T64 Grinder From Bella Barista

oddbean

odor4fun As I said before, I bought the grinder from Alibaba, where prices are negotiated. It’s not a simple link I can send you. You have to set up an account, create a profile and then send a request, it’s like a marketplace.

Is it this one? https://m.alibaba.com/x/xVNEloE?ck=pdp

Wondering how do you negotiate. Displayed price is 180.

And they just told me “we have titanium coated and ssp and dlc coated one”

odor4fun

Yes, that’s the one, but I’m not convinced that’s the price they’ll offer you. For large quantities it’s supposed to be 99 bucks, which seems incredibly low to me.

It cost me around $260 with free shipping through DHL. He told me that’s their cost price.

I hope you get an even better price than me, I proper didn’t negotiate, I just told them that after I test it I will present it on one of the forums where I am active, as a better solution than the DF64.

I ordered the coffee grinder with the Ti coated burrs, they have an interesting profile.

odor4fun

I’ve sent them a message and pictures of the threading problem which I’ve also presented here.

This way of machining is unacceptable to me, if a declumper seat is machined in this way, what claim of alignment and minimum axial deviation can we have ?

For the moment I have reservations about this coffee grinder, alignment tests will follow and I hope in the end I will find that I have a good grinder, how good we will see.

MediumRoastSteam

odor4fun The run time at set speed is not adjustable, it’s 15 seconds

That sort of implementation - careless and without real world usage considerations - drives me up the wall. 15 seconds… why? Pluck a wet finger in the air and think of a number? (Of course, it’s “F” in hexadecimal representation, that looks cool. 🍾) Even if they watched Dave’s video of the review model (see beginnings of this thread) it took 17s to grind 16g of coffee (if not a little longer, like 20s). 🤦

Add a “purge” button? Maybe use a potentiometer with that can also be clicked? Personally, in its current implementation, I’d rather have one without such “feature”!

DavecUK

MediumRoastSteam Add a “purge” button? Maybe use a potentiometer with that can also be clicked? Personally, in its current implementation, I’d rather have one without such “feature”!

I wanted a purge button …

odor4fun

A 16 gram dose of medium roast coffee grinds in 6-7 seconds. It would have been useful if the run time at the set speed was programmable, but I think I can handle that. At first I thought it was a control circuit failure, the grinder manual is a joke.

odor4fun

I forgot to say that this grind time was achieved at 1200 rpm. I haven’t tested other speeds or other types of coffee yet.

It is expected that grinding big doses at low speed with very lightly roasted coffee beans or with high altitude origins would seriously exceed the set time.

dfk41

odor4fun On the model that BB stocked the speed was variable. I used to grind on the lowest setting then turn it up to maximum for 10 seconds or so and that was enough to clear all the retained coffee out…..

MediumRoastSteam

odor4fun

The burrs are pretty well aligned, I inserted some shims on one side. The burrs are touching at -5 maybe -6, but were limited by the accuracy of the thread. (vertical travel)

To check axial deviation, I could repeat the marker test, using 300 - 500 micron spacers.

odor4fun

This morning, the grind time for a 17 gram dose of coffee was 12 seconds at 1200 rpm.

I don’t use RDT at all and most often don’t use WDT either. Above is an extraction plot, the bottom green line is the flow rate, as you can see it is pretty uniform.

The extraction profile is an 8 bar with a drop to finis to 5.5 bar.

The results are good but the best coffee is still the first coffee I brewed when I got the grinder. Maybe I am subjective.

MediumRoastSteam

odor4fun the grind time for a 17 gram dose of coffee was 12 seconds at 1200 rpm.

If I remember correctly, @DavecUK suggests that the best speed for this grinder and this size of burrs is around 800rpm or thereabouts. (if my memory serves me right)

edit: But I suppose it’s not as simple for your grinder because it speeds up to full speed after 15 seconds anyway…

dfk41

odor4fun As you own the grinder longer, I would be interested to see if you think rpm has an effect on taste. Common sense says it will but who knows!

odor4fun

dfk41

I haven’t owned the grinder for a long time, I only used it for a few days. I think I prepared a coffee, which was ground at 900 rpm, I like the taste obtained by grinding coffee at 1100 - 1200.

But I didn’t test enough to have a point of view.

odor4fun

My grinder is equipped with other burrs, and the taste is subjective.

Another extraction with a dose of 17 grams, ground at 1100 rpm, the grinding time is indicative, I just started a timer on the tablet and it is possible that I started even 0.5 - 1 s faster than starting the grinder. The grinder has a start-up delay of about 1 second after pressing the start button.
I reduced the water temperature by 1 degree and the flavor is close to the first coffee extracted. But it still doesn’t seem as good.
I should take a coffee break for a few days.

I asked the manufacturer if the grinding time of 15 seconds is normal and he confirmed that this is how it is set by default. This timing should be adjustable, I’ll suggest that.
On a new order, the reported issues could be resolved and they can send me an additional set of burrs.
I will buy another T64S grinder and test them side by side over the next few months.

odor4fun

The 15-second timer is definitely too short if the grinder is used for a brewing method other than espresso. For filter brewing it would be useful to grind at a lower speed, but with this grinder it is practically impossible.

odor4fun

Of interest to some of you, if you remove the lower burr, be careful not to lose the metal washers under it. I have two installed in my coffee grinder, one thicker and one thinner for zero calibration I suppose.

FadedFrontiers

I imagine a way to bypass the timer would be to adjust the rpm dial very slightly while grinding, that should reset the timer and not have a significant impact on taste if the change is small enough. It’s not ideal but a way to override the 15s limit until you find a way to properly mod it.

Either way I’m glad the version @DavecUK fed back on is analogue and doesn’t have an RPM timer.

odor4fun

A correct implementation should take into consider the motor load and extend the running time at the set speed if there are coffee beans that are grinding. It’s easy to implement.

dmcgoy

Hi @odor4fun, thanks for the info. I’m also interested in this “alibaba” grinder.

I find it strange how similar it looks to the D64v - perhaps they borrowed a mold.

Could you provide a picture of the new “digital” RPM dial?

I’m hoping they can quickly improve the 15second timer logic to something less … crazy. That would be a dealbreaker for me as I would use this for pour over and espresso.

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