Welcome to the forum, the black button is the limit stat, they come in red and black variants and suppliers can by either as they replenish manufacturing stock. If it’s not pressing down is because it’s not tripping.
If the steam boiler is suddenly not coming on it can be:
- Failed steam boiler heating element (it’s rare as they are very long life incolloy elements, but if there was a manufacturing defect, it’s possible, otherwise they tend to last the life of the machine)
- Wiring fault, somethings come loose
- Defective limit stat which is not passing current
- loose wire on gicar box
- loose wire to SSR
- failed SSR
- Fault/loose/disconnected in wire on front pin switch which selects brew or both boilers.
I have marked the most likely things in bold, and many things in the list can be checked with a simple multimeter on the resistance scale. Machine unplugged of course
- Heating element = remove wires and check resistance on the 0-100 ohm scale
- Limit stat = check it’s not open circuit after removing wires (or at least 1 wire)
P.S. I would also check the boiler isn’t turned off in the SSR setting. Theres one function not documented, if you do along press 3 or so seconds of the right button when the machine is already on….on some PIDs from Gicar, it will turn the brew boiler off, it’s from the old days. It might be that on your PID it can turn the steam boiler off?
Also check out your F02 setting, I think it should be 4, what is it on yours (in the US never use 6)
