Plumbing the Londinium and connecting to 240V in the U.S.

Earl Hartman

Dear Forum:

This is a question for Londinium R owners in the U.S.A. who have plumbed their machines to a water supply and are using 240V. I'm not sure if the 240 V vs. 120V is relevant, but I just wanted to make it clear how my machine is set up.

We connected the machine as directed, and confirmed that we have sufficient water pressure (60 psi, or a bit more than 4 bar) but when power was turned on, the following happened:

The blue light came on, indicating that the machine was requesting the solenoid valve to open to supply water to the boiler. However, the machine faulted out after about 40 seconds, indicating that the boiler failed to fill..

Following Reiss's instructions, we disconnected the line downstream from the solenoid to the boiler and turned the machine on so as to verify whether or not thewre was a blockage in the solenoid. No water was flowing through the solenoid. However, just to verify that water was reaching the machine, I pulled the lever down, and when I did do, water started coming through the solenoid and was gushing quite freely and vigorously. The power of the flow seemed to be dependent on the position of the lever; when it was about halfway down the flow was the strongest; when the lever reached to bottom of the stroke the flow seemed to diminish. Not only that, when the water started to flow through the solenoid, the red light came on, indicating that the boiler heating element was turning on, but since no water was reaching the boiler, I immediately shut the machine off (there also seemed to be some sort of an alarm).

So, obviously, there is no blockage in the solenoid, and there must be some other cause. I don't understand why the action of the lever should have anything to do with the flow through the solenoid.

Since the plug supplied with the machine was not compatible with U.S. electrical outlets, it was replaced with a U.S. compatible plug. Reiss suspects that in the rewiring, the polarity was reversed, causing the solenoid to open when it should close and vice versa. The contractor, however, insists that the plug was rewired according to the instructions in the manual.

Has anyone experienced a similar problem? It would be very helpful if someone could provide a picture of how theuy rewired their plugs.

All help much appreciated.

Earl Hartman[map type=HYBRID zoom=2][/map]

Reiss Gunson

hi earl

thanks for posting

lets split the issue up into stages

1. if anyone in the States with a 240V machine (it can also be a 2012-2016 L1 or an L1-P as the wiring colours in the power leads supplied with all 3 machines will be the same) can post a picture of the open back of the plug (disconnected from the socket obviously) they have manually wired on, having had to cut off the UK plug that would be enormously helpful.

i am only dimly aware of how 240V is achieved in the USA, but i believe you utilise the neutral wire to carry the second 120V phase (using two 120V wires out of phase to achieve 240V) - my strong preference would be that you had a qualified electrician to confirm that the wiring is correct

2. if we can gain assurance that the plug is correctly wired then we can look at how the machines functions, including if necessary returning it to the pump & tank mode that is was delivered in and get it working in that state before proceeding to plumb it in

kind regards

reiss.

Reiss Gunson

i assume you are using a NEMA 6-15 plug, or perhaps a NEMA 6-20 plug, as shown in the diagram below

it indicates 120V phase(hot), 120V phase(hot), and earth, wiring for these plugs




so its looking like;

earth (yellow & green on the power lead) to the earth/ground pole on your plug - see diagram above

phase (brown on the power lead) to a phase (what you seem to call hot in the USA) pole on your plug - see diagram above

neutral (blue on the power lead) to a phase pole on your plug - see diagram above

Majed S.

That concerns me. Here in Saudi Arabia, old houses similar to USA, have 220v/60Hz [Hot 110v + Hot 110v + Ground] as in my case.

The government is now moving towards 230v [230v + Neutral + Ground] in new houses.

For now, should I expect any abnormal behaviour with my undelivered machine ?

Gregory Green

I’m in Australia so our power supply is completely different to the USA, but I think the following is correct.

Most houses in the USA have a 2 phase power supply. The two phases both measure 120 volts from active to neutral, but as the phase difference between the two actives is 180 deg apart the voltage between the two phases is 240 volts. As long as the plug is wired correctly and I’d be very surprised if it was wrong, you can’t have reversed polarity with a two phase system. The two top pins on the plug have an active wire to each, and the bottom pin will be earth which is at the same potential as neutral.

In the plumbed Londinium R the inlet water flows directly to the manifold probably via a non-return valve. The manifold then directly feeds the HX loop which in turn is directly connected to the Group. If everything is connected correctly and there are no blockages in the water supply, there will always be a good flow of water from the group when the lever is pulled down. This is independent of power to the machine.

If the boiler isn’t filling when the blue light is on, but water is available at the group, the fault can only be between the manifold and the boiler, ie the solenoid valve and its plumbing. I suspect you must have a blockage or fault in the solenoid valve.

