Hello All, things are busy here per usual. Production parts have been and will continue to arrive over the next month. I now see why companies have dedicated shipping and receiving departments to keep track of all the incoming product. We have continued to see inherent delays from some suppliers as expected but nothing appears to be too drastic.
This past week we had a few people at the shop to photograph some latte art content using the Argos. Caleb Schwarz was able to work his magic with some fantastic pours using a variety of pitchers including the Motta Metallurgica Pitcher available on our site.
While the most efficient workflow on this machine would be to pull several shots then do all of your steaming at the end to avoid the wait on major temperature fluctuations, for optimal latte art pouring we steamed after each shot. We found that if I pushed the steam button immediately before pulling the shot, the boiler was up to steam temp (135C) usually just before the shot was completed.
For those interested, I uploaded a low quality video of some of the steaming and pours performed by Caleb. Please note that constant camera flashes will be seen throughout the video so anyone sensitive to flashing light should not watch. We will do a high quality steaming video when a production unit is built.
Please note that latte art skills are not included with the purchase of a machine and pitcher.
We will work with Caleb to create latte art tutorials with tips and tricks specific to the Argos.
Hardware
The part that everyone has been waiting for…timeline updates. We are in the final stretch!!! As of right now, our last parts are expected to arrive the second week of December. As mentioned above, there will continue to be unexpected delays from suppliers which tend to be about a week late. With all these shipments coming in we may also see delays getting through customs.
The current plan is to get the first machine out to CE cert mid December. Some initial builds will go out to reviewers for testing since those won’t need to be certified. I expect to start shipping first thing next year once certification has passed. Since all of our components are pre-certified and we have designed redundant fail-safes I feel confident in the product passing with minimal to no changes required.
New production parts are scheduled to arrive each week so we will continue building up sub assemblies ie: piston, boiler, boiler cap, steam manifold, and steam valves. All of these standalone items are comprised of several individual parts and seals that can be put together and sit on the shelf until final unit production occurs. I’ll be documenting these builds as they occur and sharing content on the socials as well as email updates.
While we wait on production parts to ship I will continue sourcing small add on items that people may want with their machines.
Boiler pressure gauges with full stainless steel internals sporting our custom face plate.
Software
William will be on site for the next few days. This will allow us to make significant progress on various software updates.
The major items to note will be getting robust OTA (Over the Air) update capability as well as continuing to test the plumb in setup. William has gotten both of these to work initially so we will continue maturing and testing these capabilities.
We should be able to have the Plumb in add-on available on the site before units ship.
Sincerely,
Ross Ainsworth
