jwoodyu Senior Member Joined: 31 Dec 2010 Posts: 704 Location: Michigan Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Allex Duetto II Grinder: Mazzer Major Roaster: Poppery
Posted Tue Mar 12, 2013, 6:54am Subject: Re: Alex Duetto 3.0 on its way to me (arrived)
+1 You can save a few bucks on the accumulator if you shop ebay and your careful to get the right one. I would add mount everything on a piece of thick rubber matt and keep the lines on the accumulator side of the flow jet short not touching anything needlessly to keep it all nice and quite.
You know those people that want to tell you how to raise your kids but have none of their own? That is how i feel when someone with a kitchen appliance tells me how the merits or dis-merits of my machine or how to use it.
Posted Tue Mar 12, 2013, 7:47am Subject: Re: Alex Duetto 3.0 on its way to me (arrived)
jwoodyu Said:
+1 You can save a few bucks on the accumulator if you shop ebay and your careful to get the right one. I would add mount everything on a piece of thick rubber matt and keep the lines on the accumulator side of the flow jet short not touching anything needlessly to keep it all nice and quite.
The first accumlator tank I used was a 2 gal. potable expansion tank bought from lowes ($48) just make sure its for potable water and is powder coated inside if you go this route. but if your going to use RO water I would stick with a fiber tank,also it's best to put 1/4 turn ball valve shutoffs between filters,gauges,tanks,ect. better to Isolate components for quick change outs and repairs. also with a accumulator tank make sure bladder pressure is ajusted to atleast 2psi below pump cutout pressure, I think on flowjets the cutout is 47psi. I lowered my acc. tank pressure to 7psi wich gave me 1gal of water in my acc tank. my flojet would kick on about every 5-10 shots on the hx machine (reason for bigger acc tank) wich was great considering all the flushing.with the duetto it would probly only run once evry 10-12 shots or so. I used a piece of peg board to mount everything made it very easy to mount and ajust components.
emradguy Senior Member Joined: 31 Mar 2011 Posts: 1,722 Location: Houston Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: Izzo Alex Duetto II Grinder: MacapM4T, Macap M4, OE Lido,... Drip: Espro press; Aeropress Roaster: internet
Posted Tue Mar 12, 2013, 1:45pm Subject: Re: Alex Duetto 3.0 on its way to me (arrived)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that the system needs to be airtight to achieve proper pressures (other than a valve to allow the fresh water vessel to draw air through so it doesn't implode)? Or does that not matter, because of the pump? The reason I ask is because I found a couple of good sites for buying rectangular carboys, and if I go that route (instead of standard round bottles), I can get both a drain receptacle and a fresh water vessel in the under-counter space I intend to use. However, I don't know the mouth opening of the carboys and am wondering how difficult it will be to find a "right fit" where the pump draws from the vessel.
jwoodyu Senior Member Joined: 31 Dec 2010 Posts: 704 Location: Michigan Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Allex Duetto II Grinder: Mazzer Major Roaster: Poppery
Posted Tue Mar 12, 2013, 2:05pm Subject: Re: Alex Duetto 3.0 on its way to me (arrived)
As long as the pickup goes under the water your fine. There is cap type thing that fits around the mouth of the carboy but its primary function is to keep it sanitary. You don't stuff crawling or falling into the jug. Personally I would go with the smaller expansion chamber so the water is cycling through more frequently spending less time in contact with the rubber bladder etc.
You know those people that want to tell you how to raise your kids but have none of their own? That is how i feel when someone with a kitchen appliance tells me how the merits or dis-merits of my machine or how to use it.
Posted Tue Mar 12, 2013, 3:23pm Subject: Re: Alex Duetto 3.0 on its way to me (arrived)
emradguy Said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that the system needs to be airtight to achieve proper pressures (other than a valve to allow the fresh water vessel to draw air through so it doesn't implode)? Or does that not matter, because of the pump? The reason I ask is because I found a couple of good sites for buying rectangular carboys, and if I go that route (instead of standard round bottles), I can get both a drain receptacle and a fresh water vessel in the under-counter space I intend to use. However, I don't know the mouth opening of the carboys and am wondering how difficult it will be to find a "right fit" where the pump draws from the vessel.
