Decent Espresso Machines (DE1) - Any thoughts?

[JMcCee]

Getting ahead of myself here because i don't know if its even going to be an issue but is it feasible to have an add-on type thingy that can fit between the puck and dispersion screen? Eg., a round filtery type thing?

[dlight]

Decent Espresso Machines (DE1) - Any thoughts?

Getting ahead of myself here because i don't know if its even going to be an issue but is it feasible to have an add-on type thingy that can fit between the puck and dispersion screen? Eg., a round filtery type thing?

This will have to be quite a thingy. Like a total redesign of the head parts and dispersion screen to fit in a thingy. Sounds to me that the head redesign that Decent are doing is the thingy.

[JMcCee]

Thanks! I await with interest to see my thingy in the flesh in a few weeks. If the product is as good as I have been led to believe the thingy will be of no consequence..

[JMcCee]

I evaluated tons and tons of tablet stands, with the Steelie Stand being the best solution I could find. However, the evidence that "people have different tastes" when it comes to tablet stands is very strong, since there are thousands of tablet stand models available on Amazon.

So... if you don't like the included Steelie Stand, I choice to NOT pre-glue the stand to the table, so that you can spend AU$10 and choose whatever model tablet stand you prefer.

-john

My turn for a mea culpa..

My critical comments re a wobbly Steelie were based on anecdotal advice. Turns out the duffer mounted the Steelie upside down with an incorrectly placed sticker..

How embarrassment!

Sorry John

[>decentespresso]

Our "Decent" production speed getting a bit better.

Monday: 5 machines shipped
Tuesday: 7 machines shipped
Wednesday: 3 machines shipped

17 machines out of last week's batch of 20 (that we built at the same time) had no problems.

Problem espresso machines this week:
- One had a bad PC board (despite being tested before assembly)
- One had a gasket leak
- One had the cable break to a thermometer probe

Thus far, we have made and shipped 73 Decent Espresso machines. Shipping 15 machines in 3 days (21% of the total out in the world) is good progress.

And "this side up" is now on all our boxes, as we noticed that UPS was otherwise immediately putting the boxes on their sides, stacking and occasionally damaging them in shipping.

[>decentespresso]

Get your Decent Machine in a week



We still have two to three months work in order to fulfill our existing espresso machine orders.

However, we've had a slight snag.

We've found that all our remaining "mirror panels" have slight scratches around the mounting holes. I don't want to ship machines to people who will immediately be disappointed by this fault.

However, if you're waiting to receive a machine from us, and you don't mind the scratches, I will build your machine right now, with one of these mirror panels, and you'll get your machine before anyone else.

If you'd like to "jump to the front of the line" please email us https://decentespresso.com/contact

Everyone else: we're going to be hit with a 15 day delay before we can get perfect mirror panels. I've ordered 100 to be made via laser cutting, from a rapid prototyping company that we use frequently. However, they will cost us $80 each, so ouch! this hurts, but it's the best solution I have on such short notice. We should have noticed this earlier, as people are generally quite fussy about the quality of the mirror panel.

Our existing mirror panel manufacturer doesn't want to make them for us anymore, because they think we're too fussy. Well... they'll make them if we switched to "brushed steel". We're getting samples made by two other companies, but that's going to take a month. Then our price drops to $20, which is a lot better.

Unfortunately, changing the mirror panel once the machine is fully assembled is really difficult, so the option of "ship out a perfect panel to customers later" is not a good one.

[HBDecentRefugee]

I received a shipping notice today for the DE1+. I also received unboxing instructions and an invite to the Decent Basecamp users forum. It has been a fun ride observing the development process. My order was originally for a DE1 in April of 2017 and later upgraded to a DE1+ about a year later. Now I better get serious about claiming some counter space since UPS says it should be here in four days.

There appears to be over 100 posts just today on the basecamp site which helps me understand the paucity of posts here and elsewhere. The anticipation has been fun, now I will finally get to start using this new tool.

[>decentespresso]

Espresso Puck Simulator



This week, we received a small batch of "blind portafilter baskets" (a basket with no hole in it), but that we'd modified by having a very tiny hole precision cut in it.

Our goal is to be able to simulate a coffee puck's water resistance but without coffee. We want to do this for stress testing, and so we can calibrate under pressure.

