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US 240V Questions
Hello,
I have just about decided that my next machine will be an Londinium 1. I live in the US and am considering the 110V version vs the 240V version. I am not an electrician by any means... so I was wondering if you could help me answer a few questions.
I have an electrician coming out tomorrow to give me an estimate on what it would cost to install a 240V line / receptacle in my kitchen for the Londinium 1. The price he quotes will determine if I order the 240V machine or the 110V machine.
If I do end up ordering the 240V version, can you tell me if this combination will be sufficient?
- Simple Heavy Duty 240V / 5000W appliance timer. (More Pictures)
- NEMA 6-20R plug coming off of the Londinium 1
- NEMA 6-20R receptacle in the wall
Does anyone have a source for a 240V timer that lets you program the different days of the week? It is not a big deal, but there are a couple days during the week where it would be a luxury to program different on-off times. But I can definitely get by without it, given the short warm-up time of the L-1.
I think that's it. For now...
Thanks!
I have just about decided that my next machine will be an Londinium 1. I live in the US and am considering the 110V version vs the 240V version. I am not an electrician by any means... so I was wondering if you could help me answer a few questions.
I have an electrician coming out tomorrow to give me an estimate on what it would cost to install a 240V line / receptacle in my kitchen for the Londinium 1. The price he quotes will determine if I order the 240V machine or the 110V machine.
If I do end up ordering the 240V version, can you tell me if this combination will be sufficient?
- Simple Heavy Duty 240V / 5000W appliance timer. (More Pictures)
- NEMA 6-20R plug coming off of the Londinium 1
- NEMA 6-20R receptacle in the wall
Does anyone have a source for a 240V timer that lets you program the different days of the week? It is not a big deal, but there are a couple days during the week where it would be a luxury to program different on-off times. But I can definitely get by without it, given the short warm-up time of the L-1.
I think that's it. For now...
Thanks!
Comments
I hade one years ago and the user interface was a bit clumsy. An engineer had hidden all the possible configuration steps under a limited amount of buttons and display symbols. Sometimes I look for a nice replacement but on the Rocket I now just use a very simple one that does the same thing every day. Clicking in/out a new start time is easy.
I am sure that I would be perfectly fine with the 110V version, but the garage / circuit breaker is directly on the other side of the wall where the L-1 will sit in the kitchen, so I figured it would be a pretty simple install and could not hurt just to see what it would cost me to put a 240V line / receptacle there. The only downsides I can see of going with the 240V version is that it will be married to that spot on the counter forever... Whereas I could move the 110V version around as needed in the years down the road. Also, I already have a decent digital 110V appliance timer that would work with the 110V version.
Decisions decisions.
OR running off a lot of hot water - e.g. using it to make tea or soup or americanos/long blacks - where the extra 1000W kicks in is getting a large dump of cold water into the boiler back up to operating pressure quickly
to my surprise you are absolutely correct about the paucity of choice in US plug-in digital timers - i even checked on the US website for RS Components, which will usually solve most problems of this nature, but no dice
but i did find this on Amazon and, assuming it is as described, it will work perfectly with an L1 if you screw a NEMA 6-15 plug on the end of the power cord and a NEMA 6-15 socket on the wall
with a 240V/2400W L1 a 15A supply is more than adequate, so a NEMA 6-15 is just fine for a 240V L1 in the States
http://www.amazon.com/Blueprint-240V-Digital-Timer-BDT-1C/dp/B002YPNGZU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406634677&sr=8-1&keywords=digital+timer+240V
hope this is of some use
kind regards
reiss.
OR running off a lot of hot water - e.g. using it to make tea or soup or americanos/long blacks - where the extra 1000W kicks in is getting a large dump of cold water into the boiler back up to operating pressure quickly
I forgot about the teapot! You certainly are correct in that account Reiss.
My wife drinks an Americano in the mornings but she only requires 75ml of hot water in her 15.5g dose ( 27/27 rule) so it is able to recover by the time I make my morning shots.
You will be really happy with a 240v machine if getting the power receptacle to your location is not prohibitively expensive.
