[HN Gopher] Show HN: I designed an espresso machine and coffee g...
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Show HN: I designed an espresso machine and coffee grinder
It was a lot of work as a solo project but I hope you guys think
it's cool. When I say "we" in the website it's only in the most
royal sense possible. I also did all the photo/videography. I
started out designing a single machine for personal use, but like
many things it sort of spiraled out of control from there. I felt
like espresso machines were getting very large, plasticky, and app-
integrated without actually improving the underlying technologies
that make them work. The noisy vibratory pumps in particular are
from 1977 and haven't really changed since then. So I wanted to
focus on making the most advanced internals I could and leaving
everything else as minimalist as possible. The pump is, as far as I
know, completely unique in terms of power density and price.
Without spending several thousand dollars, it was difficult to find
a machine with a gear pump, and adjustable pressure was also
similarly expensive but this machine has those things and costs a
normal amount to buy. You can also turn the pressure way down and
make filter coffee. I also saw so many people (including myself)
using a scale while making espresso, and even putting a cup below
the group head to catch drips, entirely negating the drip tray, so
I basically designed for that! The profile of the machine is much
lighter on the eyes and doesn't loom in the corner like my old
espresso machine did. And for the grinder, basically everything on
the market uses conical and flat burrs that have descended from
spice grinders, and the same couple of standard sizes. Sometimes
larger companies design their own burrs, but only within those
existing shapes. There is sort of a rush to put larger and larger
burrs into coffee grinders, which makes sense, but with cylindrical
burrs, you can increase the cutting surface way more relative to
the size of the grinder. When grinders get too big, maintaining
alignment becomes mechanically cumbersome, but the cylindrical burr
can be very well supported from the inside, and there is the added
benefit of hiding the entire motor within the burr itself. The
resulting grounds are just outright better than all the other
grinders I have used, but obviously this is a matter of taste and
my own personal bias. The biggest downside for the grinder is that
it doesn't work with starbucks style oily roasts, because the
coffee expands so much while traveling down through the burrs and
can sometimes clog up the teeth. It doesn't hurt the grinder but it
does require cleaning (which is tool-free!). Another downside for
both machines is the fact that they run on DC power so it's best if
you have a spot in your kitchen to tuck away the power brick. I
also made a kit that makes the gear pump a drop-in upgrade for
other espresso machines, to reduce noise and add adjustable
pressure. https://velofuso.com/store/p/gear-pump-upgrade-kit The
roughest part of this process were the moments midway through
development where they weren't working at all. When the grinder is
just jamming itself instantly or the fourth factory in a row tells
you the part you're making is impossible or the pump is alternating
between spraying water out the side and into your face and not
pumping at all. And the default thought is "Of course it's not
working, if this was going to work someone else would have already
made it like this". The route you've taken is fundamentally
different enough that there are no existing solutions to draw on.
You're basically feeling around in the dark for months on end,
burning money, and then one day, every little cumulative change
suddenly adds up to a tasty espresso. And it's not perfect yet, but
you at least can see the road ahead. Anyways, this is way more
than I expected to write, thank you for reading! Tell me if you
have any questions
Author : smeeeeeeeeeeeee
Score : 708 points
Date : 2024-12-13 01:03 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (velofuso.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (velofuso.com)
| DemocracyFTW2 wrote:
| Congrats to the website, too, great design, and actually
| informative and a nice, modern experience without being gimmicky,
| really good!
|
| I'll try to be helpful, so allow me to point out that near the
| bottom of the espresso machine, the grinder is called Oculo,
| guess you changed that mid-way? Also, do you consider it
| necessary to open new tabs when you go from the home page to the
| two sub-pages with your products? I mean you stay on the same
| domain so why open a new tab? I find that's unexpected.
|
| Lastly, I didn't quite grasp how the cylindrical burr works and
| how one can adjust ground size with this arrangement. I'd really
| appreciate a schematic! Also I think you are totally allowed to
| right-out dis flat burrs because of their inherent weaknesses. As
| for oily roasts, that's my preferred roast, the coffee's so much
| better and also my hand grinder feels so much better, so it's a
| shame if I couldn't use a burr with those.
|
| Other than that, good luck with your project!
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Hello there! Thank you so much for the comment and the good
| luck
|
| So essentially the adjustment works the same as conical and
| flat burrs, except the burrs need to move way more for the same
| amount of adjustment (it's about 19:1, instead of 1:1 for flat
| and conical). When the engineering problems are worked out with
| the grinder basically telescoping, this translates to much more
| repeatability in adjustments.
|
| I definitely hear you on dark roasts, I like them as well, and
| I will absolutely make an alternate burr set that is more
| flexible - it's just a matter of what to prioritize when
| launching a decently high priced grinder, where light and
| medium roasts benefit the most from the attention.
|
| And argh yes oculo was a working name when the hopper looked
| more like an eye but now it looks less like an eye! Thanks for
| catching that. I'll change the tab behavior, I wasn't sure how
| to handle that.
| uncola wrote:
| Just ordered your grinder! I'm amazed you designed your own
| burr type! Looks super space saving, too, with the vertical
| straight up tilt of the grinder.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Huh, new account created just to say they bought the very
| expensive preorder of the account created 10 hours ago. I
| hope I'm wrong, but this is heavily triggering my scam-o-
| meter.
| uncola wrote:
| I'm a years long daily chatter on the espresso aficionado
| discord, hoon's discord and brian quan's discord. lol
| also this will be far be my cheapest grinder
| roflyear wrote:
| uncola is definitely not OP, they are active on other
| discords/forums.
|
| Coffee community is talking about this grinder, the world
| is bigger than HN, etc.. etc..
| Semaphor wrote:
| I can believe it, after all it's just a heuristic. And of
| course the world is bigger than HN, but they went to HN
| to talk about it.
| willbdavenport wrote:
| Beautiful design. Curious since you mention the issues with
| plastic, what's the part that you couldn't avoid plastic for the
| trefolo (given you mention it's 0.01% plastic)?
| create-username wrote:
| Electric Cables? They are hard to make in metal or wood
| vasco wrote:
| Electric cables at very easy to make in metal, in fact I'd
| wager 90%+ at least are made of copper in the whole world.
| dog436zkj3p7 wrote:
| Have you heard of insulation?
| pm3003 wrote:
| Silicon ?
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Do you mean silicon or silicone? The former isn't a very
| good candidate for flexible cable insulation. The later
| is a form of plastic.
| vasco wrote:
| If I say humans are made of polyester you wouldn't
| correct me? You usually meet them wearing insulation too.
| yetihehe wrote:
| Electric cables are made from insulation (plastic) and
| wires (metal). Wires use metal, insulation typically does
| not, so it's NOT easy to make a whole cable out of metal.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| About the only kind of fully plastic-free cable I know of
| (other then historical examples) is bare MICC aka "pyro",
| which are copper tube sheaths filled with magnesium oxide
| powder and the wires in the middle. It's used especially in
| fireproof installations.
|
| A huge pain to install as it's so stiff and needs special
| tools and fittings to keep it from absorbing water from the
| air. It has a large bend radius, and it only good for fixed
| installation as it will crack open if you bend it a few
| times. And it's nearly PS1000 for 100m. So it's not very
| popular these days.
|
| Plastic really is an annoyingly wonderous category of
| material when you consider the flexibility, insulation,
| mechanical, thermal and chemical resistance it can have (and
| the price)!
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I am very intrigued by your grinder.
|
| How does it compare noise-wise?
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| It's the quietest electric grinder I've used but I didn't want
| to diss any competitors in particular! It has a nice low rumble
| for probably 45 seconds grinding a single dose. I think the
| noise level is helped by the fact that the motor is completely
| enclosed by the heavy stainless steel burr, which basically
| eliminates its noise, and the fact that it spins slower than
| other grinders because it has a larger grinding area.
|
| It is easy to say the espresso machine is the quietest because
| basically everything else uses the same pump, which is way
| louder and more annoying than ours, but grinders are much more
| variable not just in terms of noise level but also how annoying
| the noise is.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Am I crazy, or is 45 seconds a really long time? My current
| cheapish grinder does 18g in ~25 seconds. If anything I would
| expect/want a better grinder to grind faster. Is the slow
| grind rate intentional?
| polishdude20 wrote:
| You should totally send one over to James Hoffman. See what he
| thinks!
| idk1 wrote:
| This was my first thought! Let's see what James Hoffman thinks
| of the coffee it makes, he seems very fair and honest in
| reviews. I went with a Jura bean to cup based on his review and
| it's turned out very good.
| faizmokh wrote:
| I'm looking forward for his review.
|
| Congrats on the launch btw OP
| lozenge wrote:
| I don't think he reviews products that haven't shipped yet. It
| would be a PR disaster if his video sends people to pre-order
| something that doesn't actually ship.
| N-Krause wrote:
| I feel like, that he would be interested in the product
| nevertheless. Maybe it wouldn't be a review, but just a
| demonstration of the ideas and concepts used in the machine.
|
| I think it definitively would be worth a shot to just hit him
| up and ask if he could take a look at it.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| He doesn't review products he didn't pay full price for in
| general (I didn't ask of course, I've just watched him for
| years). Maybe someday he'll order one!
| tda wrote:
| I was just wondering the other day why all espresso machines seem
| to have the same loud pump from the same factory. The pump is
| just a plastic tube, a sping, a valve and a huge coil around it
| that vibrates on mains 50/60Hz. Essentially a soap dispenser
| combined with a doorbell
| jb1991 wrote:
| It's not all machines. Some have rotary pumps which are very
| nice and quiet.
| julian_t wrote:
| And some have a manually-operated lever, which is completely
| silent.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| The ones out there now are wonderful, but quite huge and
| expensive because they rely on AC motors which sadly aren't
| very power dense and don't scale down well
| jb1991 wrote:
| Rotary pumps aren't that big -- most of the premium
| espresso machines with vibration pumps are actually bigger
| than the ones with rotary pumps, i.e. compare a dual boiler
| or heat exchange vibration pump like Synchronika with a
| Linea Micra or Lelit, with two boilers and rotary pump.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| It was this exact question that lead me down the rabbit hole to
| making espresso machines. The main reason everyone uses them is
| because they're $25, small, and can leverage the oscillation of
| mains voltage for their operation. The next best thing is
| probably $300 and quite large and heavy - and those
| professional gear pumps fundamentally don't scale down well.
| Ours operates under the same principle though with a completely
| different sort of motor that hasn't been common until pretty
| recently.
| qurashee wrote:
| Send it to Lance Hedrick I'm sure he will make useful
| suggestions.
| covofeee wrote:
| Lance! I am still frothing milk his way. Even after a barista
| course that did it a different way.
| raphael_kimmig wrote:
| Wow this looks really interesting. Do you per chance have a video
| of you using the grinder & machine?
|
| I'm not quite sure I understand where the hot water is added, but
| I like not having a boiler.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| I second the request for videos. I'm primarily interested in
| the espresso machine and the lack of an end to end video will
| prevent me from giving it any really consideration.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| I will upload a simple video of the workflow very soon!
| nxpnsv wrote:
| It sure looks pretty. Both the site and the machine. And the tech
| sounds interesting too! There are a bunch of fabulous devices out
| there though, not sure how to understand just how great this is,
| some third party validation would help me. Anyhow, excellent
| presentation!
| aidos wrote:
| What a beautiful bit of work. Are they actually commercially
| available and how are you going to handle production? Did you set
| out to sell them from the start or was it a personal project that
| has spiralled? How long have you been working on it?
|
| In any case, congratulations!
| speerer wrote:
| Please make sure you protect your design in the UK and EU by
| registering it. It doesn't cost a huge amount, and the design is
| striking and different enough that it would be a shame if it was
| copied.
|
| (Unless you're comfortable with that of course!)
| axkdev wrote:
| Good advice!
| rSi wrote:
| Congratulations on your product! I don't know if i missed it, but
| i feel like you are hiding two very important parts of the
| machine: the power supply (you call it power brick) and the water
| container. For any machine i put permanently in my kitchen, I
| would prefer having a box that contains everything needed.
| riiii wrote:
| I appreciate the effort you've put in. But I'd like to see a non
| marketing video of it in operation.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Looks awesome. It's way too expensive for me, but i love the
| design. I do wonder about the cleaning process, in particular how
| many times and how much effort i have to do to clean it and make
| sure it keeps making perfect espressos.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| Right, but is it Nespresso compatible? Not clear from the website
| eps wrote:
| I hope this was a joke.
| eps wrote:
| It's a good presentation, but it's not sufficient as a sales
| pitch. A non-staged video of both the grinder and the machine in
| use would be required to place an order, at least for me. As
| others have mentioned it's not clear where the water pipes go
| exactly and how the machine is powered.
|
| Also, for $700 independent reviews are also a must.
|
| For the pump kit - this too looks interesting, but requires (way)
| more details. At the very least a list of supported machines and,
| again, a video or two of an actual retrofit. Dimensions, voltage
| (!), etc.
| N-Krause wrote:
| It seems to go where ever you like it to go.
|
| > The result is a freedom to use a far more thermally stable
| source of hot water - like the kettle you already have. And
| because no water is stored in the machine - it's fresh every
| time.
|
| Seems like a interesting idea, but I feel like there is a
| crucial point missing. What if I do not want a random water
| tube hanging into my water kettle? Feels like that is a big
| hole in a otherwise great thought through product.
| paulluuk wrote:
| Also, having to boil water in a water kettle first is a
| minor, but significant enough, inconvenience. It's why so
| many people now have hot water taps for tea, and use espresso
| machines instead of filter coffee.
| michaelmior wrote:
| > so many people now have hot water taps for tea
|
| I know they exist but I've only ever seen one house with
| such a tap and that was a _very_ well off family member. I
| don 't think these are terribly common.
| noduerme wrote:
| They're not so wildly expensive. a couple hundred bucks
| maybe. My mom got one years ago, and it's really
| convenient for quick pour-over coffee. Great if you're in
| a hurry. I use a moka pot at home, but the 10 minutes it
| takes to boil while I putter around the kitchen trying to
| remember my name are really the most worthless of the
| day.
| GTP wrote:
| Minor nitpick here, but it's a fact I found interesting
| when I heard about it. The water inside a Moka doesn't
| boil, you can indeed observe that the water coming out
| from the top isn't boiling. What happens is that the air
| that is left inside the bottom chamber expands due to the
| heat, pushing the water upwards.
| alias_neo wrote:
| We have a Quooker and I recommend them to all our friends
| who ask, it's more expensive than others (starting at
| around PS1200) but it's incredibly well built,
| designed/created in an era of making things to last, and
| they seems to stand by that; you can get spare parts and
| they sell a service kit for PS25 (last I bought it) with
| the filter that you can replace every few years if you
| want, but you can also buy the individual parts of system
| like a new tank, just the core/element, etc.
| oigursh wrote:
| "starting at around PS1200"! It would need to bring it to
| my chair for that price.
| OJFord wrote:
| I wanted one but also baulked at the price, got a ~PS200
| drop ship special instead. I might actually prefer it to
| the Quooker tbh - it doesn't spit. (The spitting is
| apparently a safety feature, but guess which one I've
| burnt myself on...)
| dsego wrote:
| Seems like good way to get third degree burns if you're
| not careful? I just put my water filled mug in the
| microwave (with a spoon in to avoid superheating).
| alias_neo wrote:
| I've put my hand under the boiling tap once, it hurt a
| bit but I wasn't burned. Someone told me it has some sort
| of atomiser mechanism in the tap when the water is
| ejected to reduce the chance of burns, but I haven't
| looked into it and I'm not sure how true that is.
