Decent Espresso Machines (DE1) - Any thoughts?

[>decentespresso]

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

[>decentespresso]

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/Ap...cts,22195.html

And Africa doesn't want our discards either https://miista.com/en-us/africa-does...-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+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

[>decentespresso]

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

[>decentespresso]

"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

[>decentespresso]

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-...ginners-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:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtWTT2BSZMI&t=5193
(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/espress...re-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

[>decentespresso]

"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" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtWTT2BSZMI

If you don't have 2 hours available to watch the entire video (grin) here are 5 short-and-to-the-point videos that will get you the best from that conversation:

2 pumps for accurate temperature : John shows how the "water mixing" system in the DE1 works, with superheated (110ºC) water in one path, mixing with room temperature water.

The early designs: Along with first Decent mechanical engineer Brad Larson, John shows the early designs of the DE1 and their evolution.

Why was the flow meter was removed? : For 4 years, the Decent espresso machine had a flow meter in it. Now, with v1.4, it does not. Why not?

Will you ever include a boiler? : John explains why Decent will never use a boiler to make steam, and why he thinks that's the right decision.

Are we working on a vibration dampener? : Decent uses "vibratory pumps" and we've previously announced we were researching dampening their sound with "vibration dampeners". We've given up on that approach, and here we explain why.

[>decentespresso]

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

[338]

Very generous of you to reward a contributor like that! Maybe allow people to shout Damian a slice of cake, to increase uptake, especially from Australia. When you pay in US$ the donation is $50 (AU$71) when you pay in AU$ your website automatically adds your cost of doing business in Australia 20% tax and the cost jumps to AU$88. Might get more responses, especially from Aussies by allowing them to choose number of slices?

[>decentespresso]

Update: Decent customers bought 8 cakes were bought for Damian.

Let's hope the sugar rush doesn't affect his productivity!

[>decentespresso]

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.

[>decentespresso]

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/whats...atson/tcsm2020

[>decentespresso]

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 each 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

[level3ninja]

Can I suggest using it as a dog door to enable the pooch to check their appearance before heading out for the day?

[StaticBlue]

The mailbox at my place could do with an upgrade

[>decentespresso]

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

[>decentespresso]

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/no...am=%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: https://www.instagram.com/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

[>decentespresso]

Upcoming Zoom call: Damian's DSX skin

I've written recently https://www.instagram.com/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/8592455387...h3OEJwSTRjZz09

Meeting ID: 859 2455 3874
Passcode: 153915

As always, the call will be video recorded and posted on youtube later.