Vesuvius Pressure Profiling Machine - General Discussion

Greetings from California! As you know I am a newbie with the espresso hobby. Question: In your opinion what is better flow profile or pressure profile? There is a lot of debate between these 2 profiles or controls.

Does it make sense to add a flow control on my Vesuvius?

Thank you for your expertise and you guys have help me a lot with other issues.

Kape17 Welcome to the forum…It’s doesn’t make sense really to add flow control to the V, you already have a very sophisticated profiling system.

DavecUK thank you for the advise. Have a great day!

jonathanUSA I believe it was limited to 2 bar….and I don’t believe it can be set to less than 2 bar…unless they did a firmware change I was unaware of some years ago, but I can double check that today. The rationale was that below 2 bar the brew boiler itself can give positive pressure, admittedly not much, but there was the thought that this might prevent the brew boiler filling…I personally think 0.5 bar as floor would be fine to prevent that. In fact I don’t think there ever would be any real risk of heating element exposure, even if the pump stopped and I have mentioned over the years about lowering the minimum pressure and introducing 0 pressure phases!

Also there was the belief at conception that people wouldn’t want to preinfuse at 2 bar.

….anyway I’ll find out for sure if there was a firmware change.

DavecUK So I have pre infused by just lifting the handle past the closing the exhaust that depressurized the group into the tray and just before the cam engages the switch and turns on the pump. This point opened the brew valve a little and you get a nice flow from brew boiler pressure alone. It works well in fact. Problem was when I lifted the handle all the way and the pump kicked in. This was about 30 seconds of infusion with pump off and when it turned on it behaved as if it was not primed by winding up to max RPM and when pressure began once again to build it overshot to the tune of 14 bar which was 5 over the 9 in the program. A lot of words to say that I think the system must maintain some minimal back pressure on the pump. So, a 0 bar stage option would be great. Pressure at the group would remain and decrease as puck was soaked but the pump would still be primed.

jonathanUSA - are you sure the brew boiler is ever under pressure without the pump being on?

It wasn’t the case on E61 machines I owned in the past. Maybe the Vesuvius has some sort of feature which allows that?

MediumRoastSteam are you sure the brew boiler is ever under pressure without the pump being on?

I am 100% certain. As is pretty much every brew boiler of dual boiler machines.

DavecUK ok, I’m confused. 😊

Is the pressure we talking about here due to the fact the water in the brew boiler is usually slightly above boiling point, e.g.: 107C if we want 94C at the group sort of thing. But is his pressure sufficient to pre-infuse anything?

Maybe I should have being more specific in my previous post, sorry. Now, If the brew boiler is at pressure around 0.5 bar or more sort of thing, then I would like to understand how, for my own benefit, please. 👍😊

MediumRoastSteam Is the pressure we talking about here due to the fact the water in the brew boiler is usually slightly above boiling point, e.g.: 107C if we want 94C at the group sort of thing. But is his pressure sufficient to pre-infuse anything?

Yes and it really does puck wetting, probably not to any great depth…

ignazthecat A new matter is the pump screams up to 12+ bar when the lever activated for about 12-15 seconds before H2O comes out of grouphead…even on profiles with 2.3 bar preinfusions programmed.

This is an odd behaviour that doesn’t logically correlate with any error I can think of? Usually this means there is something you may not have mentioned?

1. Pump pressure controlled by pressure transducer and feedback, as soon as pump reads set pressure it will cut back, not stay there for 12 seconds
2. Water not coming out of group = blockage (but see point 1?)
3. Then water comes out, because of air in brew circuit = non return valve or top group valve leaking (so why 12 bar+), alternatively, blockage is intermittent (again see point 1)
4. It works as programmed after the pressure surge (can’t think of a reason why it would do this)????
5. It’s a new problem, is it related to the work you did (quite likely)

So work the problem, here’s the things I don’t know, and without knowing them, I can’t help, only sp;eculate.

• what exactly did you do, is the group assembled correctly
• what are the profile settings exactly
• does it do it with a straight 9 bar profile
• can you post a video with sound showing the problem, show the display and any gauges (don’t make it too short, it doesn’t cost anything
• what are the advanced PID settings for the pump, P I and D, plus pump acceleration (remind me of the construction year when you do as Cruzet, the maker of the mag drive unit for the pump made a change in the impulses required in later models, which means different PID settings are needed).

So far the only conclusion based on the information provided is the problem doesn’t make sense, so it must be a fault in the control board or pump that has coincidentally sprung up just as you finished the work. However, I really don’t like coincidences and the pump control units are bullet proof, the same with the control boards….so I think it’s extremely unlikely either have a problem.

I’m having the same issue experienced before over the last couple weeks. It shoots up to 12 bar and above after the initial 2 bar preinfusion. I changed beans a couple days ago and it’s the same with both bean types. I’ve changed pump speed from 410 down to 230 and 210, I’ve tried kp values of 11,10.5, various other values down to 8.0. It seems to happen no matter what. I’ve obviously kept all other variables (puck prep etc.) as constant as possible. Any suggestions please?

JahLaza age of machine, advanced settings for all pump parameters please.

DavecUK thanks,will get the details when I get home later,but it’s 15 months old and had been working fine until lately (last couple weeks maybe)

DavecUK

manufactured 03/2022

Pump kp 10.5, ki 0.24 (factory), kD 90 (factory)

Pwm max. Accel 220.

So, all I’ve ever changed is max accel., and kp. The profiles I’ve been using are 8 or 10 secs at 2bar then 9 bar but it shoots on up north of 12 bar and as I stated above I’ve tried a few different settings and still does it. Nothing has changed other than me varying the above two parameters since noticing this (except I’ve only been drinking one espresso a day the last few weeks as I’m away all day)! Machine is warmed up for 50 mins each morning before I use it

JahLaza All looks OK, possibly drop maria at ACS a video and description of the problem?

DavecUK yip will do if I can in the morning

I know it’s been listed here a few times but I can’t find it easily! Can someone provide the email for Maria please? I have the general one from the Elcor website but maybe there’s a more direct line? Thanks