Hi all
Sorry to start my CoffeeSnobs account with a question!
I recently grabbed an old Gaggia Coffee on Ebay. Its the one without the solenoid. It has been making good coffee (for a n00b like me anyway) but has a slight leakage of steam into the GroupHead when steaming milk.
I thought Id pull it apart and see if I could fix the valve, and give the boiler a look and a clean at the same time.
I had a look around here, and grabbed the usual parts diagrams, wiring diagrams etc, as well as taking pics of all the wiring etc before dismantling the unit. I left as many of the wires connected as I could to minimise re-connection problems and gave it a good scrubbing.
The outside of the boiler was submerged during this process.
The usual Gaggia galvanic corrosion was evident in the boiler, but, for a 8 year old machine, it was in pretty good condition. I wasnt able to seperate the centre showerscreen section from the brass end of the boiler, so couldnt get to the valve that I assume needs replacing to stop the steam leak when frothing, so I re-assembled it, plugged it and and turned it on..
Bang!
The house goes that nice quiet sound you get when something has tripped the earth leakage circuit... Bugger..
Hmm Okay I think, I must have plugged something in the wrong place.. Much multi-metering and circuit diagram tracing later, I decide that apart from the machine being wired up slightly differently to the diagram (the boilers are in series rather than parallel somehow) it is fully wired up the way that it was before I started to stuff around with it. Test # 2 results in the same peaceful silence we had before as the Earth leakage circuit stomps my poor gaggia away again.
Much discussion between the Earth Leakage and the Gaggia results in both being happy if the boiler elements are not connected, and much complaining if they are.
I have run the multimeter around the unplugged unit, and there is no circuit between the boiler terminals and the chassis.. everything else looks like its in the right place.
I left it for a couple of days, and it didnt magically fix itself, and now the instant coffee is getting me down.
Does anyone have any advice? Is it fried? Is there somewhere in Melb I can get it looked at for a reasonable price (it cost me less than $100 to start with).. Should I just try and pick up a baby or classic on ebay?
Thanks
Steve.
Sorry to start my CoffeeSnobs account with a question!
I recently grabbed an old Gaggia Coffee on Ebay. Its the one without the solenoid. It has been making good coffee (for a n00b like me anyway) but has a slight leakage of steam into the GroupHead when steaming milk.
I thought Id pull it apart and see if I could fix the valve, and give the boiler a look and a clean at the same time.
I had a look around here, and grabbed the usual parts diagrams, wiring diagrams etc, as well as taking pics of all the wiring etc before dismantling the unit. I left as many of the wires connected as I could to minimise re-connection problems and gave it a good scrubbing.
The outside of the boiler was submerged during this process.
The usual Gaggia galvanic corrosion was evident in the boiler, but, for a 8 year old machine, it was in pretty good condition. I wasnt able to seperate the centre showerscreen section from the brass end of the boiler, so couldnt get to the valve that I assume needs replacing to stop the steam leak when frothing, so I re-assembled it, plugged it and and turned it on..
Bang!
The house goes that nice quiet sound you get when something has tripped the earth leakage circuit... Bugger..
Hmm Okay I think, I must have plugged something in the wrong place.. Much multi-metering and circuit diagram tracing later, I decide that apart from the machine being wired up slightly differently to the diagram (the boilers are in series rather than parallel somehow) it is fully wired up the way that it was before I started to stuff around with it. Test # 2 results in the same peaceful silence we had before as the Earth leakage circuit stomps my poor gaggia away again.
Much discussion between the Earth Leakage and the Gaggia results in both being happy if the boiler elements are not connected, and much complaining if they are.
I have run the multimeter around the unplugged unit, and there is no circuit between the boiler terminals and the chassis.. everything else looks like its in the right place.
I left it for a couple of days, and it didnt magically fix itself, and now the instant coffee is getting me down.
Does anyone have any advice? Is it fried? Is there somewhere in Melb I can get it looked at for a reasonable price (it cost me less than $100 to start with).. Should I just try and pick up a baby or classic on ebay?
Thanks
Steve.



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