Coffee Appreciation

Is Pact any good? I've ordered some James Gourmet based on the feelings in here.

Is Pact any good?

Meh. Good if you're coming from Starbucks

It did on mine.

Yeah it's hard to specify whether it was the boiler ring itself that needed tightening, or the bolts that attach the whole base plate to the boiler ring.

When you mentioned the element seal, I thought you were talking about the sealant applied under the little white collars here:

But I think you were actually talking about the o-ring you can see in this picture:

Which I think is a likely candidate.

Yes the o ring is what I am referring to 😁 on older machines with brass elements it's a paper/cardboard gasket which needs to be scraped off sometimes.

Absolutely amazing machines to work on and service. Beats anything like a Sage all day long from that perspective.

Yeah, I got sidetracked during my last service and inadvertantly switched the machine on afterwards without putting water in. That seemed to have removed/burned off at least part of the sealant around the element. So that's still quite fresh in my memory!

The gasket that goes between the base and the boiler came apart on mine which made it leak into the base- note the gasket was between the upper surface of the base and the lower surface of the boiler.

New top burr for the Wilfa Svart came and it's done a really good job of reducing the fines to almost zero. Which is also a shame because I was PRIMED to buy a Fellow Ode gen 2

I didn't enjoy Pact, beans were consistently too woody and everything under-extracted.

It seems it'sealing between the black plastic base and the metal "ring"

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Is it leaking from where you've circled?

Anyone on here got an ECM Synchronika?

That's where I saw the water drop. Gonna try tighten the screws with a hex key

There must be a seal behind that.

Indeed, might have to get number 6

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There is the element seal/o ring. Undo the 3 hex nuts and you'll see it. Fit a new seal and you should be back in business. You may get away with just tightening the bolts!

Yeah, I'll try that first!

Seal 8 is the seal that will probably be at fault. It seals the heating element to the boiler which contains the water.

You might be right.

I might even have one if that's it. Comes from a seal kit ordered couple years back and somehow not lost.

Might very well be it.

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Nah.. It's too small.

Looks like the group head to boiler seal, or possibly boiler cap seal.

I decided to get the old grinder out to do a direct comparison between conical and flat.

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Anyone on here got an ECM Synchronika?

I have an ECM Mechanica which is an HX machine. Build quality is great and it's been 100% reliable in 5 years. Espresso is great and easy to make.

But - HX is a pita for milk drinks. I'd spring the extra for a Synchronika if I was doing it again.

I have a mechanika too 12 years and counting. Would buy an ecm again, has been super reliable. Steam pressure is a bit lower than the rocket HX machines I've compared it too, but the reliability has anecdotally been better. If you can stretch to a double boiler I don't think there is any real downside.

Yeah group head seal.

Anyway tightening worked. Left it full for the whole night and there wasn't a single drop this morning.

Sounds good! Try it under pressure to double check it's definitely sorted it.