilter paint.

So, Decent engineer Alex has been working on implementing this improvement in our product, for the past month. Alex has been trying different types of tubing (different densities, thicknesses, and materials), and we think we finally have figure out the right tube, that can optionally be placed on the portafilter stand "fork" to prevent scratching and dampen vibrations.

The tube does slightly elevate the handle, and thus change the level of the basket, but the effect is not too great. If your grinder doesn't vibrate much, it's unlikely you'll have the groove form on your portafilter, so

We're ordering 2000pcs, enough to include with all future portafilter stands, for those that'd like it on.

And, we'll send one for free, upon request, to any existing Decent portafilter stand owner, as part of any other order they make with us.

I'll post here when they are available.

Many thanks to customer Brian C. for pushing this issue forward, so that it ends with this happy conclusion.

Note that the tube we settled on is thinner than Brian's, and likely thus more flexible. That thin-ness raises the portafilter less, and also means the center-cut isn't needed to hold it in place around the bend.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent Transparent Cases

Years ago, we made a one-off transparent acrylic case for use at trade shows. It was very popular:
﻿







﻿
We later made the cover available as an optional thing people can buy:
https://decentespresso.com/c?s=310+1

but few people buy it, because:



it's hard to find on our website


we don't have any good photos of it


most people probably would prefer that their espresso machine came built like this, so they didn't have to do the assembly themselves.


In an effort to resolve those issues, we've taken clean, light-box photos of a real machine with the transparent case:
﻿
﻿







﻿

and then applied those 2D images as textures on our 3D renders.

﻿







﻿

In a few weeks, I'll be updating the https://decentespresso.com/model page so that there's a "clear" color option on the DE1PRO, with images, and a price. We'll then start shipping machines pre-built this way.

At the moment, this case works best on the DE1PRO model, which is 4cm shorter than the DE1XL. If this extra work we're doing increases interest in this clear case option, I'll have some DE1XL versions of this case made too.

I'll post more info about this once we're ready. In the meantime, if you're already a DE1PRO owner and like the way it looks, you can buy it now https://decentespresso.com/c?s=310+1 but be sure you also get the matching 3-screw tablet stand for it (the render above shows the incorrect stand type).

-john


----------



## xpresso

John, You could go for the total 'Bling' thing ............










J.https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81dWVsDsyEL._CR410,0,1062,1062_UX175.jpg


----------



## decent_espresso

xpresso said:


> John, You could go for the total 'Bling' thing ............
> 
> 
> 
> J.https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81dWVsDsyEL._CR410,0,1062,1062_UX175.jpg


 Ha! Yeah, a few people have LEDed the inside of their machines.


----------



## decent_espresso

I mentioned that we recently bought a laser etching machine, and we're trying out various art concepts on the Decent with it.

As it happens, Decent customer Jeremy Clark posted monochromatic art for the de1app, and I thought it'd work well with the laser etching. Jeremy sent me the line-art (Adobe Illustrator) source to this latte art stripe, which was one of my favorites.

Decent engineer Alex has been trying different laser power, laser speed, and.... angles of etching. This was not something I expected but the angle of the etch has a huge effect on the resulting color. Makes sense, since color is reflected light, but still...

It turns out that etching at 45º angle, at high power, causes aluminum to go light brown, quite close to the color of a latte. And this color persists at various viewing angles. All the powder coating is burned off, giving it a crisp edge.

On the right is my photoshop mockup of the idea. On the top is our most successful laser etch on a real chassis.

This week we're going to make a full scale etch of this design.

I'm quite pleased that Alex managaged to get something with a nice color, and high contrast, as most of our experiments have come out grey, like the test you can see above the middle stripe.

More tests to follow...

-john


----------



## newdent

Hey, regarding the decent scale. I was about to pull the trigger on one and then I spotted that there is a new version without blinking light, etc. I kind of hoped that the scale would allow for firmware updates as per Acaia. Can you confirm whether this will be the case with the decent scale?

Thanks!


----------



## decent_espresso

newdent said:


> Hey, regarding the decent scale. I was about to pull the trigger on one and then I spotted that there is a new version without blinking light, etc. I kind of hoped that the scale would allow for firmware updates as per Acaia. Can you confirm whether this will be the case with the decent scale?
> 
> Thanks!


 Unfortunately, no, the Decent Scale doesn't support firmware upgrades.

There's a fair amount of new stuff in this version scale version.

-john

*
What's new in Decent Scale v1.1
*



*New scale features*


Power on with the square [] button to turn the scale on with no bluetooth (and thus, no blinking blue light)


Auto power-off during idle now extended to 10 minutes (previously was 2 minutes)


USB power means scale is always on, automatically, to help those thinking about embedding the Decent Scale into their products.


Purple LED always means "finger detected touching a button"





*New BLE features*


Command to set grams vs ounces (not required to do this manually)


Command to see if running on USB power vs batteries


Command to find out scale's firmware version number





*BLE bug fixes*


The O button should be under software control via bluetooth, and should not cause taring automatically


Sometimes a command sent to the scale is lost, and has to be sent twice (currently worked around invisibly by the app)


Cannot determine current battery power via bluetooth


Long press on O and [] buttons not differentiated from a short press.


----------



## decent_espresso

*For how long will a specific Decent model be in stock?*

For the first time in our history, we're managing to build machines faster than we can sell them, which is great.

This is mostly because I handed over factory management to Nicole a few months ago, and she's doing a better job at it that I did. I was managing to get 200 to 250 Decents made per month, but she's cranked it up to 250 to 300 per month. You can see real monthly numbers of factory here: https://decentespresso.com/batch_chart

Because we're now in stock for all machines, I've rewritten the "Queue" page to focus on what we have, instead of .... what we don't have! You can see it here:
https://decentespresso.com/queue

it also displays what machines we sent sent out, and which machines are just about to go out. A happy face will appear next to your machine on the queue page (on the "about to go out" or "just shipped") once you buy from us.

For each v1.43 model we make, you can see how many we have, and an estimate of how many days of inventory that represents. I'm extrapolating based on the past 30 days of sales, which is also there.
﻿








﻿
Note that v1.42 machine inventory and sales are not included, as they used a now-obsoleted tracking mechanism, which assumed "we build them as fast as we sell them", and thus didn't worry about tracking inventory.

I've also obsoleted the "Showroom" concept for v1.43 machines, where each buyer would get invited to Basecamp, and then browse 360º videos and still photos of our inventory, and pick one. As virtually all our machines are the same now, this just introduced an extra (and confusing for many) step.

Machines that do have a cosmetic defect, or are just plain different in some way, will continue to get listed in the Bazaar (email me if you want an invite to that)

Next week, I'll finish programming a replacement for the Showroom. If you want to, you'll be able to browse 360º videos at 4k resolution, of every v1.43 machine in stock. And, you can tell us you want a specific serial #. You will NOT need to have purchased from us to browse all this detailed info.

But, crucially, you won't be required to browse videos of our machines any longer. We'll send a machine automatically, the next working day after your order comes in. More about that new process soon.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*HELP ME ANSWER: "Why did (or would) you buy a DE1?"*

My friend Stephen Barnes is the "Hong Kong Visa Geeza" and has a strategy very similar to Decent: sharing information freely, transparency, and a focus on customer happiness. He's sharing his marketing wisdom and I'm trying to learn from him.

In his "how to build a monopoly" video: https://intelligentcontent.marketing/ he says that first do some deep thinking about what people are really buying from you. For Stephen's visa business, he realized it was "peace of mind" and he then re-oriented his business to provide that.

I don't have a clear idea, at all, of why people buy Decent. It feels like there are lots of disparate reasons.

We made the v1.0 DE1 as the machine I personally wanted, heavily educated by Scott Rao and Home Barista. But after we shipped v1.0, everything that followed for the past 5 years, has been guided by you.

*If you own a Decent or want to, can you do me a favor?*

Write below, very, very succinctly (one sentence is best) why you (would) chose to buy a Decent.

I think that some of the common ones are:
- High tech: I wanted a high tech espresso machine
- Best espresso: I thought Decent would make the best espresso possible
- Frustrated: I was frustrated by my existing machine and wanted something better
- Trust: I trusted John to guide me to making good coffee
- Business practices: I just liked the way Decent conducted business
- Software: I like software-based approaches and love the idea of a tablet 
- Profiling: I heard that profiling was essential and Decent seems to do it best
- Wanted a hobby: I was always interested in making espresso at home, but it seemed a hard hobby to pick up. The videos and social media made me comfortable that Decent could get me there.
- Size: I have a small kitchen

I'm not doing a poll as I am not at all sure that the list above encompasses the majority reasons.

If one of the above matches your reason, just write those few words. If you have another reason, please tell me.

This exercise is happening on the 3 different owner's forums, but I'm reproducing it here too, both to cast a wide net for responses and to share the conversation with those who have not bought a Decent, but are considering.

-john


----------



## Fran

In addition to 'Best espresso', 'Frustrated', 'Trust', 'Business practices' and 'Profiling' as above... it's about you John! You are a compelling character, I wanted to buy into 'Brand John' (more content from you please!)


----------



## Margt

Nice one, also get some reviews about decent espresso. It's offers amazing control and short pulled!


----------



## decent_espresso

*360º video of all Decent in stock*

On the Decent Queue page https://decentespresso.com/queue every model has a link to a page of videos for every machine in stock.



Click on a model https://decentespresso.com/snview?sku=DE-DE1PRO220V5-00471 and you'll get a still image of every machine in stock, from the 360º video we took.


Click on the serial number https://decentespresso.com/sn360?sn=4875 of a machine and you get a 4k quality video of that machine, shot in a light box. You can even download the 4k video and keep it as a record.


If there's a machine that you would particularly like to have, mention it in your notes when you buy and we'll send you that one.


*The goal here is real transparency. * You get to see precisely the machine you'd receive if you bought.



At 4k resolution, using a good Sony camera on a tripod and good lighting, you can really see a lot.


Previously, these videos were only available to those who had paid, as part of the "choose your machine" process.


Also, the video is permanently linked to your online invoice at https://decentespresso.com/support/orders so you can--at any time in the lifetime ownership of your machine--view this video.

Two caveats:



we're currently uploading all the v1.43 videos we've made, both of machines in stock and all the v1.43 we've made and sold. That's about 1000 videos, and will take us another week or two to complete.


it turns out that new versions of Google Chrome won't play .mp4 videos any more, because they're promoting their .webm video format. Firefox and Safari play them just fine. So, I'm making an OGV video file of every video, just for Chrome. This takes about 10 minutes per video (!) so Chrome users will wait a week for all videos to work.


----------



## decent_espresso

5000 Decents birthday!

We had a big celebration today for our 5000th Decent Espresso Machine, which happened to be a few days from the 50th birthday of Bugs Harpley: CEO, co-founder of all this, and my partner.

In the bottom right I'm holding a photo of us, just 2.5 years ago, when there were 8 of us in the photo, but we'd somehow managed to build 500 machines at that point. It felt like success at the time

__
http://instagr.am/p/Bvd7eD7hMLn/
 - Miraculously, 6 of the 8 people in that photo are still with Decent, though Simon (center) no longer solders every heater together (he's our head repairer), Hannifa no longer builds group heads (she's coffee R&D with Paul), and Alex no longer does anything and everything (he's was employee #1, and now is a product designer).

When I was 11 years old, my grandmother asked me what I wanted for my 12th birthday. "Homemade lasagna!" I said. "Too much work!" was her reply... and we had steak instead.

When Bugs asked me to make lasagna (which in our 13 years together I never have made, and it turns out to be one of her favorites) I could not say no.

Michael and I started at 9am with whole tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, pasta sheets, ground pork and dill see(to make Italian sausages), and beef cheeks.

4 hours later, we'd produced 4 huge lasagnas! The beef cheeks turned out to be overly ambitious, and didn't make it into the lasagna, served on the size instead. Mohammed is giving a big thumbs up in the photo as he got his own pork-free lasagna, that everyone agreed was the best looking of all (extra cheese and sauce!).

A BIG HUGE THANKS to the 4500 great people, all over the world, who have bought one of our hand-built espresso machines in the past 2 1/2 years.

Thank you Thank you Thank you

You can see Bugs getting quite emotional in the middle photo. We've always wanted to make a contribution in the world of food, but didn't see how to do so (don't want to open a restaurant). Decent manages to allow us to live the life we want, applying the skills we have, in a field that we feel so happy to be able to contribute to. Thank you again.

Let's keep having fun together, and making ever better drinks.

- John & Bugs


----------



## decent_espresso

*Why do we make these 360º videos?*

I was asked by a few people, "why are you putting these 360º videos up? What's the point", for example, this:

"I'm assuming the level of quality control is great enough that there should be no visible defects right? So what would one be looking for when they pick out a machine?"

A good part of it is that forcing transparency on my staff, causes them to be MUCH more attentive to problems.

If they let a machine through that has a scratch and it's visible on the video, they know the customer will either see it before shipping or once they receive it and complain, the 360º video will show the scratch, and it'll be clear that they failed.

It's MUCH more motivating to a staffer here to avoid embarrassing themselves and the company, publicly, than anything I could say as a boss.

Telling someone to "pay attention" and "do better" are fairly empty words.

Knowing that your actions have consequences, and that the transparency in the whole process means you can't hide when you screw up.

Namely, when a mistake has been made, everyone looks at the record and tries to determine if they were the cause. If so, it's common for me to hear "I'm sorry, it was me, and I will try to better."

A little story about Teddy, who does "final assembly" and only he does it. He's kind of the Executive Chef here, in that he reviews every single machine we make, like in a fine dining restaurant where the executive chef reviews every dish before the customer sees it. He's tremendously respected, and when a problem is discovered anywhere, his opinion is always sought.

A few years ago, Teddy made 3 mistakes in a week, that customers saw. I received a signed apology letter from him, telling me that this was not at all acceptable, and that he was embarrassed that he made so many mistakes, and that he had done some soul searching and felt he needed to improve. I don't know that he's made 3 mistakes since then.

 I realize it's a bit odd to do something like this. The videos aren't meant to directly sell a machine to someone. Instead, it's part of how we got here, how we even managed to get in running to maybe sell you a machine.

These videos exist because responsibility, motivation, and quality are hard things to do, and this approach works.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

BilliumB said:


> Hi John
> 
> Any news on the results of Paul's experiments with different sized baskets?
> 
> I recently picked up a 2nd hand DE1PRO plus various accessories on the classifieds here and am slogging through the foothills!
> 
> Cheers Bill


 Yeah, we have a super-deep 7g basket that we're testing, that we're loving. We're likely to move to that for our 7g basket offering. The depth is allowing us to get all 7g in without any over the edges.

However, we're finding much better results with a metal filter screen then placed on top of the 7g dose. Hugely decreases channeling with this sort of basket, because otherwise the screen is nowhere near the puck. We'll likely have our own metal mesh filter screens coming soon.


----------



## decent_espresso

BilliumB said:


> Any progress on testing deeper and narrower 18g baskets?


 It's not anything I'm trying at the moment. Generally, when people go narrower, they're also lowering the dose weight, down to (say) 7g to 14g).


----------



## decent_espresso

BilliumB said:


> Hi @decent_espresso I thought from your 26 Oct post that you were doing some work on 52mm vs 58mm baskets for 15g doses. I was wondering if Paul came up with any conclusions?
> 
> Excerpt from 26 Oct post &#8230;
> Initial tests gave us the results we kind of expected: the 52mm vs 58mm basket gave us a thicker shot, and much, much smoother, both at a 15g dose and the same grind. I've asked Paul to perfectly dial in the grind for each basket, and come back to me, as I think the 58mm basket will need a finer grind in order to be optimized, than the 52mm needs. I'll report back what we find. &#8230;


 Yes, with 15g doses, but not 18g. The 54mm basket does a really nice job with medium and darker roasts, in that it reduces channeling and increases body. We might start selling a 54mm basket that fits in a 58mm machine.


----------



## decent_espresso

Why

*Decent isn't on Amazon*

New Report: Amazon's Toll Road - Institute for Local Self-Reliance
https://ilsr.org/amazons-toll-road/

Super interesting and well researched research report on Amazon. Essentially:



- PRIME's free shipping is a way to prevent other online companies from competing with Amazon


- monopoly power gained from offering free shipping (70% of online purchases in the USA start at Amazon) then forces 3rd party sellers to have to list on Amazon,


- and then Amazon can charge high fees on those 3rd party sellers


- fees on 3rd party sales have risen from 19% to 34% since 2014


- Amazon is hiding how much profit the fees on 3rd party sellers brings in by grouping it with other divisions that lose money


- for example, PRIME free shipping is a big money loser, to reduce that appearance of gouging, whereas profit on fees on 3rd party sellers actually is 2x the size of AWS


As to Decent's own experience, we did start out selling on Amazon.



- one the biggest anti-competitive features of Amazon, for me, is that you aren't allowed to sell your goods cheaper, anywhere on the Internet.


- to make this clearer: we weren't allowed to pass on the lower-cost savings we enjoy from a direct sale, to the consumer, in the form of a lower price


- People constantly abuse Amazon's free-to-return terms, and "borrow buy" from Amazon, returning the goods a few weeks later. We then are hit with a return fee, an item destruction fee, or fees to mail the used goods back to us.


- when customers have problems with a product on Amazon, they return it, because there is not such thing as "vendor-provided customer support" on Amazon. Technically, it's possible, but nobody uses it and many emails we'd write would get auto-deletected by Amazon's secrecy algorithm, which is trying to prevent us from talking directly to the customer.


- in the end, we decided that the customer experience with our products was much, much worse with Amazon.


- A big part of the "Decent experience" is how we work with you directly, and Amazon prevents that.


- So, we decided to remove all our items from Amazon some time ago, and focus on 1:1 relationships with our customers, trying to find ways to do some things better than Amazon.


-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Buckman article in "The Lever" Magazine*

I wasn't aware of The Lever Magazine before Claudio and Simone, the editors, approached me. I took the opportunity to read, cover-to-cover, the 3 previous issues, and I was floored at how similar their view of espresso was to Decent's. They are actually scientific about it, with talk of basket diameters, temperature profiles, preinfusion times and pressures, all being a constant throughout their issues.

Surprisingly, I found nothing that is "incorrect" in my opinion. I don't mean that to sound as arrogant as it likely does. What I mean is that most writing about espresso is half speculation presented as certainty or science, when it's really just a guess. When people write something like "fines migration is causing...." it's a theory, not a certainty, and not well backed up by espresso-specific research.

The Lever presents an impressive amount of deep coffee knowledge across its 4 issues, and when they write something with certainty, you can trust it.

My favorite article in Issue 4 is not mentioned (yet) in the Table of Contents, and it's about an interesting way of making perfect water for coffee. The "gold standard" is to remineralize purified water https://www.baristahustle.com/blog/diy-water-recipes-redux/ but this has many cost-and-time downsides. In their article, they suggest prefiltering tap water with something cheap (such as a Brita) to get rid of chlorine and other easy-to-remove things. Then, measure your water, and make a custom remineralizing concentrate the brings your existing water to a happy place. This is certainly cheaper, easier, and more scalable than the purified-water approach, and deserves serious consideration. Thank you for introducing me to this idea!

I wrote an article in this issue https://thelevermag.com/pages/issue-4 where I:



discuss some important insights I gleaned from Lever machine discoveries


looked at why Pour Overs are so universally popular with the Coffee Intelligentsia, and how to apply those lessons to Espresso


How Scott Rao's Blooming Espresso works, and detailed instructions how to make it on a direct lever machine


The remaining Big Problems and Questions we in the Decent community are still very much grappling with


It's a "dead tree" magazine, not available online, so let me point you to this URL https://thelevermag.com/pages/issue-4 and please see if you can find it.

The magazine is published Italian and Chinese translated versions, though the translated versions are not yet in print.

My article went through 3 extensive rewrites, thanks to Simone and Claudio's feedback and editing, and is much, much better for it.

I hope those of you with Lever machines will give it a read, and let me know what you think.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Two years ago, pre-COVID, I made an extensive video showing how to make your own coffee cart built on an inexpensive IKEA table, and Decent parts. 




I was living in France at the time, and ran a sunday-only coffee cart at my local farmer's market. That's why there's an X in my "Expresso" cart signage. Here's a video showing that cart: 




What I hoped is that others might play at running a cafe, like I did. Not having any rent to pay, and doing it part-time, keeps it fun. Also, you're only running your cafe when there's a crowd, at some special event, so that feeling of despair that cafe owners feel when you have almost no clients for hours, is avoided.

With loosening up of restrictions in some countries, we're seeing a flurry of interest in running your own coffee cart. Why not monetize that Decent Espresso Machine you bought? Also, it's a family experience, and in almost all cases, it's parents doing this with their kids very much involved. It's fun, but it also teaches your kids good values: hard work, providing something people want, teamwork, and making a bit of money for your efforts.

Two Decent owners, Todd and Erik, on opposite sides of the world (USA and Europe) are each documenting their journey, from building, to "how it went" (not always well!) and these discussions are extremely popular. There are separate topics about solar panels, lithium battery packs, and generators, as well as workflow, challenges of strong wind, and more. It's terrific to see, and everyone is rooting for each other to succeed.

For example, there's an active discussion about how to attract people to your stand. I suggested that smell would bring people from far away, and that maybe homemade coffee scented candles https://justcoffee.coop/upcycled-coffee-grounds-diy-coffee-candles/ were a way to do that.

And of course, lots of people have dreamt of opening cafe. Here's a way to do it in a light way, with minimal investment, keeping it enjoyable.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*A Decent Bicycle Cafe, and a "QC FAIL" feature idea*

This weekend Bugs and I rented bicycles and made the trek out to a new Decent-using cafe in Hong Kong.

Peloton cafe https://www.instagram.com/peloton.hk/ has a bicycle theme, as it's located at the end of a long coastal bike ride https://www.sircycling.com/articles/cycling-new-territories-border-skirmish and a 2020 opened new bicycle network https://www.ntctn.hk/en/track-section-tuen-mun-to-yuen-long.

There's an emphasis on homemade desserts, like apple crumble, warm brownie, croissant waffles, and pancakes. There's a choice of two coffee beans, both single origin, a Kenyan and Ethiopian natural, both sourced from world-syphon coffee champion, HK-based Accro Coffee https://www.accro.hk/category/coffee-beans/

I had the Ethiopian natural a small latte, and while light roast, it was free of strong acidity, so it milked nicely. They have a DE1XXL espresso machine, and said it takes about 20 seconds to steam a drink. The latte art held for the entire 10 minutes, which is very unusual for cafe foam, which tends to turn into a volcano shortly after pouring.

I asked the co-owner Cyrus, how they were getting on with the Decent. They have two other locations: Proton https://proton-cafe.business.site/ is a restaurant with a coffee focus and about to open cafe called OneThird https://onethird.coffee/ for which they are planning on buying two more Decents.

I was surprised by the answer of why they liked the Decent. Cyrus said his staff liked the tech, and the screen in particular. "So What?" I asked.

He replied: "We're sometimes very busy, and the screen lets my staff know when a coffee is bad, or needs to be dialed in again. Also, the screen makes it really fast to adjust the grind so that we're dialed in correctly, in the middle of service".

That's a really interesting insight, and it gave me an idea. I've long thought about adding a "quality control" feature to the de1app, where a "QC FAILED" light would flash if a drink didn't match the desired standards.

Quality standards could include "shot finished between 25 and 40 seconds" and "flow rate during extraction didn't exceed 3ml/s" and would be settable by you.

