Our little kitchen is crammed with cooking equipment and giant roaster, a huge EK43 grinder and a big espresso machine. A few months ago I bought a Londinium R lever machine. The machine is still unpacked but it will be installed in the coming days. The machine has a huge lever that makes the machine a bit taller than my previous La Marzocco GS3. I’m sure that my girlfriend will not be pleased because our tiny kitchen will look more crammed than ever before. The best thing to do would be a complete kitchen makeover or just move to another house. This, however isn’t very practical because we can’t afford any of those at the moment. I, however thought of a different solution that was much more practical. The idea was to make our EK43 grinder look a little smaller. How could we do that? Well, I recently bought a tiny lovely 3D printer.
Why not design a smaller hopper and print it? That’s exactly what I did.
Below you can see the 3D model that I have made using Fusion 360 digital modeling software.
The model was printed on the Prima Creator 3D printer. This is a small form factor 3D printer that has a high build quality and tiny price tag. I used Polaroid skin colored PLA filament for the print. I recently bought 1 kilo of this filament and I’m very pleased with the consistent results. It was printed with a medium quality setting but the result is pretty good. After just sanding the bottom the hopper it perfectly fits the EK43 grinder. Now the grinder looks much smaller and the Kitchen is ready for the Londinium R lever espresso machine. I hope my girlfriend will agree on that.
Frans Goddijn also made a picture of the hopper. By using a flashlight shining into the center it clearly shows the structure of the material.
In the coming days, I will try to print it in a black PET-G filament. The black color will match the grinder’s color and it’s stronger, more resistant to moisture and high temperatures and it’s even food safe.