As long as the pickup goes under the water your fine. There is cap type thing that fits around the mouth of the carboy but its primary function is to keep it sanitary. You don't stuff crawling or falling into the jug. Personally I would go with the smaller expansion chamber so the water is cycling through more frequently spending less time in contact with the rubber bladder etc.
+1 no positive pressure needed in water vessel. Just to expand on what John said, the other end of the water wand has a cut off float installed incase your water bottle runs out of water to protect the pump. never ran mine low enough for it to kick in but looks like it would happen at about 1/4 gal (in a 5 gal bottle). My reason for going with the bigger expansion tank was mostly due to the cooling flushes on the alex hx I had it hooked to and contact with the bladder caused no off taste. but did have some reservations after reading some post about stale water.(I spent to many sleepless nights reading up on water quality). If I had used it with my duetto I probly would have went smaller. (sorry rob)
emradguy Senior Member Joined: 31 Mar 2011 Posts: 1,722 Location: Houston Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: Izzo Alex Duetto II Grinder: MacapM4T, Macap M4, OE Lido,... Drip: Espro press; Aeropress Roaster: internet
Posted Tue Mar 12, 2013, 3:54pm Subject: Re: Alex Duetto 3.0 on its way to me (arrived)
So CCS doesn't seem to carry accumulators and their pump looks very different from the one that EP sells. I was thinking maybe just pickup the pump and accumulator combo from EP (I think they say the accumulator is set at 30 psi) and then get the rest of what I need from CCS (JG fittings and lines, and particle/carbon filter).
germantownrob Senior Member Joined: 2 Dec 2007 Posts: 2,017 Location: Philadelphia Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Duetto 3, A Dead Oscar Grinder: Vario-W, Preciso w/Esatto,... Drip: Brazen Roaster: Diedrich IR-1, HT B
Posted Tue Mar 12, 2013, 4:24pm Subject: Re: Alex Duetto 3.0 on its way to me (arrived)
Changed the main title to "Alex Duetto Owners thread".
This is all good stuff for me an many others so no more apologies and keep it up.
I myself started looking at the flow jet after my initial decision to get the CCS under sink filtration and water softening, then the commercial unit, and this led into a whole house system and about to spend well over $10k. I am now seriously looking at a flow jet and making my own designer water since nothing else would allow tuning of the water I really wanted. Ugh, my therapist says I have serious control issues, I might agree with him if I didn't think he was trying to change me.
You know those people that want to tell you how to raise your kids but have none of their own? That is how i feel when someone with a kitchen appliance tells me how the merits or dis-merits of my machine or how to use it.
Posted Wed Mar 13, 2013, 5:55am Subject: Re: Alex Duetto 3.0 on its way to me (arrived)
lol OCD I hear that all the time ...........were sutch a special group of coffee enthusiast. I guess you could consider our forum something like an AA coffee suport group also...Hi my name is joe and I've been a coffee junky for 12years.
I think EP carries the watts wich is a fine choise. I think they are quite a bit higher in price and you might want to check out space requirments for it. I think they are bigger not sure though
custom water is nice to use (done it for a while) but testing is a pain. I used to test my water every 25/30 gal or so. hardness/alkalinity/TDS ect. if you test with strips not accurate but will get you in the ballpark.end point kits are better but are more time consuming.
I'm in the process now of building a bypass/mixer for my commercial softener from CCS so I can talor my water hardness/ect. for the duetto.
Posted Wed Apr 3, 2013, 12:42pm Subject: Re: Alex Duetto 3.0 on its way to me (arrived)
emradguy Said:
ah, ok, I see. Mine goes on at 5:30, but you won't catch me up before 6 unless there's an intruder alert or we have to catch an early flight to go somewhere fun. Mine is also a PIA to reprogram, but it has a bypass button on the front, so if I do want to turn the machine on outside of the programmed block, all I have to do is push it.
I have mine on a Belkin WeMo switch and use IFTTT for programming it. Super simple. You could even create different time presets to turn off and on as need. And even though I get up at the same time most always, if I need to change it I can quickly I can. Also, being able to send it a text on my way home to tell it to turn on is quite a luxury to have!
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