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You need to lift the ground on whatever you're plugging it into the wall with, so either use a usb wall plug with a plastic ground pin or crack it open and disconnect the ground wire. Easiest way to do this is with an extension lead without a molded plug. Unscrew the plug head and disconnect the ground wire from the pin.
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your USB port on your laptop won't be connected to earth which means when you power it via USB you're effectively lifting the ground. This means that your connection to earth will be via your powered sub (I'm assuming that's grounded).
It could be that your sockets that you're using are earthed to different points. Try plugging everything into one extension lead which is plugged into one socket. If that gets rid of your ground hum then it's likely that the issue is with your sockets.
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I was bought a Kartel Morris by my partner (https://www.kartel.co.uk/collections/morris-all/products/morris-gunmetal-white-flat-black-strap). It seems to match your description and I really like it - but I don't know if it passes the horological know-how of everyone here.
@Regal I'm actually curious about your thoughts on the typeface used. I'm not an expert in these things but I really like the look of it. You seem to be the expert of these things so I'm curious what you think of it.
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I ordered a bag of espresso from them last year sometime and thought it was good but a little underwhelming. I would happily try again, but then again I think Monmouth is a really high quality roaster and I seem to have opposing ideas of what different espresso machines are capable of compared to Sumo - so make of that what you will.
I also think James Hoffmann is a spanner though - I know that's a very controversial standpoint here.
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That's cool, I was wondering how useful it is. The bianca is a rotary pump though right? I'm not sure how much of a benefit it would be on the minima - I already get a slower ramp up to 9 bar as the vibe pump gets up to full flow so kinda get that pre infusion by default. I don't get the ability to reduce the pressure towards the end of the shot like you do though.
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This is what I was talking about that you can retrofit to the minima, if you're keen on flow profiling.
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Fair enough - the minima has a 0.8l brew boiler and a 2.3l steam boiler. The rocket you suggested has a 1.8l boiler (for comparison).
I've done 4 back to back flat whites a couple of times with no issues. It really is very good.
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Why? They're completely independent systems in the same housing. I do it every day. It's not just so you can pull multiple shots one after the other, I've got a brew boiler PID controlled at 93 degrees which pulls a shot whilst I steam the milk from an entirely separate steam boiler which is PID controlled at 125 degrees. There's no interaction between the two boilers so I'm pouring steamed milk into an espresso the minute it's been pulled rather than letting it cool whilst I steam the milk...
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It's really very good for the money. I'd say it beats the rancilio pro on price, but also has a much bigger service boiler 0.8 vs 0.3 I think? This absolutely nails consistency and thermal stability. The minima also has the E61 group which is tried, tested and has spares very readily available. The minima E61 also has the lever removed and replaced with the toggle switch, it means you never have to remove and regrease the lever. Another good thing about the E61 minima mod, because it doesn't have the lever on it is you can also buy the lelit flow control paddle add on and just screw it straight in if you ever want to do flow/pressure profiling.
Re what Sumo has said about the pump - yes, you can't plumb it in with the vibe pump but you also get a nice kind of auto pre-infusion with the ramping up of the vibe pump. The tank is really easy to access through the top, I never take the tank out. I stick the water through a filter jug and then pour in the hatch through the top. You have a low water warning on the little display and it will never cut a shot off halfway through, it lets it run and then shuts the boilers off until you put more water in - the low level indicator has loads of tolerance too so you're never going to damage the boilers. The rocket is also much more expensive and it's not even a dual boiler. You have individual boiler controls too, so if you just want espresso shots with no milk you can just set it to the service boiler. Takes 20 minutes for it to be fully warmed up and ready to pull a shot - once you've flicked the switch to turn on the steam boiler that's up to temperature in 5 minutes. The steam wand is a two hole tip and super powerful. I've had the minima for about 4 months and my latte art is spot on now. The knobs are standard fittings so if you do want wooden ones you can pick em up cheaper than listed there. The only change I made to mine when I got it was to get a bottomless portafilter. It's a standard E61 one, so picked it up super cheap. You also get a bundle of little accessories with it, different pads for the feet so if you need to move it around you can stick felt ones on it and slide it about to fill up the tank or rubber ones if you won't need to move it. You get a few brushes and stuff with it for maintenance, including an angled group head brush and a replacement gasket.
Like I said, would highly recommend. For the money, it's amazing, you can pay a lot more for a machine but I don't think you can really get any better quality.
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I have an ACS minima, would highly recommend.
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Ascaso i-mini, but make sure you get the i1. It's got a much better burr set. https://www.ascaso.com/div-espresso-coffee-machines-grinders/i-mini-1.html
Not good for switching between espresso and filter though, it's more an espresso grinder.
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The thinking that it's OK to have functions far apart that should be close together becomes
more normal, because we have great transport links, right?HS2 is actually meant to combat this. The point is that you move the Direct Lines services off the West Coast Main Line which means you can run more stopping services which means that you can stimulate the local economies along the line. It makes travelling 20 minute journeys much easier locally because rather than having only two services an hour between these local places you can up it to a service every 5 minutes or so because these services no longer have to make way for the fast through services.
There's a lot of very clever planning that has gone into HS2 which actually makes it a lot more attractive to people like yourself. Its main aim is not to cut off 20 minutes on the journey from London to Birmingham, that's actually a byproduct of it. It's just not marketed in a very good way because it's a much better tag line to say "Get from London to Birmingham 20 minutes faster!" rather than "Make a difference to the local economies between Coventry and Milton Keynes!".