I think home users of the Decent could likely benefit from such a feature, especially when making drinks first thing in the morning, not being awake enough to notice that you just made a "sink shot".

What do you think?

-john


----------



## MediumRoastSteam

decent_espresso said:


> not being awake enough to notice that you just made a "sink shot".


 You'd need to be pretty sleepy to not notice that! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

jokes aside, personally, I don't think it's something home users would benefit. Speaking for myself, I haven't sinked a shot in years, and I make a coffee every single morning before going to work. If the shot is slightly off parameters, I'd drink anyway, and, again, speaking for myself, I don't find those necessarily unpleasant or wrong, just different.


----------



## decent_espresso

.


----------



## decent_espresso

MediumRoastSteam said:


> You'd need to be pretty sleepy to not notice that! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
> 
> jokes aside, personally, I don't think it's something home users would benefit. Speaking for myself, I haven't sinked a shot in years, and I make a coffee every single morning before going to work. If the shot is slightly off parameters, I'd drink anyway, and, again, speaking for myself, I don't find those necessarily unpleasant or wrong, just different.


 Some mornings, I forget that I set my Decent to the Black Tea recipe, which.... doesn't make a very enjoyable espresso. 😩But, I usually notice.

However, my partner is fussy, and if my shot isn't correctly dialed in, I get the dreaded "can you taste this and give me your opinion?" or "did you change something about the coffee?" both of which are code phrases for "this is not good".

The biggest cause, for me, of sink shots is bean aging. It takes me a while to get through a kilo bag, and I do have to fine the grind on my Niche about 2 steps over that time, or the flow rate slowly creeps up, and drink quality creeps down.

However, I also think that my definition for what is a "sink shot" has gradually become more and more strict.


----------



## MediumRoastSteam

decent_espresso said:


> sink shot" has gradually become more and more strict


 Out of curiosity John, what's your sink shot rate? (E.g.: sank shots over total shots made, over a month).


----------



## decent_espresso

MediumRoastSteam said:


> Out of curiosity John, what's your sink shot rate? (E.g.: sank shots over total shots made, over a month).


 Maybe 3 or 4 a month at home. At the office, it's a LOT more because people are constantly fiddling with the grinder as they try different beans and I forget to check if the grind is back where I want it. Maybe a quarter of my shots at the office are "fine but not amazing" due to this. It's actually a good test of the "adaptive shot" profile I developed, intentionally to be able to "save" shots that are really not dialed in on the grinder. Sometimes, though, I'm pleasantly surprised that what I thought was a too-coarse grind actually tastes great with whatever beans I just tried.

Or... someone <sigh> left the beans bag on top of the Decent, whereby it's warmed to 50ºC and basically ruined in a few hours, though... that rarely happens anymore after I left a scolding poster on the wall.


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## decent_espresso

*Start outdoors, move indoors: new Birmingham Decent Cafe*
﻿
A big congrats to Birmingham, UK based "Coffee by the Casuals" https://www.instagram.com/casuals_coffee/ who started out with a Decent espresso home setup

__
http://instagr.am/p/CQ-2v-tBOeU/
 which morphed into an outdoor stand, and many, many gigs. The visibility and experience enabled them to now move indoors, about to launch a permanent cafe at One Colmore Square https://www.instagram.com/onecolmoresquare/

It's really rewarding to be a part of someone else's journey, but Bugs﻿ is particularly touched by the opening of this cafe, as it's a 10 minute walk from where she used to live. We wish them continued success, and will help them in any way we can!

-john


----------



## Michael87

Do you have a list of decent cafés? I'm really keen to try it but Birmingham is a little far from us South of London


----------



## decent_espresso

Michael87 said:


> Do you have a list of decent cafés? I'm really keen to try it but Birmingham is a little far from us South of London


 We don't, as cafes don't tell us when they're ordering, and they don't put business names in their order sheet. The only time we're aware they're a cafe is when they tag us on their instagram. And many cafes buy a Decent to use in their roastery.

I just checked, and there are 202 Decents in the UK, but the only one that put their business name in the address is

__
http://instagr.am/p/CPQRB19t1ZF/
 in Yorkshire. I do recall a Decent cafe on the south coast, but the name is escaping me at the moment.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Better water dispersion onto the coffee puck*

We've been working for about a year, on replacement pieces that go inside the espresso machine group head, that direct water onto the puck.

A few goals we have:



getting copper out of the water path: there's always a worry about appearing in each batch of copper products we make. We have the tested by our own lab, each time, but still, it's a concern.


cleaner: coffee oils and particles seem to like to stick to copper, so regular cleaning to keep the best flavor, is important. Other materials are easier to keep clean.


better temperature accuracy: two things here. 

First, copper is very much not an insulator, so it soaks up heat, and transmits that to water. That helps stabilize the water temperature, which is why traditional machines love all that metal, but it decreases our ability to quickly change the water temperature under software control. We want to do that (for instance) at the start of espresso making, to bring the coffee puck up to the defined brewing temperature


Secondly, the copper interferences with our ability to accurately measure the water temperature directly above the puck. We're instead measuring some water that hits the puck, and some water that's hitting the copper. If we make these parts out of an insulating material, we can get much more accurate coffee peak temperature readings, and then compensate both faster and more accurately.



better water distribution: our water distribution approach is in two passes. First, we use the "apple shaped" path to break up the water's momentum and sendit through fairly large calibrated holes. Secondly, we have an array of precision machined holes directly behind the filter screen to evenly wet the puck. Our current design is already quite good at this, but we think we can improve it slightly.


We've tested our designs made from a resin called Ultem. It's great stuff, used medically for in-body transplants, with no taste impact, and no safety concerns. However, we're finding that in about a third of our machines, cracks appeared after six month's use. Also, we're seeing a bit of warping over time, too.

So, we're now trying to different materials:



*solid teflon:* this is my preferred material. We already use solid teflon for our tubing, as it does not expand with heat (very useful) is very inert and well known to be food safe (except in very high temperature ovens, which isn't a factor here). It's also very anti-stick, so it should remain clean with minimal effort:


*PEEK:* this is really exotic and gorgeous stuff, even more expensive than Ultem. But, besides the very high cost (maybe overkill in this situation) it's another material I have to explain to people who ask. However, we know it'll work, if Teflon doesn't turn out to. We're considering PEEK for our mixing manifold, which has to withstand high pressure and lots of thermal cycling. https://www.curbellplastics.com/Research-Solutions/Materials/PEEK


Next year, we'll start to make this part, and it'll be offered as an optional low cost replacement for existing customers.

We're also increasing the thickness of this part by about 4mm, so bring the "head space" above a puck in line with the E61 standard. That will naturally increase the body/thickness of espresso, and there are several third-party "spacer kits" currently available that do this. For this that don't want the decreased headspace, you can move to a slightly larger espresso basket, to keep the same headspace as today.

More news on this, as we learn more.

-john


----------



## Fran

decent_espresso said:


> We don't, as cafes don't tell us when they're ordering, and they don't put business names in their order sheet. The only time we're aware they're a cafe is when they tag us on their instagram. And many cafes buy a Decent to use in their roastery.
> 
> I just checked, and there are 202 Decents in the UK, but the only one that put their business name in the address is
> 
> __
> http://instagr.am/p/CPQRB19t1ZF/
> in Yorkshire. I do recall a Decent cafe on the south coast, but the name is escaping me at the moment.


 I stumbled upon https://www.instagram.com/frama_uk/ whilst wondering around Frome - unfortunately they were closing up, so I didn't get to try the coffee.


----------



## decent_espresso

Fran said:


> I stumbled upon https://www.instagram.com/frama_uk/ whilst wondering around Frome - unfortunately they were closing up, so I didn't get to try the coffee.


 The coffee at Frama is extraordinary.

When I was last there, they were using Colonna-Dashwood's beans, with a low-pressure recipe (3 bar, I think it was) that I didn't believe could work, but it was fantastic and opened my eyes to "there are no rules in espresso". I made a video of them making it, that's still on my iphone, that I need to publish someday.

Even my skeptical 70-year-old French friend, that I brought along, loved it, and he usually only drinks medium to dark roasts. It was a significantly, significantly better espresso that those I got from Colonna Cafe later that day.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Free portafilter stand improvement*

Starting today, our portafilters stands come with a pre-cut small silicone tube that you can slide over the metal, if you want to protect the paint on your portafilter handle.

This change is especially useful if your stand is touching a grinder, which causes a lot of vibrations, and makes the portafilter handle vibrate as well. In that case, the sound produced is annoying, and you get micro-scratches in your wood handle paint.

This small piece of rubber is available free to all part portafilter stand customers, on request, as part of any other purchase you're making with us. Please contact us before you pay for your next accessory order, so we can zero out the cost of https://decentespresso.com/c?s=75747+1 from your order.

Thanks to customer Brian C, raising this issue on Diaspora, and trialing a solution, for this. Many others also chimed in with their own suggestions.

We worked on it a bit more ourselves, to find just the right material, density and thickness: no smell, stays in place. Then we had the right length precut for us, and a slit cut down the belly so that it's ready-to-be-used by you.

Those of you receiving a portafilter stand from us now will get one of these in your box, and you can decide whether you want it on or not.

Just another example of the design and manufacturing partnership we have with our customers.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New: shortcut to customer support*

Fairly frequently, we get email from customers asking for an order receipt, or tracking information, or complaining that they never got any emails from us. The cause of all these problems is spam traps, annoyingly deleting the emails we're sending you.

To work around the unreliability of email, years ago I programmed an extensive web-based support and order archive system. However.... lots of people don't even realize it exists, as the link to it was buried under "Info/Customer Login".

As of today, if the system knows you (you've sent us email or bought something), your name and a shortcut icon, now appears at the top of every page on our website. Click it, and you'll get the page above. Every email we've ever sent you is there, as well as shopping carts you haven't paid for, the payments we've received, and orders. For every order, we detail every box we sent you, provide receipts, packing lists, and package delivery tracking. It's fairly complete.

If you've never bought or emailed us, the link at the top says "Customers" so you know you probably don't need to click it.

Just a small improvement, but hopefully it'll make the wealth of features I built, more findable and more frequently used.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Perfectly Calibrating Decent Flow Measurements*

The DE1 firmware has a physics model of the pump we use, which allow it very closely estimate the flow rate. It's much more accurate than a standard flow meter, which typically can't handle flow rates under 2 ml/s. And the latency is much better, being able to notice very quick transitions, such as a channel opening and closing in a coffee puck.

But our approach has one big weakness. The pumps we use behave very differently if the electrical voltage and frequency is not what we expected. That's why, in the de1app, there's a settings->machine->calibration setting for "Flow".

If you own a bluetooth scale, you can use that to perfectly calibrate your DE1, and many people have done that.

However, I've been really not happy with a few extreme cases, where our default calibration is way off:



South Korea and USA when running 240V, with its unusual electrical frequency of 60hz in the 220/240 range.


Japan, with 100V and two different frequencies, of East vs West Japan


customers have to be told to recalibrate their machines, or else the flow measurements are really wrong.


I've not been happy with that, but hadn't seen a obvious solution.

Last week, it occured to me that we could calibrate our machines for the two most common cases: USA and EU, and for all other countries, we could recalibrate that person's machine to the country where that machine is being shipped.

The downside is that this can delay shipping their DE1 by up to a day, but I think it's worth it so that customers who don't recalibrate (in the current system) don't have a less-perfect experience.

It also occured to me that I could find a table of combination of voltage and frequency in the world, we could build a calibration table for all those countries, and this would massively speed up our work.

I also decided that when a machine is going to a country that isn't the default voltage/frequency, that I'd print on the invoice itself, in yellow type, the suggested flow calibration. We'll do it for you, but you've got it in writing too.

More importantly, my boxing team can see the bright yellow print, and knows to hand that machine back to an engineer, to recalibrate for that person's country.

I'm a bit embarrassed that it's taken me so long to figure out how to solve this calibration question. Sometimes a problem just has to percolate in our brains for a long time, before an obvious solution surfaces.

I've also posted an updated page in the Decent manual "Voltages, Frequency and Default Calibration for every country" so that if you don't own a bluetooth scale, and you already own a Decent, you can enter the newly calculated optimum default calibration for your country.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Solid Resin Handles*

A few months back, our wood handle maker sent us a catalog of materials he could order, to use instead of wood. He also indicated that olive wood, from old olive trees that have been uprooted as their no longer fruiting, was also possible, but very expensive. It's a beautiful wood, but because it's old, it's knotty and full of holes and defects, so there's a very high rate of discards.

Our black wood handles are painted black, which isn't great for longevity, because that paint can flake off if you had the wood handle on the portafilter bar (maybe you're not quite awake). I've been searching for a black through-and-through material to make our black handles out of, so that'd stay nice looking, permanently.

A number of handle samples arrived today, in solid resin. Despite not being wood, this is a quite expensive material. It's heavy, polished, and feels great in the hand. These are made on a lathe, like wood is, so there is no seam. They are not moulded.

On the bottom left of the photo I opted for a conservative choice, of black resin with just a small amount of sparkle. The bottom right is a much crazier mix of dark and light greys.

On the top row are two "fashion" colors. I surprised myself in really liking the top right, but I know it's a contentious choice.

On the top left is the olive wood handle. I really like it: it's an ecological choice, since it's essentially reclaimed, and a hardwood to as well. It's very lightly finished so that it doesn't shine of lacquer but still feels smooth in the hand. I don't yet have pricing for that, or even if it's possible to make a large quantity order with olive, but I've asked.

Here are some other solid resin colors that arrived, that I didn't mount on a machine for a photo.
﻿







﻿
and here all the olive handles we received. You can see a typical wood defect on the far right one.
﻿







﻿
I'm also talking to a wood turner based on southern Germany, who has a chemical process for changing oak wood into solid black (called "smoked oak") and they're also making light wood samples for me out of maple.

Besides the possibility of changing our black handle, I'm interested to see if we can "up our game" and offer both a more attractive standard handle (in both black and light wood) as well as optional woods and colors for those who might like that.

Very much looking for to hear your thoughts.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I've been cooking all week for today's company feast, of homemade beef wellington. It's our tradition for the boss to cook the annual feast for everyone.

Alex, my first employee, has been asking for me to make this for years, because he used to work at the famed Mandarin Oriental hotel as a waiter, where he'd serve Beef Wellington to guests, but as an employee he never got to taste it.

I've been practicing for a month, as I'd never made it either, and made 3 practice runs over the weeks. In the end, I changed it up a bit, as I find filet mignon to be bland, and use slow cooked organic Australian beef cheeks instead. King trumpet mushrooms (similar texture to foie gras), browned shallots and black truffles as the stuffing inside a butter puffed pastry. A tried to make a duck liver mousse, as kind of a poor-man's foie gras (and kinder too), but wasn't as successful, and came out more like a liver quiche (yum!).

We've got so much to be grateful for, as the Decent team has really come together this year. I have a hiring policy of letting people have a try at working for us, and not being too fussy about their resume, so they have a stab at getting the job.

I do this because the college I went to, Bates College in Maine, makes SAT scores optional, and weighs the in-person interview as the most important criteria. They do this because they found that test scores and grades were a very poor predictor of future college success. As it happens, Bates was the only school that let me in, out of 14 I applied to. I was in the bottom 1/3rd of my high school class, but in fact, did succeed at Bates.

So, I take that lesson, and apply it to how I run Decent.

The downside is that we do hire more than we need to, and then have a high "drop out rate", just as a College would.

In the end, though, I love everyone who is here now, with me at Decent.

To thank them all for making this work, absolutely every employee got a significant and permanent raise today, right before desert was served.

So thank you everyone who has been reading my posts this year, as you're all part of the great year we've had. We feel all the more lucky for it, knowing how hard and awful it's been for many of you. Let's hope next year goes better.

ps: we are staying open through the holidays, and shipping every day.

Last year, we closed from the 24th to the 2nd, and we got quite a lot of grief from people for the long delay in getting their orders, as well as not having my best staff available to answer tech support. So now, we stay open. We might be slightly sleepy from over-eating, but we'll do our best to help.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*A frustrating chatbot gave me this idea*

Opening up a facebook chat yesterday with a company I buy from, led me down a immediately frustrating robot-conversation experience.

At first, I thought it was a human, and then the robot didn't understand what I wrote, seemingly requiring me to add [Square Brackets] around my request. Even when a human (I think?) entered, I didn't know it for sure, nor their name.

Instead of letting the frustration get to me, I thought: "I ABSOLUTELY never want anyone dealing with Decent Espresso to have this experience."

And so, a day of programming later, when you're chatting with Decent (via Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook, etc...) we now tell you which human you're dealing with. And we never, ever, hand you to a robot.

I've long had this in our web-based customer support, since I programmed it myself. There's a photo of the human you're talking to, on every message. There are some robotic emails ("Here's your Invoice"...) but they're clearly marked as such, as collapsed/hidden by default.

Something I've come to really dislike about modern company iteractions is how faceless and nameless it is.

When you know someone's name, you know they have responsibility. If they screw up, give you bad advice or rude service, you can complain, and there'll be repercussions.

And that's if it goes badly. Since you know their name, you can also thank them personally for exceptional service.

At my previous company, Lyris, we had an unusual quota for our support department. Every representative had to receive two unsolicited "thank you" letters, sent to their boss, for a job exceptionally well done. We only wanted to keep people who went beyond the ordinary, to delight.

A postscript: that company with the frustrating robot? They actually provided exceptionally good "human chat" support, fixing my bug within 2 hours and releasing it the next day. And they were fun to chat to. Their name? I have no idea, and can't thank them.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

COVID causes move to faster USA shipping from Decent, no extra cost

While we ship our espresso machines via UPS/FEDEX, so they arrive in 2 to 4 days, we've continued to use the postal services to send our coffee accessories.

Due to COVID, postal services have tripled in prices, and become much slower. This is mostly due to the lack of passenger flights, with unused baggage capacity used for most air mail packages.

A few days ago, Postal Services from Hong Kong to the USA were completely suspended. And yesterday, Hong Kong ordered all flights from most of the Western World, to be stopped for (at least) the next 2 weeks. We're battling a COVID outbreak here, and trying to get back to COVID-zero, which we've enjoyed for about a year.

A year ago, I had programmed support in our shipping software, for a lower cost service from UPS, called World Wide Express (WWE). It has a completely different programming API, and a need to pre-sort packages. Back then, it was much more expensive than the postal services, so we didn't use it, but now....

We've done the calculations, and while we charge customers $10 to ship accessories to the USA, the average package is actually costing us $14. That's not too much of a difference. Now, with UPS's WWE, that's going up to an $18 average, which I feel is still OK.

So: we can continue to afford to offer the same shipping rates to the USA on our accessories, as well as free shipping for purchases of 3-or-more items.

Delivery time to the USA will hugely speed up with this change.

Previously, using the postal service, the average delivery time was 10.8 days. But via UPS in December, the average was an incredible 1.9 days. You can see 15 months of tracking stats I've been keeping, in the chart above. It's a really good service.

I've been long wanting to change to UPS for accessories for another reason.

Every day, after our chef Michael has finished making lunch, he walks over to the post office with a massive quantity of each days' orders. There's no package pick up with an inexpensive airmail rate, you have to take packages to them. The load has been getting to be a btt much for him. I knew we had to transition to another way, soon.

So, turning misfortune around, this new COVID news means that:



our accessories will now get the USA blazingly fast, fully tracked, via UPS WWE, in an average of 1.8 days


at a relatively most 28% increase in cost for us, which we can bear,


at no price increase to you


At the moment, WWE is not available to the UK and EU, so we'll be continuing to use the postal services for orders going there.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Open Screen Saver Project from Decent Espresso

Since the Decent Espresso Machine has a tablet on it, and the machine is sitting in your kitchen, I always felt that it should display nice artwork, that complements your home and tastes. When the Decent is not being used, it cools down, the tablet dims to a settable brightness, and displays Decent-themed artwork I'd commissioned.

I'd always planned on revisiting the artwork that's on there, and made the process of replacing my artwork, very clear (it's a /saver/ directory on the tablet). Some people have gone further and written app extensions that make it easier.

But I'd like to take this idea waaaay further.

Years ago, I had a (non money making) side project called "Pixcycler.com", whose goal was to upcycle low power LED screens most of us own, into art displayers for your home. I hired a retired Dutch art publisher (she had a background in legal clearance issues) living in the UK to find and organize, a vast collection of open license art, from museums around the world. It all had to be "open license", high resolution (3000 pixels or greater). She added metadata on every file indicating the source, license, artist, photo name, and more. All images have been tidily categorized. Over several years, the archive grew to tens of thousands of images, about 1TB large. I believe it's one of the largest curated open license image collections in the world, verifying and aggregating as it does, all the open museum collections we could find.

On the Diaspora owner's group, there's a renewed interest in the screen saver, and a lot of Decent owners are programmers. So... I've announced that I'm opening up the archive to all, sharing my google drive of the archive https://tinyurl.com/decentart and encouraging people to make use of the archive, however they like.

I'd love for:
1) the tablet on the Decent to display your favorite art 
2) to make use of this currently-unused massive collection of Open Access art.

And a big callout of thanks to Annemieke Dolfing, who did all this collection work for me, over years. I know she'd really love to see it come to something.

-john


----------



## RobbieTheTruth

Hi John,

Not sure if you've noticed but this forum is dead unfortunately.

You're talking to yourself at this point,


----------



## Mrboots2u

RobbieTheTruth said:


> Hi John,
> 
> Not sure if you've noticed but this forum is dead unfortunately.
> 
> You're talking to yourself at this point,


 As we speak 186 people browsing , not bad for as Monday .

I know a lot of people dont want to be here anymore/ post here but posts like this come across as a little Petty.


----------



## decent_espresso

Comments/discussions come and go. If you click on "previous page" (#198) you'll see that there was recently a lot of back and forth.

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/28377-decent-espresso/page/198/?do=embed#comments


----------



## RobbieTheTruth

Mrboots2u said:


> As we speak 186 people browsing , not bad for as Monday .
> 
> I know a lot of people dont want to be here anymore/ post here but posts like this come across as a little Petty.


 Look at the busiest sub-forum right now, the Coffee lounge.

Last post - 9 hours ago.

What is it? Spam. Selling a Universal Remote.

Left up for 9 hours and counting.

Time to move on boys.


----------



## MWJB

RobbieTheTruth said:


> Time to move on boys.


 OK, bye then. Try not to slam the door on your way out.


----------



## Bicky

I always find the posts in this thread super interesting, I'm sure I'm not the only one. Keep them coming! 👍


----------



## RobbieTheTruth

MWJB said:


> OK, bye then. Try not to slam the door on your way out.


 Turn the light off when you're the last one left


----------



## Happyguy

RobbieTheTruth said:


> Turn the light off when you're the last one left


 Let me guess you must also be on the "other forum" set up by the ex moderators if this forum.

I find the info that Jon posts all over the internet very informative as I am sure many other folk do, there still seems to be people here who help people out and it seems a lot less about individual machines (whichever is the flavour of the month)


----------



## PAVDAW

How are coffeeforums allowing the posts on here in recent days, John provides amazing insight into the running of a business and production of an amazing machine made for people who want to take coffee to the next level. Embrace it or go to this other forum to talk about the vostock.


----------



## decent_espresso

Erik Lenaerts continues with his coffee cart at a local farmer's market, and discussion with others on the Diaspora owner's forum continues.

One thing we're trying to figure out, is how to draw people toward his stand. The most eco-friendly (and a good project for his kids) was to make a coffee candle, so that lighting it spreads coffee smell around. Erik sent in this photo today, of his first try with it.

