Plumbing in my Expobar Espresso Machine
So, for the love of coffee, my fierce mistress, I got myself an ex-commercial espresso machine from a Coffee Roaster friend of mine:
It's a Spanish-made EXPOBAR with a single e61 grouphead, boiler with pressure stat, heatexchange and a built in burr grinder with doser. It's actually a pretty awesomely spec'd machine. I have no idea what model it is, and i can't find any reference to it on the internet, which is kind of rare. So this post will hopefully also serve to give this machine the web presence it deserves! 
Obviously it's a machine that requires plumbing in, so after a trip to MasterTrade in Wellington (and $150 later) I had all the parts i needed to plumb it in.
These two pipes go to the mixer faucet on the kitchen sink, I needed to tap into the cold supply.
With one of these Hex's...
...a T-Junction & some Teflon Tape... we have:
A T-Junction with 2 males and a female, with the Female (Hex end) ready to go on:
A Teflon wrapped mains supply pipe (which until recently was connected directly to the faucet mixer)
ProTip #1: Before removing the braided hose leading to the supply pipe, it would help to turn the water mains off first... that is unless you are a hippo and enjoy wallowing in water ^_^ - it'll look something like this:
Supply Control
So, connect it all together and what have you got?!:
This is the final setup, bottom is the water supply, top leads to mixer and middle goes to the Expobar's pump
ProTip #2: Tighten it all really really well to make the rubber seals in the braided hoses serve their purpose, otherwise you'll end up with a leak, something like this:
The braided hose connection to the machine was not tight enough at first so there were a few drips
So that's the supply done, we also need to connect up the waste water...
Waste
The waste pipes under the sink had an empty header so connecting it in was an easy job... no pressure 
(ha pun!)
Warming up a rubber adapter pipe to help it fit snugly into the spare waste header...
and it's connected
A shot of it all finished and plumbed in ^_^
And now some shots of accessories, and some of the first extractions i did:
Nice wooden handled Tamper ^_^
Naked/Crotchless Portafilter
Portafilter with some coffee in it ready to extract
One of my first extractions, wasn't bad, regardless it was one of my first so ^^
Latte Art: Not my forte... Practice makes perfect
Since taking these above photos, i went into Moore Wilson on Tory Street and found some nice looking cups and saucers:
Moore Wilson's Cups and Saucers
So i bought a couple ^_^
That's about all I have for now, feel free to comment and ask questions as you please ^_^
August 28th, 2011 - 18:39
Wow, uou are pretty much a plumber now too, you are very skilled Aerofade.
Also I like the cups.
August 28th, 2011 - 19:43
yeah when can i get a cup
August 28th, 2011 - 23:31
Is that brass I see? Nothing like a bit of lead
August 28th, 2011 - 23:37
What are you on about?
August 29th, 2011 - 07:49
Hey Mark – thanks for the shout out, and glad to see the beastie well- settled and working for you. Lead pipes anon? Sure, if it were the 1700s!
August 29th, 2011 - 07:58
Yeah i’m not sure what Lead-Pipes-Guy is on about – i was thinking maybe he was saying “what’s with this brass, lead is way better” (as a joke i hope)