3 ms·

> I can’t say the same about my coffee grinders. I use the plural because I’ve owned a lot of them, all bought in their original packaging and dead within a yea

by nunez 3y ago

> I can’t say the same about my coffee grinders. I use the plural because I’ve owned a lot of them, all bought in their original packaging and dead within a year Grind size and consistency are everything when making coffee. As such, good coffee grinders are expensive as hell because of the blades and motors. Mostly the blades. You can easily spend thousands on an espresso grinder (a grinder that can only grind ultra-fine espresso grounds, nothing else) because of this. My Fellow Ode, which can only grind for drip coffee, was $300. It is a significant improvement from the Breville Smart Grinder I had previously, which was a significant step up from the Mueller single-speed, single-size grinder I started with. I'm going to guess this was also the case 30 years ago, especially since they were bigger.

phaedrus 3y ago
I have a German-made coffee grinder that was between $200 - $300 retail (though I got it for significantly less on clearance. It grinds well, but within a short time of getting it the electronics burned out. I opened it up to find a bafflingly complex circuit board with relays, opto-isolators, transformer, microchips, fuses, timers, etc. etc. Mind you this board has only one function: to turn an AC motor on and off. I noticed the motor is a brushed "universal" motor like you'd find in a vacuum cleaner; that is, old technology that can run on DC or AC and needs only two wires to run. This complex circuit board... wasn't even justified for being a motor controller, because there was nothing to control! I replaced the entire burnt out circuit board with a hefty 20A 120-240 VAC momentary switch from my parts bin. Since then the grinder's been working perfectly for about 14 years. But if I hadn't been willing and able to do that repair I might have gone through 10 of them in the same time. Part of making a quality product is restraint: to NOT put something on it (like that circuit board) that is unnecessary.

by nunez 3y ago

phaedrus 3y ago

I have a German-made coffee grinder that was between $200 - $300 retail (though I got it for significantly less on clearance. It grinds well, but within a short time of getting it the electronics burned out. I opened it up to find a bafflingly complex circuit board with relays, opto-isolators, transformer, microchips, fuses, timers, etc. etc. Mind you this board has only one function: to turn an AC motor on and off. I noticed the motor is a brushed "universal" motor like you'd find in a vacuum cleaner; that is, old technology that can run on DC or AC and needs only two wires to run. This complex circuit board... wasn't even justified for being a motor controller, because there was nothing to control! I replaced the entire burnt out circuit board with a hefty 20A 120-240 VAC momentary switch from my parts bin. Since then the grinder's been working perfectly for about 14 years. But if I hadn't been willing and able to do that repair I might have gone through 10 of them in the same time. Part of making a quality product is restraint: to NOT put something on it (like that circuit board) that is unnecessary.