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?)

> @"slidingmike"#p37895 (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 [upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/Xpr35qN.png]

> @"slidingmike"#p37895 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)?

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.

> @"prezes"#p37949 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.

@"DavecUK"#p37951 it only happened on mine literally three times, once every couple of months and completely unexpected so ignored it till this post.

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.

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.

So this turned out to be the harbinger of a pretty serious problem. It kept getting worse, so I had to seek some real help. Some background: I had my previous machine, a Quickmill Anita, for 16 years, and had to scrub out the grouphead brass bits a few times due to scale buildup. I had asked the great Chris Coffee support team about descaling, and they recommended never to do that because it would likely lead to more issues than it would love. Something akin to breaking off a bit of blood clot in your veins, causing a stroke. When @"DavecUK"#1 recommended regular descaling for Vesuvius, I decided to ignore this piece of advice. So I checked Vesuvius's grouphead, and there was no scale buildup at all. Vesuvius, however, has another valve system located just behind the grouphead (between the grouphead and the boilers, in an impossible-to-reach-yourself location). The Chris Coffee support team believed that I was getting scaling in there and would need to try descaling. Gulp. I did it, and my machine got a little worse. I did it again, and my poor Vesuvius got a stroke and pretty much completely stopped being able to either pull water through the grouphead or even refill the steam boiler. Crap. Figuring that I needed to take apart and clean the valve system by hand, I took the panels and frame off the machine and discovered how completely screwed I was. I was going to have to remove both boilers, and a majority of the electronics to get anywhere near this valve system. And when I tried to do that, I discovered that the system was put together and sealed so tightly that I was likely to break a pipe before the nuts holding the piping to the boilers would loosen. Oh, and you can't ship this thing anywhere for repairs; it's too big. I thought about trying to find a place to repair it, but the one in the SF Bay Area was so busy with commercial work that they couldn't even get me on their calendar. So my Vesuvius sat there. Full of vinegar. And after 2 months like that, the valve system descaled. I flushed it out with water for 2 days, and it seems to be working fine again. Moral of the story: when @"DavecUK"#1 recommends frequent descaling, listen!

> @"slidingmike"#p49715 Moral of the story: when [@DavecUK](https://coffeetime.freeflarum.com/u/DavecUK) recommends frequent descaling, listen! Unless you are definitely using totally boiler safe water that cannot scale. Glad it's sorted. Oh, removing boilers is much easier than you think.

Dave, perhaps my piping was over-sealed (glued?) or drastically over-torqued. I was really cranking on the nuts and the only thing that was going anywhere at all was the boiler supports and the piping itself.

ACS Vesuvius intermittent flow failure

slidingmike

My machine was purchased brand new in 2020, so not that old. My local water tests with a hardness of 32, not truly hard but not completely soft. My Quickmill Anita ran great for all 15 years that I had her on that water, only had to scrub out the mushroom a couple of times.

In any event, I’ve installed a full RO system so the hardness will be 0 going forward. I only hope I can get some help to salvage my Vesuvius!

John_Yossarian

slidingmike Your machine is relatively new, three years should be nothing for a machine of this kind. I guess from now on you would not let any build up to take place, the question is to salvage the situation and rectify the damage done so far.
Some rust remover would make it looks better, as far as the OPV is concerned, I personally would go for some warm citric acid (10%?) and it would be gone as well.
BTW have you descaled the steam boiler? Pieces of scale might be entering the system and block irregularly the pipework/valves, apologies for stating the obvious. Given the OPV state I would not be surprised if the steam boiler is heavily scaled.
I am sure you would be over it soon, it is just the hassle you have to go through that is unsettling.
Good luck.

slidingmike

Hi John, thank you, I’ve cleaned up the rust, but I’m concerned about why the OPV has been releasing so much, and at the same time it’s not clear to me that it has anything to do with the lack of water flow. I did do two full descales, including the steam boiler as well. I opened up the water boiler and it was in good shape inside (but I wanted to fully clean out some dark sludgy water that was draining out when I took everything apart – yuck). I haven’t yet open the steam boiler to make sure it was okay, but then again my problem hasn’t really been with steam. Maybe since everything is apart, I’ll peek in there as well for peace of mind!

slidingmike

It turns out my problem all along was in the grouphead. Wish I’d figured that out before I went on a full odyssey through every portion of Vesuvius’ internal plumbing!

The rubber seat on the brass plunger just below the cam (identified with the green arrow below)

had worn in such a way that it was creating a seal and not opening:

Once I replaced that, I was up and running again – without any flow failures!

John_Yossarian

slidingmike It is great news that you have identified the culprit. Enjoy the coffee from now on.

DavecUK

slidingmike It’s very odd because that valve (to the preinfusion chamber) doesn’t have a spring and is always open….so I have no idea how the sealing gasket indented like that….it should be impossible???

I really don’t understand what has been going on, did you get the machine new, did someone service the group??

slidingmike

DavecUK I did get the machine new, from Chris Coffee in the US. The grouphead had not been serviced. When installed, I think that perhaps the two brass plungers’ arms touch each other, so when one valve is open, the other is closed – and the lower spring keeps them in contact?

DavecUK

slidingmike No that doesn’t happen? I cannot see how that particular valve seat can possibly have the deformation shown?

The bottom valve and top one perhaps a little…the preinfusion valve…no.

slidingmike

And yet it did. And it happened over time as the flow issue became more and more frequent. 🤷🏻

Adrianmsmith

Is it just deformed or has some hydraulic action simply lifted the seal from its cup.
I had something very similar happen with the water valve , valve plug on ECM sync. When it was 3 months old. Replacement plug now 18 months in without issue.
For me, it Wasn’t possible to push the lifted one back in to place.

New Vs old

DavecUK

Adrianmsmith

@slidingmike photo identified this valve with the green arrow?

The photo you just posted is a completely different valve, called the vent valve. On this you can get the indentation. This valve is closed by a spring and opens (or should open) at 11-13 bar.

Adrianmsmith

DavecUK sorry Dave, not my original post…… Sorry for the confusion, I was just offering an explanation as to how the rubber could have deformed or lifted.

DavecUK

Adrianmsmith I realised and edited as soon as I posted…

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