# Rocket R60v / Vesuvius



## scottgough (Feb 9, 2016)

There have been a few general comments about the Vesuvius being the only true pressure profiling machine. The logic is that the Vesuvius changes the actual pump speed to control pressure, where as the R60v controls pressure via a stepper valve further up the flow stream. As an R60 owner, I thought I'd ask Andrew Meo, owner of Rocket, for his thoughts; very kindly he responded as below. Whether you agree or disagree, I found his answer very interesting.

Hi Scott

Thank you for your email.

I do not agree with these claims!

There are different methods to achieve pressure profiling and in order to do so you must measure the pressure being supplied to the group of the machine.

We do so using a pressure transducer which measures the pump pressure being supplied to the group. The pressure transducer then increases or decreases the pressure to the group to follow the program that has been pre set, via either a gear ump or a motorised solenoid.

We use two methods; the rotary gear pump (that I believe is used in the Vesuvius) in our commercial R 8V machine, and more recently the motorised solenoid valve in the R60V.

The two methods achieve the same results, with neither one or the other being preferred by us.

Simply when the rotary gear pump spins faster, more pressure is delivered, as communicated by the pressure transducer.

In the case of the motorised solenoid valve, the 'normal' rotary pump supplies pump pressure and the solenoid valve which opens and closes many times per second then supplies the correct pressure as measured by the pressure transducer.

In both cases we are measuring the pressure via a pressure transducer and then adjusting that pressure.

Both the gear pump and the motorised solenoid adjust pressure through the use of a pressure transducer, as pressure decreases / increases so does water flow.

Please feel free to share my thoughts on this if you wish to

Regards

Andrew Meo


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

This is beyond my ken.... I suspect that both machines will make very tasty coffee and that's all that matters isn't it ?


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## Xpenno (Nov 12, 2012)

I'm not sure why anyone would say that the Vesuvius was the only real pressure profiling machine, I can only assume that this was related to home machines and was made before machines such as the r60v was released. Either way it seems pretty clear that the r60v is a pressure profiling machine so I'm not sure what the point is here. You could argue that one has a better design over the other but not that one is a true pressure profiling machine and the other is not.


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## scottgough (Feb 9, 2016)

Xpenno said:


> I'm not sure why anyone would say that the Vesuvius was the only real pressure profiling machine


Neither do I. I think both are excellent machines that have different ways of tackling the same task. Technology changes, I'm sure others will find different ways of achieving the same as well.


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## Obnic (Jan 14, 2014)

Some might argue that one has a better shaped steam arm, or that one has more kitchen chic


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## h1udd (Sep 1, 2015)

Some might argue that they can't afford one of them .... But they "really" can't afford the other


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

Hasn't one got a set number of profiles and other is completely programmable to whatever you want? I'm guessing...

My Pavoni pressure profiles, it just goes on how hard I pull the lever (..and saves me a few grand in the process





















)


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## scottgough (Feb 9, 2016)

Rhys said:


> Hasn't one got a set number of profiles and other is completely programmable to whatever you want? I'm guessing..


No. They come with standard profiles built in as starters, but you programme your own profiles into both machines, 7 steps of profiling available on the Vesuvius, only 5 on the R60.


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

scottgough said:


> No. They come with standard profiles built in as starters, but you programme your own profiles into both machines, 7 steps of profiling available on the Vesuvius, only 5 on the R60.


Ah, I see.. Makes me want to ask, just how many steps do you actually need? I will be guessing that someone sooner or later will just use a curve to programme a profiling machine and you just push and pull it around to give the profile you want. So it will gradually ramp up and down instead of being set steps.


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## scottgough (Feb 9, 2016)

I have no idea, working on a 30 second'ish extraction I'm not sure how many steps you could realistically fit in; early days for me, but the most I've used is four. 2 bar, 4 bar, 9 bar, then down to 5 bar.

The whole pulling a curve around 'photoshop style' sounds like a great idea, I wouldn't have thought it was that difficult to implement either.


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## Xpenno (Nov 12, 2012)

scottgough said:


> I have no idea, working on a 30 second'ish extraction I'm not sure how many steps you could realistically fit in; early days for me, but the most I've used is four. 2 bar, 4 bar, 9 bar, then down to 5 bar.
> 
> The whole pulling a curve around 'photoshop style' sounds like a great idea, I wouldn't have thought it was that difficult to implement either.


Pretty sure Decent Espresso are doing this on their machine.


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## scottgough (Feb 9, 2016)

That has to be the ultimate profiling, stepless.


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## Xpenno (Nov 12, 2012)

scottgough said:


> That has to be the ultimate profiling, stepless.


Maybe. There is no way that a smooth line would be accurately achievable because there are too many variables and too much lag in the system. That said I would have liked to have had some kind of acceleration option inside each step so you can say how quickly you wanted to hit the desired pressure. Even without this I have everything I need though.


