equipment repair
I have a rancilio z11 espresso machine it is acting up I at first though it was the fill rod in the sight glass as the machine shut down because it had to much water, would not make steam so i drained and turned back on and I have been watching the water level, the level in the sight glass goes up slowly (if you are not using the machine) however the pump does not come on. If you pull a shot of espresso the pump comes on a goes off as soon as ths shot is finished.. I have also noticed if you steam something when you are done steaming you can watch the water level drop if it drops below the bottom of the rod the pump comes on but again goes off when it touches the bottom of the rod. Any ideas what would cause this any help would be appericated thank you Kathy
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mike Sabol on
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Will the site glass fill up even if the machine is turned off but the water is left on? The seal in the fill valve could be damaged and is letting water by. That would require a valve rebuild and a new seal. There could also be a small amount of debris in the valve which would require some cleaning. You'd need to take the valve apart either way. OTOH, often times machines will have a manual fill valve located under the drip tray and that valve could be open very slightly. You might be able to clear the problem by opening and then shutting the manual fill. Otherwise you'll have to call a tech to rebuild the fill valve. (if that is the problem)
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Permalink Reply by Kathy Fadorsen on
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We turned the machine off last night and the water level was perfect this morning. Turned the machine on took about 2hours before the water level started creeping up.
Mike Sabol said:Will the site glass fill up even if the machine is turned off but the water is left on? The seal in the fill valve could be damaged and is letting water by. That would require a valve rebuild and a new seal. There could also be a small amount of debris in the valve which would require some cleaning. You'd need to take the valve apart either way. OTOH, often times machines will have a manual fill valve located under the drip tray and that valve could be open very slightly. You might be able to clear the problem by opening and then shutting the manual fill. Otherwise you'll have to call a tech to rebuild the fill valve. (if that is the problem)
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Well ,luckily, there are only so many ways for water to get into the steam tank. Maybe the spring on the back of the fill plunger is getting weak and allows the fill valve to open a little when the pump kicks in when you pull a shot. If this were the case the water level would only creep up when you were useing the machine and pulling shots and would remain constant when not pulling shots.
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Thank you very much for the responses. We will look into your suggestions. Thank you again~!
Mike Sabol said:Well ,luckily, there are only so many ways for water to get into the steam tank. Maybe the spring on the back of the fill plunger is getting weak and allows the fill valve to open a little when the pump kicks in when you pull a shot. If this were the case the water level would only creep up when you were useing the machine and pulling shots and would remain constant when not pulling shots.
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Permalink Reply by Brady on
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Not familiar with the Z11 autofill circuit. In our area, we have lots of S20-era machines and lots of Classe machines, nothing in between.
Agreed with what Mike said about checking the fill valve seal and seat. May be time for a new fill valve, but maybe not... The key is determining what the water is actually doing inside the boiler, and how accurately the sightglass is reading it.
Bizarre behavior of water in the sightglass can be caused by scale buildup in the lower sightglass tube. I've seen several instances where either the tube leading to the sightglass or the port on the boiler that this tube connects to are plugged solid with buildup. This would cause the water level in the glass to lag behind the true boiler water level - showing either more or less water than you actually have in the boiler. With sightglass-based fill sensors (like on the Rancilio Classe machines) this can cause an overfill and underfill situation. A Classe 10 I worked on about a year ago had this happen - clearing the lower sightglass tube fixed the problem.
HOWEVER, if this is the case, it is probably an indicator that your water conditioning is/has been insufficient. That means that its time to descale your machine and review your water conditioning system. In the case of my client with the Classe 10, she'd neglected to replace her water filter cartridge at a reasonable time (it was maybe 2 years old). Visited her again last month for the same issue (she still hadn't ordered a replacement cartridge, which is not a model that I stock), this time I ordered her a cartridge and followed up to make sure she changed it. Have your post-treatment water tested to make sure it is 2 grains hardness or below.
You can get a pretty good idea of how true your sightglass reading is by turning off the machine and draining the boiler. If the sightglass still shows water once you've drained the boiler dry you know you have a problem.
All that said, this strikes me as maybe being time to call in a tech.
Hope this helps.
