Londinium Vectis

DavecUK

John_Yossarian I would not be surprised if you ended up with an Argos review in near future 😀

I would love it if Ross did send me one…but I don’t hold out much hope.

StevenG91 people’s opinion on this forum is tinted with prejudice and bias.

I think for most, it’s based on their actual experiences of Londinium in one way or another. Certainly for me that’s the case. No one is biased without good reason and I’m certainly not biased because of the machine itself or my involvement with Quickmill, ACS, ECM, Lelit, Izzo, Crem, Expobar, Niche, Ceado, Nurri, Nuova El Cuadra and many many others as a hobby, because it doesn’t make sense. I love to see new machines from different manufacturers.

You appear to call everyone on this forum prejudiced and biased (which I am sure is not your intent), simply because some with very negative experiences of Londinium are not fans.

I personally don’t mind at all (and I’m sure no one else will) if you express a positive view of Reiss and his machines. You are welcome to quote and express both the myth and the truth of them..but, be prepared to have some robust debate and views put forward from those who don’t share your view. This may be of the technicalities of the machine (as we know them), or the man himself. After all Reiss was not afraid to air his opinion of Jake and myself was he?

We are a forum where people can, and do, express views freely and that’s your choice whether to do it or not. I’m pretty sure the Vectis will get positively pushed by the usual suspects when it’s released and some of them are already laying the ground at the moment. If Reiss had anything about him, he would send me a Vectis to review…but of course he won’t do that.

P.S Even though I personally dislike Reiss, I would still be totally unbiased in my review of the machine. It’s not the fault of the Vectis or Fracino that Reiss owns the Londinium brand.

kheptan

just a noob question, why this machine has 58mm group head instead of 54?

DavecUK

kheptan just a noob question, why this machine has 58mm group head instead of 54?

It’s what Fracino have experience of, sounds good for marketing except in reality the most expensive component a portafilter is not the same as the ubiquitous E61 group.

The group is almost half the price of the 53m ish LSM style group. Which I believe produced a superior shot.

Cuprajake

Designer choice, plus doesn’t have to make anymore baskets or different porter filter

kheptan

having had a flair pro 2 (which i’m not considering as a real lever :) )for an year i felt that all my coffees taste the same..pale vivid..no having that punch like an real espresso and i knew that would not compete with a real espresso machine but have to be closer..but not in my case, so i was thinking that besides thermal stability one factor could be the group diameter that influence the taste so i sold the flair and bought a wacaco picopresso to play with and i was impressed how good the coffee taste from this little plasticky toy..and just because it has bigger “group” (filter) diameter could have so much influence in taste? i’m still confused by this anyway

tompoland

kheptan

The Flair can produce espresso that is very tasty.

If you are using a similar puck prep technique and beans from a non flair machine and getting good results, then the temperature could have a lot to do with it.

A one degree change makes very little difference but three degrees can make a marked difference in oomph. And with a flair pro 2 (I have had a couple of Flairs) the temperature can be out by ten degrees, easily.

Are you using a temperature strip?

kheptan

i haven’t use any strip, anyway i sold it last year thinking i will buy the flair 58 but waiting time to buy it was soo long and by the time it was available the new upgraded group was launched so i stopped waiting again a few month to buy it, now i’m searching for a simple spring lever machine and vectis seems good enough for me, i’ll wait to see some user experience feedback

tompoland

kheptan the Argos would be another option for you to consider. Probably available sooner than the Vectis too.

MediumRoastSteam

kheptan now i’m searching for a simple spring lever machine and vectis seems good enough for me, i’ll wait to see some user experience feedback

Same here. I’d love to own a simple spring lever machine, and the Vectis seems to be the right machine at least “on paper”.

After watching some videos, I’d like to see:

someone pouring a shot with it: will the machine flip over? Do you have to hold over the boiler to prevent flipping?
temperature stability: I’m a one shot at a time person, so for me at least, I want the first shot to be great and the second to be equally great or at least good in case I have a guest. From what I saw, the machine was dispensing water and steam through the group. That’s far from ideal.
meaningful data: I want to see the machine’s capabilities and operational pressures and temperatures. I certainly don’t want someone to tell me “it produces perfect espresso” or “it’s temperature stable”. I want to see data collected from a Scace device.
Hopefully the boiler will be insulated. I just can’t see those wires and connectors surviving in there for too long otherwise!

dfk41

MediumRoastSteam No chance on the boiler being insulated matey! Can you find any meaningful data for any other Londinium machine? Only being going since 2012 so you would have thought so!

pjw

MediumRoastSteam I’d love to own a simple spring lever machine

Why you want a spring lever with closed boiler? Because of the milk?

Things like CT2, Robot, Flair, Kazak Rota - manual machines - they should tick all the boxes for home espresso lover who wants to play with machines without electric pumps. Open boilers machines for espresso only make perfect sense.

