Its a standard Torx screw, T10 maybe, I cant remember. easy to remove and reuse.
You remove the screws then the panels slide upwards or rearwards to unlock. Its a 30 second job once you have done it once (and own a set of Torx bits. I think they are deep enough in you need a screwdriver to do it, a 1/4 hex will not fit).
I modded mine to increase pressure and also temperature, also tried refilling pods. Ended up going back to standard after a few weeks of mucking around, the pump was struggling, the heat made no improvement to the pods and trying to refill the pods partly stuffed up the press seal. All in all a total fail, I use it for late night chai lattes almost exclusively now.
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Aldi Expressi Coffee Machine Review - (Lots of pictures)
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Why do you want to clean the internals? Has something leaked? If you post a picture of the screws it should be easy to tell what type they are.
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opening the covers/casings of an aldi expressi 2011 model
Back in 2011 there was a coffesnobs post about opening the covers of an aldi expression machine. I just want to carefully clean the internals.what's the best way to open the covers and what tool will you need, as the screws at the bottom have no slots a Philips head or flat screwdriver can't really do it,.also once opened can you close it easily after with the same screws. Seems to be some kind of one way or tamper proof screws
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Tinkering is fun and a good way to learn how things work, nothing wrong with that.
Cheers
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Its convenient, fast and clean, the only thing missing is that it hardly works and is not reuseable standard.
Aiming to fix that. I want to just refill a dozen or so pods at a tine and not think about it the rest of the week.
I have an old sunbeam that I depressurised the basket, lucky to get a good shot in 2 out of that, its kinda annoying me.
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Been a few years since a post here but I bought one last week and figured it needs an update.
Firstly the aldi pods now have a disperser on the top of them, plus the machine has now changed to a less retro design, from looking at photos it does appear the guts have changed a little.
I pulled mine apart last night and monitored the block temperature via thermocouple while using a few pods.
Firstly the temperature control seems a bit erratic though I only had the thermocouple kapton taped to one side of the block whereas the thermistor in use (47k cold and about 9k hot) is right on the output of the block.
Flow rate to me seems too high, highest temp I saw was 77C and it would drop to 64C during a coffee pour. It appears to turn the heater on full during a pour even if it exceeds the regular temperature.
Not happy with this I added both a hose clamp restrictor and also a 2.2k series resistor, this dropped flow to about half of regular in the rinse cycle.
thermistor change brought idle temp up to around 86C and during a pour I saw a peak of 97C.
Interestingly the bog standard pods taste a bit like crap after these mods, a lot of bitterness no noticeable change in crema.
However, refilled pods are much improved (home roasted cs green beans of course)
Having issues with the refilled pods sealing, any sort of tamp (finger or back of scoop) results in zero coffee output though it does seem to be delivering some to the pod waste tray.
Went through a dozen pods trying different things, tamp amounts, coffee quantity etc, only half decent result was by rewrapping the top of the top disperser with glad wrap and trimming the underside to size, filling to the top and not tamping at all, shot is still watery in the last half though..
Research will continue..
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That is a very simple solution to refilling pods.Originally posted by hadestar View PostFound a good method for refilling the aldi pods with my own coffee. Hope you can all use it. See here: http://youtu.be/G_diRXTQA48
edit: Only one post for me so far? I thought I had at least a few.Last edited by prozac; 26 January 2016, 02:52 PM.
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Found a good method for refilling the aldi pods with my own coffee. Hope you can all use it. See here: http://youtu.be/G_diRXTQA48
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I cannot seem to program the pour size. 50ml and 100m are default. I want 40ml or even 30ml.1) Like any coffee machine you gotta learn how to drive it. Especially learn to program the shot size. Dont press the 100ml lungo button, in fact dont put any more than 40ml through a capsule.
2) Pre-heat you cup.
My last machine (one of the originals) allowed me to hold the button in, and release when i got to 40ml(with a pod in) the new machine wont except this?
Any pointers?
cheers
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Good effort, love a little DIY.
Though if staying awake, no-doze are probably far more convenient...
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Good story themurphs. I wish I had time to tinker with a coffee machine at work.
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Sounds like an ideal craft project for a primary school class
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HI Andy,
I know this is flogging a dead horse, but i bought one of these machines about 14-18 months ago.
Now before anyone judges me, my purchase was made before i joined up to coffeesnobs.
My main reason for the purchase was as an alternative to the free instant coffee that the company offers.
It also fit perfectly into my locker and it main purpose was to keep me awake on night shift.
Everything i had from this machine was average but found it still better than instant.
Since joining this forum, The machine has sat in my locker gathering dust.
I am now using a plunger/grinder with coffee I roast myself, This is a far better alternative.
However, getting to the point.
The other night reading this post and ignoring your advice of tampering with it, I decided to get the machine out of my locker and play around with it.
One i the main issues i found with mine was the temperature. i was getting 65 degrees for a shot.
I saw what you did and throttled the flow on the pipe leading to the pod with a couple of cable ties.
This increased my shot temp to 82-84 degrees. Still pale crema.
I still was not happy!
I packed my own capsules, with freshly ground coffee.
Much much better, but very time consuming.
I then found another way to increase the temperature..........
***PLEASE DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!!!!!!!******
I did this because i was not happy with this machine, boredom and i know what i am doing. Well, sometimes! (see below)
I removed the restriction from the hose and offset the thermocouple by placing a 5k ohm resistor in series.(PIC 2)
This increased my temperature to 92-94 degrees(PIC 1), PERFECT....
However,
I don't think the machine is designed to handle this.
I have had two pods explode on me since i made this modification.(PIC 3)
One of them i packed, so i put this down to maybe too fine and too compacted.
The second one was a pod i bought today for experimenting. (single origin sumatra pods).
They make a hell of a mess when they go boom, good thing I use this at work and not at home as the wife would kill me.
I Tried a higher resistor originally, but was boiling the water and the machine did not like it ( it was acting like a pressure cooker without a release valve).
Since the explosions, i have placed a 4K7 pot on the side of the machine for adjustment. (PIC 4)
Though i have improved this machine a lot, it is probably going back in my locker. I cannot get a satisfactory coffee out of these pods unless i pack my own coffee into them, and for something that is meant to be convenient that does take a bit of time.
Back to the plunger!
Cheers Glen.
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