pretty basic but I made myself a less mess espresso basket prep ring thing.
It'a detained by magnets so it doesn't get in the basket and interfere with spreading out the grounds. Needs a clean up with a lick of sandpaper, pretty stupid but these things cost like 50 bucks /shrug
EDIT: appreciate all the concern for my health, it touches dry coffee grounds. I agree that if it got wet there'd be health problems but unless it gets real humid there's just no opportunity for decay. As for random leaching same diff, without heat and wet it's not really a concern.
That said I probably will seal an improved design, this is just a test piece.
Please keep in mind that you need to seal that print before you use it with food. Because of the layers, there’s are a ton of places for dirt and bacteria to hide that are impossible to clean. Additionally, depending on what kind of nozzle you used, heavy metals can end up in your print which you don’t want to then leech into your coffee. General advice is to just not use 3d prints first good, but if you really want to you should coat them in a food safe epoxy before using.
Honestly, instead of all that, the general rule should be don't use 3d printed stuff with food, period. Cause everyones focused on what can leech into the plastic and cause nastiness, but no one focuses about what could leech out of the plastic. Especially in this era where every month theres some new recall of some product that has something terrible in it that shouldnt be there.
and even if you do manage to find and buy a filament that claims its food safe/food grade, your printer is not. The materials used in 3d printers are not food safe, the lubricants and greases are not food safe, the previous filaments that you've printed with and have left buildup isnt food safe, and theres probably a lot in the average printers hot end that is not food safe.. Not to mention the bed, and any adhesives you might use.
Its just not worth the risk to yourself or potential loved ones, So don't even try it in all honesty.
3d printers are great, fantastic even. Mines saved a lot of money by letting me design and build replacement parts and tools to do obscure jobs specific to the situation, and even some pretty nice gifts and other stuff. Its great at a lot of things.
but it will never be good for anything to do with human consumption. Don't let 3d printed materials touch your food, drinks, or be involved in prep areas.
Do you really thing that coffee grounds brushing up on something sheds significant amounts compared to like all the plastic you touch and then eat after not washing your hands? Or the Teflon in the rain on our crops? or storing food in plastic containers particularly during heating or freezing?
I'd be more concerned about takeway coming in shitty plastic containers that stain (indicating mixing on a molecular level) than coffee grounds touching a piece of PLA.
Yes, absolutely. Coffee grounds rubbing up against rough 3d printed plastic is going to act like little grinders pulling off bits of of plastic directly into the grounds.
Not to say that we all haven’t already lost the microplastics speed run. I am concerned about the things you listed, but yeah, I wouldn’t want anything 3d prone to be so close to so many small hard moving pieces of food.
So usually id agree that 3d prints shouldn't be used for food, but this is a coffee hopper, they're made from plastic already and I guarantee you the ones we used at Starbucks didn't get that clean either, it's fine, just sand it and get rid of those hairs
It's also not taking a huge amount of friction either, it's literally just a hopper, walls to gravity feed the shelled beans into the grinder, sometimes it's okay to step away from the rules a bit and just go, that'll be fine
I use some supposedly food grade filament with a stainless nozzle and dedicated extruder, and after initial finishing they get a dip in food grade epoxy. I only made star wars and penis shaped cookie cutters though.
Huh, didn't consider aliexpress. I have an old lever machine with a non standard basket size (49 mm or something) so idk if they exist for it. I can see one with a brief search, but it protrudes down into the basket to locate itself which is a bit inelegant.
I know it's probably sacrilege, but I avoid the need for one of these by grinding half a dose, tamping a bit then grinding the rest and finishing the tamp. I'm using a Breville Barista Express so couldn't (easily) use one of these even if I wanted to.
I'm curious how you retain the magnets in it? Are they printed in, or mechanically added later? (I know very little about 3d printing, this just came up in my top-6-hour feed)
I haven't done much with magnets, but I saw one model where you pause the print halfway through, drop magnets into the holes, then continue the print and they get sealed in Amontillado-style.
I'm not really a coffee wanker so I don't know one way or the other what tamping halfway would do. I just want to be able to dump the grounds in, shake, and tamp.
The magnets are just push fit into little holes in the bottom. I just tap them in with blunt nail and a hammer.
Hey, that's neat! I use a scrap piece from a previous employer. It's a 2inch tall stainless steel combiner ring. Definitely not as cool as yours and definitely not light enough for magnetic holds. You win lol
Oh, for sure! It is annoying having to hold it as I work with it. But, I don't have a 3D printer, so I did what I could with the tools at my disposal. I am happy with it :)
Pet peeve, a coffee machine isn't an investment. Not in the literal sense and the creepy corporatisation of language is weird. It's just an expensive toy that makes me like life a little more :) I actually got an old europiccola because no electronics (bimetal strip and heating coil aside) means I can keep this thing working indefinitely.
A lighter will tidy up the stringing without making the mess that sandpaper will. Just don't linger too long or the part will warp. It should take less than a second to make the strings disappear with a lighter.
Hot a air station, if you have one, will also do wonders here. I suspect an adjustable hot air gun would also probably work, but those things can put out some serious heat so be careful.