Decent Espresso Machines (DE1) - Any thoughts?

[>decentespresso]

Decent water flow diagram



Once in a while, someone writes us at tech support, asking for a "water flow diagram". Ben Champion redid our ugly-because-it's-for-internal-use diagram, into this accurate-and-attractive version.

Pressure and temperature sensors are also shown in this diagram. If you can understand this chart, you understand how our espresso machine works.

-john

[gc]

Brilliant! Thanks for the diagram. It's an easy summary of dozens of pages on different forums. I'm sure I'll refer to it a lot. Now..... For the electrical schematics.......

[>decentespresso]

New feature: prepare for suitcase



This new feature appeared in our espresso machines today.

When you pack your Decent Espresso Machine into its suitcase, it would be nice for all the water inside to be pushed out, so that it doesn't leak all over the inside of your suitcase.

So... first you slide your water tank forward in preparation. Then, the espresso machine closes the appropriate valves and runs the water pump through each section where water might be hiding. Because the pumps are "self priming", they're actually fairly good at blowing air forward as well. The whole process takes about 30 seconds.

My apologies for the amateurish photo-graphic that I used to implement this feature. João is rendering something attractive to replace it in the next tablet revision.

-john

[gc]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]18886[/ATTACH]

This new feature appeared in our espresso machines today.

When you pack your Decent Espresso Machine into its suitcase, it would be nice for all the water inside to be pushed out, so that it doesn't leak all over the inside of your suitcase.

So... first you slide your water tank forward in preparation. Then, the espresso machine closes the appropriate valves and runs the water pump through each section where water might be hiding. Because the pumps are "self priming", they're actually fairly good at blowing air forward as well. The whole process takes about 30 seconds.

My apologies for the amateurish photo-graphic that I used to implement this feature. João is rendering something attractive to replace it in the next tablet revision.

-john

Ha! Now that's a feature I will definitely need!........if only I could remember where that setting was again......

[>decentespresso]

Decent HQ: a bit more organized

Here's an update on our progress in putting together a lean, mean, espresso building machine.

[>decentespresso]

DE1+ owner Damian Scisci has a new video: Pressure vs. Flow Profiling

[>decentespresso]

Advanced Profiles



The "ADVANCED PROFILE" editor, which allows you to create virtually any espresso program you like, has been the big remaining unimplemented feature in our espresso machine.

As of today, it (mostly) works, as it's available as a free "app upgrade" inside the tablet software to the Decent Espresso Machine.

Advanced shots can do some interesting things:
- different goal temperatures at different steps in the espresso
- pauses, with no water flow (for preinfusion, or for making a pour-over coffee)
- espresso with more than 3 steps (which can be created in the easier-to-use Pressure and Flow profile editors)
- mixing flow and pressure control strategies, inside a single espresso
- a step in espresso making can conditionally move onto the next step when a certain flow or pressure "exit condition" is met.

I'm attaching some screen pictures of samples of my testing the DE1+ in different ways.

PS: I wrote "(mostly) works" because there are two aspects which aren't yet working, but should be next week:
1) ending an espresso step based on total volume (for now, use "seconds" to control a step)
2) setting the water at a constant temperature (not adapting to the puck temperature sensor) is not yet implemented.

Everything else about the Advanced Shots seems to work, though I do expect that there will be bugs for us to fix, as real users make espresso with this new technology.

-john

[gc]

Is there an updated download to familiarise ourselves with the shot editor in the windows/Linux environment? I'll be interested in how long it takes me after my machine arrives before I start fiddling with the shot editor. It will happen, but there's lots to learn and adjust to first.

[>decentespresso]

Is there an updated download to familiarise ourselves with the shot editor in the windows/Linux environment? I'll be interested in how long it takes me after my machine arrives before I start fiddling with the shot editor. It will happen, but there's lots to learn and adjust to first.

In theory, even in the Desktop version of the DE1+ app, the SETTINGS->MACHINE->APP UPDATE buttons should work, and is much faster than downloading from scratch.

That being said, I have uploaded the "advanced shot" changes to the latest desktop versions as well, so you can :
https://decentespresso.com/downloads

Major proviso: it's 7pm here, and I'm going home now. I see at least one GUI bug (loading the new "Pour Over" profile is very slow) that I will fix tomorrow.

There are probably more GUI bugs, as I've just finished stomping out a half dozen bugs, and I'm certain more will pop up in the next 48h.

And for your amusement, here is a GIF animation I made of a "Pour over" program, which is potentially a useful application of this new feature.

-john

[gc]

Thanks for that info John. As it's 10:30 pm here I'll give us both a break and look into it tomorrow on a bigger screen and also try the update button. Enjoy your evening.

[>decentespresso]

factory progress

Thanks for that info John. As it's 10:30 pm here I'll give us both a break and look into it tomorrow on a bigger screen and also try the update button. Enjoy your evening.

I seem to have fixed the obvious bugs in ADVANCED PROFILE, so it's safe to try out now.

In other news, there's real factory progress to report this week.

3 new people started this week, and we pulled all the engineers away from their desks, so we could have 10 total people working on building machines. That's a big increase from 2 people in the factory previously.

We believe we will have all the "sub assemblies" for 20 machines built by the end of Friday (today), and on Monday we will start final assembly of them all. We should have shipped all 20 220V machines by the end of next week.

If so, that will represent a 4x increase in assembly speed (from 0.5 machines/day to 2 machines/day), but we think we should reach 3 to 4 machines a day very shortly, because quite a bit of the past 2 weeks has been us cleaning and organizing. That's mostly done now, and we can start to reap the benefits.

Attached are some photos I took today.

-john

[gc]

Is there a straight android apk of the DE1+ software available for sideloading and without androwish? Or is androwish required even for running the DE1+ software in final release form on th tablet?

I find myself paying very close attention to machine assembly updates now. I can hardly wait.

[>decentespresso]

Is there a straight android apk of the DE1+ software available for sideloading and without androwish? Or is androwish required even for running the DE1+ software in final release form on th tablet? I find myself paying very close attention to machine assembly updates now. I can hardly wait.

When you get the tablet, everything will be loaded and working.

To use your own tablet, you do need to use Androwish and follow the instructions at https://decentespresso.com/downloads

I decided not to go down the APK route, for a bunch of reasons. The decision was discussed on various forums and consensus was "stay open source" and "don't give google control over your app distribution".

Most recently, Google has been adding rules that bar new updates of apps to old Android OSes, unless the app supports all the latest Android tech. That sort of thing makes me very nervous, as I can envision Google deciding we are no longer allowed to issue updates to the Android 5.1 app (what you guys are getting) unless we also support the latest Android 8.0 tech (which is costly to do, and mostly irrelevant to our coffee-oriented needs).

You'll also find it pleasant to find the entire DE1+ app located in an easy to find directory of:
/sdcard/de1plus/

so that you can use a USB cable and easily move things to/from the tablet.

-john

[gc]

Have to agree with your reasons re: Google.

I've just ordered a new battery for my old 7" nexus 7 (2012) to use as a backup if the DE1+ tablet goes belly up for some reason. Gotta keep that coffee coming.

Is there an init or config file to edit so I don't have to manually load the DE1+ program into Androwish each time?

[HorseFD]

Do we have any information about when more pre-orders will be accepted? The website says:

Once shipping, we will take orders for our February 2018 manufacturing run, delivering those machines in early spring.

Since it's already getting close to May, I wondered if there was any update on this.