|
| It's a quite deliberate and slightly difficult action to
| activate the boiling water, there's a ring around the
| base of the spout that you have to double-press and twist
| on the second press, completely independent of the normal
| cold/hot water.
|
| I have two young children and honestly, I'm not concerned
| either for them, my wife, nor myself that there's any
| risk.
|
| Using the microwave is a perfectly good solution I think,
| but I don't know many people who do that, and although
| it's fine for tea etc for one person, it won't do a
| house-full of cups of tea in seconds, nor fill a pan with
| boiling water.
|
| I wouldn't dare to suggest that it's the best thing for
| everyone, but we are extremely happy with its utility in
| our home.
|
| EDIT: Typos
| leoedin wrote:
| My experience of boiling water taps in offices is that
| they're not actually hot enough for decent tea.
|
| How's your experience been? Do you preheat your mug
| before brewing? I like tea strong and dark!
| globular-toast wrote:
| Yeah, you would have to really like espresso for this to be
| worth it. Personally I don't like espresso. The only thing
| it's good for is the milk drinks, which I also don't
| particularly like, and being a lazy "push button" coffee.
| If I'm going to put effort in, filter is the way to go (I
| use a V60).
|
| I reckon hipsters will be drinking filter in a few years'
| time, if they aren't already.
|
| As for hot water taps for tea, if you are brewing black/red
| tea that is usually not good enough as they don't produce
| truly boiling water, although some do claim to.
| pm3003 wrote:
| Cold Brew is glorified filter coffee, especially when
| made with ultrasonics. It can even simulate the feeling
| you get when you go back to work while waiting for your
| coffee to be at drinkable temperature only to find it
| cold an hour later.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Cold _brew_ coffee and cold filter coffee are two
| different things. Brewing at a cold temperature for a
| long period of time results in a very different taste
| which some people like and some don 't. Note that the
| brewing temperature and drinking temperature are
| essentially independent; you can heat up cold brew and
| you can cool down hot brew.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Here in the UK, I only know one person who has a boiling
| water tap (they've been renovating an old cottage and are a
| fan of tech) though I wasn't a fan went I went to visit and
| tried it out (not why I went to visit). I'm more of a fan
| of the Unix/Linux philosophy of "do one job and do it well"
| as appliances are more likely to break when they have
| multiple jobs to do, so I was slightly against the idea of
| it anyhow. The main criticism I have of it is that it's far
| more likely to cause scalds/burns as you have to bring the
| container to the tap (specifically an Aeropress) and it's
| more difficult to control the flow of water. With a kettle,
| you can move the kettle to the container and it's far more
| controllable in terms of water flow. I'm also not a fan of
| the tap needing to keep pre-heated water in an insulated
| container all the time - only a small use of energy, but it
| seems unnecessary to me.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| Here in New Zealand they seem to be installed in every
| new or renovated office kitchen. Prior to that a boiling
| water tank that is mounted on the wall and allows instant
| near building water for tea.
|
| Those boiling water tanks would be very hard for a child
| to access without a lot of effort. Those boiling taps are
| sometimes close to the cold/warm water tap.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| The ones that I'm referring to are a single kitchen mixer
| tap that does the usual cold and hot, but also a boiling
| option.
| frereubu wrote:
| I'd be interested in an overall energy use comparison
| between a kettle and a hot water tap. I know lots of
| people who boil far too much water for a single cup of
| tea or coffee (partially due to kettle designs).
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| <opinion>
|
| This problem is solved in its entirety by simply
| microwaving a cup of water. No wasted water.
|
| If the same / similar cup is used, one can choose the
| desired temperature of the resultant hot water simply by
| varying the time. Seasonal variation of ambient water
| temperature may need to be taken into account.
|
| I tend not to drink coffee, and I prefer to make tea with
| less-than-boiling water.
|
| YMMV
|
| </opinion.
|
| Now that I've written that, I'll have to put a power
| meter on the microwave and a kettle and report back with
| the results. My kettle recently broke and I hadn't
| intended to replace.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I'd guess that a microwave would "waste" more energy as
| it's got moving parts and the energy isn't completely
| directed to heating the water. A kettle also "wastes"
| some energy as you end up heating the kettle too (from
| the hot water).
|
| If a microwave was more efficient, I'd expect to see
| premium kettles that used microwaves instead of a simple
| heating element, though maybe there'd be design problems
| with preventing leaking microwaves.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Agree, at least to some extent.
|
| For my use cases, I'm not looking to actually boil the
| water, bringing it up to 80 plus degrees suffices.
|
| The inefficiency kettles bring is the tendency of certain
| users to heat way more water than their immediate needs.
| prewett wrote:
| I've tried that, and there are two problems. One is that
| water has a tendency to superheat and then boil all over
| the place when you put the tea in, or it suddenly
| produces a big bubble and water goes everywhere. The
| other is that it is hard to get a consistent temperature.
| Even if you measure it with a thermometer it seems
| problematic (although perhaps the grocery store
| thermometers go out of calibration easily). If you're
| doing herbal tea it might not matter as much, but for
| something like Chinese green tea, it was always hit or
| miss. I bought the Bonavita kettle as soon as I found out
| about it, and now I always have consistent tea with no
| fuss or mess.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| My daily driver, a flatbed Panasonic microwave, does a
| good enough job, but yeah actually boiling the water in a
| microwave is a recipe for a way too hot cup, and half the
| water boiling over.
|
| 220ml, regular ceramic mug, one minute forty, does what I
| need, but I'm not tea or coffee connoisseur, just a prole
| with a box of Twinings loose leaf.
|
| Thanks for the kettle reference, I have been meaning to
| find a temperature controlled unit.
|
| I recently picked up an inexpensive Thomson branded
| electric frypan with digital temperature and time
| controls, well impressed.
| alias_neo wrote:
| I don't have a comparison to a kettle because I don't
| have one, but our Quooker tap took a fraction of a kWh
| over a couple of months that I measured the energy usage,
| and my wife uses it daily for tea and we use it most days
| for boiling water for things like cooking.
|
| The 3L tank that holds the hot water, under the sink is
| well insulated and it takes almost nothing to keep it at
| temperature.
|
| Given that it uses such negligible energy that I needn't
| care, the benefits of instant boiling water whenever we
| like and not having an extra appliance no the counter-top
| make it a clear winner for us.
| frereubu wrote:
| Interesting, thanks. I really like the idea but the thing
| I'd miss from our kettle is the ability to change to
| lower temperatures for different kinds of tea. You
| shouldn't really use boiling water for some kinds of
| green tea, for example. I guess you can mix in some cold
| water to reach close to the right temperature, but I'd
| miss the convenience.
| alias_neo wrote:
| I've never come across a kettle that changes temperature,
| or is it that you can stop it boiling when you feel it's
| about right?
|
| My wife drinks tea (I'm a coffee drinker) and I make tea
| (just simple, English Breakfast with milk) for her quite
| often, and we both use it for cooking. It was something
| she'd always wanted, and she's not much into "gadgets"
| but she's been very happy with this, so I'm happy.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| > I've never come across a kettle that changes
| temperature, or is it that you can stop it boiling when
| you feel it's about right?
|
| There's several around - I've got one that allows you to
| choose between 70degC, 80degC, 90degC and boiling (along
| with a keep-warm option that's never used). I use the
| 80degC option all the time for making coffee (Aeropress)
| and use the 70degC for things like green tea (black tea
| should be 100degC of course).
|
| It's a mistake to use boiling water when making coffee -
| it'll extract a bitter flavour.
| alias_neo wrote:
| > I've got one that allows you to choose between 70degC,
| 80degC, 90degC
|
| That's really cool, I suppose I haven't really looked,
| being a coffee drinker, a kettle was never important to
| me.
|
| > It's a mistake to use boiling water when making coffee
| - it'll extract a bitter flavour.
|
| I have two espresso machines, one in the kitchen and one
| in my home office, I also have an Aeropress like
| yourself, love it, but I only use that for travelling.
| Wouldn't dare pour boiling water over my freshly ground
| coffee :)
| frereubu wrote:
| We have an earlier version of this: https://www.bosch-
| home.co.uk/en/mkt-product/food-preparation...
|
| The only annoying thing about it is that the fill
| indicator is rather hidden by the handle, but otherwise
| we really like it.
| alias_neo wrote:
| Ah that looks cool, got a sort of retro-coffee filter
| machine for the office look to it too (I love Bosch
| appliances).
|
| I never understood why so many kettles always put the
| fill indicator behind the handle, which of course you'd
| be holding when filling it up. The first time I saw one
| with a large, clearly graduated window on the side (and
| wasn't also a cheap, white plastic kettle) I was
| impressed, being the nerd I am.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| I've got the OXO adjustable temp one. It lets you select
| a temperature between 40 and 100 degC in one degree
| increments. I wish it were a bit smaller and could heat
| to a lower temp (for e.g. proofing yeast), but otherwise
| it's pretty nice. As it's an American market product it's
| limited to 1500W, which is still pretty quick but nowhere
| near the speed of something designed for 240V mains.
|
| The biggest problem I've had so far was that Amazon seems
| to only stock used/counterfeit units. Buying direct from
| OXO got me on that hadn't been used and didn't reek of
| volatile organic compounds on the first try.
| alias_neo wrote:
| > The biggest problem I've had so far was that Amazon
| seems to only stock used/counterfeit units. Buying direct
| from OXO got me on that hadn't been used and didn't reek
| of volatile organic compounds on the first try.
|
| This is slighly terrifying; and interesting that
| something like this would be counterfeited. I too would
| make any and all efforts to ensure I was using something
| legit where mains (240V for me) are concerned.
|
| I once bought a knock-off hot-air soldering station
| without knowing, and once I looked into it, people were
| complaining they'd received units where the live was
| "grounded" to the case.
|
| I opened mine to check, not quite as bad, but the live in
| mine wasn't attached to the metal case, just bare, and
| within about 1cm of it. I reported it to the retailer (we
| all know which major online retailer this was), and they
| did nothing. Let's just say things changed, seriously,
| for me that day when it comes to buying anything mains
| powered with uncertain origins.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| This may have been the tipping point for me. I got two
| from Amazon. One was obviously used and had lots of hard
| water deposits. The other had a very strong VOC odor to
| it. Around this time I'd started looking more closely at
| items purchased from Amazon and they'd often appear to be
| lower quality (if not blatantly counterfeit). Even if I
| didn't despise Bezos this would've put me off Amazon.
|
| ThermoWorks refused to sell their products on Amazon for
| quite a while. Apparently they've changed their stance
| but I wouldn't risk it.
|
| Anyways the kettle is nice to have that I use daily for
| coffee even though I now have an induction stove with
| burners that are far more powerful than the kettle.
| Stateside, circuits for electric ranges are 240V, 50A
| (occasionally 40A on older buildings).
| prewett wrote:
| The Bonavita kettle lets you set in 1 def F (or C, if you
| prefer) increments, with some common presets. I've used
| it for making Chinese tea for years.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| When I was trying out my friends' boiling water tap, I
| had to much around with putting in some cold water into
| the Aeropress first, before then adding the boiling
| water. If I had to use one for longer than a weekend, I'd
| probably use a small jug for mixing the water to the
| right temperature first.
| alias_neo wrote:
| I have a Quooker tap, and no kettle. It's a game changer
| in the kitchen, need boiling water for cooking and it's
| instantly available, and my wife can have tea in a second
| whenever she wants, no waiting around or boiling a
| certain amount in the kettle, also one less appliance on
| the counter-top.
|
| The energy usage is indeed minimal; I've measured it with
| a power meter over a couple of months and barely used a
| fraction of a kWh.
|
| There are other boiling water taps, but Quooker is
| incredibly well built, really simple, and was created in
| an era of making things to last, it's got a price tag to
| match, but well worth it in our households opinion.
| michaelt wrote:
| As far as I can tell, the target market for steaming hot
| water taps is office kitchens.
|
| When a kitchen serves 100+ people things like limescale
| will inevitably be a problem. If the steaming hot water
| tap is plumbed in, with replaceable water filters and a
| regular service contract - that's an advantage, not a
| disadvantage.
|
| Steaming hot water taps can supply lots of hot water
| fast, so even if a load of people are making drinks at
| the same time in between meetings, they can keep up.
|
| There's also a safety argument that if you've got a
| kettle _and_ a mug, that 's two things of boiling water
| you could drop, and eliminating one of the two makes
| things safer. And because the steaming hot water tap is
| directly above a drain, the impact of a spill is much
| reduced. And a lot of these taps make water that is
| steaming but somewhat below boiling, which might be safer
| or something?
|
| Not sure why you'd want one for home though.
| brynx97 wrote:
| I wouldn't consider it an inconvenience in my kitchen. I'm
| highly interested in this. However, $700 is a lot. So, like
| others mentioned, I'd first like to see a demo video at the
| very least of it in action.
|
| Different teas require different and specific temperatures
| for optimal results. A hot water tap cannot do this. I love
| the minimalism in the product design for this!
| flakeoil wrote:
| How much energy is that hot water tap wasting by keeping
| some tank with water hot throughout the day (and maybe
| night) for just a few cups of tea/coffee?
| OJFord wrote:
| Not a lot actually, and there's the space from not having
| a kettle any more; filling pans for pasta/rice/etc. too.
|
| The cheapest ones are about 10x the cheapest kettles.
| Can't imagine wanting to go back to a kettle personally.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| > so many people now have hot water taps for tea
|
| I have never seen that anywhere at houses I visited in
| France, Germany, Italy, Poland, a few US.
|
| I am not saying that this is not a thing, it is just that
| "so many" depends on the demographics.
| tashoecraft wrote:
| I disagree. There's a very large espresso market for those
| who want a cheaper device that doesn't have the
| complications of a boiler. I have a flair espresso machine
| myself.
|
| Adding a boiler I'd guess would double the price, so I
| think it's a good decision to leave off.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| This isn't a cheaper device though.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| "So many" should be heavily qualified. It's nowhere near
| true in my experience (in the US) and I suspect this may
| only be true in specific places, or economic classes, or
| maybe it's just you and two friends.
| klausa wrote:
| One of us is making their coffee wrong, because my espresso
| making is definitely more inconvenient than a pour-over.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| Is it still thermally stable after a low-speed journey
| through a long (? Hard to say how long it is, or if you just
| plonk it into an open kettle of water as there are only close
| ups) narrow plastic tube? And what about cold water already
| in the tube?
|
| If thermal stability is important enough to make such an
| advertising claim, you should probably show a comparison of
| input temperatures where the water meets the coffee over the
| course of multiple cycles against a representative
| competitor. With actual data rather than stylised cartoon
| graphs like in TV adverts for washing powder or whatever.
|
| Woolly claims like that without clear evidence really make
| sound like audiophile woo territory, which would be a shame
| if you've actually done the research!
| enjo wrote:
| In addition I would need to some justification for the idea
| that water stored in a clean tank without access to light
| is somehow worse than fresh out of a filter.
| spressoe wrote:
| Thermal stability is arguably one of the most important
| aspects of espresso machine. If the water in the espresso
| machine boiler is sitting at 95degC, by the time this hot
| water reaches the group head it will lose some of the
| temperature. Lose 2degC and you're good. Lose 5degC and you
| still might be good but already at the edge of getting the
| crap out of the machine. Lose more than that and you're not
| gonna want to drink it.
|
| Traditional E61 espresso machines whose water boiler is at
| DT cm's away from the group head, solve the problem of
| temperature surf with heavy duty pipes, boilers, isolation
| and materials to keep the temperature loss at the minimum.
