I noticed my espresso machine losing the steam pressure in the middle of making my daily cappuccino last weekend. I called the place where I bought my machine yesterday afternoon, instead of selling the parts I didn’t need, they gave me a check list to go through.
Today, I removed the casing for the first time EVER to check the parts that help produce the tasty cappuccino I enjoy everyday (I know, I know, I am not a true coffeegeek), and I found the culprit – leaky vacuum breaker valve. I could hear the pressure escaping from the valve, and the condensation running down on it. I also took the opportunity to increase the pressure boost. More steaming power! Yeah! Arrr! Arrr! Arrr! I hope I’ll be able to replace the faulty part without breaking the machine. The truth is out, I am not handy!
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2 comments:
You'll do fine. You might want to get some thread tape just in case. Vacbreakers are a common fault point for people who power cycle their machine often. Sometimes the replacement though won't get more than a few threads in (I think you need 4 to have a perfect natural seal). If you can't get perfection, wrap it with thread tape and crank it till you can't anymore and you should be sealed just fine.
Congrats on exploring your machine a little. That in itself will trigger a little wider scope of the magick behind the product.
-a
Andy,
Thanks for the pointers...without you telling me to use the thread tape, I would just pop it right in and torque it away...You have just save me from doing the same thing twice! I think PID this baby is totally out of the question, because there is so much going on inside the machine, and I don't know which wire to start with... LOL...
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