If nothing else it's quite pretty. Would be great at a night market!

-john


----------



## 28362

I've got my finger on the trigger to buy a Decent Pro. I've played around with three espresso machines and three grinders over the last three years or so. Went the pour over route and that's just not for me. It's all about a good espresso, that's what I have found out about my taste. Experimenting with beans from around the world to get the killer shot. I've ended up with a Rocket Mozzafiato R and a new Weber Key Grinder. Both very much at the top of the game.

Countless hours spent chasing the best shot through grind and bean and pull time and puck prep, etc. One thing I can't change is the flow profile of the shot. Watching the shot emerge and how it builds to the perfect colour and flow, but as the time extends it visibly becomes less optimal.

I thought, having reading as much as I could find on the Decent that I would go that route. I read a Reddit thread over the weekend which questioned strongly the quality of the machine, the software and even criticised the oft-quoted Diaspora support community. The arguments are varied and include directions such as "build quality is poor" then someone will defend by saying "you're buying software, the machine isn't designed to be top flight" and then someone will do a long treatise on why the software isn't great - in language that's far beyond my non-tech bro brain.

It's a big cheque to write to get something sight unseen dragged across the world, only to find the hype is writing cheques that the under experience can't cash. Any comments from owners? - oddly it is quite hard to find user reviews online.

Any help appreciated!


----------



## shaunlawler

As an owner for over a year now, I can't praise the Decent enough. It really is revolutionary with absolutely no competitors on the market.

The ability to tweak flow profiles etc is a game changer and one that I still love to constantly experiment with.

John is also a straight up guy and his team have always helped me with any issues (which have been very minimal) and the sense of community around the machine is also great.

I spent a lot of time researching and this is still the best option for someone who likes to experiment with different profiles, makes a very good espresso and steamed milk. Extraordinary for the size as well.


----------



## JA92

shaunlawler said:


> As an owner for over a year now, I can't praise the Decent enough. It really is revolutionary with absolutely no competitors on the market.
> 
> The ability to tweak flow profiles etc is a game changer and one that I still love to constantly experiment with.
> 
> John is also a straight up guy and his team have always helped me with any issues (which have been very minimal) and the sense of community around the machine is also great.
> 
> I spent a lot of time researching and this is still the best option for someone who likes to experiment with different profiles, makes a very good espresso and steamed milk. Extraordinary for the size as well.


 Similar experience to myself, hard for any other machine to match given the amount of variables you can adjust on the fly. Only takes around 5 minutes to warm up too, so you're never having to wait too long for your caffeine fix.


----------



## coffeechap

stephenm said:


> I've got my finger on the trigger to buy a Decent Pro. I've played around with three espresso machines and three grinders over the last three years or so. Went the pour over route and that's just not for me. It's all about a good espresso, that's what I have found out about my taste. Experimenting with beans from around the world to get the killer shot. I've ended up with a Rocket Mozzafiato R and a new Weber Key Grinder. Both very much at the top of the game.
> 
> Countless hours spent chasing the best shot through grind and bean and pull time and puck prep, etc. One thing I can't change is the flow profile of the shot. Watching the shot emerge and how it builds to the perfect colour and flow, but as the time extends it visibly becomes less optimal.
> 
> I thought, having reading as much as I could find on the Decent that I would go that route. I read a Reddit thread over the weekend which questioned strongly the quality of the machine, the software and even criticised the oft-quoted Diaspora support community. The arguments are varied and include directions such as "build quality is poor" then someone will defend by saying "you're buying software, the machine isn't designed to be top flight" and then someone will do a long treatise on why the software isn't great - in language that's far beyond my non-tech bro brain.
> 
> It's a big cheque to write to get something sight unseen dragged across the world, only to find the hype is writing cheques that the under experience can't cash. Any comments from owners? - oddly it is quite hard to find user reviews online.
> 
> Any help appreciated!


 Where abouts are you @stephenmyou maybe close to someone who has one that may be able to show you it working


----------



## Mark70

@stephenmI have had my machine since last March and never had a problem The talk about build quality is rubbish It's not a super shiny traditional chrome lever and if that's the style you want go for one I love it for its small form factor quick heating and it makes wonderful espresso It rare to get a sink shot although I had two today with a new espresso - Rocco mountain needed a surprisingly course grind I use a profile with pressure and flow limits when using a new espresso which usually compensated for an incorrect grind but today this was far to far out

There are loads of profiles but you usually settle on one or two I generally use a lever profile and I must admit if I had the space I probably would have a lever machine but then again I love the Decent

Diaspora is great for sorting issues either by the Community or by Decent personnel Where else would you have daily access to the CEO Most issues are simple and owner induced like not cleaning the machine properly Yes there are complaints about the software largely from software writers who don't like the language The software is regularly updated through an iterative process and I find it just works If you want to do you own programming you may get frustrated. Other complaints resolve around the lack of a proper manual. There is a manual but it's on Diaspora and some find it hard to use- it's never been an issue to me. There are also loads of Decent You Tube videos with guidance on cleaning and using the machine

Bottom line is is it perfect no but it's not far off

If mine got stolen tomorrow I would immediately buy another


----------



## decent_espresso

My article on "What Decent Espresso has learned from lever machines" is now readable online. It starts on page 34, in issue 4, at http://thelevermag.com

You can jump to that issue here https://thelevermag.com/pages/issue-4 and then tap "34" into the page # to jump to.

The "controlled water dilution" article starting on page 38 is really great, but I would recommend you just read the issue cover-to-cover, as there's lots to learn here.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New Decent profile for making tea in a regular portafilter basket.*

There's a new profile for making tea with a regular portafilter basket, now in the Nightly version of the de1app, and which is shortly about to become the STABLE version. It's hidden by default, so tap the eyeball icon to check it and thus unhide it.
﻿
I spent the past two weeks making and tweaking this recipe, because I went on holiday with my Decent, a tin of loose leaf English Breakfast tea, and a very distraught girlfriend, when she learned that I'd forgotten to pack the Tea Portafilter.

This makes an acceptable mug of tea, very similar to what a kettle + steep would produce in flavor. I would not say it is superior to kettle brewed tea, unlike (for me) the Tea Portafilter, which makes a better cuppa, to my taste buds.

However, what it is, is much, much more convenient when making loose leaf tea, since you can just "knock out" the spent tea leaves into your knockbox. No mess, unlike normal loose leaf tea brewing.

I like my English Breakfast tea to be weaker, and without milk, so I make a 2nd extraction after the first "British Extraction" for Bugs, which does take milk.

One good test, for me, of an extraction method, is whether a 2nd extraction is possible, and whether it is indeed weaker than the first. If yes to both, then the extraction method is likely fairly good.

Approach-wise, what tasted the best, was eight alternating 10 second pauses (brewing) followed by relatively low flow (3 mL/s) rinses of the leaves, lasting 10 seconds. Not alternating (ie, trying a constant constant low flow) produced a much more tannic drink. Total time of 3 minutes is the same as kettle-brewed. 2 minutes wasn't strong enough, and 4 minutes started to produce tea and the end that was too weak for this style of drink.

A 105ºC temperature attempt "steamed" the tea, and was a pleasant flavor, but too much water was lost to vapor, and the cup was very much not full.

Lower than 100ºC produced a weaker brew. I did not try this approach with more delicate teas that require lower temperatures. It might work; I'd love to hear how you fare.

Sometimes, necessity is the mother of invention.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Financial Review AU article on Decent

Not where you'd expect to find an exceptionally well informed article about high end home espresso machines, but I was very pleasantly surprised to be told about this article today in the Financial Review magazine of Australia.

The direct link is behind a paywall, but readable on the Internet Archive, and various other places too: 








This data-driven coffee machine brews the perfect shot – in your home


It’s the miraculous confluence of water temperature, pressure and flow that, when combined with the right bean blend, produces the ideal cup of espresso.




tinyurl.com





-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*The "magic" grinder setting on my Niche*

I wanted to ask you guys something, as I find this very confusing.

I sometimes fall on a "magic" grind setting on my Niche, where the coffee just POPS and tastes amazing. Even as the beans age and the shots go from 35 seconds down to 22 seconds (18g in, 36g out), they still taste amazing. 

The shot shouldn't be this good: a 22 second shot is, intuitively, too fast a flow rate. Yet, it does.

And... as I weigh my milk for every drink, the extraction tastes like the same EY%, because I'm still putting 140ml of milk in.

When I open my coffee bag, the shots slow down to 35 seconds, sometimes even 40 seconds, and I maybe even lower my dose to 16g. As the beans age, I up the dose to 18g, the shot time eventually (after 10 days) comes down to 22 seconds, but still tastes great.

But here's the weird thing: if I grind finer to get my shot time back to ~30 seconds, the shot tastes much less good. A bit stale, over-extracted. Or if I coarsen the grind with the new beans, to get a 30 second shot with 18g, the shot tastes "simple".

There's just this magic grind setting that seems to make the shot tastes its best.

I should mention that I'm using the "Adaptive" profile on the Decent, which automatically holds the flow rate after the shot pressurizes, at whatever flow rate occurred when the puck pressurized. And the pressurize step "times out" after 5 seconds, so if the shot can't reach 9 bar, reaching (say) only 7 bar, at (say) 3 ml/s, then the shot runs to 36g in cup, at 3 ml/s. 

That's why this profile is called "Adaptive" -- it adapts to whatever flow rate was achievable, in a reasonable amount of time, during the pressurize step.

I'm wondering if others have experienced something similar?

As an aside, ever since I've thought of the idea, I've wanted a T-shirt that says "Zero Retention" on the front of the shirt, and "Niche Grinders" on the back. It's just such a funny in-joke. I was going to ask Niche if they'd mind if I made such a tshirt. Would you be into it?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*New shopping cart feature: how fast is shipping?*

When people add accessories or a DE1 to their cart, there is now a link to six-month real delivery times to their country.

The footer on that page explains:


> "Our delivery time calculation starts from when we box each order until the courier tells us it was delivered. This includes time needed for local pickup and customs clearance. We box all orders each morning at 8 AM, Hong Kong time zone, from Monday to Friday. Current time in Hong Kong: Wednesday, 8:55 AM"


I hope that the monday-friday, 8am explanation above is clear, and helps to answer common questions people have.

The Cart page no longer shows the courier's estimate of "Days" as that was partially a lie from them to get you to pay for more expensive shipping options.

You can also change the recency of the analysis, for instance to just see the past 30 days. You also can see how many packages we've sent to your country, for any given time period.

For a good example of this information for your country, see:
*








DE1XXL white 220V v1.43


DE1XXL white 220V v1.43




decentespresso.com




*
then:

Click on the link next to the DE1:
*[view a chart of espresso machine shipping times]*
and also

Click on the link next to the shipping option:
*[view a chart of coffee accessory shipping times]*

This feature has taken quite a long time for me to program, as I'm pulling real delivery tracking directly from the API of each courier we use, for every single package we've ever sent. There's no marketing fluff here, this is real data.

To my knowledge, this is the first time a company has been totally transparent about what its shipping, giving real data, for every courier and every country. If you know of another company doing this, I'd love to know about it, to see how they present this information.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

New IKEA BROR coffee cart options

IKEA seems to be expanding the options on the BROR line, which is good news, since we're making and selling modifications for their tables. 

We sell precut-for-coffee-cart tops for both sizes of BROR, more-robust wheel adaptors, and long bolts for wrapping the cart in your foamboard signage.

There's now white versions of the smaller and bigger BROR carts, as well as a closed cabinet version of the smaller bror.

More info about the Decent Coffee Cart at








Decent Espresso Coffee Cart


Our coffee cart is based on the IKEA BROR cart.




decentespresso.com





and some of the new IKEA BROR stuff:





Products


Browse our full range of products from dressing tables to complete modern kitchens. Click here to find the right IKEA product for you. Browse online and in-store today!




www.ikea.com












BROR Table, white, 431/4x215/8" - IKEA


BROR Table, white, 431/4x215/8" Heavy-duty, our way – a sturdy storage system that withstands moisture, dirt and heavy loads. Also easy to assemble, complete as needed and fits everywhere thanks to its clean design. 10-year limited warranty. Read about the terms in the warranty brochure.




www.ikea.com












BROR Utility cart, white, 331/2x215/8" - IKEA


BROR Utility cart, white, 331/2x215/8" Heavy-duty, our way – a sturdy storage system that withstands moisture, dirt and heavy loads. Also easy to assemble, complete as needed and fits everywhere thanks to its clean design. Can be used indoors in damp areas.




www.ikea.com





-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Improving the humble Espresso Gasket

One of the few parts that wears out on an all espresso machines, is the rubber gasket that forms a seal between the group head and your portafilter. 

We've been working on how to improve "life with a gasket" from every angle we could think of.

REMOVING: Firstly, there's "how to remove the gasket". We're trialing various tools, with the intention of including that tool for free, along with any gasket we send you. So far, this double-ended one in the photo is our favorite. And in our latest gasket design, we've added a notch on the inside ring, to slide that tool into. There's also a light chamfer at the edges, to help you slide that tool in.

MATERIAL: A lot of people in the Home Barista community prefer silicone rubber gaskets, instead of traditional ones. However, when making design choices for the v1.0 DE1, I was concerned that we were already "way too innovative" for a lot of people's comfort zone, and I worried that an unfamiliar "locking feel" to the portafilter would freak some people out. Sort of how people judge a car by how the driver side door closes. So: I decided to use MBR rubber, as that is what I found as the material used in virtually all professional Italian espresso machines. Now, 7 years into making our machines, I feel that our audience can now deal with a bit more unfamiliar-but-better design choices from us. So, our new gaskets will made from silicone.

COLOR: gaskets fail for two reasons 1) coffee grinds mashed into them and 2) the rubber gets brittle. Our gaskets have been black, which is the only choice with MBR Rubber. Other vendors (such as Cafelat) use red or blue. In deciding what color to pick, I wanted something that wasn't garish, but from a functionality standpoint, I wanted a light color, that would clearly show coffee grounds stuck to it. That would make it much easier to help our customers, and see if their gasket leaking problem could simply resolved by removing the gasket and cleaning the coffee grounds off. And so, our new gaskets will be a light grey color.

FREE: we're still a few months from getting these into production (and getting the removal tool, too) but once we do, the gasket and removal tool will be available for free, on demand, to DE1 owners, as part of any other purchase they make with us. And new machines we make will transition to this new design as well.

For those without a DE1, these are 8.5mm, 58mm gaskets, and should work on other machines that use those standards as well. However, we're not in the gasket business, so ours will continue to be more expensive than Cafelat's excellent gaskets. Plus we don't use resellers like Cafelat does, so shipping will likely be more expensive. Cafelat's gaskets are likely available in your country from a reseller. Thus... I don't really recommend this gasket for non-DE1 owners.

Because we're a small company (50 people) and still have a fairly new product (7 years old) we tend to order parts in short runs, and each time we re-order, we look to see if there are ways to further improve it.

If you have thoughts on how to improve the humble gasket, please share them!

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent customer Edward Lelchitsky shared this video today of his coffee cart.

He built it using the low cost "bigger" BROR table from IKEA, modified with the replacement top that we make, which is precut to accept a DE1, knockbox and pitcher rinser. A pump for the DE1 and the rinser are mounted upside down to the bottom side of the wood top. Two water containers (one clean water, one for dirty water) finish up the project.

The slightly larger tablet that he chose allows him to put two grinders on it, and still have space for a tamping mat.

I've put a few years of my life into designing and optimizing this little project. We stay out of the furniture business, because IKEA does that so well, but then take over to help you convert it into a coffee cart.

There's a long informational video I made, showing how to make the cart, as well as all the bits you might need.








Decent Espresso Coffee Cart


Our coffee cart is based on the IKEA BROR cart.




decentespresso.com





Besides feeling a sense of accomplishment at making your own cart, the design I chose tries to strike a balance between a polished appearance, and giving you flexibility to modify the cart to your preferences.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent Collab with Blue Willow Tea

Tomorrow, I'm spending the day with Ali, the force behind the impressive Blue Willow Tea: Shop All

They're a direct-from-the-source tea importer, only do loose leaf teas, and they give temperature and brew instructions with each tea they sell. 

I'm working with Ali to try to optimize the Decent tea portafilter recipes, to work best with her teas.

They have a tea shop in Berkeley, California (behind Tokyo Fish Market) and I've been exceedingly impressed by the quality of their teas, and the seriousness of their commitment to source, technique, and history.

The recipes I've made for the DE1, using the tea portafilter, are my attempt to follow the gongfu technique, of several short infusions with small amounts of water. Except that with the DE1, 4 infusions are made, and blended together into a single 200ml serving.

I'll report back soon, on how the collaboration is going. 

My goal is to work with Ali to make recipes that take advantage of the DE1s strengths, namely accurate temperature control (each brew can be different), timing and repeatability. Since she has a serious import/mail order business established, those of you wanting to recreate what we're drinking, can order from her, and then use the recipes we collaborated on.

I also really like how they have a very, very strong foundation in traditional teas, especially Chinese. They also have tisanes, but don't venture off into the "soda pop" style of brews that you see in supermarkets. My British girlfriend has been an English Breakfast person her whole life, but has been converted to the "Simmer Down" blend of chamomile, lemon balm, ginger, lavender and sage.

This is serious stuff.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Decent reorganizes forum access, searching and docs*

I've today completed a new section "tech support" page for DE1 customers, which now:

 *Tap your name on the top bar *of the Decent website, and you're* automatically logged in *to the new support site.
when you bought from us, we gave you a cookie to make this happen automagically.
you can logout of support, if you want your browser to be forgotten.

you can now* join the "famous" Diaspora Forum, on your own, immediately after paying.*No need to ask for "early access" or to wait for us to ship your machine. 
Instructions are also given on *how to turn off email notifications* <grin> as the forum can be VERY active.
We also *automatically recognize used machines that were resold*, and grant the new owner rights to the forum. 
The new owner writes to us at What is your email address?
We'll confirm the sale with the previous owner and transfer the serial number and all rights, to the new owner.


give you *direct links to search *the (1) the Diaspora forum (2) Manual and the "Coffee knowledge for Beginners" book (written by Dennis Hew) and the (3) recently-created FAQ. 
You can now search each of these separately.
*Searching Diaspora has been improved.*
So much has been discussed, over 7 years, that it's often been difficult to find the relevant historical message for your question.
As of today, by default, now only the "first post" on a topic is searched. Comments are not searched for your keywords.
This first post is usually the "anchor" for the conversation, and contains most of the valid keywords. It's also what people are generally looking for. People are usually _not_ looking for their keywords to appear in one of the comments.
But you can also search only the comments, or both, at once.
I'm finding search results to be much more useful now that I'm restricting the search only the first post in a topic. Before, too many not-useful results were returned.


The FAQ and both books are now separately searchable, with dedicated pages for that.
You can add your own questions to the FAQ. My staff will answer you and organize your question into a findable category.



A button to create a "*I have a problem*" message, so we can help you, is in the tech support section. 
This creates a message in our "Problems" subforum of Diaspora, where my staff and other owners, will come to your help.

The "*5. Maintenance & Cleaning*" section of the manual has been extensively rewritten, reworked, by Shin, Dennis and Mirjam. This has been the weakest part of our documentation, subject to a lot of complaints, but I think it's getting better.
-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Mood boosting March at Decent Espresso

A big THANK YOU to the 39 Decent customers who have bought my staff cake:








Decent Shopping Cart: buy espresso accessories


Decent Shopping Cart: buy espresso accessories




decentespresso.com





Because COVID is raging in Hong Kong, as many as 2/3rds of our staff has been out of the office at time. Some are in quarantine, others with COVID. About half are in the office now, just those dedicated to machine building and boxing orders. All the computer-task jobs are being doing at home. Estimates are that about half of Hong Kongers have contracted COVID now. But the worst seems to be over, and we're in the downward curve, with things projected to be "normal" and the end of April.

To thank those who are putting the extra effort to come to Decent HQ in person, we've asked our chef to make "extra special" meals at lunchtime for everyone. 

And on Fridays, everyone at the office gets a personal-sized cake with a note.

Of course, without the customer donations of cake, we'd still be doing this, but the gifts from customers make the gesture extra-meaningful. It's not just the bosses who appreciate them, but those who benefit from Decent stuff.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Two new tea profiles, for Blue Willow oolong and sencha*

I spent yesterday with Ali, the owner of tea importer Blue Willow Tea Blue Willow Tea

We tried 4 different teas, making them 3 different ways:

with a French press and a temperature controlled kettle
gongfu style, with a small ceramic vessel, and 4 separate short infusions
with the DE1 tea recipe, which mixes 4 separate short infusions together into a single mug
The "mind-blowing" result (according to Ali) was the (Taiwanese) Black Honey Oolong on the DE1, at 94C, which produced a 10oz/300ml cup that closely matched the second infusion made by hand, with the gongfu technique. The second infusion is considered the best, and the fact that the Decent made an entire mug that tasted like that, was totally unexpected.

The Tsuyuhikari Sencha was more difficult to brew well on the Decent, but we think we cracked the code. The temperature was brought down to 140ºF/60ºC, and only 3 infusions were used. The 4th infusion tasted over-extracted and so we discarded it. The end result was a cup that tasted very close to the french press, 3 minute brew at 150ºF/65ºC, which we liked best.

Both these recipes are now available in the NIGHTLY version of the de1app but Decent owners can also download the profiles from the Diaspora posting, and put them in their tablets' /sdcard/de1plus/profiles/ directory.

Ali tells me that the Sencha is sadly out of stock online (a small number remain available in-stock) as she buys direct-from-the-farm and last year's harvest is done. However, current season Sencha deliveries will start next month. The Black Honey Oolong is happily in stock, and I really recommend you try it, if you like tea and own a Decent.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Solid black resin handles for black DE1?*

Just received these photos from a new supplier, of solid-black-resin handles that we're doing a sample run of.

The photos, to me, look really nice. What do you think?

These are not moulded, so there's no seam or parting line. These are made like our wood ones are, on a lathe.

I've been looking at replacing the painted-black wood handles, for black DE1 machines, with something solid-black. The reason, is that:

small scratches or "dings" are fairly visible with the painted surface, and the wood is a bit soft (for example, complaints about the portafilter stand damaging these)
banging the black painted wood handles on a knockbar can cause paint damage
water ingress on the wood can cause paint to flake off the top, near the head
La Marzocco, for instance, uses a heavy rubber for their handles. Much more heavy duty than our wood approach.

We'd tried to find ebony, or a chemically treated wood to make it black, but both are not doable. Ebony is unobtainable in large quantities (too expensive) and the chemical blackening doesn't look good.

We made samples of various resin effects, and the resin mix (black/grey, bottom photos) was a candidate:

The white DE1 machines don't have this same issue that black painted ones do, as they're a lightly varnished natural wood color, so that dings/scratches are not especially visible.

In a few weeks, I'll have the solid resin handles in front of me.

The original DE1 handle prototype from 7 years ago, was made of resin, so I know how it feels. Solid, heavy, and dense. It didn't feel like "cheap plastic" at all. Hopefully these will feel similarly.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

Currently the black wood handles are one of the only parts of the DE1 that show any age with use (the other major one is with some Android tablets having swelling batteries or air bubbles). I'd like DE1 to look as brand-new with age as possible. The tablet issue should get solved in a few weeks, with a firmware upgrade we're doing, but the black handles still need to be resolved.

So, I'm thinking of changing our handles to NEVER be "painted", but to show their natural color, ie:

 black resin (either solid black, or with some grey mixed in) 
 oak wood
 reclaimed Italian olive wood (optional accessory)

I'm also trying to decide between the solid-black and black/grey mix.