There's a lot of things that could also drive the cost down, if you drop the line speed by a few kmph it would significantly save on the cost of it and if it had a clever procurement model it could also drive the cost down - but the UK rail industry is not known for being modest and having a clever procurement model.
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Can second the wilfa for filter. I'd been using an i1 mini for my espresso for years alongside the wilfa for filter. I recently upgraded to a niche for espresso but still use the wilfa svart for filter. The wilfa matches the niche for filter in my opinion.
On a side note, I think the i1 mini is a great quality grinder and punches well above its price. The main reason I got the niche was because of its grind retention. I kept having to whack the i1 one to stop it retaining a gram or two.
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When you were looking at what to buy, did you come across the ACS Minima?
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I also studied astrophysics at UCL and can second this. The pastoral support isn't immediately obvious but if it's flagged it's forthcoming.
The good thing about UCL physics is that it is a large multi-armed department which means that if you have chosen to study the straight physics course or one of the 'specialist' astro/theoretical/medical you still have a lot of the secondary options available to you. The core courses remain mostly the same (if I remember correctly, there's the base mathematics modules, thermal physics, quantum physics etc.) but you have freedom to pick and choose from the supplementary courses.
I enjoyed the practical astrophysics side of things, because UCL has its own observatory in Mill Hill which lets you play with telescopes in a very constructive way. Which may not be for your son if he is of the more socially introverted persuasion. The observatory means you have to work in close quarters with people often late into the night and in cold telescope domes.
To second leggy_blonde's view of the people on the straight physics course, I agree completely. There were plenty of very introverted individuals who seemed happy as a pig in muck on the physics course, especially so on the theoretical physics course. This one might be the best fit if you expect your son to enjoy sitting at a desk for hours on end attempting to comprehend incomprehensible mathematical problems.
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zazkar - Never givingup drinking til the sun goes! ()
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15502240/
moocher - givingup on the garden ()
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15502337/
graunch - Amnesty - Helping People to Avoid givingup ()
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15502432/
mrJL - givingup riding (3)
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15502452/
Eejit - givingup chasing this little bastard round the playground ()
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15502464/
WillMelling (2)
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15502520/
pullingteth - Vesuvius givingup smoking ()
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15502552/
Rik_Van_Looy - givingup on mainstream media (3)
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15502713/
ObiWomKenobi - givingup on this zoom wedding, time to play. (4)
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15502719/ -
cool beans, thanks everyone.
#givingup -
Midnight Fridge Raider #caughtintheact
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Lost toys and surveillance, this #broken world.
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The responses to people's complaints on the kickstarter page are something else too.
People are complaining about fishy smells and chemical smells - any suggestion that this isn't okay is met with a kind of indignant "how very dare you!"
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I use these ones - https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-3-pack-universal-water-filter-cartridges/p/0196657 - rather than the maxtra style ones.
They come in six for £9 too. They're good. I got the peak out of curiosity rather than feeling the wilko filters didn't do a good enough job.
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Absolutely.
Before I got the peak, I was actually using the cheapo filters from Wilko. I'll be going back to them once the replacement filter in the peak starts smelling like emulsion.
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I found it easier to fit blue armature which fits to the dial at the top into the filter before putting the filter into the blue insert. Once it's clicked into place you can then slide them both in and it fits - not snugly, because the finishing on it is rubbish, but it fits and does the job.
It's all pretty terrible to be honest, the original blurb was:
"At the heart of Peak Water is our innovative disc filter, combining precisely calculated flow dynamics with our new ‘filter maze’ system"The graphic on their kickstarter suggests that the amount of time the water spent in the filter is the variable.
It isn't.
My first filter started making the top chamber stink like paint. I complained, they sent me a new filter - so I opened up the old one. There's no maze. All that blue dial does is changes how covered/uncovered a little hole is that allows water to pass through without touching the resins that are inside the filter. The rest of the water just gets dumped straight through the resins - it's just a big empty chamber, filled with the mushy resin stuff, no maze, no clever flow dynamics. It's literally mixing uniformly filtered water with unfiltered water rather than varying the time that all of the water is exposed to the filter.
They've pointed out that other filters simply pass water from top to bottom and suggest theirs is different. The only difference with theirs is that it mixes top to bottom filtered water with unfiltered water. And in some cases, gives off some pretty foul odours.
I'm not impressed, especially given it was unapologetically delivered 2 years late - even with funding from Innovate UK.
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Well the ecoffee example is the most readily available one right now.
He said something had been proven to be dangerous to someone's health, and it hadn't been.
@nefarious - yes I understand, I'm not under any illusions as to the nature of YouTube. My issue is the way he quite regularly says stuff under the guise of scientific method when it's just him trying to validate his own opinions about things. Yeah, it's frivolous because it's about the subject of coffee but it's dangerous when it gets put into other environments i.e. anti-vaxxers and that kinda stuff.
It's a bit of a leap granted, but all this stuff irks me. I'm a scientist and the way he dresses up his presentations really bothers me.
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Currid won't be removing any safety earthing from my suggestion. The ground loop needs to be removed - when it's powered via a laptop usb connection there's no ground connection and is safe. If the usb port on the MiniDSP is a shielded USB port then it means that there will be an uneccessary ground connection if it's used via a grounded USB plug (which might be causing the ground loop). Additionally, if it's plugged in via the PSU there shouldn't be a ground connection but if there's a ground hum then something funky is going on there. It could be a faulty PSU. By lifting the ground on a power connection connected to the usb port of the MiniDSP they're not creating anything that's any less safe than plugging it into a laptop.