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I found the ultimate solution to this problem - I got a La Pavoni Europiccola! This true love for me, and not just because it works silently. Its gives more control as well and has Class with a capital C.
Cheers Mal. Good call - no amount of quieting would be worth it if it had a bad effect on the output! Im pleased to say ive been using it about 6 weeks and havent noticed any probs. It audibly reaches the OPV pressure in about 5-10s and the pours seem good.
Looking good there mate 8-)..... That Fluidotech pump looks a pretty solid design compared to the Ulka like you say, so should last the distance OK.
Anyway mate, enough about that.... How are the shots from your Silvia with the Fluidotech? Pressure still getting up to where its supposed to be? Maybe you could take a pic of a shot and give us a run down on comparisons with the previous setup. :
Thanks JavaB, if I were running it for long periods Id be concerned about that, but I usually just pull one shot and turn off.
Anyway, of 6 surfaces, 4 are still open to the air and cold water runs through it whenever its operating.
These devcies are installed in warm enclosures with no air circulation, yet the body is enclosed in thick plastic - it doesnt seem like the designers were worried about heat dissipation from the body surface.
With that amount of insulation against the pump body..... you have severely affected the air flow and hence the cooling of the pump....
Probably OK for the occasional extraction but if you do a lot in a row.... it might overheat and die.
The problem is the pumps are designed to dissipate the heat all over the external surface (by air flowing over them)..... and probably dont have a lot of safety margin...... thats why they are normally mounted in a cradle in "free air".....
And heres a shot of it installed. There seems like a lot of space in the motor cavity until you start cramming stuff in there, especially if you dont want things touching.
In the end I had bit of success with this by swapping the Ulka pump for the Fluid-O-Tech and padding everything in sight with yoga mat. Its still louder than I would like but within acceptable parameters, I think. I tried JeepInGeos suspension trick, which worked wonders for vibration on the drainage grille, but didnt have any effect on the sound unfortunately.
Doing the swap was surprisingly easy. The F.O.T. fitted in the Ulka mounts but was too heavy and made them sag, so I made a pad of glued-together squares of yoga mat and sat it on that, which I reckon also had some noise-damping effect. The F.O.T. seems a nicer bit of gear than the Ulka - it weighs about twice as much and has all metal fittings as opposed to the Ulkas plastic. Odd, seeing they cost the same (from Coffee Parts, who shipped it instantly, thank you)
Awesome. Thats all really useful info. Im particularly interested in the coffeegeek thread, Bill, thanks. My shot glass will also walk out from under the group. I will definitely try Jeepingeos trick. I didnt think pump isolation was the problem because it already seems pretty well isolated, but theres experimental evidence. Even aside from the noise, less vibration would be good.
Turns out the porkert cant grind quite fine enough, but i had some good results with moving the rocky down onto the carpet. Seems remarkably quiet down there. I guess the counter is a bad resonator. Low-pile carpet + underlay + concrete seems to be a fairly good damper.
I have a friend who recently (within the last month) had his Minore I serviced by the guys at Expobar Australia in Melbourne.
Amongst the parts replaced was the pump. My mate told me that a newer style vibe pump had been installed. Aparently, this pump is a fair bit quieter than your typical vibe pump.
Are there any site sponsors out there who have any info on these pumps - if they do exist?
Since I doubt that extra heat will bother the pressure hose, how about wrapping some neoprene (old mouse mat? unused wet suit?) around the hose at likely spots?
On another tack I was able to quiet my VBM somewhat by using some very thin, small bits of stiff foam to insulate the back-and-side slide-on piece from the front.
Cheers again Mal. I willl suss that out. The pump body seems pretty well isolated but I reckon the pressure hose is sure to be touching the bodywork somewhere. Your experience of the Mokita is reassuring because it negates my suspicions about the vibrations being transferred hydraulically.
In the short term, Im taking a different tack - looking for somewhere the walls arent so thin! Its crazy.
On the grinder front I had a promising development. I just tried running some beans through a manual Porkert mill and it was pretty fast and quiet, though way too coarse for espresso. Ill try it again tomorrow on a finer setting.
Dont know if changing out the pump for another type is such a good idea mate.... Chances are that the existing pipework/fittings may not fit and you will have to bugger around with adaptors and such to get the Fluid-o-Tech plumbed in.
Ive never played around with a Silvia but did own an Imat Mokita which has a similar list of internal components and discovered that so long as none of the high-pressure pipework is touching the panel-work anywhere, it operated very quietly. Conversely, it could become very noisy very quickly if the pump rotated a bit and the back panel touched either the pump fitting or part of the pipework.
Id really go for the simple measures first if possible, rather than change-out the pump. Maybe you could record the sound the pump makes, compress the resulting file into a ZIP file and attach to your next post. Might help some of the long term owners of the Silvia help you to identify whats going on? All the best mate ,
Meh, after a weeks trialling, I have to concede this didnt make any worthwhile difference. Either I didnt go far enough or my thinking was flawed. Further contemplation suggests that the vibrations are transferred hydraulically to the boiler and thence basically to the whole machine.
Another approach might be to replace the ulka pump altogether with a fluid-o-tech one. Thats what Mals Bezzera uses and I saw one vendor that claims theyre the quietest. The fluid-o-tech catalog states explicitly they employ some sort of quieting technique.
Ive stuck another square of liner on the lid and found some filler to put in the joints. It was some very thin closed-cell backing from a stainless steel Ikea placemat I got for making a rocky chute out of. Even that was a little thick for the backshell joints, but it was good for around the lid. Thats the little grey bits around the edges in the picture.
Possibly Im in denial about having wasted my time, but I think theres a noticeable improvement. The pump noise is still loudish but the upper end has been attenuated, making it less of a harsh buzzing. I reckon Ill see how that goes for a while before lining the backshell or taking other steps.
One thing that concerned me a little was the lid lining is now right over the boiler where it gets hot. I took it off to have a look while it was still warm and nothing had melted, but it could deteriorate over time.
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