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Pump is behaving weird
Hi forum,
since yesterday the pump of my Londinium R is behaving quiet weird. All of a sudden after switching on the machine it started and never stopped until I flicked the power-switch back off. So it was not filling the boiler but also not running dry (at least noise wise). The sound is definitely different from the sound when the pump is actually filling the boiler or the group. It was without this high pitched sucking/drawing sound. Londinium R owner know what I mean. :-)
The problem is once the pump started in this mode it never stops running. Only of you flick the switch back off and then on again, the spook is over until the next "pump event". When the pump needs to kick in, for filling the boiler it is doing so with the prominent noise and then the sucking/drawing noise ends but the pump seems to cycle water somehow.
The next effect that came up aside with all this is that the pre-infusion/group-filling pump cycle never stops neither. So as sonn as the lever is down the pump kicks in and continues until you release the lever. Not as soon as the defined pre-infusion pressure is reached like normal. Of course a filled portafilter delivering resistance is inserted. :-)
Maybe one could shed some light into this and help me out. Any tips highly appreciated.
Cheers
Jens
since yesterday the pump of my Londinium R is behaving quiet weird. All of a sudden after switching on the machine it started and never stopped until I flicked the power-switch back off. So it was not filling the boiler but also not running dry (at least noise wise). The sound is definitely different from the sound when the pump is actually filling the boiler or the group. It was without this high pitched sucking/drawing sound. Londinium R owner know what I mean. :-)
The problem is once the pump started in this mode it never stops running. Only of you flick the switch back off and then on again, the spook is over until the next "pump event". When the pump needs to kick in, for filling the boiler it is doing so with the prominent noise and then the sucking/drawing noise ends but the pump seems to cycle water somehow.
The next effect that came up aside with all this is that the pre-infusion/group-filling pump cycle never stops neither. So as sonn as the lever is down the pump kicks in and continues until you release the lever. Not as soon as the defined pre-infusion pressure is reached like normal. Of course a filled portafilter delivering resistance is inserted. :-)
Maybe one could shed some light into this and help me out. Any tips highly appreciated.
Cheers
Jens
Comments
But first of all, if you hear the pump struggling, absolutely don't stand there waiting 'forever' to find out if it will eventually cure itself.
When I heard the pump buzzing but not pumping, I switched the machine off, waited 30 minutes and then switched it on again. All has been fine since then.
I had let the tank go (almost) empty the day before (lots of coffees made testing the row of grinders) and as soon as I heard a gurgling sound I switched the machine off and filled the water reservoir. Still, the next day this buzzing occurred. It might or might not be unrelated but my takeaway is that one should always make sure the reservoir is filled. Don't wait for an alarm to come on.
thanks for your quick answer. I switched of the machine after some seconds each time. But the pump was not screaming like in dry mode as rotary pumps normal do. I had this once with my former La Spaziale Vivaldi II. So with the Londinium it sounds like the pump is cycling water but not running dry (at least it sounds like that). The water level in the reservoir is not falling, but the recirculation tube running back into the reservoir is not conveying water neither.
Regarding the filling level of the reservoir, I am really topping up early, never going under the last quarter mainly. So far I never ran into the low level shut off.
Meanwhile the machine has changed its behaviour again, now after a boiler re-filling event the pump stops like it should. Only followed by a series of really short kick-ins similar to the pre-infusion kick-ins.
What stayed is that the the pump is not shutting of during a pull. So if the lever is in it's fully down locked position the pump stays on and is actually doing the extraction itself. Like in a Strega where a physical switch is used to activate the pump.
I am going to attach a vid. Hoping to find the answer/solution since operation is quite impacted. :-(
Kind Regards,
Jens
Good of you to switch off quick when it sounds iffy.
Can you tune down the Ceme pre-infusion pressostat to apply less pressure?
I could try so but what puzzles me is that this behaviour came up all of a sudden without changing major things. The only thing I did was removing the in-tank water filter some days ago, since I am using pre-filtered water. Thats it, but this should not be connected to the problem that came up.