|
| More modern espresso machines place the water boiler just
| above the group head so they're basically solving the
| problem other way around: keeping the DT at minimum so
| giving no or minimum space for temperature loss.
|
| As for this design, I am not sure how does it solve this
| problem.
| ivanvanderbyl wrote:
| Get this in the hands of James Hoffman, I'd love to hear his
| take on it
| simonjgreen wrote:
| It's fascinating how he has become to coffee as MKBHD has to
| technology. The kingmaker of coffee gear.
| petepete wrote:
| Thankfully it's quite difficult to grind and brew coffee
| dangerously.
| tpm wrote:
| Not really, moka pots are known to explode.
| GTP wrote:
| Source? I'm from Italy, where everybody's using them, but
| never heard of a single one exploding. Maybe you can find
| an isolated case, but I'm confident it's extremely rare.
| There's a safety valve to release pressure after all, and
| if you use the Moka correctly the valve never has to
| engage.
| K0balt wrote:
| I'm in the Dominican Republic, and moka pots are 99
| percent of the market here as well. Everyone warns me
| about moka pots exploding, but I've never met anyone (15
| years here now) that knows of one first hand that
| actually exploded.
|
| But everyone is terrified of mokasplosion.
|
| I'll admit, the prospect of a pressurized vessel of
| boiling water is a potent reminder for precautionary
| thinking.
| tpm wrote:
| Well my wife had one and it exploded (and it was Italian,
| Bialetti I think), we have several friends with
| explosions etc. It's of course possible that Italians use
| it properly and we don't, but I'm not an expert in this
| topic, so I just stay away from them.
| scarfaceneo wrote:
| MKBHD is the last person I'd go to for anything tech
| related.
|
| He, like many others, do little more than just read spec
| sheets.
|
| I like his car related content though, reckless driving
| notwithstanding
| presentation wrote:
| I find his channel useful just for getting an opinion
| from a end-user perspective of what a product is like;
| that's a legitimate opinion, not every data point needs
| to be a deep dive into the manufacturing process of a
| particular gadget.
| f1shy wrote:
| Is there a BOLTR for general tech? For Instruments there
| is evvlog... but general tech?
| bubblethink wrote:
| I have found Mr. Mobile (Michael Fisher) to be quite
| good. He does some sort of a road trip or excursion as a
| real world tech review and also covers a lot of old and
| quirky hardware.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Alec Watson of Technology Connections is my favourite for
| technology in general.
| kisonecat wrote:
| He has made me extremely enthusiastic for heat pumps.
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| Me too, though it turns out certain types of houses don't
| support just replacing furnace with a central heat pump.
| No free lunch in thermodynamics :(
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Have you heard about brown?
| MostlyStable wrote:
| You know, I've watched basically every video of his for
| several years now (as well as going back in the archives
| for some of his older stuff), and I think this is the
| first time I've ever encountered his name.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Is there a way to get hours watched for a particular
| channel out of YouTube?
|
| Another high-hour channel for me is Petter of Mentour
| Pilot.
|
| As an Australian, those two guys accents their way of
| framing things are like mum's lullabies.
| oigursh wrote:
| +1 for MrMobile (Michael Fisher), he comes across as more
| impartial than a lot of the other folks.
| tschwimmer wrote:
| Unlike MKBHD, James Hoffman has some slightly more
| objective credibility. He won some barista competitions
| about 15 years ago. He's been involved in the coffee
| industry (outside of being a content creator) for most of
| his life. As far as I know about Marques, his main
| qualification is that he was just relatively early to the
| tech review game.
|
| That is not to say that I personally take all or most of
| Hoffman's suggestions at face value. It's abundantly clear
| that the level of nuance he considers in coffee is not
| relevant to me. But I do tend to see him applying a much
| more objective level of rigor to his reviews than many
| other content creators.
| VeejayRampay wrote:
| he's also fair, often trashes big brands when their
| products are mediocre
|
| I have great respect for his integrity and body of work
| krowek wrote:
| He's also deleted some of his videos because they had
| mentions to brands or companies with wrong practices
| (yes, plain wrong).
|
| Also has very good books. So, totally not the average
| youtuber/content creator out there.
| dogboat wrote:
| When he trashed the aldi espresso machine I think he was
| unfair. The main issues with it are probably the same
| issues you get on a Breville until you tune the OPV and
| get a seperate grinder. That said I dont think he is the
| screwdriver to espresso machine type.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > That said I dont think he is the screwdriver to
| espresso machine type.
|
| He's mentioned modding espresso machines many times in
| his videos, and brings it up often during reviews.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| I've got a Bambino Plus and so far the only
| customizations are a bottomless portafilter, a huge
| single wall basket (IMS), programming the flow presets
| for a good ratio by weight in/out, and optimizing the
| grind specifically for 30s duration. I'll have to look
| into your OPV suggestion; anything else?
| dogboat wrote:
| Bambino might be OK stock?? Not sure. Only change the OPV
| if you have a problem to solve. For me it was slightly
| too fine gets zero extraction and the pressure compacts
| the puck. Then go a bit coarser and it spews out.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| The draw of MKBHD has nothing to do with "objective
| credibility". Consumer tech reviews are more about
| whether the reviewer will discuss daily usability
| objectively, and entertainment.
|
| Coffee is more niche. It makes more sense for "objective
| credibility" to play a role there.
| MrSkelter wrote:
| Very few tech reviewers have anything other than
| experience. Nilay Patel trained as a lawyer. He can't
| code, can't engineer, isn't an industrial designer etc.
| it's one reason why tech reviews are so obsessed with
| keyboards. For most reviewers keyboard feel is one of the
| few areas they have real expertise in.
|
| MKBHD is absolutely as qualified as 99% of his peers.
| diob wrote:
| Yeah, I wouldn't compare them at all. Hoffman is also by
| all appearances and mannerisms a standup individual, more
| of a Mr. Rogers of coffee than anything else, in my
| opinion.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Mr. Rogers is a great comparison. Something about the
| sweaters and always wishing viewers a good day!
| deanc wrote:
| Regarding grinders there's actually someone else who is
| considered the kingmaker: Lance Hedrick [1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/@LanceHedrick/videos
| basedrum wrote:
| Who is mkbhd?
| criddell wrote:
| Product reviewer with a very popular YouTube channel.
| peterlada wrote:
| St James, the protector saint of all things covfefe.
| xyst wrote:
| mkbhd over the years has had some really bad takes on tech.
| I haven't used his channel for quite awhile.
|
| I would say his success is largely due to being among the
| first to the market in tech reviews and having (at the
| time) better production quality.
| rocqua wrote:
| He wouldn't take it. He'll review it after it's been on the
| market for about half a year, without any money. Lance
| hedrick is also a decently respected voice who does usually
| take sponsored reviews, whilst being honest.
| jedimastert wrote:
| I think Lance Hedrick would like this a lot. I bet he would
| experiment with changing the pressure during the brewing
| process
| xyst wrote:
| I agree here. Given the bespoke design, I would love to see a
| comparison with other machines.
| prmoustache wrote:
| > Also, for $700 independent reviews are also a must.
|
| Also for $700 you don't want to be the guinea pig.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| Honestly, $700 is considered a very inexpensive price point
| in the espresso world.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Not if you have used the same bialetti moka pot for
| decades, only replacing the rubber seal once every year.
| robocat wrote:
| Costs at least a few minutes a day, which works out
| equivalent to plenty of dollars per year if you make it
| at home and have a well paying job. Works well but I hate
| cleaning it after making coffee.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I am more of a tea guy but I think you can totally cancel
| the cost of preparing and cleaning it when considering it
| becomes part of a package of daily movements you should
| do to stay healthy.
|
| Also you can totally work while the pot is getting to
| temperature.
| wsc981 wrote:
| I hardly ever really clean my Moka pots. Usually, it's
| just a quick rinse with water. Is it really required to
| clean a Moka pot often?
| robocat wrote:
| Just washing the grounds out but takes time to cool the
| moka down. I guess I could leave the grounds in and clean
| it the next day but that idea is icky to me.
|
| I preheat the moka with hot water and fill it with hot
| water from jug to reduce time to brew (necessary due to
| stove setup).
| dexterdog wrote:
| I have had a Flair for a few years now and the time is an
| important aspect. I used to use a Jura and the whole
| 1-button thing led to me drinking way too much coffee as
| I also had it mounted next to my desk. The workflow is a
| meditation and at the end the reward is a (usually)
| perfect pair of espresso shots.
| esperent wrote:
| A moka pot isn't an espresso machine. It only generates
| around 1.5 bars of pressure which is only slightly higher
| than what you get pushing an aeropress by hand. Espresso
| needs at minimum 6 bars, although traditionally it's 9
| bars.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| For something that is essentially a slightly automated
| manual lever machine, it is quite expensive. Anything from
| Flair or the other lever machine companies is far less than
| that.
|
| Without actually fully heating the coffee for your and
| having a tank, etc, I don't see a huge advantage here over
| those types of machines.
| tashoecraft wrote:
| The flair 58 is 600+. So it's slightly more, but from a
| new manufacturer and has a unique design. I expected it
| to be at least a $1000, so I think it's definitely price
| competitive. Though I'd hold off until reviews come in.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| So, the Flair 58 is their 'highest end' model and sports
| a 58mm portafilter... this thing is a 51mm portafilter
| which is basically only used on smaller portable
| machines. Also, it's listed on their website for $580.
| Not sure how you get to 600+ (unless you include tax, I
| guess).
|
| A more comparable model from Flair would be either the
| Pro 3 ($325, all metal in the grouphead, pressure gauge,
| shot mirror... lots of included accessories) or the
| cheaper models they offer (Classic w/ pressure gauge,
| $230, Neo Flex, $99).
|
| If you wanted to compare to the Cafelat Robot, that is
| also only $450... and is all metal, built like a tank,
| and has a very charming aesthetic.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| I love all these machines that we're comparing to but
| they're fundamentally different things - they don't have
| a pump to fit into their BOM. So maybe:
|
| In the category of "machines that don't froth milk", it
| might be the most expensive by $50.
|
| In the category of "machines that have pressure control",
| it might be the cheapest by $700
|
| In the category of "machines that have a rotary pump", it
| might be the cheapest by $2000.
|
| It's sort of the curse of making something that doesn't
| clearly fit into a specific category.
|
| 51mm portafilters are better and some day the world will
| come to understand
|
| https://youtu.be/jTAkb-dCFro?si=QQ6K9l99xqOCQl5S
| roflyear wrote:
| The Met doesn't do milk and it is way more expensive, and
| similar to what you are doing, I think.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| The Meticulous is a lower end competition with the Decent
| Espresso DE1, or a more upscale version of the DIY stuff
| like Gaggiuino.
|
| Given the author has given us essentially nothing
| regarding what is actually controllable (besides pressure
| control?), it's unclear to me what you even can do with
| it. A simple pressure control is pretty basic and not at
| all comparable to the Meticulous or a DE1.
| roflyear wrote:
| OP's machine features are:
|
| - Group preheat (so it has some kind of heater) - "Fully
| adjustable power" - ???
|
| It does seem that the water tube either goes to a kettle
| and the pump is in the machine, or it goes to a pump,
| that you then need to attach to a machine, and that clear
| line is pressurized.
|
| It does potentially have one feature the met doesn't
| (hinted at by allowing for filter brews): it'll be able
| to use up the entire water source, not a small amount of
| water you pour into the machine (similar to the Decent).
|
| Edit: based on the manual just added, it seems like the
| pump is in the machine.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Best I can tell, with the manual released, this is
| literally just a pump and a group head. The dial appears
| to control the pump 'power' (voltage, I assume), and
| that's about it.
|
| I'm really, really not seeing what could possibly justify
| this price. If the 'control' is just as simple as an
| analog knob, then this is no different than adding 'flow
| control' via a common dimmer switch to any other pump.
| I've done this modification on vibratory pump models
| myself, and they function just fine when dimer switch
| modded.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| No offense, but we're not really comparing different
| things. You're offering an espresso machine that
| fundamentally has:
|
| * No heating control
|
| * No tank/water storage
|
| * No milk frothing capability
|
| The obvious comparison is a manual (lever) espresso
| machine that does not offer its own heating capability.
| It offers pressure control (via your arm) just fine.
|
| Also, besides noise complaints and possibly some
| questionable reasoning involving vibe pump longevity, I
| have yet to see a compelling reason a rotary pump is
| better. They're 'nicer' and offered in higher end stuff,
| but performance wise a very good vibe pump seems just
| fine. Flow rates are more than adequate for pretty much
| any normal brewing method.
|
| Regarding 51mm vs 58mm: you might be correct technically,
| but the ecosystem around accessories is firmly in the
| 58mm camp. As far as I can tell, the difference is so
| marginal it doesn't really matter anyways. Puck prep and
| other things will matter more for the average user.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Is it really? How many home users are really spending that
| much on an espresso machine? As someone who owns a ~$1000
| machine (Profitec Go), I definitely feel like the
| $500-$1000 range is "end game" for the vast majority of
| people, not "very inexpensive".
| pkulak wrote:
| I feel like I've seen a dozen photos of it now and still have no
| idea what it looks like. Could you maybe take a couple steps back
| and snap a shot or two?
| pandemic_region wrote:
| This. Plus a clear video of the thing(s) in action. Right now I
| have no idea what I would be actually buying.
| cryptozeus wrote:
| Yeh totally agree just replied with full details on this.
| tetris11 wrote:
| Thank you -- all these weird close up shots accentuating the
| curves, but no idea what it looks like just sitting on a table.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Also consider that what is pictured misses many of the parts
| that makes up the full setup. For the hot water supply, it
| requires something like a kettle on the side. Also, as
| mentioned, it also requires an external power brick and
| something to act as a drip tray.
|
| Seeing the full setup as envisioned would be nice. With the
| machine, kettle and grinder, all plugged in, and with all the
| accessories. This is an unusual machine, looking at the
| pictures, I have no idea how making my morning coffee with it
| would be like.
| idk1 wrote:
| This looks great! I think I need to wait for some reviews to know
| if the coffee is good, but I would also like to offer you some
| advice. Your website is very poorly designed and does not match
| the craftsmanship of the machine itself. The animated fonts,
| constant videos, lack of white space--it all adds up to something
| that feels like a quick design job by a mid-level design student.
|
| Any paid template from any of the big website building companies
| would be better than what you have at the moment.
|
| Also, photography-wise, as a lot of other people have suggested
| here, take a few steps back. Just show the whole product on a
| worktop, without videos. You're not Apple; it's not iconic yet. A
| close-up won't suffice. We need to see the whole thing static,
| not in a close-up video all the time. (The reason you've done
| this is that you're very familiar with the design. Visitors are
| not--you've forgotten what it's like to see it for the first
| time.)
|
| I hope this comes across in the way it's intended. The device is
| gorgeous; it should be treated with the respect of a good
| website.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| > _Your website is very poorly designed_
|
| Oh, knock it off.
|
| Geocities pages were very poorly designed. This site is not.
| idk1 wrote:
| In my defense, you have cut off the second half of the
| sentence when quoting me. Which is not the sort of thing I'd
| expect to happen around here.
|
| I hope this provides some context: what I mean is "poorly
| designed" in the context of the product, which is in the
| second half of the sentence you omitted. There's a mismatch
| between the product quality and the website quality. You're
| right--it's a 5 or 6 out of 10 website. Not a bad score at
| all, certainly not poor. I would enjoy and not comment on
| most other content using this design style. However, a 10/10
| product (let's assume it is) should not have a website that
| looks like this. It damages the brand. And that, I think,
| justifies calling it poor. (But what's the worst that could
| happen? Fewer sales? It's fine, really.)
