Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, esteemed coffee snobs..
May I present to you after much though and development...
*drum roll please*
The steam wand mod for my Nemox Dell Opera. (for details on the what, how and such see bottom of post).

This "new wand" has a thread that accepts standard commercial tips.
Here are some more broken down shots:
The adapter with tip attached (it screws off the machine)

The tip itself (from the lovely folks at Coffee Parts):

Topdown view from the tip (you can see its a 2-hole):

A happy snap of my machine and setup with the new wand just for good measure. A proud papa likes to show off his kids donchaknow ;-)

So.. how was it made? what were the problems/triumphs etc?
I will direct your attention to this photo:

The standard Nemox Fenice/Dell Opera come with an all-in-one steam tip. That part has been "integrated" into the new part for a reason that I will mention later. In the photo above the original tip makes up the right portion of the adapter up until you see the "join". The original tip is made from chrome plated solid brass.
You can see that the original tip was actually responsible for providing quite a bit of the length of the wand so without it you are left with a pretty short wand with a thread on it.
Here is my bad diagram of how the tip looks before modding -- it is supposed to be a cross section and is oriented 180 degrees different from the photo above.
The ~~ marks denote the screw thread where the arm of the machine screws into. There is also an rubber O ring indented in that chamber to seal it when you put the arm in. I couldnt be bothered putting that in the diagram.. cut me some slack, OK? ;D
At the other end you can see the | | marks.. they denote what is apparently called a "ventry hole". A ventry hole is a hole in a pipe that when something rushes past it, it creates a suction/intake effect. This is because the air/steam rushing out the wand will take the path of least resistance which is that big gaping hole on the right hand side. This effect helps suck air into the milk and create your froth.
The O in the centre shows where the chamber that the wand arm screws into ends and opens up into the big chamber in the part you dip into the milk.
|------------------| |----/
|-----~~-------|
O
|-----~~-------|
|-------------------------/\/
The original plan was to simply measure the thread on the arm the wand on the machine has and create and extender for that, that had a thread on the end that a standard tip may be attached to.
The first big problem was that the thread on the arm itself is *tapered* and if you know anything about screw threads you will know that even a millimeter or two of incorrectness can cause two parts to have no chance of mating.
My friend the metalworker/turner tried his best to find a matching specification that would work, but it wasnt to be.
What he did was make a stainless steel plug that is slightly larger than the big chamber that you would usually dip in the milk and hammer it in so that it formed a formidable seal (no chance of steam escaping). The diameter of the hole he drilled up the centre of this plug was matched with the diameter of the steam wand itself, so as not to affect the steam pressure adversely (that was my theory anyways.. im really just talking out my ass)
When we specced the original extender part we figured what the total length of the wand should be including the tip to work with my jugs and approximated the length of the extender from that.
So now we have a plug hammered into the old part, sealed, with the right hole diameter up the middle. On the end of that was the screw thread that matched the standard 2 hole steam tip you see in the pictures and voila!
You have yourself a wand extendomatic!
First test run of the part did not go well. The ventry hole on the side was larger than the holes in the tip and thus the steam went hissing out the side.. not a desirable effect.
The original plan was to make it so that the mod could be reversed but it became clear that we had to cross that line in order to block the hole.
He hammered a small pin slightly larger than the ventry hole in there, cut it off and buffed it to make it nice and seamless -- using the same sealing principal as the plug that goes into the extender.
After this finishing touch the wand worked like a charm!
You can see in the side where the pin was buffed in because some of the chrome finish on the original tip came off to reveal the brassy finish.

The new wand works pretty well but is taking some getting used to.
I noticed that before I used full steam pressure to steam, but now I only need to open the it up a little otherwise its too much force and the steam pressure is quickly lost.
A problem with it is that because the attachment and wand are different in size it is hard to brace the edge of the jug against and slide up and down and gets in the way.
Time will tell if technique will work around that.
Thanks for reading!
cheers
Lachlan
May I present to you after much though and development...
*drum roll please*
The steam wand mod for my Nemox Dell Opera. (for details on the what, how and such see bottom of post).

