Andy_S raised his concerns with us in the correct manner; in private. He was probably unfortunate in that he presented two issues that I had never seen before at an extremely busy time. He had a safety valve that was not seating. He was the first customer to report this issue and it is a component that is used in many thousands of the manufacturer’s machines and had never caused an issue. We eventually worked out that it was the result of recently changing our process to blow the water out of the machines (so the box is dry inside when your machine arrives) with compressed air at too high a pressure that cause the safety valve to unseat and then not fully reseat
Second was the now famous ‘temperature instability’ issue. At the time I thought it was a concerted take down as no customers had reported dissatisfaction with the espresso that the machine produced. With a lot of investigation we can now reproduce the issue that Andy_S is experiencing in certain circumstances. We have developed an upgrade that stops the machine performing in this manner under these conditions and this will be fitted to all machines that have not yet been shipped
In a month or two when we get a good stock of the new components the upgrade will be sold as a kit to existing L1 owners too – it is a fairly easy fit if you possess basic plumbing skills
So the upshot is that even though I didn’t feel at all charitable to Andy_S at the time, I do feel the need to apologise to him in public here as my response was poor and his contribution has improved the LONDINIUM I as a product; we now blow the machines out using just 1 bar of compressed air so the safety valve isn’t unseated and the thermosiphon no longer suffers disruption from the spring under certain conditions. In retrospect I made the wrong decision. I apologise Andrew.
To the best of my knowledge the other customers that have come unstuck with us have all posted their dissatisfaction to a web forum prior to contacting us, and yes i do take exception to that as it feels like we are being taken hostage; the price of the machine does not include the right to hang us out to dry on a web forum for your amusement. That said we will do our best to work through any reasonable issue in private
The sorts of issues we can not do anything about are dings under the chrome on the group and a slight gold tinge (indicating the brass shining through the chrome) when you look into the recess where the lever attaches to the top of the group. Any machine that uses this group will present the same ‘defects’ – Kees’ Idrocompresso, Bosco, Quickmill Achille, etc. These things you are going to have to put down to Italian character. If the group has clearly been damaged post manufacture, then that is obviously a separate issue that we would be obliged to address, but I have not seen an instance of this yet
Posting an issue on a forum does not amount to notifying us of the issue
If people come to us first with any issues they may have and we do not resolve the issues to their satisfaction I have no problem whatsoever with people posting and communicating the issue wherever and however they like. Andy_S has done this as many of you know and I have no problem with that at all
The final piece of the puzzle is to measure and publish the temperature data of the LONDINIUM I. I am in the process of purchasing the necessary equipment so I can capture the data on a laptop and chart the data