Hi, I'm Pedro from Coffee Parts.
And today we're looking at pumps and how they fit the anatomy of a coffee machine.
So pumps, what are they obvious answers like pump water, but there's
two different styles of pumps.
Well, actually three, two that we have here in the third, we'll talk about, we've
got the vibrating pumps, we've got the rotary pumps and we have that's not shown here.
The geared pumps the differences between these are the vibrating pumps.
Like you've seen this rocket in this case, in all olabs sitting here, the one
we have here is actually a Ulka.
Sorry, can I start again?
I'll just go from what we have here.
Now.
The vibrating pump tends to be on domestic coffee.
Like this rocket Apartamento we have here, the rockets using an Olab pump, all that
pump over here, we have a Ulka, but there's other brands that make them
like Fluidotec, et cetera.
Now what these vibrating pumps are, you can imagine a coil inside
and a piston with spring as the cord gets current releases.
The spring compresses and releases Pulsates, the water through it tend
to be like a little bit louder.
They pulsate the water through, it gets a little bit more pitting
in the coffee, and then you can't actually control the pump directly.
So you tend to put a bypass valve.
So the pump runs at one pressure.
And then depending on how much water you're bypassing back to the water
reservoir depends on the final pressure.
You get a great solution.
Small and really use on, I guess, machines.
If you're going to look at an Australian price point up to about
$3,000, then you have the rotary pump.
Now the rotary pump is what the majority of commercial coffee machines use or
the higher end home coffee machines.
And these pumps are actually controlled by a motor.
The motor generally made by a company called RPM.
Basically turns the shaft as the shaft turns it in parallel.
And as that pushes, it goes to the water pump in to out and pushes it.
You can control the pressure of the pump by adjusting the side, dial here, and it
basically reduces or expands the outlet.
And then you can tell your pump pressure, very stable.
And what a pump does is moot pressure from a to B.
So on a rotary pump machine, commercially they're plumbed in the medically, they
might be running a reservoir plant.
Then if a reservoir moves to the water from a zero pressure in your room,
So generally around eight to nine bars, whatever, you've set it up.
If you've plumbed in that machine, it's more than likely
you've got mains pressure.
And to keep that consistent, you might use a pressure limiting valve or POV.
It's a three and a half bars.
So the pump is doing the rest for three and a half hours tonight.
And that's when many machines have a function called pre-infusion where
effectively you're opening the group head where to manual labour or opening the salt.
But not activating the pump, allowing three and a half bar through pre-infuse
your coffee and then dividing the pump or flipping that switch and activating
the solenoid to then activate, the pump and get it to this eight or nine
bars, whatever you've adjusted to.
So these pumps are a lot quieter and a lot more consistent for coffee.
Now, the third pump is the geared pump you tend to exceed.
On machines, like the, Slayer Rocket R91, some La Marzoccos
like the Strata, et cetera.
And what these are, is their control.
Based on current, the more current you give the pump, the more the
pump pumps and what that effectively allows you to do is pressure profile.
So you can control for how long or what pressure you want to
come out of your coffees here.
Two seconds or two bath, another five seconds at three bars, then
go, you know, X amount of seconds at nine bars, ramp it down.
You can control the curve.
So a normal curve would be start.
So ramp it up and then ramp it down to emulate.
The old lever the machines, but some people have different.
Perspectives on what their profile is and that we'll adjust
that in the way they want.
So the three pumps, styles being vibrating, rotary, and geared
all basically moved water one pressure to the next.
And now the difference between them becomes this really the kind
of coffee you're looking for.
In the most case in home environments, people tend to
have vibrating pump machines.
Those are want to quiet a machine, more focused on espresso.
Bit better quality and the ability to plumb in and we'll go for rotary pump
machines and then gear pumps tend to be that really top end of the speciality
world were then, every variable matters.
People are using scales way in to weigh out. they're using
refractometers to test their TDS.
And it's a whole new ball game.
What pumps are doing moving pressure to the next and like everything in coffee.
Your weight of grind, your water, temperature, and your pump, other
variables that make the biggest difference on your espresso.
So when you need to replace your pump, with vibrating pumps.
Eventually the coils burn out and die down.
So these are items that are non-service will, but replaceable
and you'll tend to replace them.
Like it's always hard to give a timeline.
It really depends on.
You know, things like have you backflush for too long.
And it really, these burnout, if water isn't constantly flowing
from them, they've really pushed that Pump by backflush in, for too
long or grinding to fine and really push that pumper reduces lifespan.
The generally on normal use case environments for home, probably
around the five-year mark, like everything scale and abusing the
pumps will reduce their life.
Some people that don't use their machine much might get a little bit longer
in lifespan with the rotary pumps.
Not Bulletproof, but almost Bulletproof with time.
The bearings in here do sometimes seize up and especially if
you're not using the machine.
And that puts more pressure on the motor in eventually they go domestically.
This doesn't happen very often.
They tend to last a long time.
Commercially like really depends.
Some cafes are doing five kilos a week.
Some are doing 200kgs a week.
So it really depends on the use case and on good pumps.
Then they tend to be not in really high volume cases.
So, because it's such a speciality unit, they tend not to be like machines
that are consistently under pressure.
So they do tend to last a while.
Sometimes in the older vibrating, sorry, all the good pumps, the seals did
leak, but now that they're one enclosed unit, they are lasting a lot longer.
I hope you've enjoyed this review.
If you've got any questions on these pumps, any issues you're having with
your pump or what kind of pump style machine is best for you hit us up on
the comments below and we'll get back.
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Thank you.