Feedback very much sought...

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*The most Decent Cities in the World*

Ben and I are working on an updated world map of the locations of DE1 worldwide. 

There are now 6000 Decents worldwide, which is more locations than Google Maps can normally handle. The last time we updated the map was December 2018, and Google "barfed" quite a bit at my data, back then. 

A big surprise is having Singapore be #1. It's a serious coffee town, and a neighbor, so that's really cool.

Seattle, San Francisco and Austin all make sense, as coffee and tech are both big there. And then you get to the world meta cities (New York, Shanghai, London....)

I should mention that we have poor visibility into the cities in the Arab world that have Decents, as 255 DE1 were listed as going to the Hong Kong address of Aramex, to be forwarded on.

If you'd like to have a try at creating a map from this data, I've made the CSV available here: http://magnatune.com/p/city_locations_of_de1.csv - You'll need to combine alternative spellings of some cities (ie, Wien/Vienna) to get correct sums. And some addresses have non western spelling, and Excel corrupts that, so stay out of excel if you can. LibreOffice handles the non-Western characters correctly.

Here's the top 50:

| count | city | country
| 100 | Singapore | SG
| 87 | Seattle | US
| 74 | San Francisco | US
| 63 | Austin | US
| 59 | New York | US
| 57 | Shanghai | CN
| 55 | London | UK
| 51 | Brooklyn | US
| 47 | Los Angeles | US
| 46 | Hong Kong | CN
| 41 | Beijing | CN
| 36 | San Diego | US
| 34 | Chicago | US
| 33 | Seoul | KR
| 32 | Munchen | DE
| 32 | Berlin | DE
| 31 | Portland | US
| 28 | San Jose | US
| 26 | Zurich | CH
| 26 | Toronto | CA
| 19 | Vienna | AT
| 19 | Dallas | US
| 18 | Washington | US
| 18 | Oakland | US
| 18 | Houston | US
| 17 | Atlanta | US
| 17 | Chengdu | CN
| 17 | Suzhou | CN
| 16 | Cambridge | US
| 16 | San Antonio | US
| 16 | Shenzhen | CN
| 15 | Miami | US
| 14 | Bellevue | US
| 14 | Taipei | TW
| 14 | Pittsburgh | US
| 14 | Denver | US
| 14 | Munich | DE
| 14 | Hamburg | DE
| 13 | Palo Alto | US
| 13 | Orlando | US
| 13 | Mountain View | US
| 13 | Long Island City | US
| 13 | Las Vegas | US
| 12 | Jersey City | US
| 12 | Vancouver | CA
| 12 | Arlington | US
| 11 | Charlotte | US
| 11 | Albany | US
| 11 | Calgary | CA
| 11 | Bangkok | TH


----------



## decent_espresso

Ben today made an internal-only use map showing exact location of every customer. That's too detailed :-D to share the URL with you, but I can share images here, so you can get a much better idea of where Decents go.

If there's a region you're curious about, leave a comment, I'll take a picture.


----------



## GrahamSPhillips

@john what would be interesting is a list of coffee shops who use the Decent?


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## decent_espresso

GrahamSPhillips said:


> @john what would be interesting is a list of coffee shops who use the Decent?


Unfortunately, there's no way for us to know that someone is a cafe ordering a Decent, unless, sometimes, they use a cafe name in the shipping address, but even then, we'd have to look at it and interpret the name as a cafe.

Currently, our best understanding of what cafes are out there, is looking at the cafes who tag us on Instagram:





Login • Instagram


Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.




www.instagram.com


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## decent_espresso

Most Decent Countries

After cleaning up the address data (mostly, different spellings) here is a current list of what countries have Decent Espresso Machines, and how many. Note that while Hong Kong is not a country, it is split out separately here in this report, because most of those machines are forwarded onto the Middle East.

It's interesting to note that except for Singapore and Canada, all the countries in the top 10 have online coffee forums that we are very active in. I do think that Decent's participation on forums is part of our success. But I also think there's a different correlation at work, namely that countries that buy a lot of Decents, are also the same countries that have active coffee-related online forums, simply because they're the same group of people.

Countries with online coffee forums we participate in: USA (HB), the Arab world (Telegram), Australia (Coffee Geek), China (Wechat), South Korea, UK (CFUK,TalkCoffee) Germany/Switzerland/Austria (Kaffee Netz). If you'd like to participate in your countries' forum and don't know how to join, please ask me. There are other coffee forums (for example, Israel, Japan) that talk about Decent, but we're not actively part of those discussions.

The US is almost half our sales, followed by MENA countries, China, Germany, South Korea, UK, Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Singapore. Though the US is our anchor, we do really work at supporting the rest of the world, as that's more-than-half our sales, and also a wise strategy for stability in such an unstable world.

The source data is available here: http://magnatune.com/p/decent_countries.csv http://magnatune.com/p/decent_countries.xlsx

-john


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## decent_espresso

*John's "best of" v1.39 de1app - release announcement*

A new version of the de1app (v1.39) is now available, the result of about 6 months' work by a variety of contributors.

Here's my personal summary of the most interesting things in it:

New espresso making profiles:

new "*D-Flow" *user interface and espresso profile from Damian. Anchored on the Londonium recipe, but D-Flow gives you coffee-related user interface controls. The recipe magically alters itself to conform. Hugely simplifies recipe creation, when your anchor recipe is the very-popular Londonium LRv2
Two new *"Turbo" profiles* (TurboBloom, TurboTurbo) by Joe D, extremely popular new fast-shot espresso making method (search Youtube for "turbo shots")
new "*Adaptive*" profile, which mixes "best practices" from several profiles (temperature profiling, Blooming/Londonium bybrid) and adapt-to-the-grind qualities from Jonathan Gagné's research. Currently, it's most used profile on Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer
New* Filter 2.1* profile from Scott Rao, for making filter coffee from an espresso basket.

__
http://instagr.am/p/CUX9Zlave3v/

New *"I got your back*" profile from Shinguk, an attempt to make a profile that always produces a pleasing drink, no matter what dose or grind
New "*tea in basket*" profile, for making brewed tea in a normal portafilter basket

Plugins:

*Visualizer plugin* to Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer now lets you download all the parameters other people used to make their shots, so you can mimic them
Support for *Acaia Lunar 202*1 scale
*Big improvements to Enrique's DYE* (Describe your Espresso) plugin, a kind of "notebook" for keeping track of your drinks. Also includes a history and shot comparison viewer.

Contributed skins to the de1app:

New *"Mini Metric" skin* from Barney, super simple, colorful.
New *"dark mode" *version of *Insight* skin
*Removed the more geeky chart lines* to make everyday experience with zoomed Insight charts easier to read at a glance. Checkboxes to turn those back on (ie, Puck Restistance, and Weight Detail)

Other:

quickly *change the temperature of all steps* in a profile, all at once, with new +/- buttons on the Profile preview page.
new "*move on to next step, by scale weight*" feature added by Johanna
Make *hot water start faster*. Use heater metal temperature as gate instead of mixer hot input value.
Espresso water can go *up to 105ºC*, useful for tea infusions and some espresso extraction ideas

A lot is planned for the next de1app, as the overarching goal for this just-finished version was stability: stamping out bugs, making everything work well together. This is the most stable and well rounded version of the de1app, and I'm very proud of what we've all accomplished together.

This is a "stable" release, and is available to all DE1 owners for free. It's fully compatible with all models, all the way back to v1.0.


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## decent_espresso

Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer is amazing

It started humbly enough.

Ljubljana (Slovenia)-based programmer Miha Rekar wanted to help the Decent espresso community share their espresso shot charts. A bit of javascript chart logic, and voila! a website which charts your Decent espresso shots.

To use it, you would upload the .shot file from your Android tablet running the de1app, and you're good. Next, Johanna wrote a de1app plugin that automatically uploaded your shots for you, making Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer hugely easier to use. Once you have a login, everything is just automatic.

Decent baristas are constantly talking about their profiles, asking "how can I improve my espresso?", "what profile will work best for this bean?" and "I think I found a way to improve xyz...", and so Miha's Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer site became the standard way everyone talks about espresso in the Decent world.

Miha didn't stop there. He's added truly useful features, such as comparing historical shots to each other. You can also download the exact profile to make any historical shot, that anyone has made, to your machine, try to recreate it and then compare your effort to the person who you copied from . 

As the community tried to make sense of various "puck integrity" calculation methods, Miha implemented the 3 different lines that were being put forward, so each could be seen in context, used and discussed. There is puck resistance vs conductance, and also the derivative of conductance (which helps loudly show you transient defects in the puck, such as quick channels that heal). Each chart line type is easily enabled/disabled, so you don't have "noisy charts" with data you don't care about.

Because it's all cloud based, each improvement is immediately available to all espresso shots on the site. 

A huge number of Decent users now are on the site, and he's made it easy to follow others. This makes it easy, for instance, to immediately try out a recipe that some Decent Luminary has just invented.

The charts, and overall user interface, are quite tasteful, being not just pretty. They use good design principles to cleanly "display quantitative information" in a way that is conducive to insight.

As Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer is also an open source project, others have contributed features.

Recently, Louis-Philippe Huberdeau added a tasteful "call out" on the charts, showing the "current shot weight" (in cup) at transition points This is hugely helpful for profiles with long, held preinfusions (Londonium, Blooming, Adaptive) because the amount of dripping during the preinfusion hold is the easiest way to "dial in" you grind. Blooming Espresso, for instance, tastes best with about 8g of dripping, whereas Adaptive works well with 2g to 4g of dripping, before the pressure rise.

Miha has found Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer to be so successful that he can't afford to host it for free, and has started to transition it into a business. That's good news, as money sent his way will help him continue to improve the service. It's too important, now, to rely on his altruism.

You can use Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer in its free tier, where it saves a month of your shots. Upgrade to €5/month, and you now have an unlimited history. 

Most interestingly, he has a commercial (café) tier, with ideas in progress for helping cafes manage a fleet of Decent espresso machines, across several locations. As consistency across staff and locations is the #1 hardest problem for most cafes, I think his approach has great merit, and for a cafe, the €30/month fee would be inconsequential compared to the benefits. I had a bunch of ideas for an "café nanny" product, but I've handed those all over to him, as I think he's in a better position to implement them than I am. 

To use visualizer.coffee in your de1app, go to settings->app->extensions and enable it. Create a free account at Decent Espresso Shot Visualizer and then enter your name/password into the extension. I highly recommend everyone give it a try, it's just so useful.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Tommy's Home Depot coffee cart

I've been talking to Tommy Steele, a Decent home barista in Texas, since November, as he's been showing me his progress in making a heavy duty coffee cart. 

He used a $450 industrial workbench that he bought from Home Depot as the base.








Duramax Building Products 72 in. x 24 in. 3-Drawers Rolling Industrial Workbench and Wood Top 68001 - The Home Depot


The Duramax 72 in. W x 24 in. D rolling workbench is ideal for all applications whether in a garage, workshop or as a piece of furniture. It is constructed with heavy-duty powder coasted steel frame with



www.homedepot.com





On top of that, two Decent DE1XL that he countersunk, our pitcher rinser and knockbox, and our (now discontinued) 64mm flat burr grinder.

This past weekend he had a paid gig with it, for a private wedding in the countryside, under a tent. "Went great, everybody said it was best espresso they've ever had." is what he reported.

He's powering the whole thing with a single Westinghouse iGen4500 generator, as this was off-the-power-grid.

I've included some photos of the wedding, as well as the cart in his home.

It's great to see people build on top of the video and parts I've put together at, and to run with their dreams of having coffee be a part of their living:








Decent Espresso Coffee Cart


Our coffee cart is based on the IKEA BROR cart.




decentespresso.com





-john


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## decent_espresso

Expanding the Decent espresso machine factory with Sweet Home 3D

For the past 7 years, we've used Sweet Home 3D http://www.sweethome3d.com/ to plan how we build espresso machines, where people sit, what the workflow will be. Over the years, we've expanded from 1 space of 2,000 square feet, and are now about to add another 10,000 sq feet to end with 40,000. 35 people work here. 

The high quality 3D renders, and ease of the 2D models, allows Bugs Bugs to sit down with people who work in the factory, and for them to visualize how the next plan will work. We _always_ find mistakes in our planning, when we use the 3D view. 

Sweet Home also makes the move much less stressful for people, because they've "seen" what the new space will be, and how they'll fit.

There's so much to think about, with engineering constraints, but human factors too, that and open process is the only way we've managed to do this.

The render above is our current main factory space, as of today. 

We've decided to keep it as-is, to minimize stress on our staff, but to move the boxing area (that's the distant room at the top) to a new 3000 sq ft space next to the elevator, the pallets will move to another 3000 sq ft space we're taking on. This'll allow us to slowly, incrementally, expand production, without a major change. 

The espresso machine prep work happens on the right side of this image, which is all windowed, and the people there really enjoy the natural light. They also enjoy being next to the building lines, so that there's lots of cross fertilization. They did not like the idea of splitting prep vs assembly, as that would separate people too much, lowering communication, "siloing" people into their specialty. 

A fairly large alcoholic-drinks distributor, across the hall from us, is halving their space. It's more space than we need right now, but so convenient, and this'll allow us to do more inhouse, ourselves, and subcontract less. We want to go in that direction, because our own employees care more, have a great education, and improve over time. When you outsource, you don't get those things. 

-john


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## decent_espresso

New handle colors and materials

I've received a 2nd set of handles made from resin. At the "noon" position in this photo are the current painted-black wood handles, for comparison. The supplier felt that the previous samples weren't good enough (texture a bit rough, mainly), and remade them for us.

These handles are all M10-bolt fitted, and should connect with most portafilter heads, not only Decent-supplied ones. 

I've given the approval to make 5 different types of resin handles, and when they're ready, I'll make them available for sale to anyone who is interested in swapping out their espresso machine's handles. The shorter handle, which we use for connecting to the group head, also works as a portafilter handle.

You'll notice that the two wood handles have a different finish to them, as they were made at different times: we've found that matching matte/shine and paint thickness with different runs, to be quite difficult. On the other hand, as the resin is colored throughout, and doesn't need a exterior coat, the color matching is quite good. 











Another thing I noticed was the lack of defects when working with resin. As the density is consistent (ie, no grain, no air bubbles) it turns really reliably on a lathe.

Here are how my favorite resin colors look in context, on a DE1.











These are the colors I've approved:











The "matte black" handle in the center, will become the new standard handle supplied with all black Decent Espresso machines. It weighs a bit more than our wood handles do, and to me, feels decidedly more high end, more like the black keys on a piano. The extra weight and smoothness are really pleasing.

All these handles will be available as accessories that DE1 customers, and owners of other machines, can choose to buy, with or without the portafilter head. It should take about 3 months to get these in stock.


I'm also working with Germany-based Wiedemann Manufaktur | Official Website - Make a machine your machine. Wiedemann, who specialize in wood-accessories for espresso machines. These two samples (maple and oak) came in today, simply oil finished. We haven't yet finalized our business relationship, but it's very likely that either Decent or Wiedemann will be selling these soon.











-john


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## decent_espresso

I was asked yesterday via DM, "is the Decent easy to customize?" and then again elsewhere "can I have different styles for the two wood handles". 

Because Decent has an active owner community, and we publish CAD to the entire machine, there's very active "modding" going on. 

As it happens, on a recent discussion I had on Diaspora (the owner's forum) about the resin handles, many people posted their alternative group handles, which I made into a collage, to show here. It's really a small detail, but indicative of how much people enjoy making a machine their own.


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## decent_espresso

Coming to the DE1 in October 2022, with our v1.44 version

We're currently building and selling v1.43 of our Decent Espresso Machine. The next version (v1.44) is planned for October 2022.

Here are the planned hardware updates for that version:

- The resin handles will get phazed into production, whenever we run out of the black wood handles. However, it will be at least 3 months from now, because that's how long it'll take for the resin handles to get made. The matte black resin will be provided as part of the machine, and the other colors will be separately purchasable. For white machines, we're staying with the natural oak. We will also have reclaimed Italian olive tree handles, as an optional separate purchase, soon (they're almost ready).










Here are the olive and oak natural wood handles, side by side:










- we're removing the 3 small front screws that hold the front faceplate. We found a way to have the faceplate hang off the steam wand screw, and front standby switch, so the 3 small screws are no longer needed. Some double sided Japanese tape behind the bottom of the faceplate, keeps it from "flapping". This is just a small cosmetic thing. It'll make repairs slightly more difficult, but it's really rare to have to remove the faceplate, so not a big deal in practice. This change is backward compatible to existing customers (ie, you can buy a faceplate w/o the 3 front screw holes), but I wouldn't recommend you bother, as it's a big job to remove that front faceplate (you have to remove the group head), and this is a tiny improvement. I'll be posting a video about that, once it's ready. We're still in the testing phase on this, as we had to design/build a fancy jig to get the alignment perfect, w/o screw holes. Here's a still photo showing a front face (this one, with screws) being mounted using that jig.










and the new front face coming in v1.44:










- we'll also be phazing in a new water intake thimble filter, switching from the off-the-shelf mesh we've always had, to our own design. That'll be backward compatible to all existing machines, and sold inexpensively for anyone who wants it. Our new design has a much greater surface area, so it should need less frequent cleaning, and not add drag to the pump. Also, it can sit on the bottom of the water tank, without causing a "suction seal", so that we'll have more accurate water tank level measurements. Currently, we need to have a bit of distance between the bottom of the intake tube and the ceramic, or else a suction seal occurs, and water can get pulled up the tube. The new design also means we can use more of the water in the tank (almost all of it), instead of leaving a bit behind to avoid suction. Existing customers can switch to the new uptake filter, and also calibrate their intake tube downwards into the tank, to take advantage of this.
























You might notice that this amounts to "not much" and certainly nothing "revolutionary". We've been in the "small evolutionary improvements" stage every since v1.3 introduced the group head controller in April 2020. We're planning on another 2 years (at least) of this v1.4x model, as we're happy with the hardware, and are now mostly focussed on software (app) and firmware. That's where the most interesting stuff from us will come from.

And all the software stuff we do is (a) backward compatible all the way to the first v1.0 machines and (b) free of cost.

-john


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## decent_espresso

FAQ on v1.44 DE1 machines and other Decent hardware improvements 

My posting yesterday about coming hardware improvements, led to a bunch of questions and requests for clarification, so here goes:

A PRICE INCREASE IS COMING: it’s our policy to not increase prices during a version run, even if our own costs go up. We’re currently making/shipping v1.43 until (we estimate) October, and so our prices for this version will not change. However, as our suppliers have increased prices across the board, v1.44 will likely see a price increase between 10% to 20%. Other espresso machine manufacturers have been increasing their prices, for the same reason. The exactly % price increase will be decided closer to the launch of v1.44. We have given raises to all our employees at the end of 2021, to share in our success, so that isn’t part of our pricing calculation.

SILICONE GASKETS: we’ll be transitioning to portafilter gaskets made from Silicone, away from NBR (Nitrile) rubber. We’re still deciding the exact hardness (70/75/80 shore) we want, so we don’t have a timeline for that yet. We’ll likely go for light grey or white color, so that coffee grounds jammed in there, are visible. I expect that we’ll have these by October, though.

NEW INNER BLOCK IN TEFLON: I’ve posted before about the new water-distribution blocks inside the group head. We’re transitioning away from brass, as it’s a heat sink, tarnishes easily, and lead is always a concern that requires constant testing. We’ve worked on this for two years, and our beta testers all report better tasting espresso, so this is a change we’re happy about. However, our most recent testing with teflon and PEEK found that both materials warped in use, so we are doing another round of tests, with other materials. I have my hopes pinned on the plastic used to make baby bottles, as it’s extremely tested for food safety, but we’ll see. Again, not sure when this will ship, but hopefully by October.

NEW FRONT PANEL STANDBY BUTTON: we’re transitioning to a new front standby switch. The current switch is “push in to enter standby mode” which is confusing for many people. The new switch will be pushed out when in standby, and flush with the front panel when power is on (standby=off). It’ll also have a power icon. We don’t know when these switches will arrive to us, being given a vague “this summer” ship date from the supplier. That’s the state of manufacturing under COVID.


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## decent_espresso

Direct dosing with the Key Grinder, using the Decent stand and funnel.

I was delighted yesterday to receive my own Key Grinder from Weber Workshops.

And even more excited to discover that I can grind directly-into-the-portafilter with the Key, by modding it with two Decent products. 

This is a workflow that I much prefer to dosing into a cup, by using the Decent bottomless portafilter stand, and tall magnetic funnel. I do the same thing with my Niche grinder. I find that the drink quality is better since the grounds stay fluffier, and puck preparation time is reduced too.

Here’s a direct link to those two items, if you’d like to do the same.








Portafilter Stand, Bottomless, V2


Portafilter Stand, Bottomless, V2




decentespresso.com





and the product pages:








Decent portafilter stand


Holds your portafilter while you weigh the coffee dose.




decentespresso.com












Portafilter funnel: tidy espresso grinding


Helps you get your grinds into your portafilter accurately and without a mess. Essential for accurate dosing, so that no grounds spill out of the basket during grinding. Sits on the outside of the basket to avoid affecting the coffee bed and so you can tamp right through the funnel.




decentespresso.com





I tried our tall portafilter stand, but it’s too tall for the Key, even with our shorter funnel. But this combination (short stand, tall funnel) works well. 

The portafilter stand comes with double sided tape, that adheres it to the Key’s wood platform.

-john


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## decent_espresso

World of Coffee, Milan, Italy, June 23/24/25
and
Self-mocking t-shirt ideas

Decent has a double-sized booth at this conference, which is happening next month. Bugs and I will be there with several DE1 coffee carts. 

I'm still working on final arrangements, but here is what we think is happening

Scott Rao will be there, and he's also doing a coffee seminar in Florence afterwards
Omri Alagor will be there part-time, showing his comics

__
http://instagr.am/p/CUCYLqhs72w/
 matrix screens

__
http://instagr.am/p/CVVqrX9MmDn/
 and other goodies
We’ll be making Filter 2.1 shots, hopefully with Weber’s unibody portafilter. We’ll have Niche and Weber grinders in use.
Two other special guests to be announced later….

And for the Milan trade show, we're having a few tshirts made, short runs (maybe just 5 of each) with self-mocking slogans. Depending on interest, we might make some extra to send out to those of you who can't come.










*PLEASE MAKE HUMOUROUS SUGGESTIONS BELOW*

Extra points for cluelessly mixing up Italian/German/English is painful ways.

Here are some auto-generated mockups. Obviously, these are not “final graphics”, they’re just there to illustrate the words.

I don't think Martin will let us do the Niche t-shirt, but I'm gonna ask him.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Size and shape comparison: Breville BDB and Decent DE1PRO

I've finally gotten around to cleaning up and selling my BDB that we bought years ago.

I thought I'd take a video of the two machines, side-by-side.

It's interesting to compare the size, shape and "physical presence" of these two home espresso machines.

Note that this is an old (v1.0, sn#2) DE1 model, without the group head controller, in the photo, and that I still use.

-john


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## Hypnotic5949

decent_espresso said:


> Size and shape comparison: Breville BDB and Decent DE1PRO
> 
> I've finally gotten around to cleaning up and selling my BDB that we bought years ago.
> 
> I thought I'd take a video of the two machines, side-by-side.
> 
> It's interesting to compare the size, shape and "physical presence" of these two home espresso machines.
> 
> Note that this is an old (v1.0, sn#2) DE1 model, without the group head controller, in the photo, and that I still use.
> 
> -john


I forget how great those fully mirrored Decents look (when clean)!


