Decent Espresso Machines (DE1) - Any thoughts?

[>decentespresso]

Portafilter alignment jig

A few months ago we had a problem with our portafilters not locking in a position that was symmetrical to the group head handle.

This was caused by a 0.2mm difference in thickness in a fiberglass insulating spacers board we use to regulate this.

We had to disassemble all the group heads and rebuild them with newly sourced spacers, which took several people, several weeks to do.

So Decent R&D engineer Alex designed, 3d printed, and built this jig.

It will go to our group head CNC manufacturer so they can now quickly test that the alignment is correct. The green area shows the acceptable range, whereas the red area means "not acceptable"

-john

[>decentespresso]

High amperage cake

Thanks to Decent customer Phuong for buying the Decent staff today's 3 cakes!

I scheduled it as part of the visit by my friend Anant, who works for German thermal-protection devices company "Intercontrol"

Anant is doing us a huge favor.

His company makes the world's best (and expensive!) thermal protection devices. We met accidentally on a yacht party thrown by our apartment landlord, and he later convinced me that going cheap on a thermal safety device was very unwise, as this little part could accidentally decide a thermal event had occurred, and turn the machine off. Or worse, something could go wrong, and the thermal safety might not function correctly. Safety is worth paying for.

So... we buy "made in Germany" for our thermostats on our hot water, steam and group head heaters. This is the advantage of charging a high price of our machine: we can afford to buy the good stuff.

Anyway, to get back to how Anant is helping us.

As of this year, we switched to our own-design water heaters, and the thermal safety we use https://www.intercontrol.de/en/contr...marty-compact/ is a compact clip that is in the center (in pink) in the drawing.




It's goes up to 10A of power. We've paid a USD$20,000 mould for our heater design (and surrounding insulation) so we're really quite invested in this thermostat design from Intercontrol.

We would like to make high amperage versions of these heaters, but it turns out this thermostat only exists up to 10A. In January, we're testing versions at 12A, 13A, 15A and 20A.

Anant got preliminary approval to create a new, custom product just for us. A high amp version of this company thermostat. In Germany they'll be hand making some samples of this for us. He was coming by to hear more about our need, and sales projections to argue for this to high superiors.

Without this favor to us, we'd be stuck at 10A unless we paid for a new mould. So, we're really grateful, and naturally, that called for cake.

So Phuong Truong Phuong if we manage to make high amperage versions of the DE1 next year, you'll have made it possible, thanks to your gift of cake.

-john

[>decentespresso]

Damian's DSX Skin (zoom call)

Damian's DSX skin for the Decent DE1 is a favorite among power users. Here's a deep dive into every aspect of it, from the creator himself.

[SAHD]

Could be a silly question but can’t find it in the pages.

Does a regular e61 portafilter fit in the decent? Recently bought some great (more colourful) pesado portafilters and thinking of upgrading to the decent and wondering whether these will fit? or whether I can only use the decent branded ones?

thanks

[>decentespresso]

Does a regular e61 portafilter fit in the decent? Recently bought some great (more colourful) pesado portafilters and thinking of upgrading to the decent and wondering whether these will fit? or whether I can only use the decent branded ones?

E61 and La Marzocco Portafilters all work. We have a big box of portafilters from all sorts of machines, that we test from. The only portafilters that don't work are the Simonelli ones, with the wings at a 30% angle.

The locking point on portafilters does vary a bit, due to the thickness of the wings, but that's all. And you can adjust the locking point by changing our group head gasket out to a thicker or thinner one.

[>decentespresso]

Locking things down

For the first 2 years of making the DE1 espresso machine, by far the most common problem was an electrical cable connection shaking off during shipping.

We bought a "shipping simulator" and for 4 years, every machine was shaken 12h, to find all possible manner in which that could happen.

We stopped buying assembled cables from companies, and instead started buying cable components, directly from the manufacturer, building our own cables, and subjecting them to intense tests. Over time, we moved to having all our cables custom made for us by BMA https://www.bma-tech.com/ with our specific choice of components, no substitutions allows.

We've mostly succeeded, but occasionally there's a problem.

Last week, on our our customers received a new machine couldn't steam. After a brief video chat with Charles, we saw that the power cable to the steam heater had shaken off. It's quite incredible that it can, because we yank of each power cable twice. Once when it's assembled, and once again during final check, by another person. But, it happened.

So, I discussed with my team, how we could finally make this problem go away, permanently and certainly. After testing a few ideas, we found that shrink tubing (which shrinks when hit with hot air) over the insulated connectors themselves, would make disconnection impossible. We're using UL certified, fire-safe shrink tubing, because we're paranoid.

On the T that splits the water intake between two pumps, we connect silicone tubes. We then tie those down with cable wraps, and cut the ends. A lot of companies do that, such as the new Eagle One machine. However, with research we found that's not best practice, because those cable ties exert uneven pressure on the tube, and also can pinch the tube. We tested various designs, and settled on a UK-made "water tube lock", which you can see in the bottom right photo. Yes, we really are importing these from the UK!

Though it's not a common problem, I'm looking at switching to locking IEC power cables, like these https://www.mouser.com/new/schaffner...IEC-lockcords/ for the future.

I'm sure there'll still be a cable or two that manages to wriggle loose every once in a while, somewhere on a machine of ours, somewhere in the world. But at least now I feel we've found most of them, and we'll continue to lock down any weaknesses that we find.

This feedback loop, of customer-problems-to-feedback-at-the-factory, is one of the greatest benefits of our not using resellers. Charles, Shin, Magalie and Omri repair DE1 machines all over the world, and we discuss and photo every single problem, on Basecamp, with me and the rest of the assembly team.