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## malling (Dec 8, 2014)

The problem with a smooth curve is that you'll need a bigger touch screen with higher resolution, and it can be a bit of a guess when moving around if you won't get numbers to tell you where exactly you are. I could also imagine that it still needs marks that it need to reach at certain times for it to become reliable enough.

As far as I'm concerned I believe it just as easy to make a automatic flow machine that will automatically decrease its flow by being able to sense the flow or keeping the flow through the puck.

Quickmill has launched theirs, so it is not only down to vesuvius and R60 any longer, andreja profiles also uses a gearpump but has a smaller footprint. I must admit I have hold quickmill in higher regards then rocket.


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## scottgough (Feb 9, 2016)

Maybe, or you could adjust the curve via an app on a phone or tablet. You operate the Rocket via an app already, so it's not that big a technology hill to climb. I'll be interested to see the QM machine in action, I've seen little about it so far.


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

scottgough said:


> Maybe, or you could adjust the curve via an app on a phone or tablet. You operate the Rocket via an app already, so it's not that big a technology hill to climb. I'll be interested to see the QM machine in action, I've seen little about it so far.


Lets face it, that new portable roaster uses an iPad/iPhone. So you could download a profile, add it to your machine and share profiles you've created with others. No need for fiddly screens on the machine itself, or could be sold as a tablet as an extra to go with it. All connected by Bluetooth.


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## malling (Dec 8, 2014)

And a pretty useless machine if you don't own a tablet and more expensive as you need to add a tablet and we all know these tablets need replacement multiple times in the life circle of esp machines. Another problem with tablets is that it is old technology and is going to be replaced by other gadgets within few years - then what

Tablets sales has been decreasing the last couple of years and Apples sales has been decreasing every quarter - in a few years apple is going to shelf them just like they did with the Ipods.

So yes clever to build around a dying platform


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

malling said:


> And a pretty useless machine if you don't own a tablet and more expensive as you need to add a tablet and we all know these tablets need replacement multiple times in the life circle of esp machines. Another problem with tablets is that it is old technology and is going to be replaced by other gadgets within few years - then what
> 
> Tablets sales has been decreasing the last couple of years and Apples sales has been decreasing every quarter - in a few years apple is going to shelf them just like they did with the Ipods.


By then they will have brought out something else..

Nearly everyone uses smartphones.. The tablet is just a device to run the app on. For the price of the machine that would use this technology, the price of a tablet/screen/device to control it would be peanuts..


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## UbiquitousPhoton (Mar 7, 2016)

The only reason the iPod was shelved was the lack of demand for them - iPhones basically took over, dminishing demand for the iPod.

The only thing falling in sales is the iPhone, which I believe to be due to peak market basically (also android eating their lunch a bit) and running out of whizzy new features to entice upgrades - I don't believe tablets are going the way of the dodo yet - what would replace them? I know I wouldn't go back to a laptop to do the things I do on tablet, and I wouldn't be without a tablet, basically.


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## malling (Dec 8, 2014)

Smart phones is eating up a substantial part of the market, but I would not want to use it for such purpose, one of the reason is that, these are even worse in longevity, has a shitty battery time and as your walking around with it you also risk losing it or breaking it, meaning a time where you'll end up with a useless machine if there isn't a screen on it!

Bluetooth has certainly improved over the last few years, but still has it's fall out.

So manufactures really need to think about these things. I believe there is a good reason behind Ambient, Quickmill and heck even rocket still adding screens


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## oursus (Jun 5, 2015)

malling said:


> as you're walking around with it you also risk losing it or breaking it, meaning a time where you'll end up with a useless machine if there isn't a screen


That's no more true than loss of your phone with a hive app on it disabling your central heating.

The mebarista app for the mecoffee PID is used to monitor & change variables (including pressure!). The Silvia works just fine without it.


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## PPapa (Oct 24, 2015)

I wouldn't say iPad sales decrease that rapidly that you would need to worry about. Also, iPad Mini can now be replaced with iPhone 6(S) Plus which is sometimes called "iPad Mini Mini". Few years back, iPhone screens were so tiny that you definitely needed iPad (Mini) for multimedia/browsing/etc.

P.s. iPods were great at their time, though. iPhones have replaced them, but some people still use iPods for sports. Spotify and other services have helped to kill iPods, too.


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## scottgough (Feb 9, 2016)

I'm pretty sure we'll have access to smart devices running apps for a long while yet. They're rarely the only way to run a device, usually just an alternative way with added functionality.


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## malling (Dec 8, 2014)

I'm thankfully that manufactures still add screens and that your not forced to own such a device.

If you won't be able to change profile, you'll end up using a profile that might not suit the coffee very well and you end up with functionality in a machine you can't change or use for a while making it useless , thats why you'll need a screen. The screen used on these devices are usually commercial quality and is therefor often more reliable then the low quality junk used in tablets, although nice looking i'll admit.

