horseflesh

I've been quite happy with my 35XP. I abuse it with hot foods and liquids all the time and the pump is still going strong. I just changed the oil though, at about 550 cycles, because it looked milky... I wish knew how often you really have to do that because at that rate it adds about two cents in costs to each cycle.

I haven't had that problem, though I have only used the conditioning cycle a few times. (How often are you SUPPOSED to do it, do you know?) I have had a different issue, though... Has your display ever gone completely blank, or half blank? Don't hesitate to call Minipack directly. There's a very helpful tech there named Jamal, who I've spoken with a couple of times.

Maybe yours is defective. Mine went on easily enough.

Well, I love my 35XP. The sealing mechanism is very reliable, the pump is very fast, and I really like being able to set what vacuum level I want instead of riding the "stop" button. I'm even planning on getting the nitrogen injection system later this year, so I can do "pillow packs" and seal soft items. I have only found one wart on it so far. Sometimes, the display will go blank, or half-blank, requiring a reboot. The machine still works but you will have a hard time changing any settings if the display freaks out. I've been in touch with tech support, and they have advised me to take the top off the machine and re-set the computer cables inside. I haven't done that yet because I am still looking for a pattern of misbehavior--I suspect this is a software bug and not a hardware problem. Anyway, even with that problem, I'd do it again. I am really glad I popped for the more capable machine and I do use a lot of the advanced settings.

MVS-35XP, 78 lbs according to a vendor web site. Dry pumps are definitely more convenient in some ways. You are supposed to drain the oil filled pumps before moving the machines.

My Minipack with an oil pump is definitely less than 100 lbs. I haven't changed the oil yet as I only have about 400 cycles, but from looking at the instructions it is a one-person job.

I have used a couple of different sealers and 7 seconds sounds like a really long time for the seal cycle.

What I'd like is a Teflon-coated RFID temperature reading pill that you can embed in the SV food. OK, you might not want to hack up a nice steak to push a little RFID pill in, but I can imagine a lot of cases where it would be useful. Such things do exist for industry and I have started looking to see if there is any such gear that might be affordable and sized right for the home cook. It's not inherently expensive equipment to manufacture, so perhaps it will come to be in time.

From what I have read, garlic may be contaminated with botulism. You don't want to give it a place to hang out without oxygen.

I was going to get the 215 before I talked myself into the MVS-35. I think the 215 looks like a great value.

I chose an oil pump because as long as I was spending a bundle, I didn't mind spending a little more to get maximum flexibility. Since the oil pump is tolerant of water vapor I don't have to worry too much about what I put in the chamber. Being able to seal warm, watery leftovers, or vacuum-dry foods before frying is pretty handy. I rarely need the higher vacuum level of the Busch pump but it's also nice to have.

The 300 looks like a good contender at that price point.

Congratulations! You're going to love it. I hope you also saved a bundle by deleting the printer.

By far, I use pint (6"x10") bags the most. Quart sized are next, I use them about half as often. I also have gallon sized bags but I might use 20 pint bags for every gallon bag. So far I haven't sealed anything too huge, but I do use the gallon bags when I want to reseal a bag over and over. For example if I have a giant Costco block of cheddar, I cut the bag open and reseal it after each use. This adds about eleven cents to the cost of the cheese, but also keeps it really fresh. The cheapest place I have found, when you include shipping, is VacuumSealersUnlimited.com. I looked at a dozen or more shops, pretty much every place I could find that sold chamber sealer bags. Another user upthread was really irritated that they delayed processing his order for a couple of days... that happened to me as well, so if you are in a hurry, I guess go somewhere else. But if you want decent bags at the best price, I could not find anyplace cheaper--and I looked hard. (If anyone does find a better deal, or a good price on small quantities, please post!) I'm using the 3 mil bags and have only very rarely wished I had anything thicker. When I have had a problem with puncturing the bag--and that only happened once, with biscotti--I was able to get around it by slowing the repressurization time on my machine. http://shop.vacuumsealersunlimited.com/3-MIL-Chamber-Bags_c67.htm Note that they do sell boilable bags as well. I decided to get my quart bags as boilable, which adds a cent or two per bag. However, if you are doing SV, all the bags are fine for lower temperatures. I wish I could buy some of the bags in smaller quantities. The neat gold-backed bags, for example... I'd like 100 of those, I just don't need 1000.

Chris & Poet, if you have any links to "vroom" techniques you enjoy, please post. I've yet to try pickles, and while I marinade I wonder if my procedure is the best.

Competition will surely help, but Paul is right--they can only get down to a certain price point while retaining features. If you want a Busch pump, that's just going to cost you more... though as far as I can tell, there is a heck of a nice margin built into the price of a chamber sealer.

Well, I'm not happy with the delay, but I am going to stick it out. I like the design of the Sansaire better than the Anova... I don't care for the touch screen, plus the Sansaire guy is a friend of a friend. Fortunately I didn't promise anyone SV for Thanksgiving!

The 10% off code won't work on chamber bags. I asked them about it, it's by design... Claimed they didn't have margin to spare, which could be true since that are already the cheapest bags I could find. Even if they always shipped a week late, I'd order again without hesitation. I probably saved $75 over making the same big order elsewhere.