-john

[saeco_user]

Do you have a trick to easily remove the heatshrink tubing when servicing? I imagine some of the joined connectors would need opening.

[level3ninja]

Those water tube lock devices look eerily similar to what I use on my garden sprinkler piping.

[SanderP]

http://www.diyirrigation.com.au/Ratc...p-1-c-267.html


Something like this I assume

Cheers

[>decentespresso]

Yes @sandersp exactly the same thing. We tried 3 different models, and the UK made one, at 2x the price, was simply better plastic moulded. The other two had inconsistencies that made it hard sometimes to ratchet it closed.

[FNQ]

The irrigation type connectors go very brittle quite quickly - I have had to dig holes in the lawn to verify that they fracture more often than i like.

[NCbrewer]

Are the water requirements for a DE any different than for other old school machines?

[>decentespresso]

Are the water requirements for a DE any different than for other old school machines?

Identical. Pick your water for taste and lack of calcium.

[Budgiesmuggler]

I LOVE the Golden Era design - any update on when that may be available for purchase? And is cost likely to be ballpark with the DE1 or more expensive?

[>decentespresso]

It's going to be a long time. Plan on a year from now, maybe more. We only have the side profile design: the rest of the design still needs work.

And there's going to be new technology in it, from a year of pure R&D that I've given my R&D team to come up with neat stuff.

And so it's going to be a good amount more expensive.

The plan is for the GE1 to be the new top end machine from Decent Espresso, so it's not something we want to rush.

[icantroast]

Where can I find pictured of this design you speak of?

Edit: nevermind, found it on the page before.

[Budgiesmuggler]

Thanks for the quick reply... question is can I wait that long for a new machine...

[>decentespresso]

"Signature drink" concept brings in the crowds

The annual Coffee Show in Seoul Korea just ended, and it was (as expected) much quieter and smaller than usual.

Not so, for our friends at Fillout Cafe, who were crowded every day while other stands stood empty. They are a roastery who runs a cafe, with hopes of selling their beans to other cafes. They had 5 DE1XL machines on their quad-sized stand.

They were promoting the concept of a "signature drink" that is exclusive to your cafe.

Their proposition: cafes are too interchangeable and undifferentiated.

You might go to a restaurant because they make a dish like nobody else. Why not at a cafe?

Their idea was to run with the flavors of good quality light roasted espresso, and build on it.

They call it a "Salt Creme latte", and they:

1. make espresso from an expensive micro lot specialty bean blend
2. extracted at high pressure (at 11bar) with a low flow rate.
3. Add warm foamed milk.
4. Then put a "secret recipe" creme on top of it.
5. A bit of caramel drizzle on it.
6. Finally, a pinch of pink salt on top.

Whether you like this specific drink idea or not is not my point. My point is: cafes could be more creative, could differentiate more, create customer loyalty, and move beyond "tastes like chocolate" flavor profiles, building on the vastness of flavours that come out of better coffee.

James Hoffmann has made a video about his espresso & custom-made tonic drink, which is much the same idea (working the interesting flavors of a good quality, light roasted bean):

There was always a queue to try Fillout's signature drink.

I don't have a photo of their Salt Creme Latte, but from their Facebook page, I see that they are making drinks that are very much Instagram worthy.



Smart.

[Budgiesmuggler]

I like the concept, but for me it sounds like an expensive way to ruin an expensive coffee! I wonder if they’ll make a deconstructed version?

[>decentespresso]

Brian's video about dialing in using the Decent

Brian Quan works at Coffee Housing, a California based charity that works for "Affordable housing for coffee professionals. Coffee Housing is a Silicon Valley based 501(c)(3) certified non-profit tackling the fundamental problem of housing for coffee industry professionals." https://www.coffeehousing.org/

He recently got a Decent, and has started making videos sharing what he's learning.

In this video from a few days ago, Brian explains how he dials in his grind.

Brian is using a different process than I had envisioned. Because of that, his video has spawned an interesting conversation among Decent owners about how to make his approach easier. We're thinking about having "God shot" templates included with each profile that comes with the Decent. Dialing in would then be a (fairly) simple matter of adjusting your grind and dose to come close to the sample curves that we provide (for pressure and flow, using that profile).

[FNQ]

"a California based charity that works for "Affordable housing for coffee professionals. Coffee Housing is a Silicon Valley based 501(c)(3) certified non-profit tackling the fundamental problem of housing for coffee industry professionals"

Sorry to go off track for a few seconds but

1. There is a job that wasn't invented when i went to school.
2. Certified non- profit charity. This is one very specific target area. It does highlight the thought that the Hospitality industry in general are not well paid..

Now Back to the Decent..

[338]

FNQ, I am with you here, this is a surprising charity. My local area has Council initiatives for essential workers like nurses, doctors and police. I think the cafes of Silicon Valley should hang their head in shame not paying their staff a living wage.

It would actually be a badge of dishonour to have a staff member living in these quarters. "Mary is able to make your Espresso today only because she lives in subsidised charity accommodation as we don't pay her a living wage".

[>decentespresso]

I don't know why I didn't foresee this, but as soon as people started receiving transparent cases for their DE1 (just shipped out a few days ago), they immediately started putting LEDs inside.

Now, there's an active discussion on the Diaspora DE1 owner's forum, about pimping the inside of your Decent Espresso Machine with LEDs.

I just ordered sound-reactive LEDs, as I thought it'd be fun to have the lights react to the making of a drink.

Disco time!

-john

[lemoo]

brilliant! haha this looks like its very close to dabbing into pc building territory