This "new wand" has a thread that accepts standard commercial tips.
Here are some more broken down shots:
The adapter with tip attached (it screws off the machine)

The tip itself (from the lovely folks at Coffee Parts):

Topdown view from the tip (you can see its a 2-hole):

A happy snap of my machine and setup with the new wand just for good measure. A proud papa likes to show off his kids donchaknow ;-)

So.. how was it made? what were the problems/triumphs etc?
I will direct your attention to this photo:

The standard Nemox Fenice/Dell Opera come with an all-in-one steam tip. That part has been "integrated" into the new part for a reason that I will mention later. In the photo above the original tip makes up the right portion of the adapter up until you see the "join". The original tip is made from chrome plated solid brass.
You can see that the original tip was actually responsible for providing quite a bit of the length of the wand so without it you are left with a pretty short wand with a thread on it.
Here is my bad diagram of how the tip looks before modding -- it is supposed to be a cross section and is oriented 180 degrees different from the photo above.
The ~~ marks denote the screw thread where the arm of the machine screws into. There is also an rubber O ring indented in that chamber to seal it when you put the arm in. I couldnt be bothered putting that in the diagram.. cut me some slack, OK? ;D
At the other end you can see the | | marks.. they denote what is apparently called a "ventry hole". A ventry hole is a hole in a pipe that when something rushes past it, it creates a suction/intake effect. This is because the air/steam rushing out the wand will take the path of least resistance which is that big gaping hole on the right hand side. This effect helps suck air into the milk and create your froth.
The O in the centre shows where the chamber that the wand arm screws into ends and opens up into the big chamber in the part you dip into the milk.
|------------------| |----/
|-----~~-------|
O
|-----~~-------|
|-------------------------/\/
The original plan was to simply measure the thread on the arm the wand on the machine has and create and extender for that, that had a thread on the end that a standard tip may be attached to.
The first big problem was that the thread on the arm itself is *tapered* and if you know anything about screw threads you will know that even a millimeter or two of incorrectness can cause two parts to have no chance of mating.
My friend the metalworker/turner tried his best to find a matching specification that would work, but it wasnt to be.
What he did was make a stainless steel plug that is slightly larger than the big chamber that you would usually dip in the milk and hammer it in so that it formed a formidable seal (no chance of steam escaping). The diameter of the hole he drilled up the centre of this plug was matched with the diameter of the steam wand itself, so as not to affect the steam pressure adversely (that was my theory anyways.. im really just talking out my ass)
When we specced the original extender part we figured what the total length of the wand should be including the tip to work with my jugs and approximated the length of the extender from that.
So now we have a plug hammered into the old part, sealed, with the right hole diameter up the middle. On the end of that was the screw thread that matched the standard 2 hole steam tip you see in the pictures and voila!
You have yourself a wand extendomatic!
First test run of the part did not go well. The ventry hole on the side was larger than the holes in the tip and thus the steam went hissing out the side.. not a desirable effect.
The original plan was to make it so that the mod could be reversed but it became clear that we had to cross that line in order to block the hole.
He hammered a small pin slightly larger than the ventry hole in there, cut it off and buffed it to make it nice and seamless -- using the same sealing principal as the plug that goes into the extender.
After this finishing touch the wand worked like a charm!
You can see in the side where the pin was buffed in because some of the chrome finish on the original tip came off to reveal the brassy finish.

The new wand works pretty well but is taking some getting used to.
I noticed that before I used full steam pressure to steam, but now I only need to open the it up a little otherwise its too much force and the steam pressure is quickly lost.
A problem with it is that because the attachment and wand are different in size it is hard to brace the edge of the jug against and slide up and down and gets in the way.
Time will tell if technique will work around that.
Thanks for reading!
cheers
Lachlan

? Did you also buy that tip from coffeeparts?
!
.
,
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