| 123pie123 wrote:
| for a sales pitch, i was really put off by the website
| design as well
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Whatever the validity of your points, the tone of your
| remarks was disrespectful and denigrating. There's very
| little defense for that.
| wpietri wrote:
| I disagree. Frank language is not disrespectful. And here
| I think the warm opening and closing, the specificity of
| the critique, and the useful suggestions are not just
| respectful, but helpful.
|
| Also, I think anybody whose contribution is, "Oh, knock
| it off," doesn't have a lot of room to complain about
| somebody bringing the tone down.
| Texasian wrote:
| This is a pot, kettle, black situation.
| wpietri wrote:
| There's more than one kind of poor design. These days there's
| quite a lot of bad design that looks slicker than something
| in the geocities era, but is worse in terms of how well it
| meets its purpose.
|
| I agree with idk1; however pretty this page is, it's terribly
| designed as a product page. I am less likely to buy the
| product after seeing the page than before. And reading
| through the comments, that's true for many people. Is it
| pretty? Yes. But a pretty thing that harms your purpose is
| worse designed than an ugly thing that serves it.
| detectivestory wrote:
| I don't think its really fair to call this site "poorly
| designed".
| krisoft wrote:
| > The reason you've done this is that you're very familiar with
| the design. Visitors are not--you've forgotten what it's like
| to see it for the first time.
|
| Maybe part of the problem. I suspect that is not the whole
| reason. I think they are not happy (consciously or
| unconsciously) with the appearance of the pump and/or don't
| consider it part of the product. And that is why they are
| excluding it from the images. Sometimes literally photoshopping
| it out.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Hey, you can actually see the pump here, in the kit you can
| use to put it in other kinds of espresso machines - it's
| inside the machine. I'll find a way to incorporate it into
| the product page for the espresso machine as well.
|
| https://velofuso.com/store/p/gear-pump-upgrade-kit
| krisoft wrote:
| Thank you for the explanation! I was totally confused about
| it. I thought the pump is at the other end of the tube.
|
| In that case I agree that a video where one makes coffee
| with it would be useful. That would have disabused me of my
| confusion immediately.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| I think you might have easier time selling the pump kit
| than the machine and the grinder. For one, I am almost sold
| on trying the kit, but the description is missing necessary
| details - what's in the box, ideally with a photo, and
| which machines it can be used with (and which it cannot
| be).
|
| Also, related - set up a mailing list and add a
| subscription link at the bottom of every page. I bet people
| that are interested but hesitant would love to get a ping
| when you add more info to the website.
| jen729w wrote:
| > Any paid template from any of the big website building
| companies would be better than what you have at the moment.
|
| This is a Squarespace site. See: the favicon.
| Systemic33 wrote:
| Hardly the first conical burr grinder. Niche Zero has been
| available for quite a while;
| https://www.nichecoffee.co.uk/products/niche-zero
|
| Edit: Misread cylindrical as conical
| n42 wrote:
| This is cylindrical, which the author purports to be different
| mr_mitm wrote:
| Their claim is something else, though: "The first cylindrical
| burr coffee grinder"
| oniony wrote:
| They didn't claim to be first conical burr grinder. The claimed
| innovation is in the cylindrical design.
| covofeee wrote:
| Tangental: I have a 3 yr old Niche Zero, they are excellent -
| but they are not first conical. They used the burr from another
| famous grinder (I was more into all this shit but don't
| remember now)
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| They use Mazzer burrs, a classic!
|
| Niche made the single dose grinder mainstream though and
| deserve a ton of credit for that
| axkdev wrote:
| For all the talk about "beautiful" design, the photos and videos
| look super overlit and quite amateurish.
| Neff wrote:
| My brother in Christ... $1400 for a coffee grinder and espresso
| machine?!
|
| I am into mechanical keyboards and IEMs and that feels outrageous
| to me. I'll spend $40 on a pen, but that price point feels insane
| to me.
|
| Maybe I just like my garbo Aldi's whole bean coffee with cream &
| sugar, so I am not your target market... I hope you find your
| niche - I am sure it is out there if you went this far. But man..
| I couldnt ever spend that much on the tools to make coffee.
| exitb wrote:
| We know very little about the quality of this product, but it's
| competing with the likes of Flair 58 and Niche Zero, which
| makes it adequately priced. But again, if the quality is there.
| ique wrote:
| That's actually pretty cheap, especially if it delivers on the
| promises. I spent about $6k on my current setup.
| justmarc wrote:
| A "higher" end home grade espresso machine, that is also a huge
| gunk of plastic and prone to issues/expensive maintenance is
| over $700 alone.
|
| So for a self made, low production run of quality components,
| this is not bad.
| mr_mitm wrote:
| The espresso space is notoriously targeting well-off people.
| That is a pretty normal price range. At the high end you can
| find espresso machines for 13k [1] and grinders for 3.6k [2],
| still aimed at consumers.
|
| [1] https://www.lamarzocco.com/ch/de/produkt/leva-x-1-group/
|
| [2] https://weberworkshops.com/products/eg-1
| tuyiown wrote:
| Believe it or not, it's pretty reasonable price for mid-high
| end quality coffee stuff. Seeing the picture and description I
| was expecting an at least $1000 range price for each. And I
| totally not am an SF engineer with that much excessive money
| for buying something like that.
|
| Coffee enthusiasts are borderline insane, maybe something with
| the involved molecules.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| This is inline with entry level setups. My setup costs this
| much.
|
| The thing is the expectations for these machines are sky-high.
| They're built like tanks, last forever, are servicable, and
| generally very high quality.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| If you think this is an "entry level" setup, you're in too
| deep!
| welder wrote:
| The techie's midlife crisis isn't a sports car, it's an espresso
| machine.
| pistolpeteDK wrote:
| Looks very interesting! A video is also a must for me as well as
| an independent review. I would love to be updated though, and I
| think you could pick up a lot of potential leads by having a
| newsletter. But exciting stuff! Good luck :)
| mastazi wrote:
| There is a lot to like, but not enough info right now to make me
| place an order! I have many questions. For example
|
| regarding the machine,
|
| - can you confirm if the pump can be adjusted during the shot
| (profiling)?
|
| - can the shot be programmed too, or just manual?
|
| regarding the grinder,
|
| - can you explain a bit how the "knocker" works when you twist
| the hopper?
|
| - I guess that the burr is unimodal, do you have more details
| about distribution or flavor profile?
| einpoklum wrote:
| Thing thing I was most impressed with here was smeeeeeeeeeeeee's
| username and the fact that it's bright green. What does that
| mean? 8-\
| bowsamic wrote:
| It means it's an early post from a new account
| halflife wrote:
| First of all, congratulations. It must be a monumental task to
| design and manufacture a mechanical machine.
|
| However, the website is kind of confusing regarding the operation
| of the machine. You say that the machine accepts hot water
| directly, so no boiler or thermoblock, which results in a simpler
| machine. But where does the water come from? I see 2 pipes
| leading to/from the machine in the videos, so I'm guessing the
| water feeds from one and drains from the other? So you need to
| preheat water in a container? Won't the water cool rapidly while
| traveling in the pipe?
| rustman123 wrote:
| I have the same impression. I guess the machine is completely
| passive regarding temperature and requires a) a preheated water
| source and b) a hot-water flush before each use to heat the
| machine and push hot water into the hoses
|
| That means it's a pump attached to a grouphead.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Congrats, I'm jealous. I too want to design an espresso machine
| and I see that you covered many of my complaints already :)
|
| It looks great and the presentation is also amazing. However, I
| wasn't able to understand the website at first glance because my
| first instinct was to check who made this and how much it costs.
| You have to click a few times to see the price and I couldn't
| find who is going to send me this from where. IMHO you should
| have a page explaining why I should trust you and also I would
| like to see an address because when those things lack I got the
| vibes that someone is trying to sell me something from Temu at
| %1000 price. It's just the vibes.
|
| Anyway, I hope you have succeed in this because the espresso
| machines desperately need a revolution.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you! And you should still design an espresso machine!
|
| Argh, yeah squarespace seperates the store from the overall
| site. Definitely need to re-organize and add some stuff, like
| an about us page. For now, you can uhhh watch me fighting
| robots on TV
|
| https://youtu.be/vaBejT_TpWs?si=ZTs0fpLuHzNX31uS
| oulipo wrote:
| Beautiful objects! I'll wait for review and maybe order one haha
| although my favorite coffee is still french press
| exitb wrote:
| There's only one clip/snippet in there of the machine actually
| producing espresso and whatever comes out looks very thin and
| watery with no crema visible. That's worrying.
|
| Google "bottomless portafilter shot" for how it's supposed to
| look.
| thomky wrote:
| That clip is showing the filter coffee brew function, not
| espresso. Brewing filter coffee in an espresso machine actually
| sounds like it'd be nice on occasion. Side note -- I find it
| funny that you'd assume the guy that designed an espresso
| machine and grinder doesn't know what espresso looks like; on
| the flip-side, why no espresso pull money shot???
| exitb wrote:
| That's a charitable take. There's a picture at the end of the
| page that shows coffee dripping with much lower flow rate in
| the ,,filter mode". The upper one however looks like low
| pressure attempt at an espresso, which makes me question
| whether the machine can actually do the advertised 10 bar.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| >Brewing filter coffee in an espresso machine actually sounds
| like it'd be nice on occasion.
|
| It's honestly not necessary. We espresso drinkers can already
| do that - it's called an Americano.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| It tastes different! Filter is fundamentally extracting an
| entirely different way
|
| https://youtu.be/yQpHnXKQNq0?si=j0UINumbw_NFAzW6
| thomky wrote:
| Americano definitely tastes different than pour over -- I
| make both all the time
| bilekas wrote:
| > REIMAGINING OF THE ESPRESSO MACHINE
|
| It's a brave brave person who takes on the decision to reimagine
| something that people are so particular and pedantic over.
|
| I have to say it's an interesting idea though! Sounds like it
| wasn't easy too. good luck with the journey!
| tpm wrote:
| > The biggest downside for the grinder is that it doesn't work
| with starbucks style oily roasts
|
| I have no idea whether my coffee is oily or not. I sometimes buy
| Starbucks Blonde Roast, is that oily? I would expect a $749
| grinder work with any coffee beans.
|
| And the grinder looks great, except for the two things that
| immediately catch my eye:
|
| - the cable that I feel should come from the base and not hang
| like that.
|
| - I think there should be a (optional) storage container
| integrated where the ground coffee goes.
|
| And the 'See more' link ( https://velofuso.com/oculo ) doesn't
| work
| ape4 wrote:
| Yeah, for storage it would be nice if there was a hole in the
| espresso maker's arches to hold the grinder. Even people with
| the money to buy these products need efficient storage.
| criddell wrote:
| Starbucks lighter roasts (Blonde and Willow) are not oily. I
| understand why Starbucks is a good reference but just about any
| Southern Italian style dark roast ends up with oily beans.
|
| The problem with Starbucks coffee from an espresso point of
| view is that you don't know when they were roasted and chances
| are it was more than a couple weeks ago.
|
| Although, staleness isn't always a problem, especially for
| blends with Robusta.
|
| https://www.home-barista.com/coffees/thoughts-on-italian-esp...
| tpm wrote:
| I'm in Central Europe, we don't have Willow here, just
| Blonde. Anyway I don't drink it often but as you say it's a
| good reference point. Mostly what would concern me are light
| and medium Arabica roasts for filtered coffee (Hario).
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you, fixed it!
|
| >I think there should be a (optional) storage container
| integrated where the ground coffee goes.
|
| There is a little cup that fits right below the grinder, or do
| you mean something else?
|
| >I would expect a $749 grinder work with any coffee beans.
|
| I totally get this, and I definitely want to make a burr set
| that works with everything. The reason these don't is
| essentially because these burrs are designed for something
| called densification - it's where particles are gradually
| rounded and amalgamated as they are mixed and tumbled. The
| cutting path for most grinders on the market today is too short
| for to see much of this, so it definitely sets this grinder
| apart in terms of flavor profile and even how the grounds look.
| The downside is that sticky and oily particles resist that
| process and expand and start to clog up the bottom of the burr
| when grinding finely. When grinding for filter, it's fine, but
| with espresso can require some routine cleanings.
| tpm wrote:
| > There is a little cup that fits right below the grinder, or
| do you mean something else?
|
| I would prefer something that can be sealed. My cheap & not
| good Delonghi KG89 has a semi-sealed plastic vessel, which is
| handy when I want to grind coffee in the evening to use it in
| the morning and not wake up the family. I just let it there
| for the night. But of course if a small cup fits, a small
| sealable vessel will fit too, so it's fine.
|
| > When grinding for filter, it's fine, but with espresso can
| require some routine cleanings.
|
| All right, that's important information since I only drink
| filters, now I would love to taste this.
| q_p wrote:
| I'm quite intrigued by the gear pump upgrade kit, since this was
| something I had been planning to do for a while. The vibratory
| pump from my E61 machine is incredibly loud and doesn't
| particularly spark joy.
|
| Looking around the market for some used Fluid-o-tech gear pumps
| which were not extremely expensive was quite frustrating. Also
| having to deal with the correct power supply for the replacement
| pump wasn't something I was looking forward to.
|
| Props on releasing such cool products!
|
| Order #1 for the Pump kit went through. Looking forward to try it
| out!
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you so much for the order!
|
| I think the trouble with using fluid-o-tech style pumps (I
| actually started out by buying one) is that they're really
| optimized for machines where the space, cost, and weight of the
| pump aren't a significant concern, so they can get away with
| using a giant slow AC motor with big gears. That sort of motor
| unfortunately doesn't scale down too well, so instead we use a
| small DC brushless motor and spin it very fast, and then even
| with the power supply it still ends up being a smaller and
| cheaper setup.
| 8lall0 wrote:
| As a coffeegeek myself, i would like to see a video before!
| kachalov wrote:
| I would love to see a whole process how you engineered it
| edding4500 wrote:
| Mad props for offering a pump kit!
| cryptozeus wrote:
| Absolutely love this , congrats on making your dream a reality. I
| know how much work it is to bring something from concept to
| actual product one can use. Also it hurts me to say this but the
| website is trash. I know you are trying to go for modern look but
| at no point I can see the full machine, the price is hidden and
| there are just over exposed images and videos with very hard to
| read information. This will not convert. Why do I have to add it
| to cart to see the price ? Please DM me if you need help with
| website. Some examples of similar sites that convert (based on my
| exp in e-com and retail designs/development)
|
| https://us.rok.coffee/products/presso-smartshot-soft-teal
| https://aeropress.com/products/aeropress-coffee-maker-premiu...
|
| Good luck !
|
| "...it doesn't work with starbucks style oily roasts" I think
| this is a feature :)
| teruakohatu wrote:
| > Also it hurts me to say this but the website is trash.
|
| Then better to not to say it at all. I don't think anyone on HN
| should call someone else's work "trash".
|
| I personally really liked the website on mobile. Other than
| missing a demo video it communicated the value proposition.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| I think at this point anyone that posts here expects at least
| half the comments to be about the website
| cheschire wrote:
| You missed GP's point. One should not call another's work
| "trash" here. That is not what this site is about.
|
| That does not mean the site cannot be critiqued, however,
| as plenty of other commenters have successfully
| accomplished here today.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| I wasn't talking about the "trash" comment specifically.
| It was a bad comment. Even if it was formed more
| constructively there's no value to be the 32nd blowhard
| to give a long winded version of "It would be nice if
| there were photos showing the whole machine on the
| product page"
| wpietri wrote:
| I think one shouldn't say that on its own, as it's not
| helpful. But given that it's in the middle of a lot of clear
| and specific detail that includes an offer of help, I think
| it's fine as emotion-conveying hyperbole.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thanks for the advice and the feedback!
|
| The price and full profile pictures should be visible on the
| store page without adding to cart, maybe something is going
| wrong?
|
| Here is what it looks like on all of my computers:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/3FHyw2b
| cryptozeus wrote:
| My bad ! Should not have said that. Apologies to op, i am human
| tessierashpool9 wrote:
| i'm not a big fan of this space ship design.
| justmarc wrote:
| Great work! Always fantastic to see works of love of passionate
| people, who want to challenge the status quo. That's what it's
| about!
|
| The "see more" link on the grinder page is not working,
| https://velofuso.com/oculo
| figassis wrote:
| I wish there were more products like this. Just straight up build
| quality. I'm not yet talking about the product quality or
| performance, but if someone puts in this much work in building
| something, I can trust them to iterate and commit to its overall
| quality.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| For this price, these are both great if they work well. It's very
| much the lower end of pricing for espresso capable equipment.
|
| I look forward to seeing some reviews.
|
| That being said, while you have increased the burr surface area,
| it feels like the grinder design would lead to a lot of re-
| grinding. Also, there is a reason decent espresso uses vibratory
| pumps to great effect, and its not because they're cheap or
| because they output a noisy flow of water.
| pcl wrote:
| > Also, there is a reason decent espresso uses vibratory pumps
| to great effect, and its not because they're cheap or because
| they output a noisy flow of water.
|
| The suspense is killing me! What's the reason?
