I've had the Bambino Plus for a few years now and its a great little machine. Pretty much exactly the same as yours other than this has the "auto steam" feature which I rarely use.

I got a bottomless portafilter after a bit to try to understand what was happening but also because if done right, it makes for a good video. I try to do around 8-15 on the grind settings for my DF64 with 18g and ~36s pull. Good as just regular espresso or with milk.

The Bambino really is a great machine but the cleaning UX has always been a little confusing to me. When you start running the cleaning cycle it kinda seems like the machine just stalls but you just have to let it sit there until the lights all stay on solid.

One other weird thing that happened is once I ran the cleaning cycle early but the machine lit up a few shots later in what would have been the normal scheduled cleaning time. I ran it again and everything was fine, just confusing. I remember reading that this was an issue with the Plus but can't seem to find the source so it may have just been user error.

I really enjoy tinkering around with this machine without it feeling like its a full time hobby to get just right. Now, it's time for a cortado.