Norvin Then it dawned on me that in all the discussions on the Evo I had never seen it described as a Parts Bin Special, the phrase is quite common in car and bike circles. Just a random observation, Interesting? No? I’ll get me coat…
Well cos it’s not…lol, it sort of went like this.
How can a machine be produced that’s not only affordable but good, bought to market rapidly and with minimum risk?
- Vesuvius case is strong..with a bit of modification it can work really well. - You actually have quite a bit of customisation and a modular design, with wet, hot, and electronics bays. This may well carry through to any Vesuvius redesign one day. However a lot of design work was saved and the case is known to be immensely strong
- Can’t use Vostok boilers, too big, lets use Minima boilers - This was because the minima boilers are compact, AISI 316L stainless with Incolloy 800 long life heating elements. The steam boiler was a nice 2.3l size and they are known to work really well. Because they are in stock and bought in quantity, it keeps prices down and parts holding down.
- Same 3 group Control Board as Vostok - Absolutely, because it’s bulletproof, used in the Vesuvius (with different programming and needed very little reprogramming of firmware for the Evo.
- Same group as Vostok - Yes it’s expensive (twice as much), but let’s not cheap out on the group. If we did it would mean a thermosyphon, different programming and a lot of thermal control.
- Same display and touch panel as a Vostok - It’s known to work and be reliable, keeps costs lower re reprogramming, but is expensive for what it is.
Decisions like those above were simply practical. Even so a different pressurstat had to be sourced for preinfusion pressures, a pump had to be found that had a very quick fill rate, could achieve the preinfusion pressures needed and be “inexpensive to replace”. it also reduced costs by a few hundred pounds, all for 4s of noise. It also means components that had been in service for many years on Vostok, Vesuvius and Minima with no real problems.
It may share parts…but a parts bin special it is not. 😁
Cuprajake A lot thought it was pushed out to come out before the londinium compact thing,
A lot of people think a lot of things, rarely do they know the truth. It was initially made to be better than a competing machine…which I thought was far too expensive. fairly quickly I realised making it a bit better wasn’t much of a challenge….we forgot that and made it as good as it can be for the price….which is very good indeed.
The machine you mention, I think, is intended to compete in the Cremina space….how it will do, I can only guess, because it hasn’t been built yet, let alone tested.