Pulling the lever down while the solenoid is powered will lower the water pressure in the manifold and if the boiler is partially filled will possibly allow a backflow of water through the solenoid although I think there is a non-return valve in this line.

I strongly suspect you must have a partial blockage in the solenoid valve.

If there was a wiring error in the plug I think either nothing would happen (No power) of the circuit breaker would activate.

I think Reiss has instructions somewhere on how to check and clean the Solenoid valve. The holes in the Solenoid are very small and it would be easy for any debris in the line to block the valve.

You or an electrician could check for 240 volts at the power switch which would confirm correct wiring of the plug.

Best of luck
Greg

Reiss Gunson

hi majed

there is no need to worry - over the years we have supplied many 240V machines to the USA & they work just fine

it is a customer specific issue if i may use that phrase and i am making progress working through it with the customer

i expect we may be dealing with more than one issue in this specific case, but we have since established that the builder has wired it with a NEMA5 plug to a 120V supply

we will get to the bottom of the matter

kind regards

reiss

Reiss Gunson

hi greg

thank you for posting, as usual

i also issued similar advice for the inlet solenoid thinking along the same lines as you, but i now think we need to park that issue until we get the machine supplied with 240V

kind regards

reiss.

Earl Hartman

Everyone:

Thanks for your advice. As Reiss said, this is a "customer-specific" issue; the plug was incorrectly wired for 120 V rather than 240V. This issue is the process of being resolved, so I anticipate that once the correct plug is in place there will be no more problems.

Earl

Reiss Gunson

without wishing to be perceived as overly sensitive, i would like to say that the moulded UK plug that the machine was supplied with was correctly wired

a USA plug was subsequently wired on by the customer's builder

as an aside i strongly encourage anyone plumbing in an LR anywhere, 120V or 240V, to first unpack it and run it in the tank & pump guise that is was supplied in. this way you can establish that we supplied you with a machine that was functioning as intended, before proceeding to make the necessary alterations to plumb it in

when they become available Earl i will send you an adaptor to get from 1/8"BSP on the end of the inlet manifold directly to 3/8" US compression fitting, then you can connect a locally purchased pressure hose directly to the bottom of the manifold

kind regards

reiss.

Majed S.

Thank you Reiss for your prompt response and good news from Earl that his issue has been identified and in the process of being resolved.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Earl Hartman

She's up and running.

Thanks, everyone.

Reiss Gunson

thank you for posting on the outcome earl

I'm very pleased to see you have fitted a leak detector, something i advise in the strongest terms to anyone plumbing in an espresso machine of any brand

you dont want to find out the hard way just how much water is in your town supply reservoir

mario Pavesi

Reiss, its possible to replace the the whole cord rather then just the plug? IMHO it just looks neat, also since electricians don't like doing that either. Just asking.

Thanks
Mario

James Shackelford

Mario,

I am also in the United States. I ordered an L1 240 V and replaced the cord with a premade Nema L6-20 cord. I sourced from quick220.com.

http://www.quick220.com/CORD104.html

mario Pavesi

Thanks James, did you do any mods to it? Asides from matching the two hots and the ground at the machine?

Thanks
Mario

James Shackelford

I did not do any other modifications yet, except playing around a bit with the pressure stat, but coming back around to 1.3 bar. Though, I have the plumb in kit, and will be ordering the parts to go to line pressure shortly... missed the L-R by a few months. :-(. Should have been paying more attention in the forum.

mario Pavesi

That is ok, I had no idea about the R so I order the LI I have a old group E61 so small not big enough for two shoots I wanted lots of steam, my mistake was to watch a video with a commercial lever machine it looked so cool hahaha now (when I get it) I will have enough hot water to bathe all the kids in our neighborhood and half the adults all while pulling shots for lattes haha


mario

Reiss Gunson

James Shackelford post=13338 wrote: Mario,

I am also in the United States. I ordered an L1 240 V and replaced the cord with a premade Nema L6-20 cord. I sourced from quick220.com.

https://www.quick220.com/CORD104.html

hi james

thank you for your post; it is most helpful

for us to obtain NEMA6 plugs we would have to import them from the USA - it is much more economic for people who want a 240V LONDINIUM R in the States to fit the plug themselves

as james has shown with his post, replacing the entire power lead is the nice way to do it, but it more involved; in particular you will need to be able to remove the grommet that secures the power lead at the point where it enters the chassis, and then refit the grommet afterwards

rewiring the plug isn't tricky, but it is not something i am willing to advise on. it needs to be compliant with your local electrical code, which may vary from state to state - i dont know, and the best way to achieve this is by spending a few dollars on a certified, competent, electrician

kind regards

reiss.