It took them about a week to send my shipment of bags too. When I got the bags they were shipped from another state, so I think that the vendor is arranging for shipping from the manufacturer. I was so happy to have thousands of bags I forgot to mention the shipping delay, which was a bummer. I did see that other vendor in my price research and their bags are a cent or two more per bag, which adds up fast when you are buying in thousands. Their shipping is not any cheaper either. I'd still order from vacuumsealersunlimited.com again unless I that extra week really mattered.

I can help with this. I recently spent hours looking at every single source I could find for chamber vacuum bags. There is a massive difference in prices across different vendors! The cheapest source I found was http://www.vacuumsealersunlimited.com/. I bought their 3mm bags and have been happy with the quality. (Also, the owner is quick to reply to email if you have questions.) 3 mil 6x10 (pint) 1000 $.033/bag3 mil 8x12 (quart) 1000 $.052/bag3 mil 12x15 (gal) 500 $.098/bagShipping costs were still not trivial, adding about 1 cent to the final cost of each bag. As to bag size... I got pint, quart, and gallon bags, plus some 2.5x10 bags. I find that I use the pint bags the most, by far. I also find that the 6" width (5.5" opening) is just a little narrower than I would like. If I was doing this again, I would consider ordering a 7x9 bag as my smallest size. Then again, I can put 2 6" bags down at a time in my 35XP, which is really nice sometimes. It's hard to know what will work for you until you try it, and unfortunately you can't order these bags in small quantities. I really wanted to get some of the shrink bags and gold-backed bags, but I just don't need hundreds or thousands of them. (Maybe some Seattle folks would like to go in on an order of the exotic bags, and split them up.) I'll be happy to paste my notes in this thread or send them via PM if you want to see the other places I evaluated. Edit: I forgot to mention, I made my quart sized bags the boilable style. At that size, the extra cost for boilable was small. You can use all these bags for sous vide, but if you want to BOIL the food, the special bag is advised.

Dan, if you are waiting for an email reply I would definitely call Minipack. I have called a couple of times and they were great. Last time I had a technical question I spoke to Jamal. I'll be calling soon myself. My 35XP seems to have a faulty display.

After reading the Magnum love around here, I bought one... It's great. Very happy so far.

Here are a couple more developments in my 35XP story... I called Minipack this morning with a couple of questions. I talked to Jamal, who was very helpful. Again, this stuff might help future users so I thought I would share it. Behavior of the Vacuum Time parameter When setting up a program you will notice there is an extra "vacuum time" setting. When you hit 100% vacuum, you can have the pump remain on for longer, if you wish. Vacuum Time defaults to 0. But when you run a program with 100% vacuum, you'll notice that when the pump hits 100%, a 10 second countdown starts even if Vacuum Time is 0. What gives? Well, it looks like a counter, but truth the machine is counting down the last tenths of a percent of vacuum. It's a confusing display and I wasn't the first to call. Mystery solved, though. Blank Screen Problem I've noticed that after running a few cycles, my display might become garbled. The right half of the display may go blank. Sometimes, the entire display goes blank! When the machine is in this state, the computer still seems to be running, because I can keep closing the lid and running cycles. The machine still responds to key presses, you just can't always SEE the results. If you turn the machine off and on again, the problem goes away, though it may return again after a few cycles. Jamal at Minipack had encountered this before. His first question was, was I using an extension cord? (Nope.) He asked me to monitor the problem, and if it continued, they'd take care of it. It sounds like the cure might be replacing the display module, which may even be something the end user can do. I don't mind swapping components if the alternative is shipping the beast somewhere. I'll let the forum know what happens. It is inconvenient to reboot, but the machine is not unusable and I feel like Minipack will take care of me.

It looks like it is 15.25" wide, and 22" deep measuring the bottom of the cabinet. The center of the feet are set back about 1" from the edge of the cabinet. Remember it does have a "belly" that pokes out over the front feet, for a total depth of about 24".

I finally got the 35XP set up tonight. It was not hard with 2 people. Sadly my bag order isn't in yet so I can't do much yet. I'll try torturing some Ziplocks. Here's a tip for future owners--this screwed me up and I thought I had a defective unit for a while! When you do the calibration routine, read the instructions carefully, unlike me. During calibration, you see the pressure in mbar counting down. When it hits 0, YOU hit the Stop button. The machine won't stop itself, and if you let it keep going, it will keep pumping for 90 seconds and throw the "VACUUM TIME" error. After you hit stop, open the lid and WAIT until the screen shows "SAVING DATA." This will take over 5 seconds... it takes longer than you'd think... it feels like a long time... but keep waiting. When the machine does not have good calibration, it will misbehave. You MUST have a good calibration for the programs to work. You will also see reference to the "conditioning program" in the manual. This is how you heat up the oil to drive off dissolved water. You are also supposed to do it upon first use. Actually finding the conditioning program is a little tricky though, it isn't under any of the utility menus. Look at page 32 of the manual. The conditioning routine is actually on the second page of program setup. Say you are on P01, the machine's default state. Keep pressing the down arrow until you get to the bottom of page 2, where you see program options: VE SA CP AS SI IC LT The CP here is the conditioning program. To activate it, use the down arrow to highlight it, then press the right arrow to toggle it on. Then, I think you hit Start or close the lid. Now, you might think this means that you have set P01 to always be the conditioning program, but that's not how it works. It runs once and clears itself. IMHO conditioning should be an option in the same menu as Calibrate, but... whatever. The black and white manual says to condition first; the glossy printed quick start says to calibrate first. I reckon that conditioning first isn't going to hurt, and might help, so that was how I did it.