Vesuvius Pressure Profiling Machine - General Discussion

Cuprajake thanks. I was convinced it never done this before so thought I’ll check !

Yeah mine does it too

prezes Cuprajake thanks. I was convinced it never done this before so thought I’ll check !

prezes Cuprajake thanks. I was convinced it never done this before so thought I’ll check !

I think it’s the vacuum breaker as well, but as you say it’s doing it at lower temperatures, it might be sticking a little, until it cools down more. You can try steam cleaning it using the wooden spoon trick, or replacing the O ring….but it does depend on what type of vacuum breaker you have?

Photo please..

I lost the track about all these advanced setting in the machine… is the best way to go for settings according to manual or do you guys suggest to change some setting to get even better performance of the machine?

I mean for instance pump speed and so on.

DavecUK took me a while to get around to it !

prezes Lol, the only thing I can’t see is the vacuum braker as it’s on the bottom where the tubes come out of the t fitting, the safety valve is on top. From the base though my guess is it’s the black polymer one with a memory metal positive open and close. La Marzocco started using them about 3 or 3 years after ACS did.

It’s unusual, because they usually have a long service life….and they are a little expensive. About 7 to 10 times the cost of a normal if you buy one from LM, who seem to claim it as their own idea…which it never was.

https://espresso-solutions.co.uk/la-marzocco-valve-vacuum-breaker-sma-g1-4-s-s/

It can be serviced and often a clean or new O rings (silicone or FKM can fix it.

DavecUK I wasn’t sure where it is to be fair! It seems to be matching your description perfectly.

prezes At almost £60 a pop, I would clean it 😃. In the past I was cleaning the vacuum breakers of all my machines regularly and they performed as expected.

prezes let there be light, he said ☕

kautivo As @kautivo says, his machine was sent to my home some weeks ago. Same problem. Steam boiler under pressure and you’ll get trouble; cold steam boiler and you’ll be fine. I do not know why the problem didn’t show at the factory but I guess the pump settings were changed. The machine arrived to my home with factory settings and the problem was evident. 100% of times failure with hot steam, 100% free of failure with cold steam boiler (does not matter if it was on or off)

Paolo asked us to change pid settings again and we managed to get a nice ramp up with no preinfussion, using a plain 9 bar profile and tweaking pump settings and acceleration again. Next step will be to get rid of the pressure problem with a regular 10″ preinfussion profile, will see…

After 6 years, always with this problem with steam boiler, I decided to sell my Vesuvius and just get another machine. I sold it very cheap and letting know the new owner about this. This is a great machine and I can not understand why this inconvenience is so complicated to overcome but… . I can’t understand how this is happening just with four machines, the four machines I know well, and another one in the British coffeeforum as I posted in this thread a long time ago.

I just want to thank the forum for the help provided, hope this will be solved soon!

tocateclas - Which machine did you replace the Vesuvius with?

MediumRoastSteam I’ve bought a Linea Micra. I wanted to try something different to the E61 and this is very different indeed. Really amazed with it!

tocateclas

Welcome to the club!

We have a thread dedicated to LM owners here:

https://coffeetime.freeflarum.com/d/1642-la-marzocco-owners-chat-all-welcome/424

HarveyMushman thank you!

Well i can understand the frustation of some sort of problems. Unfotunately here the machine had no issue except in the beginning had a bad pid setting about the pump. Also as mentioned from another customer setting a different parameters with and without steam pressure the machine perform correctly a straight flat pressure, it means that if there was a problem with the system it should happen always. in any case i’m always open to test different solution. I’m sad that for this reason someone sold one of our machines of course he will enjoy the sempicity of other machines and i’m happy for him.

Paolo_Cortese Ciao Paolo, well, that’s not correct. The machine arrived home with factory settings, those recommended in your manual. Anyway, we changed pump settings again and problem was still there. Then we started to test what you asked: new pump settings with a plain 9 bar profile and the machine does not overshoot. But if you program a profile with a 10 seconds 2 bar preinfussion problem remains unaltered: no steam pressure no problem, high steam pressure, problem. No overshooting with new settings with a flat 9 b profile does not mean steam pressure was not causing the problem. The vesuvius is not a machine you want to perform with a 9 bar plain profile.

As I’ve explained quite a few times, overshooting is not the problem, is just a consequence. With steam boiler hot there is always, 100% of times, a stop at two bars. Always. There is a physical obstacle. You can see the manometer stop, you can hear how the pump struggles to pass this 2 bar mark. Yes, you can tweak pump settings and try to tame the pump to the limit it can barely go up so it will no overshoot but this is not the point. But why? Just avoid steam pressure to pass 120º and you will not have any problem. Never. No stop, no struggling, no overshotting with steam under 120º. Just a smooth shot anytime, always and with any pid settings (I mean “logic” pid settings, you have to know what you are doing with this and with any espresso machine).

The Vesuvius is a capable machine and should be a flexible one: you can make a soft curve or you can reach pressure faster, you can play with different pump settings and acceleration, you have to know always what are you doing and adjust profile and settings to your style of espresso. Sometimes you will program, i.e., 11 bars of peak knowing the machine will arrive just to 9 or 10 and the other way round, depends of type of coffee, roast level, profile, etc. But, sorry to say again, machine should perform 100% of times in the same way with hot or cold steam. It’s ok, pid settings could be wrong despite being the recommended by factory, but even being the case, it should work in the same “incorrect” way with or without pressure in the steam boiler. This is not how our machines (well, not mine anymore) are working. Our four machines does not perform in the same way depending if the steam boiler is or not under pressure.

I have been using the Vesuvius for six years. Every day. Two cappuccinos for breakfast and about 4 to 6 espressos during the day. Everyday during 6 years. I know very well how the machine works. Yes, it could be a complicated machine if you want but this is not the experience I’ve had. For me it’s been easy to adapt to pressure profiling. But, and sorry to insist: if you want to steam milk you will have to control temperature before making the espresso, a kind of the old temperature surfing technique you had to use with gaggia classic and similar. I’ve not looked for a simpler machine, just for a more reliable one. Now I can steam milk without spoiling my espresso.

I really hope this problem gets solved soon!