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## decent_espresso

Improving Heater Insulation 


NEW-DE1-SMELL:

We've been working for several months on figuring out why brand new DE1 machines will give a smell, when warm, for the first few weeks of ownership. 

We did eventually track it down to the organic "binder" (aka "glue") used to hold together the fiberglass fibers in our insulating sheets. After a few weeks, the smell goes away naturally.

That binder is made of starch, and it turns out that it slowly "toasts" when the heater is hot and touching the insulation. 

After a lot of searching, we found someone making 3mm thick fiberglass with a no-smell binder. The blowtorch test above is more extreme than a 180ºC heater, but it demonstrates the point, and was done for us by our new insulation supplier. We tested it on monday, in a small closed office, with the heaters set to go to max heat, (until their thermostat safeties limit them), and we're now at no-smell.



BETTER ENERGY EFFICIENCY:

Our espresso-making heater is kept at 99ºC, while the steam heater is at 160ºC. The heaters are our-design, and are double insulated: first with fiberglass, then with a moulded insulator, that fits tightly and is cable-tied shut. 

Our infrared camera shows us that there's not much heat leakage, except at the water in and out connection points. We use custom made all-metal connectors, not using the off-the-shelf plastic ones, as we prefer the longevity and no-plastic-in-the-water-path approach. 

Those metal connectors, do radiate, though. We're now designing little insulating "socks" that we'll be putting around the three hotspots you can see in the photo.

As the Decent is off most of the day, and warms in 4.5 minutes, our energy usage is already massively lower than a typical machine, which has an uninsulated boiler. We've had customers report large $ reductions in their monthly electricity bill, after retiring their always-on boiler machines.

But there's always more that can be done, and happily, this project is nearing its conclusion.

The new heaters and insulating socks, should make their way into the October-scheduled v1.44 version. Once we have the insulating socks, they'll also be available to our existing customers who want to put them on their machines.

-john


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## rmcclure26

I recently got the new funnel from decent espresso and loved the weight and feel of it, but found that it did not fit with my grinder. Rather than issuing a typical return, Paul at decent was able to work with me to get it donated to a fellow coffee lover who was recently laid off. Great idea to help someone who is going through a rough time and reduce the overall carbon footprint. Thanks for the great customer service @decent!


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## decent_espresso

Tomorrow (Saturday) Bugs and I are holding an event at Berkeley CoRo, California from 2:30-5.

I wanted a way to reach out to people who live nearby, to see if they might want to come. 

I've spent a good part of this week implementing this feature, because it also enables some other things people have asked for:

meeting other Decent owners who are near to you.
- "I'd like to start a Local Decent User Group" is a very common request, that I want to help with.
people who are Decent-curious, sometimes ask me if someone nearby would be willing to give them a demo of their machine
and we occasionally have events, such as when I last (pre-COVID) went on a cafe tour.
- I'm planning on doing a cafe tour of Germany and Switzerland, this summer, for instance.

Today, I emailed people who have bought a DE1 or accessories from me, who live within 100km of Berkeley. To build the database, I've used Latitude and Longitude Finder on Map Get Coordinates and used people's shipping address. It's an inexpensive geolocation service, and fast (it's CSV based) but limited to "uploading 500 records by hand", which is a bit tedious. I've only so far done California, half the US, and Germany. Another 40 update files to go....

Any email you get from me on this, has a single click "opt out" and I'll never bother you again.

As with your postal address, this information is held with us, and not shared with anyone else. If someone wants to meet you, I'll be emailing you, and will only link you two up, if you say you want to.

Next, I'll need to think about how to have "mini forums" for "local Decent user's groups" to help nearly Decent people talk to each other.

And I mentioned above, none of this is required, you can opt out with a click. But Decent people tend to be a friendly bunch...

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Decent Power Consumption*

Decent customer Wim Leers reports on two years of having his Decent Espresso Machine, and logging its power consumption with his “Eve Energy” device.

He writes:


> - ~130 kWh in ~2 years for 1704 shots, 1027 steam sessions, 131 hot water pours.
> - Plus roughly 1.5 year of being “on” but idle.



At 2022 San Francisco Bay area prices of $0.31/kwH, that works out to $40.31 over two years, or about $20 per year. 

He’s averaging 2.3 espressos per day (of which 1.4 of those are, on average, steamed milk drinks)

—
How does this compare to other machines?

Home Barista wrote an analysis:








Power consumption info on espresso machines?


30 years of espresso experience w/ 4 different machines. Last one was Vivaldi II. Now live off-grid (solar power) so power consumption is a concern. Does anyone have kWh consumption info on espresso machines? Most machines seem to be at their best after they have been left on for a while (temp...




www.home-barista.com





Leaving a boiler on all day is expensive, so they assume two cycles per day: 


> “If you were so inclined to cycle it four times per day for two hours per cycle, allowing it to cool completely between each cycle, it would consume 1.8 kWh per day (0.45 *4).”


Over two years, this would be 1314 kWh or $407, or $203.50/year in electrical cost, in San Francisco. About 10x the DE1.

If you were to leave your boiler on 24/7, as manufacturers sometimes recommend (for machine longevity, because thermal cycling is bad for them), you would use 4x more electricity, at roughly $800/year.

—

I have not yet seen real world power consumption information about the new “green” boiler machines like the Prima One, which have much smaller boilers. If anyone owns one, and has been tracking real power usage with a device, I’d love to learn.

The main reasons for the DE1 using very little power are:

low power idle mode, with 4.5 minute from-cold-to-ready time. AC power is physically cut off with a solenoid, during idle mode,
heat on demand, only heats the water actually used in your drink, not a large (just in case you need it) amount of water that would be in a boiler.
however, we still have improvements to make. I’m working on a firmware/app update that will turn off the USB charger when the tablet is over 60% charged, turning it back on when the battery drops to 40%. At the moment USB charging is always on. There will be other improvements we can make, as we’re planning on throwing some engineering time at this.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Yesterday say my collaboration continued with tea importer Ali from Blue Willow Tea. Blue Willow Tea

A day of tasting, profiling making, comparing with various gongfu preparations, yielded two new harvest teas that expressed themselves very well on the Decent.

I'll write more about this soon, and post recipes, but for whatever reason, some teas brewed on the Decent are just so-so, with traditional brewing techniques yielding better results. But others just "pop" and are amazing, brewing very well on the Decent. It's these "wow" teas that I write to you about.

The two teas that were great, and that I'll be posting profiles for, are both Winter 2021 harvests, just arrived in the past week. If you are interested in these, I recommend mail ordering them now, and by the time they arrive to you, I'll have the Decent profiles published.

Not that with the Decent, we were able to do much more complicated brewing approaches than what Blue Willow recommends on their website. What we're doing is more what a tea master would do, if you had them making your tea for you.

For example, with the Lunar Winter Green tea, we're doing 3 quick infusions of 20 seconds, 15 seconds, 15 seconds. With the Black Phoenix we're doing a first cup of 3 short 20 second infusions, that is very delicate, and then a second cup, 90 seconds later, with chocolate notes dominating. They're two very different, but both delicious, beverages from the same tea.









Black Phoenix


We are so pleased to share this new tea with you. Harvested in the winter on Phoenix Mountain, this black tea is made from Mi Lan Xiang Oolong cultivars. Winter harvested teas grow slower in the limited sunlight, soaking up more minerals from the soil as they grow and often developing sweeter...




www.bluewillowtea.com







> BLACK PHOENIX
> 
> We are so pleased to share this new tea with you. Harvested in the winter on Phoenix Mountain, this black tea is made from Mi Lan Xiang Oolong cultivars. Winter harvested teas grow slower in the limited sunlight, soaking up more minerals from the soil as they grow and often developing sweeter notes. The resulting flavor is unique and intense. The warm leaf offers notes of baked plum pie and a hint of citrus peel. Even with short steeps the tea is full bodied and has a nourishing intensity that settles deep in your throat. When allowed to steep longer, the leaves emanate distinctive chocolate flavors that wash over your senses like velvet.
> 
> Process: OrganicHarvest: Winter, 2021
> Origin: Guangdong, China


and









Lunar Winter Green


Plucked from the southernmost tea garden in Yunnan, just above the Vietnam border, this tea has a unique personality. It is harvested a few days before the Lunar New Year, towards the end of winter. The leaves have been dormant all winter long, soaking up nutrients in the soil as they rest...




www.bluewillowtea.com







> LUNAR WINTER GREEN
> 
> Plucked from the southernmost tea garden in Yunnan, just above the Vietnam border, this tea has a unique personality. It is harvested a few days before the Lunar New Year, towards the end of winter. The leaves have been dormant all winter long, soaking up nutrients in the soil as they rest. The air is dry and cold this time of year and the leaves pick up a notes of smoke in the air and a dewy sweetness.
> 
> When picked, the leaves exude flavors and aromas that range from savory charcoal-smoked veggies to sweet red bean paste. The long winter hibernation has harbored a stamina that will allow this tea to be steeped at least 10 times, each yielding vibrant new notes. The first few steeps offer warm hints of smoke and charcoal, and as each steep reaches deeper within the leaf, it accesses reserves of nectar. Each cup has a healthy amount of body and brings to mind steamed artichoke hearts and summer squash.
> 
> Harvest: 2022
> Origin: Yunnan, China


----------



## decent_espresso

Beauty in the flaws

Our order of 500 wood handles made from reclaimed end-of-life Italian olive trees, is finished and my staff went to the maker to do their quality check.

Used to a world of industrial perfection, my staff rejected half the batch as imperfect.

Now, I've done some woodworking in my life, building electric guitars and helping build a renaissance lute. 

As such, I'm a big fan of _character_ in wood. 

Signs of aging, struggle, natural forces; I love seeing that in the wood.

Thus, where my staff see flaws, I see beauty. 

Look closely at that wood handles above. The one on the right has amazing swirls of dense color variation. There's so much drama in there. The left one looks almost like marble. As long as that natural crack doesn't weaken the wood or feel bad in the hand, I see no problem. 

Not everyone might agree with me, of course. 

What I'm thinking of doing, is photographing every single handle we get, and letting the buyer pick the exact one they wand. Because this is very old wood, each handle is very much unique, gnarled, defective, twisted, in its own particular way. 

What do you think?


----------



## decent_espresso

*London, UK - Decent event at Prufrock, May 21*

The first LODUM event (*LO*ndon *D*ecent *U*ser's *M*eetup) will take place soon, at Prufrock Serving great coffee and delicious food on Leather Lane since 2011. on May 21st, from 6pm->8pm. Open to both the Decent-Curious and the currently-Decent.

The event will be modeled on the recent Berkeley, California event, where Decent owners brought their own machines in, and made "what they drink at home" for others. I'll be making espresso and lattes, with my Adaptive profile. 

*I NEED DECENT VOLUNTEERS*

We have space for up to 4 Decent owners to set up on a table upstairs at Prufruck. Nothing fancy or geeked is needed: the goal is to show what you do, how you do it, with your everyday beans.

Attendees can thus get a taste <har har> of what other Decent owners are up to, and volunteers get to chat to fellow coffee nerds.

Here was a typical setup that a volunteer did at this past saturday's event.


----------



## Bicky

decent_espresso said:


> What I'm thinking of doing, is photographing every single handle we get, and letting the buyer pick the exact one they wand. Because this is very old wood, each handle is very much unique, gnarled, defective, twisted, in its own particular way.
> 
> What do you think?


Sounds like a lot of work! What about simply adding a disclaimer detailing this? I've seen something similar on websites like Etsy when looking at handmade furniture made from reclaimed wood. One says this for example - 



> You'll find a variety of features which vary from table to table. These may be from their previous life or simply the natural grain and pattern in the wood. We enhance these features and will never send out a table we wouldn't want ourselves. They are 'imperfectly perfect' and that's the way we like them!
> 
> Reclaimed wood is not for everyone. It can be full of character which of course makes it unique but it is very different to high street furniture that is made to be uniform.




I've seen some offer to send pictures on request, which could be a fair compromise. Doing nothing would definitely be a gamble, and I expect you would have some dissatisfied customers!


----------



## decent_espresso

Workflow demo: my Weber Key Grinder, Decent DE1 & portafilter stand & funnel, making espresso

I filmed myself making an espresso this morning, to show my workflow with the Key and my Decent & accessories. I'm fairly happy with this now, as it's making consistent coffee and fairly quick to do. I'll be using this setup at the upcoming World of Coffee Trade Show, and we'll see how it goes there, in a high pressure situation.

I glued a magnet to my tablet stand, so that it auto-positions using the Key's magnet hidden under the wood. I'd like to try to make that less ugly, and ideally, offer that as an buyable option for any Key owners who want to try it. More news on that in the future.

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Decent Espresso event in London next Saturday (May 21) 6pm to 8pm*

Meet John and Bugs, the founders behind the "Decent Espresso" machine as they come to London.

And taste the real drinks that four everyday owners make themselves at home.

Four Decent DE1 owners will be bringing their home setup and take a table each on the ground floor, to make you the drink they have at home. There'll be a variety of experience levels (from I've-had-the-DE1-one-week to experienced veterans) making a few different styles of drinks (espresso to lattes).
And, John will be downstairs, in the training space, with his home setup, pulling shots and answering questions. If there's a particular coffee bean you'd like to have him make bring it and he'll try to make to make an ok tasting shot with it.

Both the Decent-Curious, and currently-Decent are invited.

No cost.

Saturday, May 21, 6pm->8pm
At the Prufrock Cafe, London.








Prufrock Coffee · 23-25 Leather Ln, London EC1N 7TE, United Kingdom


★★★★★ · Coffee shop




goo.gl





If you have any questions or comments, you're welcome to reply to this message and I'll answer.


----------



## decent_espresso

I've written before about the ecological cost of the pursuit for perfection in consumer goods. It really bothers me that so many companies discard function-but-imperfect goods.

So with Decent, any good that works-but-is-a-bit-ugly is discounted from 30% to 50% and sold on a dedicated page Discount Sale at Decent Espresso linked to on the top of our homepage.

I've long wanted to solve two issues with how we do this:

we don't handle well, cases where only a small number of an discounted item remain
we should provide precise photos showing you what the defect is.
We're now addressing both those things, by me "getting out of the way" and putting the power over our SALE page in my employee's (Celine is her name) hands. 

I wrote a kind of CMS (content management software) that allows her to:
precisely indicate how many items were available on a precise stock-counting day
deduct, in real time, how many items have been sold since that counted day, showing you real stock levels, at that very minute (yes, every page load performs fresh SQL database queries)
Celine can upload detailed photos of each item, showing the issues with that batch
this is also enabling us to sell a lot of the "miscellany" we have been stocking, but unable to efficiently/transparently sell to you.
it also means that there's a lot more items on the SALE page, than there used to be when I (until a few weeks ago) hand-maintained the HTML.

I think of my job description as finding ways to "get the hell out of the way" and I'm happy with this little step.

-john


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## decent_espresso

*MANCHESTER* DECENT EVENT? (in a few weeks)

I'm flying my Manchester-native coffee expert Paul, to stay with his family in the UK before he joins me at a trade show in Italy, and thought it might interesting to have a Decent event there with him.

Does anyone have suggestions for a Manchester venue? A coffee shop, roaster or coffee training school?

I'd like to repeat what I did in London last week, namely having local Decent owners bring their own machine in make their daily home-drink for others. This event will be open to the Decent-curious as well as the currently-Decent.

What are your thoughts? Happy to talk about it here or via DM.

Here's a video with Paul. He knows more about coffee than I do, and is really solid on the DE1 (he's been with me for a while) and I think you'll enjoy meeting him.


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## decent_espresso

Types of Olive wood handles

Of the 1000 handles we had made from reclaimed, end-of-live Italian olive trees, we've accepted about 600 of them, and the other 400 will be reworked.

And of those 600 sets (one of each size handle) my head-of-factory manager Nicole separated them into four categories that she made up:

DENSE : dark to light color variations, these are our favorite
DOTS : which are really small knots, also quite pretty
BIRTHMARK : a dark splotch of color, but often the rest of the handle is like the DENSE ones
NORMAL : even color all around

We have 1200 total handles, much too many to individually photograph, and it's too complicated to have video chats with people to let them pick them.

What to do?

One possibility is selling these as 4 separate grounds. The DENSE and DOTS are the most beautiful, but also the most rare. The NORMAL ones are the most plentiful.

My inclination is to sell the 4 different handles as 4 separate choices, but you don't get to pick exactly the specific one, just the "type". However, I don't want people disappointed and deciding to send the wood back, as that's time consuming and appalling un-ecological.

How would you recommend we "handle" <har har> this?

-john


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## decent_espresso

MANCHESTER DECENT event .... looking to do it it Friday July 1, around 6pm or 7pm.

We were thinking of Mackie Mayor Mackie Mayor - Atkinsons Coffee Roasters & Tea Merchants but it seems they're "temporarily closed" (uhoh)

Anyone have suggestions for a cafe location?


----------



## Stevebee

decent_espresso said:


> MANCHESTER DECENT event .... looking to do it it Saturday or Sunday June 2/3.
> 
> We were thinking of Mackie Mayor Mackie Mayor - Atkinsons Coffee Roasters & Tea Merchants but it seems they're "temporarily closed" (uhoh)
> 
> Anyone have suggestions for a cafe location?


I think you meant July


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## decent_espresso

Prufrock London Decent Espresso Event

In May 2022, Decent Espresso held an event at Prufrock London. Six Decent owners came (five home owners, one cafe), bringing their setups, and making their favorite drink for others. John, in the basement, showed the DE1XXL model. Thanks to Head of Coffee, River, for his help & enthusiasm, and of course, many thanks to the Decent owners who came. As this was less crowded than the California event held a few weeks earlier, the conversations with owners were much deeper and fulfilling.

Here's a very short video of what it was like.


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## decent_espresso

Stevebee said:


> I think you meant July


Whoops, yes, Friday July 1, in fact. That might help give the Manchester folks a bit more time to plan for it.

The venue (Atkinsons at Mackie Mayor) have confirmed & OKed.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Preparing for Milan*

Next Sunday, Bugs and I drive to Milan, Italy, to set up our booth at the World of Coffee trade show. This is the main coffee trade show for Europe. It starts on Thursday, June 23.

In the past, we've had a much smaller 9 meter booth, with an espresso machine literally coming out of a suitcase and a backdrop of cardboard boxes. 




This year, we're just a wee bit better, with a 20 meter booth, four proper coffee carts, and two pop up banner stands as a backdrop. 

Scott Rao will be making Filter 2.1 shots, and he's arranging for the coffee to be sourced and roasted to his spec. Alan, a coffee roaster/cafe owner from Czech (and who runs our favorite Instagram feed "50% Arabica"), will have a cart and be making espressos demonstrating his beans. Stefan, a DE1 owner from Germany, will have a cart, and will be saying "I am just an enthusiastic owner, I don't work for them" several hundred times per day. Paul will be flying in from Hong Kong, via a family visit in Manchester, assisting everywhere. Bugs will be with her mother, sitting in the back seats, drinking tea and offering biscuits.

I'm lending a DE1XL cart to Doug Weber, who will be lending us his newest EG-1 grinder model and a unibody portafilter. I'll have my Key Grinder, and several Niches too. 

If you're coming, and have a favorite bean you'd like to try on a Decent, bring a bag, and we'll make it for you. You can also try several grinders with the same beans, to decide for yourself, how much you want to spend on an espresso grinder.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Our olive wood handles are now in stock, and can be ordered from:








Decent Shopping Cart: buy espresso accessories


Decent Shopping Cart: buy espresso accessories




decentespresso.com





They are fitted with M10 bolts, and work with Decent Espresso Machines, as well as any portafilter that uses M10 bolts. 

The M10 bolt is the most common standard, but I've seen M12 bolts on some portafilters too. 

Our handles are available in two sizes, which I'd call "normal" and "short". The "group head handle" is the short one, and works on M10 portafilters too.

Based on the feedback I got from a previous posting, we've grouped the various natural styles of the wood into four groups, and we also created a SALE section for those with minor defects. There are sample photos of each grouping, but not a photo of each of the handles. We have 2000 handles in total, too many to photograph individually. 

We will accept returns if you're not satisfied with the handle, and we'll refund the price of the handle, but the cost of the postage won't be refunded. This policy is also from the discussion previous, trying to strike a balance between "every wood handle is unique" and a certain level of customer service.

I'm planning on making a webpage dedicate to handles, once the resin handles also arrive, as we'll have quite a selection then. For now, these handles can only be found by searching our catalog.

-john


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## decent_espresso

"I've had worse" coming to Milan

So THAT's what 3.5 meters tall, looks like!

Bugs and I are driving to Italy tomorrow, with 5 carts (three still to finish building)










to set up our trade show stand at World of Coffee

There will be two of those signs behind us, hopefully with "I've had worse" visible from a distance, over the tops of shorter stands. 

We tried this "slogan" pre-COVID, at a trade show in New York City, and it never failed to make people laugh, and ask "what are you guys about?". So I offer to make them an espresso, and tell them that if they like how it tastes, I will explain how it's done. And if they don't like how it tastes, well, no point in wasting their time...

We'll have grinders from Weber and Niche, Scott Rao will be making Filter 2.1 shots and Alan from "50% Arabica" will be making espressos from his own roasts.

-john


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## decent_espresso

What I learned at the World of Coffee trade show

A big reason for Bugs and I to "do" a trade show stand, is to "eat our own dog food".

For World of Coffee, I built 4 coffee carts over 3 days, packed everything up, drove to Italy in a rented van, ran a high intensity mobile cafe with 4 baristas for 3 days, clean up, tear down, drive home, and then assess what went wrong. 

Then we work to improve ourselves. 

We're now having a big internal company discussion about everything we can change to make this easier for a customer who might try to do the same thing. 

The biggest thing that went wrong were the coffee cart wheels. Half of the the brackets we make bent on the drive over. Mostly, this was caused by my having loaded 20kg of water in each cart. With each turn of the van, these water bottles slid from side to side, causing metal fatigue and bending the wheel support. 

However, wheeling the carts to the location was also problematic. The wheels are great at home, where there is no dirt, pebbles, broken concrete or uneven pavement. We found that the solid-plastic wheels I had bought, had no tolerance at all for these problems. I looked on in envy at the UPS trolleys at the show, which have huge air-inflated wheels, kept at a low pressure, so that they soak up all these defects in the path. 

We're redesigning our wheel brackets to be double-thickness, folded metal, at the weak points, and we're going to do extensive torture testing on this new design. We thought that 3mm thick folded, welded stainless steel would hold up, but it doesn't.

I found that the food-quality-certified silicone tube from our "catering kit" is so short, that it really limits where I can bottom-mount it on the cart. That was annoying, as I really wanted the on/off switch to be at the front, where the barista can easily access it, not shoved in tightly next to the knockbox hole. We're going to quadruple the length of that tube for all customers.

I bought two ramps to help load them carts on the truck. However, all ramps I found have bent perforations to give additional traction (for motorcycle wheels) and these perforations become barriers to the solid-plastic wheels on our cart, making it much hard to push the cart up, as well as constantly redirecting the direction, so it doesn't load straight. Again, low-pressure inflated wheels would fix this problem.

I don't usually make coffee with super-hard kenyans, roasted ultralight, and so I didn't think about the coffee grinders overheating, and seizing, with this beans. We had problems with those beans, and our Niches seized. To be fair to Niche, the problem was made much worse because these are old grinders, before Niche started using the single-bean feeder disk, which fixes this issue. If I'd thought ahead, Martin from Niche (who visited us) would have brought me a pack of those disks (I have them now, he posted them the next day) and that issue would have been resolved. 