Here is a short vid about how the machine now behaves when pulling a shot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ybi9jtlefrg6rod/Londinum-behaving-funny.mp4?dl=0
Cheers
Jens
Another owner recently had such an issue. Opening and cleaning the solenoid helped.
from the attached video above i am unable to tell what is wrong
the lever is pulled down causing the pressure at the Ceme to drop below the trigger value so the pump is turned on, the coffee grind/distribution is such that the puck does not hold any significant water pressure and so the pump keeps pumping, eventually the lever is released and the piston is forced down by the spring and closes off the four inlet holes into the brew chamber and as a result the system is now closed and the pump is able to raise the pressure in the pre-infusion circuit above the trigger value of the Ceme and so the pump is switched off by the Ceme
i am not saying you dont have an issue, only that the video does not show an issue as far as i can see
improve the distribution of the coffee and/or grind it finer to the extent that it is able to hold back the water pressure set by the Ceme and the pump will turn off, just as your video shows when the lever is released
can you tell me what i have misunderstood?
kind regards
reiss.
I do face two "problems" at the same time which indicates that something chanced in the system. Some of them are slightly varying.
1. Here is how the machine behaved from day one. When I switch on the machine the pump kicks in to top up the boiler. (This mostly happens, even though sometimes there is only little to fill up. The pump is definitely drawing water out of the reservoir (observable by water level and hearable by sound). After the desired water level is reached it shuts off.
For three days now after powering up, the machine starts and the pump fills up the "gap". But then the noise will change (no "drawing" sound any more, but also not like a dry running rotary pump) and the pump will work for ever (of course for ever is an assumption in this case, since I cut the cord after some time :-)). It is not drawing any water from the reservoir but it sounds like it is cycling water somehow. The only solution is to flick the switch back off and on which can result either in the machine just heating up or in the pump kicking in again and never stop running. Then you have to repeat the step.
Yesterday (I verified it several times) when I got the machine to heat up without the pump running forever, the first boiler filling pump event lead to a forever running pump again. Example, drawing water out of the hot water tap, will result in the pump filling up the boiler again (as expected) correctly (drawing water out of the reservoir etc.), but then when the level is reached the pump did not stop, instead the sound changed (no sucking/drawing sound anymore) but the pump kept on running until I powered off.
Today this behaviour is gone and the machine stops the pump after the boiler is filled again although this is followed by a series of very short kick ins of the pump (I will attach another video). So far so good, but it's still a random play whether after initial switching on the machine the pump will start to run eternally or will stay quiet and the machine will just heat up.
That's for the boiler filling events. Now lets move to the pulling a shot part. From the get-go, when the portafilter is inserted with a fair amount of coffee with the right grind the pump was filling the group as soon as the lever was down. And stopped after a certain pressure was reached, maybe kicked in for a second/third time but thats it. Dependent to the grind, you will see the first drops falling, that is where I normally release the lever at latest.
Now, in company with the other changes in behaviour when the lever is down, the pump will not stop as long as the lever is down. This happens with a really fine grind and a dosage of +/- 16g of coffee. There was now variation in this when the problems came up. So it seems that the response characteristic of the pre-infusion pressostat has changed?! Or that there is something else going in that leads to a cascade explaining all changes all together?! For me it's quiet hard right now to wrap my head around it, since I am not familiar with the whole technical setup of the machine and need to assume too much. ;-)
Sorry for the lengthy post...
Kind Regards,
Jens
Boiler refil event followed by a series of short pump kick-ins: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6zaz6a0izqemsgr/Londinium-Pump-Kick-ins.mp4?dl=0
thank you for posting. we will get to the bottom of it
1. can you please confirm that water only ever comes out of the expansion valve and up the clear silicon tubing and back to the water tank drip by drip, and only an occasional drip. if water is flowing from the tubing into the water tank that is an issue that we need to address.
2. have you touched the pressure adjustment screw for the pump, which is on the underside of the chassis? - if you turn the pump pressure down too far it is possible that the pump pressure is reduced below the pressure setting of the Ceme pressure switch so it will never shut off the pump
kind regards
reiss.
i directed the manufacturer to listen to your video clips in this thread and the response i has received back just now is:
The pump is scavenging and not producing sufficient water pressure to turn the pressure switch off. Check that the water tank is in properly and the non- return valve is opening
And that the silicone hose is not kinked restricting water flow to the pump. My fear is that we have lost pump pressure through water starvation.
