The S1 Cafe - Helping Your Espresso Dreams Become Reality

hi everyone.
first post here. has been great reading so far, so thanks.
wondering if someone here has checked to see how accurate the VII's brew pressure gauge is by using a pf gauge?
im wondering if i can trust the VII's gauge or should i go and hook myself up with my own pf gauge?
thanks

aaron

I owned one of the original S1's before they had a dual gauge. So I purchased a Portafilter Pressure Gauge, which I still have. It agrees pretty well with the built-in one. The major difference is that the external gauge has more granularity in the meter graduations. With the internal one it might be pretty hard to tell the difference between 8.6 and 8.7 bar, for example, where that is not an issue with the external gauge.

One good thing about having the external gauge even with the VII is for diagnostic usage. If everything is working properly, both gauges will agree. However, since the internal gauge is back near the pump output there are things that can happen which would give a different reading on both gauges. If this happens it is an indication that there is an issue that needs to be looked into.

hey chas
thanks for your reply.
seems like the internal VII guage CAN be trusted as far as your experience goes.
my thinking was, that i wanted to chop one of my handles down into a naked, but thought i might like to have a pf guage as well. thought id hook up the guage myself based on the posts here and see if it corroborated with the VII guage. if it did, then i was going to get the pf chopped anyway.

maybe ill miss the pf guage step and go straight to the chop then eh?

thanks again

aaron