In Your Spare Time

I'd recommend not taking on this activity . . . switching a Rancilio MD50-AT to manual function. My shop grinder (purchased for a whopping $100 on Craigslist) had an automatic feature where there was a main power switch, a start button and micro switches that started the motor upon four pulls of the doser lever and shut off when the entire hopper was full, two pounds of beans later. It no longer functions that way. Now there is an on/off switch, end of story. Why would I do such a thing? It is a pain when you don't want a hopper full of grounds, which you really never do. It was also a pain when the motor would unexpectedly kick on, at 450 watts, it is a torquey bastard and pivots the entire grinder.

So how do you make the top wiring diagram look like the bottom one?


The answer is patiently follow wires around and start dissecting.


That's what the wiring looked like to start with. I had to pull the switches out of the grinder body and label everything so I'd know how to put it back to the original function if necessary.


This relay does stuff that I don't really understand, but I followed wires around and figured out what wasn't needed.


Half the wires in the grinder are no longer connected to anything. I wish there was something useful to do with them, but I am not that smart.


The jumbled mass of wire got stuffed back in and the bottom cover screwed back in place. The other rearranging I did was to put the on/off switch on the right hand side so you can use the same hand you use to pull the doser lever to switch the grinder on and off. It only made sense that you'd hold the portafilter in your left hand and not juggle it around. I think that counted as work, I shouldn't spend so much time working . . .