But... again to be fair, my Weber Key grinder seized 3 times with those same beans. Yes, they really are challenging, but the problem is much compounded by the 8 hours of constant use these grinders got, never resting. Not even cafes have constant demand. To work around the hard-bean problem, I had to "drip feed" beans into a already-on Weber Key grinder, and not pour the beans in and start the grinder (that caused it to seize). 

And again, to be fair, the much more powerful motor on our Weber EG-1 had no problems. The Key and Niche are both meant to be home grinders, and they excel at that, but as home equipment, they do have limits. 

On the positive side, Rao had commissioned 300 micron sized pore nylon inserts for portafilter baskets, and these were MAGICAL. Without these, my "solidly good shot" rate was maybe 30% with these hard beans and the Allongé recipe, but it climbed to something like almost-always-perfect with the nylon inserts. The 300 micron size comes from a tip by coffee researcher Jonathan Gagné, that the larger particles were mostly responsible for astringency in the cup. However, in my experience, these inserts are much more regular than paper, and just plain stopped channeling. I was able to grind a full 10 clicks finer on my Key, when using them, with much better puck integrity. I got many "wows" from visitors, from the Allongé coffee I made this way.

We had four coffee carts running, and the Decents performed without problems during the three days. I had two kinds of beans: light roasted from https://www.doubleshot.cz/en that Scott Rao had organized, that pulled beautifully and consistently as an Allongé. In the past, I've used the Blooming Espresso on light roasts at shows, and it's not been a good choice, as that shot has to be very, very finely ground, and has a tendency to channel. For me the Allongé, on the Key, with a nylon filter, was easy to pull, and consistently good. 

When there were issues with less-than-perfect shot pulls, such as a bit of channeling around the nylon filter, for instance, we could see it on the charts, and then taste it in cup. That was super interesting and helpful, I felt. Coffee is difficult, but it's a bit easier if you see more of what's going on.

Since this was Italy, I also had a medium-roasted bean that I could pull for those who wanted a "chocolatey espresso" from Gramos Coffee SHOP FOR BEANS | Gramos website - this allowed me to make espressos that traditionalists recognized, but which lacked the rancid and burnt oil flavors that they are used to as "normal" for that style of bean. I used the Niche for those shots, which helped me avoid having to dial in two beans on the same grinder, and the Niche does a nice job of giving more body to espresso than the Key does.

At Scott Rao's master class in Florence, Lance Hedrick and Jonathan Gagné joined in, which is a lot of coffee knowledge for such a small audience. I set up a split screen monitor, showing Rao's slides and the Decent pulling shots live, which I thought was very helpful and something I want to do in the future.

Gagné suggested to me that a "low mass" portafilter for the Decent would be useful, as he is researching temperature profiling. A heavy portafilter helps correct for water temperature errors, but as the Decent is 0.3C accurate, we don't need that. A lighter portafilter would help the Decent have faster temperature transitions when using temperature profiling, would speed up heating, and also use less electricity to stay hot while idling. We're working on Gagné's idea now.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Torture testing our new portafilter handles

We're switching to solid vinyl as the material for our portafilter handles. We like the way they feel, look and wear.

However, in torture testing our first batch of 20, we found that we could break the top off. This was because the bolt connecting to the stainless steel head, wasn't that deeply sunk into the vinyl material. 

We've remade 20 samples, now with much deeper bolts sunk in, and we've not yet been able to break one.

The solid black vinyl will be the new standard in the future, that comes with our black machines.

So... now onto manufacturing these!

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Better split shots

Our current double spouted portafilter (bottom right photo) does not always do a great job of splitting espresso shots that start slowly. The liquid will often preferentially go to one side, until the flow rate pucks up, and then it'll be even. That makes for even amounts of coffee in the two cups.

This has been something I've wanted to improve, and we've spent some engineering time over the years, making 3D drawings of "split spouts" that would solve this. We've made some 3D printed objects as prototypes, but each had issues, and we hadn't focussed enough resources on this topic, to truly solve it.

A few days ago, we saw that our tea portafilter manufacturer makes the crazy looking portafilter on the top left photo. 

And another vendor we work with, makes the portafilter in the top right photo, which looks quite similar to ours, except that it can probably accomodate large filter baskets (20g baskets is the most our double portafilter can take), which would be useful.

We just got them in house, and I've asked one of my engineers to do a number of tests on both. We'll do low-flow-rate "shots" into two cups and weigh the results, trying at different flow rates. 

The basic solution to this problem seems to be to have a "miniature cup" that temporarily holds the espresso, and is the cup fills, it spills out (hopefully evenly) into the two exits.

Have you got a double spouted portafilter design that you think really works well? I'd like to hear from any interesting ideas here.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Pitcher rinsers for cocktail bar & and small rinser redesign to prevent clogs

I was talking to Gregoire, in Singapore, about our pitcher rinser. He was asking lots of questions, and I asked him what he was using it for. It turns out he wants to create a coffee bar, and also a cocktail bar prep area, and have them match.

And... that's exactly what I've done for myself. Here are two photos of Bugs' cocktail prep area.



















The pitcher rinser we sell is a bit more expensive than most, because I specified all-stainless-steel for all parts. At a recent demo I gave at a London café, I broke their rinser, and it was partially made of plastic (most are) and had to pay to have it repaired.

At any rate, I recently made a cocktail-bar cart for my partner, complete with rinser, glass storage, a knockbox. The knockbox is for banging out ice, mint, fruit slices and other things that get stick in a shaker. There's a "magic bullet" blender under the counter. Four bottles of the most common alcohols she uses (gin, vodka, whisky) are upside down in an automatic shot dispenser.

-john

---

Small Rinser Redesign

In other news, at the World of Coffee trade show, I found that my single-dose-bean-weighing was often causing coffee beans to fall into the holes of my pitcher rinser. The beans then float into the drain tube and clog it. Epic failure for a production setting. 

So, another "lesson learnt" at the trade show, has us moving to much smaller holes in our pitcher rinser top, to prevent this. We're getting our sample of the new design this week.


----------



## decent_espresso

Bamboo scaffolding tradition

In many of the videos I’ve made, you can occasionally see bamboo scaffolding outside the windows. For the past few years, the outside of our building in Hong Kong has been undergoing works, and here, they use bamboo even on skyscrapers. They’re taking the bamboo now, from our 30th floor height. We’ll get a view of the mountains again!

There’s a terrific “infographic explainer” article in SCMP about this tradition, and how it’s cheaper, safer (because it flexes) and much more ecological, than contemporary industrial solutions.








Why Hong Kong uses bamboo scaffolding: visual explainer


An ancient practice, suitable only for people with nerves of steel, remains alive and well in a modern city full of skyscrapers.




multimedia.scmp.com





Anyway, this post isn’t about coffee, but it is a great reminder that sometimes traditional ways are best, and let’s make sure we don’t lose our historical knowledge.

-john


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## decent_espresso

*Decent Suitcase v2 - torture testing*

We've started to work on a major revision to the Decent Espresso Machine Suitcase, as part of moving to a new supplier.

We have learned quite a bit over the years, and have a few changes we'd like to make to our suitcase design.

We were happy to find that people who manufacture for Plevo are nearby to us. Plevo is an ultra-high-end suitcase The Infinite checked suitcase | Smart luggage | Plevo

We've visited this manufacturer. We're impressed by the quality of their work, and we want to collaborate with them.

Some things we want to improve in our suitcase design:

*removable wheels*, so that we don't have "air space" in the cardboard box, which can be easily crumpled. 
Being mounted on corners, wheels unfortunately also transfer shock into the suitcase itself, and thus increase the damage caused by transport companies throwing your DE1 off a truck. 
The removable wheel design we most like is similar to the Plevo's, with very thick plastic that serves to greatly strengthen the corners, when the wheels are removed. 
You'll receive the wheels inside the suitcase and clip them into place. You can then remove the wheels again, if you need to ship the suitcase back to us.
the space savings from removing the wheels are significant, removing about 2kg of "volumetric weight", which is about USD$40 in shipping cost, per espresso machine.

*riveted-in corner protectors*. We currently add corner protectors in the packing process, but these are usually discarded by the customer on arrival. 
*top-side-open*, for easier packing. The zip in the center of our current suitcase is a bit difficult to close, since we transitioned to much denser foam. The problem is that the foam needs to be compressed as the suitcase closes, which isn't easy. This new design solves that.
overall improvement in* build quality*. While I have no complaints with our current supplier, the Plevo suitcase is _gorgeous_ and is a big bump up in quality. 
Yes, the suitcase *will cost us substantially more* from this manufacturer, but we have enough profitability that I don't mind spending more, to get something nicer. Plus, we'll be able to much easier control quality and deliveries, by using someone nearby.
We're probably *6 months away* from moving to a new design, and still in R&D on this. Success is not assured, but I'm hopeful.
Note: we *won't sell this new suitcase on its own* to people, because we ship everything via UPS/Fedex, which means it would cost $300 to ship an empty suitcase to you, which doesn't make financial sense. We'll transition to this new suitcase design, once we run out of the current v1 design, for sending new espresso machines.

ps: If you have a "wishlist" of changes you'd like to see made to our current suitcase design, now would be a great time to voice them. I'm "all ears" !

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Low mass portafilter ideas*

When I met him in Italy, Jonathan Gagné suggested that a "low mass" portafilter head would be very helpful, as he's currently experimenting with "temperature profiling".

The Decent is able to instantly change the water temperature, by changing the hot/cold mix flow rates, but if that new water encounters a lot of mass that is at the "old temperature", then the water temperature will get dragged back to it. That's one of the reasons why we use teflon water tubes (great insulator) with a very small tube size (2.5mm internal dimension) and also why we're moving off brass for the parts inside our group head.

The portafilter, however, being relatively heavy, and made of stainless steel, definitely has significant mass. That the portafilter basket is mostly isolated from it, connected mostly by a thin wire, definitely helps.

Nonetheless, I think Jonathan is right: reducing the mass would only help making the Decent more "nimble" at changing temperatures.

So far, we've made two designs:

a minimal mass one, that removes 36% of the weight, but means that when you put the portafilter on the table to tamp, you'll be placing the basket on the table, not the portafilter. That'll feel a bit different, that's all.
a conservative reduction of 19%, which preserves all the same touch points, and just removes metal that is 'unneeded'

it seems that a lot of the remaining mass is on the "bolt mount", which is likely thicker than it needs to be. The connection between the handle/bolt and the main ring, definitely needs to be strong, but I'm not sure all that metal is needed around the bolt.

We'll be experimenting a bit more, and making one-off prototypes with CNC manufacturing, to test our results.

We've thought about making these from other materials, but we're quite worried about longevity. Aluminum would definitely lower the weight massively, but would not look great, and because it's softer, we're concerned the "wings" would rub off with use.

If you've got any other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

-john


----------



## Chriss29

Fascinating, since having the Cafelat Robot it's made me wonder if traditional portafilters need a complete rethink, looks like you're on the case!


----------



## benbarista

Chriss29 said:


> Fascinating, since having the Cafelat Robot it's made me wonder if traditional portafilters need a complete rethink, looks like you're on the case!


But the portafilter of the Cafelat Robot has two main drawbacks, in my opinion : 
1) you can not see if you are level because of its depht! Then you can not use a tamper like the Decent one which sits level on the perimeter.
2) the handel is much too thin, then not nice to use!


----------



## decent_espresso

AI Generated espresso machines

I today gained access to Dall-E DALL·E 2 the AI that can create new images from english descriptions of what you desire.

In that past, I've hired designers to create concept drawings of crazy ideas for an espresso machine. After seeing things like "an armchair shaped like an avocado" (This avocado armchair could be the future of AI) I thought this new AI could possible have some hilarious (and interesting) ideas.

Here's what my first explorations with Dall-E have created. Note that I'm only showing the best, and have discarded the uninteresting ones.
...

Asking for an espresso machine shaped like a coffee bean gave me some interesting sculptural exercises:


















DALL·E 2022-08-06 12.13.14 - an espresso machine in the shape of a coffee bean.jpg


That was me just getting started. I asked for a "espresso machine shaped like a tower pc clone" but it seems that "tower" was meant more literally than I meant.











Still, the result is pretty cool. Kind of a 1950s industrial telephone switchboard meets espresso machine.

My best results came from "pc computer that makes espresso":











I _love_ the keyboard/drip tray hybrid concept. The minimalism is striking, but the curve on the bottom stand of the machine is quite attractive. The central mirrored chrome, with the black outer is quite attractive. I thought that the tablet was particularly well integrated into the design.

Another candidate with the same keywords:











The mysterious chromed buttons, jeweled knob and "hal" like chromed display is fantastic. there's a very nice design integrity to this box

Just for fun, I tried ideas around various containers that make espresso, and this below was my favorite. It's a coffee bean bag that magically makes espresso, with a double-spouted espresso tap on the bottom. 











I love the metal bracket that the AI added to the portafilter, to hold it onto the bag. One imagines a wire spring mechanism, holding the bag up. Perhaps this "machine" is collapsible, and thus portable?

I do question what is in that portafilter. It looks more like wood chips, or old mushrooms, or ... something else. Best not to ask what the AI is doing.

Just for fun, I made some bottles of espresso perfume bottles. This was my favorite:













Do you have an espresso object you'd like me to try making?


----------



## decent_espresso

The Faces of Decent Espresso

It's been a few while since I've found the time to redo the "About Us" page at Decent Espresso, writing bios and getting cartoons made of everyone.

Yesterday, Bugs and I got the new page up, which swells it from 15 people to 39! And there are 3 people we recently hired (two machine builders, one digital artist) who aren't on it. 

If you're curious to read about the personalities and skills behind the espresso machines we design and make, head over to The team behind Decent Espresso 

I've been working with the American artist Jim Shaw Jim Shaw | Artnet since the start of Decent. When we first met, he was very much a starving artist (I found him on Fiverr!) but since, he's met with quite a bit of success. He kindly continues to work with us, even as he has much more important uses for him time, and for that I'm very thankful. 

Shaw's drawings really do capture the quirkiness and uniqueness of each person in the Big Decent Team, and I feel that's vital, so that all of you understand that Decent is real people, who enjoy helping you start each day off a bit better, thanks to a pleasant cup of coffee each morning.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Low cost & free shipping from Decent, comes back to US, AU, NZ, FR, CA.

Low cost airmail shipping from Decent Espresso, has always depended on Hong Kong being a place that people fly to. With a modern airport, tourism, and a large expat population, we at Decent enjoyed relatively inexpensive airmail shipping to the rest of the world.

COVID killed all that.

Hong Kong has had a very strict COVID policy. The worst for us, was the HK government punishing airlines that brought too many COVID-positive people in. They would cancel the entire airline's permission to fly here, for weeks. Virgin Airlines decided to pull out entirely. 

And with the two week quarantine on arrival (at one point, 3 weeks), and only HK-id allowed in, tourism disappeared. 

Without passenger flights, cheap airmail went away. 

For the past two years, we've needed to use UPS and Fedex to send packages. It costs us $45 to send something to the USA, which doesn't make a lot of sense when you sell coffee accessories that often cost less than that. 

In order to not "go bust" shipping accessories at a massive loss, we asked our customers to pay $30 for "expedited shipping" to the USA, and we paid the remaining $15. Our accessory sales to the USA dropped 50% because of this. Worldwide the drop was about a third. It's been a big hit. especially because so many people who buy an espresso machine from us, first "tested us" or "learned about us" by buying a coffee accessory.

A few weeks ago, HK announced that they were no longer going to ban airlines for bringing COVID-positive in. 

Today, the two week quarantine on arrival, was shortened to just spending 3 days in a hotel, and then 4 days of "don't go to restaurants and take daily tests". 

And a few hours later, we find that normal air mail services have resumed to some of our biggest clients: Australia, USA, New Zealand, France and Canada. Most of Europe had already resumed.

This means that for most accessory purchases from us, cheap shipping is available. And, if you buy 3 items, we cover the shipping costs, it's free for you.

It's nice to see the world moving back to a kind of normality.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Southern France Decent Coffee Stand & Roastery - Mary & Marc

Several years ago, I got to meet Mary & Marc, a young couple moving to rural France, intent on setting up their own speciality roasting business, and coffee cart. Marc was the roaster and lead barista for years, at Playground Coffee in Hamburg. However, he says that that it was Scott Rao's roasting books that taught him speciality, and he wanted to bring high end light roasts to France.

They were "cash constrained" (as the expression goes) but luckily had an early model white DE1XL that I'd used at trade shows, that I could sell them at a low price, and that (along with a used roaster) got them started. Several years later, they're now up and running and building up their business.

Four days a week you'll find their coffee stand at the markets around the Cevennes mountains area, which is about an hour north of Nimes. They don't have a website, but are happy to correspond via email at [email protected] (they speak German, English, French). The fabulous coffee geekery t-shirt that Mary is wearing came from Playground Coffee, but is unfortunately discontinued.

They dropped by for the day last week. Between canoeing and playing petanque (they're the village champions) we pulled shots with the various beans Marc brought. I was quite happy with the shots we pulled, though Marc--ever the perfectionist--kept pointing out the small defects to me. That's no bad trait in someone learning to master their craft!

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*Results of (evenly) splitting shots with two 3rd party portafilters*

PF1:

coffee error: 19.4g (8.2% error)
water error: 1.8g

PF2:

coffee error: 10.1g ( 4.2% error)
water error: 7.4g


Our initial tests of two competing split-shot portafilters, find that the other two models do not do a great job of evenly splitting slow-starting shots. Note that the split error was greater for coffee than water, which I think is because coffee is more viscous than water.

I think the problem with spitting shots evenly, is simply that the "surface tension" initially breaks on one side of the split.

With slow water flow (such as the start of a thick espresso) the espresso continues to preferentially flow in that initial direction. 
Once flow gets fast enough, the surface tension is broken in the other direction as well. 

I've had perfectly even split shits when I put the thermometer probe inside the splitting chamber as the shot starts, and I move the probe in and out. The shot then starts on both sides and is evenly split.

I haven't yet found a better solution. Perhaps a hydrophobic coating on the split point, would help, by removing surface tension?


----------



## decent_espresso

I'll will be back in London for all of September.

and I was thinking of doing another event, perhaps at Prufrock, perhaps elsewhere. 

But... is there interest? 

We did an event in May, doing another so soon seems.... ambitious?

Another possibility, is us getting out of London....

Any thoughts?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Progress with vinyl filters, and reuse?

I'm working with Sibarist Our story – Sibarist in developing vinyl espresso coffee filters that are exactly sized to Decent portafilter baskets. 

Why exactly cut? Because, I've often seen "bypass" with hand-cut filters, which show up as squirting channels out the bottom. That is not going to taste good.

A diameter between 56mm and 57mm will be just right, it seems. At the moment, 56mm is working great for me, and 57mm was slightly too large. Next week I'll be on 56.5mm <smile> 

Per Scott Rao's advice to me, I leave a little bit of water on the bottom of the portafilter basket (I don't fully dry out the basket). The filter absorbs that water when I set it in. I can then exactly place the filter in the center as the wet filter sticks into place. Also, if there's a curve to the filter, it flattens out completely when wet. The filter stays in place while I groom the coffee grounds with WDT technique.

These vinyl filters are significantly more durable than paper filters, and there's no flavor at all to them when I make a "tea" from the filter. That's not the case with paper filters, which make an unpleasant cardboard-tasting tea, and that's why I don't like them.

I wanted to see if I could reuse the filters, and if it'd affect the flavor. 

After each use of the vinyl filter, I'm rinsing them, and then before I make the next coffee, I'm smelling them to check for any rancidity or other off smells. Two days is fine, but by the 3rd day, I've found that it's time to discard them and use a new one.

That's been my experience with sintered metal mesh filters: they're great at first, but the deposits that are hard to get out eventually go rancid and significantly affect the drink flavor. It took "high temperature oven roasting" the metal filters, to get rid of the deposits, in our own testing, and that's why at Decent, we're not going to be selling metal mesh filters.

Looking at the used vinyl filters, you can see just how much, and how fine, the coffee particles are. No amount of scrubbing is going to remove that.

So far, I'm seeing more even extractions with my Weber Key grinder and these filters. Smoothness (less harshness) to the espressos, in the mouth. That's consistent with my first experience with them two months ago in Italy, at the World of Coffee trade show, where I was making Allongé espressos, with a quite lightly roasted bean.

The "hole" size on these vinyl filters is dialed in based on Jonathan Gagné's research, via Scott Rao, who first got these samples made, liked them, and passed them to me for more feedback, and to see if we could "productize" this. These holes are so small, that the filters appear practically opaque when held under a light.

Hopefully, if results continue to look good and we don't run into any problems, we'll be able to have these for sale before the end of the year.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Home-friendly colors for Decent?

A few weeks ago, I hired our first in-house digital artist, Harris, with both an art school degree, and previous jobs in photography, designing billboards and making her our digital store. 

I've tasked her with thinking about how the DE1 fits into home kitchens and how we could improve that with the use of colors or other modifications to the chassis.

She came up with 4 color suggestions by surveying contemporary kitchens, and finding what is both most popular, but also what tones fit with other colors. Here's a "mood board" she made for me.










We'll be making 10 espresso machines each, in the 4 colors below, and selling them. Based on our experience, and customer feedback, we'll decide what to do next with this idea. We're also looking at different color wood and resin, for the handles, though it's likely that the light natural wood handles will work with all these colors. Naturally, I'll post photos of these assembled machines, once we've built them.


----------



## decent_espresso

Rethinking Decent Cardboard Boxes

Since Decent only sells direct, never in stores or through resellers, the goal of our "product packaging" is never to "look good on the shelf." Instead, the main goal is to protect the item, and to make shelving, storage and packing quick and accurate.

Everything we sell comes in plain, fairly rough, cardboard boxes. 

I've avoided using color printing as it's wasteful, and the kind of paper you need to print well on, has a bigger eco footprint, since it needs to be very fibers.

I've avoided using white paper as I prefer not to bleach the fibers. And no "white wrapper" either, for the same reason.

Now that Harris has joined us, with her pro-artist background, she proposed revisiting the packaging. 

It's true that because our suppliers usually buy the box, that the cardboard quality varies, and on some items (milk jug, for instance) is quite thin and a bit ill-fitting. I'd like to improve that.

She's mocked up some ideas, and it turns out that what we're doing, is quite close to what IKEA does.










We're going to refine further our ideas, but I'd like to hear from you, if you have any thoughts about where our packaging should go?

-john

--

On a related topic, I found this article about "white vs brown" cardboard, and was surprised at what it revealed:








Are Brown Boxes More Eco-friendly Than White Boxes?


Are Brown Boxes More Eco-friendly Than White Boxes? That is most definitely a FAQ from our green minded customers and the answer is definitely yes, probably, in most cases. If that answer seems vague…




www.salazarpackaging.com





ARE BROWN BOXES MORE ECO-FRIENDLY THAN WHITE BOXES?

Why we usually suggest brown board for a box exterior

MOST board with a white side in or out, is NOT 100% recycled content. White is typically virgin paper, that does not make it bad, in fact it makes for a great printing surface, but it is definitely not green if the goal is to use as much recycled content as possible.

In addition to the obvious green benefit, brown board is typically 5 to 6% less expensive compared to white board. Darker colors, such as dark blue, brown, and black print beautifully over natural Kraft Board, as do lighter colors like white and most pastels. However, the main reason we usually suggest brown board has nothing to do with relative greenness or material cost.

