Decent Espresso Machines (DE1) - Any thoughts?

[Juvv]

Respectable answer mate! I also wasn't trying to push you into a corner, I was just honestly interested and you answered with such an honest answer. Refreshing ! I'll go back and read through the thread.
Dunno if I could wait till August for a new machine haha !

[>decentespresso]

Respectable answer mate! I also wasn't trying to push you into a corner, I was just honestly interested and you answered with such an honest answer. Refreshing

No worries, it's a good question.

Dunno if I could wait till August for a new machine haha !

Yeah, I know, I wish I could speed that up but we're starting with just 4 people assembling machines, with a big backlog of orders already, and I don't want to compromise on quality by ramping up too fast or outsourcing it all.

So far, we've learned so, so much in building our own machines, that I can't imagine how it would ever have been possible to outsource manufacturing without it being a total disaster. For a product this complex, we really need to have the designers and assemblers eating lunch together.

-john

[Juvv]

I think that's probably for the best. People are paying good money and quality is so important in this industry.

I think with that attitude you'll go just fine with these bad boys !

[>decentespresso]

Australian-living-in-Canada Ben Champion is taking photos while making espresso with his DE1+. He’s got a knack for this, I’d say.

[gc]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]18759[/ATTACH]

Australian-living-in-Canada Ben Champion is taking photos while making espresso with his DE1+. He’s got a knack for this, I’d say.

I think you're right. Very professional photo.

[Juvv]

I did a cool video for my mates cafe , it basically is him pouring a coffee but it's an unlimited pour and nothing is moving in the pic except the coffee.

Is Ben on the forum I wanna get some feedback!

[bachamp]

I'm always lurking, what do you want to know?

[>decentespresso]

News on the drip tray

News on the drip tray
(and avoiding potential aluminum tarnishing)



We received a sample of electroplated aluminum applied to our drip tray (left=electroplated, right=normal [after 3 months]).

I vigorously rubbed the bottom of a rough ceramic mug all over the plating, which did produce micro-scratches that were visible if you really, really, really looked for them. Seems pretty durable.

The downside is that the electroplating is not guaranteed to be food safe, so with this process, I can't recommend that people recycle the waste water from the drip tray onto their garden. There's always a compromise, it seems.

And, I don't yet have a price quote for what this electroplating process would cost.

-john

[gc]

Honestly, what is wrong with stainless steel? It works for everyone else.

[>decentespresso]

Honestly, what is wrong with stainless steel? It works for everyone else.

Manufacturing is often a lot slower than people realize. For these parts, 3 months is a reasonable lead time (in aluminum), once we decide to go ahead with it. For a Stainless Steel version, 4 months is the quoted delay. We've already paid about USD$10,000 for an aluminum mold, which took 2 months to make. A new mold for stainless will cost about $15,000 and take 2 months to make. These fixed costs are not trivial when you're making small quantities of a product, as we are.

As I don't want this seemingly trivial part to stop the entire shipping schedule, we'll proceed with the aluminum drip tray covers we already have made (plus, we paid USD$7 each for 1000 of them, plus the mold cost). Thus far, one beta tester of 6 has had tarnishing/blemishes appear, so the phenomena is not necessarily universal. We will replace any tarnished ones gratis, once we have a solution in stock.

Most other machines use punched stainless steel, which leaves sharp edges and tends to pool water droplets. We're casting metal, which is a different approach, meant to avoid that problem, but it's more expensive, and more complicated.

If you were to look back at the extensive HB discussion about drip tray covers, you'd find that a lot of forum participants don't particularly like the current designs of drip tray covers.

It's also not a certain thing that this design will work in Stainless, because there was a lot of hand-work to clean up mold lines, something which will be more difficult on stainless than the softer aluminum. We don't want to hold up manufacturing for a few months due to this piece, so we're considering a few alternatives.

We're trying to solve those problems with a different design and approach, but there are bumps in the road.

-john

[Juvv]

Well what a journey! Just read every page of this thread and what a journey you guys have been on. Wish you and your team all the best John

[gc]

John,
Re: the drip tray.
I do appreciate the pragmatism based on the already sunk costs of the drip tray, but never thought it an issue that really needed solving, unlike the many dissatisfied commentators that you mentioned earlier. A quick wipe on the pressed SS drip tray on my HX machine never seemed too onerous. And stainless is virtually incorruptable in this use case. Aluminium will eventually suffer oxidation, pitting and staining like any aluminium cooking pots and pans unfortunately - but we always knew that. (didn't you?)

[>decentespresso]

John,
Re: the drip tray.
I do appreciate the pragmatism based on the already sunk costs of the drip tray, but never thought it an issue that really needed solving, unlike the many dissatisfied commentators that you mentioned earlier. A quick wipe on the pressed SS drip tray on my HX machine never seemed too onerous. And stainless is virtually incorruptable in this use case. Aluminium will eventually suffer oxidation, pitting and staining like any aluminium cooking pots and pans unfortunately - but we always knew that. (didn't you?)

My assumption is that we're going to end up with stainless steel with this, but:
1) it will likely take 4 to 6 months to move to stainless for this piece, because
2) we might have technical challenges with removing mold "parting lines" on our thin bars.
3) our thin bars might be too thin for stainless to flow evenly
4) we might have to change the design in a few ways, to accommodate this different material (crossbars, thicker lines, greater spacing) and the iteration cycle is very slow.

Various metal molding companies have called all these things out to us during the bidding process, and it took about 6 months for us to get the current-model aluminum trays to be acceptable (there's a log of previous iterations on this forum).

My engineer Fabrice is specifically a molding specialist (he used to work for a big mold consulting company in France) and he suggests that it typically takes a year to move a part successfully to molding. ODE told me it took them 2 years to get their pump molds perfect.

These real-world timelines, and my desire to actually ship machines in the meantime, suggest that I need to find acceptable compromises now, and slowly improve parts (and thus, the machine) over time.

-john

[bigdaddy]

My assumption is that we're going to end up with stainless steel with this, but:
1) it will likely take 4 to 6 months to move to stainless for this piece, because
2) we might have technical challenges with removing mold "parting lines" on our thin bars.
3) our thin bars might be too thin for stainless to flow evenly
4) we might have to change the design in a few ways, to accommodate this different material (crossbars, thicker lines, greater spacing) and the iteration cycle is very slow.

Various metal molding companies have called all these things out to us during the bidding process, and it took about 6 months for us to get the current-model aluminum trays to be acceptable (there's a log of previous iterations on this forum).

My engineer Fabrice is specifically a molding specialist (he used to work for a big mold consulting company in France) and he suggests that it typically takes a year to move a part successfully to molding. ODE told me it took them 2 years to get their pump molds perfect.

These real-world timelines, and my desire to actually ship machines in the meantime, suggest that I need to find acceptable compromises now, and slowly improve parts (and thus, the machine) over time.

-john

If it pans out that your solution to this possible problem is you do go to stainless steel say in 12 months time and in the meantime customers have the aluminium tray and tarnishing is an issue...Would you automatically change that tray to stainless steel or the better solution?

Cheers.

[>decentespresso]

If it pans out that your solution to this possible problem is you do go to stainless steel say in 12 months time and in the meantime customers have the aluminium tray and tarnishing is an issue...Would you automatically change that tray to stainless steel or the better solution?

If their tray had tarnished, then I'd replace it for free. If their tray had not tarnished, then it would be something the customer could choose to purchase.

I hope you understand, that as we change (and improve) our espresso machines, we can't be offering no-cost retrofits to all previous customers, unless we're actually fixing a problem.

-john