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So, based on Brady's input and re-reading your first post, I'm guessing that the fill probe is in the sight glass and is filling the tank based on the level in the glass. Scale deposits in the bottom tube would indeed cause such wacky behavior. I've never worked on a Rancilio but if the fill circuit is based in the site glass then you've got a scale problem. The bigger danger is if the glass fills and stays full and the boiler runs dry then you will blow your element and melt all the plastic on the inside of the machine, melting the CPU, and perhpas cracking the tank or some fittings on the tank, (unless there is a functioning thermal breaker in the steam element circuit). Blowing an element in such a way is a bad way to go and will cost you almost the price, or more, of a serviceable used machine to fix. You should spend the couple hundred now on a good tech to get you out of the red zone. If you have the willingness and ability I'm sure we could help step you through some basic fixes but for this kind of diagnosis and repair you really need someone with some experience to touch the machine. Good luck and let us know if you need any additional help.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Dominy on
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I'd listen to Brady on this one. The guy knows what he's talking bout.
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Mike Sabol said:So, based on Brady's input and re-reading your first post, I'm guessing that the fill probe is in the sight glass and is filling the tank based on the level in the glass...
Just had a chance to check the parts schematic on the Z11. Looks like they did put the fill probe in the sightglass on some models.
Oh, and thanks Jason :).
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Just to update we changed the fill valve and it at this point seems to have fixed the problem. We have a water filter system for the entire water supply to the store after looking at the inside of the machine we do seem to have a little bit of a build up problem so we are going to install a filter just for the espresso machine. Thanks for the suggestions all ideas where appericated and very usefull.
Brady said:Not familiar with the Z11 autofill circuit. In our area, we have lots of S20-era machines and lots of Classe machines, nothing in between.
Agreed with what Mike said about checking the fill valve seal and seat. May be time for a new fill valve, but maybe not... The key is determining what the water is actually doing inside the boiler, and how accurately the sightglass is reading it.
Bizarre behavior of water in the sightglass can be caused by scale buildup in the lower sightglass tube. I've seen several instances where either the tube leading to the sightglass or the port on the boiler that this tube connects to are plugged solid with buildup. This would cause the water level in the glass to lag behind the true boiler water level - showing either more or less water than you actually have in the boiler. With sightglass-based fill sensors (like on the Rancilio Classe machines) this can cause an overfill and underfill situation. A Classe 10 I worked on about a year ago had this happen - clearing the lower sightglass tube fixed the problem.
HOWEVER, if this is the case, it is probably an indicator that your water conditioning is/has been insufficient. That means that its time to descale your machine and review your water conditioning system. In the case of my client with the Classe 10, she'd neglected to replace her water filter cartridge at a reasonable time (it was maybe 2 years old). Visited her again last month for the same issue (she still hadn't ordered a replacement cartridge, which is not a model that I stock), this time I ordered her a cartridge and followed up to make sure she changed it. Have your post-treatment water tested to make sure it is 2 grains hardness or below.
You can get a pretty good idea of how true your sightglass reading is by turning off the machine and draining the boiler. If the sightglass still shows water once you've drained the boiler dry you know you have a problem.
All that said, this strikes me as maybe being time to call in a tech.
Hope this helps.
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Kathy Fadorsen said:Just to update we changed the fill valve and it at this point seems to have fixed the problem. We have a water filter system for the entire water supply to the store after looking at the inside of the machine we do seem to have a little bit of a build up problem so we are going to install a filter just for the espresso machine. Thanks for the suggestions all ideas where appericated and very usefull.
Great. Glad to hear that this was helpful. Sounds like a great idea to add another filter just for espresso.
Out of curiosity, did you verify that your sightglass was reading correctly and/or check for scale buildup in the lower sightglass tube? Some of the behavior you were describing makes me think that the fill valve might not have been your only problem (I do hope it was though).
Thanks for posting back with the rest of the story, by the way.
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Yes we did. I say we because my husband who is pretty handy helped we took the water lines off checked and put back on. also the water we dained from boiler was very clean and felt very soft. I do intend to watch level until we can install the seperate water filter. I am going out of town for a few days we will install when we get back. Thanks again for your help.
Brady said:Kathy Fadorsen said:Just to update we changed the fill valve and it at this point seems to have fixed the problem. We have a water filter system for the entire water supply to the store after looking at the inside of the machine we do seem to have a little bit of a build up problem so we are going to install a filter just for the espresso machine. Thanks for the suggestions all ideas where appericated and very usefull.
Great. Glad to hear that this was helpful. Sounds like a great idea to add another filter just for espresso.
Out of curiosity, did you verify that your sightglass was reading correctly and/or check for scale buildup in the lower sightglass tube? Some of the behavior you were describing makes me think that the fill valve might not have been your only problem (I do hope it was though).
Thanks for posting back with the rest of the story, by the way.
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