Advice needed: ECM Mechanica Max 'BLR' code

PaulL

Chatting to DFK I’m hoping Alberto in particular might be able to help (and may not be too far away from me as I’m nr Leatherhead).

I have Dave C’s Max here to try (I’ve had my eye on ECM for a long time) and had a false start out of the box. Now I know Dave used it for about a year and probably posted on here in 2023, he did in a thread on HB that year, I know I’ve had a coffee from it at his place as well.

I started it up and it did not ask for water quietly heating up and displaying the expected ‘CLD’ message, I thought I would purge the tank a few times as the water will be old, refilling along the way. So after about 15 mins I switched it off and purged from the hot water wand but switching back on and since then no matter what I do I can’t defeat the BLR message.

I have of course checked the tank seating, the hall sensor float, connected the braided pipe from an external container as an alternative and checked the associated black switch from one to the other. I hear a soft pump sound and nothing more which stops after a short while then tries again in a repeating cycle.

If it’s an airlock I don’t see how I overcome it, I’ve had the top off and nothing obvious was disconnected.

Any thoughts please?

Elcarajillo

PaulL Check the float in the tank , make sure it is not stuck at the bottom.

Have had this problem with Verona.

PaulL

I didn’t mean to tag this to roasters of course!

MediumRoastSteam

Hi Paul! Please contact me via email (see my profile). I had a few coffees from that machine. I don’t have one, but happy to help with some research.

MediumRoastSteam

We have lift off on this one ;-)

PaulL

I didn’t have a chance to reply earlier but good news that it’s sorted. Alberto had pointed to an airlock issue and that set me on a trail of forcing water into the boiler via the bottom of the water tank with a syringe and I could hear the water going in, also with the brew lever lifted I could see water trickling through the grouphead. The BLR message would clear and the machine would heat, fantastic.. Alas the problem was cyclical as the BLR message would reappear each time the water tank became low. At no point did the pump start (the noise was obviously a solenoid asking the pump to start) and so water had to be forced into the boiler.

Alberto kindly hooked up via a video call last night and I was showing all of this and then suddenly at one point when lifting the brew lever the pump started. Eureka, cured. I can only liken it to starting up a car that has stood still for years and the airlock (or something else I’m not technical enough to understand) was overcome and from that point all good.

Thanks to Alberto for taking the time and advice and DFK for the initial steer. I can see me enjoying the Max for a long time, I like it’s qualities and footprint and having been down the rabbit hole across many machines, roasters and grinders I can tell it should suit life these days very well.