Reiss, Frans commented in this post "If you plan to draw kettles of water all day: bad idea. It's a coffee machine, not a hot water kettle. Get one, they are cheap. Treating it as a tea kettle is torture for the machine."
After reading that, I was concerned about using it for anything other than hot water for heating cups / americanos. My wife would like to use it for soups, etc, but I don't want to do anything that will be potentially bad for the machine. Would like to hear your thoughts.
i wouldn't dismiss this out of hand as from what frans has told me the guy is a very experienced and proficient engineer
so i would take the middle ground, i.e. it is perfectly OK to draw off up to 1 litre of water at a time, as it leaves sufficient hot water in the boiler for the incoming cold water to mix with as it enters. bear in mind that on a tank fed machine the water is not cold either if you have had the machine on for any length of time, probably 35-40C in fact - different if you have a plumbed in machine in a cold climate when the incoming water may only be 5C, for arguments sake
frans' point i suspect, and it is valid, is that you don't want to be drawing off so much water that the element is exposed and then dumping cold water onto the hot element repeatedly or you are likely to shorten the life of the element from the thermal shock you are repeatedly subjecting it to
i think that is sensible, prudent advice from his friend who is clearly a very experienced espresso machine technician and has been in the game a long time
I was talking about pulling kettles of water. If you pull many jugs / big cups, one at a time, that's no problem.
Edit: I also wanted to note that I will be using it in the tank fed configuration initially. One day would like to plumb it in, and the place I'm putting it will lend nicely to plumbing it in, but that's an issue I can address another day. For now I'm just trying to plan out the electrical stuff and actually get the machine.
PS I read from Reiss' reply that it's almost on its way. I fondly recall the early days when one could dream and wait much longer, then see a picture of a long row of L1's on the production line and one could imagine one of those getting ready to final assembly and shipping to ones home...
thank you for your order & posting your questions here in the pre-sales forum - thats what makes this work
best. r
Congratulations! I am sure we all are looking forward to your impression of the 240v model in the USA :-) Keep up Posted.
I just got the shipping notice! I won't have to look at this cardboard mockup much longer.....
Oh you're going to so love your LI Allen! And I, like others probably stateside, can't wait to hear your feedback on the 240v variant.
http://i.imgur.com/X6wOKQh.jpg
I had a few issues with DHL... A couple of times they were waiting on me for something, but the tracking status would not indicate that anywhere, so I had no idea. In both instances, I just called them up after a period of inactivity on the tracking status site, and they stated that they needed information from me for customs or something before the shipment could proceed. Glad I called, otherwise it might still be sitting in the customs warehouse waiting on me. And then I had to pay $87.63 in duties / taxes before they would deliver it... Again, no indicator of that whatsoever on the tracking site. It just said that it had arrived in the Orlando facility. After a full day with no updates, I called to see if it was out for delivery or what, and they said that they were waiting on me to pay the outstanding balance. So I actually drove out to the hub last night to settle up and pick it up, instead of waiting for it to be delivered sometime today.
I spent a couple hours taking my time unpacking and assembling everything. This thing is built like a tank!
A few questions:
1 - Is the included water filter optional or essential? The reason I ask is because I'm carefully measuring my espresso water before adding it to the reservoir. I start with reverse osmosis water and then add in my favorite tasting spring water until it reads 50-60 ppm on my digital TDS meter. Would like to skip further filtering of that water if possible.
2 - What is the best way to keep the machine surface nice and shiny / polished! Just water / cloth, or is there a certain cleaning agent I should be using? Certain type of cloth? Same for the brass on the tamper. It looks a bit tarnished and I'd like to clean it up.
The electrician is coming out today to install the new receptacle / plug. So hopefully I'll be in business tonight / tomorrow!