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Decent machines (the company called Decent Espresso, to be
| clear. It's confusing) use a vibe pump to do cycle-by-cycle
| water flow measurement. They claim it's substantially more
| accurate and responsive than any water flow meters on the
| market at low/high flow rates.
| pm3003 wrote:
| Congrats from Vibrateau, region vibratoriale, France.
| zdzarski wrote:
| As a coffee freak my first impression is "shut up and take my
| money". However if I compare it to my current setup I lack
| steaming wand and a clarity on what to do with those cables that
| stick from the pump unit. I'd love to see a three legged design
| that hides the water + power cables or even a small water tank.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| I think a way to have the wire and water pipe discreetly guided
| off to one side rather than dongling about in free space might
| help the look.
|
| A little stainless steel clip the you can put on either side,
| perhaps. Or have two, in case your water and power don't come
| from the same direction?
|
| My biggest concern about the longevity of the device as a
| beautiful item is that if the countertop gets water (or worse,
| coffee) spilled on it, the wood will wick it up the end grain
| and stain or swell.
| earthnail wrote:
| As many have said, get some good reviews in. I love almost
| everything about this machine and if someone like James Hoffman
| likes it, I might buy one for real. The wife acceptance factor of
| this thing is huge.
| dependsontheq wrote:
| I want one, but I need a Video with a real life demonstration. A
| kind of manual where I can see all parts and at least one
| independent reviewer.
| bschwindHN wrote:
| > We believe the best technology is the kind that doesn't call
| attention to itself. So we are going to call attention it by
| writing about it here.
|
| Last sentence should be:
|
| > So we are going to call attention to it by writing about it
| here.
|
| or
|
| > > So we are going to call attention by writing about it here.
|
| Both the grinder and espresso machine look amazing! I'd be
| curious to see more photos of a "real" setup with these things on
| a countertop. Especially where those two tubes from the espresso
| machine go. I suppose one is power actually, so the other one
| just goes into a container of water?
| aquwu wrote:
| > the fourth factory in a row tells you the part you're making is
| impossible
|
| Unless you're smarter than all of them, perhaps take the hint?
| Fabricators aren't just there to complain, heeding their advice
| here would probably save you money. Red flag.
| lnsru wrote:
| This! A big red flag to me too. The manufacturing is hard. Even
| if you design it properly there are million ways to fail
| somewhere in the manufacturing process. Hardware is for
| graybeards.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| As a background, I was a pretty experienced production engineer
| before going into this. "It's impossible" means "It doesn't
| make sense for us to do this with our current machines/setup
| times/engineers, etc". If what you want to make is possible,
| you will find a shop, or a combination of several shops, whose
| specialties line up with what you're making or how you're
| making it.
| covofeee wrote:
| Looks you have brought a touch of Dyson to the world of coffee. I
| hope you do well! I can't see your presence online at all, like
| no search results other than this HN post which is odd. If you
| can ship in January you might want to be marketing a bit more.
|
| Have you patented the cylindrical grinder? That looks like a new
| idea. I wouldn't mind trying that.
|
| Needs a youtube demo video I think. Plus you might want to give
| one to a few coffee influencers. Maybe give it to a few
| r/espresso regulars first to pedant about, then fix those things,
| as you don't want a crap review.
|
| Or can some RSU rich HN-ian just buy it and post a review, pls
| :-)
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| This is actually the only place I've posted it haha. Will
| incorporate feedback from here (especially more candid video
| content) before proceeding.
|
| I filed for a patent a couple days ago on the burr assembly,
| and a design patent on the wood arch thing, but definitely not
| looking to prevent anyone from making their own. Only to
| prevent some massive company from running off with it or even
| patenting it since I'm never going to be that high profile.
| aquwu wrote:
| > the fourth factory in a row tells you the part you're making is
| impossible
|
| Then perhaps take the hint? Fabricators aren't dumb or there to
| complain, heeding their advice might even save you money. Red
| flag imo.
| tmountain wrote:
| This looks cool. I would like to see a video showing how it makes
| brewed coffee. I'm currently using a moccamaster (for
| convenience), but it has far too much plastic. Pour over is a
| pain in the ass. I'm curious if you plan on shipping to Europe
| (where I live).
| ElmUser1022 wrote:
| Where do the pipes go?
| omega3 wrote:
| If I was in a market for minimalistic espresso machine I'd just
| get a manual espresso machine, something like the cafelat robot
| [1]. No plastic, standard professional 58mm group head (compared
| to the 51mm here), pressure gauge, no need for any hot water
| tubes, no electronics
|
| [1] http://www.cafelat.com/robot.html
| gklitz wrote:
| For OP, this is also a great reference for what their website
| should look like.
| dsego wrote:
| Albeit more user friendly it does look dated and not as
| premium.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Manual espresso machines are great and you would not be
| disappointed buying one! The main advantage of one with a pump
| is how much more repeatable the entire workflow is in terms of
| preheating and maintaining pressure - you don't need to
| repeatedly pour and purge water from it, and the pump will
| output exactly the same pressure every time.
|
| In case you have 26 minutes to kill, here is an interesting
| video on the subject of group head diameters.
|
| https://youtu.be/jTAkb-dCFro?si=xYffYaVnOQkZB0ZH
| m000 wrote:
| Congrats! The design looks nice, but I'm not very fond of the
| website design. There isn't a single picture of Trefolo that
| doesn't crop-out some part of it. Also, every picture is in a
| "sterile" environment. It would be nice to have a picture of it
| on a real kitchen counter or coffee corner to put its dimensions
| into perspective, and also demonstrate how it "fades back into
| the environment".
|
| Also, IMHO, the sustainability pitch is a nice one but needs to
| be put down in more precise terms. It is good as it is for people
| who would otherwise buy a Nespresso machine, but anyone who has
| bought something above that level would need more convincing.
|
| Overall, a good espresso machine already scores pretty high
| sustainability-wise. Apart from the used of sustainable/premium
| materials, a key factor to that is the replacement parts and
| repairability. So, how does Trefolo do in terms of replacement
| parts and compatibility with 3rd party parts?
|
| For me, the future lack of replacement parts is especially
| concerning for the Turbina coffee grinder. The use of bespoke
| grinding burrs adds a wow factor and may be functionally superior
| to other types of burrs. But this is the one part in the whole
| setup that is guaranteed to need replacement down the road. What
| are the provisions for that? How much would it cost? And if you
| decide to stop selling it, would you e.g. be willing to commit to
| releasing the burr design so owners or some independent
| manufacturer can machine replacements?
| f1shy wrote:
| Excellent comment. I beg the OP to address the topics,
| specially spare parts, so I can buy it.
| hsshhshshjk wrote:
| I was also looking for a full, non edited, non animated, non
| faded picture of the machine.
| turnsout wrote:
| He has "full body" shots in the actual store, but I agree--
| it would be great to see a clearer shot, maybe lower in the
| flow.
| krisoft wrote:
| > He has "full body" shots in the actual store
|
| Is this the image you are thinking about?
| https://images.squarespace-
| cdn.com/content/v1/642b16caa70131...
|
| Because the problem is that it is not the "full body" of
| the coffee maker. Those pipes go somewhere. At least in
| the sense of how people usually think of an espresso
| machine the machine also contains the pump and the
| boiler. This apparently doesn't have those parts? Or if
| it has they are not good looking and minimalist enough to
| show.
|
| We are discussing the photos as if those are the problem,
| but I think the issue people are having is with the
| product design. If I make a picture of a laptop on a
| charger people don't ask where do the cable go, because
| they know it goes into a charger connected to the wall.
| But with this people have to imagine a standalone
| boiler/pump setup just waiting to be connected into this
| coffee extractor thingy which is not a thing most people
| have (or expect to one day have ) in their kitchen.
| taway789aaa6 wrote:
| Surely that image is a computer rendering and not an
| actual photo though! I want to see an _actual_ photo.
| Like on a counter. How big is it? Wires? Power brick?
| Cool concept, but hard to make a decision with so little
| information.
| krisoft wrote:
| > Cool concept, but hard to make a decision with so
| little information.
|
| It sounds like it is not hard to make the decision. I
| made my decision and it is a no. This is a cool thing for
| people who want to try the latest concepts but don't
| worry about it being an already polished and integrated
| whole product.
|
| It is how some people kit build their Rutan Long-EZ to
| fly with, and some people just buy tickets from an
| airline. They are both flying but they are not the same
| class of thing. This is more towards the kit built
| airplane end of the scale for me than what I would be
| comfortable with.
| boneitis wrote:
| > It sounds like it is not hard to make the decision. I
| made my decision and it is a no. This is a cool thing for
| people who want to try the latest concepts but don't
| worry about it being an already polished and integrated
| whole product.
|
| I got to push back on this and align with the dozens of
| other comments being critical of the website. If I had
| the physical and budgetary space for it, I'd already be
| salivating at this point and wanting to hear more,
| polished or not.
|
| But, the website is utterly lacking in conveyance of
| practical use and just dressed up in marketing design.
| While there is a disclaimer that the (device) design may
| undergo further revision, it's orthogonal to the fact
| that this completely kills any chance of an immediate,
| impulse buy (again, if I had the space). I would at this
| point be asking other buyers to post videos of it in use
| long after units have already been sold into the wild.
|
| I do take my coffee somewhat seriously, with the
| consumption of fresh microroasted beans and a few prized
| pieces of brew equipment.
| boneitis wrote:
| Want to try turning my comment more constructive (though
| my frustations with what passes for customer
| service/relations these days will bleed through)
|
| I see that the OP has already stated they will upload
| some videos. That would be great; many angles, both in
| use and not in use, both overview and zoomed in on
| components.
|
| I am not most people, but I would prefer the kind of
| videos without excessive (though not to say "devoid of")
| pre-/post-processing, editing, green-screening, video
| cuts every three seconds, and all that shebang. Even your
| teenaged child or friend/significant other conscripted
| for twenty minutes to hold the phone with a steady hand
| while you show things off, minimally rehearsed and to-
| the-point... would be _fantastic_.
|
| Don't even need to publish it on the official website if
| you deem it too tacky; but it will be infinitely more
| valuable to have on the ready than no demonstration at
| all if people are reaching out to you through channels
| like HN or even any address listed on the website. IMO.
| sgc wrote:
| The only way this type of thing takes off today is if it
| gets reviews. I am sure he will send out test devices to
| the usual suspects and we will see third party reviews.
|
| I think people are being a bit harsh about the site and
| presentation. I think most of the criticisms are
| legitimate, but it is only fair to recognize the trends
| right now; it is no better or worse than most any other
| new product website - which tend to be similarly devoid
| of real information, no matter how much the product might
| cost.
|
| From looking at the site and reading his comments here,
| this is a soft-launch / teaser, and he seems receptive to
| feedback. I look forward to seeing how things progress. I
| especially look forward to some solid videos showing
| everything in action. As with all things coffee, I can
| only be cautiously optimistic. But that means he is doing
| great :)
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| There are actually no renderings on the website except
| for that one cross-section of the grinder, the internals
| are rendered there.
|
| But absolutely, going to add more "banana for scale"
| photos asap
| yojo wrote:
| Reading between the lines, I'm pretty sure the pump is
| integrated in the housing (that's their custom "bespoke,
| brushless gear pump"), and the boiler is your electric
| kettle. So I think you could just drop the end of the
| tube into your kettle and call it a day.
|
| The kind of coffee enthusiast who is going to preorder a
| $650 unreviewed coffee machine probably has at least one
| temp holding kettle they use for pour over.
|
| But fully agreed this needs some clarity on the website.
| krisoft wrote:
| OH! I think you might be right. Oh! That explains it.
| Thank you.
|
| Thinking about it now, of course. What else would the
| power lead be for? It doesn't heat the water. The pump
| being in that part can be the only other explanation.
|
| > The kind of coffee enthusiast who is going to preorder
| a $650 unreviewed coffee machine probably has at least
| one temp holding kettle they use for pour over.
|
| Yeah. I think that's the key here. This is for an
| enthusiast who wants the latest coolest tech, and is
| willing to accept some amount of discomfort for it.
| ed_db wrote:
| Exactly this! It immediately turned me off from the product
| when I realised there isn't a single practical image of it.
| It's impossible to visualise how it would actually look on the
| counter.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Agreed. And please -- show a video of it working, start to
| finish! This is clearly a product designed to be a sensory
| experience, so let me see and hear this on a kitchen counter
| pulling a shot or two.
| not_your_mentat wrote:
| The video of the device in operation with the entire device
| in frame please. You could still even switch between sexy
| angles.
| alexwebb2 wrote:
| Yep, I looked for a couple minutes and concluded "must be
| ugly since they clearly don't want to show it to me".
| ajb wrote:
| It's interesting that he's made this visual mistake even as a
| person whose main concern is the product. So many
| photographers/videographers make the same mistake, and I guess
| he's copied them rather than thinking through what his market
| needs.
|
| The error is basically to film the product as if it was a sexy
| woman. I'll put it bluntly: _I don 't want to fuck your
| product_. I might want to buy it but only if you show me the
| practical details. (Speaking generally - I'm not in the market
| for a coffee machine). Videos that solely try to convey allure
| and mistique are a net negative for the vast majority of
| products.
| neogodless wrote:
| I'd also like to add that everything I click seems to open a
| new tab/window. Can't I just view the coffee devices and store
| all in a single tab? Details? New window. Shop? New window!
| Back to the details? New window. Contact? New window!! I don't
| like having all these extra tabs to close without a good reason
| for it.
| XCSme wrote:
| This was my first impression too. On a large, 4k display, I
| could barely read anything, all I saw was a really zoomed-in
| photo of some device.
| amluto wrote:
| I would also like to see a user's manual and a diagram of how
| it's plumbed. Where does the hot water come from? Does the user
| supply their own kettle? Where does excess water go when
| pressure is released? How does the preheating cycle work?
