Snooze My understanding is that HX machines aren’t so easy to mod because they typically use a thermosyphen to keep the brew water at the right temp range. I think that these are designed to match the boiler characteristics, so if you start significantly changing the boiler temperature you might messing this up and end up with much poorer performance.
SBDU machines are much easier as the temp of the boiler is the temp you get out (minus some cooling on the way to the group head). I think the fact that they’re the cheapest machines also helps. For a person who likes tinkering there is a lot to gain (especially versus temp surfing), and not that much risk as they’re not that expensive and tend to lack fancy electronics. This makes modding pretty easy.
The only mod that has just popped into my head for you is a dimmer mod. For this you basically wire one of the wires to the vibe pump through an old fashioned dimmer. As a result you can slow down or speed up the flow rate, which gives you a sort of slayer type control. It’s obviously not incredibly accurate, but it would let you play with pressure/flow manually. You can also mount it in a housing stuck to the side, so it’s completely reversible. I don’t think this should mess up the thermosyphen, but it doesn’t cost much to try it out.
This video shows how it’s done, although I don’t think it’s that rigorous on safety (they are mains voltage). If you use a metal enclosure then make sure it’s earthed, and make sure how ever you feed the wire out of the case isn’t going to damage the wire and cause a short. Machines often have some holes in the bottom which you can feed through and then use a rubber grommet to protect the wire from the metal edge.