This thing is beautiful - if it performs half as well as it looks, I will be a happy camper. Thanks Reiss!
thank you for taking the time to post. yes, its true, the DHL site does not communicate well the step where you need to be ringing up DHL with your credit card to pay any duty & tax due, but its a one-off pain that is a bit unavoidable when buying goods online
1. the filter softener is optional, but ensures protection against limescale formation if it is replaced at the correct intervals for any given number of litres treated for a given level of hardness. ps - nb see elsewhere on this site for discussion on TDS vs total temporary hardness - two quite different things & TDS of 50-60 ppm could be too soft if your water contained significant dissolved solids other than calcium carbonate or magnesium carbonate
2. microfibre cloth
2.1 any copper or brass polish followed by a thorough rinse off in cold water and then throughly dried (unscrew the bass from the handle so you keep the handle dry and free from metal polish)
hope it all goes well with the electrician - ours arrived this afternoon to wire up our new workshop roastery and are back tomorrow too
thank you for your order
kind regards
reiss.
I use 'microfiber' cloth to clean the shiny metal skin of the machine, a spray from the supermarket for glass & kitchen steel, and "Pledge Electronics" spray "streak free shine".
I'm not someone who manages to keep a shiny steel surface in mint condition though. My son in law is brilliant with that. His Rocket machine is still as new as it came from the factory and he uses it every day. He carefully keeps it absolutely clean and untarnished too and routinely cuts a disposable kitchen towel to exactly fit the front of the machine so any coffee splatter hits the paper and gets thrown away before staining anything whatsoever.
Thank you. It appears I have some more reading to do. I have no problem using the supplied water filter - I just thought it might make the water too soft, since I'm already filtering the water (RO) before adding it to the machine.
I also have these test strips, which test for Total Alkalinity. Would that give me an indicator of calcium carbonate / magnesium carbonate levels?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TQM9XS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Frans, thank you - I was doing a bit of reading, and some on HB suggested barkeepers friend for cleaning / polishing the steel. I have some of that at home, so may give that a shot, though I need to make sure it's non-abrasive. (I think there are a couple different barkeepers friend products, if I'm not mistaken.)
you totally do not have to use the cartridge supplied, all I'm saying is be aware that people commonly pick up on TDS as a measure for calcium and magnesium deposits and it just isn't the correct metric
TDS = total dissolved solids, and as the name suggests that means the weight of all the solids that are dissolved in the water, ideally measured by a boil off whereby you would take 1 litre of the water then boiler it off and weigh the dry solids that remained after all the water had been evaporated
Total temporary hardness is the measure you want, which is a subset of the TDS value
Total temporary hardness for all practical purposes means the total of magnesium carbonate and the total of calcium carbonate present
The only time when the TDS value would equal the total temporary hardness value would be if you used reverse osmosis (RO) to strip the TDS value to zero, then passed the water through a re-mineralisation filter, ideally a 50/50 mix of calcium carbonate & magnesia carbonate, and then the post remineralisation TDS value would equal the total temporary hardness value
at all other times the total temporary hardness value will be less than the TDS value, and some extreme cases only a small portion of the TDS value
i haven't used the strips you refer to, but my expectation is they will be lack sufficient accuracy for espresso machine purposes
if you type 'hach' into the search field of this website you will see a US product that i have used in the past which i think you will find a lot more satisfactory. failing that, we also offer a total temporary hardness test kit
the barkeeper's friend products are highly regarded, although i have not used them myself ~ for some reason my puerile mind can not shake the image of a buxom young lass whenever i hear the words 'barkeeper's friend', but thats just me!
kind regards
reiss.
I may try and go to a local aquarium store and see if I can buy a total temporary hardness test kit, or have them test the water for me.
it is most likely fine - all I'm doing is pointing out the traps to ensure that you are measuring what you think you are measuring
i think there is merit in getting the total temporary hardness - which i think might also be referred to as alkalinity from memory, but id have to check, accurately measured
if the water isn't hard enough your espresso will taste overly bright and edgy (less than 30mg/L), and obviously if it is too hard (greater than 80mg/L) deposits of calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate form
best
reiss.
I am not a water expert...far from it. But from what I've learned you will also want to check your pH and alkalinity of the water going into your espresso machine. Too low, and your water can act corrosively to the brass and copper components.
I did dip one of those test strips (link in a previous post) in my mixed water concoction, and I believe the pH level was 6.8, and alkalinity seemed to be within acceptable ranges... but I'm going to try and conduct a more precise test.