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Hey there!
|
| Yep, you bring the hot water, the machine does everything
| else! There is a pressure seal directly in the group head
| that holds the water in at the end of a shot. You can preheat
| just by pumping water into a cup for a couple seconds, which
| is around the same as a purge cycle on a traditional espresso
| machine. The fluid path is kept as small and as insulated as
| possible to avoid thermal losses or unnecessary water being
| held in the machine.
|
| I added a pre-release version of the manual to the warranty
| page! Please excuse any minor errors.
|
| https://velofuso.com/warranty
|
| I definitely agree that there needs to be a simple clean 30
| second video of the full workflow with every part visible - I
| will work on that ASAP.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Sorry I can't look at your product page from work, but am I
| getting the correct impression that this machine doesn't
| have a boiler? If so, my (meant in good fun) suggestion is
| that you have in fact designed half an espresso machine :)
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Hahahaha, that is fair, but I like to think it is the
| important half =]
|
| We figured out how to heat water thousands of years ago.
| Flow control is considerably newer
| greenthrow wrote:
| Yeah but having the water hit the grounds at the right
| temperature is what separates a great machine from an
| average machine. Yours doesn't do that. Congratz on
| everything you've done so far but I am your target
| customer and won't consider a machine that doesn't also
| manage the water temperature.
| eekfuh wrote:
| | We figured out how to heat water thousands of years ago
|
| Then why doesn't this device heat the water
| lallysingh wrote:
| Yeah dude until I saw that it needs an external
| apparatus, I was quite interested.
| manarth wrote:
| > you bring the hot water
|
| What type of hot water supply is needed?
|
| E.g.
|
| - Hot water poured in from a kettle?
|
| - Hot water plumbed in from a domestic hot-water supply?
|
| - Hot water plumbed in from a boiling water tap (such as
| Quooker?)
| roflyear wrote:
| Reading the manual, it seems like a hose is placed into a
| kettle, and the pump is in the machine.
| 6510 wrote:
| my preference would be pictures of all angles and a single
| shot video start to finish.
|
| stop hiding, be proud.
|
| I've just looked at low end robot vacuum cleaners. It was
| hilarious, non of them are willing to show the product in
| action.
| amluto wrote:
| > There is a pressure seal directly in the group head that
| holds the water in at the end of a shot.
|
| Like a check valve? Does that mean that some (clean) water
| is trapped between the pump's output and the seal at the
| end of the shot? If so, this doesn't seem so terrible.
|
| One thing I've often found odd about espresso machines is
| that they all seem to have some mechanism to depressurize
| the basket when a shot ends, and that this mechanism lets
| water that may have been in contact with the grounds go
| through some portion of the machine. What's the point? The
| pressure will naturally dissipate quite quickly through the
| grounds unless like kind of pressure-retaining basket is in
| use.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| Hang on...you are running a plastic tube to a kettle on
| your stovetop?? There is zero chance that the water getting
| to the device is anywhere near the right temperature after
| going through a length of plastic tubing. As you know,
| temperature, pressure and grind are the three ingredients
| that make good espresso. This throws temperature control
| out the window and would make the temperature wildly swing
| depending upon the speed and volume of the extraction. Warm
| up time is crazy too, as you have to boil a pot of water.
| Most machines take around 30-40 seconds, but Breville has
| really perfected this and their new machines come up to
| temp in a miraculous 3 seconds.
|
| Besides that, anyone who has used an espresso machine knows
| that there's quite a bit of resistance when locking in a
| portafilter so that it seals properly. This thing looks
| like it would move off your countertop before the
| portafilter would lock in. Do you have to hold the legs
| with one hand while you lock the portafilter or something?
| havefunbesafe wrote:
| This is very good news, as designing a physical product like
| this is 20x more difficult than designing a website!
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Yeah, I couldn't tell if the photos were real or were rendered
| images
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| They are all real! But I definitely need to have more photos
| in actual environments.
| cryptozeus wrote:
| My bad ! Should not have said my comment about the website
| earlier. Apologies to op, i am human, this is how communication
| should be.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you so much! I appreciate the advice about the
| potentially over stylized product pages. If you go to the store
| here, you can see many full profile views of the products:
|
| https://velofuso.com/store
|
| You raise a ton of good points.
|
| - It's going to ship with a full spare parts catalogue
| available
|
| - Full prusa-esque upgrade paths will be made available for
| existing customers
|
| - Every single part on either product can be changed off with
| the removal of 1-5 screws.
|
| - The switches, cords, buttons, and (gear)motors are all
| standard sizes.
|
| - and I absolutely commit to open sourcing everything if a day
| came where the project could not continue (I have done this for
| previous projects, it isn't an empty promise)
|
| You make a good point about the burrs being a non-standard
| size. The thing to remember is every size of burr was once a
| non standard size. One of the most important parts of being a
| good engineer is only making something new when you can truly
| add value, and I think the burrs are valuable enough to have
| them be probably the only non-standard wear item in either
| machine.
| sixo wrote:
| Re website, The photography is also noticeably low-
| resolution, which stands out immediately
| skrebbel wrote:
| Just to chip in with the drive-by website feedback, I just
| realized that (I love everything about this and) I have no
| idea how big either the espresso machine or the grinder is. I
| think I'd really need some realistic (ish) kitchen photos
| with it in action to really appreciate what I'd be ordering.
| ptsd_dalmatian wrote:
| Congrats on making this! Looks very cool! For me it was very hard
| to learn about your products from your website. It is painful to
| scroll, it lags a lot and I had to put very much effort into
| getting the information I wanted. The design definitely sparked
| interest, but website killed it. Good luck on your journey!
| d--b wrote:
| That is impressive...
|
| I will be the one saying this though: While the design of the
| metallic parts looks really good, the wooden arch not _at all_.
| It is _very_ offputting for me.
|
| I think if you want wood, you should do more wood, sturdier and
| without the "ethereal" shape that feels very dated (for me this
| is straight from the 90s).
| unmet wrote:
| The design looks pretty but I'm sticking with freeze-dried
| granules, a kettle and a mug. Proper coffee, with none of this
| squeeze-the-beans rigmarole that needs complex machinery to make.
| k_bx wrote:
| Can you set grind size for filter machine? Hard to tell from the
| website
|
| Otherwise impressive work.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Yes totally, I actually made filter coffee with it this
| morning. Sorry I will add this!
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| These horrible scroll animated css pages are the bane of all
| products. Just create a video next time.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > I also saw so many people (including myself) using a scale
| while making espresso, and even putting a cup below the group
| head to catch drips, entirely negating the drip tray
|
| The drip tray is also where the 3-way valve dumps the excess
| water when the extraction is compete and the system is
| depressurized.
|
| It is also not just for drips, it is used for flushing, though I
| guess you can use a bowl here. I also see that it is designed for
| a naked portafilter, these are great, but they can be a bit messy
| if your technique is not perfect, making something like a drip
| tray even more relevant.
|
| Maybe offer a platter as an accessory, to avoid messing the
| countertop. I also wonder how the system is depressurized without
| a visible 3-way valve chute.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| A color matched platter is a good idea!
|
| Essentially inside the group head, there is a silicone ring
| which only lets water past with a small amount of pressure.
| When you turn the pump off, whatever pressure has built up will
| still be released into the coffee (we are talking like half a
| gram of water maybe) and at that point, water neither can
| neither exit the machine from the front or the back. If you
| want to flush all the water out entirely, you can put a cup
| below and the pump will blow it all out with air pressure.
| gklitz wrote:
| Feedback on your website: If you have designed a product and you
| are proud of the visual design show it. Don't do a thousand
| different strange angles and moving pans around it to obscure
| what it actually looks like. The impression your site gives is
| that you're trying to convince yourself that it might actually
| look good, but that you don't really believe it yourself, so you
| are doing everything in your power to change the perception of it
| away from what people will actually see if they just look at it.
| hiisukun wrote:
| Lovely design. Just a quick note to say that here in Australia,
| people are coffee crazy and would probably find a home for your
| kit. That includes individuals at home, but also cafes and hotel
| foyers etc.
|
| Might be worth considering an AU plug as an option (we run off
| 240v).
| cpach wrote:
| Cool product!
|
| However, to me the site feels very anonymous. I'm not currently
| in the market for a coffee grinder, but in general if I where to
| spend $700 on a product I at least would like to know things such
| as the name of the company, what country the company is
| incorporated in, warranty info, returns policy, etc.
|
| A presentation of the founder wouldn't hurt either, and
| preferably some 3rd party reviews of the product.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| I will work on that aspect, thank you for the feedback. May
| have gotten more than a little bit of tunnel vision on the
| products.
|
| There is a warranty page here, https://velofuso.com/warranty
| (which should now be displaying properly at the top of the
| store) but more importantly there is going to be a full spare
| parts catalogue on ship day.
| nimzoLarsen wrote:
| Very cool work, would love to test this out. Would definitely
| need to see some videos of it working before thinking to purchase
| it though
| rocqua wrote:
| I love the concept of the cylindrical burr, but it is just
| arguments now. I'd love to see data on retention, and particle
| size distribution.
| Beijinger wrote:
| $649.00
|
| Nice. But I prefer this one and I will build it:
| https://www.kaffee-netz.de/threads/projekt-eigenbau-kube.957...
| turnsout wrote:
| Wow, just incredible props for getting this over the finish line.
| As someone who has manufactured a purely mechanical product, I
| can't imagine the hassle dealing with factories on this. They
| absolutely hate doing anything they haven't done before,
| especially if the tolerances are tight.
|
| The products are right up my alley too, though I'm all manual at
| this point. I hope the Trefolo and Turbina are both so wildly
| successful that you end up making manual versions of both. :)
| gnramires wrote:
| Nice! As someone who has never used an espresso machine, I was a
| bit intimidated by the presentation. I think part of your show
| should be to teach, even if in a simplified fashion, how to use
| the machine, so any customer is less intimidated :)
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I don't think anyone who has never used an espresso machine is
| in the target market for this product. I own an espresso
| machine that costs a bit more than this thing, but it took me
| several steps along the way to get to the point where shelling
| out $$$$ for an espresso machine was worth it to me.
| 23B1 wrote:
| People say "hardware is hard" but that's because it's true.
| Congratulations man, really cool work.
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| And where the water pipes go exactly?
| fedeb95 wrote:
| Very impressive. The rotating Trefolo would look better without
| dust.
| basedrum wrote:
| https://www.diypresso.com/ is an open source espresso machine
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| This is very cool! Also check out Gaggiuino!
|
| https://gaggiuino.github.io/#/
|
| Hopefully going to work with their community to find a way to
| make it communicate with our pump upgrade.
| jrs235 wrote:
| I can't point them out here right now (on mobile and takes more
| effort than I care for at the moment) but you have several typos
| on the website.
| user3939382 wrote:
| If advertisements took the form of this post I wouldn't hate them
| and they would sometimes succeed with me.
| asfdsadafs wrote:
| While I'm not in the market for an expresso machine, the price
| seams reasonalbe for a low volume design product
|
| If I would be in the market, I would consider this offering.
| tjbiddle wrote:
| I pretty much immediately bounced due to your website design. Idk
| how to describe it - but, I guess just too much going on? I had
| zero interest in actually reading any of it because it was just
| so... I don't know.
|
| Turn it into a normal ol' expected ecom product page so I can
| actually read and just click and see things and different angles
| and such and I would've stayed.
|
| But good luck!
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you for the advice!
|
| If you click the shop button to go to the store itself, might
| be more your vibe?
|
| https://velofuso.com/store
| yarekt wrote:
| Yes! well done. Having taken apart some consumer level coffee
| machines I was shocked at the poor design. Something much better
| is possible, but requires redesigning the base components that
| are common off the shelf
| semireg wrote:
| While I'm curious of this design, can someone tell me why my
| cafelat robot is inferior? It's performed for years with zero
| maintenance and minimal cleaning. It pulls excellent shots. It
| takes up minimal counter space. The only downside I can think of
| is it's not ergonomic - disabled or less strong individuals may
| not be comfortable with its physical operation. But short of that
| ... it's perfect. It is my peak coffee optimization (not one
| narrow measure of perfection). What am I missing?
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| This comment feels disingenuous. You're comparing a manual
| machine. You obviously know a decent amount about the topic if
| you ended up with a cafelat robot and reached "peak
| optimization", but here you are acting confused and
| incredulous. I'd rather read an account of how a manual machine
| stacks up against a normal one in your experience than whatever
| this is.
| semireg wrote:
| Sorry, my point is I'm not in the market for new/shiny and
| I'm wondering what I'm missing. Nothing against new tech,
| that's why I'm here. But if we can satisfy our personal
| espresso needs with something non-electronic, I think that's
| worth discussing.
| jareds wrote:
| I enjoy coffee and espresso, I don't enjoy the ritual of
| making it. I don't want to have to stand and focus on
| getting my pressure correct on the leaver in the morning
| when I'm half awake. I want to dump premeasured beans into
| a grinder, then dump them into a machine and press a single
| button. I realize this machine would require more work then
| just that but it's still less then a leaver machine.
| bigbinary wrote:
| "Inferior" is a bit silly in a comparison to this, considering
| this entire hobby is about small quirks and incremental
| changes. They seem to have similar offerings except for the big
| difference that this one has a pump. If you don't care about a
| pump, a robot will do fine for the rest of your life. I'm
| personally bored of lever pulling multiple shots, but my
| counter space is limited, and I'm interested in purchasing,
| after seeing a review.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| It's not inferior, it's just a different kind of machine!
|
| The main advantages are in the workflow - heating, brewing,
| cleaning, etc are all done by pressing a button, and the
| pressure itself is going to stay at exactly what you set it to.
|
| It's also a fair bit smaller than the robot.
| TripleChecker wrote:
| Great work on the product design. The website, while very pretty,
| can be a bit disorienting. I agree with some of the suggestions
| about pushing a video so that users can see it in action and
| finding more ways to get them to the shop page. There's only a
| single shop button at the top. What's missing is likely header
| navigation.
|
| Also, a few typos you might want to fix asap:
| https://triplechecker.com/s/306095/velofuso.com
| Concrete3286 wrote:
| Congratulations on the development and taking pre-orders! You
| certainly have my attention. I would love to see some scientific
| breakdown of the grind analysis at certain sizes - just to see
| how consistent the grinder can be. Some media of you (or someone)
| actually using the grinder and espresso machine would be really
| helpful to really get an idea of what a total flow looks like. I
| am especially curious about boiling and adding water.
|
| Will definitely be saving for future reference when I need to
| upgrade my current grinder.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| I want a new grinder for a long time now, sadly our Mahlkonig
| works and works and works.
| Bluecobra wrote:
| Same, I had a Capresso grinder for about 11 years now and it
| works fine. Parts are available as well. I'm sure that there
| are better ones, but it makes me wonder if it's like audiophile
| territory. I don't think I would be able to tell the difference
| if I were to upgrade.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Some of it is audiophile in the very high end, but the
| Capresso is definitely not where I would consider the edge of
| diminishing returns. It uses pretty mediocre burrs with a
| considerable amount of plastic and a poor grind adjustment
| mechanism. I used to own one and upgrading got me
| substantially better coffee.
| enether wrote:
| Great work.
|
| One extra thing about plastic that's more pernicious - under heat
| it breaks down into microplastics and nanoplastics that are awful
| for our bodies. A lot of research has recently been published
| about this in 2024.[1][2][3][4][5][6] It seems like we're just
| beginning to prove it. I keep track of this by watching Mike
| Mutzel[7] on YouTube, which I recommend to anybody interested in
| the topic
|
| Does the water touch plastic in any part of the machine?
|
| 1 - https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822 2 -
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385827603_New_insig... 3
| - https://particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com/article...
| 4 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38890513/ 5 -
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300582121 6 -
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822 7 -
| https://www.youtube.com/@Highintensityhealth/videos
| esperent wrote:
| The claims here of 0.01% plastic are a straight up lie though
| when you factor in the wires and power brick.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| You're right when you factor in the power brick, but the
| wiring is actually silicone jacketed which is much nicer in
| any case! The main plastics are in the switches inside the
| machine. Would be fun someday to roll custom ceramic parts
| for those but for now, keeping scope creep to a minimum!