Simply put – brown boxes arrive looking better. Whether you ship UPS, FedEx or USPS, every box you ship is handled countless times and each time it ends up a little dirtier and beat up. This rough handling is much less obvious on brown board than it is on white board.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Draining waste water better*

A big reason I do trade shows occasionally, is to "feel the pain" of any shortcoming in our products. In June, while assembling 4 coffee carts, I noticed that

we didn't provide a short tube to connect the drip tray to the drain and 
you were expected to cut it yourself, but the tube we provided was quite tight, and hard to fit onto the drain, and also it's super-difficult to cut silicon tubes yourself so that the cut is straight 
black tubing prevent mold (good) but made it hard to identify blockages due to coffee grinds (bad)
We've now concluded testing of replacement tubes, changing to a slightly larger diameter, translucent and precut to the correct length. We're ordering that, we'll fill all stock we have of our catering kits with this part, and we'll also send this new part for free to existing customers of the catering kit, as part of any order they make with us.

Next on my to-fix list is that I noticed that water suction causes our silicone water intake tubes to kink, and thus slow down the water flow.










I'm thinking that we can fix that with a coiled spring reinforcement around the tube, as that's something I've seen with other products.










If you have a different suggestion to fix this, please let me know!


----------



## decent_espresso

Here's a prototype of the new print layout after a few days work on this. I posted about our box redesign, a few days ago. 

Note that this is white paper here in the photo, because we used a laser printer in the office to mock it up. The real boxes will be brown, unbleached cardboard, and we're pretty sure we can get a large % of recycled paper content for that.


----------



## decent_espresso

A painful lesson in bad materials choice

As a manufacturer, my staff and I spend crazy amounts of time arguing over the materials we'll use to build our espresso machine. We want each part to last a long time, but it has to look good, be performant, and reasonably priced too.

Plastic is something we avoid, and there's almost none of it in our machine. Except for the plastic around the Android tablet (we can't avoid that) the entire machine (inside and out) is aluminum and stainless steel. The moulded parts (water tank and drip tray) are porcelain, which I think is something only we do.

And why? Besides being a product of fossil fuel, plastic ages terribly. Very quickly, with age (worse with sun) it become brittle, discolors and cracks.

I experienced that firsthand today.

Today, I'm back in London and walked 30 minutes to brunch at Prufrock Coffee for eggs bene and some freshly roasted Square Mile beans. Joseph Siebel claims to make the "highest quality shoes in the world" The Story Behind Josef Seibel Shoes yet, having not worn these in 2 years, the soles of both shoes split in half, and the seams all gave out.

Many thanks to River and the staff at Prufrock, who found some duct tape for me, to try bandage my shoes up and get me home. It got me halfway, and the rest was more-or-less barefoot.

But I don't mind, because it taught me a very personal lesson about the choices we, a maker of things, make in the materials we use. And the wrong material choice is quite literally, painful.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Improving our 360º videos

Every DE1 we make is filmed at 4k, on a turntable. Every invoice we send links to the video for your machine. 

And... if you want to, when you buy a DE1 you can browse our stock and pick the exact machine you want to receive. Queue

We do this as a final quality-control step, to make sure there are no cosmetic defects. The person doing the film is responsible for that check, and if they mess up, it's visible to all. And, we do this because sometimes customs (or the shipping company) damages the machine, and we can prove that it shipped without that damage.

At any rate, our videos currently are done by manually spinning a DE1 on a large glass turntable (top left photo). 

This isn't great because the pace is not consistent, with bursts of speed and slow periods. And the glass doesn't look great either. 

Harris found a large load (100lbs) turntable that is a big enough diameter for our espresso machine. We put it into place a few days ago, but found that it's 5x slower than our current videos, taking a full minute to rotate once. 

I used a program named "avconv" to 5x the video speed, but still, it's tedious for my staff to sit for a minute, instead of the previous 12 seconds.

Alfred took apart the turntable, and worked with Alex to 3D print a new gear. It's now 2x faster, though still 30 seconds is too slow. They think they can double the speed again (we'll see!).

We are also going to increase the lighting, and crop the video to a square image, so that the light box borders aren't visible. It's a waste of video bandwidth, and it's ugly to look at. 

The top left image shows the upcoming lighting and framing whereas the bottom right one shows the current lighting and framing. With the DE1 being black, we need to use a lot more light to show subtle details.

We'll also be changing the camera angle to show a bit of the top of the DE1, so it can be checked for flaws as well.

What do you think? Any tips for us?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

*What's new in the latest de1app BETA*

These past five months, I've been posting news about the upcoming version of the de1app to our customers, on a "Nightly" discussion forum. The app is _so_ much better for the back-and-forth conversation. I'm going to summarize what's new below.

If you'd like all the details, visit 👏 Coming to the DE1 in October 2022, with our v1.44 version - the updated app (and firmware) is downloadable for free, for all DE1 espresso machine versions, and desktop versions of the app can be freely downloaded from Espresso Machine Software Downloads


* Steam *

*Two tap steam stop*: for those that dislike the default "steam auto purge" behavior. 
Reduce electricity consumption by 60% during "hot idle" by *easily disabling steam *and enabling it when you need it
*Fast switching from Espresso to Steam*
*Short burst of steam* (under 7 seconds) *doesn't do a steam purge*, just stops. 

* Hot Water *

*Faster hot water flow rate*, and control over it, and less stuttering
*Realtime* control over hot water *flow rate*, same control as with Steam and Flush
*Hot water* is now *automatically temperature accurate, reducing flow* if needed
*Faster starting hot water*

* Flush *

Control over the *Flush flow rate, *both faster and slower than previously possible
*Flush auto stop timer* in Insight skin
*Too long a flush* at too high a flow rate *generates a warning*, and also triggers *group head warmup*, to prevent too-cool espresso making
*Realtime* control over Flush *flow rate*, same control as with Steam and Hot Water

* App *

*Smart Charging*: prevents the "tablet battery swells" problem, extends battery life. Automatically keeps battery charged between 55% and 65%.
*Tap*-on-blue-colored-numbers throughout the app, *to get a full screen data entry page*. No more tap-tap-tap on +/- controls
Enrique's *attractive DUI controls* now used widely
*Scheduled* de1app *wake-up no longer turns on refill *pump
*Flip screen* option for 3rd party tablets


----------



## decent_espresso

*Hydro dip painting tests at Decent*

Despite our best efforts, perfect, defect-free paint jobs on our espresso machine chassis, is hard to achieve 100% of the time. 

About 15% of the aluminum chassis we make, we decide have a "cosmetic defect" and can't be put on a full price machine. But we never throw any of these out.
We regularly put all these slightly-imperfect parts and make discounted machines, that we list at Decent Bazaar: refurbished and discounted espresso machine
However, I'd like to "turn lemons into lemonade" and find a way to repaint them in a way that hides the minor paint defects underneath.
A really no-wasted-paint, low toxicity way to do this is with "hydro dip painting" Hydro Dip Painting
The effects we've seen on videos are pretty spectacular, so Alfred is trying to learn the techniques.
This is our first set of tests. From what he learned, Alfred is buying different film/activator combinations, to be more suited to our specific use case, which has lots of bends, odd shapes, and angles.
Eventually, we'd like to make one-off espresso machines, with these special effects.
Do you have any experience with hydro dip painting? If so, please give us your thoughts & advice.
-john


----------



## decent_espresso

I've written a lengthy and detailed explanation of everything that is new in the latest DE1app. 

Annotated screenshots are included, which hopefully helps explain each new ability, clearer and faster than just text.






What's new in the latest de1app BETA







decentespresso.com





Here's a snapshot of what the documentation looks like. Questions can also be asked below it, for those who own a machine and thus have Basecamp access.


----------



## decent_espresso

In a rural market in the Cévennes mountains of France, a Decent coffee cart!


----------



## decent_espresso

*A teeny knockbox?*

Years ago, when I was working on the design for the Decent Knockbox
Decent Knockbox

We had a 50% smaller model made, to test the shape out. Here are photos showing you the final side (the big one, that stores about 30 coffee pucks) next to the small one (that stores about 5 coffee pucks).
















I surprised myself in using the small one _all the time_.

When I travelled, the big one was far too large for a suitcase, the small one going easily into a bag. I tried using a trash can instead of a knockbox, but just end up damaging both the portafilter and the trashcan, so for me, a knockbox is essential equipment.

And when I lived in a small Hong Kong apartment, the small one was much better with my limited countertop space. I had to empty it into a trash can every two days, but that was no big deal. You can see that I scratched up that prototype model with all the use I've put it to.

I'm now wondering if others might be interested in a "mini me" knockbox? It's still made out of aluminum, so very durable and light. Obviously, you can see that I didn't make a special "knockbar" yet for this size, so the existing prototype looks a bit silly with that overlapping bar.

There are a few other small knockboxes out on the market already, so maybe this isn't needed?

But it is cute, and a bit different, so maybe....?

What do you think?

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Materials, refining our internal design, prices changing

Interesting page from a page from an ODE brochure about their materials. They're who make our valves (and La Marzocco's too, among others)



Here's the full brochure:


http://magnatune.com/p/Brochure_Technopolymer_ENG_compressed-1.pdf



PPS is what we're moving to for the inside of the group head.


that's already been ordered, and will be a $99 parts update, that all v1.1 or newer machine owners can buy. Should be in stock in a few months.

We're currently testing this PPS material for our next-generation water mixer, which you can see here. We've made 20,000 espresso cycles on these machines, as part of our testing.



So far, that part has always been made of ULTEM, on all machines so far. ULTEM is good stuff, but very expensive, and hard to mould correctly (we CNC them). Between the exotic material (ULTEM is very pricey) and CNC, that part costs us USD$120 each.

We also had problems with it sometimes cracking in our earlier DE1 version:



Which is why we switched to glass-fiber reinforced ULTEM a long time ago, which is opaque (see below).

This part:


will eventually replace this:


which you can see here, installed under the piece of shiny metal. It's big, expensive, and complicated to make and assemble.



There's no difference to the user, between the old vs new. They both make the same coffee, exactly. The new one is simpler, uses a less expensive material, and is moulded instead of CNC. 

Why does this matter?

While inflation has raised our existing parts costs by 15%, we're also realizing savings by switching to a less expensive material, and moulding parts instead of making with CNC. There will be a DE1 price increase in October, but it won't be 15%. In a few weeks (mid October, likely), I will be able to announce what it is, when we open up ordering for that model.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Our chassis supplier just sent us this photo of the 4 colors we're trialing. 

We'll have these in our factory next week and will build complete machines with them. Of course, I'll post photos once they're ready. 

We ordered 10 in each color, split 50/50 into 5 DE1PRO, 5 DE1XXL/DE1XL. 

We'll build these colorful DE1 machines as each order come in, so that we can match the voltage to the order, as well as DE1XL vs DE1XXL, since we have so few of these colored chassis.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Now available: Magnetic Portafilter Stand for Weber Workshops Coffee Grinders

Made for Weber Grinders (Key, EG1, etc...) we've made a short run of hand fitted magnets to our portafilter stands. These attach to the hidden magnet in Weber's current model grinders. Decent portafilter stand


----------



## decent_espresso

Real Colors

I asked my art-school graduate Harris to do a color corrected photo of the tablet stands, in the four colors, so we could see "what the colors really look like".

Here they are:










Though of course, those of you who know color theory are going to object! We're all looking at a RGB photo, which is emitting light, whereas in real life, these are reflecting (removing colors). And also, the pink color is matte whereas the other 3 are shiny, so their colors change quite a bit more depending on viewing angle.

We're building one DE1PRO and one DE1XXL of each of the four colors now, so we can photograph them.










And while we did receive 10 of each colors, we can't build that machine machines. Why? Because this our chassis supplier's first attempt at these delicate colors, there were a lot of little defects, mostly color-missing spots, and occasional air bubbles in the paint. I'm not yet clear on how many perfect machines we can build yet. 

In a few days, Bugs and I fly back to Hong Kong. We've been away for 9 months, enjoying having missed the huuuge COVID wave that passed through as soon as we left! 

And that means I'll also get back to making videos. We've had a pause since I left, and in October, I hope to show you our new "video studio" and to start having regular "open to all, drop-in sessions" on Youtube Live.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dressing the video studio

After a 9 month absence, I'm flying back to Hong Kong on tuesday. The big TODO on my list is to set up a permanent video studio. It'll be well lit, microphones set up, 3 SLR cameras on tripods, and a live video mixer.

Some big uses are planned for this:

regular "open mic coffee time" (need a better name!) where Paul, myself and others, hang out on Youtube Live, and you can ask us anything. The goal is to help new Decent owners get over any issues they might be having in making nice coffee, as well as answering any questions any Decent-curious people might have.
A short-video-based manual to the Decent and to making drinks with it.
Easily make short videos on any topic we can think of.

We're intentionally making our studio out of inexpensive things you can buy from IKEA, and will be posting what we use.

The reason for this approach, is that dressing a studio is very much like dressing a cafe or home coffee nook. We want our experience to be useful to others. We'll be documenting the price and source of everything we use. 

Obviously, the photo above is _far_ from finished. I'll be posting regular updates here, showing our progress, and asking for advice.

The next step is to put printed front panels on the coffee carts, in order to cut down on the visual noise. We will likely IKEA frame some Decent related artwork, maybe hand drawn concept sketches.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

How we made a new cardboard box for our coffee funnel

How Harris thought up, designed, created, prototyped, and tested our new cardboard box. We're revisiting all our packaging to use ec-friendly plain brown cardboard, easy to open, sturdy, simple graphics, with an aim toward "ease of use" for all those who encounter it.


----------



## decent_espresso

First "Dialing In Live" with Square Mile coffee beans

In about 2 weeks, I'll be joined by Decent coffee-expert Paul Chan in our first "Dialing In with Decent Espresso" Youtube Live event.

Besides open-question-time, we'll be "dialing in" 3 beans from London's Square Mile Coffee Roasters. I bought them today, and am flying to Hong Kong with them in about 40 hours.

Red Brick
El Dama
The Filter Blend

Please, if any of these coffees interest you, MAIL ORDER THEM NOW and start to make coffee with them. The goal of the Dialing In show is to have a conversation about making espresso. It's not meant to be a lecture. Different perspectives would be great.

We'll be using a Decent Espresso Machine, but people with other machines are welcome to join (especially any manual levers!). Grinder wise, we'll have a Niche, Lagom P100 and Weber Key, and we'll be trying them all.

This will be Harris' first trial of the video studio she's been putting together, and the gear will have its first run too. I'm sure it'll all not go smoothly <grin> but we'll do our best to make it fun & hopefully helpful.

In future "episodes" we'll be order beans from great coffee roasteries around the world. We'll give you enough advance notice to order them too, so you can join in and give us your tips and thoughts.

More details when I get out of COVID quarantine in Hong Kong, in about a week.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Epic fail! Reinforced wheel bracket can't take the load

A few months ago, at our trade show stand at World of Coffee in Milan, Italy, we found that the coffee carts we use weren't able to survive the big bumps we found. While they're fine on smooth, level ground, reality isn't like that. 

So we redesigned our wheel brackets to be twice as thick and folded. 

And.... they still failed! 

So, back to R&D for us. We'll keep iterating the design of this part, until it can survive the nasty, real world.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

Decent Video Studio (beta 1)

My first day back at HK Decent Espresso was yesterday, and I got a load of staff to help arrange a "rough" idea of a studio. We got something quickly together, and today we'll be wiring up sound, light, 2 SLR cameras and the video mixing board.

One very helpful comment on Instagram suggested we create a separate "casual area" where we could sit, relaxed, and talk with you, and amongst each other. We're doing that, though the IKEA futon we have, is darned ugly, and we're searching local forums to pick up some used fancy couches, cheap.

I'm aiming to have our first Youtube Live event on Friday, which is very optimistic. But... if today's tests go well, we can do it. I'll announce the date & time for time, on thursday.

In the photos above,

the top left one shows the main studio, with the DE1 coffee cart. 
the top right shows our casual hangout. 
and the bottom panoramic photo, never to be normally shown on video, is both sets.

Still to be done:

curtains to hide the outdoor scaffolding
carpets for the floor, walls and ceiling, as there's an echo we need to manage
another camera
test, iterate!


----------



## decent_espresso

CANCELLED: tech problems getting the video feed onto Youtube, will reannounce once we fix it. Likely monday, same time.










If Harris can figure out how to turn the YouTube live feed on, our first “Dial In Decently” will happen in a few minutes. Find it on the decent espresso YouTube channel https://youtube.com/c/Decentespresso


----------



## decent_espresso

Suggestions for the comparison page

I've redone the model comparison page as feedback I received was often "what's the difference between the models" and "where are the specs?"








Compare our best low priced home espresso machine models


Compare our best low priced home espresso machine models




decentespresso.com





The water tank size is given, warmup time. I expressed warmup time in two ways, because so many people don't use steam, and the new de1app allows you to turn off the steam heater, for faster warmup time.

I've added a sentence under the title
"The main difference between our models is how they look and their steam power."

I also added weight info, and overall dimensions.

And I've tried to use "Same as..." repeatedly to show how the models are similar.

Very much looking for suggestions/feedback.

I'd like to have something like "Monthly electric cost" or some sort of measure of how eco the models are, but I don't know how to do that in a way that makes sense globally.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dialing In Decently: in 3 days, and past episodes now live

In 3 days, we'll be continuing our "Dialing In Decently" series, with Square Mile's "Filter Blend".





This will take place at 6pm Sunday, California time (which is Monday 9am Hong Kong time).

We'll be trying to make espresso with a light roasted bean meant for pour-over coffee. Can we do it? Does it taste any good?

In addition, we have also:

Made a 3 minute video about Third Wave Water
and another video about Conical vs Large Flat Grinders (Niche vs Lagom P100)
Color corrected and trimmed out the unrelated questions from our full El Dama episode
and our full Red Brick episode

All these can be seen on the Dialing In Decently Youtube playlist:


https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvrtv8Pfv90_oH0nMYsjht5hXPDS4bNc6



which makes a quite tidy job of all these videos.


----------



## decent_espresso

Dialing in Decently: Rao Allongé on the Niche and Lagom P100

A deep dive into the Allongé recipe, including tips on how traditional 9 bar machines (ie, not Decent) can do this recipe.


----------



## decent_espresso

Now available: custom laser etched DE1XL back panels

We found that the laser etching machine we own, which can etch in metal and wood, is also able to nicely etch into the black plastic back panel of our DE1XL/DE1XXL machines.

Hazard Coffee Company Hazard Coffee Company (@hazardcoffeecompany) • Instagram photos and videos has three of our DE1XXL machines (actually, one prototype DE1XXXL too) and to thank them, I made a free sample, plus their logo looks super cool this way.

We're offering to make a custom panel for USD$99. The price includes working with our staff to get your logo, optimize the placement and size with you. Only currently available in black. Only currently available with the DECENT logo on top, until we get a new order of back panels, which will include some with no DECENT logo on them, so that we can then do anything.

The "print" quality is slightly "coffee colored" on the black panels (slightly brown) and also a bit "brass" colored. We can't unfortunately etch on our white plastic back panels, with the machine we have, as that requires a different laser. If there's some demand for custom black panels, we'll go ahead and spend the money on a machine that can do white panels too.

Find it at:








Common Espresso Machine Parts


DE1+ The most advanced espresso machine, with 9 never-before-seen major capabilities.




decentespresso.com


----------



## decent_espresso

*Using a Calendar Subscription to announce Decent Live Events*

*Deep dive into Rao's "Filter 2.1" (using Square Mile's Filter Roast and El Dama)*

Our next event is this Friday at 4pm (HK time), which is 10am London time.





. . .

It's my intention to film most of our videos live, and invite people to join in with questions. 

Not just "Dial In Decently" (one hour shows)
but also the shorter "How To" videos like "How to control pressure in real-time with the group head" 
or even "How to clean the uptake water filter" (fascinating!)
So that our videos can benefit from relevant questions, as we're filming
I can't be constantly announcing every video schedule to social media, as everyone will get tired of it. So, instead, I'd like to recommend that people subscribe to our "Decent Live" using Google Calendar or iCal. That way, if you're interested, you can see the events as they get scheduled, on your calendar, and ask for notification when they're about to happen.

I'd like to make this as easy as possible, and that's where *I'm asking for your help. *

If you can advise on *"best practice" to enable people to smoothly subscribe to our calendar,* that'd be super helpful
Our Google Calendar URL: 
Google Calendar - Sign in to Access & Edit Your Schedule
Google automatically gives you a subscribe popup, which is helpful.

Our Apple iCal URL:
 https://calendar.google.com/[email protected]/public/basic.ics
Subscribing on iCal currently requires you to use iCal to click "File/New Calendar Subscription" and choosing something more frequent than weekly refreshes


----------



## decent_espresso

In about 2 hours:
*Youtube Live: Deep dive into Rao's "Filter 2.1" (using Square Mile's Filter Roast)*


On our *Youtube Channel*

https://tinyurl.com/decent-live-yt

On our *Google Calendar:*

Google Calendar - Sign in to Access & Edit Your Schedule

On our *Apple iCal*:

Subscribing on iCal currently requires you to use iCal to click "File/New Calendar Subscription" and choosing something more frequent than weekly refreshes
https://tinyurl.com/decent-live-ical


----------



## decent_espresso

Here is the episode we just filmed, covering Filter 2.1:

We tried a lot of new things with today's shooting:

installed a *metal ceiling rack*
moved from a 4 channel video mixer to an *8 channel* one
*down-facing camera* installed, looks onto the cart table top
*2nd camera on Paul*
*two mics hung from the ceiling*, above our heads
*two lights hung from the ceiling* on the sides
*video titling software* showing the current recipe and grind settings, changing in real time
*beans weighed ahead of time*
*sound dampening curtain* hung in the corner
I waved my arms and torso less than previously, *toning down the mania *and staying in frame more
*HDMI amplifying repeaters* installed, so we could site the video editing desk from from the cameras using long HDMI cables, and put the cameras where we wanted them
*Balanced XLR sound* output used (special cable arrived) solving 50hz audio buzz problem
Consistent *picture-in-picture* showing the *tablet screen* during extraction
Actually read the *live questions* and got to answer them *on-air*

What we got wrong:

*Niche was powered off* (again!) at the start <sigh>
*Main camera overheated* and shut down several times, until Harris figured out how to override the shutdown-on-overheat behavior
Paul-camera *tended to auto-focus to the background* until Harris changed it to manual focus

Still to do:

figure out how to use audio compression, limiting, to tamp down on audio volume when we get too loud
flush text left, when right-aligning the grind settings
record the session with all cameras, to a hard disk, so we can improve the edit afterwards
a camera on the extraction itself, showing the bottom of the portafilter, shot liquid, cup and scale
a camera on me too
install air conditioning, so the camera doesn't overheat
install sound dampening material on the ceiling
install vertical wood slats sound dampening background that also looks nice, behind us
make the sound better when Paul and I face away from the camera

Here are pictures of the video studio as it was today.


----------



## arellim

Really enjoying the format (bitesize, single purpose and dual presented)


----------



## BLADE

Is there any further news on DE1 for version 1.44?


----------



## decent_espresso

Help me understand what you search for

I used Google today to search for an espresso basket photo, and was really surprised to find the Decent was the #2 result. We do fairly well, it turns out, in the Google search results, for about half our coffee accessories. 

