Vesuvius Pressure Profiling Machine - General Discussion

Kape17 Greetings from SoCal USA! I just want to get some solution if it is a problem or an issue with my Vesuvius machine. I just installed a manometer on my group head today. My profile (gear pump) is set to 9bar but when I tested it with a blind basket the group head manometer is reading at 10.5 bar.

There is absolutely no problem with the machine. I’ll explain briefly in bullet point steps of what’s happening. You clearly have a blind filter installed, so the system can’t work properly. I think I explained it in the manual somewhere, and probably in a video about the Vesuvius on my YouTube channel.

• System has 1 way valve after pump
• blind filter prevents the slightest bit of excess pressure leaving, not even a single drop, which wouldn’t happen with coffee.
• Pump runs up to pressure PID sees target approaching stops pump as quick as it can, but slight overshoot…you can change pump PID settings and pump acceleration to minimise that. Not possible to entirely eliminate some slight overshoot for a brief moment
• Pressure is now locked in, cant go forwards, can’t go back, can’t go down…
• sealed brew circuit heats water, which expands, so maintains or even increases pressure

In a sealed circuit added even 1 drop increases pressure hugely as water cannot be compressed. With coffee this wouldn’t happen, or with a scace 2 that has a valve, this doesn’t happen as water can escape at the same speed as through espresso.

Moral of the story, don’t check the machine with a blind filter, you prevent it working as it should. Hope that helps.

DavecUK thank you! I will make another video using a coffee puck instead of a blind filter.

jonathanUSA that sounds good!

I’ve had an issue twice today with my Vesuvius, purchased a year ago. The pump shot up to 15.5 bar after about 6 seconds.the particular profile is 10 seconds at 2 bar then 9 bar. On both occasions I noticed the pump ‘kicked off’ and shot up to above 15 bar at about 6 seconds and then settled back down around 8 bar after about 12 seconds or something. The shot them took about 50 seconds to finish. I turned the machine off both times and made a couple shots after the first time that were fine but then it happened again when I made my last shot. I checked inside and there’s nothing kinked/leaking etc. anything I should/could check for tomorrow anyone?? Many thanks in advance

This is going to sound obvious but it happened to me. I’d have a very unfamiliar sequence of pressures and wondered what had changed. I had changed profiles without noticing I had done so. Just rule out the simple stuff like that user error before going too deep.

jonathanUSA na,I just checked,it’s actually 8 sec 2 bar, 18 sec 9 bar, it has been on the same profile for days. And, it happened earlier, then was ok fir a couple of shots then went crazy again for the last shot of the day

hmmm, will commit to giving thought to this. I’ll jump back on if I have any euphonies.

JahLaza shot up to above 15 bar at about 6 seconds and then settled back down around 8 bar after about 12 seconds or something. The shot them took about 50 seconds to finish. I turned the machine off both times and made a couple

Could be it’s ground to fine and Cruzet many years ago made a change to the drive unit (Cruzet a french company make the mag drive impule unit, FOT Italy make the rest). The drive unit requires less impulses for a given speed. My pump acceleration figures are for the very old drive unit. Use much lower values and it should be better. your acc is probably so fast the PID can’t react in time to prevent the overpressure.

Why don’t you put your pump PID settings and Pump Acc numbers up here, then you can be helped better.

I reduced pump acc to 330 this morning and shot pulled fine. Still don’t understand why it would suddenly start to jump in middle of a step rather than when transitioning from one pressure to the next.

DavecUK thanks Dave. I get that logic, but strange that’s only happening now. The above settings had been in place for months now. I’ve used many types of profiles and lots of different bean types, the only time I observed funny operation was when it would either over shoot (not by much more than a bar or so) or not reach target pressure in a step. That would be rectified by changing the speed or kp value, but as I say the above settings had been in place with no issue for a good while, but shooting up above 15 bar half way through a 2 bar step just seems odd! Everything seems fine now anyway, thanks for you and other’s input (It’s a great machine😊!)

As previously said this happened on my machine as well twice or three times . Same as yours around year old.

Very odd and doesn’t seem right at all. The group pressure gauge didn’t register any increase in pressure and was showing 0 yet the pump was going at 15 bar .

I’m glad it didn’t happen for a while now.

In the recent weeks I noticed the pressure on the group gauge running around 1 bar higher than shown on display. I would normally ignore it but they were always showing perfectly same pressure since day one and remember reading @DavecUK post about this.

What could be the issue ?

Video a bit short as first shot of new beans so need to grind tad finer but basically when the display shows 8 bar the group is 9 as it falls to 7 the group will show 8 etc.

DavecUK thanks @DavecUK as said only picked up on it as it always read perfectly same so noticed the difference. Don’t want to be overly worried without reason but rather nip issues in early stages.