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thanks man!
|
| There is no plastic in the fluid/material path of either
| machine - it's virtually all stainless steel and silicone.
| Basically the only plastic on them is in the
| switches/electrical parts where is is almost impossible to
| avoid.
|
| I think the plastics we have noticed to be harmful are only the
| ones that are the most obviously biologically disruptive or
| carcinogenic. Not sure anyone building anything now can
| confidently say that the plastic they're using won't be a
| problem later on.
|
| I'm also slightly skeptical of aluminum when in contact with
| acidic fluids but that's a whole different thing.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Wow, thank you for building this, with stainless steel you
| have addressed the last concern I had for the grinder (well,
| the price is a bit steep for me too, but I can understand
| it).
|
| Btw, is it Turbina or Oculo? Chart and shop say Oculo, bit
| it's Turbina elsewhere.
|
| Anyway, good job!
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you for noticing this, Oculo was a working name when
| the hopper looked more like an eye but now it doesn't!
| Clearly I've left some random references to the old name
| around. Could you point me to where in the shop it says
| Oculo?
| bornfreddy wrote:
| In the chart where you compare the "total burr area", and
| then... Hmm, I could swear that the shop said that it is
| coming in march 2025, and used the name Oculo there?
| Sorry, can't find it anymore.
| criddell wrote:
| Isn't silicone a type of plastic?
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| It's petroleum based but it's not a thermoplastic. It's a
| really wonderful material though more expensive than you'd
| think.
| criddell wrote:
| Silicone is not petroleum based.
|
| What is it you are actually trying to avoid? Is it
| petroleum-based plastics that are the problem?
| Thermoplastics? Something else?
| solfox wrote:
| I don't even drink coffee and I want one! Nice work
| buro9 wrote:
| It's a beautiful pump, but feels like only part of what an
| espresso machine is.
|
| What heats the water? What provides temperature control? How
| would I produce steam?
|
| It is so single purpose that it does not feel useful by itself,
| it feels like the prototype for part of a whole.
|
| I like the idea of it, and I like the idea of "part of the whole"
| being a composable coffee machine where one could put together
| components which were all independently maintainable and highly
| serviceable... this feels like a taster for that, but by itself
| is very expensive for a pump that claims to be an espresso
| machine but could not produce an espresso alone, and would need
| something else to make any espresso derived coffee.
|
| What this replaces is a lever espresso machine, but I'm not sure
| anyone with a home coffee machine would've purchased a lever
| espresso machine without the integrated boiler... and if they
| would, then this is right there
| https://bellabarista.co.uk/collections/lever-machines/produc...
|
| You would benefit greatly from a video that showed the workflow
| end-to-end of making an espresso... from bean to the final drink.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Flair, which you linked, is hugely popular. Several people in
| my office have one even though I would not consider them coffee
| enthusiasts like myself.
|
| Most people are going to have a decent electric kettle anyway
| (especially if they want to make pour overs) so being able to
| save costs and counter space by reusing what you have already
| makes tons of sense.
|
| If you told me I could get something roughly equivalent to the
| Flair, for roughly the same price, with programmable flow
| profiling? Hell yeah!
|
| I have the budget and desire for a Decent, but not the counter
| space or interest in cleaning and maintenance. Something like
| this machine would be very appealing.
| mehulashah wrote:
| Building a new kitchen consumer device is nearly impossible. This
| is amazing. Congratulations!
| proee wrote:
| Nice job! You should add an about us page to tell your story and
| your mission. Even use pictures of yourself in the marketing
| because people love to support independent coffee companies. I
| hope you get rich and famous for all your hard work.
| svardilfari wrote:
| First thought: Cash grab
|
| There's no way someone who designed, manufactured, tested and
| refined all this original equipment wouldn't include some
| technical photos, documents, experience or anything to 'sell' the
| product. And with pre-orders? There isn't even a single video of
| it making espresso without total cropping.
|
| For reference - The owner lists his studies in media design and
| works for Terra Kaffe - claiming involvement in building Terra
| Kaffe TK-02
|
| I'll happily change my opinion if anything resembling original
| invention is presented.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| What do you mean by "cash grab"? Are you suggesting this is a
| scam?
| salomonk_mur wrote:
| I'd argue it looks like it, yes.
| rainbowzootsuit wrote:
| Giving me ZPM Espresso heeby geebies, but more money. Maybe
| inflation happens on scams too.
|
| All the images look to be animation which is a warning sign
| for me.
|
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-
| control...
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| Yeah honestly I'm in the same boat here. Something seems very
| off about this. There's not a single video on the site or YT of
| the device working. The video on the site is intentionally
| cropped so we only see the portafilter. Why was that conscious
| decision made? The price also seems WAY out of line, as
| handmade machines like this go for many thousands of dollars.
| The builder also is completely anonymous, which seems odd for a
| passion project like this.
|
| I spun up a little project a few years ago and designed a
| product based around analog synthesizers. It was something I
| really loved doing, and I dropped videos of the R&D process all
| the time. How could you not!? It's the best part of the process
| and it's great marketing too. Again, things just seem strange
| here. I hope I'm wrong. Someone in this thread seems to have
| bought one, so I suppose we'll see.
| nkg wrote:
| This is nice!
| qorrect wrote:
| > Some people might say that it's cool to open to open up a home
| appliance and expose yourself to high voltage AC components, but
| at the end of the day, it's also pretty fun.
|
| Ok you got me.
| halayli wrote:
| I recommend you send samples to coffee machine reviewers on
| youtube and have them review it and offer their opinion. I feel
| this is the kind of product that needs consistent marketing
| efforts to maintain stream.
| xyst wrote:
| Rare to see a physical product release here. Congratulations!
|
| On the surface, the problem you are solving looks clear and the
| product itself looks amazing.
|
| But curious what actual baristas think of your product. I don't
| see any product reviews on YT, but I suppose it's not entirely
| unusual for a brand new product.
|
| Good luck, definitely keeping a tab on this product. Need to
| migrate away from buying to making it at home. And this product
| would be perfect for the limited counter space I have.
| 12345hn6789 wrote:
| Your story is nice and all but there are no actual videos these
| devices running. The website seems to feature blender generated
| mocks quite well though. And you're taking preorders?
|
| I'm surprised folks are willingly getting scammed.
| dangoodmanUT wrote:
| Espresso machine getting 455 upvotes and 213 comments on HN was
| not on my 2024 bingo card
| cellu wrote:
| *replace air fryer with coffee machine
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Millennials/comments/1gu4m07/buying...
| cyberlurker wrote:
| I like the design. I do not understand the $700 price beyond
| coffee nerds are used to paying that much for equipment. I'll
| wait.
| julianozen wrote:
| Honestly, I think you should go on Shark Tank and find a way to
| get millions of people to see your product. The products are
| visually so distinct from anything anyone has seen before. I
| think they'd do better with a stronger marketing /presentation.
|
| Looks amazing! Good luck!
| thomky wrote:
| First off -- this is sweet and you should be proud.
|
| Without data, I'm skeptical of the claim > that gravity does most
| of the work to reduce retention
|
| Naively, I'd guess that the increased surface area from the
| cylindrical burr increases the retention rate since it's mostly
| caused by static cling. There's mention of a built-in knocker,
| but even with the dissected machine photos, I can't tell where
| that knocker is housed or how it would function.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| It is definitely true that larger burrs have more surface area
| to retain grounds. In general, I think most people consider the
| tradeoff worth it in terms of flavor, especially because in my
| experience the coffee that builds up in the burr of any grinder
| is likely to stay there whereas coffee that sits in nooks and
| crannies around the chute is likely to get cycled each time.
|
| The knocker is actually hidden within the hopper itself, you
| twist and release it and it knocks into the burr. The basic
| idea for the design is that you have 3 rings, and each of them
| is a touch point, the bottom turns it on, the middle adjusts
| the size, and the top is the knocker.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| > static cling
|
| Every burr grinder I've owned over the years (Cuisinart,
| De'Longhi, Braun, Black+Decker) had that awful static cling
| problem, although my newest, a KitchenAid KCG8433DG conical,
| is notably cleaner and quieter than all of the others were.
| For comparison, I'd like to see some real life on-the-counter
| evidence after a Velofuso grind.
|
| BTW, there are a few different means of reducing static cling
| problems, including stirring the beans in the hopper with a
| moistened spoon before each run.
| seventytwo wrote:
| Designs look great. Only comment would be to hide the wires
| better on the espresso machine. Maybe find a way to route them
| down through the supports?
| jareds wrote:
| Either I can't find it or the site needs more detail. I'm totally
| blind and have a couple of questions I can't find answers to. 1.
| Is the grinder stepless? Based on the description it appears it
| is. This is a deal breaker for me. 2. How do you control the
| Espresso machine? There are many coffee products I can't use do
| to there interface. I'd like to get a Fellow Aiden coffee maker
| but the interface is completely inaccessible. It's unclear to me
| if there app will ever allow you to fully control the machine. If
| this machine had a documented API I'd be interested. I've looked
| at the Decent espresso machine, but can't justify the cost since
| I drink mostly filter coffee.
| jedimastert wrote:
| > Is the grinder stepless? Based on the description it appears
| it is. This is a deal breaker for me.
|
| From what I understand stepless is pretty common on espresso
| grinders. Can I ask why it would be a deal breaker?
| jareds wrote:
| I frequently switch between three grind sizes, one for a
| single cup, one for a pot, and one for cold brew. With the
| Fellow Ode I can easily count clicks to insure I'm at the
| expected position. With out tactile markings on the dial and
| a tactile arrow to line up with markings there's no way to
| make the grind size reproducible as far as I know. I've never
| tried using stepless grinders for this reason so I may be
| wrong about how hard it is to dial in when blind.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Edit: Sorry, I missed the earlier comment! I can totally
| understand why steps would be important in that case.
|
| Do you think braille indicators around the ring that you
| could feel would work? Or are actual clicks the best option
|
| I'm going to brainstorm ways to have a toggle-able step
| feature..
| sparklethunder wrote:
| It sounds like the person you responded to isn't able to
| see, so they depend on the tactile/audible feedback.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Oooh I understand now! Thanks.
| jareds wrote:
| I think an option to 3d print a ring of dots that could
| be stuck to the outer adjustment dial would work, you
| could add a stick on dot to the inner dial and line
| things up that way.
| digitalsurgeonz wrote:
| just 649, why so cheap ? why not charge a subscription along with
| the base price of 10,000 ?
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Don't worry, I am actually working on incorporating a language
| model that will replace the control knob ($49 per month for 3
| use tokens per day) as well as blockchain based coffee batch
| identifiers
| wy35 wrote:
| Could you go more into detail on the actual process of designing,
| prototyping, and manufacturing? Like how would an average person,
| given enough motivation, do what you were able to accomplish?
|
| Also, how did you fund this?
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Yes, for sure!
|
| A good first step is to learn some form of CAD and buy a cheap
| 3D printer. With that, you can rapidly test mechanisms and
| ergonomics on a daily basis for pennies. With both products, I
| went through maybe 5-ish entirely 3d printed prototypes. This
| will save you a ton of money iterating parts that don't need to
| be made from the final materials. With some products, you can
| make something functional here, but in my case, plastic isn't
| stable enough to make gear pumps and grinding burrs with.
|
| If you intend to use casting or injection molding, you need to
| start thinking about that now rather than later, and designing
| parts that fit those processes even if you aren't using them
| yet.
|
| So now it's time to start working with final materials. The
| best way to save money doing this is to only make the most
| critical parts from final materials until everything is nailed
| down. PCBWay has reasonably cheap machining/metal 3d printing
| services but you can also reach out to CNC shops directly and
| build some relationships for later. For me, this meant making
| the burrs, pump, and group head from metal, and testing them
| inside an otherwise 3D printed machine. I could iterate on just
| those parts and not worry if they required downstream changes
| because I could just print the secondary parts at home. I also
| cast my own silicone to save money.
|
| Then once you're happy, you can go ahead and have everything
| made from final materials, (even if those materials are, say,
| CNCed instead of injection molded) and you have your MVP.
| Production engineering is a whole different beast, but that is
| for another time.
|
| As a disclaimer, I wouldn't recommend starting with coffee
| machines, coffee grinders, or anything like them if you want to
| make a physical product. Hydraulics (especially at a small
| scale) and material processing are difficult, non-intuitive,
| and will be impossible if you are learning the other core
| skills at the same time.
| rc_mob wrote:
| What is reason for all this fancy website stuff and marketing
| jargon instead of just a youtube video with a bunch of runs of
| the machine where we see it in action?
| mluisbrown wrote:
| Basically this is a Flair with an electric pump, at 2-3 times the
| price. Whatever floats your boat I guess.
| jedimastert wrote:
| It's actually about the same price as the Flair 58
| Bengalilol wrote:
| The design is a call to try and then buy. Did you have any great
| coffee aficionados try it?
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Congrats on launching a product. Unfortunately, I think you've
| misread the market here. This is a space with immense
| competition, high prices, and even higher expectations around
| quality. While you're concept is neat, it's falling short.
|
| The grinder looks sweet, but the espresso machine looks
| completely janky with the "wires" running out of it. A power cord
| is expected, but having a power brick on my counter ABSOLUTELY is
| not expected. Not to mention, the wire looks flimsy. The second
| wire was a head-scratcher. Turns out that's the water line.
| That's a bit of a shock since you never mention this is a hard-
| wired system or show a reservoir.
|
| Finish on the espresso machine components looks poor. Almost all
| of the metal pieces have millwork marks, inconsistent finish, and
| knicks in them. The photos clearly show poor tolerances on the
| wood structure. The video of a person rotating a knob shows
| absolutely terrible workmanship in the stand.
|
| Oh, the wires. It's almost like they were a complete after
| thought and they ruin an otherwise amazing aesthetic.
|
| I personally don't believe that wood is the proper material for
| the stand. While it looks nice, it's durability is going to be
| crap for a tool that handles water. Water collects on the
| counter. Water splashes from the cup. Steam everywhere. Those are
| all recipes for wood going bad. No sense having this amazing,
| durable espresso machine when you can't use it because the stand
| went bad.
|
| Oh, the wires.
|
| One of demo photo of this in action shows something that doesn't
| even look like espresso. Some sort of dirty water (not even
| coffer water) being pulled into a steamed up wine glass. The
| other demo video shows rather poor shower distribution. Neither
| of these scream a machine that competes in this space.
|
| ------
|
| Generally, I see a focus on technical discussion of the machine's
| engineering. I don't see any discussion on how well either
| machine actually does it's job, including possible technical
| details.
|
| For the espresso machine:
|
| * Water pressure consistency
|
| * Water pressure level and adjustment (though the specs do
| suggest this is adjustable)
|
| * Water temperature
|
| * Water temp consistency through the brew cycle
|
| * Where's my steam? Do I need a separate machine for steaming
| milk?
|
| * The power block. Ewe.
|
| For the grinder:
|
| Honestly, it looks polished. I don't "believe" the marketing
| materials as your claiming a novel grinder design that outperform
| the rest of the market. This is just going to come down to this
| grinder building a reputation as good. Get it in the hands of
| reviewers and community members.
| swalsh wrote:
| I kind of love the idea of reducing the tech, and bringing
| everything back to the basics, and searching for improvements on
| the core stuff like the pump. Hope you succeed. I'm in the market
| for an espresso machine, probably not an untested (at scale), but
| in a year or 2 when you've worked out all the kinks in production
| and you have reviews... i could see myself looking at this as an
| option.
| lbotos wrote:
| 49mm Portafilter? Was unclear from the site but seemed so?
