Rancilio silvia V5 restoration.

Spent a while looking in the workshop for something suitable to slip over the end of the solenoid discharge. The problem is that it discharges over the drip tray with such force that water is splashed everywhere, there is no drip tray cover behind the stainless panel to contain the splashes and water that is splashed over the bulkhead runs down and ends up under the drip tray, leading to corrosion of the mild steel frame. So my current solution is to cut a length of 25mm alkathene water pipe about 40mm long, this still gives clearance for the drip tray to be slid out for emptying. The inside diameter is just right, if you use a copper pipe cutter it will leave a lip inside the pipe that grips the solenoid tube. Squash the end of the pipe and orientate the slit to avoid splashes going to the rear. If the splashing continues I may look to put something in the pipe to slow down the discharge jet - wire wool? Or perhaps put a pan scourer in the drip tray under the discharge? Pipe mod is currently undergoing extensive field trials but looks to be very worthwhile.

Still looking at pressures and temperatures but without the PID display and a brew pressure gauge monitoring is difficult, but at least I’m getting to know what a standard machine is like before modding it.

Thanks. The ‘L’ shaped adapter didn’t occur to me. To get the discharge point into the tray wouldn’t you need to have it near the bottom of the tray where it would interfere with removing the tray for emptying? Something you have to do often on the Silvia due to its ridiculously small capacity. I did look for a suitably flexible hose or plastic sleeve to slip over the discharge pipe that would rest in the tray but couldn’t find anything of the right diameter.

I’ve been doing this sort of stuff with coffee machines for about 10 years now (but have never written about it like this, almost as a blog), but was restoring and running classic motorcycles for about 40 years before that, where I gained the tools and knowledge.

Indications so far are that the tube extension is working. I have made a few espressos and switched brew on and off a few times with a blanking disc in the portafilter and the underside of the drip tray is dry. The water doesn’t seem to shoot out with much force, not like on a Gaggia Classic, probably due to the larger diameters of the outlet tube and new extension and the baffle in the outlet tube. Possibly the emphasis should be on an extension to stop the water dribbling over the rear edge of the tray, rather than a tube to tame the force of a water jet.

Baskets and portafilters.

I like the Rancilio portafilter. I like the look and feel of it and would use it in preference to the bottomless portafilter that also came with this machine. But there is a problem, it doesn’t hold much coffee. I am used to using about 18g doses of coffee and my grinder is set up to deliver that amount for my daily driver machine. The standard Rancilio basket takes about 16g max, any more and water flows past the basket lip, over the outside of the portafilter and into the coffee cup, diluting the espresso. A standard Gaggia double basket takes slightly more and will fit but still not enough. I have an IMS 20g basket which will fit in the Gaggia portafilter but not the Rancilio, annoyingly there is only a few millimeters in it. I reckon that I could turn a few mm’s from the bottom of the portafilter on a lathe to get the IMS basket to fit, there is a lip in the bottom that could be removed, but I can’t get the plug off the end of the handle in order to remove the handle, not without seriously damaging it anyway. So if I want to continue using the standard portafilter it looks like I’ll just have to get used to 16g doses, after all, the portafilter and basket are standard Rancilio items as used on their commercial machines but I would like to adapt stuff for my preferences, sigh. The answer is to use the bottomless portafilter for the larger baskets.

Some notes,

The insulated boiler means that the cup doesn’t get very warm on top of the machine. I have to use the hot water dispenser to put some water in the cup to warm it, but that upsets the temperature for the brew.

The auto-off is getting on my nerves. I am testing this machine by using it to make afternoon espressos but invariably, by the time I get around to making one it has switched off. The insulated boiler means that it won’t take long to get back up to heat, but by that time I have wandered off, found something else to do, or changed my mind. Then I fancy a coffee again and find that it has switched off again. It would be ok if you could extend the time or disable the timer, but to have it switch off after about 30 mins is annoying.

Changed the standard group head seal for a green silicone one in an effort to stop water running past the seal into the cup. Both seals are 8.3mm thick and the portafilter handle locks at the 6 o/clock position on both.

The gauge, extra switches (needed to remove the timer) and PID stuff have arrived so I’ll put them on sometime soon.

