A Londinium L2 in New Zealand

Cade Sutton

Hello to you all. I have in the past week become the very proud owner of an L2 - a truly special machine. I wanted to start a thread here to detail my experiences with the L2 so far and hopefully contribute going forward.

I am at best an enthusiastic rookie - but aware that this might seem strange given the hi-end espresso machine now dwelling in my house - I will cover how that came to pass too - so please forgive me in advance the occasional rookie follie.

Life is crazy at the moment. We are about to move to a farm about 300km from where we are now, so my input might be sporadic. But to start, a MASSSIVE thanks to Reiss, who has gone to great lengths to ensure my satisfaction as a customer.... I work hard in my line of work to make sure my clients come back to me and I sure as hell appreciate it when the like of Reiss return the effort.

I will be back with more over the next few days, but heres a pic or two until then....

Frans Goddijn

Beautiful, congratulations. Looking forward to your updates.

Reiss Gunson

hi cade

thank you for posting, good to see you on the forum

kind regards

reiss.

Cade Sutton

Thanks for the Welcomes Frans and Reiss - Frans your posts on various sites were the first encounters I had had with the Londinium products - they certainly captured my interest - so thank you for that too!

I had posted some info earlier on on the other sites - these give some background on how I ended up with the L2 so to save me repeating myself, here are links. I will probably stick to posting here from now on though.

https://www.home-barista.com/levers/luckiest-londinium-fan-t38602.html

http://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?28202-Londinium-L2-Startup-and-First-Impressions

And here is the birth of a Yirgacheffe shot from this morning:

Reiss Gunson

nice shots of the action there cade

Cade Sutton

Thanks Reiss. My family haven't seen me for a week - I have been hypnotised by the L2 and feel compelled to take endless photos of it: L2 by Daylight...... L2 at 8:42pm...... L2 When I Woke Up This Morning...... are just some of the highlights

On a more serious note, I plan to turn her off tomorrow morning for scheduled maintenance... I have to check out the anti vac valve which has a small leak, and I might take the opportunity to clean and re-grease the cylinders - just so I know exactly when they were done, and learn about the process too. I have felt that the groups behave ever so slightly differently to each other - and I put this down to the silicone lubing.

Reiss can you recommend a specific product for removing the existing lube?

On the subject of slight differences between the groups - when the lever is down, filling the left group, I hear the water flow in pretty quietly before pre-infusion begins. With the right group, filling is accompanied by a mild but audible squawking noise - any idea why this is?

Reiss Gunson

yes, i can send you a replacement anti-vac as that was weeping and i should have changed it before i brought it down to you

yes, the right group will benefit from a re-grease is that is the one we took out when i was demonstrating it to you in new plymouth

silicone based products are really difficult to remove thoroughly - if you were changing the seals i would say use white spirit or surgical alcohol and then a good rinse off under running water, and autosol to clean the coffee stains off the piston

you won't need to replace the seals as they are quite new, so i would just wipe the worst of it off with a lint free towel and then regrease with the Loxeal no.4 i gave you - remove the shower screen and grease from top and bottom of sleeve with your finger - about a $2 coin's sized dollop of grease top & bottom

pump the lever 30 times to drive the excess grease to the bottom, wipe off, then replace the shower screen

I've got no idea on the fill noise you report tbh, can you record it on your phone? is it coming from the group, or is it from a fill line/somewhere else?

Cade Sutton

Thanks for this - I will get onto the re-lubing etc once the AV arrives.

I will make a recording of the noise - it actually sounds like its coming from the boiler - and send it to you. It really isn't a bother - I was really just making sure I wasn't doing anything wrong. A better way to describe it would be to say it is similar to the sound that the old Methven taps used to make when you only turned them on a faction - the slight vibration of a washer that echoes along a copper pipe.. Anyhow, will forward a sound clip to you tomorrow morning.

Cheers Reiss

Reiss Gunson

I can believe it makes such a noise as the HX refills with the high flow being restricted as it hits the narrower pipe after the inlet solenoid, but seriously faint dude

What I'm struggling with is that it would occur when one group is used but not the other

Kind regards

Reiss

Cade Sutton

I spent time trying to assess what might be causing the noise I have been hearing, but I really can't come up with any meaningfull suggestions. I have wondered if there is not some impediment or blockage in the right group that is slowing the flow at the solenoid, but there seems to be similar amounts of water at similar pressures flowing through the groups when I open them. But this is something that may require more thought.

Reiss, something I am trying to get my head around.... when I pull the levers down, I start a stream of water flowing, obviously. My understanding was that this stream was pressurised by the plumbed line in.. Why then can I run the groups out of water? Ie if the lever stays down, the stream of water eventually stops - after like 15 seconds approx - surely the solenoid would just keep feeding the HX chamber, therefore the groups? What am I missing here?

This all gets me wondering if my pressure limiter is working a bit too well - but I did check it the other day and it seems to deliver a significant amount of flow...

Reiss Gunson

hi cade!

its all working perfectly, just crack on and make espresso is my suggestion

what you report is what you should be seeing - when you pull the lever down you receive a fixed volume of water to the group, delivered there by line pressure

once that 'shot' of water is blown out from the HX to the brew chamber it takes time for the HX to refill, which you can see from the narrow pipes we use from the inlet solenoid to the HX

i didn't knock it up in the garden shed, its been engineered by professionals who have been building espresso machines for over 50 years, and are approaching production volumes of 1000 units a month every month of the year

kind regards

reiss.

Cade Sutton

Haha yes Reiss - I never doubted you - and the machine is making wonderful espresso so I am certainly not worried.

When I was a kid I wanted to pull everything apart to understand how it worked..... Some things never change! Forgive my overactive curiosity..

The Londinium has really brought with it the ability to peer deeply into the flavours of the roasts I have been buying - and this is proving to be a double-edged sword - some are falling well short of the mark all of a sudden. So I think my focus needs to be on finding that roaster who can consistently deliver the properties I am looking for in my espresso... I need to try some more of Londinium's own roasts I think Reiss. I will be in touch.

Cade Sutton

I took the groups apart last night and relubed with the Loxeal - great product. Back together now and making beautiful espresso. I have ordered a VST 18gr basket which should be here on monday - since it seems I am liking the higher dose rates.. Couple of pics from this morning..

Cade Sutton

These from the supplied baskets, but running about 18gr of some gutsy Londinium Bolivian beans...

Frans Goddijn

Doing fine there!