The "Scace 2" is what we've used to do this in the past, but
1) it's very expensive
2) the hole in it is a bit larger than real espresso
3) it clogs very easily.

I'm wondering if anyone else would find these "espresso puck simulators" useful. They were quite expensive to make as one-offs but if people had their own uses for this, we could get them made in quantity, likely at a reasonable cost.

Ideally, these:
1) would not be expensive
2) would have realistic hole size(s) that mimic espresso pucks better
3) would clog less often, and if clogged, would be much easier to clean (a sewing needle should do it).

Any interest?

[>decentespresso]

Hairline Cracks



We've been talking to our metal fabricator about the hairline cracks that some of our clients have on their espresso machine legs. These paint cracks are hidden by the drip tray, but still, I'd be happier if they weren't there.

The fabricator today provided a messy, but very useful, explanation of where and how they weld the leg pieces together. As it turns out, the hairline cracks are appearing exactly where no welding is indicating on their drawing.

I really appreciate this company's honesty and transparency. They indicated today to us that they believe they've found a new approach that would allow them to continuously weld, instead of spot welding. It's really not an easy task, because we intentionally designed the sheet metal pieces to close in on themselves. The goal was to give the visual impression that the legs were made of solid 3cm thick bars of metal.

We're also working on a design for the leg where the top front would have an added "lip" that bends 90º upwards for strength but is invisible (if we do it right) by being hidden under the mirror panel's lip.

For the next 200 machines, if a customer gets a damaged leg, I'm going to ask whether it's merely a cosmetic problem, or if it unbalances the machine. If it unbalances, I'll send them a new leg assembly right away. However, if it's merely cosmetic, I'll ask them if it's ok to have them wait 90 days so that we can send this reinforced leg design version to them instead.

I'm also hoping that the fractures happen less often, as they seem to be caused by UPS tilting our machine 90º and stacking heavy things on it. I'm 100% certain that our THIS WAY UP stickers will 100% solve this problem. Cough.

For those customers who have already received a machine from us. If they have hairline cracks that are merely cosmetic, I'd like to hold off on sending a replacement leg set, until we have this new, stronger design in stock.

-john

[>decentespresso]

Switches, Panels, Grinder Video, Puck Simulator


(clockwise by photo)

- I've received the waterproof, lit, push-button switches that I'm planning on putting on the front plate of our DE1CAFE model. This will let you put the machine in standby (bluetooth and USB charging on, heaters all off). If this works well on the cafe model, we'll add this feature to our other DE1 models too.

- samples from other companies making mirror panels are starting to come in. These are laser cut, and using transparent protective plastic lets us see the defects early. Oddly, our laser-etched logo comes out brown with this company--hopefully not a sign of rust.

- I've made a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-BlIz7MXpI showing how to assemble and adjust the grinder we sell https://decentespresso.com/pro_grinder - this is a fairly low-tech, low-feature, do-it-yourselfer-friendly product. Instead of made-from-scratch, we modify another company's grinder quite a bit.

- the company who makes our baskets for us has made us a prototype "puck simulator" with a 0.3mm hole (see posting earlier this week about this). What do you think of that product name for this?

-john

[>decentespresso]

100th espresso machine built today!



"It's a bit of understatement" to say that we "didn't have our act together" several months ago when started manufacturing the espresso machine we'd been designing for the past 3.5 years.

If this photo is a bit underwhelming, that's good! This was just an ordinary day, and it took us 5.5 days to make this batch of 20 machines.

Just a month ago it was still taking us 2 days to make 1 machine.

I spent an hour myself checking about half the machines in detail for mistakes I've seen in the past and didn't find anything. We'll find out tomorrow if the 9 machines shaken tonight are all ready-to-go, or if we still have hard-to-spot mistakes creeping in in our process.



Two weeks ago I switched our conceptual metaphor to be that of a kitchen. Every day, everyone knows what to do when they walk in the door. No meetings necessary. We complete a batch of machines every 5 days and then start again. The only thing that changes is that (hopefully) this kitchen gets faster and able to feed more people every day. For now, I'm not applying much pressure, because the emphasis is on zero-defects. Once we start achieving that, we'll gently crank up the speed.

[>decentespresso]

A Stiff Upper Lip



As I reported a few days ago we’re working on making the legs on our Decent espresso machine a whole lot stronger, because about 20% of our machines are arriving to customers with bent legs. We send them (free) new legs by separate post, but it’s still embarrassing for us, and annoying for customers.

