Olympia Cremina

I serviced a Cremina with a bad pressure stat. The micro-switch was fine but the proprietary membrane/housing was sticking, causing overheating.

Instead of importing the new (expensive) part from Switzerland, I replaced the brass housing with a copper tube and a MATER p-stat. The $40 part worked well... When set to disengage just shy of 1 bar it would re-engage at .08 bar.

Picture shows the new installed MATER and at bottom the original Cremina stat.

Repairs in October

The commercial repair business has been strong... Great Infusions recently hired a new lead tech to handle the increasing demand. Big welcome to Julien.

As always, lots of home units & a few Pavoni lever units.

Elektra Maxi had severely scaled left group requiring removal of group & replacing flowmeter.

Also the pump was seized.

September had me snowed in

This month saw a whole bunch of work.

Maintenance call in Santa Cruz (Astra Mega1)

Steam Wands rebuit on a FB80 in San Jose

Monster Linnea needed a minor rebuild

The bench is just packed!

Our service has Wheels

We recently added a new member to the Great Infusions Service team...

The Scion XB is a super economic cargo utility car.

It holds as much packing peanuts, boxes & bubble wrap as a small pickup....

I can easily store my service gear in the rear hatch without folding seats.

Averaging 30 mpg... I Love That!

Separated At Birth

Pasquini will not admit it, but the Livia 90 is made for them by Bezzera.

Both of these came in with flow meter errors and the Livia had a shot expansion valve.

Check out these views:

They appear different with Pasquini wrapped in Stainless & Bezzera in Plastic panels.

The top view shows same boiler layout:

Side 1 shows control box (same gicar) and relay (same finder)

Side 2 shows same placement of p-stat & same flowmeter...

Dialing it in

What you see in this photo is a nice tool of the trade.

The gauge displays the accurate brew pressure at the group.

The digital thermometer displays the group temp.

I adjust the expansion valve for brew pressure & the pressure stat for temperature

for about max Bar pressure 10 & temp 200 f.

This portafilter fits several machine groups.

For those with different portafilter sizes I have PSI gauge

& thermometer attachments.

Retro Rancilio Home Unit

This Rancilio Audry came in for repair and consignment. It had been used for a few months when new and then shelved so it was amazingly clean and original. It did need a new pump and set of gaskets... But once fixed it ran like a champ.

The jobs that come to me...

The subject is an old worn out Conti, originally sold through Illi distributer and now parked hopelessly in an Ethiopian restaurant. Not working at all - no heat, water flows mysteriously into the drip tray from behind the groups and 1 group has a trickle while the other is dead. The group that has a trickle leaks everywhere. Group gaskets are petrified. When it did heat up it emitted a steaming sound from inside.

Why would anyone service this unit?

Well... The owner seatbelted it into her car (on its side) - leaking water onto the seat - with her little boy along for the ride - and drove 4 hours because no-one in her area would touch it... I couldn't refuse.

Work:

replace burnt heater

rebuild both groups

rebuild 1 flowmeter

rebuild 1 opv strangely placed in front of the refill valve

replace overheat safety valve and level probe

old heater was leaking directly onto the poorly situated motor which grew some strange green fuzz.

All of the gaskets I tried to order were for newer models and was not able to find parts for this older one. ended up using pavoni europicola boiler gaskets on the group head. Used old worn o-rings with teflon and locktight to fuse the groups onto the boiler. Not pretty but effective.

After all of that - it works. That is the best I can say for it.

eeww, that's nasty

I had a Fiorenzato espresso machine in for service this week. The Fiorenzato has a decorative curved body panel that wraps the 2 sides and back of the machine... It looks cool! It also leaves a gap on the underside of the unit that can allow VERMIN into the espresso machine - And the vermin might decide to use your espresso machine for a crapper... After vacuuming u the crap, I found typical scale & foul group head. Descale, replace level probe, vac valve & needed saftey valve. Plus a vigorous group cleaning...

Giott - oh - no

Poor little Giotto...

Hard times. Hard water. Pic's show fittings have mineral build up... Needs to be totally descaled. Strange leak at heating element leads and also building effervescence will require new element as well. Pump is fine. Can't test the P-stat until I get it cleaned up and heated up.

Elektra Maxi

It's been a while since I posted... but have been very busy on the bench. I have been rebuiding from ground up an Elektra Maxi. This came in in the kind of shape that usually means scrap metal... Not working and full of scale, grime & decay. I know these Elektra units are good solid performers and I have been using it to train my new 'Tech' Ken. So I have to say that Ken has done quite a lot of the repair with me looking over his shoulder.

It needed just about everything from procon pump, all gaskets, solenoids, acid bath, complete rebuild of groups and now it needs a push button pad for 1 side. I think it will be worth it for the owner who will be selling it as soon as we get it done & it will be a great piece of equipment for a small business. Here is a pic of the unit on its 1st heat up (no leaks). I will post another when it is all dressed up.

First week Feb 2010

Funny story. An owner of a nearby bistro brought his La Pavoni commercial 1 group 'Pub' model espresso machine in for a service - which turned out to be a fried Pressure stat. I noticed the machine did not have an internally installed motor & pump & assumed he had it mounted under his counter at his shop... On completion of the repair I mentioned the missing motor... nope... he had no idea that he had been running his espresso service on line pressure for months!

This week had an on-site repair of an Astra Mega 2 with yet another burnt out Presure Stat

At the shop we had an overheating La Spaziale Vivaldi. It needed a new thermostat probe & a good cleaning and tune up. The 2 boilers in the Vivaldi do not use pressure stats to control temp - they each have probes with leads to the cpu.

Did I ever warn you about scale?

An ECM Giotto came in with a pretty serious scale issue. The result was several leaks in various fittings, shorted out solenoid coil & needed replacement of the vacuum valve and safety valve. The E61 was also obstructed by calcium build up (see the valve body soaking in solution).

The frame had a fair amount of rust though still able to hold the unit together.

Most or maybe all of this repair would not be needed if proper descale procedure or filtered water was used.

first week Jan 2010

Yikes!

A slew of small home espresso machines have come in.

Problems are... boiler in francis francis X5; switch on Pavoni Piza; steam valve on another Piza; switch on Pavoni europicola; 3 gasket sets on europicolas; electrical short on Livia 90; frozen group on an Ascaso dream...

Most interestingly a warranty Silvia came in with a rare cracked group base: