Decent Espresso Machines (DE1) - Any thoughts?

[>decentespresso]

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.

[>decentespresso]

Here's a Decent Espresso Factory Tour I gave in this weekend's zoom call:

[>decentespresso]

Good progress from the Smart Espresso Profiler folks
https://www.naked-portafilter.com/sm...esso-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.

UPDATE: Gabor released a new video, using the DE1 + SEP to imitate the La Marzocco Leva
https://www.instagram.com/p/CE1su97BbOX/

[FineGrind]

John a bit off topic here but are there any plans to have steaming power adjustable on the + and the pro in the future? As Tampit pointed out in a post the steam is quite powerful for a 300 ml jug. And now even more powerful!

One more question. With the cafe model having dual 2200 watts of power will the machine heat up time be quicker? Not that 4 mins is a problem but just curious.

FG.

[>decentespresso]

John a bit off topic here but are there any plans to have steaming power adjustable on the + and the pro in the future? As Tampit pointed out in a post the steam is quite powerful for a 300 ml jug. And now even more powerful!

At the moment you can change the steam power in a permanent way by going to Settings->Machine->Calibrate

But yes, we're planning on making the Group Head Controller be able to change the power of the steam in real time, just like you can do now for espresso. It'll be a free firmware upgrade.

One more question. With the cafe model having dual 2200 watts of power will the machine heat up time be quicker? Not that 4 mins is a problem but just curious.

Yes, about a third faster, is what we're estimating. About 3 minutes warmup time, would be our guess. It's at 4.5 minutes currently.

[>decentespresso]

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:

[theonetruepath]

I want to know who ordered one quarter of a machine...

[>decentespresso]

I want to know who ordered one quarter of a machine...

The current month in that chart is an estimate based on sales so far this month. We can get a fraction in the estimate, as we're only 9/30th into September. We've actually sold 47 machines in September so far this month, which translates into a projection of 176.25 machines for the entire month.

Historically the monthly forecast fluctuates down mid-month, and then back up toward the end of the month, as there's an unexplained, but regular and recurring, dip in sales in the middle of each month. This is historical weekly sales, where you can see the cycle clearly:

[>decentespresso]

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

[>decentespresso]

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.

[FineGrind]

I was asked yesterday what the impact was of COVID, on manufacturing.

From my perspective, what I've seen is previously-reliable suppliers, now turning out low quality work. And, they're skipping steps.

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.

So... making stuff is a bit of a challenge at the moment, if you want to make good stuff.

-john

I have just purchased a DE1 Pro. I just wanted to say that if I have to wait longer for quality, I would much prefer to wait.

[>decentespresso]

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

[338]

[*]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.

John impressive performance increase! It sounds like you are running both heaters at once when you talk of the full 4 metres. If so there is no way this will work on Australian 'home power plugs'. Ours are rated at 10 amps only and our 15 amp and 20 amp plugs are physically different to stop errors. Thought I should mention as it would be tragic if the worst happened.

[Ted2013]

338 Think you got that wrong. 10 amps at 240V gives you 2400W so the 2200W heater should have a margin for error and allow the current draw of the rest of the machine.

[Ted2013]

That is assuming heaters are not 2200W each which would be hard to believe.