Our v1.1 espresso machines will feature a metal bend, at the front, which the effect of hugely increasing the rigidity and strength of this long sheet of metal. The customer’s bends are especially happening near the mounting screws 5cm/2" from the ends, so we’re extending this "stiff upper lip" all the way to the edge of the chassis, well past where the screws mount.

Besides this change, we’re also taking a "brute force" approach of thickening the metal from 2mm to 3mm, with this revision. And our manufacturer says they can continuously weld both metal pieces, which should get rid of the hairline paint crack problem.

I’ve verified that this "stiff upper lip" is totally hidden by the outwards-bending mirror panel lip (which people usually refer to as a "shot mirror").

This new leg design is totally compatible with the v1.0 machines so I can send new legs (once they’re in stock) to anyone who needs them, who was a v1.0 customer.

-john

[bromell]

Now with a month and a bit of tinkering under my belt, below are my slightly-less-initial thoughts on the DE1+. I've added (green) and removed ([red in square brackets]) comments from the last post, so you can trace the evolution in my thoughts. Again, please don't take this as a final view - both as I'm still exploring and learning the machine, and because Decent are still continuing to upgrade the hardware, software and firmware.
--------------------

tl;dr - This thing is awesome for coffee geeks, despite some early adopter niggles. Still no regrets so far. I couldn't imagine going back to a regular machine now - would be like pulling shots blindfolded.


Equipment, for context:

• My (home) grinder is a Kafatek Monolith Conical.
• My other espresso machine is a Portaspresso Rossa PG Air. For those not aware of it, it can produce some seriously good coffee - assuming you can manage the poor temperature consistency and live with the significant time it takes to make a single shot.

Making coffee thoughts - overall:

• Like with any new machine, there is a learning curve. [Given the plethora of options, my biggest problem is I keep trying new things rather than just focusing on optimising one coffee!] Ok,so I've spent much more time with fewer coffees and fewer profile changes in the last four weeks, and I'm really getting on top of things now. I'm still experimenting a lot, but only on weekends when I have more time.
• [While I have made some very good coffee so far, I haven't yet managed to deliver something "top 10 cafe" quality. I believe this is just a matter of time - remember, I'm only 1 week in.] I have definitely made one or two "top 10 cafe" quality coffees, and the average coffee is now better than my older machine. The consistency in the machine is definitely there to reach the top 10 target on an average basis, it's definitely all up to me.
• Initially, I ignored most of the data on the screen until after the shot has completed, and instead focused on the basics - initial drop pattern through the portafilter, then flow into and weight in the cup. Now that I'm fairly comfortable with the basics, I'm starting to spend more time watching the live data, however, my gut says the real value will continue to be in post-shot analysis when you can correlate with taste as well.
• My hypothesis is that flow is more closely related to the final outcome in the cup than pressure - prior to the DE1+, I found I was intuitively managing pressure on the fly to achieve my desired flow anyway. This is something I'm keen to investigate with the DE1+. Haven't had the opportunity to assess this as yet; I suspect it will take 12 months to come to a clear conclusion.

Making coffee thoughts - pros:

• The ability to view precisely what's happening/just happened in the shot is incredible. Absolutely necessary? No, but very sexy, and really helps you quickly understand what impact any change you've made in the coffee, grinder, routine or profile has had. I've been able to perform better quality experiments, as I can directly compare the shot data (e.g. with and without WDT, grind setting x to grind setting y). I was blown away this morning by a simple experiment someone had done, comparing three different flow profile outputs, on the private Decent forum. It had taken me many months to understand the same phenomenon on the Portaspresso, and they had communicated much of the same learning in a set of diagrams that too 2 minutes to read.
• I suspect that the quality that's come from years of experience on my other espresso machine could've been achieved in under a year if I'd had this level of feedback - but your mileage may vary. There is evidence even the experts are learning from this machine (although admitting he's not the most independent expert): https://www.scottrao.com/blog/2018/6...presso-machine
• From my limited sample size, the DE1+ can repeatably deliver the same profile each time, if you keep things constant. The machine learning algorithms mean that you will sometimes see an improvement from the first time you run a changed profile to the second, but even the first is usually very close to target.
• The ability for the DE1+ to hit a target temperature in the basketis incredible. Obviously it can't bend Newton's law of cooling/heating, but I normally have less than +-1degC in the basket through the whole shot. You can watch the algorithms try to compensate for the cooling effects of the coffee on the fly! I believe Decent are also working on a revised temperature model to help the DE1+ improve its' accuracy further, particularly where you've gotten aggressive with your profiling.