Bella Barista sell some OPV seals, I bought two different ones for about £1 each so have some to experiment with in the future if needed, I may have to make up new seal holders to fit but that would be an easy lathe job.

DavecUK

Strange that manufactures interpreted and implemented the rules do defeat their raison d’etre of making decent espresso, I had a kitchenaid artisan that was the same, and no doubt there are lots of other examples. You can’t use this machine with a smart plug or timer either, the on/off switch is a momentary type which has to be physically pushed to switch the machine on. Part of the conversion to ‘normal’ V3 type operation is to replace the on/off switch with a V3 latching type.

If you give it say, 20 mins to warm up and it switches off after about 30 mins, there is an approx 10 minute window when you can pull a shot (if you ignore the wide dead band with the stock thermostat). There is a longer window on subsequent start ups as it is already warm but hard to judge in the absence of a temp readout (e.g on a PID display).

Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying this little project. Some of this stuff may not be necessary if you just want to switch on and pull an espresso or two to get you going in the morning.

Doram

I’ve already downloaded the wiring diagrams from that site, I think I found it from something that you posted. I like the fact that you can flick from the ‘before’ to the ‘after’ and see the differences. Now that I know that it is working properly, I’ll probably just strip everything to put the gauge and PID on and rebuild it using the V3 wiring diagram as a guide.

hornbyben

I’ll try it without the insulation, as well as preventing it from interfering with the heating control I like using the top plate as a cup warmer. Hats off to you for your ITO mod, that stuff is well out of my comfort zone.

I had a few days to spare so I thought that I would pick up this project.

First job was to cut the hole for the pressure gauge. I outlined the procedure in my Silvia V3 restoration thread, the process went smoothly but took a lot longer than I anticipated. I spent some time curing a leak between the new 1//8”BSP tee piece and the pump but eventually got there using PTFE tape. The OPV sealing pad that I cut from a piece of rubber washer seems to be holding up, I had adjusted the OPV to 9 bar with the portafilter mounted gauge, the onboard gauge reads 10 bar with a blind basket in place. I have some pads from other machines and a peice of viton rubber sheet that I can use but it looks like they won’t be needed.

Due to the angle of the OPV the braided water line from the pump was pulled a bit tight against the frame, I thought that this may transmit pump vibrations to the frame so I raised one end of the pump by putting three penny washers under the rubber mount at one end. This seems to have worked and there is now a bit of clearance between hose and frame.

I bypassed the Gicar energy saver box. This involves changing main switch to a V3 style on/off switch. I also changed the indicator lamps to a V3 style lamp. I had assumed that the V5 type were LEDs and wouldn’t work without the Gicar box but have since found that they are Neon bulbs and work on mains power, when the machine was dismantled for fitting the PID I decided to remove the Gicar box and associated wiring to simplify things.

I removed the boiler insulation as I like to use the top plate as a cup warmer, It just didn’t get warm enough with the insulation in place. A replacement water tank has now arrived to replace the one broken by careless packing. Fitting the PID was straightforward, the enclosure was too long to fit in the space between the group cover and the steam wand, on the V3 restoration I shortened the enclosure to fit but this time I cut a bite out of the upper right hand corner of the enclosure to allow the necessary clearance with the steam wand. I wasted too much time trying to fit and get the steam alarm function working. Although the system worked, I couldn’t programme the PID alarm to work properly. The onboard alarm relay would stay open then close when the alarm temp was reached, and I wanted the opposite, no amount of changing the AH1 and AL1 settings would get it to work. This is the second PID that I have come across that does this (the settings are ‘excited or non excited relay alarm’, or some such but I just couldn’t find it in any menu). Not a great loss as the standard steam thermostat opens at about 128C which will do for me; start steaming just before the temp reaches 125C to prevent the thermostat opening, easy to do with the PID as it gives a temperature readout. I set the SV to 80C and did an autotune then set the SV to 103C.

I think that I’ll use the bottomless portafilter with it, although I like the feel and look of the standard portafilter I like the option to use larger baskets that the bottomless presents. Not a big deal, I use a bottomless portafilter on my daily Evo Leva.