Machines like Vectis, LaPav, Argos - with close boilers, they add complexity, reduce ergonomy of the machine just to allow you to steam. If milk drinks are not required, not sure what close boiler design gives you.

MediumRoastSteam

pjw Because of the milk?

Yes.

Amberale

DavecUK

Message passed on to Ross and positively received.

tompoland

Amberale well done that man!

DavecUK

Amberale I remember meeting and chatting with Ross at the lever fever meetup and dinner in Milan during WOC. Stemmed a nice guy, knowledgeable and inspired confidence that he would bring the product to fruition.

John_Yossarian

DavecUK “Message passed on to Ross and positively received.”

I knew it 😃

Amberale

DavecUK

To be honest, my interactions with Ross started with me buying Lever Fever mags off his website and then being interested in his “new” lever.
I had recently come back to the fray with espresso machines and was experiencing disappointment in the lack of development in the small home lever section of the market.
At the same time I was impressed enough with your clinical reviews of the Bianca to buy one.
I nearly bought an EVO but it was just a bit too soon after the Bianca.
Whilst not an engineer, I have an aviation (ATC) background and trust science and engineers well above social media influencers.
I understand that the general public needs to find facts somewhere but I’m not a great youtuber.
I have ordered an Argos, I have also ordered a Vostok, the Studmistress will probably be unhappy if I don’t sell the Bianca but it will be hard to let go.
I really hope that the Argos/Vectis/???? succeed and put a bug up Olympia and LaPav’s fundaments and we get even more great little machines.
I don’t really care about the politics.
TLDNR :
I don’t have a private line to Ross, I just emailed him at support@odysseyespresso.com.
I don’t have a private line to Dave either.
I want more great machines and oh, um, world peace.

DavecUK

Amberale I really hope that the Argos/Vectis/???? succeed and put a bug up Olympia and LaPav’s fundaments and we get even more great little machines.

I agree that the small home lever market is not well served, more competition, better for consumers. That’s been proved in the large home lever market, where one company seemed to dominate too much for it to be healthy and there was little to no development and poor value for money.

Now we have quite a few larger home levers, decent competition and of course that has bought with it…innovation.

One of my hopes is to check the work that’s been done on the Vostock 1 group prototype, around the pressure release system, because releasing the pressure that way causes some issues (very wet pucks).

I first found this issue on the Nurri I tested, which at the time used a slightly different group and it was actually even worse. Now Antonio uses the same group manufacturer as the Vostok for his machine. Of course the problem would now be the same as the Vostok. Less wet, but I still felt could be much better.

When I used the Vostok machine extensively at Trieste, it was good, but I personally wasn’t happy with it and said to Paolo it should be revised before shipping. We discussed some solutions and Paolo, fortunately has the skills, ability and equipment to actually manufacture and engineer things. Apparently the solutions have worked very well and I have seen videos, but I want to see for myself. I will be out there on 17th January.

The development changes for the Vostok 1 group prototype are:

Minor changes to drip tray cover, finger holes for removal, better centre pattern for any spout flow to go down cleanly
Increase in drip tray size
Changes to entire venting system mechanics and group mechanics (not software, that’s perfect!)
Possible reposition of the front panel cut-out for the timer/control buttons for easier access
Addition of rotary pump (model already identified, requires internal case mod) , the Trieste machine used a very expensive gear pump that was quieter, but not as quiet, or suitable as a rotary pump. Which also means the 24V transformer is no longer required. It was under the machines drip tray, so you couldn’t see it.
Pressure transducers with a higher burst pressure.
Internal changes to tidy up the system e.g. in the same way the Evo was made very tidy inside.
Something very minor with the frame, but I forget

Paolo wants to get this all right before shipping units. I can’t talk about the solution for drier pucks when pressure release is used, because Paolo understandably wants to keep that one to himself.

dfk41

DavecUK Paolo wants to get this all right before shipping units. I can’t talk about the solution for drier pucks when pressure release is used, because Paolo understandably wants to keep that one to himself.

Is that in case someone copies it by chance!

Amberale

DavecUK

Thank you Dave.
You might even see my machine in its early stages of construction. :)
I’m happy to wait while the machines are fine tuned, I obviously have the patience with the time I’ve been waiting for the Argos.
Mind you I seem to keep buying other machines.
Also I need time to reconstruct my coffee side board with a 620mm deep bench and a 600mm deep steel frame on wheels hiding under its skirts for stability.
I know it shouldn’t make the coffee taste any better/worse but I do prefer dry pucks.
Enjoy your time in Italy and say Hi to Maria for me.

DavecUK

dfk41 Partly, there will be copyright, but if he asks manufacturers to do these things, he isn’t in control of who they sell it too…if he does it himself, then he is.

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