LONDINIUM I: as thermally stable as a PID machine

he’s what an L1 customer has published today

we’ll publish the numbers from our demo machine too when we get a chance

after that we’ll repeat the exercise on a 110V machine, just in case you think a thermosiphon can be picky about its voltage

oh, and Eric, every one of your emails I discuss with the Managing Director of the company that manufactures the LONDINIUM I; i take all customer feedback seriously

don’t think for a minute that I haven’t ridden the manufacturer hard on this issue; i’ve given them a cross examination that any legal counsel would be proud to call their own

as a result I have taken up hours and hours of executive time addressing your ‘i could build it better/the manufacturer is a monkey attitude’

the more you spout, the more i know how much you really know

in your latest email you say that you have installed your own non return valve in the feed pipe for the heat exchanger and that it does not solve the problem

you go on to state emphatically that the issue is the boiler fill level/boiler fill level varying from time to time

i have raised your latest assertion with the Managing Director also and this too has been dismissed as being inconsistent with the laws of physics

the message i was told to give you was to adjust the fill lever of your boiler to any level you feel like, 3/4 full, 2/3 full, 1/2 full, whatever

it won’t make a blind bit of difference to the performance of the thermosiphon – the heat transfer from the boiler to the heat exchanger is effective regardless of the extent to which the heat exchanger is immersed in water

i was surprised too, but unlike yourself I’m willing to take advice from a professional engineer who has earned a living from espresso machines for more than 50 years

what will absolutely kill the thermosiphon is the presence of air in the circuit

we will send you the upgrade, but you are still going to have to bleed that air that you have introduced into the circuit as a result of taking it apart

we fully expect you will continue to refuse to do so, but our upgrade fully resolves the issue

oh, and a thermosiphon connected to a horizontal heat exchanger will operate effectively in either direction, unlike a TS connected to an inclined heat exchanger, which is the more conventional scenario

a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and no where is this more in evidence than with the resident experts on forums. if they were that good they’d be making machines themselves, surely?

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ps – we encourage anyone to perform and publish a rigorous temperature study on their favourite espresso machine as we’ve trawled the internet and we cannot find any that are as thorough as the approach we have taken, even on machines like Synesso

lets see the data was the clarion call from the LONDINIUM I naysayers. Well, now you have it

LONDINIUM I is as stable as your favourite PID machine, and we don’t mean the neutered numbers on the display, we mean the actual temperature readings – go and take some – we think you might be surprised. CLUE: they’re not the same as what is on the display

PID is marketing hoopla for the punters – go and have a quiet word to the men who actually build espresso machines and see what they say. They’ll say I don’t believe in PID at an engineering level but if i don’t put it on my machines I won’t sell any, so what to do

Marketing rules the world. LONDINIUM are never afraid to push back against marketing hoopla, which is how the LONDINIUM I came into being

Lever machines can deliver a shot every bit as good as the best PID machine with vastly improved reliability and greatly reduced total cost of ownership. They’re also a lot more fun