The S1 Cafe - Helping Your Espresso Dreams Become Reality

Dave: This is off-topic for this discussion thread but I assumed you might recheck in here before you saw a post in the more appropriate location.

You say you have a brand new S1 from Chris. Recently Chris told me that in this new batch La Spaziale had done something to address our complaints about rattles and vibration noises. He said the new ones were very quiet but he didn't know what LaSpaz had done to address the issue. Chris promises to pop one open soon and see what they have done.

Should you get a chance to pop yours open please take a photo or two and post them for us to see, especially if you compare them to the photos of my S1 I have posted on http://s1.rimpo.org and see something obviously different.

In the meantime, I'll check back it with Chris to see if he's done any investigating yet.

I also have one of the brand new S1s from Chris. I went through the steps you outlined in the quieting before I even started the machine up a few things needed to be adjusted do the shipment from East Coast to West.

It has 2 strips of padding on the top panel -- not sure if yours has one or two as it is tough to see on the photos. I didn't notice much different between yours and mine.

I have to open the front panel again soon, so I can take a picture if you want it. I won't be messing with the side panels again real soon as I have them in place nicely and it took me some time...

Bob

Are you just talking about the thin, sticky-backed rubber strips shown on each top rail between the letters D and E?

Chas,

Yes, I am referring to the thin sticky backed rubber strips between D and E in your photo.

I took a few photos when I opened the front up the other day, but I didn't see anything that was majorly different. I can send them your way if you want them .. just let me know how you want me to send them to you.

My machine is definitely quiet though, so there must be differences. Maybe underneath where the panels attach to the bottom. There was not padding or other material in the sides when I took them off. All I did was make sure everything was tightened up when reassembling (as my panels were out of alignment due to shipping). The only sound I ever hear is what I believe is the boiler kicking in every now and then. No rattles, vibrations or anything like that.

Bob

Is the back panel on your S1 three sections that are rivited together?

How about the side panels? Do they just attach with three screws; i.e. nothing really holding on the lower rear corner?

I believe it is in 3 sections, I will have to wait until the machine cools down to check. There were definitely rivets in the back panel.

There are just the 3 screws holding on each side panel. I followed your detailed instructions when taking it apart and putting it together. There was no variations in the placement of screws. There is nothing holding the rear corner as you mention in your instructions.

Since you don't have any pictures of the bottom of your machine, I notice that mine has a pronounced notch for where each of the screws hold the side panel in from the bottom. Not sure if you have this or not. Also, there is a groove in each of the side panels where the back panel can sqeeze into -- again you probably have the same thing. As far as the number of side screws and bottom screws, they are the same on yours and mine.

Bob

Hum. They sound identical. Time to see if Chris has figured out what, if anything, they did. Found anything else different relative to what I hae documented on my S1 Site?

Any word from Chris as to what they did? I received my Dynomat but have not yet had time to install. Would love to know what Spaziale did before I start.

I didn't see any differences from what is on your site. Your site was very helpful for me as I did need to take off both side panels, the top, back, etc. and reassemble before I even plugged in my machine the first time. My boiler pressure gage was also bent and mostly behind the front panel when it arrived.

However, my guess is that the differences are small details that you would only turn up if you had detailed photographs of all views of the machine. For instance, the exact notches around the screws on the bottom, or exactly how the drip tray looks top and bottom, etc. I saw no differences from the major items such as the number of screws, etc. are all the same as outlined on your site.

INteresting. I still haven't gotten around to asking Chris if he's noticed anything. IN part I guess it depends on what LaSpaz thought was rattling. How about the grate over the drip tray? Doesn't yours fit in snuggly or does it have some play?

The grate over the drip tray fits very snugly, there is no play there and hence there are no rattles. There is no extra material underneath - as I saw that you glued some material to yours.

On a separate note, another member sent me a private message using your web-site functionality, but I never received anything. Does this functionality work or has it been disabled?

Installed Dynomat. It really makes it much quieter. However, it was more work than I expected. Took me about 3 hours. It was worth it but it sure would have been nice to get it from the factory all ready quiet. :)

I have one of the brand new S1's too.
Certainly quiet enough.
The pump makes some noise when pulling a shot, but nothing agregious.

Also, unlike all the photos i saw prior to purchase, all three
panels on the back of my machine are polished stainless. All
the prior photos I saw had the middle section in black.

I tightened drip tray and made other mods in how I place Dynomat to make the unit quiet. My unit did not have the rubber strips on the top but I added DYnomat to those locations and it seems to work fine. My back panel and I think all others is shiney SS. It may just be the way the camera took the phots that gives you the impression that the middle section is black.

The only photo I've ever seen where the middle rear section is black is on the Chris Coffee website. This photo was probably taken by LaSpaziale of an early mockup. There is one other key difference in the Chris Coffee website photo and the actual units. Of all the times I have looked at the photos, I just noticed it.

Check the front panel guage on these two photos. The Chris Coffee photo (top) guage has a range with green and red colored pressure areas that corresponds to group pressure. Whereas the photo of the actual production units shows the green and red areas and the numbering that corresponds with the boiler pressure.

I just had a lengthy chat with Chris who is just back from a trip to Italy. He says the only thing LaSpaziale did to quiet the new S1s was to replace the fairly hard rubber spacers between the bottom of the pump motor and the chassis with soft rubber spacers. He's going to ship me a set next week so maybe I'll install them next weekend and report back.

I bought my S1 in August and I am very satisfied regarding the noise-level. It's very quiet indeed. More quiet than any other machine I have seen and more quiet than I ever expected. I noticed that the backwall of the machine cannot rattle, because it's more or less "spring loaded"; it has such a strong bend, that I could hardly put it back together when I had to open it once.

Wolfgang