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Where did you see 49mm? I think from the specifications section
| that it's 51mm.
| Texasian wrote:
| Where we're going we don't need no stinking drip tray!
|
| Believe me. You need a drip tray.
|
| Best of luck. Hope it turns out better than ZPM.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Very cool, props to you for pushing through on a solo hardware
| project. Most of the keyboard ticklers in here have no idea of
| the types of challenges involved. Very funny to see their
| critiques mainly limited to the domain they have experience in
| i.e. the website.
|
| It's also interesting to see the reaction to the price - to some,
| your price points are absurd, but I've met a few coffee
| enthusiasts who have spent 4x what you're pricing for a grinder.
|
| Best of luck!!
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| Their critiques might be fair, after all the website is by far
| the furthest part of this from my area of expertise. But
| hopefully, people will prefer a good espresso machine with a
| bad website to a bad espresso machine with a good website!
| HellsMaddy wrote:
| The website is good for someone who is not primarily a web
| designer. It can serve as a starting point which can be
| polished into something quite nice.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _critiques mainly limited to the domain they have experience
| in i.e. the website._
|
| They are giving actionable advice on how to convert more sales.
| That's the whole point of Show HN, and helpful to the author.
|
| When a bunch of people with experience in a domain tell you
| that you can vastly improve something in that domain, it's
| generally a good idea to listen and consider their critique
| instead of calling them "keyboard ticklers".
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I don't take issue with the critique per se, but the shallow
| and dramatic complaints about the website. In no way was the
| website "unusable" or "trash." If you wanted a photo of the
| brewer unit you could click through to the shop page.
|
| No curiosity or questions or clarification about how it makes
| better coffee, spare parts availability, food safety, where
| and how it's assembled, thoughts about the aesthetics of the
| unit. Lots of "the site sucks, I bounced."
|
| Edit: happily, there's more and better critique on the thread
| now than when I posted the GP comment.
| lbotos wrote:
| What temp is the pump rated to? I've been looking for a pump for
| a sous vide and wondering how viable this is.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| The pump has been tested up to 100c for extended periods. It
| would definitely work for that, but it's optimized for pressure
| rather than flow so it might be a bit overkill!
| pmestha wrote:
| Looks neat!!
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| The minimal design is beautiful. I'll second others that you need
| some candid simple non marketing hype howto videos of actually
| using the equipment, as well as reviews to get people to place
| orders. The cropped photos, e.g. not showing what is connected to
| the tubes seem potentially misleading. Look at Seattle Coffee
| Gear for some good video styles- they would also be an example of
| experts whose reviews I would trust, however they don't seem to
| be very into simple non-automatic machines.
| sjm wrote:
| Out of curiosity, have you tried running extremely light
| roast/dense beans through your grinder? How does it perform with
| them?
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Re: the grinder and burr design - I am impressed that you're
| taking a different tack from standard burr design, but it looks
| to me like you're going to get extremely uniform grind size out
| of this burr design. There is a bit of black magic that goes into
| making great espresso, and my understanding of burr design was
| over grinding the beans actually led to a very "flat" tasting
| espresso, because everything was just far to uniform.
|
| What have you seen in testing this grinder/burr design? Any
| numbers after screening the grinds?
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| This is an incredibly complicated subject full of dissenting
| opinions and obviously people have their preferences especially
| across different brew types. In my opinion, the effect of
| densification within grinders with longer, or multiple cutting
| paths is universally positive for flavor. Fine particles
| accumulate with eachother and with larger particles and
| everything is rolled and rounded. One of the things to remember
| is that over-grinding coffee, I assume you mean by putting it
| over and over through the same burr set, is not the same as
| putting it once through a longer burr set. With the cylindrical
| burrs, the coffee is doing the same thing that any other set of
| burrs do, only over a longer distance period of time, so the
| coffee has more time to densify.
|
| Below is a great James Hoffman video comparing traditional
| coffee grinders to roller grinders, though the company keeps a
| lot of the details a secret, their grinder not only has a very
| long grind path, but also a dedicated densification stage.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkYqHWThIpA
|
| I have only done blind taste tests using my friends and family
| as unwitting participants, and they've universally preferred
| turbina over a 64mm flat burr grinder with titanium nitride
| burrs and a high-ish end conical hand grinder. But obviously,
| this may be a matter of preference!
| CrispyKerosene wrote:
| Some feedback - your market is undoubtedly going to be coffee
| nerds, and we are instantly turned off by the video of the very
| unappealing shot being pulled on this page
| https://velofuso.com/trefolo.
|
| If any situation ever called for the early 2000's ideal
| expression of espresso, this is it. Break out the double city
| roast, grind it fine and pull some ristretto shots with tiger
| stripes. It might taste trash but it will make for much better
| marketing.
|
| Kudos for making something cool. 5 second preheat is awesome.
| tlhunter wrote:
| Are the Trefolo legs weak? It looks like the wood for both sides
| of the legs only connect in the back.
| osener wrote:
| I don't understand these comments, both the product and the
| website is fantastic. This is the most impressive solo project
| I've seen in my life. I'm especially intrigued by the novel
| grinder design; and it is amazing that you could fit the motor in
| there. Top notch industrial design coupled with novel approaches.
| Almost in too-good-to-be-true land, but I will take your claims
| at face value. If this all checks out, this is an amazing set of
| products for the enthusiasts at home at a good price point
| (considering the market).
|
| And don't get discouraged by the attacks on your web design, I
| think the website is excellent the way it is. Leave it to some
| reviewers to go into nitty gritty real world stuff; your website
| does a great job of showcasing the design language and what's
| great about the product.
| lisper wrote:
| Yeah, this. Anyone who criticizes this project is simply
| revealing their ignorance of what it takes to build a product
| like this. Super-impressive. And the web-site looks top-notch
| too (though there is some constructive criticism in other
| threads that would improve it). Hard to believe this was a solo
| project.
| gklitz wrote:
| > Yeah, this. Anyone who criticizes this project is simply
| revealing their ignorance of what it takes to build a product
| like this
|
| I don't know what it takes to build a computer, but I know
| what it takes for me to buy one. The feedback given is all
| constructive from people who are saying that this product is
| as it's currently presented to their taste and the customer
| is always right in matters of taste.
|
| Also there is a matter of knowing your audience. The website
| looks top notch to people who build websites not to people
| who buy expensive coffee equipment. There doesn't seem to be
| a single non cgi or cgi-like image of the machine or video of
| it running. These things a trivial to add, so it's fair to
| give OP the feedback that this should be added.
| Arelius wrote:
| I mean, the problem is the website is designed as if it's
| trying to hide something from me. Giving the benefit of the
| doubt, I don't think that's the case, but my, and I think many
| other's tuned "Something scammy on the internet is going on"
| alarm bells are going off. So I think that's why the criticism
| is so harsh.
|
| And generally Show HN's posts are taken as a request for
| constructive criticism, which I think most are.
|
| Specifically, those two tubes that fade into the darkness is
| just begging for an explanation.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| I think I did make a mistake in not having the product in
| more real life environments. My kitchen is not very pretty so
| I set up a little photo area to capture all the images and
| video. Now I will find some kitchens to borrow.
| sgc wrote:
| You might need to give something away to make it happen,
| but an oddball request to an owner selling their nice home
| would probably work out, even if it took a few tries to
| find the right fit.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you so much, this really means a lot.
| w4 wrote:
| This is a gorgeously and uniquely designed product. Very cool.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you so much!
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| The cable management of the Trefolo. Would be nice to be able to
| run it along the back of the stand would make it more elegant and
| minimalist.
|
| Links to reviews by known coffee reviewers on YouTube would help.
|
| Definitely considering the grinder as I've been frustrated with
| the retention of my DF83.
|
| Also, I hope it was designed for serviceability as well since
| everything breaks eventually.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you, a couple of people have suggested optional cable
| clips along the stand. Will work on this.
|
| Serviceability is definitely a critical design consideration.
| Going to have a full spare parts catalogue available on ship
| day. Virtually everything can be changed on both machines by
| removing between 1-5 screws, and nothing is particularly
| finnicky or requires special tools.
| diob wrote:
| I would really recommend having a reviewer take a look, or at
| least include grind analysis yourselves.
|
| Love the idea of a new type of burr beyond flat and conical, but
| would like to see someone actually use it and scientifically
| compare the profiles.
|
| I kind of doubt the line "it works for all styles" because even
| with flat / conical there are so so many different types and
| resulting taste / body profiles. It's largely a personal
| preference. So I'd like something like the chart lagom provides.
|
| https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b125642ec4eb7...
| roflyear wrote:
| Can you give some feedback as to how people can feel confident
| you will produce this machine?
|
| People are used to larger teams taking literally years to put out
| a machine - see "Odyssey Argos" and "Meticulous" - and years of
| delays after preorder is announced.
|
| Both are probably not significantly more complicated than your
| machine - and you are aspiring to also put out a grinder with a
| totally new concept.
|
| I am really excited about the product, but I think answering the
| above will go some way to help you get a lot of preorders.
|
| Additionally, re: the pumps, I would love to order and put these
| in my Decent. The Decent uses really standard vibe pumps (which
| are super annoying) but what does the flow rate look like
| compared to standard vibe pumps? The decent can get up to 8ml/s I
| think - but it uses two pumps to mix hot and cold water. So I
| wonder if this would be about the same as a traditional vibe
| pump.
| musesum wrote:
| I look forward to the James Hoffmann review, should it ever come
| about. Am tempted to buy as a piece of functional art that I can
| drink. Currently, the 9Barista serves that purpose. Every.
| Morning. Bought it after the Hoffmann review. Good luck!
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Some day! The 9Barista is so cool, I think that was the first
| video of his that I watched actually
| henning wrote:
| Why can't you just show a simple embedded video of the product
| instead of parallax embedded background video that scrolls badly
| even on decent hardware and gets all distorted depending on
| display resolution?
| nkrisc wrote:
| I would love to see a video of it in action. Nearly all the
| photos on the site don't show the whole thing, just lots of close
| up shots such that I can't really tell what the whole thing
| actually looks like or what using it would be like.
|
| I assume it does work, but I have this gut skepticism because
| it's so radically different from any espresso machine I've seen
| before.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| That's pretty cool.
|
| - What did you use to prototype your project? What software and
| what companies offered prototyping services for your project?
|
| - Was it hard to get the whole machine made? How is the market
| for small scale manufacturing?
|
| I'm asking because I have some designs, that I never materialized
| - because there were no companies that would mill a one off item.
| smeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| I used fusion to design and printed ergonomic/partial
| prototypes on Prusa 3d printers. Then, I fortunately had a ton
| of manufacturing contacts because I have worked as somewhat of
| a production engineer before. Some parts were definitely
| difficult, especially the outer burr of the grinder (there were
| a couple viable ways to make it, but it is sometimes difficult
| to find a shop that is price competitive in say wire EDM
| machining and 5 axis CNC, or CNC and casting, so you have to
| get shops to coordinate with eachother) or the wood arch
| (because high volume wood shops are not nearly as
| technologically sophisticated as metalworking shops)
|
| PCBway is a good option now, especially for 3D printed metal
| parts. They have CNC as well but they tend to struggle with
| anything that has complicated geometry or features. But 3D
| printing doesn't require approval, and for one offs is often
| cheaper.
| wrl wrote:
| this is really cool, congratulations on the launch!
|
| i'm definitely in your target market - my daily drivers are an
| 83mm flat burr grinder and a manual lever machine. don't get me
| wrong, i love them both, but i'm intrigued both by your grinder
| and espresso machine and i am strongly considering pre-ordering
| both.
|
| here's my little laundry list of unanswered questions:
|
| 1. workflow/usage video! i know it's come up but i definitely am
| keen to see the grinder and espresso machine both in use.
|
| 2. particle size distribution for the grinder would be really
| cool. i know that distribution isn't everything, but this is a
| whole new style of burr and people (myself included) are going to
| be (or already are) very curious about how they compare to
| existing conical and flat burrsets. also, any word about
| retention?
|
| 3. can the trefolo do pressure profiling? if so, is that
| profiling based on pre-set shot profiles, or is it live profiling
| via the knob input, or both?
|
| 4. is the group electrically heated, or does all of the preheat
| temperature come from the hot water? especially for very light
| roast espresso, i've found that it's just impossible to brew at
| 96-98degC without electric heating, and there are some shots that
| i've only been able to get balanced up at those temperatures
| (they were just pulling way too acidic even at 94).
|
| 5. does velofuso have any social media accounts we could follow?
| where should i be keeping my eyes out for videos, project
| updates, etc?
| jareds wrote:
| How do you control this machine? Is it touch screen based, app
| based, or physical controls? If physical controls is there enough
| feedback that you could use this totally blind? Sorry for the
| somewhat duplicate post but I think this got lost in my prior
| post where I was discussing both the espresso machine and
| grinder. edit: I saw the manual after I posted this, looks like
| it's a simple knob to control pressure with a simple start and
| stop button.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I'd like to just put a drive-by comment as to how thoroughly,
| deeply impressed I am with all this. Taking any product from idea
| to completion is very hard, and these both look like very non-
| trivial products with deep challenges in design, technology,
| sourcing materials, manufacturing, all the way to website design,
| marketing and so on. To be able to offer this at $649 right out
| the gate blows my mind. That's plenty competitive in the fancy
| coffee market!
| altairprime wrote:
| This is lovely! Good work on the machining. Will there be iFixit
| guides to stripping them down and reassembling them?
| agubelu wrote:
| > Maxiumum dose: 20g
|
| I found this spec a bit strange. Maximum dose is a function of
| the basket AND the coffee, both of which are up to the user, so I
| don't understand why this is in the machine's specs.
|
| > Basket style: Naked/non-pressurized (And it better stay like
| this)
|
| Naked refers to the portafilter not having spouts, it has nothing
| to do with the basket. And what if I prefer to use a spouted
| portafilter and/or a pressurized basket? This feels unnecesarily
| confrontational.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| > I found this spec a bit strange. Maximum dose is a function
| of the basket AND the coffee, both of which are up to the user,
| so I don't understand why this is in the machine's specs.
|
| I assume this is just referring to the basket that comes with
| the machine. It's common for aftermarket baskets to be
| sized/sold by dosage weight.
| agubelu wrote:
| I know, but they usually offer dosage ranges, since it varies
| greatly depending on coffee density.
|
| In any case, it's not a "grouphead spec" as shown on the
| website. I know this is pedantic, but most coffee nerds are
| pedantic :P
| helsinki wrote:
| I almost bought one, but then I realized I have to manage the
| water temp myself. Sorry, but that's too much work, which means
| this will likely end up collecting dust after a month.
| ddalex wrote:
| Kudos !
|
| Is the pump alone compatible with a nespresso machine ?
| senkora wrote:
| Have you reached out to coffee influencers with review copies?
|
| That might be worth doing; it seems like this is the kind of
| thing that they would like to cover, and if the feedback is
| positive than that could drive a lot of sales.
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