Making coffee thoughts - cons:

• There are some weaknesses in the Flow measurements received. Although I've found that the error between similar shots is immaterial, the overall calibration can vary. This is because there are a lot of factors that can affect the real flow rate, and the various measurement methods employed in the DE1+ all have their pros and cons. In their defence, Decent have a new model for measuring flow that [they've started] they're testing internally. They expect this will significantly improve the measurement and calibration accuracy.

Non-coffee thoughts - pros:

• Decent have a dedicated, private forum for owners, and they are very active in supporting everyone with their successes, failures and crazy ideas. I've had plenty of each! This might also be why there hasn't been as much chatter in the public forums. The group ideation and experimentation going on in there is fantastic.
• You can log into your wifi and google (etc) on the tablet to easily and automatically share screen captures of your espresso charts and profile settings. Makes helping or being helped over a forum much easier.
• The machine looks better in the flesh than in photos, and is certainly very inoffensive, although not personally my style (in context, my favorite looking one group is the KvDW Speedster which is in a very different price league).
• Although gimmicky, the suitcase does hold everything nicely. I can see myself using it to cart the machine to events every couple of months.
• I quite like the group-head handle.
• The ceramic tank and trays are really nice and very practical, but I'll have to see whether there are any long-term issues with bugs or dust with the not-quite-sealed tank. John has mentioned he's working on an optional stainless cover which I think I will invest in. So far, I haven't had a real problem with foreign matter in the water supply, but I've had a couple of grains of coffee and bits of dust get in, so I'm still tempted by the cover.
• [Although the machine has schedule (time-based on/off) functionality, I've not yet found it to be required. The machine heats up in around 5 minutes, so I switch it on and then start prepping the basket. Similary, at the end of a session, I just switch it off again rather than leave it on. The benefits of not having a boiler!] Ok, so this is no longer much of a pro. Although the prior statement is correct, I've found that the ancillary components (incl. portafilter head and basket) are not warmed sufficiently in the 5 minutes to give exceptional temp stability. As such, I've started using the schedule functionality in the morning to make sure everything is optimal. Later in the day, I switch on the machine heating about 15 min prior to use, which so far seems to be enough to warm the ancillary components as well. I think further experimentation is required on my part to work out the optimal routine.

Non-coffee thoughts - cons:

• There have been a few manufacturing issues with the early models (John has posted here about this), which is to be expected for a new company making a new, complex and innovative product. I've certainly got a couple of minor issues, all of which Decent are addressing to my satisfaction. However, Decent have been top notch to date in their customer service, so I don't expect any of the owners will have a long term problem.
• The machine firmware and software have a few minor bugs and shortcomings at the moment than can occasionally be annoying (e.g. electronics cooling fan runs for too long). However, these are being rapidly addressed as they come up, so again I don't see a long term problem. The last month has seen the tablet software stabilise nicely. The next firmware release is supposed to deliver some big benefits (e.g. new flow model), so anticipation (and expectation) is high for that.
• The tablet stand is OK, but it doesn't quite hold the tablet as stable as I'd expected.
• No user manual / user wiki as such. The user forum (see pros above) is actually better at this stage, given how rapidly things are changing, but I'd prefer to see something formalised in a year's time. Mostly it's highly intuitive, but there are a few advanced settings and obscure features that would benefit from formal documentation.
• No simple way to level the machine (e.g. to allow for a sloped bench), although it can be done.

Please let me know if you have any specific questions/requests and I'll do my best to answer.

[338]

Bromell thank you once again for your update and the smart way you did it to reflect your familiarity and updates to the machine.

Great to know the machine is as good as everyone hoped it to be.

[338]

Bromell, you mention the software has stabilised over the last month, is that due to updates or machine learning? I can imagine updates are coming pretty regularly at this early stage and with a base of users now out there.


Ps agree with your comments on Scott Rao, just read his useful blog post, he doesn't even mention he is the co-designer, it reads as if he has just encountered the machine.