ACS Vesuvius intermittent flow failure

slidingmike

After 3 years of great service, my Vesuvius is starting to act up a bit. Once, every 5-10 pulls up on the lever (to pull a shot, to flush, or backflush), the pressure shoots up quickly but no water emerges. Usually, I bring the lever down, wait a few seconds, and can pull out water normally. Today it happened several times in a row, and I had to turn the power off and back on. Has this been reported before? Any suggestions on what I should check? It’s not something that I’d seen on normal (non-pressure-profiled) E61s over 25 years, so I assume it has to do with the profiling system or its response to an issue.

(Side question: is there a way to search just the “Pressure profiling machines” topic area, or do I have to search the entire forum?)

DavecUK

slidingmike (Side question: is there a way to search just the “Pressure profiling machines” topic area, or do I have to search the entire forum?)

The forum search isn’t great and has got progressively more broken with each update. At one time it was possible to go to the tag area, before or after the search and filter to those tags. this doesn’t work now!

I’ve added a google site search link to top of the forum

DavecUK

slidingmike After 3 years of great service, my Vesuvius is starting to act up a bit. Once, every 5-10 pulls up on the lever (to pull a shot, to flush, or backflush), the pressure shoots up quickly but no water emerges. Usually, I bring the lever down, wait a few seconds, and can pull out water normally. Today it happened several times in a row, and I had to turn the power off and back on. Has this been reported before?

It has not, I’m wondering if the problem could be limescale blocking the outflow into the group (intermittently)?

prezes

I’m following this as this happened on my machine which is under year old. Two or three times couple months apart.

Very odd as it sounds like the pump is going from 0 to 100 in 2 seconds but no water coming out.

DavecUK

prezes Very odd as it sounds like the pump is going from 0 to 100 in 2 seconds but no water coming out.

Are you sure the pump is not running dry or a restriction in the inlet pipe, split, hole, above water line etc.. That’s a classic symptom of where the pump can’t make pressure the sensor says “full speed ahead”?

How about a video, if you have a smartphone. Just direct upload to youtube, make it unlisted, then paste link here.

prezes

DavecUK it only happened on mine literally three times, once every couple of months and completely unexpected so ignored it till this post.

slidingmike

I don’t see any visible kinks or blockages in the hoses, but I have yet to remove all the cowling – I suppose that’s next. I am good at keeping the reservoir filled and hoses correctly threaded. Odd that it’s intermittent.

slidingmike

No hose constrictions, but the problem is becoming more and more frequent. Video would not be instructive; the pump just runs and no water comes out. If I’m lucky, it’s just a clogged filter (even though I only use twice-filtered water). I’ve reached out to Chris Coffee service, who may have some ideas.