The problem is that you'll really need one of those monstrous phones, as PPapa point out, unless they are clever enough to design the app so it actual work on a smaller phone, which unfortunately is not always the case - software related issues is often also a massive problem in apps - compability issues is seen way to often especially on Android.


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## h1udd (Sep 1, 2015)

scottgough said:


> I'm pretty sure we'll have access to smart devices running apps for a long while yet.


will it still be compatable in 8 years time to what you can buy though ?

if you take the iPad 1 ... That had a shelf life of under 3 years before it couldn't play YouTube any more

in 8 years time will coffee machine companies be releasing new hardware to cope with Bluetooth v.8 ... Will they still be re-compiling code to run on iOS 24 or androids bubblegum smarties os ?


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## scottgough (Feb 9, 2016)

h1udd said:


> will it still be compatable in 8 years time to what you can buy though?


We can only hope, what's the alternative? Become luddites and refuse to embrace any advances in technology?


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## h1udd (Sep 1, 2015)

The alternative is to throw it away and buy a new one; like the rest of technology today


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## h1udd (Sep 1, 2015)

Or hope they include a basic screen for changing parameters ... And hope replacement units will be as available as 3/8" brass pressure valves, gicar controllers, PID controllers and elka pumps


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## malling (Dec 8, 2014)

For those interested the Andreja profiles uses the same interior as the Verona/Vetrano 2b/M58. The boilers are not made of SS like the r60 and Vesuvius, instead it comes with a 0,7l brewboiler and 1,7l steamboiler both made of T.E.A coated Cupper. Basically it seems like Quickmill decided to just use what already works, meaning they just upgraded it with a new touchscreen (and brainbox) with more functionality and a gear pump.

The boilers still has drain plugs and the steamboiler uses the same combined vaccumbreaker and saftyvalve.

The machine has an onboard timer so you can set it to wake up and close down whenever you want. There is five preset profiles with 7 individual stages, that can be changed individual, it can't be controlled from devices such as Tablet or smartphones, but QM writes that they'll add it if the demand is high enough.


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## nicholas.marotta (Jul 31, 2019)

Xpenno said:


> Maybe. There is no way that a smooth line would be accurately achievable because there are too many variables and too much lag in the system. That said I would have liked to have had some kind of acceleration option inside each step so you can say how quickly you wanted to hit the desired pressure. Even without this I have everything I need though.


 I think u can choose gradual or sudden transitions on the vesuvius


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

nicholas.marotta said:


> I think u can choose gradual or sudden transitions on the vesuvius


 On the Vesuvius you have two areas where you can control pressure response.

1. The PID parameters for the gear pump and how it responds to get to the pressure objective (global parameter(.

2. The pump acceleration parameter, which control the maximum rate/time (rate over time) the pump can reach the required rpm. It is however a global parameter, not something you can change within each stage of a profile..

These two things together can help control the response to any particular profile and changing conditions within the coffee puck. If you know what you are doing this can be fine tuned to give a range of response styles e.g. Low pump acc will give "curves" rather than steps, with a pressure objective rather than a point it will reach if used at the extremes. I don't know about the Rocket machines because I won't review them out of principle after the R58 review I did.


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## kennyboy993 (Jan 23, 2017)

Rhys said:


> Ah, I see.. Makes me want to ask, just how many steps do you actually need? I will be guessing that someone sooner or later will just use a curve to programme a profiling machine and you just push and pull it around to give the profile you want. So it will gradually ramp up and down instead of being set steps.


As this thread has been revived I was reading back through and saw Rhys's prediction of the DE1 before it came out - he should be a presenter on tomorrow's world 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Planter (Apr 12, 2017)

kennyboy993 said:


> As this thread has been revived I was reading back through and saw Rhys's prediction of the DE1 before it came out - he should be a presenter on tomorrow's world
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


It's also quite interesting reading how confident people are regarding things they believe would never happen and wouldn't work, and are proved wrong. Always makes me smile. By the way, Rhys, do you know the lottery numbers for this eve please...

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


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## Hasi (Dec 27, 2017)

@Rhys ?


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

Planter said:


> It's also quite interesting reading how confident people are regarding things they believe would never happen and wouldn't work, and are proved wrong. Always makes me smile. By the way, Rhys, do you know the lottery numbers for this eve please...
> 
> Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


 Believe me, I've been trying myself.. Got close last time, only 5 numbers out!! :classic_laugh:


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## Planter (Apr 12, 2017)

Rhys said:


> Believe me, I've been trying myself.. Got close last time, only 5 numbers out!!


Haha. Sounds similar to me. I won £2.40 in euro millions last month. The ticket cost me £2.50!

Go figure.

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


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