As the Silvia will be used when travelling, I made a case for it so that it can travel in the boot of the car without needing careful packing to avoid scratches and dents etc. The case was knocked up from bits that I already had in the garage, the 9mm plywood was left over from a project and this was perfect. The machine goes in a carrier bag to protect the finish and make lifting it in and out easier, an insulated bag may be better as it has some padding. I may make a little box for the portafilter and other stuff. I’m going to take the Knock Airspeed hand grinder with me which I normally use with an Aeropress.

So it’s finished now, it looks very smart (just noticed that the portafilter isn’t locked in properly).

DavecUK

it’s a real mystery, neither of the washes contained any items with pockets, we keep all spare and loose keys in a box to save hunting for them when needed, we have contacted everyone that has stayed here in the last six months and nobody has lost any keys.

As Arthur Conan Doyle said “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Therefore it must have been the Illuminati. 😁

Snagging.

So I took the Silvia away with us on a three night break, the first time that it had really been used in anger rather than just for testing. It’s a bit of an extravagence but it’s not much trouble to carry it from the car into the accommodation. On the first morning all was well, grinding coffee beans for four cups on an aerospeed wasn’t much of a chore. The coffee was good. The problems started on the second day, there were leaks at the group seal, jets of water were spritzing all over, water was running down into the cup and along the handle onto the floor. No surprise that the coffee was weak. Sometimes the pressure gauge registered about four bar, presumably because of all the leaking water. Things didn’t get any better on the last morning.

When I got home I looked carefully at the setup and didn’t find anything that would obviously cause the leaking but found a few issues which may be of interest;

• The ears on the aftermarket bottomless portafilter that came with the machine didn’t quite fit, I could see that they had been filed at some time in an effort to make them fit but were still not right. This made the portafiter hard to locate (hence the misfitting in the picture in my previous post) and perhaps not centralising the basket lip on the seal as the stubs of the filed off ears were stilll protruding a bit. They needed filing to both shorten them to fit the slots and to fit centrally into the grouphead.

• The rim of the shower screen wasn’t fitting over the brass block. The metal behind the screen was slightly dished out so instead of the edge of the screen fitting over the block there was a gap, water would flow through this gap rather than go through the screen mesh. I sandwiched the screen between two thick washers and pressed them together in a vice to flatten the screen, It now fits. The old, presumably original, screen that came with the machine was flat. Something to look for in aftermarket screens.

• I reduced the OPV to show 9.5 bar on the gauge, which probably translates to about 8.5 at the puck.

• I had noticed that the PID was very slow to respond. Placing the sensor of my digital thermometer under a steam thermostat screw next to the PID sensor I noticed that there was a distinct lag between the temp showing on the PID display to that showing on the thermometer. I had fitted a small thin steel washer between the PT100 thermocouple sensor and the top of the boiler, removing the washer got rid of the lag. So the washer was causing the lag and therefore affecting the operation of the PID, slowing down the recovery times after pulling a shot. I had used the autotune to set the PID settings but changed them for some recommended for the Silvia found on the internet. The offset was changed by +2C to get the two sets of temperatures to align.

The next points relate to setting up to use with the aerspeed;

• When used for travelling, it is convenient to use a scoop to almost fill the aerspeed chamber rather than taking a set of scales. This holds about 18g, I had taken a triple basket with me but I now know that this was underfilled. I should take either the 18g double Gaggia basket which fits the standard portafiter or the 18g IMS double basket in the bottomless.

• I tried changing the grind setting to stop the gushing. There is no indication on the aerspeed to show which direction to adjust and I actually coarsened the grind and made things worse. I had marked the handle with a magic marker but that had rubbed off, so I have now stamped the handle.

Hopefully, with this setup I can now fill the aerspeed with beans, grind until empty, tip all the grounds directly into the IMS basket, tamp and pull the shot. Handy when you are away from home and want minimum faff.

So it’s all perfect now, right? Well we’ll see. I’m going to leave it out in the kitchen to make at least one coffee per day until I get the settings right and I’m reasonably happy that it won’t let me down next time I go away with it. Latest coffee was made with 18g beans weighed out, which filled the bean chamber in the aerspeed, grounds tipped into the IMS basket (I knew one of those 58mm funnels would come in handy one day), 25 seconds for 37g espresso, no leaks. I’ll try grinding finer tomorrow but if it stays consistent at that, I’ll be happy.