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This is an archival page for early owners of the
S1 Vivaldi VI
who purchased their machines from Chris Coffee before June 2004.
Difference in Early machines Vs. Final
S1 Vivaldi VI's
Shipped
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Original
(Pre-2/20/2004) |
New
(Post 2/20/2004) |
Newest (Post June 2004) |
Steam arm is
chrome plated and only rotates in and out. Awkward to use. Steam
arm accommodates a number of 3rd party tips included much praised 2 hole
tip.
Replacement steam arms kits are available from Chris Coffee. Those
receiving early kits got a four hole tip that makes it hard to create
perfect microfoam. The 3 hole tip shipping with the new units is
available upon request to those with early steam arm upgrades. |
Steam arm is
constructed of stainless steel and has a ball joint to articulate in all
directions as well as rotate. Nice, but non-standard tip-threads on end
of arm. Cannot use 3rd party tips. Comes with 3 hole tip standard.
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New
motor mount design introduced that drastically quiets operation. With
these new mounts you can hardly hear the motor running! |
| Controller board
bug causes incremental temperature control to work backwards relative to
documentation. Contact Chris Coffee if you are interested in the
corrected circuit board. |
Includes
corrected controller board |
Controller board is completely enclosed in plastic rather than just
having a plastic flap to protect it. Rather than a hard to access jumper
on the Controller board to switch between 15A and 20A mode, an easily
accessible switch is located on the plastic case which encloses the
Controller board. |
| Uses a thicker
brass diffuser disk which allows less coffee to be used per shot. Holes
in disk resemble a star-like pattern. Contact Chris Coffee if you are
interested in the new thinner disk. |
Uses a 2mm
thinner diffuser disk which easily allows use of 18g of coffee. 20g if
you flip the small shower screen over and stick it inside the larger
screen as documented on the S1 Vivaldi VI home page. The holes in this diffuser
disk are arranged in a single circle. |
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Notes:
1) A LaSpaziale portafilter pressure gauge is now available from Chris
Coffee. This is a complete assembly including portafilter.
EspressoParts.com carries a gauge with adapter that can screw onto your
own portafilter as an alternative. This is almost $15 less that the one
from Chris if you already have a spare portafilter. However, Chris
Coffee includes shipping. Espresso Parts adds a per order $3 "nuisance
fee" and standard UPS consumer shipping rates. Bottom line: If you live
on the east coast and order from EspressoParts.com it will cost you
about the same total amount as the complete assembly from Chris and take
close to a week and a half to arrive. So your best choice probably
depends on where you live.
2) Chris Coffee also now carries a
pod adapter that fits the S1 Vivaldi VI.
3) Chris Coffee has also put
together a pressure reducer kit for sale to those on high pressure water
systems that are seeing some water drippage from the 3-way valve when the unit is idle. If
the kit is not yet posted on the Chris Coffee site, call directly and
request pricing and availability. This is a generic kit available
for use with all coffee machines. This is not specifically for the S1
Vivaldi VI.
Versions are available with 1/4" or 3/8" John Guest fittings.
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The New Steam Arm
One of the few complaints from early
S1 Vivaldi VI owners was the shape and limited
range of movement of the original Steam Wand. An upgrade is now available to those owners who have the original
S1 Vivaldi VI and wish to self-upgrade.
This new steam arm is standard on units shipped after 2/20/2004.
Check out this
new steam arm here or click the S1 Vivaldi VI New Steam Arm link at the left side of this page.
Documentation Corrections
The instructions included with the S1
Vivaldi VI's shipped before
2/20/2004 for the single degree "fine tuning mode" are backwards from the way
the machine actually operates. In other words, if you follow the instructions to
add 2°C, you actually decrease the temperature by 2°C and vice versa. The
instruction sheet for this mode has been redone to reflect the actual machine
operation in the fine temperature control mode. Throw away the single page sheet
that was included with your machine and use these instructions:
Fine Temperature Control Instructions
Matching pre-2/20/2004 S1 Vivaldi VI machines (177K PDF)
Corrected Boiler
Button Instructions (16K PDF) Corrected documentation for Boiler
button modes.
Entire scanned manual including clarification of Fine Temperature Control and Boiler Button
Operation
(Rev. B, 2.5M
PDF)
Detailed Temperature Measurements
I have taken extensive measurements at 90±3°C,95±3°C,
and 100±3°C.
See the attached PDF file to see the data, test methodology, and my conclusions.
Note: The first document shows both the temperature
readings at each setting as well as which fine temperature setting lamps were
lit for each reading. These readings were taken on one of the original
pre-2/20/2004 units on
which the lamps lit backwards relative to the manufacturer's original
intentions.
S1 Vivaldi VI
Temperature Measurements (16K PDF)
The S1 Vivaldi VI has a Magnetic Personality
S1 Vivaldi VI Cheat Sheet
(24K PDF) - This is a small instruction sheet for Dose Mode, Master Temperature,
and Fine Temperature programming. I created them on an 8.5"x11" sheet that holds
10 and printed them on flexible magnetic stock on a ink jet printer. It fits
great right above the control panel as you can see in
this picture.
This is the version for S1 Vivaldi VI's shipped by Chris
Coffee before 2/20/2004 which have not been upgraded with the new controller
board.
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