So I put the old gauge copper pipe - capillare as they call it in Italian, I guess to tell us the inside diameter is super small - for a couple of hours in liquid descaler. Rinsed it, dried all night and tried it on my scientific workbench. I mean my bicycle pump… and it now works perfectly!
Of course I couldn’t resist for more than a few days to test the new one. I found some sound deadening material in my garage, from the car, so I had a good excuse to open the Elizabeth to line up some of the inside with this. I tested the new gauge in situ, just unplugging the end connected to the 3-way. And it’s completely out of whack! At 2 bar on the pump, it’s at 2.5 on the gauge, at 4 it shows 5 and at 9bar on the bike pump…:
Yep… almost 12!
So I put the old gauge back in place, probably did a better job than how I found it first - my lines are straighter than what was done! And now during pre infusion, I’m just above 2 bar at the gauge, which sounds reasonable.
I freaked out for a minute as during the testing with the “new old” gauge, all the buttons went dead and I got a “error 2” message on the PID. Googled it and freaked out. I made sure the wiring inside wasn’t touching anything, put the cover back on and let it cool down for 30 minutes. I’ve since restarted it and made a coffee. But I’m still a bit shaken by this message…