In my case, - a 1/4 inch hole in the drip tray, an extra sealant around the perimeter of the drain "cup" and a tie-wrap around the drain line where it connects to the "cup" seems to be an effective solution to the problems with the drain kit.
It's easy, and working great, plus I can readily pull the tray to rinse - just pull it out. Seems to be a major advantage of the kit - the ability to easily rinse the tray.
For clarity, I am defining "cup" as - portion of the drain kit with three screws that attaches underneath a hole in the frame of the machine.
Edited to add - for further clarity - I drilled out the 1/4" hole from the underside of the tray where there is a roughly 1/2 inch ( 12/13 mm) round raised area that had a small indent in the center to help start a drill bit..
Possibly Important! I initially leveled the machine with a small 8" or so torpedo level. Got the machine level side to side. However, I never did get the front to back quite right - very slight tilt with the front higher - No way you would realize it without putting a level on it. I was running out of adjustment, got tired of fooling with it. My countertop is 12" granite tiles - and the machine sits on four of them. Don't know if the slight tilt front to back has any effect on the drain function or not.
Fwiw, I believe most of the problems with the kit have been either that the hole was misplaced, oversized or the "cup" seal wasn't good, or maybe the machine wasn't leveled.
As near as I can tell, much of the success of the drain kit depends on the water coming out of the hole drill to start dripping, and to form a continual drip from the embossed/protruding portion - (not much thicker than a medium coin) -If your hole is not drilled through that protrusion, or is larger than the protrusion, I suspect that you will have trouble with the water forming to begin "dripping" -
After reading Richard's post - I used about an 8 inch "tie wrap" or "cable tie" nylon tie and cinched it down pretty snugly over the black hose at the joint where it you slide the hose over the outlet to the "cup" that attaches with three screws to the bottom of the frame. Pulled it down quite snugly, to the point I was worried about putting too much strain and breaking something.
I wanted to improve on the seal around the perimeter of the "cup" but didn't want to use silicone sealant/caulk because it can be tough to remove later.I happened to have on hand, something called "permagum" which is basically used in refrigeration/air conditioning as a non-hardening sealant that remains pliable - a little stiffer than say silly putty - but can be worked like play dough. So, I rolled that between my hands to roll out thin tubular strips that I put on around the top edge of the tubular "seal" - when I tightened the three nuts I looked all the way round to make sure I had a full seal and was squeezing out the permagum. You don't have to have permagum, you can use cheap acrylic caulk, just don't use silicone or it will be difficult to remove.
My machine sits somewhat close to a sink, so I just left the drain hose full length and laid it out around the sink, and over the edge of the sink and stuck the hose down into the drain. Note: in initial testing of the drain - when I would fill the tray almost to the top with a large pitcher of water - the drain kit did not function correctly. I noticed that if I filled the tray to a little less than half - it seemed to work well. So, if you "test" this by filling the tray to more than half - it won't work. FWIW, my tray never seems to accumulate even a 1/4" in normal usage.
I'll try to follow up with some pics, because placement of the hole is critical.
ETA: I now have been using this install for a couple of months with no issues, so I am confident of the procedures. If you wish for additional information, search for posts by Richard in one of the drain mod threads - who I would like to thank for posting and pointing us in the right direction - I basically have only expanded slightly on what Richard posted, so credit here where major credit is due