Kind Regards
_____________________________________________
Based on the above you need to check that the sprung loaded valve in the bottom of the water tank is being pushed up into the open position by the steel pin in the bottom of the steel water box, and that water is flowing cleanly down the silicone feed hose from the bottom of the tank to the pump (you could test this by pulling the silicone hose off the spigot where it joins the pump and check that you have an unrestricted flow of water out the end of the silicone hose)
reiss.
just had another shot and the behaviour changed again (towards normal operation this time). Now when the lever is down and the pump filled the group chamber and the pre-infusion pressure is reached it is switching of the pump again. Once the pump was stopped a sequence of 2 - 3 repetitions where the pump shortly stepped in again followed. Seems like the lady plays a prank on me. :-) So I am going to observe how it will go on. The machine has a power-off cycle right now and will be used again in the evening. I keep you posted regarding the recurrence of any of the symptoms.
Regarding your questions:
1. Yes I never observed a steady flow. So far it seems like there was no flow at all over the expansion valve in connection with this scenarios. Air bubbles within the tube stayed where they are. Pulling the tube above the water level did not show a steady flow neither, of course some drops were falling.
2. Nope, the whole machine is at its factory presets, no tweaking from my side. ;-)
Thank you!
Jens
Based on the above you need to check that the sprung loaded valve in the bottom of the water tank is being pushed up into the open position by the steel pin in the bottom of the steel water box, and that water is flowing cleanly down the silicone feed hose from the bottom of the tank to the pump (you could test this by pulling the silicone hose off the spigot where it joins the pump and check that you have an unrestricted flow of water out the end of the silicone hose)
I detached the silicon tube as advised and checked the flow it looks pretty ok to me. Please see yourself: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ty2d8atceuiggwl/IMG_7973.MOV?dl=0
I also shot a short vid of a boiler refill event showing the tubing pre- and after the pump. The high pressure tubing is moving quiet heavy, so to me it seems like the pump is able to rapidly build up pressure and therefore has enough of a medium (water) to convey. But thats just an amateurs guess. :-) https://www.dropbox.com/s/cv8egmuuk5wdie6/IMG_7967.MOV?dl=0
Here is the current situation, this morning I faced another pump ever-run event after switching on the machine the first time. I had to switch off and on twice to get the machine to just heat up.
After a refill event the pump is still kicking in several times like you can see on one of the former vids. I can not remember that the machine was doing this before the kinda weird behaviour started. Maybe this can be a hint.
When pulling a shot the pump is not running continuously anymore, so thats fine. But I do have the feeling that it is kicking in more often then before. But that of course can be misleading.
Cheers
Jens
Cheers,
Jens
thank you for the additional posts you have made, they are helpful
considering all the information you have provided i think i should start by sending you a replacement Ceme pressure switch
as you will see from other illustrated recent posts in this forum it is an easy thing to replace
i dont believe it is the inlet solenoid - remember that because of the addition of the manifold we now have two water pathways - the first is to fill the boiler and this pathway is governed by the level probe in the boiler which sends a signal to the ECU (Gicar) which in turn signals the solenoid to open and the pump to switch on
but once the boiler is full the level probe tells the ECU to close the solenoid, but the pump keeps running to fill the heat exchang pathway until the Ceme pressure switch reaches its upper setting and opens, which turns off the pump
it is my view that your Ceme pressure switch is not opening sometimes, and so the pump keeps running
i expect that replacing the Ceme will solve this
please confirm that you want me to DHL the Ceme to the same address that we sent your machine to
kind regards
reiss.
that sounds like a logical explanation to me! Great! Yes please go for the known address.
Thanks to all of you for the outstanding support! Even in such situations it's a pleasant and fun experience. Plus you'll learn stuff about your machine you normally wont. ;-)
Cheers
Jens
the replacement CEME pressure switch arrived today. I just did the break-fix and it seems like this part has been the culprit. The machine is now operating as designed. Just to make sure, I did not use any sort of sealing tape. I am not sure if I saw some traces of sealing on the threads of the old pressure switch?! But it seems to be leak proof.
Thank you again for the fast and constructive support, it's really fun!
Have a nice weekend
Jens
thank you for taking the time to report on the outcome
much appreciated
reiss.