We don't do well at all for any "espresso machine" searches, probably because there's so much competition, but also because I don't really know what kinds of words people might use to find a machine like ours? I mean, it's not like there's a whole "category" of espresso machines that are like the Decent.

I've never done any website SEO, as I felt that Google likely has algorithms to figure out that "you're cheating" and punish us for it. Maaaaybe we're doing well in rankings because we never cheated, and enough people now link to the Decent website? 

Most of the website pages at Decent are very text and content rich, but if I hit any keywords, it's by accident. 










I'm willing to do a bit of "ethical optimizing", namely by writing text on our web pages that discuss what people are searching for. Obviously, people search for the word "best" <smile> but what else?

In the comments, it'd help me if you let me know the kind of words you'd use to search for an espresso machine or coffee accessory. I'll work on the website to discuss what you're looking for.

Thanks!


----------



## decent_espresso

BLADE said:


> Is there any further news on DE1 for version 1.44?


It's been pushed back to January. We don't have the new inner shower block yet, as we're working through some moulding issues.

The v1.43 model is compatible with that upcoming update, and that part will be sold at around £90, in case you don't want to wait.


----------



## BLADE

decent_espresso said:


> It's been pushed back to January. We don't have the new inner shower block yet, as we're working through some moulding issues.
> 
> The v1.43 model is compatible with that upcoming update, and that part will be sold at around £90, in case you don't want to wait.


Ok, thanks for the reply！I just received some accessories and keep waiting for DE1 XL in version 1.44.

I believe that the new improvements have been verified by durability experiments, as reliable as 1.43.














These are great! Better looking than the photos on the official website!


----------



## decent_espresso

Youtube Live: Canadian champ & his light roast beans

Tomorrow (links also on our IG bio):

Our Youtube Channel https://tinyurl.com/decent-live-yt
Our Google Calendar: Google Calendar - Sign in to Access & Edit Your Schedule
Our Apple iCal: Subscribing on iCal currently requires you to use iCal to click "File/New Calendar Subscription" https://tinyurl.com/decent-live-ical

Canadian Barista Champion Cole Torode https://www.instagram.com/torodeo/ drops by with his expensive and delicious light filter roast coffees from his company Forward Coffeee Forward Specialty Green Coffee Importers 

We tasted them as pour overs at the Hong Kong Barista Championship a few days ago. His company sells green coffee for both home roaster and pros, and these beans we tasted were roasted by him.

We were really impressed, and wanted to try to pull these same beans on our espresso machine, using recipes on the Decent Espresso Machine. Can we do justice to these beans, with an espresso machine? 

Cole is a Dalla Corte ambassador, and part of the video is going to be how you can pull these same "espresso" shots on other flow control espresso machines.


----------



## decent_espresso

Visual branding for upcoming "Decent TV" Series

Here at Decent, we're planning several "series" of TV shows (6 to 12 episodes each). 

Each series will have its own visual identity on Youtube. Here are the drafts Mohammed and I have come up so far. Our artist (Harris) is out today, so these have _not_ been through a professional's fingers yet. 

First, I wanted to get your feedback on each idea.

- For "Dial In Decently" we decided to highlight the "set" where Paul and I film, with a popup bubble giving our thoughts, very summarized, of the episode. The hosts' face (usually making a funny face) is featured. This visual style is very common on Youtube. From what I've read, that's because it works.

- Our "what's a..." is our "coffee explained" series, where we'll do an episode each on every main coffee drink, and how we make it. This will feature Paul (the expert) guiding Mohammed's hand (he's the newbie) through making each drink, and tasting it. The graphics are made by the Stable Diffusion AI, of these drinks painted in an impressionistic style.

- Mohammed will be asking Paul some rather deep-sounding questions about espresso. In reading his questions, I (comically) noticed that they sounded like existential despair (kind of like Garfield Minus Garfield garfield minus garfield) and decided to run with that, generating charcoal drawings in Stable Diffusion that expressed the concept. 

- and finally, we'll be redoing all our coffee accessory videos, as they were all made before I had a proper gear, and was lacking talent or help. I was thinking of using an X-Ray style like that below, to communicate that we'll be looking intensely at these. Plus it's a very striking graphic (but the fonts and layout need help, I know)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

There's a lot of videos planned here, about a year's work.

Very much looking for feedback on the ideas above.

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

How to make espresso from light roasted Panamanian Geisha coffee beans

Here is the video we shot with Cole, where we pull his light roast Panamanian Geisha as a Turbo shot, a Filter 2.1, and an Allongé. We discuss the relative merits of each approach.






I was pleased with this most recent episode, not least of which was Cole's "I think found our unlock for these beans" which was the Allongé recipe. These were a _gorgeous_ Panamanian Geisha when he made them as filter coffee, so I was "psyched" to do these justice.

Summary:

The Turbo shot was surprisingly good. Great concentration, I liked the acidity more than the other two presenters. Perfume was amazing. Tweaking the profile made it worse. A slight "flavor hole" on the middle of the palate.
The Filter 2.1 was quite good, and as Cole mentioned, resembled a traditionally made filter coffee. If he hadn't seen it made, he would assume that's what it was.
The Allongé recipe really unlocked this bean, filing in that "flavor hole" and broadening the shot overall. We did lose mouthfeel, but it was a delicious coffee, not fatiguing at all, with low acidity.
After the show stopped taping, we tried another bean of Cole's that was more fruity, and it was far-and-away the best coffee of the day. Where the Allongé approach really excels is in bring out fruitiness in coffee, what Rao calls "fruit bombs", while holding acidity down.

From a video/technical perspective, this was our best episode so far:

both cameras have reasonably good angles, brightness and color is mostly accurate between them
weird lighting "bar" on the back wall is now gone
audio level and sound was consistent across all 3 speakers, who were in different positions and who rotated a lot
audio quality much improved : no more pops, much less background noise, thanks to "HDMI Inserter" device I just bought that puts the audio mixing board output, and a massive 9 meter long industrial sound insulating curtain.

but still to improve:

strong shadow cast on the view from the camera above the cart
a bit of short echo on the audio
choice of video camera used could improve
my iphone shooting close ups was awkward, and we need a cable from the iphone to be able to mix the iphone in real time
the new video mixer failed after a few minutes, saving each camera, so we can't do any post-processing on this show.
more cameras, so we can show detail better
need to prepare pucks further into the camera shot, not on the edge

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

A week of Decent videos

As we've solved (most of) our video-studio technical problems, it's now "full steam ahead" <excuse the pun> to make videos covering more basic topics. 

I've scheduled the next 6 videos, with a "live taping" each day. You can join in to watch and ask questions. After the taping, the video will be "unlisted" on youtube so that we can edit it, and also so that we can upload a higher video resolution version than what was live-streamed. We'll publish these videos as the edits get finished.

As suggested in discussions in the community, all our videos now have a summary of what will be discussed. This serves both as a script for us, but also helps google find the appropriate video when searching.

Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Decentespresso
Google Calendar: Google Calendar - Sign in to Access & Edit Your Schedule
Apple iCal: click "File/New Calendar Subscription" with: https://tinyurl.com/decent-live-ical

iCal screenshots:


----------



## BLADE

La Marzocco posted Linea Micra, it is beautiful. But I am still waiting for the DE1 XL in version 1.44 because I basically don't need a steam boiler.


----------



## decent_espresso

We today released a major new version of the DE1 app (no longer a beta). 

The video briefly explains everything, and extensive detail can be found:





What's new in the latest de1app BETA







decentespresso.com





Here's a summary:

WHAT'S NEW in v1.41:

The previous version of the de1app focussed on improving espresso making, so in this version we focussed on everything around espresso: steam, hot water, and interaction with the App. 

Steam 

Two tap steam stop: for those that dislike the default "steam auto purge" behavior.
Reduce electricity consumption by 60% during "hot idle" by easily disabling steam and enabling it when you need it
Fast switching from Espresso to Steam
Short burst of steam (under 7 seconds) doesn't do a steam purge, just stops.

Hot Water 

Faster hot water flow rate, and control over it, and less stuttering
Realtime control over hot water flow rate, same control as with Steam and Flush
Hot water is now automatically temperature accurate, reducing flow if needed
Faster starting hot water

Flush 

Control over the Flush flow rate, both faster and slower than previously possible
Flush auto stop timer in Insight skin
Too long a flush at too high a flow rate generates a warning, and also triggers group head warmup, to prevent too-cool espresso making
Realtime control over Flush flow rate, same control as with Steam and Hot Water

App 

Smart Charging: prevents the "tablet battery swells" problem, extends battery life. Automatically keeps battery charged between 55% and 65%.
Tap-on-blue-colored-numbers throughout the app, to get a full screen data entry page. No more tap-tap-tap on +/- controls
Enrique's attractive DUI controls now used widely
GHC Purple LEDs flash each time a profile is update


----------



## decent_espresso

*8 Decent video shoots next week*

The next 8 Decent live video tapings will be about:

*Deep Espresso Questions*, the first episode. Decent's Mohammed Magdi will be asking our resident coffee expert Paul Chan, all sorts of deep questions about Dark vs Light roast, that anyone new to espresso might be thinking. 
Paul has been working on *lower temperature espresso (in the 80ºC range),* specifically for taming *darker roasted* coffee. 
The new *water distribution parts* are coming to the DE1 in a few months. What's the benefit?
How to *increase the body* of your espresso. We discuss headspace, spacer kits and different basket shapes.
how to *Make your Android tablet battery free*. We have a low cost kit (it's free for DE1 owners with Android battery problems) that you can use to remove your battery and make it run directly off USB power. Also: how to make the same mod to other brand tablets.
The Decent Espresso Machine *v1.44* is shipping in January. What's new in the hardware?
*Double-walled glass versus ceramic*, for espresso drinkware? Benefits of each discussed.
The *Decent Simple Scale*, explained.

I'll only be posting once a week about our upcoming videos, so that this channel doesn't get clogged with video announcements.

If you want to know about our upcoming live video tapings, subscribe to our calendar:

Youtube Channel: https://youtube.com/@Decentespresso
Google Calendar: http://decent.la/@gcal
Apple iCal: click "File/New Calendar Subscription" with: http://www.decent.la/@ical

Each "live taping" is made "unlisted" after the event, so that we can video edit it into something concise are professional. The edited version is then released some weeks later.

During the live event, we watch the Youtube Chat and you can ask any questions you might have, which we'll address toward the end of each taping.


----------



## decent_espresso

*Five Decent Espresso video tapings we're doing this week*

Here are the five Decent Espresso video tapings we're doing this week.

As always, these are live events where you can follow and ask questions. Each video will then be edited and released at a later date. 

Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Decentespresso
Google Calendar: http://decent.la/@gcal
Apple iCal: click "File/New Calendar Subscription" with: http://decent.la/@ical

-john


------------------------------
*Internal DE1 architecture: how it works*

The DE1 espresso machine doesn't have a boiler, yet is has 0.3C accurate water temperature, that can be accurately changed in a tenth of a second.

It can also change pressure and flow instantly.

How is all this possible?

Here's a deep dive into the architecture and technology inside the DE1.



------------------------------
*DE1XL Overview*

The DE1XL (and DE1XXL) espresso machine is our flagship and most popular model. Learn how it differs from the less-expensive DE1PRO.

We'll cover:

the steam wand
back panel
white color option
optional countersink
height




------------------------------
*Decent is perfect for beginners*

The most common question those new to espresso ask is "what am I doing wrong?"

Yet most espresso machines barely have any sensors on them, and worse yet, those sensors lie to you.

And worse yet, many espresso machines deliver temperature and pressures that will always give you bad espresso, yet hide that fact from you. You literally cannot avoid but fail.

The Decent was created because founder John Buckman was a beginner home barista, making bad espresso with his very-expensive-gear, and only realized it when he got expert 1:1 training.

We'll discuss:

how the charts and visual feedback help beginners know what to do
how to use the community, support, and tablet to learn how to fix what's going wrong with your bad coffee
how the DE1 architecture doesn't lie to you, and shows you what it really did, and does what you tell it to do. Your machine won't be causing your problems any more.
how the Profiles on the DE1 make up for your lack of experience and "fix problems for you" in ways that no other machine does.
How preinfusion, even water distribution, accurate temperature, all help you make the best of your still-new espresso skills.





------------------------------
*Cooking an ice cream custard base with your espresso machine*

Make a custard ice cream base is not easy. You need to slowly heat your milk/cream/egg mix until it thickens, stirring constantly and avoiding burning the sides.

An espresso steam wand makes this so much easier.

Watch and learn how to cook your ice cream custard base with your espresso machine steam wand, and why it's by far the easiest and fastest way to do this.




------------------------------
*Amazing Hot Chocolate from an espresso machine*

The best hot chocolate I've had was made by slowly adding milk to melted chocolate, whisking constantly, as you formed a stable emulsion, a kind of "chocolate mayonaise". Oh my god it was time consuming, but the result was delicious.

You can achieve an even better result than that recipe, with this two step approach that uses an espresso machine steam wand. You'll get even better body from the foaming, the cleanup is significantly easier, and it's super fast too.


----------



## decent_espresso

Here are the five Decent Espresso video tapings we're doing this week. 

As always, these are live events where you can follow and ask questions.

Each video will then be edited and released at a later date. 


Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Decentespresso
Google Calendar: http://decent.la/@gcal
Apple iCal: click "File/New Calendar Subscription" with: http://decent.la/@ical

-john


----------



## decent_espresso

4 minute salted caramel sauce, from scratch

Homemade salted caramel sauce is amazing in espresso. I also use it to sweeten and complexify coffee ice cream, a latte, tiramisu, mocha drinks and coffee eggnog.

It's super easy to make, once you know how.

You'll need 500g (1lb) of white sugar, 1 liter of heavy cream (half a gallon), and 4 minutes of your time.


----------



## decent_espresso

Coffee cart wheels stress test

I've posted before about we modify the IKEA BROR cart to make a low-cost Coffee Cart Decent Espresso Coffee Cart

In Milan, Italy, our wheels all bent due to the rough trade show floor, and we've been trying to design a low cost wheel bracket. A big AHA MOMENT came a few weeks ago, when I thought of welding a threaded block of metal into the angle of the cart leg. We made 4 prototypes, and tested them.

The good news is that the new way of holding the wheels is incredibly strong. It held fast, whereas all our previous designs couldn't survive. Alex put 108kg (238lbs) of water on the cart and with Teddy, they push it around the loading dock of our building.

The bad news is that the stress from this test transferred to other parts of the cart, that we now need to address.
one wheel bolt bent. We think that if we get a wheel that has no nut pushing it away from the bracket, it'll be stronger. We've found a source for wheels like that.
the bracket pushed away from the cart, because it's only fixed with 2 bolts. We're going to drill 2 more bolt holes that people can optionally put 2 bolts through, to give the bracket a 4 bolt mounting
the angled IKEA metal leg itself bent. We think that the 4 bolt mount will help distribute the stress more. But that might be a real limit with IKEA's low cost design.

Still, this is a huge improvement. We now have a bracket that doesn't bend, and "only" need to shore up the bits around the bracket, which seems doable, and not expensive to try.

Once we figure this all out, we'll be selling these 4 wheel brackets to IKEA BROR carts, so you can cheaply make you coffee cart really robust, like we have.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Bernaise sauce with my steam wand

Photographed above is a Béarnaise sauce I made on my espresso machine. It's lathered on top of a kind of eggs benedict that I just ate for breakfast. Bérnaise is a child of Hollandaise sauce, with tarragon, vinegar, and cooked shallots added.

It's a muffin, pata negra ham, pea sprouts (dòu miáo, an amazing Chinese vegetable that cooks like spinach but tastes like peas), poached egg and green onions.

Why the photo, here on an espresso forum?

Well: because I'm trying to develop a technique for making Hollandaise Sauce, and its child sauces, using the steam wand on my DE1. 

I haven't quite nailed the technique yet.

A tricky bit is that as the sauces passes 80ºC it will thicken very, very quickly, and the steam agitation is not enough. I'm also unsure about the right egg/butter ratios, as I prefer to fully cook the eggs so that the sauce lasts a week in my fridge. The photo is from my reheating a sauce I made 3-days ago.

My next experiment will have me put the steam wand into the top of a blender, so that the mix is more thoroughly agitated. Think of it as a steam-heated, precision Thermomix.

Another trick I've used is the new "double tap steam stop" feature in the DE1. This slows the steam down to "almost but not quite stopped", and allows me to slowly reach my end temperature, just as I get near. It does lengthen the time to make the sauce, but it's more foolproof.

The swirling agitation and gentle heating, should be very similar to the traditional technique of whisking while heating with a bain-marie (double boiler), except that the steam wand is faster and easier (in theory).










Oddly, I haven't found anyone on Youtube or elsewhere, who has explored what's possible, cooking with an espresso steam wand.

I realize this isn't about coffee, but it is about espresso machines, and to me, it's interesting to see how far I can take this piece of expensive gear, in new directions.

-john


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## decent_espresso

Success! I've managed to make a great hollandaise with my Decent, though I'm still tweaking the recipe (today's attempt was a bit too citrusy).

This Friday I'll shoot a video on how to make hollandaise sauce with an espresso steam wand and a blender.

Here's the recipe:


two sticks of French butter
1 large egg
a teaspoon of mustard
Juice from a 1/3rd of a lemon
Teaspoon of salt

You'll need:

an espresso machine with a steam wand
a blender

Instructions:

combine all ingredients (except the butter) in the blender, and blend
add the melted butter and blend again
heat the mix with espresso machine steam to 80ºC
let it sit 1 minute
blend, adjust salt level, and serve.


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## decent_espresso

Our next iteration of the new foam for the DE1 suitcase, just arrived. 

One major goal with this is to unify the DE1XL and DE1PRO foam so that we use the same for both. The foam is much more dense and more long lasting. The stronger foam also means we have spaces for commonly used accessories (tamper, milk jug, etc)...

This is still a work on progress, and is planned for v1.45 machines, for July 2023.


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## decent_espresso

Almost magical AI to improve Decent audio on our videos

Adobe recently released into beta, and AI that essentially "reperforms" the speaking on a video, and the effects are almost magical. Enhance Speech from Adobe | Free AI filter for cleaning up spoken audio

Here is a video we recently shot, where the sound is quite echoey, switching the AI off and on. The echo here was because I move around a lot as I point to things inside the Decent, and so the mics were often not close to me.






When there is no background noise, the effect is perfect. Echo is removed, but so is background noise, and the sound quality of our voices is recording studio quality. The AI also removed the slight audio distortion on my voice, as the gain was set too high on the original.

I wanted to see what would happen if there were substantial background noises. 






The AI can't handle extended background noises at all. However, it does a good job handling the "tinkle" sound of the funnel tapping the portafilter, and other such short-duration sounds. It's particularly amusing at the end of this clip, where the new audio track makes incomprehensible sounds that are sort of like words.

We'll definitely be using this AI on all our no-background-noise videos, as there's no downside. The result is really amazing. 

-john


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## decent_espresso

Poaching eggs with espresso steam

Here's what I'm currently working on... full video to be shot live on monday.
---

An espresso machine makes the best poached eggs, because the steam wand is able to keep a gentle whirlpool going during the entire egg cooking process, while traditional cooking methods cannot.

Recipe:

Set your DE1 to "two tap steam stop" (important!)
1/3rd fill a fairly large pot with cold water
Steam heat the water to 95ºC, while perfecting your whirlpool
Stop the steam
Break a raw egg in the center
Let the "two tap steam stop" continue to slowly circulate the water
Cook egg for 3 minutes
Serve


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## decent_espresso

Ruby, the Decent Christmas Tree

Here's Ruby, who alone builds all the "group head controllers" that go on every espresso machine we make, getting into the Christmas spirit.

She dressed up as a Christmas tree and surprised us all by wheeling around gifts for all of us.

Bugs and I are taking the whole staff off "shrimping" in a few minutes. This is a restaurant where you try to catch your own shrimp (and lobster) and if you catch it, the cook will prepare it for you. Yum!

And afterwards, we're all off for a 3 day weekend, see you next week!


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## decent_espresso

What's new in DE1 hardware v1.44

Black machines will come with handles made from resin, that's much longer lasting than black painted wood.
We're removing the 3 small front screws that hold the front faceplate, as it looks better that way.
A new water intake filter, switching from the off-the-shelf mesh we've always had, to our own design. Needs less frequent cleaning.
We are moving off NBR rubber, which is the standard on Italian pro machines, to Silicone Rubber, which is preferences of the Home Barista community.
Torx screw heads for all group head pars, so you won't strip the heads.
New standby switch design, to improve clarity of how it works


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## decent_espresso

New 360º view of our espresso machine

We're working to replace the 360º movie we have of each espresso machine model we offer, with real photography instead of a 3D render. We're close to having some we like, and here you can see how we do it.


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## Shultz

Shame you don't take kidneys as the geek in me would absolutely die for one of these 🤤


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## decent_espresso

*DECENT GASKET REMOVAL TOOL*

We've designed our own group head gasket removal tool.

We tested lots of gasket removal tools, but found that:

the ends of most were too thick to easily insert along the side wall of the gasket. 
Or.... they were too fragile and the tool tip bent under use.

What we liked best, was a professional dental tool.

So we contact a dental tools manufacturer, and tried all the ends they sold.

We then made our own tool, with the two ends we liked the best.




*DEEP DIVE ABOUT GROUP HEAD GASKETS*

Paul and I did a "brain dump" of everything we know about espresso gaskets, and what you might like to know too.

I know, I know, a 22 minute video about the espresso gasket is a bit hard to believe.

But yeah, it turns out, there are lots of things to say about this very humble part.

The gasket video isn't targeted specifically at Decent Espresso customers. It's really just everything we know about gaskets, that you might find useful to know too.


http://decentespress.com/gasket


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## BLADE

decent_espresso said:


> *DECENT GASKET REMOVAL TOOL*
> 
> We've designed our own group head gasket removal tool.
> 
> We tested lots of gasket removal tools, but found that:
> 
> the ends of most were too thick to easily insert along the side wall of the gasket.
> Or.... they were too fragile and the tool tip bent under use.
> 
> What we liked best, was a professional dental tool.
> 
> So we contact a dental tools manufacturer, and tried all the ends they sold.
> 
> We then made our own tool, with the two ends we liked the best.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *DEEP DIVE ABOUT GROUP HEAD GASKETS*
> 
> Paul and I did a "brain dump" of everything we know about espresso gaskets, and what you might like to know too.
> 
> I know, I know, a 22 minute video about the espresso gasket is a bit hard to believe.
> 
> But yeah, it turns out, there are lots of things to say about this very humble part.
> 
> The gasket video isn't targeted specifically at Decent Espresso customers. It's really just everything we know about gaskets, that you might find useful to know too.
> 
> 
> http://decentespress.com/gasket


I noticed that Group head gasket and removal tool is already available on the website.

How long is the service life of this silicone Group head gasket? If you have four cups a day, can you use it for a year? If purchased as a spare part, how long will it have a shelf life?

Thank you！


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## decent_espresso

BLADE said:


> I noticed that Group head gasket and removal tool is already available on the website.
> How long is the service life of this silicone Group head gasket? If you have four cups a day, can you use it for a year? If purchased as a spare part, how long will it have a shelf life?


The lifespan of a gasket isn't so much related to how many coffees you make, but how you treat it. Specifically, if you do these things:
1) leave the portafilter locked in tight and forget about it
2) and turn the machine off (causing thermal cycling)
3) don't brush coffee off your basket before locking in the portafilter
4) overly tighten your gasket when locking in the portafilter.

then your gasket will have a short life.

Avoid these things, and 2 years is not an uncommon lifespan.


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